particular? I had made out the Earth, you see, but could not
distinguish any details; the distance was so great, quite beyond
the scope of my vision; so I was much chagrined and baffled. At
this moment of depression—I was very near tears—who should come
up behind me but Empedocles the physicist? His complexion was like
charcoal variegated with ashes, as if he had been baked. I will not
deny that I felt some tremors at the sight of him, taking him for
some lunar spirit. But he said: ‘Do not be afraid, Menippus;
A mortal I, no God; how vain thy dreams.
I am Empedocles the physicist. When I threw myself into the crater
in such a hurry, the smoke of Etna whirled me off up here; and now
I live in the Moon, doing a good deal of high thinking on a diet of
dew. So I have come to help you out of your difficulty; you are
distressed, I take it, at not being able to see everything on the
Earth.’ ‘Thank you so much, you good Empedocles,’ I said; ‘as soon
as my wings have brought me back to Greece, I will remember to pour
libations to you up the chimney, and salute you on the first of
every month with three moonward yawns.’ ‘Endymion be my witness,’
he replied, ‘I had no thought of such a bargain; I was touched by
the sight of your distress. Now, what do you think is the way to
sharpen your sight?’
‘I have no idea, unless you were to remove the mist from my eyes
for me; the sight seems quite bleared.’ ‘Oh, you can do without me;
the thing that gives sharp sight you have brought with you from
Earth.’ ‘Unconsciously, then; what is it?’ ‘Why, you know that you
have on an eagle’s right wing?’ ‘Of course I do; but what have
wings and eyes to do with one another?’ ‘Only this,’ he said; ‘the
eagle is far the strongest-eyed of all living things, the only one
that can look straight at the sun; the test of the true royal eagle
is, his meeting its rays without blinking.’ ‘So I have heard; I
wish I had taken out my own eyes when I was starting, and
substituted the eagle’s. I am an imperfect specimen now I am here,
not up to the royal standard at all, but like the rejected
bastards.’ ‘Well, you can very soon acquire one royal eye. If you
will stand up for a minute, keep the vulture wing still, and work
the other, your right eye, corresponding to that wing, will gain
strength. As for the other, its dimness cannot possibly be
obviated, as it belongs to the inferior member.’ ‘Oh, I shall be
quite content with aquiline vision for the right eye only,’ I said;
‘I have often observed that carpenters in ruling their wood find
one better than two.’ So saying, I proceeded to carry out my
instructions at once. Empedocles began gradually to disappear, and
at last vanished in smoke.
I had no sooner flapped the wing than a flood of light enveloped
me, and things that before I had not even been aware of became
perfectly clear. I turned my eyes down earthwards, and with ease
discerned cities, men, and all that was going on, not merely in the
open, but in the fancied security of houses. There was Ptolemy in
his sister’s arms, the son of Lysimachus plotting against his
father, Seleucus’s son Antiochus making signs to his step-mother
Stratonice, Alexander of Pherae being murdered by his wife,
Antigonus corrupting his daughter-in-law, the son of Attalus
putting the poison in his cup; Arsaces was in the act of slaying
his mistress, while the eunuch Arbaces drew his sword upon him; the
guards were dragging Spatinus the Mede out from the banquet by the
foot, with the lump on his brow from the golden cup. Similar sights
were to be seen in the palaces of Libya and Scythia and Thrace—
adulteries, murders, treasons, robberies, perjuries, suspicions,
and monstrous betrayals.
Such was the entertainment afforded me by royalty; private life was
much more amusing; for I could make that out too. I saw Hermodorus
the Epicurean perjuring himself for 40 pounds, Agathocles the Stoic
suing a pupil for his fees, lawyer Clinias stealing a bowl from the
temple of Asclepius, and Herophilus the cynic sleeping in a
brothel. Not to mention the multitude of burglars, litigants,
usurers, duns; oh, it was a fine representative show!
_Fr_. I must say, Menippus, I should have liked the details
here too; it all seems to have been very much to your taste.
_Me_. I could not go through the whole of it, even to please
you; to take it in with the eyes kept one busy. But the main
divisions were very much what Homer gives from the shield of
Achilles: here junketings and marriages, there courts and councils,
in another compartment a sacrifice, and hard by a mourning. If I
glanced at Getica, I would see the Getae at war; at Scythia, there
were the Scythians wandering about on their waggons; half a turn in
another direction gave me Egyptians at the plough, or Phoenicians
chaffering, Cilician pirates, Spartan flagellants, Athenians at
law.
All this was simultaneous, you understand; and you must try to
conceive what a queer jumble it all made. It was as if a man were
to collect a number of choristers, or rather of choruses,
[Footnote: The Greek chorus combined singing with dancing.] and
then tell each individual to disregard the others and start a
strain of his own; if each did his best, went his own way, and
tried to drown his neighbour, can you imagine what the musical
effect would be?
_Fr_. A very ridiculous confusion.
_Me_. Well, friend, such are the earthly dancers; the life of
man is just such a discordant performance; not only are the voices
jangled, but the steps are not uniform, the motions not concerted,
the objects not agreed upon—until the impresario dismisses them
one by one from the stage, with a ‘not wanted.’ Then they are all
alike, and quiet enough, confounding no longer their undisciplined
rival strains. But as long as the show lasts in its marvellous
diversity, there is plenty of food for laughter in its vagaries.
The people who most amused me, however, were those who dispute
about boundaries, or pride themselves on cultivating the plain of
Sicyon, or holding the Oenoe side of Marathon, or a thousand acres
at Acharnae. The whole of Greece, as I then saw it, might measure
some four inches; how much smaller Athens on the same scale. So I
realized what sort of sized basis for their pride remains to our
rich men. The widest-acred of them all, methought, was the proud
cultivator of an Epicurean atom. Then I looked at the Peloponnese,
my eyes fell on the Cynurian district, and the thought occurred
that it was for this little plot, no broader than an Egyptian
lentil, that all those Argives and Spartans fell in a single day.
Or if I saw a man puffed up by the possession of seven or eight
gold rings and half as many gold cups, again my lungs would begin
to crow; why, Pangaeus with all its mines was about the size of a
grain of millet.
_Fr_. You lucky man! what a rare sight you had! And how big,
now, did the towns and the people look from there?
_Me_. You must often have seen a community of ants, some of
them a seething mass, some going abroad, others coming back to
town. One is a scavenger, another a bustling porter loaded with a
bit of bean-pod or half a wheat grain. They no doubt have, on their
modest myrmecic scale, their architects and politicians, their
magistrates and composers and philosophers. At any rate, what men
and cities suggested to me was just so many ant-hills. If you think
the similitude too disparaging, look into the Thessalian legends,
and you will find that the most warlike tribe there was the
Myrmidons, or ants turned men. Well, when I had had enough of
contemplation and laughter, I roused myself and soared
To join the Gods, where dwells the Lord of storms.
I had only flown a couple of hundred yards, when Selene’s feminine
voice reached me: ‘Menippus, do me an errand to Zeus, and I will
wish you a pleasant journey.’ ‘You have only to name it,’ I said,
‘provided it is not something to carry.’ ‘It is a simple message of
entreaty to Zeus. I am tired to death, you must know, of being
slandered by these philosophers; they have no better occupation
than impertinent curiosity about me—What am I? how big am I? why
am I halved? why am I gibbous? I am inhabited; I am just a mirror
hung over the sea; I am—whatever their latest fancy suggests. It
is the last straw when they say my light is stolen, sham, imported
from the sun, and keep on doing their best to get up jealousy and
ill feeling between brother and sister. They might have been
contented with making _him_ out a stone or a red-hot lump.
‘These gentry who in the day look so stern and manly, dress so
gravely, and are so revered by common men, would be surprised to
learn how much I know of their vile nightly abominations. I see
them all, though I never tell; it would be too indecent to make
revelations, and show up the contrast between their nightly doings
and their public performances; so, if I catch one of them in
adultery or theft or other nocturnal adventure, I pull my cloud
veil over me; I do not want the vulgar to see old men disgracing
their long beards and their virtuous calling. But they go on giving
tongue and worrying me all the same, and, so help me Night, I have
thought many a time of going a long, long way off, out of reach of
their impertinent tongues. Will you remember to tell Zeus all this?
and you may add that I cannot remain at my post unless he will
pulverize the physicists, muzzle the logicians, raze the Porch,
burn the Academy, and put an end to strolling in the Lyceum. That
might secure me a little peace from these daily mensurations.’
‘I will remember,’ said I, and resumed my upward flight to Heaven,
through
A region where nor ox nor man had wrought.
For the Moon was soon but a small object, with the Earth entirely
hidden behind it. Three days’ flight through the stars, with the
Sun on my right hand, brought me close to Heaven; and my first idea
was to go straight in as I was; I should easily pass unobserved in
virtue of my half-eagleship; for of course the eagle was Zeus’s
familiar; on second thoughts, though, my vulture wing would very
soon betray me. So, thinking it better not to run any risks, I went
up to the door and knocked. Hermes opened, took my name, and
hurried off to inform Zeus. After a brief wait I was asked to step
in; I was now trembling with apprehension, and I found that the
Gods, who were all seated together, were not quite easy themselves.
The unexpected nature of the visit was slightly disturbing to them,
and they had visions of all mankind arriving at my heels by the
same conveyance.
But Zeus bent upon me a Titanic glance, awful, penetrating, and
spoke:
Who art thou? where thy city? who thy kin?
At the sound, I nearly died of fear, but remained upright, though
mute and paralysed by that thunderous voice. I gradually recovered,
began at the beginning, and gave a clear account of myself—how I
had been possessed with curiosity about the heavens, had gone to
the philosophers, found their accounts conflicting, and grown tired
of being logically rent in twain; so I came to my great idea, my
wings, and ultimately to Heaven; I added Selene’s message. Zeus
smiled and slightly unbent his brow. ‘What of Otus and Ephialtes
now?’ he said; ‘here is Menippus scaling Heaven! Well, well, for
to-day consider yourself our guest. To-morrow we will treat with
you of your business, and send you on your way.’ And therewith he
rose and walked to the acoustic centre of Heaven, it being prayer
time.
As he went, he put questions to me about earthly affairs, beginning
with, What was wheat a quarter in Greece? had we suffered much from
cold last winter? and did the vegetables want more rain? Then he
wished to know whether any of Phidias’s kin were alive, why there
had been no Diasia at Athens all these years, whether his Olympieum
was ever going to be completed, and had the robbers of his temple
at Dodona been caught? I answered all these questions, and he
proceeded:—‘Tell me, Menippus, what are men’s feelings towards
me?’ ‘What should they be, Lord, but those of absolute reverence,
as to the King of all Gods?’ ‘Now, now, chaffing as usual,’ he
said; ‘I know their fickleness very well, for all your dissimulation.
There was a time when I was their prophet, their healer, and their
all,
And Zeus filled every street and gathering-place.
In those days Dodona and Pisa were glorious and far-famed, and I
could not get a view for the clouds of sacrificial steam. But now
Apollo has set up his oracle at Delphi, Asclepius his temple of
health at Pergamum, Bendis and Anubis and Artemis their shrines in
Thrace, Egypt, Ephesus; and to these all run; theirs the festal
gatherings and the hecatombs. As for me, I am superannuated; they
think themselves very generous if they offer me a victim at Olympia
at four-year intervals. My altars are cold as Plato’s _Laws_
or Chrysippus’s _Syllogisms_.’
So talking, we reached the spot where he was to sit and listen to
the prayers. There was a row of openings with lids like well-
covers, and a chair of gold by each. Zeus took his seat at the
first, lifted off the lid and inclined his ear. From every quarter
of Earth were coming the most various and contradictory petitions;
for I too bent down my head and listened. Here are specimens. ‘O
Zeus, that I might be king!’ ‘O Zeus, that my onions and garlic
might thrive!’ ‘Ye Gods, a speedy death for my father!’ Or again,
‘Would that I might succeed to my wife’s property!’ ‘Grant that my
plot against my brother be not detected.’ ‘Let me win my suit.’
‘Give me an Olympic garland.’ Of those at sea, one prayed for a
north, another for a south wind; the farmer asked for rain, the
fuller for sun. Zeus listened, and gave each prayer careful
consideration, but without promising to grant them all;
Our Father this bestowed, and that withheld.
Righteous prayers he allowed to come up through the hole, received
and laid them down at his right, while he sent the unholy ones
packing with a downward puff of breath, that Heaven might not be
defiled by their entrance. In one case I saw him puzzled; two men
praying for opposite things and promising the same sacrifices, he
could not tell which of them to favour, and experienced a truly
Academic suspense of judgement, showing a reserve and equilibrium
worthy of Pyrrho himself.
The prayers disposed of, he went on to the next chair and opening,
and attended to oaths and their takers. These done with, and
Hermodorus the Epicurean annihilated, he proceeded to the next
chair to deal with omens, prophetic voices, and auguries. Then came
the turn of the sacrifice aperture, through which the smoke came up
and communicated to Zeus the name of the devotee it represented.
After that, he was free to give his wind and weather orders:—Rain
for Scythia to-day, a thunderstorm for Libya, snow for Greece. The
north wind he instructed to blow in Lydia, the west to raise a
storm in the Adriatic, the south to take a rest; a thousand bushels
of hail to be distributed over Cappadocia.
His work was now pretty well completed, and as it was just dinner
time, we went to the banquet hall. Hermes received me, and gave me
my place next to a group of Gods whose alien origin left them in a
rather doubtful position—Pan, the Corybants, Attis, and Sabazius.
I was supplied with bread by Demeter, wine by Dionysus, meat by
Heracles, myrtle-blossoms by Aphrodite, and sprats by Posidon. But
I also got a sly taste of ambrosia and nectar; good-natured
Ganymede, as often as he saw that Zeus’s attention was engaged
elsewhere, brought round the nectar and indulged me with a half-
pint or so. The Gods, as Homer (who I think must have had the same
opportunities of observation as myself) somewhere says, neither eat
bread nor drink the ruddy wine; they heap their plates with
ambrosia, and are nectar-bibbers; but their choicest dainties are
the smoke of sacrifice ascending with rich fumes, and the blood of
victims poured by their worshippers round the altars. During
dinner, Apollo harped, Silenus danced his wild measures, the Muses
uprose and sang to us from Hesiod’s _Birth of Gods_, and the
first of Pindar’s odes. When we had our fill and had well drunken,
we slumbered, each where he was.
Slept all the Gods, and men with plumed helms,
That livelong night; but me kind sleep forsook;
for I had much upon my mind; most of all, how came it that Apollo,
in all that time, had never grown a beard? and how was night
possible in Heaven, with the sun always there taking his share of
the good cheer? So I had but a short nap of it. And in the morning
Zeus arose, and bade summon an assembly.
When all were gathered, he thus commenced:—‘The immediate occasion
of my summoning you is the arrival of this stranger yesterday. But
I have long intended to take counsel with you regarding the
philosophers, and now, urged by Selene and her complaints, I have
determined to defer the consideration of the question no longer.
There is a class which has recently become conspicuous among men;
they are idle, quarrelsome, vain, irritable, lickerish, silly,
puffed up, arrogant, and, in Homeric phrase, vain cumberers of the
earth. These men have divided themselves into bands, each dwelling
in a separate word-maze of its own construction, and call
themselves Stoics, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and more farcical
names yet. Then they take to themselves the holy name of Virtue,
and with uplifted brows and flowing beards exhibit the deceitful
semblance that hides immoral lives; their model is the tragic
actor, from whom if you strip off the mask and the gold-spangled
robe, there is nothing left but a paltry fellow hired for a few
shillings to play a part.
‘Nevertheless, quite undeterred by their own characters, they scorn
the human and travesty the divine; they gather a company of
guileless youths, and feed them with solemn chatter upon Virtue and
quibbling verbal puzzles; in their pupils’ presence they are all
for fortitude and temperance, and have no words bad enough for
wealth and pleasure: when they are by themselves, there is no limit
to their gluttony, their lechery, their licking of dirty pence. But
the head and front of their offending is this: they neither work
themselves nor help others’ work; they are useless drones,
Of no avail in council nor in war;
which notwithstanding, they censure others; they store up poisoned
words, they con invectives, they heap their neighbours with
reproaches; their highest honours are for him who shall be loudest
and most overbearing and boldest in abuse.
‘Ask one of these brawling bawling censors, And what do _you_
do? in God’s name, what shall we call _your_ contribution to
progress? and he would reply, if conscience and truth were anything
to him: I consider it superfluous to sail the sea or till the earth
or fight for my country or follow a trade; but I have a loud voice
and a dirty body; I eschew warm water and go barefoot through the
winter; I am a Momus who can always pick holes in other people’s
coats; if a rich man keeps a costly table or a mistress, I make it
my business to be properly horrified; but if my familiar friend is
lying sick, in need of help and care, I am not aware of it. Such,
your Godheads, is the nature of this vermin.
‘There is a special insolence in those who call themselves
Epicureans; these go so far as to lay their hands on our character;
we take no interest in human affairs, they say, and in fact have
nothing to do with the course of events. And this is a serious
question for you; if once they infect their generation with this
view, you will learn what hunger means. Who will sacrifice to you,
if he does not expect to profit by it? As to Selene’s complaints,
you all heard them yesterday from this stranger’s lips. And now
decide upon such measures as shall advantage mankind and secure
your own safety.’
Zeus had no sooner closed his speech than clamour prevailed, all
crying at once: Blast! burn! annihilate! to the pit with them! to
Tartarus! to the Giants! Zeus ordered silence again, and then,
‘Your wishes,’ he said, ‘shall be executed; they shall all be
annihilated, and their logic with them. But just at present
chastisement is not lawful; you are aware that we are now in the
four months of the long vacation; the formal notice has lately been
issued. In the spring of next year, the baleful levin-bolt shall
give them the fate they deserve.’
He spake, and sealed his word with lowering brows.
‘As to Menippus,’ he added, ‘my pleasure is this. He shall be
deprived of his wings, and so incapacitated for repeating his
visit, but shall to-day be conveyed back to Earth by Hermes.’ So
saying, he dismissed the assembly. The Cyllenian accordingly lifted
me up by the right ear, and yesterday evening deposited me in the
Ceramicus. And now, friend, you have all the latest from Heaven. I
must be off to the Poecile, to let the philosophers loitering there
know the luck they are in.
THE DOUBLE INDICTMENT
_Zeus. Hermes. Justice. Pan. Several Athenians. The Academy. The
Porch. Epicurus. Virtue. Luxury. Diogenes. Rhetoric. A Syrian.
Dialogue_