implicitly taking as their text-book the fictions of Homer and
Hesiod and other poets, assume the existence of a deep subterranean
hole called Hades; spacious, murky, and sunless, but by some
mysterious means sufficiently lighted to render all its details
visible. Its king is a brother of Zeus, one Pluto; whose name—so
an able philologer assures me—contains a complimentary allusion to
his ghostly wealth. As to the nature of his government, and the
condition of his subjects, the authority allotted to him extends
over all the dead, who, from the moment that they come under his
control, are kept in unbreakable fetters; Shades are on no account
permitted to return to Earth; to this rule there have been only two
or three exceptions since the beginning of the world, and these
were made for very urgent reasons. His realm is encompassed by vast
rivers, whose very names inspire awe: Cocytus, Pyriphlegethon, and
the like. Most formidable of all, and first to arrest the progress
of the new-comer, is Acheron, that lake which none may pass save by
the ferryman’s boat; it is too deep to be waded, too broad for the
swimmer, and even defies the flight of birds deceased. At the very
beginning of the descent is a gate of adamant: here Aeacus, a
nephew of the king, stands on guard. By his side is a three-headed
dog, a grim brute; to new arrivals, however, he is friendly enough,
reserving his bark, and the yawning horror of his jaws, for the
would-be runaway. On the inner shore of the lake is a meadow,
wherein grows asphodel; here, too, is the fountain that makes war
on memory, and is hence called Lethe. All these particulars the
ancients would doubtless obtain from the Thessalian queen Alcestis
and her fellow-countryman Protesilaus, from Theseus the son of
Aegeus, and from the hero of the Odyssey. These witnesses (whose
evidence is entitled to our most respectful acceptance) did not, as
I gather, drink of the waters of Lethe; because then they would not
have remembered. According to them, the supreme power is entirely
in the hands of Pluto and Persephone, who, however, are assisted in
the labours of government by a host of underlings: such are the
Furies, the Pains, the Fears; such too is Hermes, though he is not
always in attendance. Judicial powers are vested in two satraps or
viceroys, Minos and Rhadamanthus, both Cretans, and both sons of
Zeus. By them all good and just men who have followed the precepts
of virtue are sent off in large detachments to form colonies, as it
were, in the Elysian Plain, and there to lead the perfect life.
Evil-doers, on the contrary, are handed over to the Furies, who
conduct them to the place of the wicked, where they are punished in
due proportion to their iniquities. What a variety of torments is
there presented! The rack, the fire, the gnawing vulture; here
Ixion spins upon his wheel, there Sisyphus rolls his stone. I have
not forgotten Tantalus; but he stands elsewhere, stands parched on
the Lake’s very brink, like to die of thirst, poor wretch! Then
there is the numerous class of neutral characters; these wander
about the meadow; formless phantoms, that evade the touch like
smoke. It seems that they depend for their nourishment upon the
libations and victims offered by us upon their tombs; accordingly,
a Shade who has no surviving friends or relations passes a hungry
time of it in the lower world.
So profoundly have the common people been impressed with these
doctrines that, when a man dies, the first act of his relations is
to put a penny into his mouth, that he may have wherewithal to pay
the ferryman: they do not stop to inquire what is the local
currency, whether Attic or Macedonian or Aeginetan; nor does it
occur to them how much better it would be for the departed one if
the fare were not forthcoming,—because then the ferryman would
decline to take him, and he would be sent back into the living
world. Lest the Stygian Lake should prove inadequate to the
requirements of ghostly toilets, the corpse is next washed,
anointed with the choicest unguents to arrest the progress of
decay, crowned with fresh flowers, and laid out in sumptuous
raiment; an obvious precaution, this last; it would not do for the
deceased to take a chill on the journey, nor to exhibit himself to
Cerberus with nothing on. Lamentation follows. The women wail; men
and women alike weep and beat their breasts and rend their hair and
lacerate their cheeks; clothes are also torn on the occasion, and
dust sprinkled on the head. The survivors are thus reduced to a
more pitiable condition than the deceased: while they in all
probability are rolling about and dashing their heads on the
ground, he, bravely attired and gloriously garlanded, reposes
gracefully upon his lofty bier, adorned as it were for some
pageant. The mother—nay, it is the father, as likely as not,—now
advances from among the relatives, falls upon the bier (to heighten
the dramatic effect, we will suppose its occupant to be young and
handsome), and utters wild and meaningless ejaculations; the corpse
cannot speak, otherwise it might have something to say in reply.
His son—the father exclaims, with a mournful emphasis on every
word,—his beloved son is no more; he is gone; torn away before his
hour was come, leaving him alone to mourn; he has never married,
never begotten children, never been on the field of battle, never
laid hand to the plough, never reached old age; never again will he
make merry, never again know the joys of love, never, alas! tipple
at the convivial board among his comrades. And so on, and so on. He
imagines his son to be still coveting these things, and coveting
them in vain. But this is nothing: time after time men have been
known to slaughter horses upon the tomb, and concubines and pages;
to burn clothes and other finery, or bury it, in the idea that the
deceased will find a profitable use for such things in the lower
world. Now the afflicted senior, in delivering the tragic
utterances I have suggested above, and others of the same kind, is
not, as I understand it, consulting the interests of his son (who
he knows will not hear him, though he shout louder than Stentor),
nor yet his own; he is perfectly aware of his sentiments, and has
no occasion to bellow them into his own ear. The natural conclusion
is, that this tomfoolery is for the benefit of the spectators; and
all the time he has not an idea where his son is, or what may be
his condition; he cannot even have reflected upon human life
generally, or he would know that the loss of it is no such great
matter. Let us imagine that the son has obtained leave from Aeacus
and Pluto to take a peep into the daylight, and put a stop to these
parental maunderings. ‘Confound it, sir,’ he might exclaim, ‘what
is the noise about? You bore me. Enough of hair-plucking and face-
scratching. When you call me an ill-fated wretch, you abuse a
better man than yourself, and a more fortunate. Why are you so
sorry for me? Is it because I am not a bald, bent, wrinkled old
cripple like yourself? Is it because I have not lived to be a
battered wreck, nor seen a thousand moons wax and wane, only to
make a fool of myself at the last before a crowd? Can your sapience
point to any single convenience of life, of which we are deprived
in the lower world? I know what you will say: clothes and good
dinners, wine and women, without which you think I shall be
inconsolable. Are you now to learn that freedom from hunger and
thirst is better than meat and drink, and insensibility to cold
better than plenty of clothes? Come, I see you need enlightenment;
I will show you how lamentation ought to be done. Make a fresh
start, thus: Alas, my son! Hunger and thirst and cold are his no
longer! He is gone, gone beyond the reach of sickness; he fears not
fever any more, nor enemies nor tyrants. Never again, my son, shall
love disturb your peace, impair your health, make hourly inroads on
your purse; oh, heavy change! Never can you reach contemptible old
age, never be an eyesore to your juniors!—Confess, now, that my
lamentation has the advantage of yours, in veracity, as in
absurdity.
‘Perhaps it is the pitchy darkness of the infernal regions that
runs in your head? is that the trouble? Are you afraid I shall be
suffocated in the confinement of the tomb? You should reflect that
my eyes will presently decay, or (if such is your good pleasure) be
consumed with fire; after which I shall have no occasion to notice
either light or darkness. However, let that pass. But all this
lamentation, now; this fluting and beating of breasts; these wholly
disproportionate wailings: how am I the better for it all? And what
do I want with a garlanded column over my grave? And what good do
you suppose you are going to do by pouring wine on it? do you
expect it to filter through all the way to Hades? As to the
victims, you must surely see for yourselves that all the solid
nutriment is whisked away heavenwards in the form of smoke, leaving
us Shades precisely as we were; the residue, being dust, is
useless; or is it your theory that Shades batten on ashes? Pluto’s
realm is not so barren, nor asphodel so scarce with us, that we
must apply to you for provisions.—What with this winding-sheet and
these woollen bandages, my jaws have been effectually sealed up,
or, by Tisiphone, I should have burst out laughing long before this
at the stuff you talk and the things you do.’
And at the word Death sealed his lips for ever.
Thus far our corpse, leaning on one side, supported on an elbow.
Can we doubt that he is in the right of it? And yet these
simpletons, not content with their own noise, must call in
professional assistance: an artist in grief, with a fine repertoire
of cut-and-dried sorrows at his command, assumes the direction
of this inane choir, and supplies a theme for their woful
acclamations. So far, all men are fools alike: but at this point
national peculiarities make their appearance. The Greeks burn their
dead, the Persians bury them; the Indian glazes the body, the
Scythian eats it, the Egyptian embalms it. In Egypt, indeed, the
corpse, duly dried, is actually placed at table,—I have seen it
done; and it is quite a common thing for an Egyptian to relieve
himself from pecuniary embarrassment by a timely visit to the
pawnbroker, with his brother or father deceased. The childish
futility of pyramids and mounds and columns, with their short-lived
inscriptions, is obvious. But some people go further, and attempt
to plead the cause of the deceased with his infernal judges, or
testify to his merits, by means of funeral games and laudatory
epitaphs. The final absurdity is the funeral feast, at which the
assembled relatives strive to console the parents, and to prevail
upon them to take food; and, Heaven knows, they are willing enough
to be persuaded, being almost prostrated by a three days’ fast.
‘How long is this to go on?’ some one expostulates. ‘Suffer the
spirit of your departed saint to rest in peace. Or if mourn you
will, then for that very reason you must eat, that your strength
may be proportioned to your grief.’ At this point, a couple of
lines of Homer go the round of the company:
Ev’n fair-haired Niobe forgat not food,
and
Not fasting mourn th’ Achaeans for their dead.
The parents are persuaded, though they go to work at first in a
somewhat shamefaced manner; they do not want it to be thought that
after their bereavement they are still subject to the infirmities
of the flesh.
Such are some of the absurdities that may be observed in mourners;
for I have by no means exhausted the list. And all springs from the
vulgar error, that Death is the worst thing that can befall a man.
THE RHETORICIAN’S VADE MECUM
_See note at end of piece_.
You ask, young man, how you may become a rhetorician, and win
yourself the imposing and reverend style of Professor. You tell me
life is for you not worth living, if you cannot clothe yourself in
that power of the word which shall make you invincible and
irresistible, the cynosure of all men’s admiration, the desired of
all Grecian ears. Your one wish is to be shown the way to that
goal. And small blame, youngster, to one who in the days of his
youth sets his gaze upon the things that are highest, and knowing
not how he shall attain, comes as you now come to me with the
privileged demand for counsel. Take then the best of it that I can
give, doubting nothing but you shall speedily be a man accomplished
to see the right and to give it expression, if you will henceforth
abide by what you now hear from me, practise it with assiduity, and
go confidently on your way till it brings you to the desired end.
The object of your pursuit is no poor one, worth but a moderate
endeavour; to grasp it you might be content to toil and watch and
endure to the utmost; mark how many they are who once were but
cyphers, but whom words have raised to fame and opulence, ay, and
to noble lineage.
Yet fear not, nor be appalled, when you contemplate the greatness
of your aim, by thought of the thousand toils first to be
accomplished. It is by no rough mountainous perspiring track that I
shall lead you; else were I no better than those other guides who
point you to the common way, long, steep, toilsome, nay, for the
most part desperate. What should commend my counsel to you is even
this: a road most pleasant and most brief, a carriage road of
downward slope, shall bring you in all delight and ease, at what
leisurely effortless pace you will, through flowery meadows and
plenteous shade, to that summit which you shall mount and hold
untired and there lie feasting, the while you survey from your
height those panting ones who took the other track; they are yet in
the first stage of their climb, forcing their slow way amid rough
or slippery crags, with many a headlong fall and many a wound from
those sharp rocks. But you will long have been up, and garlanded
and blest; you have slept, and waked to find that Rhetoric has
lavished upon you all her gifts at once.
Fine promises, these, are they not? But pray let it not stir your
doubts, that I offer to make most easy that which is most sweet. It
was but plucking a few leaves from Helicon, and the shepherd Hesiod
was a poet, possessed of the Muses and singing the birth of Gods
and Heroes; and may not a rhetorician (’tis no such proud title as
that of poet) be quickly made, if one but knows the speediest way?
Let me tell you of an idea that came to nothing for want of faith,
and brought no profit to the man it was offered to. Alexander had
fought Arbela, deposed Darius, and was lord of Persia; his orders
had to be conveyed to every part of his empire by dispatch-runners.
Now from Persia to Egypt was a long journey; to make the necessary
circuit round the mountains, cross Babylonia into Arabia, traverse
a great desert, and so finally reach Egypt, took at the best full
twenty days. And as Alexander had intelligence of disturbances in
Egypt, it was an inconvenience not to be able to send instructions
rapidly to his lieutenants there. A Sidonian trader came to him and
offered to shorten the distance: if a man cut straight across the
mountains, which could be done in three days, he would be in Egypt
without more ado. This was a fact; but Alexander took the man for
an impostor, and would have nothing to say to him. That is the
reception any surprisingly good offer may expect from most men.
Be not like them. A trial will soon show you that you may fly over
the mountains from Persia to Egypt, and in a day, in part of a day,
take rank as rhetorician. But first I will be your Cebes and give
you word-pictures of the two different ways leading to that
Rhetoric, with which I see you so in love. Imagine her seated on a
height, fair and comely; her right hand holds an Amalthea’s horn
heaped high with all fruits, and at her other side you are to see
Wealth standing in all his golden glamour. In attendance too
are Repute and Might; and all about your lady’s person flutter
and cling embodied Praises like tiny Loves. Or you may have
seen a painted Nilus; he reclines himself upon a crocodile or
hippopotamus, with which his stream abounds, and round him play the
tiny children they call in Egypt his _Cubits_; so play the
Praises about Rhetoric. Add yourself, the lover, who long to be
straightway at the top, that you may wed her, and all that is hers
be yours; for him that weds her she must endow with her worldly
goods.
When you have reached the mountain, you at first despair of scaling
it; you seem to have set yourself the task that Aornus [Footnote:
i.e., birdless.] presented to the Macedonians; how sheer it was on
every side! it was true, they thought, even a bird could hardly
soar that height; to take it would be work for a Dionysus or
Heracles. Then in a little while you discern two roads; or no, one
is no more than a track, narrow, thorny, rough, promising thirst
and sweat. But I need say no more of it; Hesiod has described it
long ago The other is broad, and fringed with flowers and well
watered and—not to keep you back with vain repetitions from the
prize even now within your grasp—such a road as I told you of but
now.
This much, however, I must add: that rough steep way shows not many
steps of travellers; a few there are, but of ancient date. It was
my own ill fortune to go up by it, expending needless toil; but I
could see from far off how level and direct was that other, though
I did not use it; in my young days I was perverse, and put trust in
the poet who told me that the Good is won by toil. He was in error;
I see that the many who toil not are more richly rewarded for their
fortunate choice of route and method. But the question is now of
you; I know that when you come to the parting of the ways you will
doubt—you doubt even now—which turn to take. What you must do,
then, to find the easiest ascent, and blessedness, and your bride,
and universal fame, I will tell you. Enough that _I_ have been
cheated into toil; for you let all grow unsown and unploughed as in
the age of gold.
A strong severe-looking man will at once come up to you; he has a
firm step, a deeply sunburnt body, a decided eye and wide-awake
air; it is the guide of the rough track. This absurd person makes
foolish suggestions that you should employ him, and points you out
the footmarks of Demosthenes, Plato, and others; they are larger
than what we make, but mostly half obliterated by time; he tells
you you will attain bliss and have Rhetoric to your lawful wife, if
you stick as closely to these as a rope-walker to his rope; but
diverge for a moment, make a false step, or incline your weight too
much either way, and farewell to your path and your bride. He will
exhort you to imitate these ancients, and offer you antiquated
models that lend themselves as little to imitation as old
sculpture, say the clean-cut, sinewy, hard, firmly outlined
productions of Hegesias, or the school of Critius and Nesiotes; and
he will tell you that toil and vigilance, abstinence and
perseverance, are indispensable, if you would accomplish your
journey. Most mortifying of all, the time he will stipulate for is
immense, years upon years; he does not so much as mention days or
months; whole Olympiads are his units; you feel tired at the mere
sound of them, and ready to relinquish the happiness you had set
your heart upon. And as if this was not enough, he wishes to be
paid handsomely for your trouble, and must have a good sum down
before he will even put you in the way.
So he will talk—a conceited primitive old-world personage; for
models he offers you old masters long dead and done with, and
expects you to exhume rusty speeches as if they were buried
treasures; you are to copy a certain cutler’s son [Footnote:
Demosthenes.] or one who called the clerk Atrometus father
[Footnote: Aeschines.]; he forgets that we are at peace now, with
no invading Philip or hectoring Alexander to give a temporary value
to that sort of eloquence; and he has never heard of our new road
to Rhetoric, short, easy, and direct. Let him not prevail with you;
heed not him at all; in his charge, if you do not first break your
neck, you will wear yourself into a premature old age. If you are
really in love, and would enjoy Rhetoric before your prime is past,
and be made much of by her, dismiss this hairy specimen of ultra-
virility, and leave him to climb by himself or with what dupes he
can make, panting and perspiring to his heart’s content.
Go you to the other road, where you will find much good company,
but in especial one man. Is he clever? is he engaging? Mark the
negligent ease of his gait, his neck’s willowy curve, his
languishing glance; these words are honey, that breath perfume; was
ever head scratched with so graceful a forefinger? and those locks
—were there but more of them left—how hyacinthine their wavy
order! he is tender as Sardanapalus or Cinyras; ’tis Agathon’s
self, loveliest of tragedy-makers. Take these traits, that seeing
you may know him; I would not have you miss so divine an
apparition, the darling of Aphrodite and the Graces. Yet how
needless! were he to come near while your eyes were closed, and
unbar those Hymettian lips to the voice that dwells within, you
could not want the thought that this was none of us who munch the
fruits of earth, but some spirit from afar that on honeydew hath
fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise. Him seek; trust yourself to
him, and you shall be in a trice rhetorician and man of note, and
in his own great phrase, King of Words, mounted without an effort
of your own upon the chariot of discourse. For here is the lore he
shall impart to his disciple.
But let him describe it himself. For one so eloquent it is absurd
that I should speak; my histrionic talent is not equal to so mighty
a task; I might trip, and break the heroic mask in my fall. He thus
addresses you, then, with a touch of the hand to those scanty
curls, and the usual charming delicate smile; you might take him—
so engaging is his utterance—for a Glycera, a Malthace, or her
comic and meretricious majesty, Thais herself. What has a refined
bewitching orator to do with the vulgar masculine?
Listen now to his modest remarks. _Dear sir, was it Apollo sent
you here? did he call me best of rhetoricians, as when Chaerephon
asked and was told who was wisest of his generation? If it has not
been so, if you have come directed only by the amazement and
applause, the wonder and despair, that attend my achievements, then
shall you soon learn whether there is divinity or no in him whom
you have sought. Look not for a greatness that may find its
parallel in this man or that; a Tityus, an Otus, an Ephialtes there
may have been; but here is a portent and a marvel greater far than
they. You are to hear a voice that puts to silence all others, as
the trumpet the flute, as the cicala the bee, as the choir the
tuning-fork.
But you wish to be a rhetorician yourself; well, you could have
applied in no better quarter; my dear young friend, you have only
to follow my instructions and example, and keep carefully in mind
the rules I lay down for your guidance. Indeed you may start this
moment without a tremor; never let it disturb you that you have not
been through the laborious preliminaries with which the ordinary
system besets the path of fools; they are quite unnecessary. Stay
not to find your slippers, as the song has it; your naked feet will
do as well; writing is a not uncommon accomplishment, but I do not
insist upon it; it is one thing, and rhetoric is another.
I will first give you a list of the equipment and supplies for your
journey that you must bring with you from home, with a view to
making your way rapidly. After that, I will show you as we go along
some practical illustrations, add a few verbal precepts, and before
set of sun you shall be as superior a rhetorician as myself, the
absolute microcosm of your profession. Bring then above all
ignorance, to which add confidence, audacity, and effrontery; as
for diffidence, equity, moderation, and shame, you will please
leave them at home; they are not merely needless, they are
encumbrances. The loudest voice you can come by, please, a ready
falsetto, and a gait modelled on my own. That exhausts the real
necessaries; very often there would be no occasion for anything
further. But I recommend bright colours or white for your clothes;
the Tarentine stuff that lets the body show through is best; for
shoes, wear either the Attic woman’s shape with the open network,
or else the Sicyonians that show white lining. Always have a train
of attendants, and a book in your hand.
The rest you will take in with your eyes and ears as we go. I will
tell you the rules you must observe, if Rhetoric is to recognize
and admit you; otherwise she will turn from you and drive you away
as an uninitiated intruder upon her mysteries. You must first be
exceedingly careful about your appearance; your clothes must be
quite the thing. Next, you must scrape up some fifteen old Attic
words—say twenty for an outside estimate; and these you must
rehearse diligently till you have them at the tip of your tongue;
let us say _sundry, whereupon, say you so, in some wise, my
masters;_ that is the sort of thing; these are for general
garnish, you understand; and you need not concern yourself about
any little dissimilarity, repulsion, discord, between them and the
rest; so long as your upper garment is fair and bright, what matter
if there is coarse serge beneath it?