evil-doers after death, and how happy will be the lot of the
righteous?
_Cyn_. Ah, to be sure: Hades—Tityus—Tantalus. Whether there
is such a place as Hades, I shall be able to satisfy myself when I
die. In the meantime, I had rather live a pleasant life here, and
have a score or so of vultures at my liver when I am dead, than
thirst like Tantalus in this world, on the chance of drinking with
the heroes in the Isles of the Blest, and reclining in the fields
of Elysium.
_Zeus_. What! you doubt that there are punishments and rewards
to come? You doubt of that judgement-seat before which every soul
is arraigned?
_Cyn_. I _have_ heard mention of a judge in that connexion; one
Minos, a Cretan. Ah, yes, tell me about him: they say he is your
son?
_Zeus_. And what of him?
_Cyn_. Whom does he punish in particular?
_Zeus_. Whom but the wicked? Murderers, for instance, and
temple-robbers.
_Cyn_. And whom does he send to dwell with the heroes?
_Zeus_. Good men and God-fearing, who have led virtuous lives.
_Cyn_. Why?
_Zeus_. Because they deserve punishment and reward
respectively.
_Cyn_. Suppose a man commits a crime accidentally: does he
punish him just the same?
_Zeus_. Certainly not.
_Cyn_. Similarly, if a man involuntarily performed a good
action, he would not reward him?
_Zeus_. No.
_Cyn_. Then there is no one for him to reward or punish.
_Zeus_. How so?
_Cyn_. Why, we men do nothing of our own free will: we are
obeying an irresistible impulse,—that is, if there is any truth in
what we settled just now, about Fate’s being the cause of
everything. Does a man commit a murder? Fate is the murderess. Does
he rob a temple? He has her instructions for it. So if there is
going to be any justice in Minos’s sentences, he will punish
Destiny, not Sisyphus; Fate, not Tantalus. What harm did these men
do? They only obeyed orders.
_Zeus_. I am not going to speak to you any more. You are an
unscrupulous man; a sophist. I shall go away and leave you to
yourself.
_Cyn_. I wanted to ask you where the Fates lived; and how they
managed to attend to all the details of such a vast mass of
business, just those three. I do not envy them their lot; they must
have a busy time of it, with so much on their hands. Their destiny,
apparently, is no better than other people’s. I would not exchange
with them, if I had the choice; I had rather be poorer than I am,
than sit before such a spindleful, watching every thread.—But
never mind, if you would rather not answer. Your previous replies
have quite cleared up my doubts about Destiny and Providence; and
for the rest, I expect I was not destined to hear it.
ZEUS TRAGOEDUS
_Hermes. Hera. Colossus. Heracles. Athene. Posidon. Momus.
Hermagoras. Zeus. Aphrodite. Apollo, Timocles. Damis_
_Herm_. Wherefore thus brooding, Zeus? wherefore apart,
And palely pacing, as Earth’s sages use?
Let me thy counsel know, thy cares partake;
And find thy comfort in a faithful fool.
_Ath_. Cronides, lord of lords, and all our sire,
I clasp thy knees; grant thou what I require;
A boon the lightning-eyed Tritonia asks:
Speak, rend the veil thy secret thought that masks;
Reveal what care thy mind within thee gnaws,
Blanches thy cheek, and this deep moaning draws.
_Zeus_. Speech hath no utterance of surpassing fear,
Tragedy holds no misery or woe,
But our divinest essence soon shall taste.
_Ath_. Alas, how dire a prelude to thy tale!
_Zeus_. O brood maleficent, teemed from Earth’s dark womb!
And thou, Prometheus, how hast thou wrought me woe!
_Ath_. Possess us; are not we thine own familiars?
_Zeus_. With a whirr and a crash
Let the levin-bolt dash—
Ah, whither?
_Hera_. A truce to your passion, Zeus. _We_ have not these good
people’s gift for farce or recitation; _we_ have not swallowed
Euripides whole, and cannot play up to you. Do you suppose we do
not know how to account for your annoyance?
_Zeus_. Thou knowst not; else thy waitings had been loud.
_Hera_. Don’t tell me; it’s a love affair; that’s what’s the
matter with you. However, you won’t have any ‘wailings’ from me; I
am too much hardened to neglect. I suppose you have discovered some
new Danae or Semele or Europa whose charms are troubling you; and
so you are meditating a transformation into a bull or satyr, or a
descent through the roof into your beloved’s bosom as a shower of
gold; all the symptoms—your groans and your tears and your white
face—point to love and nothing else.
_Zeus_. Happy ignorance, that sees not what perils now forbid
love and such toys!
_Hera_. Is your name Zeus, or not? and, if so, what else can
possibly annoy you but love?
_Zeus_. Hera, our condition is most precarious; it is touch-
and-go, as they call it, whether we are still to enjoy reverence
and honour from the earth, or be utterly neglected and become of no
account.
_Hera_. Has Earth produced a new brood of giants? Have the
Titans broken their chains, overpowered their guards, and taken up
arms against us once more?
_Zeus_. Nay, fear not that; Hell threatens not the Gods.
_Hera_. What can the matter be, then? To hear you, one might
think it was Polus or Aristodemus, not Zeus; and why, pray, if
something of that sort is not bothering you?
_Zeus_. My dear, a discussion somehow arose yesterday between
Timocles the Stoic and Damis the Epicurean; there was a numerous
and respectable audience (which particularly annoyed me), and they
had an argument on the subject of Providence. Damis questioned the
existence of the Gods, and utterly denied their interest in or
government of events, while Timocles, good man, did his best to
champion our cause. A great crowd gathered round; but no conclusion
was reached. They broke up with an understanding that the inquiry
should be completed another day; and now they are all agog to see
which will win and prove his case. You all see how parlous and
precarious is our position, depending on a single mortal. These are
the alternatives for us: to be dismissed as mere empty names, or
(if Timocles prevails) to enjoy our customary honours.
_Hera_. This is really a serious matter; your ranting was not
so uncalled-for, Zeus.
_Zeus_. You fancied me thinking of some Danae or Antiope; and
this was the dread reality. Now, Hermes, Hera, Athene, what is our
course? We await your contribution to our plans.
_Herm_. My opinion is that an assembly be summoned and the
community taken into counsel.
_Hera_. And I concur.
_Ath_. Sire, I dissent entirely; you should not fill Heaven
with apprehensions, nor let your own uneasiness be visible, but
take private measures to assure Timocles’s victory and Damis’s
being laughed out of court.
_Herm_. It cannot be kept quiet, Zeus; the philosophers’
debate is public, and you will be accused of despotic methods, if
you maintain reserve on a matter of so great and general interest.
_Zeus_. Make proclamation and summon all, then. I approve your
judgement.
_Herm_. Here, assemble, all ye Gods; don’t waste time, come
along, here you are; we are going to have an important meeting.
_Zeus_. What, Hermes? so bald, so plain, so prosy an
announcement—on this momentous occasion?
_Herm_. Why, how would you like it done?
_Zeus_. Some metre, a little poetic sonority, would make the
style impressive, and they would be more likely to come.
_Herm_. Ah, Zeus, that is work for epic poets or reciters, and
I am no good at poetry. I should be sure to put in too many feet,
or leave out some, and spoil the thing; they would only laugh at my
rude verses. Why, I’ve known Apollo himself laughed at for some of
his oracles; and prophecy has the advantage of obscurity, which
gives the hearers something better to do than scanning verses.
_Zeus_. Well, well, Hermes, you can make lines from Homer the
chief ingredient of your composition; summon us in his words; you
remember them, of course.
_Herm_. I cannot say they are exactly on the tip of my tongue;
however, I’ll do my best:
Let ne’er a God (tum, tum), nor eke a Goddess,
Nor yet of Ocean’s rivers one be wanting,
Nor nymphs; but gather to great Zeus’s council;
And all that feast on glorious hecatombs,
Yea, middle and lower classes of Divinity,
Or nameless ones that snuff fat altar-fumes
_Zeus_. Good, Hermes; that is an excellent proclamation: see,
here they come pell-mell; now receive and place them in correct
precedence, according to their material or workmanship; gold in the
front row, silver next, then the ivory ones, then those of stone or
bronze. A cross-division will give precedence to the creations of
Phidias, Alcamenes, Myron, Euphranor, and artists of that calibre,
while the common inartistic jobs can be huddled together in the far
corner, hold their tongues, and just make up the rank and file of
our assembly.
_Herm_. All right; they shall have their proper places. But
here is a point: suppose one of them is gold, and heavy at that,
but not finely finished, quite amateurish and ill proportioned, in
fact—is he to take precedence of Myron’s and Polyclitus’s bronze,
or Phidias’s and Alcamenes’s marble? or is workmanship to count
most?
_Zeus_. It should by rights. Never mind, put the gold first.
_Herm_. I see; property qualification, comparative wealth, is
the test, not merit.—Gold to the front row, please.—Zeus, the
front row will be exclusively barbarian, I observe. You see the
peculiarity of the Greek contingent: they have grace and beauty and
artistic workmanship, but they are all marble or bronze—the most
costly of them only ivory with just an occasional gleam of gold,
the merest surface-plating; and even those are wood inside,
harbouring whole colonies of mice. Whereas Bendis here, Anubis
there, Attis next door, and Mithras and Men, are all of solid gold,
heavy and intrinsically precious.
_Pos_. Hermes, is it in order that this dog-faced Egyptian
person should sit in front of me, Posidon?
_Herm_. Certainly. You see, Earth-shaker, the Corinthians had
no gold at the time, so Lysippus made you of paltry bronze; Dog-
face is a whole gold-mine richer than you. You must put up with
being moved back, and not object to the owner of such a golden
snout being preferred.
_Aph_. Then, Hermes, find me a place in the front row; I am
golden.
_Herm_. Not so, Aphrodite, if I can trust my eyes; I am
purblind, or you are white marble; you were quarried, I take it,
from Pentelicus, turned by Praxiteles’s fancy into Aphrodite, and
handed over to the Cnidians.
_Aph_. Wait; my witness is unexceptionable—Homer. ‘The Golden
Aphrodite’ he calls me, up and down his poems.
_Herm_. Oh, yes, no doubt; _he_ called Apollo rich, ‘rolling in
gold’; but now where will you find Apollo? Somewhere in the
third-class seats; his crown has been taken off and his harp pegs
stolen by the pirates, you see. So _you_ may think yourself lucky
with a place above the fourth.
_Col_. Well, who will dare dispute _my_ claim? Am I not
the Sun? and look at my height. If the Rhodians had not decided on
such grandiose dimensions for me, the same outlay would have
furnished forth a round dozen of your golden Gods; I ought to be
valued proportionally. And then, besides the size, there is the
workmanship and careful finish.
_Herm_. What shall I do, Zeus? Here is a difficulty again—too
much for me. Going by material, he is bronze; but, reckoning the
talents his bronze cost, he would be above the first class.
_Zeus_. What business has he here dwarfing the rest and
blocking up all the bench?—Why, my excellent Rhodian, you may be
as superior to the golden ones as you will; but how can you
possibly go in the front row? Every one would have to get up, to
let you sit; half that broad beam of yours would fill the whole
House. I must ask you to assist our deliberations standing; you can
bend down your head to the meeting.
_Herm_. Now here is another problem. Both bronze, equal
aesthetically, being both from Lysippus’s studio, and, to crown
all, nothing to choose between them for birth—two sons of yours,
Zeus—Dionysus and Heracles. Which is to be first? You can see for
yourself, they mean to stand upon their order.
_Zeus_. We are wasting time, Hermes; the debate should have
been in full swing by now. Tell them to sit anyhow, according to
taste; we will have an _ad hoc_ meeting another day, and then
I shall know how to settle the question of precedence.
_Herm_. My goodness, what a noise! what low vulgar bawling!
listen—‘Hurry up with that carving!’ ‘Do pass the nectar!’ ‘Why no
more ambrosia?’ ‘When are those hecatombs coming?’ ‘Here, shares in
that victim!’
_Zeus_. Call them to order, Hermes; this nonsense must cease,
before I can give them the order of the day.
_Herm_. They do not all know Greek; and I haven’t the gift of
tongues, to make myself understood by Scythians and Persians and
Thracians and Celts. Perhaps I had better hold up my hand and
signal for silence.
_Zeus_. Do.
_Herm_. Good; they are as quiet as if they were so many
teachers of elocution. Now is the time for your speech; see, they
are all hanging on your lips.
_Zeus_. Why—there is something wrong with me—Hermes, my boy
—I will be frank with you. You know how confident and impressive I
always was as a public speaker?
_Herm_. I know; I used to be in such a fright; you threatened
sometimes to let down your golden cord and heave up earth and sea
from their foundations, Gods included.
_Zeus_. But to-day, my child—it may be this terrible crisis—
it may be the size of the audience—there is a vast number of Gods
here, isn’t there—anyhow, my thoughts are all mixed, I shiver, my
tongue seems tied. What is most absurd of all, my exordium is gone
clean out of my head; and I had prepared it on purpose to produce a
good impression at the start.
_Herm_. You have spoiled everything, Zeus. They cannot make
out your silence; they are expecting to hear of some terrible
disaster, to account for your delay.
_Zeus_. What do you think? Reel off the exordium in Homer?
_Herm_. Which one?
_Zeus_. Lend me your ears, Gods all and Goddesses.
_Herm_. Rubbish! you made quite exhibition enough of yourself
in that vein in our cabinet council. However, you might, if
you like, drop your metrical fustian, and adapt any one of
Demosthenes’s Philippics with a few alterations. That is the
fashionable method with speakers nowadays.
_Zeus_. Ah, that is a royal road to eloquence—simplifies
matters very much for a man in difficulties.
_Herm_. Go ahead, then.
_Zeus_. Men of—Heaven, I presume that you would be willing to
pay a great price, if you could know what in the world has
occasioned the present summons. Which being so, it is fitting that
you should give a ready hearing to my words. Now, whereas the
present crisis, Heavenians, may almost be said to lift up a voice
and bid us take vigorous hold on opportunity, it seems to me that
we are letting it slip from our nerveless grasp. And I wish now (I
can’t remember any more) to exhibit clearly to you the apprehensions
which have led to my summoning you.
As you are all aware, Mnesitheus the ship’s-captain yesterday made
his votive offering for the narrow escape of his vessel off
Caphereus, and those of us whom he had invited attended the banquet
in Piraeus. After the libations you went your several ways. I
myself, as it was not very late, walked up to town for an afternoon
stroll in Ceramicus, reflecting as I went on the parsimony of
Mnesitheus. When the ship was driving against the cliff, and
already inside the circle of reef, he had vowed whole hecatombs:
what he offered in fact, with sixteen Gods to entertain, was a
single cock—an old bird afflicted with catarrh—and half a dozen
grains of frankincense; these were all mildewed, so that they at
once fizzled out on the embers, hardly giving enough smoke to
tickle the olfactories. Engaged in these thoughts I reached the
Poecile, and there found a great crowd gathered; there were some
inside the Portico, a large number outside, and a few seated on the
benches vociferating as loud as they could. Guessing correctly that
these were philosophers of the militant variety, I had a mind to
stop and hear what they were saying. I was enveloped in a good
thick cloud, under cover of which I assumed their habit, lengthened
my beard, and so made a passable philosopher; then I elbowed my way
through the crowd and got in undetected. I found an accomplished
scoundrel and a pattern of human virtue at daggers drawn; they were
Damis the Epicurean and Timocles the Stoic. The latter was bathed
in perspiration, and his voice showed signs of wear, while Damis
goaded him on to further exertions with mocking laughter.
The bone of contention was ourselves. Damis—the reptile!—
maintained that we did not concern ourselves in thought or act with
human affairs, and practically denied our existence; that was what
it came to. And he found some support. Timocles was on our side,
and loyally, passionately, unshrinkingly did he champion the cause;
he extolled our Providence, and illustrated the orderly discerning
character of our influence and government. He too had his party;
but he was exhausted and quite husky; and the majority were
inclining to Damis. I saw how much was at stake, and ordered Night
to come on and break up the meeting. They accordingly dispersed,
agreeing to conclude the inquiry next day. I kept among the crowd
on its way home, heard its commendations of Damis, and found that
his views were far the more popular, though some still protested
against condemning Timocles out of hand, and preferred to see what
he would say for himself to-morrow.
You now know the occasion of this meeting—no light one, ye Gods,
if you reflect how entirely our dignity, our revenue, our honour,
depend on mankind. If they should accept as true either our
absolute non-existence or, short of that, our indifference to them,
farewell to our earthly sacrifices, attributes, honours; we shall
sit starving and ineffectual in Heaven; our beloved feasts and
assemblies, games and sacrifices, vigils and processions—all will
be no more. So mighty is the issue; believe me, it behoves us all
to search out salvation; and where lies salvation? In the victory
and acceptance of Timocles, in laughter that shall drown the voice
of Damis. For I doubt the unaided powers of Timocles, if our help
be not accorded him.
Hermes, make formal proclamation, and let the debate commence.
_Herm_. Hear, keep silence, clamour not. Of full and qualified
Gods, speak who will. Why, what means this? Doth none rise? Cower
ye confounded at these momentous tidings?
_Mo_.
Away, ye dull as earth, as water weak!
But _I_ could find plenty to say, Zeus, if free speech were
granted me.
_Zeus_. Speak, Momus, and fear not. You will use your freedom,
surely, for the common good.
_Mo_. Hear, then, ye Gods; for out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh. You must know, I foresaw all this
clearly—our difficulty—the growth of these agitators; it is
ourselves who are responsible for their impudence; I swear to you,
we need not blame Epicurus nor his friends and successors, for the
prevalence of these ideas. Why, what can one expect men to think,
when they see all life topsy-turvy—the good neglected, pining in
poverty, disease, and slavery, detestable scoundrels honoured,
rolling in wealth, and ordering their betters about, temple-robbers
undetected and unpunished, the innocent constantly crucified and
bastinadoed? With this evidence before them, it is only natural
they should conclude against our existence. All the more when they
hear the oracles saying that some one
The Halys crossed, o’erthrows a mighty realm,
but not specifying whether that realm is his own or his enemy’s;
or again
O sacred Salamis, thou shalt slay
Full many a mother’s son.
The Greeks were mothers’ sons as well as the Persians, I suppose.
Or again, when they hear the ballads about our loves, our wounds,
captivities, thraldoms, quarrels, and endless vicissitudes (mark
you, we claim all the while to be blissful and serene), are they
not justified in ridiculing and belittling us? And then we say it
is outrageous if a few people who are not quite fools expose the
absurdity and reject Providence; why, we ought to be glad enough
that a few still go on sacrificing to blunderers like us.
And at this point, Zeus—this meeting is private; the human element
is not represented among us (except by Heracles, Dionysus,
Ganymede, and Asclepius, and they are naturalized)—at this point,
answer me a question frankly: did your interest in mankind ever
carry you so far as to sift the good from the bad? The answer is in
the negative, I know. Very well, then; had not a Theseus, on his
way from Troezen to Athens, exterminated the malefactors as an
incidental amusement, Sciron and Pityocamptes and Cercyon and the
rest of them might have gone on battening on the slaughter of
travellers, for all you and your Providence would have done. Had
not an old-fashioned thoughtful Eurystheus, benevolently collecting
information of local troubles, sent this energetic enterprising
servant of his about, the mighty Zeus would never have given a
thought to the Hydra or the Stymphalian birds, the Thracian horses
and the drunken insolence of Centaurs.
If the truth must out, we sit here with a single eye to one thing—
does a man sacrifice and feed the altars fat? Everything else
drifts as it may. We get our deserts, and shall continue to get
them, when men open their eyes by degrees and find that sacrifices
and processions bring them no profit. Before long you will find we
are the laughing-stock of people like Epicurus, Metrodorus, Damis,
who will have mastered and muzzled our advocates. With whom does it
lie to check and remedy this state of things? Why, with you, who
have brought it on. As for Momus, what is dishonour to him? He was
never among the recipients of honour, while you were still
prosperous; your banquetings were too exclusive.
_Zeus_. He was ever a cross-grained censor; we need not mind
his maundering, Gods. We have it from the admirable Demosthenes:
imputations, blame, criticism, these are easy things; they tax no
one’s capacity: what calls for a statesman is the suggesting of a
better course; and that is what I rely upon the rest of you for;
let us do our best without his help.
_Pos_. As for me, I live ordinarily under water, as you know,
and follow an independent policy in the depths; that policy is to
save sailors, set ships on their way, and keep the winds quiet, as
best I may. However, I do take an interest in your politics too,
and my opinion is that this Damis should be got rid of before the
debate; the thunderbolt would do it, or some means could be found;
else he might win—you say he is a plausible fellow, Zeus. It would
teach them that there is a reckoning for telling such tales about
us, too.
_Zeus_. You must be jesting, Posidon; you cannot have forgotten
that we have no say in the matter? It is the Fates that spin a
man’s thread, whether he be destined to the thunderbolt or the
sword, to fever or consumption. If it had depended on me, do you
suppose I should have let those temple-robbers get off unblasted
from Pisa the other day?—two of my curls shorn off, weighing half
a dozen pounds apiece. Would _you_ have stood it, when that
fisherman from Oreus stole your trident at Geraestus? Moreover,
they will think we are sensitive and angry; they will suspect that
the reason why we get the man out of the way without waiting to see
him matched with Timocles is that we are afraid of his arguments;
they will say we are just securing judgement by default.
_Pos_. Dear, dear! I thought I had hit upon a good short cut
to our object.
_Zeus_. Nonsense, there is something fishy about it, Posidon;
and it is a dull notion too, to destroy your adversary beforehand;
he dies unvanquished, and leaves his argument behind him still
debatable and undecided.
_Pos_. Then the rest of you must think of something better, if
‘fishy’ is the best word you have for me.
_Apol_. If we beardless juniors were competent to address the
meeting, _I_ might perhaps have contributed usefully to the
discussion.