may be waived, and any one allowed his say; a pretty thing to split
hairs about legal competence at a supreme crisis! But _you_
are surely qualified by this time; your minority is prehistoric,
your name is on the Privy-Council roll, your senatorial rank dates
back almost to Cronus. Pray spare us these juvenile airs, and give
us your views freely; you need not be bashful about your smooth
chin; you have a father’s rights in Asclepius’s great bush of a
beard. Moreover, you never had a better opportunity of showing your
wisdom, if your philosophic _seances_ with the Muses on Helicon
have not been thrown away.
_Apol_. Why, it does not lie with you to give me leave, Momus;
Zeus must do that; and if he bids, I may find words that shall be
not all uncultured, but worthy of my Heliconian studies.
_Zeus_. Speak, son; thou hast my leave.
_Apol_. This Timocles is a good pious man, and an excellent
Stoic scholar; his learning has gained him a wide and paying
connexion among young men; in private lessons his manner is indeed
very convincing. But in public speaking he is timid, cannot produce
his voice, and has a provincial accent; the consequence is, he gets
laughed at in company, lacks fluency, stammers and loses his
thread—especially when he emphasizes these defects by an attempt
at flowers of speech. As far as intelligence goes, he is extremely
acute and subtle, so the Stoic experts say; but he spoils it all by
the feebleness of his oral explanations; he is confused and
unintelligible, deals in paradoxes, and when he is interrogated,
explains _ignotum per ignotius_; his audience does not grasp
his meaning, and therefore laughs at him. I think lucidity a most
important point; there is nothing one should be so careful about as
to be comprehensible.
_Mo_. You praise lucidity, Apollo; your theory is excellent,
though your practice does not quite conform; your oracles are
crooked and enigmatic, and generally rely upon a safe ambiguity; a
second prophet is required to say what they mean. But what is your
solution of the problem? How are we to cure Timocles of the
impediment in his speech?
_Apol_. If possible, we should provide him with an able
counsel (there are plenty such) to be inspired by him and give
adequate expression to his ideas.
_Mo_. Your sapience is beardless indeed—_in statu pupillari_, one
may say. A learned gathering: Timocles with counsel by his side to
interpret his ideas. Damis speaking _in propria persona_ with his
own tongue, his opponent employing a go-between into whose ears he
privately pours inspiration, and the go-between producing ornate
periods, without, I dare say, understanding what he is told—most
entertaining for the listeners! We shall get nothing out of that
device.
But, reverend sir, you claim the gift of prophecy, and it has
brought you in good pay—golden ingots on one occasion?—why not
seize this opportunity of exhibiting your art? You might tell us
which of the disputants will win; a prophet knows the future, of
course.
_Apol_. I have no tripod or incense here; no substitute for
the divining-well of Castaly.
_Mo_. Aha! you are caught! you will not come to the scratch.
_Zeus_. Speak, my son, in spite of all; give not this enemy
occasion to blaspheme; let him not flout thy powers with tripod and
water and frankincense, as though thine art were lost without them.
_Apol_. Father, it were better done at Delphi or at Colophon,
with all the customary instruments to hand. Yet, bare and
unprovided as I am, I will essay to tell whether of them twain
shall prevail.—If the metre is a little rough, you must make
allowances.
_Mo_. Go on, then; but remember, Apollo: lucidity; no ‘able
counsel,’ no solutions that want solving themselves. It is not a
question of lamb and tortoise boiling [Footnote: See _Croesus_
in Notes.] in Lydia now; you know what we want to get at.
_Zeus_. What will thine utterance be? How dread, even now, is
the making ready! The altered hue, the rolling eyes, the floating
locks, the frenzied gesture—all is possession, horror, mystery.
_Apol_.
Who lists may hear Apollo’s soothfast rede
Of stiff debate, heroic challenge ringing
Shrill, and each headpiece lined with fence of proof.
Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife;
Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak.
But when grasshopper feels the vulture’s talons,
Then the storm-boding ravens croak their last,
Prevail the mules, butts his swift foals the ass.
_Zeus_. Why that ribald laughter, Momus? It is no laughing
matter. Stop, stop, fool; you’ll choke yourself.
_Mo_. Well, such a clear simple oracle puts one in spirits.
_Zeus_. Indeed? Then perhaps you will kindly expound it.
_Mo_. No need of a Themistocles this time; it is absolutely
plain. The oracle just says in so many words that he is a quack,
and we pack-asses (quite true) and mules to believe in him; we have
not as much sense, it adds, as a grasshopper.
_Herac_. Father, I am only an alien, but I am not afraid to
give my opinion. Let them begin their debate. Then, if Timocles
gets the best of it, we can let the meeting go on, in our own
interest; on the other hand, if things look bad, I will give the
Portico a shake, if you like, and bring it down on Damis; a
confounded fellow like that is not to insult us.
_Zeus_. Now by Heracles—I can swear by you, I certainly
cannot swear by your plan—what a crude—what a shockingly
philistine suggestion! What! destroy all those people for one man’s
wickedness? and the Portico thrown in, with the Miltiades and
Cynaegirus on the field of Marathon? Why, if these were ruined, how
could the orators ever make another speech, with the best of their
stock-in-trade taken from them? Besides, while you were alive, you
might possibly have done a thing like that; but now that you are a
God, you surely understand that only the Fates are competent, and
we cannot interfere?
_Herac_. Then when I slew the lion or the Hydra, was I only
the Fates’ instrument?
_Zeus_. Of course you were.
_Herac_. And now, suppose any one insults me, or robs my
temple, or upsets an image of me, am I not to pulverize him, just
because the Fates have not decreed it long ago?
_Zeus_. Certainly not.
_Herac_. Then allow me to speak my mind;
I’m a blunt man; I call a spade a spade.
If this is the state of things with you, good-bye for me to your
honours and altar-steam and fat of victims; I shall be off to
Hades. There, if I show my bow ready for action, the ghosts of the
monsters I have slain will be frightened, at least.
_Zeus_. Oh, splendid! ‘Thine own lips testify against thee,’
says the book; you would have saved Damis some trouble by putting
this in his mouth.
But who is this breathless messenger? Bronze—a nice clean figure
and outline—_chevelure_ rather out of date. Ah, he must be
your brother, Hermes, who stands in the Market by the Poecile; I
see he is all over pitch; that is what comes of having casts taken
of you every day. My son, why this haste? Have you important news
from Earth?
_Hermag_. Momentous news, calling for infinite energy.
_Zeus_. Speak, tarry not, if any peril else hath escaped our
vigilance.
_Hermag_.
It chanced of late that by the statuaries
My breast and back were plastered o’er with pitch;
A mock cuirass tight-clinging hung, to ape
My bronze, and take the seal of its impression.
When lo, a crowd! therein a pallid pair
Sparring amain, vociferating logic;
’Twas Damis and—
_Zeus_. Truce to your iambics, my excellent Hermagoras; I know
the pair. But tell me whether the fight has been going on long.
_Hermag_. Not yet; they were still skirmishing—slinging
invective at long range.
_Zeus_. Then we have only, Gods, to look over and listen. Let
the Hours unbar, draw back the clouds, and open the doors of
Heaven.
Upon my word, what a vast gathering! And I do not quite like the
looks of Timocles; he is trembling; he has lost his head; he will
spoil everything; it is perfectly plain, he will not be able to
stand up to Damis. Well, there is one thing left us: we can pray
for him
Inwardly, silently, lest Damis hear.
_Ti. What, you miscreant, no Gods? no Providence?
Da. No, no; you answer my question first; what makes you believe in
them?
Ti. None of that, now; the_ onus probandi _is with you,
scoundrel.
Da. None of that, now; it is with you.
Zeus_. At this game ours is much the better man—louder-voiced,
rougher-tempered. Good, Timocles; stick to invective; that is your
strong point; once you get off that, he will hook and hold you up
like a fish.
_Ti. I solemnly swear I will not answer first.
Da. Well, put your questions, then; so much you score by your oath.
But no abuse, please.
Ti. Done. Tell me, then, and be damned to you, do you deny that the
Gods exercise providence?
Da. I do.
Ti. What, are all the events we see uncontrolled, then?
Da. Yes.
Ti. And the regulation of the universe is not under any God’s care?
Da. No.
Ti. And everything moves casually, by blind tendency?
Da. Yes.
Ti. Gentlemen, can you tolerate such sentiments? Stone the
blasphemer.
Da. What do you mean by hounding them against me? Who are you, that
you should protest in the Gods’ name? They do not even protest in
their own; they have sent no judgement on me, and they have had
time enough to hear me, if they have ears.
Ti. They do hear you; they do; and some day their vengeance will
find you out.
Da. Pray when are they likely to have time to spare for me? They
are far too busy, according to you, with all the infinite concerns
of the universe on their hands. That is why they have never
punished you for your perjuries and—well, for the rest of your
performances, let me say, not to break our compact about abuse. And
yet I am at a loss to conceive any more convincing proof they could
have given of their Providence, than if they had trounced you as
you deserve. But no doubt they are from home—t’other side of
Oceanus, possibly, on a visit to ‘the blameless Ethiopians.’ We
know they have a way of going there to dinner, self-invited
sometimes.
Ti. What answer is possible to such ribaldry?
Da. The answer I have been waiting for all this time; you can tell
me what made you believe in divine Providence.
Ti. Firstly, the order of nature—the sun running his regular
course, the moon the same, the circling seasons, the growth of
plants, the generation of living things, the ingenious adaptations
in these latter for nutrition, thought, movement, locomotion; look
at a carpenter or a shoemaker, for instance; and the thing is
infinite. All these effects, and no effecting Providence?
Da. You beg the question; whether the effects are produced by
Providence is just what is not yet proved. Your description of
nature I accept; it does not follow that there is definite design
in it; it is not impossible that things now similar and homogeneous
have developed from widely different origins. But you give the name
‘order’ to mere blind tendency. And you will be very angry if one
follows your appreciative catalogue of nature in all its variety,
but stops short of accepting it as a proof of detailed Providence.
So, as the play says,
Here lurks a fallacy; bring me sounder proof.
Ti. I cannot admit that further proof is required; nevertheless, I
will give you one. Will you allow Homer to have been an admirable
poet?
Da. Surely.
Ti. Well_, he _maintains Providence, and warrants my belief.
Da. Magnificent! why, every one will grant you Homer’s poetic
excellence; but not that he, or any other poet for that matter, is
good authority on questions of this sort._ Their _object, of
course, is not truth, but fascination; they call in the charms of
metre, they take tales for the vehicle of what instruction they
give, and in short all their efforts are directed to pleasure.
But I should be glad to hear which parts of Homer you pin your
faith to. Where he tells how the daughter, the brother, and the
wife of Zeus conspired to imprison him? If Thetis had not been
moved to compassion and called Briareus, you remember, our
excellent Zeus would have been seized and manacled; and his
gratitude to her induced him to delude Agamemnon with a lying
dream, and bring about the deaths of a number of Greeks. Do you
see? The reason was that, if he had struck and blasted Agamemnon’s
self with a thunderbolt, his double dealing would have come to
light. Or perhaps you found the Diomede story most convincing?—
Diomede wounded Aphrodite, and afterwards Ares himself, at Athene’s
instigation; and then the Gods actually fell to blows and went
a-tilting—without distinction of sex; Athene overthrew Ares,
exhausted no doubt with his previous wound from Diomede; and
Hermes the stark and stanch ’gainst Leto stood.
Or did you put your trust in Artemis? She was a sensitive lady, who
resented not being invited to Oeneus’s banquet, and by way of
vengeance sent a monstrous irresistible boar to ravage his country.
Is it with tales like these that Homer has prevailed on you?
Zeus_. Goodness me, what a shout, Gods! they are all cheering
Damis. And our man seems posed; he is frightened and trembles; he
is going to throw up the sponge, I am certain of it; he looks round
for a gap to get away through.
_Ti. And will you scout Euripides too, then? Again and again he
brings Gods on the stage, and shows them upholding virtue in the
Heroes, but chastising wickedness and impiety (like yours).
Da. My noble philosopher, if that is how the tragedians have
convinced you, you have only two alternatives: you must suppose
that divinity is temporarily lodged either in the actor—a Polus,
an Aristodemus, a Satyrus—, or else in the actual masks, buskins,
long tunics, cloaks, gloves, stomachers, padding, and ornamental
paraphernalia in general of tragedy—a manifest absurdity; for when
Euripides can speak his own sentiments unfettered by dramatic
necessity, observe the freedom of his remarks:
Dost see this aether stretching infinite,
And girdling earth with close yet soft embrace?
That reckon thou thy Zeus, that name thy God.
And again,
Zeus, whatever Zeus may be (for, save by hearsay,
I know not)—;
and there is more of the same sort.
Ti. Well, but all men—ay, all nations—have acknowledged and,
feted Gods; was it all delusion?
Da. Thank you; a timely reminder; national observances show better
than anything else how vague religious theory is. Confusion is
endless, and beliefs as many as believers. Scythia makes offerings
to a scimetar, Thrace to the Samian runaway Zamolxis, Phrygia to a
Month-God, Ethiopia to a Day-Goddess, Cyllene to Phales, Assyria to
a dove, Persia to fire, Egypt to water. In Egypt, though, besides
the universal worship of water, Memphis has a private cult of the
ox, Pelusium of the onion, other cities of the ibis or the
crocodile, others again of baboon, cat, or monkey. Nay, the very
villages have their specialities: one deifies the right shoulder,
and another across the river the left; one a half skull, another an
earthenware bowl or platter. Come, my fine fellow, is it not all
ridiculous?
Mo_. What did I tell you, Gods? All this was sure to come out
and be carefully overhauled.
_Zeus_. You did, Momus, and your strictures were justified; if
once we come safe out of this present peril, I will try to
introduce reforms.
_Ti. Infidel! where do you find the source of oracles and
prophecies, if not in the Gods and their Providence?
Da. About oracles, friend, the less said the better; I shall ask
you to choose your instances, you see. Will Apollo’s answer to the
Lydian suit you? That was as symmetrical as a double-edged knife;
or say, it faced both ways, like those Hermae which are made
double, alike whether you look at front or back. Consider; will
Croesus’s passage of the Halys destroy his own realm, or Cyrus’s?
Tet the wretched Sardian paid a long price for his ambidextrous
hexameter.
Mo_. The man is realizing just my worst apprehensions. Where is
our handsome musician now? Ah, there you are; go down and plead
your own cause against him.
_Zeus_. Hush, Momus; you are murdering our feelings; it is no
time for recrimination.
_Ti. Have a care, Damis; this is sacrilege, no less; what you say
amounts to razing the temples and upsetting the altars.
Da. Oh, not_ all _the altars; what harm do they do, so long as
incense and perfume is the worst of it? As for Artemis’s altar at
Tauri, though, and her hideous feasts, I should like it overturned
from base to cornice.
Zeus_. Whence comes this resistless plague among us? There is
none of us he spares; he is as free with his tongue as a tub
orator,
And grips by turns the innocent and guilty.
_Mo_. The innocent? You will not find many of those among us,
Zeus. He will soon come to laying hands upon some of the great and
eminent, I dare say.
_Ti. Do you close your ears even to Zeus’s thunder, atheist?
Da. I clearly cannot shut out the thunder; whether it is Zeus’s
thunder, you know better than I perhaps; you may have interviewed
the Gods. Travellers from Crete tell another story: there is a tomb
there with an inscribed pillar, stating that Zeus is long dead, and
not going to thunder any more.
Mo_. I could have told you that was coming long ago. What, Zeus?
pale? and your teeth chattering? What is the matter? You should
cheer up, and treat such manikins with lofty contempt.
_Zeus_. Contempt? See what a number of them there is—how set
against us they are already—and he has them fast by the ears.
_Mo_. Well, but you have only to choose, and you can let down
your golden cord, and then every man of them
With earth and sky and all thou canst draw up.
_Ti. Blasphemer, have you ever been a voyage?
Da. Many.
Ti. Well, then, the wind struck the canvas and filled the sails,
and it or the oars gave you way, but there was a person responsible
for steering and for the safety of the ship?
Da. Certainly.
Ti. Now that ship would not have sailed, without a steersman; and
do you suppose that this great universe drifts unsteered and
uncontrolled?
Zeus_. Good, this time, Timocles; a cogent illustration, that.
_Da. But, you pattern of piety, the earthly navigator makes his
plans, takes his measures, gives his orders, with a single eye to
efficiency; there is nothing useless or purposeless on board;
everything is to make navigation easy or possible; but as for the
navigator for whom you claim the management of this vast ship, he
and his crew show no reason or appropriateness in any of their
arrangements; the forestays, as likely as not, are made fast to the
stern, and both sheets to the bows; the anchor will be gold, the
beak lead, decoration below the water-line, and unsightliness
above.
As for the men, you will find some lazy awkward coward in second or
third command, or a fine swimmer, active as a cat aloft, and a
handy man generally, chosen out of all the rest to—pump. It is
just the same with the passengers: here is a gaolbird accommodated
with a seat next the captain and treated with reverence, there a
debauchee or parricide or temple-robber in honourable possession of
the best place, while crowds of respectable people are packed
together in a corner and hustled by their real inferiors. Consider
what sort of a voyage Socrates and Aristides and Phocion had of it,
on short rations, not venturing, for the filth, to stretch out
their legs on the bare deck; and on the other hand what a
comfortable, luxurious, contemptuous life it was for Callias or
Midias or Sardanapalus.
That is how things go on board your ship, sir wiseacre; and who
shall count the wrecks? If there had been a captain supervising and
directing, in the first place he would have known the difference
between good and bad passengers, and in the second he would have
given them their deserts; the better would have had the better
accommodation above by his side, and the worse gone below; with
some of the better he would have shared his meals and his counsels.
So too for the crew: the keen sailor would have been made look-out
man or captain of the watch, or given some sort of precedence, and
the lazy shirker have tasted the rope’s end half a dozen times a
day. The metaphorical ship, your worship, is likely to be capsized
by its captain’s incompetence.
Mo_. He is sweeping on to victory, with wind and tide.
_Zeus_. Too probable, Momus. And Timocles never gets hold of
an effective idea; he can only ladle out trite commonplaces
higgledy-piggledy—no sooner heard than refuted.
_Ti. Well, well; my ship leaves you unconvinced; I must drop my
sheet-anchor, then; that at least is unbreakable.
Zeus_. I wonder what it is.
_Ti. See whether this is a sound syllogism; can you upset it?—If
there are altars, there are Gods: there_ are _altars; therefore,
there are Gods. Now then.
Da. Ha, ha, ha! I will answer as soon as I can get done with
laughing.
Ti. Will you never stop? At least tell me what the joke is.
Da. Why, you don’t see that your anchor (sheet-anchor, too) hangs
by a mere thread. You defend on connexion between the existence of
Gods and the existence of altars, and fancy yourself safe at
anchor! As you admit that this was your sheet-anchor, there is
nothing further to detain us.
Ti. You retire; you confess yourself beaten, then?
Da. Yes; we have seen you take sanctuary at the altars under
persecution. At those altars I am ready (the sheet-anchor be my
witness) to swear peace and cease from strife.
Ti. Tou are playing with me, are you, you vile body-snatcher, you
loathsome well-whipped scum! As if we didn’t know who your father
was, how your mother was a harlot! You strangled your own brother,
you live in fornication, you debauch the young, you unabashed
lecher! Don’t be in such a hurry; here is something for you to take
with you; this broken pot will serve me to cut your foul throat.
Zeus_. Damis makes off with a laugh, and the other after him,
calling him names, mad at his insolence. He will get him on the
head with that pottery, I know. And now, what are we to do?
_Herm_. Why, the man in the comedy was not far out:
Put a good face on ‘t, and thou hast no harm.
It is no such terrible disaster, if a few people go away infected.
There are plenty who take the other view—a majority of Greeks, the
body and dregs of the people, and the barbarians to a man.
_Zeus_. Ah, Hermes, but there is a great deal in Darius’s
remark about Zopyrus—I would rather have had one ally like Damis
than be the lord of a thousand Babylons.
THE COCK
_Micyllus_. _A Cock_
_Mi_. Detested bird! May Zeus crunch your every bone! Shrill,
envious brute: to wake me from delightful dreams of wealth and
magic blessedness with those piercing, deafening notes! Am I not
even in sleep to find a refuge from Poverty, Poverty more vile than
your vile self? Why, it cannot be midnight yet: all is hushed;
numbness—sure messenger of approaching dawn—has not yet performed
its morning office upon my limbs: and this wakeful brute (one would
think he was guarding the golden fleece) starts crowing before
night has fairly begun. But he shall pay for it.—Yes; only wait
till daylight comes, and my stick shall avenge me; I am not going
to flounder about after you in the dark.
_Cock_. Why, master, I meant to give you a pleasant surprise:
I borrowed what I could from the night, that you might be up early
and break the back of your work; think, if you get a shoe done
before sunrise, you are so much the nearer to earning your day’s
bread. However, if you prefer to sleep, I have done; I will be mute
as any fish. Only you may find your rich dreams followed by a
hungry awakening.
_Mi_. God of portents! Heracles preserve us from the evil to
come! My cock has spoken with a human voice.
_Cock_. And what if he has? Is that so very portentous?
_Mi_. I should think it was. All Gods avert the omen!