had, being living men, to take land in that sacred country, and we told
him all our adventures in order as they befell us: then he commanded
us to stand aside, and considering upon it a great while, in the end
proposed it to the benchers, which were many, and among them Aristides
the Athenian, surnamed the Just: and when he was provided what sentence
to deliver, he said that for our busy curiosity and needless travels we
should be accountable after our death; but for the present we should
have a time limited for our abode, during which we should feast with
the Heroes and then depart, prefixing us seven months' liberty to
conclude our tarriance, and no more. Then our garlands fell off from
us of themselves, and we were set loose and led into the city to feast
with the blessed.
The city was all of gold, compassed with a wall made of the precious
stone smaragdus, which had seven gates, every one cut out of a whole
piece of timber of cinnamon-tree: the pavement of the city and all
the ground within the walls was ivory: the temples of all the gods
are built of beryl, with large altars made all of one whole amethyst,
upon which they offer their sacrifices: about the city runneth a river
of most excellent sweet ointment, in breadth an hundred cubits of the
larger measure, and so deep that a man may swim in it with ease. For
their baths they have great houses of glass, which they warm with
cinnamon: and their bathing-tubs are filled with warm dew instead of
water. Their only garments are cobwebs of purple colour; neither have
they any bodies, but are intactile and without flesh, a mere shape and
presentation only: and being thus bodiless, they yet stand, and are
moved, are intelligent, and can speak: and their naked soul seemeth to
wander up and down in a corporal likeness: for if a man touch them not
he cannot say otherwise, but that they have bodies, altogether like
shadows standing upright, and not, as they are, of a dark colour. No
man waxeth any older there than he was before, but of what age he comes
thither, so he continues. Neither is there any night with them, nor
indeed clear day: but like the twilight towards morning before the sun
be up, such a kind of light do they live in. They know but one season
of the year which is the spring, and feel no other wind but Zephyrus.
The region flourisheth with all sorts of flowers, and with all pleasing
plants fit for shade: their vines bear fruit twelve times a year, every
month once: their pomegranate-trees, their apple-trees, and their
other fruit, they say, bear thirteen times in the year, for in the
month called Minous they bear twice. Instead of wheat their ears bear
them loaves of bread ready baked, like unto mushrooms. About the city
are three hundred three-score and five wells of water, and as many of
honey, and five hundred of sweet ointment, for they are less than the
other. They have seven rivers of milk and eight of wine.
They keep their feast without the city in a field called Elysium,
which is a most pleasant meadow, environed with woods of all sorts,
so thick that they serve for a shade to all that are invited, who sit
upon beds of flowers, and are waited upon, and have everything brought
unto them by the winds, unless it be to have the wine filled: and that
there is no need of: for about the banqueting place are mighty great
trees growing of clear and pure glass, and the fruit of those trees are
drinking-cups and other kind of vessels of what fashion or greatness
you will: and every man that comes to the feast gathers one or two
of those cups, and sets them before him, which will be full of wine
presently, and then they drink. Instead of garlands the nightingales
and other musical birds gather flowers with their beaks out of the
meadows adjoining, and flying over their heads with chirping notes
scatter them among them.
They are anointed with sweet ointment in this manner: sundry clouds
draw that unguent out of the fountains and the rivers, which settling
over the heads of them that are at the banquet, the least blast of
wind makes a small rain fall upon them like unto a dew. After supper
they spend the time in music and singing: their ditties that are in
most request they take out of Homer's verses, who is there present
himself and feasteth among them, sitting next above Ulysses: their
choirs consist of boys and virgins, which were directed and assisted
by Eunomus the Locrian, and Arion the Lesbian, and Anacreon, and
Stesichorus, who hath had a place there ever since his reconcilement
with Helena. As soon as these have done there enter a second choir of
swans, swallows, and nightingales; and when they have ended, the whole
woods ring like wind-instruments by the stirring of the air.
But that which maketh most for their mirth are two wells adjoining to
the banqueting place, the one of laughter, the other of pleasure: of
these every man drinks to begin the feast withal, which makes them
spend the whole time in mirth and laughter.
I will also relate unto you what famous men I saw in that association.
There were all the demigods, and all that fought against Troy,
excepting Ajax the Locrian: he only, they told me, was tormented in
the region of the unrighteous. Of barbarians there was the elder and
the younger Cyrus, and Anacharsis the Scythian, Zamolxis the Thracian,
and Numa the Italian. There was also Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian, and
Phocion and Tellus the Athenians, and all the Wise Men, unless it were
Periander.
I also saw Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, prattling with Nestor
and Palamedes, and close by him stood Hyacinthus the Lacedæmonian, and
the gallant Narcissus and Hylas, and other beautiful and lovely youths,
and for aught I could gather by him he was far in love with Hyacinthus,
for he discoursed with him more than all the rest: for which cause,
they said, Rhadamanthus was offended at him, and often threatened to
thrust him out of the island if he continued to play the fool in that
fashion, and not give over his idle manner of jesting, when he was at
their banquet. Only Plato was not present, for they said he dwelled in
a city framed by himself, observing the same rule of government and
laws as he had prescribed for them to live under.
Aristippus and Epicurus are prime men amongst them, because they
are the most jovial good fellows and the best companions. Diogenes
the Sinopean was so far altered from the man he was before that he
married with Lais the harlot, and was many times so drunk that he would
rise and dance about the room as a man out of his senses. Æsop the
Phrygian served them for a jester. There was not one Stoic in company
but were still busied in ascending the height of virtue's hill: and
of Chrysippus we heard that it was not lawful for him by any means to
touch upon the island until he have the fourth time purged himself
with helleborus. The Academics, they say, were willing enough to come,
but that they yet are doubtful and in suspense, and cannot comprehend
how there should be any such island; but indeed, I think, they were
fearful to come to be judged by Rhadamanthus, because themselves have
abolished all kind of judgment: yet many of them, they say, had a
desire, and would follow after those that were coming hither, but were
so slothful as to give it over because they were not comprehensive, and
therefore turned back in the midst of their way.
These were all the men of note that I saw there; and amongst them all
Achilles was held to be the best man, and next to him Theseus. For
their manner of venery and copulation thus it is: they couple openly
in the eyes of all men, both with females and male kind, and no man
holds it for any dishonesty. Only Socrates would swear deeply that he
accompanied young men in a cleanly fashion, and therefore every man
condemned him for a perjured fellow: and Hyacinthus and Narcissus both
confessed otherwise for all his denial.
The women there are all in common, and no man takes exception at it,
in which respect they are absolutely the best Platonists in the world:
and so do the boys yield themselves to any man's pleasure without
contradiction.
After I had spent two or three days in this manner, I went to talk with
Homer the poet, our leisure serving us both well, and to know of him
what countryman he was, a question with us hard to be resolved, and he
said he could not certainly tell himself, because some said he was of
Chios, some of Smyrna, and many to be of Colophon; but he said indeed
he was a Babylonian, and among his own countrymen not called Homer but
Tigranes, and afterwards living as an hostage among the Grecians, he
had therefore that name put upon him. Then I questioned him about those
verses in his books that are disallowed as not of his making, whether
they were written by him or not, and he told me they were all his own,
much condemning Zenodotus and Aristarchus, the grammarians, for their
weakness in judgment.
When he had satisfied me in this, I asked him again why he began the
first verse of his poem with anger: and he told me it fell out so by
chance, not upon any premeditation. I also desired to know of him
whether he wrote his Odysseys before his Iliads, as many men do hold:
but he said it was not so. As for his blindness which is charged upon
him, I soon found it was far otherwise, and perceived it so plainly
that I needed not to question him about it.
Thus was I used to do many days when I found him idle, and would go
to him and ask him many questions, which he would give me answer to
very freely: especially when we talked of a trial he had in the court
of justice, wherein he got the better: for Thersites had preferred a
bill of complaint against him for abusing him and scoffing at him in
his Poem, in which action Homer was acquitted, having Ulysses for his
advocate.
About the same time came to us Pythagoras the Samian, who had
changed his shape now seven times, and lived in as many lives, and
accomplished the periods of his soul. The right half of his body was
wholly of gold; and they all agreed that he should have place amongst
them, but were doubtful what to call him, Pythagoras or Euphorbus.
Empedocles also came to the place, scorched quite over, as if his body
had been broiled upon the embers; but could not be admitted for all his
great entreaty.
The time passing thus along, the day of prizes for masteries of
activity now approached, which they call Thanatusia. The setters of
them forth were Achilles the fifth time, and Theseus the seventh time.
To relate the whole circumstance would require a long discourse, but
the principal points I will deliver. At wrestling Carus, one of the
lineage of Hercules, had the best, and wan the garland from Ulysses.
The fight with fists was equal between Arius the Ægyptian, who was
buried at Corinth, and Epius, that combated for it. There was no prize
appointed for the Pancratian fight: neither do I remember who got the
best in running: but for poetry, though Homer without question were too
good for them all, yet the best was given to Hesiodus. The prizes were
all alike, garlands plotted of peacocks' feathers.
[Illustration]
As soon as the games were ended, news came to us that the damned crew
in the habitation of the wicked had broken their bounds, escaped the
gaolers, and were coming to assail the island, led by Phalaris the
Agrigentine, Busyris the Ægyptian, Diomedes the Thracian, Sciron,
Pituocamptes, and others: which Rhadamanthus hearing, he ranged
the Heroes in battle array upon the sea-shore, under the leading of
Theseus and Achilles and Ajax Telamonius, who had now recovered his
senses, where they joined fight; but the Heroes had the day, Achilles
carrying himself very nobly. Socrates also, who was placed in the right
wing, was noted for a brave soldier, much better than he was in his
lifetime, in the battle at Delium: for when the enemy charged him, he
neither fled nor changed countenance: wherefore afterwards, in reward
of his valour, he had a prize set out for him on purpose, which was
a beautiful and spacious garden, planted in the suburbs of the city,
whereunto he invited many, and disputed with them there, giving it the
name of Necracademia.
Then we took the vanquished prisoners, and bound them, and sent them
back to be punished with greater torments.
This fight was also penned by Homer, who, at my departure, gave me the
book to show my friends, which I afterwards lost and many things else
beside: but the first verse of the poem I remember was this: "Tell me
now, Muse, how the dead Heroes fought."
When they overcome in fight, they have a custom to make a feast with
sodden beans, wherewith they banquet together for joy of their victory:
only Pythagoras had no part with them, but sat aloof off, and lost his
dinner because he could not away with beans.
[Illustration]
Six months were now passed over, and the seventh halfway onwards,
when a new business was begot amongst us. For Cinyras the son of
Scintharus, a proper tall young man, had long been in love with Helena,
and it might plainly be perceived that she as fondly doted upon him,
for they would still be winking and drinking one to another whilst they
were a-feasting, and rise alone together, and wander up and down in
the wood. This humour increasing, and knowing not what course to take,
Cinyras' device was to steal away Helena, whom he found as pliable
to run away with him, to some of the islands adjoining, either to
Phello, or Tyroessa, having before combined with three of the boldest
fellows in my company to join with them in their conspiracy; but never
acquainted his father with it, knowing that he would surely punish him
for it.
Being resolved upon this, they watched their time to put it in
practice: for when night was come, and I absent (for I was fallen
asleep at the feast), they gave a slip to all the rest, and went away
with Helena to shipboard as fast as they could. Menelaus waking about
midnight, and finding his bed empty, and his wife gone, made an outcry,
and calling up his brother, went to the court of Rhadamanthus.
As soon as the day appeared, the scouts told them they had descried
a ship, which by that time was got far off into the sea. Then
Rhadamanthus set out a vessel made of one whole piece of timber of
asphodelus wood, manned with fifty of the Heroes to pursue after them,
which were so willing on their way, that by noon they had overtaken
them newly entered into the milky ocean, not far from Tyroessa, so near
were they got to make an escape. Then took we their ship and hauled it
after us with a chain of roses and brought it back again.
Rhadamanthus first examined Cinyras and his companions whether they
had any other partners in this plot, and they confessing none, were
adjudged to be tied fast by the privy members and sent into the place
of the wicked, there to be tormented, after they had been scourged with
rods made of mallows. Helena, all blubbered with tears, was so ashamed
of herself that she would not show her face. They also decreed to
send us packing out of the country, our prefixed time being come, and
that we should stay there no longer than the next morrow: wherewith
I was much aggrieved and wept bitterly to leave so good a place and
turn wanderer again I knew not whither: but they comforted me much
in telling me that before many years were past I should be with them
again, and showed me a chair and a bed prepared for me against the time
to come near unto persons of the best quality.
Then went I to Rhadamanthus, humbly beseeching him to tell me my future
fortunes, and to direct me in my course; and he told me that after
many travels and dangers, I should at last recover my country, but
would not tell me the certain time of my return: and showing me the
islands adjoining, which were five in number, and a sixth a little
further off, he said, Those nearest are the islands of the ungodly,
which you see burning all in a light fire, but the other sixth is the
island of dreams, and beyond that is the island of Calypso, which you
cannot see from hence. When you are past these, you shall come into the
great continent, over against your own country, where you shall suffer
many afflictions, and pass through many nations, and meet with men of
inhuman conditions, and at length attain to the other continent.
When he had told me this, he plucked a root of mallows out of the
ground, and reached it to me, commanding me in my greatest perils to
make my prayers to that: advising me further neither to rake in the
fire with my knife, nor to feed upon lupins, nor to come near a boy
when he is past eighteen years of age: if I were mindful of this, the
hopes would be great that I should come to the island again.
Then we prepared for our passage, and feasted with them at the usual
hour, and next morrow I went to Homer, entreating him to do so much as
make an epigram of two verses for me, which he did: and I erected a
pillar of berylstone near unto the haven, and engraved them upon it.
The epigram was this:
Lucian, the gods' belov'd, did once attain
To see all this, and then go home again.
After that day's tarrying, we put to sea, brought onward on our way by
the Heroes, where Ulysses closely coming to me that Penelope might not
see him, conveyed a letter into my hand to deliver to Calypso in the
isle of Ogygia. Rhadamanthus also sent Nauplius, the ferryman, along
with us, that if it were our fortune to put into those islands, no man
should lay hands upon us, because we were bent upon other employments.
[Illustration]
No sooner had we passed beyond the smell of that sweet odour but
we felt a horrible filthy stink, like pitch and brimstone burning,
carrying an intolerable scent with it as if men were broiling upon
burning coals: the air was dark and muddy, from which distilled a
pitchy kind of dew. We heard also the lash of the whips, and the
roarings of the tormented: yet went we not to visit all the islands,
but that wherein we landed was of this form: it was wholly compassed
about with steep, sharp, and craggy rocks, without either wood or
water: yet we made a shift to scramble up among the cliffs, and so went
forwards in a way quite overgrown with briars and thorns through a
most villainous ghastly country, and coming at last to the prison and
place of torment we wondered to see the nature and quality of the soil,
which brought forth no other flowers but swords and daggers, and round
about it ran certain rivers, the first of dirt, the second of blood,
and the innermost of burning fire, which was very broad and unpassable,
floating like water, and working like the waves of the sea, full of
sundry fishes, some as big as firebrands, others of a less size like
coals of fire, and these they call Lychniscies.
There was but one narrow entrance into it, and Timon of Athens
appointed to keep the door, yet we got in by the help of Nauplius, and
saw them that were tormented, both kings and private persons very many,
of which there were some that I knew, for there I saw Cinyras tied by
private members, and hanging up in the smoke. But the greatest torments
of all are inflicted upon them that told any lies in their lifetime,
and wrote untruly, as Ctesias the Cnidian, Herodotus, and many other,
which I beholding, was put in great hopes that I should never have
anything to do there, for I do not know that ever I spake any untruth
in my life. We therefore returned speedily to our ship (for we could
endure the sight no longer), and taking our leaves of Nauplius, sent
him back again.
A little after appeared the Isle of Dreams near unto us, an obscure
country and unperspicuous to the eye, endued with the same quality as
dreams themselves are: for as we drew, it still gave back and fled from
us, that it seemed to be farther off than at the first, but in the end
we attained it and entered the haven called Hypnus, and adjoined to
the gate of ivory, where the temple of Alectryon stands, and took land
somewhat late in the evening.
Entering the gate we saw many dreams of sundry fashions; but I will
first tell you somewhat of the city, because no man else hath written
any description of it: only Homer hath touched it a little, but to
small purpose.
[Illustration]
It is round about environed with a wood, the trees whereof are
exceeding high poppies and mandragoras, in which an infinite number of
owls do nestle, and no other birds to be seen in the island: near unto
it is a river running, called by them Nyctiporus, and at the gates are
two wells, the one named Negretus, the other Pannychia. The wall of
the city is high and of a changeable colour, like unto the rainbow,
in which are four gates, though Homer speak but of two: for there are
two which look toward the fields of sloth, the one made of iron, the
other of potter's clay, through which those dreams have passage that
represent fearful, bloody, and cruel matters: the other two behold the
haven and the sea, of which the one is made of horn, the other of
ivory, which we went in at.
As we entered the city, on the right hand stands the temple of the
Night, whom, with Alectryon, they reverence above all the gods: for
he hath also a temple built for him near unto the haven. On the left
hand stands the palace of sleep, for he is the sovereign king over them
all, and hath deputed two great princes to govern under him, namely,
Taraxion, the son of Matogenes, and Plutocles, the son of Phantasion.
In the middest of the market-place is a well, by them called Careotis,
and two temples adjoining, the one of falsehood, the other of truth,
which have either of them a private cell peculiar to the priests, and
an oracle, in which the chief prophet is Antiphon, the interpreter of
dreams, who was preferred by Sleep to that place of dignity.
[Illustration]
These dreams are not all alike either in nature or shape, for some of
them are long, beautiful, and pleasing: others again are as short and
deformed. Some make show to be of gold, and others to be as base and
beggarly. Some of them had wings, and were of monstrous forms: others
set out in pomp, as it were in a triumph, representing the appearances
of kings, gods, and other persons.
Many of them were of our acquaintance, for they had been seen of us
before, which came unto us and saluted us as their old friends, and
took us and lulled us asleep, and feasted us nobly and courteously,
promising beside all other entertainment which was sumptuous and
costly, to make us kings and princes. Some of them brought us home to
our own country to show us our friends there, and come back with us the
next morrow.
Thus we spent thirty days and as many nights among them, sleeping and
feasting all the while, until a sudden clap of thunder awakened us all,
and we starting up, provided ourselves of victuals, and took sea again,
and on the third day landed in Ogygia. But upon the way I opened the
letter I was to deliver, and read the contents, which were these:
"Ulysses to Calypso sendeth greeting. This is to give you to understand
that after my departure from you in the vessel I made in haste for
myself, I suffered shipwreck, and hardly escaped by the help of
Leucothea into the country of the Phæacks, who sent me to mine own
home, where I found many that were wooers to my wife, and riotously
consumed my means; but I slew them all, and was afterwards killed
myself by my son Telegonus, whom I begat of Circe, and am now in the
island of the blessed, where I daily repent myself for refusing to live
with you, and forsaking the immortality proffered me by you; but if I
can spy a convenient time, I will give them all the slip and come to
you."
This was the effect of the letter, with some addition concerning us,
that we should have entertainment: and far had I not gone from the sea
but I found such a cave as Homer speaks of, and she herself working
busily at her wool. When she had received the letter, and brought us
in, she began to weep and take on grievously, but afterwards she called
us to meat, and made us very good cheer, asking us many questions
concerning Ulysses and Penelope, whether she was so beautiful and
modest as Ulysses had often before bragged of her.