UNJUST DISCOURSE. But I triumph over you, who claim to be the stronger.
JUST DISCOURSE. By what cunning shifts, pray?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. By the invention of new maxims.
JUST DISCOURSE. ... which are received with favour by these fools.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Say rather, by these wiseacres.
JUST DISCOURSE. I am going to destroy you mercilessly.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How pray? Let us see you do it.
JUST DISCOURSE. By saying what is true.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I shall retort and shall very soon have the better of
you. First, I maintain that justice has no existence.
JUST DISCOURSE. Has no existence?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. No existence! Why, where are they?
JUST DISCOURSE. With the gods.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How then, if justice exists, was Zeus not put to death
for having put his father in chains?
JUST DISCOURSE. Bah! this is enough to turn my stomach! A basin, quick!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are an old driveller and stupid withal.
JUST DISCOURSE. And you a debauchee and a shameless fellow.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Hah! What sweet expressions!
JUST DISCOURSE. An impious buffoon!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You crown me with roses and with lilies.
JUST DISCOURSE. A parricide.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Why, you shower gold upon me.
JUST DISCOURSE. Formerly, 'twas a hailstorm of blows.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I deck myself with your abuse.
JUST DISCOURSE. What impudence!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. What tomfoolery!
JUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis because of you that the youth no longer attends the
schools. The Athenians will soon recognize what lessons you teach those
who are fools enough to believe you.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are overwhelmed with wretchedness.
JUST DISCOURSE. And you, you prosper. Yet you were poor when you said, "I
am the Mysian Telephus,"[548] and used to stuff your wallet with maxims
of Pandeletus[549] to nibble at.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Oh! the beautiful wisdom, of which you are now
boasting!
JUST DISCOURSE. Madman! But yet madder the city that keeps you, you, the
corrupter of its youth!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis not you who will teach this young man; you are as
old and out of date as Saturn.
JUST DISCOURSE. Nay, it will certainly be I, if he does not wish to be
lost and to practise verbosity only.
UNJUST DISCOURSE (_to Phidippides_). Come hither and leave him to beat
the air.
JUST DISCOURSE (_to Unjust Discourse_). Evil be unto you, if you touch
him.
CHORUS. A truce to your quarrellings and abuse! But expound, you, what
you taught us formerly, and you, your new doctrine. Thus, after hearing
each of you argue, he will be able to choose betwixt the two schools.
JUST DISCOURSE. I am quite agreeable.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. And I too.
CHORUS. Who is to speak first?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Let it be my opponent, he has my full consent; then I
will follow upon the very ground he shall have chosen and shall shatter
him with a hail of new ideas and subtle fancies; if after that he dares
to breathe another word, I shall sting him in the face and in the eyes
with our maxims, which are as keen as the sting of a wasp, and he will
die.
CHORUS. Here are two rivals confident in their powers of oratory and in
the thoughts over which they have pondered so long. Let us see which will
come triumphant out of the contest. This wisdom, for which my friends
maintain such a persistent fight, is in great danger. Come then, you, who
crowned men of other days with so many virtues, plead the cause dear to
you, make yourself known to us.
JUST DISCOURSE. Very well, I will tell you what was the old education,
when I used to teach justice with so much success and when modesty was
held in veneration. Firstly, it was required of a child, that it should
not utter a word. In the street, when they went to the music-school, all
the youths of the same district marched lightly clad and ranged in good
order, even when the snow was falling in great flakes. At the master's
house they had to stand, their legs apart, and they were taught to sing
either, "Pallas, the Terrible, who overturneth cities," or "A noise
resounded from afar"[550] in the solemn tones of the ancient harmony. If
anyone indulged in buffoonery or lent his voice any of the soft
inflexions, like those which to-day the disciples of Phrynis[551] take so
much pains to form, he was treated as an enemy of the Muses and
belaboured with blows. In the wrestling school they would sit with
outstretched legs and without display of any indecency to the curious.
When they rose, they would smooth over the sand, so as to leave no trace
to excite obscene thoughts. Never was a child rubbed with oil below the
belt; the rest of their bodies thus retained its fresh bloom and down,
like a velvety peach. They were not to be seen approaching a lover and
themselves rousing his passion by soft modulation of the voice and
lustful gaze. At table, they would not have dared, before those older
than themselves, to have taken a radish, an aniseed or a leaf of parsley,
and much less eat fish or thrushes or cross their legs.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. What antiquated rubbish! Have we got back to the days
of the festivals of Zeus Polieus,[552] to the Buphonia, to the time of
the poet Cecydes[553] and the golden cicadas?[554]
JUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis nevertheless by suchlike teaching I built up the men
of Marathon. But you, you teach the children of to-day to bundle
themselves quickly into their clothes, and I am enraged when I see them
at the Panathenaea forgetting Athené while they dance, and covering
themselves with their bucklers. Hence, young man, dare to range yourself
beside me, who follow justice and truth; you will then be able to shun
the public place, to refrain from the baths, to blush at all that is
shameful, to fire up if your virtue is mocked at, to give place to your
elders, to honour your parents, in short, to avoid all that is evil. Be
modesty itself, and do not run to applaud the dancing girls; if you
delight in such scenes, some courtesan will cast you her apple and your
reputation will be done for. Do not bandy words with your father, nor
treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you,
with his age.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. If you listen to him, by Bacchus! you will be the image
of the sons of Hippocrates[555] and will be called _mother's great
ninny_.
JUST DISCOURSE. No, but you will pass your days at the gymnasia, glowing
with strength and health; you will not go to the public place to cackle
and wrangle as is done nowadays; you will not live in fear that you may
be dragged before the courts for some trifle exaggerated by quibbling.
But you will go down to the Academy[556] to run beneath the sacred olives
with some virtuous friend of your own age, your head encircled with the
white reed, enjoying your ease and breathing the perfume of the yew and
of the fresh sprouts of the poplar, rejoicing in the return of springtide
and gladly listening to the gentle rustle of the plane-tree and the elm.
If you devote yourself to practising my precepts, your chest will be
stout, your colour glowing, your shoulders broad, your tongue short, your
hips muscular, but your penis small. But if you follow the fashions of
the day, you will be pallid in hue, have narrow shoulders, a narrow
chest, a long tongue, small hips and a big tool; you will know how to
spin forth long-winded arguments on law. You will be persuaded also to
regard as splendid everything that is shameful and as shameful everything
that is honourable; in a word, you will wallow in debauchery like
Antimachus.[557]
CHORUS. How beautiful, high-souled, brilliant is this wisdom that you
practise! What a sweet odour of honesty is emitted by your discourse!
Happy were those men of other days who lived when you were honoured! And
you, seductive talker, come, find some fresh arguments, for your rival
has done wonders. Bring out against him all the battery of your wit, if
you desire to beat him and not to be laughed out of court.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. At last! I was choking with impatience, I was burning
to upset all his arguments! If I am called the Weaker Reasoning in the
schools, 'tis precisely because I was the first before all others to
discover the means to confute the laws and the decrees of justice. To
invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is a talent worth more
than a hundred thousand drachmae. But see how I shall batter down the
sort of education of which he is so proud. Firstly, he forbids you to
bathe in hot water. What grounds have you for condemning hot baths?
JUST DISCOURSE. Because they are baneful and enervate men.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Enough said! Oh! you poor wrestler! From the very
outset I have seized you and hold you round the middle; you cannot escape
me. Tell me, of all the sons of Zeus, who had the stoutest heart, who
performed the most doughty deeds?
JUST DISCOURSE. None, in my opinion, surpassed Heracles.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Where have you ever seen cold baths called 'Baths of
Heracles'?[558] And yet who was braver than he?
JUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis because of such quibbles, that the baths are seen
crowded with young folk, who chatter there the livelong day while the
gymnasia remain empty.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Next you condemn the habit of frequenting the
market-place, while I approve this. If it were wrong Homer would never
have made Nestor[559] speak in public as well as all his wise heroes. As
for the art of speaking, he tells you, young men should not practise it;
I hold the contrary. Furthermore he preaches chastity to them. Both
precepts are equally harmful. Have you ever seen chastity of any use to
anyone? Answer and try to confute me.