the nymph Echo, and she answered him from her cave in the hillside with
his own voice. Then he girded himself, and taking a staff in his hand
set out to seek her; and coming to the place whence she had answered
him, he called again, and she replied from a higher peak. When he had
called from the next peak he was answered from the valley and descended
into its deep forests; and men saw him no more, for he died there, and
the beasts devoured him.
"We also die ere we have found the voice which calls to us from the
mountains; but it ever lures us forward, calling sometimes from a cave
quite close to us, and again from a distant peak. We also die, and our
ears hear it no longer; but our children will hear and follow it gladly
up the steep glens of the windy hills."
As Protagoras finished, he dropped the roll of parchment beside him, and
motioned the slave to bring him some wine. Lysis rose from his couch and
attempted to crown him, when the loud voice of Pythodorus broke in upon
the general conversation.
"What is this that you are applauding?" he said; "are you men of Athens
or foreigners fond only of subtile words? I, for one, shall not praise
or consent to what has been said by Protagoras here to-night. What has
he done but cloak his impiety in smooth phrases and suave periods? Are
you willing, through his soft persuasion, to deny that the gods inhabit
the wide skies and the hidden regions of the bright sea?"
A silence fell upon the company. One or two shifted uneasily upon their
couches. It was fairly well known that Pythodorus had some personal
grudge against Protagoras; but no one had suspected that he would take
this opportunity of revenge.
"You are mistaken, Pythodorus," said Euripides. "Protagoras has only
discussed the question of whether we can have any knowledge of the gods.
He carefully disclaimed any intention of denying their existence."
"It is clear to me, Euripides, that Protagoras has denied them,"
answered Pythodorus. "He claims that if we do not know a thing, the
thing does not exist. But I shall not argue the question here; I shall
lay it before the proper judges. An offence against the gods is a crime
in which the whole city is implicated, and which they must cleanse from
themselves. I would have you believe that I am not moved by any personal
feeling against Protagoras, but only by a desire that the whole people
should not have to expiate, in suffering, the crime of one man. All the
misfortunes of Athens have arisen from the spirit of irreverent
sophistry which is eating her away; and people now seem to think that
they may say anything, provided that it be well said."
He spoke in a raucous voice, trying to contain his passion, but with an
exultant fire in his eyes. Socrates sat up on his couch and rubbed his
leg.
"Pythodorus, you are as bad a listener as I am. I can never understand
these long speeches. They act like a charm, and I always fall asleep in
the middle of them; but before I fell asleep to-night I heard what
Protagoras said as to his main position, and I think that he was
laughing at us. He spoke only in a cautious vein of paradox. While he
was pretending one thing, he was proving the opposite. You must not take
him very seriously."
"What do you mean?"
"Were you awake all the time, Pythodorus?" said Socrates.
"Of course. I was listening most attentively."
"Then you will remember that Protagoras said that the gods were not to
be found in the external world, but in the hearts of men. We cannot know
them, as we know a tree, but we can feel them by us. He seems to hold
that we cannot know anything except what we have drawn out of
ourselves."
Socrates was attempting to lead the conversation back into quieter
channels, but Pythodorus rose.
"I shall leave you. It is not for me to judge whether Protagoras is
right or wrong," he said.
Some of the guests left with him, through fear, and the rest were
dismayed. Protagoras, who had not said a word in answer to Pythodorus,
leaned back on his couch and spoke.
"Of course, Pythodorus will accuse me," he said; "and I shall be
condemned. He is powerful, and in the present condition of things can do
as he likes. But it would be a shame if we allowed the malice of one
person to interrupt our discussion. Let us sit talking until dawn, and
then I shall prepare to leave Athens. I expected that he would do me
what injury he could. Shall we have some more wine, Euripides? It is
probably our last feast together."
"I am afraid it is," said Euripides. "Yes; let us have some wine. I
blame myself for what has happened; but I never expected this."
"It would have happened to-morrow if not to-day," answered Protagoras.
"Do not blame yourself, Euripides. There are, I think, few persons in
this room, who will escape from the reaction which is developing in
Athens. Socrates, of course, will survive it. He follows the traditions
of religion, but, at the same time, he differs from them. What was that
curious paradox you put forward about my teaching, Socrates?"
"It was no paradox, Protagoras, but sober, earnest truth. You will never
persuade me that your intention was to deny the existence of the gods."
"Well, then, let us discuss it. Only our friends are here now. And
to-morrow I shall be beyond the reach of malice. Can we know the gods,
Socrates?"
"You confuse the two things, because Pythodorus did. Philip has not
deserted us. He is sitting there half drunk. Will you argue with him? If
with me, answer what I ask. You denied, did you not, that we can find
any trace of the action of the gods in this world?"
"Yes."
"And did you not affirm that the gods exist, if they exist at all, in a
manner peculiar to themselves."
"Yes."
"Without denying the existence of the gods, then, you affirm that we
cannot know them because we cannot find any trace of their action in the
life of man?"
"That is what I said," answered Protagoras.
"And you also said that, man being the measure of all things, truth is
what he thinks true; good, what he thinks good. There is no truth
external to the individual. Did you not?"
"Yes, Socrates; but I am afraid you are giving a sense to my words which
they were not intended to convey."
"That is not my object. I wish merely to examine your thought. You
incline to cloak it in myths, but you should learn to send truth from
you clean and naked, as a trainer sends an athlete into the palæstra. If
I offend you, Protagoras, you must forgive me; but I cannot follow an
argument which is not direct. Do your words contain my meaning?"
"Yes, Socrates."
"Then you deny all truth except what a man draws out of himself?"
"Yes."
"And a man should not say it is cold. He should say I am cold?"
"Yes; all external things are only what we imagine them to be."
"The same, of course, holds good with regard to truth, virtue, and
justice; these things are equally external to the individual. I think
that you have said this before, Protagoras, have you not?"
"Yes," said Protagoras.
"Well, then, let us leave that part of the argument for the present,"
said Socrates. "We shall return to it later, as every one agrees to it.
I wish to ask you another series of questions. If you wished to learn
the art of making plays, would you go to a cobbler or to Euripides? To
Euripides. Very well! But if you wished to learn the art of making
shoes, would you go to a cobbler, or to a playwright?"
"To a cobbler, of course!"
"You would choose one skilful rather than a beginner; and in politics,
also, you would choose an experienced man, in preference to one who had
no experience, and in art you would take the finest artist as your
master. Would you not?"
"Of course."
"And the same with pastry-cooks, with tillers of the soil and
vine-dressers; you would choose the person most experienced?"
"Yes."
"All this I have learnt from what you said at the beginning of your
discourse. If you wished to learn the arts of politics or of cobbling
you would go to a politician or to a cobbler; but if you wished to learn
the art of being virtuous, would you go to a vicious or to a virtuous
man?"
"To a virtuous man."
"But why, Protagoras? Is not the test of truth in yourself and not in
others?"
"Yes."
"Then you know the truth, and you recognise it when you meet with it?"
"Yes."
"But then the truth lies also outside of ourselves. Goodness, wisdom,
and other excellent things are external to us, and we can only draw them
out of ourselves? Have you not said that God is a projection of self?"
"A stronger self, Socrates."
"Then you recognise a standard of excellence beyond man, and this
standard of excellence he draws out of himself; and that only is true
which a man draws out of himself; but at the same time you recognise in
others the art of cobbling and of politics."
"These things are only conventional," said Protagoras.
"Why, Protagoras? What is the difference between going as an apprentice
to a good cobbler and going as an apprentice to a good man?"
"Because cobbling is an art that any one may learn, but virtue is
different."
"Is virtue different from doing good?"
"No."
"A virtuous person will seek the good; he recognises goodness by his own
standard?"
"Yes."
"He is the measure of truth, and he chooses a teacher who will show him
a fitting wisdom, as he will choose a cobbler who will make him a
fitting shoe?"
"Socrates, I frankly admit that I am tired of your cobbler."
"But is virtue doing things well or ill?"
"Well."
"And the individual judges whether the thing is well or ill done?"
"You are still cobbling, Socrates."
"Surely, Protagoras, if truth is drawn entirely out of the individual,
he will know virtue better than he will know a shoe. I do not want you
to say that I am forcing your words into a construction that they will
not bear. Your arguments suggest others to me. I am cobbling, you say,
point out the patches! You say that there is no truth external to the
individual; that if a man feels hot, it is hot; that justice is what he
thinks just, that he cannot know external things. Surely, then, his
whole standard of truth is himself. And if he fashion a God out of his
inner consciousness, surely God exists more truly than a tree or a shoe
exists."
"Socrates, my words may bear this expansion. You hold, then, that we may
have knowledge of their existence. I am not averse to this belief; but
to me a God is simply a self, a self freed from our conditions of life.
"Let us not say that Socrates or Protagoras has triumphed. We have
simply got a little closer to the truth."
"God may exist for the individual, Socrates; in the individual
consciousness. But the truth lies beyond us. Man's image of a tree is
true, because a tree is."
"The colour, the shape, the texture, are not," replied Socrates; "except
as the man sees them. Philip was right in saying that if we know one
thing we know all others. Philip, wake up!"
"Socrates, what mischief are you up to now that Pythodorus is gone,"
said Philip. "You talk too much. Protagoras said simply that a monkey
imagines God as a monkey, while a peacock imagines him as a peacock."
"O Philip, what a fool you are! Does a foolish man imagine a foolish
God? Does a blind man imagine a blind God?"
"Of course not."
"Then, listen, Philip! Does Pythodorus imagine a God who is a nuisance
to his friends?"
"No."
"Very well, then, some standard exists which is external to the
individual, but which he only knows through his inner consciousness. The
oracle at Delphi was right when it said: 'Know thyself. For the more a
man knows himself, the more he knows God.'"
"It is dawn," said Lysis.
"O Socrates, you are the most unbridled and insatiable of all the
sophists," said Protagoras, laughing. "You have laid a trap for me."
"Why do you accuse me of laying a trap for you? We are not arguing with
the sole desire of scoring a point against each other. I do not lay
traps for you, as if I were a hunter of men; but I lay traps for truth,
being a hunter of truth, and having no other reason for existence but to
chase and follow after it wherever it may be hidden."
"We have no more time, Socrates," said Protagoras. "Tell me your own
opinion of the gods and of the aim of life."
"What can I say to you," said Socrates, "beyond what a prophetess taught
me? For she said that in our voyage through the world we are being
reminded constantly of a previous existence, and that when we are
brought face to face with beauty or with virtue or with truth, in short
wherever we are moved to admiration as in contemplating a work of art
like the chryselephantine Zeus at Olympia, it is the memory stirring in
us of the place from which we came; and, further, she asked me if I had
never felt an inexplicable sadness mingling with all beauty, as if
beauty itself were inseparable from sorrow. 'Yes, Diotima,' I answered,
'in the presence of beauty we are all sufferers.' 'Then Socrates,' she
said, 'let me tell you that this feeling of sadness in the presence of
beauty is in reality a sense of exile; for however deeply we may drink
of Lethe, the soul will retain some broken memories of the garden of the
gods. When we meet with beauty in the world it is but a mutilated
fragment of the divine beauty, but however small or slight it may be in
itself, it is sufficient to call up into memory the divine beauty; and
it is then that the sense of exile rushes in upon us like a wave and we
weep and suffer anguish, and can neither tear ourselves away from the
beautiful thing, nor be content with it; but all our being thirsts after
the more perfect beauty. But let me warn you, Socrates, that however
much you may be tortured in the presence of the beauty that lies
scattered through the world, it is your business to collect each tiny
fragment; and if it be a few bars of music you must build it into a
song; if it be a mere tangle of coloured skeins you must weave it into a
garment; if it be fragments of gold and ivory you must make them into a
statue; if it be beautiful colours you must make them into a picture, or
beautiful words then into a poem; and all this time you will suffer and
be tortured with desire for the more perfect beauty. But, until you have
gathered together the broken fragments which are in the world you will
not return into the garden of the gods.' 'Then the gods exist?' I
enquired. 'Certainly the gods exist,' answered Diotima; 'but they exist
in a manner peculiar to themselves.' She would say nothing more, but
when I questioned her smiled wisely and was silent."
* * * * *
Hermogenes met Lysis by the porch of the King Archon near the house of
Callias.
"Have you heard the news, Hermogenes," said Lysis, "I have just been
with Euripides. Protagoras is drowned. Within sight of Sicily a storm
came up and drove the boat on the rocks. The sailors saved themselves by
swimming; but Protagoras, who could not swim, sat on the prow of the
boat. They saw him from the beach sitting calmly until the boat split in
two. The waves reached out for him, and in a little time his bruised and
battered body was cast up at their feet. As they reached for it it was
snatched away by another wave. And so the sea played with him like a cat
playing with a mouse. Then he was flung ashore. His face was bloody but
smiling."
"It was a judgment of the gods," said Hermogenes.
"So everybody says."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_TO MRS ALFRED FOWLER_
III
THE FRIEND OF PAUL
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III
THE FRIEND OF PAUL
The house of Serenus lay about four miles from Gades, in a country of
vines and olives. It was built a little below the ridge of a hill, which
sheltered it from the north-east winds, and fronted south-west,
overlooking the Atlantic and a long stretch of the coast-line with its
innumerable headlands and curving bays. From the windows in the upper
storey Serenus could see this wide expanse of waters, never completely
the same, but always restless and troubled, with caprice in sunlight, or
anger in storms; or, turning to another aspect, the hills and valleys of
his own estate; a land of cornfields, vineyards, and olive-yards,
pleasantly diversified by slopes of green upland pasture, and beyond
them the wild beauty of mountains with frosty summits and well-timbered
flanks. The house was surrounded by a garden planted with myrtles and
plane-trees, with alleys screened from the fierce heat of summer by
dense boughs of ilex, curving tortuously in labyrinthine windings, or
running perfectly straight until they ended in an arch, the frame, as it
were, for some picture of land or sea. The grass by the paths was kept
mown, but here and there, among thickets of myrtle, grew rank,
harbouring the green lizards, who slipped out every now and then to bask
in the sunlight on the marble steps, or on the pedestals of the statues
of Priapus and the woodland gods.
Beyond the garden, Ceres crowded abundantly into every corner. Half a
mile away, at the foot of the hill, its red-tiled roofs just showing
above the terraced vines, was the house of the farm-bailiff; thither
came the tall daughters of the peasantry bringing the offerings of their
mothers in plaited baskets, pale honey in its wax, young leverets, and
capons luscious for cooking. In the yard all the crowd of common poultry
wandered about, while the tower echoed with the joy of pigeons, answered
from the neighbouring trees by the cooing of ring-doves and white
turtles. Thither also, on feast-days, or to the humble marriage of one
of their companions, all the slaves of the estate were bidden, the
huntsmen with the herds; and Serenus would sit among them, eating the
same fare and drinking the same wine, while much wood burnt to the
festal Lares.
As he grew older, Serenus had come to love the tranquil life at his
country-house, the soft, warm air blowing from off the sea, the noise of
rippling water and of wind stirring in the leaves. He had arrived at
that period of life when a man is content to stand aside and become a
spectator. In the last few years his hold upon the management of his
large properties had been gradually relaxed, and he had come to rely
more and more upon one or two trusted slaves and freedmen; but at
irregular intervals he would make a journey to all his possessions in
Spain, visiting Bilbilis where he had iron-fields, and bred horses; a
delightful country it was, "high Bilbilis enriched by arms and horses;
Caunus austere with snows, and the broken hills of Vadevero, the sweet
grove of Botrodus which Pomona loves."
His interests extended in many directions: he was concerned in the mines
of Spain; he owned a fleet of ships which sailed to Rome, and beyond,
even to Corinth; his agents followed the army to buy slaves; and he lent
money, though principally for political purposes, to the young
officials, half civil and half military, for whom the government of a
province was a means to fortune and imperial favour at Rome. At first
this villa in the country had been used only in the hottest months of
the year, and the site chosen because there seemed always to be some
mysterious currents of air flowing about it from the cool hills toward
the sea, and because innumerable springs had their sources in the rocks;
but gradually there woke in him that living interest in rural pleasures
and labours, which was always an instinct with the Romans even during
their worst decadence; he became glad at any time to visit it, and drink
in its mild delicious air in that peaceable garden overlooking the
mysterious sea.
The need for leisure grew upon him, and he added a wing to the
originally modest house in order that he might transport thither his
libraries from Gades; he transported also his Greek statues, his tables
of citrus wood and ivory, his myrrhine vases; he built a roofed
colonnade, pierced with windows on both sides, and with movable
shutters, so that the weather-side might be closed at will; he devised
rooms to catch all the winter sun, and rooms shaded by vines which were
cool through the hottest days; he built sumptuous baths, and a new
triclinium, and new guest-chambers; by every window, colonnade, and walk
he planted roses and violets to sweeten the air; and he stocked his fish
ponds with rare fish for the table.
But in spite of the later more sumptuous buildings, and new elegances
which he brought with him, he did not forget that he had come into the
country in order to be with the elementary conditions of life. He felt
very near to this earth which furnished him with everything he ate. From
the time the wheat was sown until it came upon his table in little
loaves it had been handled by none except his own slaves. At the
vintage, he would go out to the wine-press and gaze on the wine-jars, as
they were carried into the cellar to stand with the older jars, in which
mellowed the fragrance of earlier autumns; and day after day, in a
broad-brimmed hat and worn military cloak, he would walk down to the
farm and listen to the pleasant, familiar noises, the clamour of the
geese, the lambs calling to their full mothers, the cooing of the
pigeons in the tower, the murmur of the bees about the populous hives;
and the children hung shyly about him, for he generally brought them
some nuts, and would tempt the wild-eyed things toward him, holding the
nuts in his open hand, as a man might tempt a bird with crumbs.
He was still fond of hunting, fond of the deep shadow of the woods, the
stealthy alertness, the cunning and science of wood-craft, he felt that
he could best repel the advance of age by such exercises; but even in
the woods perhaps his chief pleasure was in a kind of meditation, a
conversation with himself, induced by that silence which the sport
imposed; and, when the boars had been finally driven into the nets and
slain, he would sit beside them, eating bread which he dipped in wine,
and writing on his tablets, in a small, fine hand, the thoughts
suggested by the day's journey. It seemed to him that the physical
exercise, the free play of the air on face and limbs, awakened an equal
vivacity and alertness in the mind; and that Minerva, no less than
Diana, was a goddess of the deep solitudes. Two Roman officers from
Gades, Sulpicianus Rufus and Marcus Licinius were his usual hunting
companions.
After his morning exercise, Serenus was used to take a cold bath, and
then sleep for a little while during the heat of the day. Coming from
his bath one morning, a little before noon, he found his two friends in
the hall.
"Seneca is dead;" was the news they brought him.
Then, in one of the libraries, he learned the details.
Rufus had been a friend of Seneca, and the story had come direct to him.
The three friends were strangely moved. Marcus and Serenus listened in
silence as Rufus described the scene at the villa.
"He asked for his will, that he might make some bequests to his friends;
but this was forbidden. Turning then, to his wife and the two friends
who were dining with him, he said that since Nero had murdered his
mother and brother it was not to be expected that he might spare the
instructor of his youth. Paulina desired to die with him, and the
physician opened the veins of both. But Seneca's blood would not flow,
and he drank poison; finally, he was carried to a warm bath, and died.
Paulina's wounds were bound up, by command of Nero, and she still
lives."
"She is more to be pitied," said Serenus. "What others died?"
Rufus gave their names.
"Lucan, too!" exclaimed Serenus. "Does Gallio still live?"
"I have not heard of his death; but it is impossible that he would
escape."
"Yes," said Serenus; "Seneca's family is annihilated. It is like the
working of Nemesis. We have been the spectators of one of Fate's
tragedies, which are so rare. It is complete, large, full of irony; and
Seneca's own words, 'the murderer of his mother and brother would not
spare the instructor of his youth!' One thinks of them less as Seneca's
own words, than as the sardonic comment of a later historian. They are
too apt."
"You were not one of Seneca's friends," said Rufus.