to it when established in another State. All who fare ill abroad are
perpetually thinking how country is the best of all good things; and
those who fare well, whatever their general prosperity, are ever
conscious of the one thing lacking: they do not live at home, but
are exiles; and exile is a reproach. Those again whose sojourn has
brought them distinction by way of garnered wealth or honourable fame,
acknowledged culture or approved courage, all of them, you will find,
yearn for their native land, where are the spectators of their triumphs
that they would most desire. A man's longing for home is indeed in
direct proportion to his credit abroad.
Even the young have the patriotic sentiment; but in the old it is as
much more keen as their sense is greater. Every old man directs his
efforts and his prayers to ending his life in his own land; where he
began to live, there would he lay his bones, in the soil that formed
him, and join his fathers in the grave. It is a dread fate to be
condemned to exile even in death, and lie in alien earth.
But if you would know the true man's feeling for his country, it is in
the born citizen that you must study it. The merely naturalized are
a sort of bastards ever ready for another change; they know not nor
love the name of country, but think they may find what they need in one
place as well as another; their standard of happiness is the pleasures
of the belly. Those whose country is their true mother love the land
whereon they were born and bred, though it be narrow and rough and poor
of soil. If they cannot vaunt the goodness of the land, they are still
at no loss for praises of their country; if they see others making much
of bounteous plains and meadows variegated with all plants that grow,
they too can call up their country's praise; another may breed good
horses; what matter? theirs breeds good men.
A man is fain to be at home, though the home be but an islet; though he
might have fortune among strangers, he will not take immortality there;
to be buried in his own land is better. Brighter to him the smoke of
home than the fire of other lands.
In such honour everywhere is the name of country that you will find
legislators all the world over punishing the worst offences with exile,
as the heaviest penalty at their command. And it is just the same with
generals on service. When the men are taking their places for battle,
no such encouragement as to tell them they are fighting for their
country. No one will disgrace himself after that if he can help it; the
name of country turns even a coward into a brave man.
H.
DIPSAS, THE THIRST-SNAKE
The southern parts of Libya are all deep sand and parched soil, a
desert of wide extent that produces nothing, one vast plain destitute
of grass, herb, vegetation, and water; or if a remnant of the scanty
rain stands here and there in a hollow place, it is turbid and
evil-smelling, undrinkable even in the extremity of thirst. The land
is consequently uninhabited; savage, dried up, barren, droughty, how
should it support life? The mere temperature, an atmosphere that is
rather fire than air, and a haze of burning sand, make the district
quite inaccessible.
On its borders dwell the Garamantians, a lightly clad, agile tribe of
tent-dwellers subsisting mainly by the chase. These are the only people
who occasionally penetrate the desert, in pursuit of game. They wait
till rain falls, about the winter solstice, mitigating the excessive
heat, moistening the sand, and making it just passable. Their quarry
consists chiefly of wild asses, the giant ostrich that runs instead of
flying, and monkeys, to which the elephant is sometimes added; these
are the only creatures sufficiently proof against thirst and capable of
bearing that incessant fiery sunshine. But the Garamantians, as soon
as they have consumed the provisions they brought with them, instantly
hurry back, in fear of the sand's recovering its heat and becoming
difficult or impassable, in which case they would be trapped, and lose
their lives as well as their game. For if the sun draws up the vapour,
dries the ground rapidly, and has an access of heat, throwing into its
rays the fresh vigour derived from that moisture which is its aliment,
there is then no escape.
But all that I have yet mentioned, heat, thirst, desolation,
barrenness, you will count less formidable than what I now come to,
a sufficient reason in itself for avoiding that land. It is beset by
all sorts of reptiles, of huge size, in enormous numbers, hideous and
venomous beyond belief or cure. Some of them have burrows in the sand,
others live on the surface--toads, asps, vipers, horned snakes and
stinging beetles, lance-snakes, reversible snakes[3], dragons, and two
kinds of scorpion, one of great size and many joints that runs on the
ground, the other aerial, with gauzy wings like those of the locust,
grasshopper, or bat. With the multitude of flying things like these,
that part of Libya has no attraction for the traveller.
But the direst of all the reptiles bred in the sand is the dipsas or
thirst-snake; it is of no great size, and resembles the viper; its bite
is sharp, and the venom acts at once, inducing agonies to which there
is no relief. The flesh is burnt up and mortified, the victims feel as
if on fire, and yell like men at the stake. But the most overpowering
of their torments is that indicated by the creature's name. They have
an intolerable thirst; and the remarkable thing is, the more they
drink, the more they want to drink, the appetite growing with what it
feeds on. You will never quench their thirst, though you give them all
the water in Nile or Danube; water will be fuel, as much as if you
tried to put out a fire with oil.
Doctors explain this by saying that the venom is originally thick, and
gains in activity when diluted with the drink, becoming naturally more
fluid and circulating more widely.
I have not seen a man in this condition, and I pray Heaven I never may
behold such human sufferings; I am happy to say I have not set foot
upon Libyan soil. But I have had an epitaph repeated to me, which a
friend assured me he had read on the grave of a victim. My friend,
going from Libya to Egypt, had taken the only practicable land route by
the Great Syrtis. He there found a tomb on the beach at the sea's very
edge, with a pillar setting forth the manner of death. On it a man was
carved in the attitude familiar in pictures of Tantalus, standing by a
lake's side scooping up water to drink; the dipsas was wound about his
foot, in which its fangs were fastened, while a number of women with
jars were pouring water over him. Hard by were lying eggs like those
of the ostrich hunted, as I mentioned, by the Garamantians. And then
there was the epitaph, which it may be worth while to give you:
See the envenom'd cravings Tantalus
Could find no thirst-assuaging charm to still,
The cask that daughter-brood of Danaus,
For ever filling, might not ever fill.
There are four more lines about the eggs, and how he was bitten while
taking them; but I forget how they go.
The neighbouring tribes, however, do collect and value these eggs, and
not only for food; they use the empty shells for vessels and make cups
of them; for, as there is nothing but sand for material, they have no
pottery. A particularly large egg is a find; bisected, it furnishes two
hats big enough for the human head.
Accordingly the dipsas conceals himself near the eggs, and when a man
comes, crawls out and bites the unfortunate, who then goes through the
experiences just described, drinking and increasing his thirst and
getting no relief.
Now, gentlemen, I have not told you all this to show you I could do as
well as the poet Nicander, nor yet by way of proof that I have taken
some trouble with the natural history of Libyan reptiles; that would
be more in the doctor's line, who must know about such things with a
view to treatment. No, it is only that I am conscious (and now pray do
not be offended by my going to the reptiles for my illustration)--I
am conscious of the same feelings towards you as a dipsas victim has
towards drink; the more I have of your company, the more of it I want;
my thirst for it rages uncontrollably; I shall never have enough
of this drink. And no wonder; where else could one find such clear
sparkling water? You must pardon me, then, if, bitten to the soul (most
agreeably and wholesomely bitten), I put my head under the fountain and
gulp the liquor down. My only prayer is that the stream that flows from
you may never fail; never may your willingness to listen run dry and
leave me thirstily gaping! On my side there is no reason why drinking
should not go on for ever; the wise Plato says that you cannot have too
much of a good thing.
H.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The amphisbaena, supposed to have a head at each end and move
either way.
A WORD WITH HESIOD
_Lycinus. Hesiod_
_Ly._ As to your being a first-rate poet, Hesiod, we do not doubt that,
any more than we doubt your having received the gift from the Muses,
together with that laurel-branch; it is sufficiently proved by the
noble inspiration that breathes in every line of your works. But there
is one point on which we may be excused for feeling some perplexity.
You begin by telling us that your divine gifts were bestowed upon you
by Heaven in order that you might sing of the glories that have been,
and tell of that which is to come. Well, now, one half of your duties
you have admirably performed. You have traced back the genealogy of
the Gods to Chaos and Ge and Uranus and Eros; you have specified the
feminine virtues; and you have given advice to the farmer, adding
complete information with reference to the Pleiads, the seasons
suitable for ploughing, reaping, and sailing,--and I know not what
besides. But that far diviner gift, which would have been of so much
more practical utility to your readers, you do not exercise at all: the
soothsaying department is entirely overlooked. We find no parallel in
your poems to those prophetic utterances which Calchas, and Telemus,
and Polyidus, and Phineus--persons less favoured by the Muses than
yourself--were wont to dispense freely to all applicants. Now in
these circumstances, you must plead guilty to one of three charges.
Either the alleged promise of the Muses to disclose the future to you
_was_ never given, and you are--excuse the expression--a liar: or it
was given, and fulfilled, but you, niggard, have quietly pocketed
the information, and refuse to impart it to them that have need: or,
thirdly, you _have_ composed a number of prophetic works, but have not
yet given them to the world; they are reserved for some more suitable
occasion. I do not presume to suggest, as a fourth possibility, that
the Muses have only fulfilled half of their promise, and revoked
the other,--which, observe, is recorded first in your poem. Now, if
_you_ will not enlighten me on this subject, who can? As the Gods are
'givers of good,' so you, their friends and pupils, should impart your
knowledge frankly, and set our doubts at rest.
_Hes._ My poor friend, there is one very simple answer to all your
questions: I might tell you that not one of my poems is my own work;
all is the Muses', and to them I might refer you for all that has
been said and left unsaid. For what came of my own knowledge, of
pasturage, of milking, of driving afield, and all that belongs to
the herdsman's art, I may fairly be held responsible: but for the
Goddesses,--they give whatso they will to whom they will.--Apart from
this, however, I have the usual poet's apology. The poet, I conceive,
is not to be called to account in this minute fashion, syllable by
syllable. If in the fervour of composition a word slip in unawares,
search not too narrowly; remember that with us metre and euphony have
much to answer for; and then there are certain amplifications--certain
elegances--that insinuate themselves into a verse, one scarce knows
how. Sir, you would rob us of our highest prerogative, our freedom,
our unfettered movement. Blind to the flowers of poetry, you are
intent upon its thorns, upon those little flaws that give a handle to
malicious criticism. But there! you are not the only offender, nor I
the only victim: in the trivial defects of Homer, my fellow craftsman,
many a carping spirit has found material for similar hair-splitting
disquisitions.--Come, now, I will meet my accuser on fair ground,
face to face. Read, fellow, in my _Works and Days_: mark the inspired
prophecies there set forth: the doom foretold to the negligent, the
success promised to him that labours aright and in due season.
One basket shall suffice to store thy grain,
And men shall not regard thee.
Could there be a more timely warning, balanced as it is by the
prospect of abundance held out to him that follows the true method of
agriculture?
_Ly._ Admirable; and spoken like a true herdsman. There is no doubting
the divine afflatus after that: left to yourself, you cannot so much
as defend your own poems. At the same time, this is not quite the
sort of thing we expect of Hesiod and the Muses combined. You see, in
this particular branch of prophecy, you are quite outclassed by the
farmers: they are perfectly qualified to inform us that if the rain
comes there will be a heavy crop, and that a drought, on the other
hand, will inevitably be followed by scarcity; that midsummer is not a
good time to begin ploughing if you wish your seed to do anything, and
that you will find no grain in the ear if you reap it when it is green.
Nor do we want a prophet to tell us that the sower must be followed
by a labourer armed with a spade, to cover up the seed; otherwise,
the birds will come and consume his prospective harvest. Call these
useful suggestions, if you like: but they are very far from my idea of
prophecy. I expect a prophet to penetrate into secrets wholly hidden
from our eyes: the prophet informs Minos that he will find his son
drowned in a jar of honey; he explains to the Achaeans the cause of
Apollo's resentment; he specifies the precise year in which Troy will
be captured. That _is_ prophecy. But if the term is to be so extended,
then I shall be glad to have my own claims recognized without loss
of time. I undertake, without the assistance of Castalian waters,
laurel-branches, or Delphian tripods, to foretell and prognosticate:
_That if a man walk out on a cold morning with nothing on, he will
take a severe chill; and particularly if it happens to be raining or
hailing at the time_. And I further prophesy: _That his chill will be
accompanied by the usual fever_; together with other circumstances
which it would be superfluous to mention.
No, Hesiod: your defence will not do; nor will your prophecies. But I
dare say there is something in what you said at first--that you knew
not what you wrote, by reason of the divine afflatus versifying within
you. And that afflatus was no such great matter, either: afflatuses
should not promise more than they mean to perform.
F.
THE SHIP: OR, THE WISHES
_Lycinus. Timolaus. Samippus. Adimantus_
_Ly._ Said I not well? More easily shall a corpse lie mouldering in
the sun, and the vulture mark it not, than any strange sight escape
Timolaus, no matter though he must run all the way to Corinth at a
stretch for it.--Indefatigable sightseer!
_Ti._ Well, Lycinus, what do you expect? One has nothing to do, and
just then one hears that a great monster of an Egyptian corn-ship has
put in to Piraeus. What is more, I believe you and Samippus came down
on precisely the same errand.
_Ly._ So we did, so we did, and Adimantus with us; only he has got lost
somewhere in the crowd of spectators. We came all together to the ship;
and going on board you were in front, Samippus, if I remember, and
Adimantus next, and I was behind, hanging on to him for dear life; he
gave me a hand all up the gangway, because I had never taken my shoes
off, and he had; but I saw no more of him after that, either on board
or when we came ashore.
_Sa._ You see when it was we lost him, Lycinus? It must have been
when that nice-looking boy came up from the hold, you know, with the
beautiful clean linen, and his hair parted in the middle and done up in
a knot behind. If I know anything of Adimantus, he no sooner saw that
charming sight, than he said good-bye to the Egyptian ship-wright who
was showing us round; and now stands urging his tearful suit. You know
his way; tears come natural to him in these affairs of the heart.
_Ly._ Well, but, Samippus, this boy was nothing great, that he should
make such a conquest; Adimantus has the beauties of Athens at his
beck; nice gentlemanly boys, with good Greek on their tongues, and
the mark of the gymnasium on every muscle; a man may languish under
_their_ rigours with some credit. As for this fellow, to say nothing
of his dark skin, and protruding lips, and spindle shanks, his words
came tumbling out in a heap, one on the top of another; it was Greek,
of course, but the voice, the accent were Egyptian born. And then his
hair: no freeman ever had his hair tied up in a knot behind like that.
_Ti._ Oh, but that is a sign of noble birth in Egypt, Lycinus. All
gentlemen's sons wear their hair done up till they reach manhood. It
was the other way with our ancestors: the topknot, and the golden
grasshopper to keep it together, were the proper thing for old men in
their time.
_Sa._ Very much to the point, Timolaus; you allude to the remarks in
Thucydides's preface, about our old luxurious habits, as preserved in
the Asiatic colonies.
_Ly._ Of course! I remember now where it was we lost Adimantus. It was
when we were standing all that time looking up at the mast, counting
the layers of hides, and watching that marvellous fellow going up the
shrouds, and running along the yards, perfectly comfortable, with just
a hand on the yard-tackling.
_Sa._ So it was. Well, now what are we to do? Shall we wait for him
here, or do you think I had better go back on board?
_Ti._ No, no, let us walk on; he has probably gone tearing off home,
not being able to find us. Anyhow, he knows the way; he will never get
lost for want of us to take care of him.
_Ly._ It is rather a shame, perhaps, to go off and leave one's friend
to shift for himself. However, I agree, if Samippus does.
_Sa._ Certainly I do. We may find the gymnasium open still.--I say,
though, what a size that ship was! 180 feet long, the man said, and
something over a quarter of that in width; and from deck to keel, the
maximum depth, through the hold, 44 feet. And then the height of the
mast, with its huge yard; and what a forestay it takes to hold it! And
the lofty stern with its gradual curve, and its gilded beak, balanced
at the other end by the long rising sweep of the prow, and the figures
of her name-goddess, Isis, on either side. As to the other ornamental
details, the paintings and the scarlet topsail, I was more struck by
the anchors, and the capstans and windlasses, and the stern cabins. The
crew was like a small army. And they were saying she carried as much
corn as would feed every soul in Attica for a year. And all depends for
its safety on one little old atomy of a man, who controls that great
rudder with a mere broomstick of a tiller! He was pointed out to me;
Heron was his name, I think; a woolly-pated fellow, half-bald.
_Ti._ He is a wonderful hand at it, so the crew say; a very Proteus in
sea-cunning. Did they tell you how he brought them here, and all their
adventures? how they were saved by a star?
_Ly._ No; you can tell us about that now.
_Ti._ I had it from the master, a nice intelligent fellow to talk to.
They set sail with a moderate wind from Pharus, and sighted Acamas on
the seventh day. Then a west wind got up, and they were carried as
far east as Sidon. On their way thence they came in for a heavy gale,
and the tenth day brought them through the Straits to the Chelidon
Isles; and there they very nearly went to the bottom. I have sailed
past the Chelidons myself, and I know the sort of seas you get there,
especially if the wind is SW. by S.; it is just there, of course, that
the division takes place between the Lycian and Pamphylian waters; and
the surge caused by the numerous currents gets broken at the headland,
whose rocks have been sharpened by the action of the water till they
are like razors; the result is a stupendous crash of waters, the waves
often rising to the very top of the crags. This was the kind of thing
they found themselves in for, according to the master,--and on a pitch
dark night! However, the Gods were moved by their distress, and showed
them a fire that enabled them to identify the Lycian coast; and a
bright star--either Castor or Pollux--appeared at the masthead, and
guided the ship into the open sea on their left; just in time, for
she was making straight for the cliff. Having once lost their proper
course, they sailed on through the Aegean, bearing up against the
Etesian winds, until they came to anchor in Piraeus yesterday, being
the seventieth day of the voyage; you see how far they had been carried
out of their way; whereas if they had taken Crete on their right, they
would have doubled Malea, and been at Rome by this time.
_Ly._ A pretty pilot this Heron, and no mistake, to get so far out in
his reckoning; a man after Nereus's heart!--But look! that is surely
Adimantus?
_Ti._ Adimantus it is. Let us hail him. Adimantus!... Son of
Strombichus!... of the deme of Myrrhinus! He must be offended with us,
or else he is deaf; it is certainly he.
_Ly._ I can make him out quite clearly now; his cloak, his walk, his
cropped head. Let us mend our pace, and catch him up.--We shall have
to pull you by the cloak, and compel you to turn round, Adimantus;
you will take no notice of our shouts. You seem like one rapt in
contemplation; you are pondering on matters of no light import?
_Ad._ Oh, it is nothing serious. An idle fancy, that came to me as I
walked, and engrossed my attention, so that I never heard you.
_Ly._ And the fancy? Tell us without reserve, unless it is a very
delicate matter. And even if it is, you know, we have all been through
the Mysteries; we can keep a secret.
_Ad._ No, I had rather not tell you; you would think it so childish.
_Ly._ Can it be a love affair? Speak on; _those_ mysteries too are not
unknown to us; we have been initiated in full torchlight.
_Ad._ Oh dear, no; nothing of that kind.--No; I was making myself an
imaginary present of a fortune--that 'vain, deluding joy,' as it has
been called; I had just reached the pinnacle of luxury and affluence
when you arrived.
_Ly._ Then all I have to say is, 'Halves!' Come, out with your wealth!
We are Adimantus's friends: let us share his superfluities.
_Ad._ Well, I lost sight of you at once on the ship--the moment I
had got you safely up, Lycinus. I was measuring the thickness of the
anchor, and you disappeared somewhere. However, I went on and saw
everything, and then I asked one of the sailors how much the vessel
brought in to her owner in an average year. Three thousand pounds, he
said, was the lowest reckoning. So afterwards, on the way back, I was
thinking: Suppose some God took it into his head to make _me_ a present
of that ship; what a glorious life I should have of it, and my friends
too! Sometimes I could make the trip myself, at other times I could
send my men. On the strength of that three thousand, I had already
built myself a house, nicely situated just above the Poecile--I would
have nothing more to say to my ancestral abode on the banks of the
Ilissus,--and was in treaty for my wardrobe and slaves and chariots and
stable. And now behold me on board, the envy of every passenger, and
the terror of my crew, who regarded me as next thing to a king; I was
getting matters shipshape, and taking a last look at the port in the
distance, when up comes Lycinus, capsizes the vessel, just as she is
scudding before a wishing wind, and sends all my wealth to the bottom.