twice by the ancients, ready to be discharged at a moment’s notice
in conversation. This will attract the attention of the common
herd, who will take you for a wonder, so much better educated than
themselves. Put on your clothes? of course not;_ invest yourself.
_Will you sit in the porch, when there is a_ parvys _to
hand? No earnest-money for us; let it be an_ arles-penny. _And
no breakfast-time, pray, but_ undern. _You may also do a
little word-formation of your own on occasion, and enact that a
person good, at exposition shall be known as a_ clarifier, _a
sensible one as a_ cogitant, _or a pantomime as a_ manuactor.
_If you commit a blunder or provincialism, you have only to carry
it off boldly with an instant reference to the authority of some
poet or historian, who need not exist or ever have existed; your
phrase has his approval, and he was a wise man and a past master in
language. As for your reading, leave the ancients alone; never mind
a foolish Isocrates, a tasteless Demosthenes, a frigid Plato; study
the works of the last generation; you will find the declamations,
as they call them, a plenteous store on which to draw at need.
When the time comes for you to perform, and the audience have
proposed subjects and invented cases for discussion, you should get
rid of the difficult ones by calling them trivial, and complain
that there is nothing in this selection that can really test a
man’s powers. When they have chosen, do not hesitate a moment, but
start; the tongue is an unruly member; do not attempt to rule it;
never care whether your firstly is logics firstly, or your secondly
and thirdly in the right order; just say what comes; you may greave
your head and helmet your legs, but whatever you do, move, keep
going, never pause. If your subject is assault or adultery in
Athens, cite the Indians and Medes. Always have your Marathon and
your Cynaegirus handy; they are indispensable. Hardly less so are a
fleet crossing Mount Athos, an army treading the Hellespont, a sun
eclipsed by Persian arrows, a flying Xerxes, an admired Leonidas,
an inscriptive Othryades. Salamis, Artemisium, and Plataea, should
also be in constant use. All this dressed as usual with our
seasoning-garnish aforesaid—that persuasive flavour of
_sundry_ and _methinks_; do not wait till these seem to
be called for; they are pretty words, quite apart from their
relevancy.
If a fancy for impassioned_ recitative _comes over you,
indulge it as long as you will, and air your falsetto. If your
matter is not of the right poetic sort, you may consider yourself
to have met the requirements if you run over the names of the jury
in a rhythmic manner. Appeal constantly to the pathetic instinct,
smite your thigh, mouth your words well, punctuate with loud sighs,
and let your very back be eloquent as you pace to and fro. If the
audience fails to applaud, take offence, and give your offence
words; if they get up and prepare to go out in disgust, tell them
to sit down again; discipline must be maintained.
It will win you credit for copiousness, if you start with the
Trojan War—you may if you like go right back to the nuptials of
Deucalion and Pyrrha—and thence trace your subject down to to-day.
People of sense, remember, are rare, and they will probably hold
their tongues out of charity; or if they do comment, it will be put
down to jealousy. The rest are awed by your costume, your voice,
gait, motions, falsetto, shoes, and_ sundry_; when they see
how you perspire and pant, they cannot admit a moment’s doubt of
your being a very fine rhetorical performer. With them, your mere
rapidity is a miracle quite sufficient to establish your character.
Never prepare notes, then, nor think out a subject beforehand; that
shows one up at once.
Your friends’ feet will be loud on the floor, in payment for the
dinners you give them; if they observe you in difficulties, they
will come to the rescue, and give you a chance, in the relief
afforded by rounds of applause, of thinking how to go on. A devoted
_claque_ of your own, by the way, is among your requirements.
Its use while you are performing I have given; and as you walk home
afterwards, discussing the points you made, you should be
absolutely surrounded by them as a bodyguard. If you meet
acquaintances on the way, talk very big about yourself, put a good
value on your merits, and never mind about their feelings. Ask
them, Where is Demosthenes now? Or wonder _which_ of the ancients
comes nearest you.
But dear me, I had very nearly passed over the most important and
effectual of all aids to reputation: the pouring of ridicule upon
your rivals. If a man has a fine style, its beauties are borrowed;
if a sober one, it is bad altogether. When you go to a recitation,
arrive late, which makes you conspicuous; and when all are
listening intently, interject some inappropriate commendation that
will distract and annoy the audience; they will be so sickened with
your offensive words that they cannot listen. And then do not wave
your hand too much—warm approval is rather low; and as to jumping
up, never do it more than once or twice. A slight smile is your
best expression; make it clear that you do not think much of the
thing. Only let your ears be critical, and you are sure of finding
plenty to condemn. In fact, all the qualities needed are easily
come by—audacity, effrontery, ready lying, indifference to
perjury, impartial jealousy, hatred, abuse, and skilful slander—
that is all you want to win you speedy credit and renown. So much
for your visible public life.
And in private you need draw the line at nothing, gambling, drink,
fornication, nor adultery; the last you should boast of, whether
truly or not; make no secret of it, but exhibit your notes from
real or imaginary frail ones. One of your aims should be to pass
for a pretty fellow, in much favour with the ladies; the report
will be professionally useful to you, your influence with the sex
being accounted for by your rhetorical eminence.
Master these instructions, young man—they are surely simple enough
not to overtax your powers—, and I confidently promise that you
shall soon be a first-class rhetorician like myself; after which I
need not tell you what great and what rapid advancement Rhetoric
will put in your way. You have but to look at me. My father was an
obscure person barely above a slave; he had in fact been one south
of Xois and Thmuis; my mother a common sempstress. I was myself not
without pretensions to beauty in my youth, which earned me a bare
living from a miserly ill-conditioned admirer; but I discovered
this easy short-cut, made my way to the top—for I had, if I may be
bold to say it, all the qualifications I told you of, confidence,
ignorance, and effrontery—, and at once found myself in a position
to change my name of Pothinus to one that levels me with the
children of Zeus and Leda. I then established myself in an old
dame’s house, where I earned my keep by professing a passion for
her seventy years and her half-dozen remaining teeth, dentist’s
gold and all. However, poverty reconciled me to my task; even for
those cold coffin kisses_, fames _was_ condimentum optimum.
_And it was by the merest ill luck that I missed inheriting her
wealth—that damned slave who peached about the poison I had
bought!
I was turned out neck and crop, but even so I did not starve. I
have my professional position and am well known in the courts—
especially for collusion and the corruption-agency which I keep for
credulous litigants. My cases generally go against me; but the
palms at my door [Transcriber’s Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to
chapter end.] are fresh and flower-crowned—springes to catch
woodcocks, you know. Then, to be the object of universal
detestation, to be distinguished only less for the badness of one’s
character than for that of one’s speeches, to be pointed at by
every finger as the famous champion of all-round villany—this
seems to me no inconsiderable attainment. And now you have my
advice; take it with the blessing of the great Goddess Lubricity.
It is the same that I gave myself long ago; and very thankful I
have been to myself for it._
Ah! our admirable friend seems to have done. If you decide to take
his advice, you may regard yourself as practically arrived at your
goal. Keep his rules, and your path is clear; you may dominate the
courts, triumph in the lecture-room, be smiled on by the fair; your
bride shall be not, like your lawgiver and teacher’s, an old woman
off the comic stage, but lovely dame Rhetoric. Plato told of Zeus
sweeping on in his winged car; you shall use the figure as fitly of
yourself. And I? why, I lack spirit and courage; I will stand out
of your way. I will resign—nay, I have resigned—my high place
about our lady’s person to you; for I cannot pay my court to her
like the new school. Do your walk over, then, hear your name
announced, take your plaudits; I ask you only to remember that you
owe the victory not to your speed, but to your discovery of the
easy down-hill route.
[Note at end of piece: It is apparent from the later half of this
piece that the satire is aimed at an individual. He is generally
identified with Julius Pollux. This Pollux (1) was contemporary
(floruit A.D. 183) with Lucian. (2) Explains by his name the
reference to Leda’s children (Castor and Pollux) in Section 24. (3)
Published an Onomasticon, or classified vocabulary; cf. Sections
16, 17. (4) Published a collection of declamations, or school
rhetorical exercises on set themes; cf. Section 17. (5) Came from
Egypt; cf. Section 24; Xois and Thmuis were in that country. (6) Is
said to have been appointed professor of rhetoric at Athens by
Commodus purely on account of his mellifluous voice; cf. Section
19.
It is supposed that _Lexiphanes_ (in the dialogue of that
name, which has much in common with the present satire) is also
Julius Pollux.]
[Relocated Footnote:
Now stretch your throat, unhappy man! now raise
Your clamours, that, when hoarse, a bunch of bays,
Stuck in your garret window, may declare,
That some victorious pleader nestles there.
_Juvenal_, vii. 118 (Gifford).]
THE LIAR
_Tychiades. Philocles_
_Tyc_. Philocles, what _is_ it that makes most men so fond of a
lie? Can you explain it? Their delight in romancing themselves is
only equalled by the earnest attention with which they receive
other people’s efforts in the same direction.
_Phi_. Why, in some cases there is no lack of motives for
lying,—motives of self-interest.
_Tyc_. Ah, but that is neither here nor there. I am not
speaking of men who lie with an object. There is some excuse for
that: indeed, it is sometimes to their credit, when they deceive
their country’s enemies, for instance, or when mendacity is but the
medicine to heal their sickness. Odysseus, seeking to preserve his
life and bring his companions safe home, was a liar of that kind.
The men I mean are innocent of any ulterior motive: they prefer a
lie to truth, simply on its own merits; they like lying, it is
their favourite occupation; there is no necessity in the case. Now
what good can they get out of it?
_Phi_. Why, have you ever known any one with such a strong
natural turn for lying?
_Tyc_. Any number of them.
_Phi_. Then I can only say they must be fools, if they really
prefer evil to good.
_Tyc_. Oh, that is not it. I could point you out plenty of men
of first-rate ability, sensible enough in all other respects, who
have somehow picked up this vice of romancing. It makes me quite
angry: what satisfaction can there be to men of their good
qualities in deceiving themselves and their neighbours? There are
instances among the ancients with which you must be more familiar
than I. Look at Herodotus, or Ctesias of Cnidus; or, to go further
back, take the poets—Homer himself: here are men of world-wide
celebrity, perpetuating their mendacity in black and white; not
content with deceiving their hearers, they must send their lies
down to posterity, under the protection of the most admirable
verse. Many a time I have blushed for them, as I read of the
mutilation of Uranus, the fetters of Prometheus, the revolt of the
Giants, the torments of Hell; enamoured Zeus taking the shape of
bull or swan; women turning into birds and bears; Pegasuses,
Chimaeras, Gorgons, Cyclopes, and the rest of it; monstrous medley!
fit only to charm the imaginations of children for whom Mormo and
Lamia have still their terrors. However, poets, I suppose, will be
poets. But when it comes to national lies, when one finds whole
cities bouncing collectively like one man, how is one to keep one’s
countenance? A Cretan will look you in the face, and tell you that
yonder is Zeus’s tomb. In Athens, you are informed that
Erichthonius sprang out of the Earth, and that the first Athenians
grew up from the soil like so many cabbages; and this story assumes
quite a sober aspect when compared with that of the Sparti, for
whom the Thebans claim descent from a dragon’s teeth. If you
presume to doubt these stories, if you choose to exert your common
sense, and leave Triptolemus’s winged aerial car, and Pan’s
Marathonian exploits, and Orithyia’s mishap, to the stronger
digestions of a Coroebus and a Margites, you are a fool and a
blasphemer, for questioning such palpable truths. Such is the power
of lies!
_Phi_. I must say I think there is some excuse, Tychiades,
both for your national liars and for the poets. The latter are
quite right in throwing in a little mythology: it has a very
pleasing effect, and is just the thing to secure the attention of
their hearers. On the other hand, the Athenians and the Thebans and
the rest are only trying to add to the lustre of their respective
cities. Take away the legendary treasures of Greece, and you
condemn the whole race of ciceroni to starvation: sightseers do not
want the truth; they would not take it at a gift. However, I
surrender to your ridicule any one who has no such motive, and yet
rejoices in lies.
_Tyc_. Very well: now I have just been with the great Eucrates, who
treated me to a whole string of old wives’ tales. I came away in
the middle of it; he was too much for me altogether; Furies could
not have driven me out more effectually than his marvel-working
tongue.
_Phi_. What, Eucrates, of all credible witnesses? That venerably
bearded sexagenarian, with his philosophic leanings? I could never
have believed that he would lend his countenance to other people’s
lies, much less that _he_ was capable of such things himself
_Tyc_. My dear sir, you should have heard the stuff he told
me; the way in which he vouched for the truth of it all too,
solemnly staking the lives of his children on his veracity! I
stared at him in amazement, not knowing what to make of it: one
moment I thought he must be out of his mind; the next I concluded
he had been a humbug all along, an ape in a lion’s skin. Oh, it was
monstrous.
_Phi_. Do tell me all about it; I am curious to see the
quackery that shelters beneath so long a beard.
_Tyc_. I often look in on Eucrates when I have time on my
hands, but to-day I had gone there to see Leontichus; he is a
friend of mine, you know, and I understood from his boy that he had
gone off early to inquire after Eucrates’s health, I had not heard
that there was anything the matter with him, but this was an
additional reason for paying him a visit. When I got there,
Leontichus had just gone away, so Eucrates said; but he had a
number of other visitors. There was Cleodemus the Peripatetic and
Dinomachus the Stoic, and Ion. You know Ion? he is the man who
fancies himself so much on his knowledge of Plato; if you take his
word for it, he is the only man who has ever really got to the
bottom of that philosopher’s meaning, or is qualified to act as his
interpreter. There is a company for you; Wisdom and Virtue
personified, the _elite_ of every school, most reverend gentlemen
all of them; it almost frightened one. Then there was Antigonus the
doctor, who I suppose attended in his professional capacity.
Eucrates seemed to be better already: he had come to an
understanding with the gout, which had now settled down in his feet
again. He motioned me to a seat on the couch beside him. His voice
sank to the proper invalid level when he saw me coming, but on my
way in I had overheard him bellowing away most lustily. I made him
the usual compliments—explained that this was the first I had
heard of his illness, and that I had come to him post-haste—and
sat down at his side, in very gingerly fashion, lest I should touch
his feet. There had been a good deal of talk already about gout,
and this was still going on; each man had his pet prescription to
offer. Cleodemus was giving his. ‘In the left hand take up the
tooth of a field-mouse, which has been killed in the manner
described, and attach it to the skin of a freshly flayed lion; then
bind the skin about your legs, and the pain will instantly cease.’
‘A lion’s skin?’ says Dinomachus; ‘I understood it was an uncovered
hind’s. That sounds more likely: a hind has more pace, you see, and
is particularly strong in the feet. A lion is a brave beast, I
grant you; his fat, his right fore-paw, and his beard-bristles, are
all very efficacious, if you know the proper incantation to use
with each; but they would hardly be much use for gout.’ ‘Ah, yes;
that is what I used to think for a long time: a hind was fast, so
her skin must be the one for the purpose. But I know better now: a
Libyan, who understands these things, tells me that lions are
faster than stags; they must be, he says, because how else could
they catch them? ‘All agreed that the Libyan’s argument was
convincing. When I asked what good incantations could do, and how
an internal complaint could be cured by external attachments, I
only got laughed at for my pains; evidently they set me down as a
simpleton, ignorant of the merest truisms, that no one in his
senses would think of disputing. However, I thought doctor
Antigonus seemed rather pleased at my question. I expect his
professional advice had been slighted: he wanted to lower
Eucrates’s tone,—cut down his wine, and put him on a vegetable
diet. ‘What, Tychiades,’ says Cleodemus, with a faint grin,’ you
don’t believe these remedies are good for anything?’ ‘I should have
to be pretty far gone,’ I replied, ‘before I could admit that
external things, which have no communication with the internal
causes of disease, are going to work by means of incantations and
stuff, and effect a cure merely by being hung on. You might take
the skin of the Nemean lion himself, with a dozen of field-mice
tacked on, and you would do no good. Why, I have seen a live lion
limping before now, hide and all complete.’ ‘Ah, you have a great
deal to learn,’ cried Dinomachus; ‘you have never taken the trouble
to inquire into the operation of these valuable remedies. It would
not surprise me to hear you disputing the most palpable facts, such
as the curing of tumours and intermittent fevers, the charming of
reptiles, and so on; things that every old woman can effect in
these days. And this being so, why should not the same principles
be extended further?’ ‘Nail drives out nail,’ I replied; ‘you argue
in a circle. How do I know that these cures are brought about by
the means to which you attribute them? You have first to show
inductively that it is in the course of nature for a fever or a
tumour to take fright and bolt at the sound of holy names and
foreign incantations; till then, your instances are no better than
old wives’ tales.’ ‘In other words, you do not believe in the
existence of the Gods, since you maintain that cures cannot be
wrought by the use of holy names?’ ‘Nay, say not so, my dear
Dinomachus,’ I answered; ‘the Gods may exist, and these things may
yet be lies. I respect the Gods: I see the cures performed by them,
I see their beneficence at work in restoring the sick through the
medium of the medical faculty and their drugs. Asclepius, and his
sons after him, compounded soothing medicines and healed the sick,
—without the lion’s-skin-and-field-mouse process.’
‘Never mind Asclepius,’ cried Ion. ‘I will tell you of a strange
thing that happened when I was a boy of fourteen or so. Some one
came and told my father that Midas, his gardener, a sturdy fellow
and a good workman, had been bitten that morning by an adder, and
was now lying prostrate, mortification having set in the leg. He
had been tying the vine-branches to the trellis-work, when the
reptile crept up and bit him on the great toe, getting off to its
hole before he could catch it; and he was now in a terrible way.
Before our informant had finished speaking, we saw Midas being
carried up by his fellow servants on a stretcher: his whole body
was swollen, livid and mortifying, and life appeared to be almost
extinct. My father was very much troubled about it; but a friend of
his who was there assured him there was no cause for uneasiness. ‘I
know of a Babylonian,’ he said, ‘what they call a Chaldaean; I will
go and fetch him at once, and he will put the man right.’ To make a
long story short, the Babylonian came, and by means of an
incantation expelled the venom from the body, and restored Midas to
health; besides the incantation, however, he used a splinter of
stone chipped from the monument of a virgin; this he applied to
Midas’s foot. And as if that were not enough (Midas, I may mention,
actually picked up the stretcher on which he had been brought, and
took it off with him into the vineyard! and it was all done by an
incantation and a bit of stone), the Chaldaean followed it up with
an exhibition nothing short of miraculous. Early in the morning he
went into the field, pronounced seven names of sacred import, taken
from an old book, purified the ground by going thrice round it with
sulphur and burning torches, and thereby drove every single reptile
off the estate! They came as if drawn by a spell: venomous toads
and snakes of every description, asp and adder, cerastes and
acontias; only one old serpent, disabled apparently by age, ignored
the summons. The Chaldaean declared that the number was not
complete, appointed the youngest of the snakes as his ambassador,
and sent him to fetch the old serpent who presently arrived. Having
got them all together, he blew upon them; and imagine our
astonishment when every one of them was immediately consumed!’