CHAPTER III.
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD.
Less original than the Olympian Dialogues,—for their idea must be allowed to he borrowed from Homer, while the inclination to moralise upon the vanity of earthly riches, and honours, and beauty, and the work of that great leveller Death, is common enough,—these have perhaps been even more popular. An imitation in great measure themselves, they have found imitators amongst the moderns, in their turn, who have shown considerable ability. The "Dialogues of the Dead" of Fontenelle and of Lord Lyttelton still find readers, and these imitations have charmed many to whom the original was unknown in any other way than by name.[1] The Dialogues of Fenelon, composed for the instruction of his pupil the Duke of Burgundy, were, again, an imitation of those of Fontenelle, but are somewhat more didactic, as we should expect, and less lively. But perhaps the most striking modern work for the idea of which we are indebted to the Greek satirist is the 'Imaginary Conversations' of Walter Savage Landor.
Some three or four of the most striking of this series must content our readers here. The following, although it does not stand first in the common order of arrangement, seems to form the best introduction to the series.
CHARON AND HIS PASSENGERS.
Charon. Now listen to me, good people—I'll tell you how it is. The boat is but small, as you see, and somewhat rotten and leaky withal: and if the weight gets to one side, over we go: and here you are crowding in all at once, and with lots of luggage, every one of you. If you come on board here with all that lumber, I suspect you'll repent of it afterwards—especially those who can't swim.
Mercury. What's best for us to do then, to get safe across?
Cha. I'll tell you. You must all strip before you get in, and leave all those encumbrances on shore: and even then the boat will scarce hold you all. And you take care, Mercury, that no soul is admitted that is not in light marching order, and who has not left all his encumbrances, as I say, behind. Just stand at the gangway and overhaul them, and don't let them get in till they've stripped.
Merc. Quite right; I'll see to it.—Now, who comes first here?
Menippus. I—Menippus. Look—I've pitched my wallet and staff into the lake; my coat, luckily, I didn't bring with me.
Merc. Get in, Menippus—you're a capital fellow. Take the best seat there, in the stern-sheets, next the steersman, and watch who gets on board.—Now, who's this fine gentleman?
Charmolaus. I'm Charmolaus of Megara—a general favourite. Many a lady would give fifty guineas for a kiss from me.
Merc. You'll have to leave your pretty face, and those valuable lips, and your long curls and smooth skin behind you, that's all. Ah! now you'll do—you're all right and tight now: get in.—But you, sir, there, in the purple and the diadem,—who are you?
Lampichus. Lampichus, king of Gelo.
Merc. And what d'ye mean by coming here with all that trumpery?
Lamp. How? Would it be seemly for a king to come here unrobed?
Merc. Well, for a king, perhaps not—but for a dead man, certainly. So put it all off.
Lamp. There—I've thrown my riches away.
Merc. Yes—and throw away your pride too, and your contempt for other people. You'll infallibly swamp the boat if you bring all that in.
Lamp. Just let me keep my diadem and mantle.
Merc. Impossible—off with them too.
Lamp. Well—anything more? because I've thrown them all off, as you see.
Merc. Your cruelty—and your folly—and your insolence—and bad temper—off with them all!
Lamp. There, then—I'm stripped entirely.
Merc. Very well—get in.—And you fat fellow, who are you, with all that flesh on you?
Damasias. Damasias, the athlete.
Merc. Ay, you look like him: I remember having seen you in the games.
Dam. (smiling). Yes, Mercury; take me on board—I'm ready stripped, at any rate.
Merc. Stripped? Nay, my good sir, not with all that covering of flesh on you. You must get rid of that, or you'll sink the boat the moment you set your other foot in. And you must take off your garlands and trophies too.
Dam. Then—now I'm really stripped, and not heavier than these other dead gentlemen.
Merc. All right—the lighter the better: get in.
[In like manner the patrician has to lay aside his noble birth, his public honours, and statues, and testimonials—the very thought of them, Mercury declares, is enough to sink the boat; and the general is made to leave behind him all his victories and trophies—in the realms of the dead there is peace. Next comes the philosopher's turn.]
Merc. Who's this pompous and conceited personage, to judge from his looks—he with the knitted eyebrows there, and lost in meditation—that fellow with the long beard?
Men. One of those philosophers, Mercury—or rather those cheats and charlatans: make him strip too; you'll find some curious things hid under that cloak of his.
Merc. Take your habit off, to begin with, if you please—and now all that you have there,—great Jupiter! what a lot of humbug he was bringing with him—and ignorance, and disputatiousness, and vainglory, and useless questions, and prickly arguments, and involved statements,—ay, and wasted ingenuity, and solemn trifling, and quips and quirks of all kinds! Yes—by Jove! and there are gold pieces there, and impudence and luxury and debauchery—oh! I see them all, though you are trying to hide them! And your lies, and pomposity, and thinking yourself better than everybody else—away with all that, I say! Why, if you bring all that aboard, a fifty-oared galley wouldn't hold you!
Philosopher. Well, I'll leave it all behind then, if I must.
Men. But make him take his beard off too, Master Mercury; it's heavy and bushy, as you see; there's five pound weight of hair there, at the very least.
Merc. You're right. Take it off, sir!
Phil. But who is there who can shave me?
Merc. Menippus there will chop it off with the boat-hatchet—he can have the gunwale for a chopping-block.
Men. Nay, Mercury, lend us a saw—it will be more fun.
Merc. Oh, the hatchet will do! So—that's well; now you've got rid of your goatishness, you look something more like a man.
Men. Shall I chop a bit off his eyebrows as well?
Merc. By all means; he has stuck them up on his forehead, to make himself look grander, I suppose. What's the matter now? You're crying, you rascal, are you—afraid of death? Make haste on board, will you?
Men. He's got something now under his arm.
Merc. What is it, Menippus?
Men. Flattery it is, Mercury—and a very profitable article he found it, while he was alive.
Philosopher (in a fury). And you, Menippus—leave your lawless tongue behind you, and your cursed independence, and mocking laugh; you're the only one of the party who dares laugh.
Merc. (laughing). No, no, Menippus—they're very light, and take little room; besides, they are good things on a voyage. But you, Mr Orator there, throw away your rhetorical flourishes, and antitheses, and parallelisms, and barbarisms, and all that heavy wordy gear of yours.
Orator. There, then—there they go!
Merc. All right. Now then, slip the moorings. Haul that plank aboard—up anchor, and make sail. Mind your helm, master! And a good voyage to us!—What are you howling about, you fools? You, Philosopher, specially? Now that you've had your beard cropped?
Phil. Because, dear Mercury, I always thought the soul had been immortal.
Men. He's lying! It's something else that troubles him, most likely.
Merc. What's that?
Men. That he shall have no more expensive suppers—nor, after spending all the night in debauchery, profess to lecture to the young men on moral philosophy in the morning, and take pay for it. That's what vexes him.
Phil. And you, Menippus—are you not sorry to die?
Men. How should I be, when I hastened to death without any call to it? But, while we are talking, don't you hear a noise as of some people shouting on the earth?
Merc. Yes, I do—and from more than one quarter. There's a public rejoicing yonder for the death of Lampichus; and the women have seized his wife, and the boys are stoning his children; and in Sicyon they are all praising Diophantus the orator for his funeral oration upon Crato here. Yes—and there is Damasias's mother wailing for him amongst her women. But there's not a soul weeping for you, Menippus—you're lying all alone.
Men. Not at all—you'll hear the dogs howling over me presently, and the ravens mournfully flapping their wings, when they gather to my funeral.
Merc. Stoutly said. But here we are at the landing-place. March off, all of you, to the judgment-seat straight; I and the ferryman must go and fetch a fresh batch.
Men. A pleasant trip to you, Mercury. So we'll be moving on. Come, what are you all dawdling for? You've got to be judged, you know; and the punishments, they tell me, are frightful—wheels, and stones, and vultures. Every man's life will be strictly inquired into, I can tell you.
The Cynic Menippus, introduced to us in this amusing dialogue,—"a dog of the real old breed," as Lucian calls him, "always ready to bark and bite"[2]—is a great favourite with the author, and reappears very frequently in these imaginary conversations. He was a disciple of Diogenes, and had been a usurer in earlier life, but having lost his wealth by the roguery of others, at last committed suicide. The banter with which he treats Charon in the little dialogue which follows is very humorous.
CHARON AND MENIPPUS.
Charon (calling after Menippus, who is walking off). Pay me your fare, you rascal!
Menippus. Bawl away, Charon, if it's any satisfaction to you.
Cha. Pay me, I say, for carrying you across!
Men. You can't get money from a man who hasn't got it.
Cha. Is there any man who has not got an obolus?
Men. I know nothing about anybody else; I know I haven't.
Cha. (catching hold of him). I'll strangle you, you villain! I will, by Pluto! if you don't pay.
Men. And I'll break your head with my staff.
Cha. Do you suppose you are to have such a long trip for nothing?
Men. Let Mercury pay for me, then; it was he put me on board.
Mercury. A very profitable job for me, by Jove! if I'm to pay for all the dead people.
Cha. (to Men). I shan't let you go.
Men. You can haul your boat ashore, then, for that matter, and wait as long as you please; but I don't see how you can take from me what I don't possess.
Cha. Didn't you know you had to pay it?
Men. I knew well enough; but I tell you I hadn't got it. Is a man not to die because he has no money?
Cha. Are you to be the only man, then, who can boast that he has crossed the Styx gratis?
Men. Gratis? Not at all, my good friend,—when I baled the boat, and helped you with the oar, and was the only man on board that didn't howl.
Cha. That has nothing to do with the passage-money; you must pay your obolus. It's against all our rules to do otherwise.
Men. Then take me back to life again.
Cha. Yes—a fine proposal—that I may get a whipping from Æacus for it.
Men. Then don't bother.
Cha. Show me what you've got in your scrip there.
Men. Lentils, if you please, and a bit of supper for Hecate.
Cha. (turning to Mercury in despair). Where on earth did you bring this dog of a Cynic from, Mercury?—chattering, as he did, all the way across, cutting his jokes and laughing at the other passengers, and singing while they were all bemoaning themselves.
Merc. Didn't you know, Charon, who your passenger was? A most independent fellow, who cares for nobody. That's Menippus.
Cha. (shaking his fist at him as he moves of). Well, let me only catch you again!
Men. (looking back and laughing). Ay, if you catch me; but 'tis hardly likely, my good friend, that you'll have me for a passenger twice.
MERCURY AND CHARON SQUARING ACCOUNTS.
Mercury. Let us have a reckoning, if you please, Mr Ferryman, how much you owe me up to this present date, that we mayn't have a squabble hereafter about the items.
Charon. By all means, Mercury—nothing like being correct in such matters; it saves a world of unpleasantness.
Merc. I supplied an anchor to your order—twenty-five drachmæ.
Cha. That's very dear.
Merc. I vow to Pluto I gave five for it. And a row-lock thong—two obols.
Cha. Well, put down five drachmæ and two obols.
Merc. And a needle to mend the sail. Five obols I paid for that.
Cha. Well, put that much down too.
Merc. Then, there's the wax for caulking the seams of the boat that were open, and nails, and a rope to make halyards of,—two drachmæ altogether.
Cha. Ay; you bought those worth the money.
Merc. That's all, if I've not forgotten something in my account. And now, when do you propose to pay me?
Cha. It's out of my power, Mercury, at this moment; but if a pestilence or a war should send people down here in considerable numbers, you can make a good thing of it then by a little cheating in the passage-money.
Merc. So I may go to sleep at present, and put up prayers for all kinds of horrible things to happen, that I may get my dues thereby?
Cha. I've no other way of paying you, Mercury, indeed. At present, as you see, very few come our way. It's a time of peace, you know.
Merc. Well, so much the better, even if I have to wait for my money a while. But those men in the good old times—ah! you remember, Charon, what fine fellows used to come here,—good warriors all, covered with blood and wounds, most of them! Now, 'tis either somebody who has been poisoned by his son or his wife, or with his limbs and carcase bloated by gluttony,—pale spiritless wretches all of them, not a whit like the others. Most of them come here owing to their attempts to overreach each other in money matters, it seems to me.
Cha. Why, money is certainly a very desirable thing.
Merc. Then don't think me unreasonable, if you please, if I look sharp after your little debt to me.
When the Cynic philosopher has been admitted into the region of shadows, he makes himself very much at home there. In another of these dialogues he cross-examines all the officials whom he meets, with the air of a traveller anxious for information; and his caustic will does not spare the dead a whit more than it had spared the living. He begs Æacus to show him some of "the lions" in this new region. He professes great surprise at seeing the figures which once were Agamemnon, Ajax, and Achilles, now mere bones and dust; and asks to be allowed just to give Sardanapalus, whom the Cynic hates especially for his luxury and debauchery, a slap in the face; but Æacus assures him that his skull is as brittle as a woman's. Even the wise men and philosophers, he finds, cut no better figure here. "Where is Socrates?" he asks his guide. "You see that bald man yonder?" says Æacus. "Why, they are all bald alike here," replies Menippus. "Him with the flat nose, I mean." "They've all flat noses," replies Menippus again, looking at the hollow skulls round him. But Socrates, hearing the inquiry, answers for himself; and the new-comer into the lower world is able to assure the great Athenian that all men now admit his claim to universal knowledge, which rests, in fact, on the one ground of being conscious that man knows really nothing. But he learns something more about the Master of the Sophists from a little dialogue which he has with Cerberus.
MENIPPUS AND CERBERUS.
Menippus. I say, Cerberus (I'm a kind of cousin of yours, you know—they call me a dog), tell me, by the holy Styx, how did Socrates behave himself when he came down among ye? I suppose, as you're a divinity, you can not only bark, but talk like a human creature, if you like?
Cerberus (growling). Well, when he was some way off, he came on with a perfectly unmoved countenance, appearing to have no dread at all of death, and to wish to make that plain to those who stood outside the gates here. But when once he got within the archway of the Shades, and saw the gloom and darkness; and when, as he seemed to be lingering, I bit him on the foot (just to help the hemlock), and dragged him down, he shrieked out like a child, and began to lament over his family and all sorts of things.
Men. So the man was but a sophist after all, and had no real contempt for death?
Cerb. No; but when he saw it must come, he steeled himself to meet it, professing to suffer not unwillingly what he must needs have suffered anyhow, that so he might win the admiration of the bystanders. In short, I could tell you much the same story of all those kind of people: up to the gate they are stout-hearted and bold enough, but it is when they get within that the trial comes.
Men. And how did you think I behaved when I came down?
Cerb. You were the only man, Menippus, who behaved worthy of your profession—you and Diogenes before you. You both came here by no force or compulsion, but of your own accord, laughing all the way, and bidding the others who came with you howl and be hanged to them.
The reflections which Lucian has put into the mouth of the Cynic in the following brief dialogue are of a graver kind.
MENIPPUS AND MERCURY.
Menippus. I say, Mercury, where are all the handsome men and women? Come—show me about a little, I am quite a stranger here.
Mercury. I haven't time, really. But look yonder, on your right; there are Hyacinthus, and Narcissus, and Nireus, and Achilles,—and Tyro, and Helen, and Leda; and, in short, all the celebrated beauties.
Men. I can see nought but bones and bare skulls,—all very much alike.
Merc. Yet all the poets have gone into raptures about those very bones which you seem to look upon with such contempt.
Men. Anyway, show me Helen; for I should never be able to make her out from the rest.
Merc. This skull is Helen.[3]
Men. And it was for this that a thousand ships were manned from all Greece, and so many Greeks and Trojans died in battle, and so many towns were laid waste!
Merc. Ay, but you never saw the lady alive, Menippus, or you would surely have said with Homer,—
For such a woman should long toils endure:
Like the immortal goddesses is she."[4]
If one looks at withered flowers which have lost their colour, of course they seem to have no beauty; but when they are in bloom, and have all their natural tints, they are very beautiful to see.
Men. Still I do wonder, Mercury, that the Greeks should never have bethought themselves that they were quarrelling for a thing that was so short-lived, and would perish so soon.
Merc. I have really no leisure for moralising, my good Menippus. So pick out a spot for yourself, and lay yourself down quietly; I must go and fetch some more dead people.
DIOGENES AND MAUSOLUS.
Diogenes. Prithee, my Carian friend, why do you give yourself such airs, and claim precedence of all of us?
Mausolus. In the first place, my friend of Sinope, by reason of my royal estate; I was king of all Caria, ruled over much of Lydia, reduced several of the islands, advanced as far as Miletus, and subdued most part of Ionia. Then, because I was handsome and tall, and a good warrior. Most of all, because I have a magnificent monument set up over me at Halicarnassus,—no man that ever died has the like; so beautifully is it finished, men and horses sculptured to the life out of the finest marble: you can scarce find even temple like it. Don't you think I have a right to be proud of all this?
Diog. Because of your kingdom, you say?—and your fine person,—and the great weight of your tomb?
Maus. Yes; that is what I am proud of.
Diog. But, my handsome friend (ha-ha!), you haven't much left of that strength and beauty that you talk about. If we asked any one to decide between our claims to good looks, I don't see why they should prefer your skull to mine. Both of us are bald and naked,—both of us show our teeth a good deal,—neither of us have any eyes,—and our noses are both rather fat. The tomb, indeed, and the marble statues, the men of Halicarnassus may show to their visitors, and boast of them as ornaments of their land; but as to you, my good friend, I don't see what good your monument does you: unless you may say this—that you bear a greater weight upon you than I do, pressed down as you are by all those heavy stones.
Maus. Are none of my glories to profit me, then? And are Mausolus and Diogenes to stand here on equal terms?
Diog. No; not exactly equal, most excellent sir; not at all. Mausolus has to lament when he remembers his earthly lot, how happy he was,—and Diogenes can laugh at him. And Mausolus can say how he had the tomb built for him at Halicarnassus by his wife and sister; while Diogenes does not know—and does not care—whether his body had any burial at all, but can say that he left behind him the reputation among the wise of having lived a life worthy of a man,—loftier monument, base Carian slave, than yours, and built on a far safer foundation.
In another dialogue Diogenes talks in the same strain to Alexander, and recommends the waters of Lethe as the only remedy for the sad regrets which those must feel, who have exchanged the glories of earth for the cold and dreary equality which reigns among the dead below—a passionless and objectless existence, in which none but the bitterest Cynic, who rejoices in the discomfiture of all earthly ambitions, can take any pleasure. So also Achilles, in a dialogue with the young Antilochus—a premature visitor to these gloomy regions—repeats the melancholy wish which Homer has put into his mouth in the Odyssey—
Serve a poor churl who drags his days in grief,
Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine."[5]
Such is the tone of these Dialogues throughout,—a grim despair disclosing itself through their cynical levity. Whatever the "Elysian Fields" of the poets might be, the satirist gives us no glimpse of them. All whom the new visitors meet are in tears,—except the infants. In one scene, Diogenes remarks a poor decrepit old man weeping bitterly. To him, one would think, the change could have been not so very sad. Was he a king on earth? No. Or a man of rank and wealth? "No," is the reply; "I was in my ninetieth year, and miserably poor; I had to earn my bread by fishing. I had no children to succour me, and I was lame and blind." "What!" says the philosopher, "in such a case, could you really wish to have life prolonged?" "Ay," replies the old fisherman, echoing the thought of the great Achilles—"Ay, life is sweet, and death terrible."
THE TYRANT.
Although this is not classed amongst the "Dialogues of the Dead," there seems no reason why it should not find a place among them. Charon and his ghostly freight are a favourite subject for Lucian's satire, and he has here introduced them again in a dramatic scene of considerably more length than any of the preceding. The sparkling humour of the introduction gives additional force to the serious moral of the close.
CHARON, CLOTHO, MERCURY, ETC.
Charon. Well, Clotho, here's the boat all a-taut, and everything ready for crossing; we've pumped out the water, and stepped the mast, and hoisted the sail—the oars are in their row-locks, and, so far as I am concerned, nothing hinders us from weighing anchor and setting off. And that Mercury is keeping me waiting—he ought to have been here long ago. The boat lies here empty still, you see, when we might have made three trips already to-day; and now it's almost evening, and we haven't earned a penny yet. And I know Pluto will think it's all my laziness, whereas the fault lies in quite another quarter. That blessed ghost-conductor of ours has been drinking the waters of Lethe himself, I suppose, and has forgot to come back. He's most likely wrestling with the young men, or playing on his lyre,—or holding an argument, to show his subtle wit. Or very possibly my gentleman is doing a little thieving somewhere on the road, for that's one of his many accomplishments. He takes considerable liberties with us, I must say, considering that he's half our servant.
Clotho. You don't know, Charon, but that he has been hindered in some way; Jupiter may have wanted him for some extra work up above; he's his master too, you see.[6]
Cha. But he has no right to get more than his share of work out of our common property, Clotho: I never keep him, when it's his time to go. But I know what it is; with us he gets nothing but asphodel, and libations, and salt-cake, and such funeral fare—all the rest is gloom, and fog, and darkness; while in heaven 'tis all brightness, and lots of ambrosia, and nectar in abundance; so I suppose he finds it pleasanter to spend his time up there. He flies away from here fast enough, as if he were escaping out of prison; but when the hour comes for him to return, he moves very leisurely, and takes his time on the road down.
Clo. Don't put yourself in a passion, Charon; look, here he comes, close by, bringing a large company with him—driving them before him, I should rather say, with his rod, like a flock of goats. But what's this? I see one of the party with his hands tied, and another laughing, and another with a wallet on his back and a club in his hand, looking very savage, and hurrying the rest on. And don't you see how Mercury himself is actually running down with sweat, and how dusty his feet are; he's quite out of breath, panting, with his mouth open.—What's the matter, Mercury? What are you so hurried about? You seem quite done up.
(Enter Mercury, very hot, with a large company of Ghosts.)
Merc. Matter, Clotho? Why, I've been hunting this runaway here, till I suppose you thought I had run away myself to-day, and deserted my ship.
Clo. Who is he? and what did he want to run away for?
Merc. That's plain enough—because he wanted to live a little longer. He's a king or a tyrant of some sort, and from what I can make out from his howlings and lamentations, he complains that he is being taken away from a position of great enjoyment.
Clo. So the fool tried to run away, did he?—when the thread of his life was already spun out!
Merc. Tried to run away, did you say? Why, unless that stout fellow there, he with the club, had helped me, so that we contrived between us to catch him and tie him, he would have got clean off. From the moment that Atropos handed him over to me, he did nothing but kick and struggle all the way, and stuck his heels in the ground, so that it was very hard to get him along. Then sometimes he would beg and pray me to let him go—just for a little bit—offering me ever so much money. But I, as was my duty, refused—especially as it was impossible. But when we got just to the entrance, and I was counting over the dead, as usual, to Æacus, and he was checking them off by the list which your sister had sent him, lo and behold! this rascal had got off somehow or other, and was missing. So there was one dead man short of the count. Æacus frowned at me awfully. "Don't try your cheating game here, Mercury," says he,—"it's quite enough to play such tricks up above; here in the Shades we keep strict accounts, and you can't humbug us. A thousand and four, you observe, my list has marked on it; and you come here bringing me one too few—unless you please to say that Atropos cheated you in the reckoning." I quite blushed at his words, and recollected at once what had happened on the road; and when I cast my eyes round and couldn’t see that wretch, I knew he had escaped, and ran back after him all the way, towards daylight, and that excellent fellow there went with me, of his own accord; and by running like race-horses we caught him just at Tænarus[7]—so near he was getting away.
The Ferryman desires them to waste no more time now in chattering, and proposes to start at once. Clotho and Mercury count the dead into the boat. First, three hundred infants,—including those who have been deserted and exposed. Charon (who is still very cross) complains of them as "a cargo of very unripe fruit." Mercury next hands him in four hundred old people; "they are ripe enough," he observes, "at any rate—and some rotten." Seven have died for love—besides a great philosopher, who has killed himself for the sake of a good-for-nothing woman. Several have died of a fever—including the physician who attended them. Cyniscus, too, is there, the Cynic philosopher, who has been eating some of Hecate's supper, and a quantity of raw onions besides, and has died of indigestion. His only complaint is that he has been forgotten by the Fates, and allowed to live on earth so long.
Megapenthes, the tyrant, who has made such a determined attempt to escape on the road, entreats Clotho to let him go back to life—only for a little while, if it were but five days, just to finish his new house, and to give some directions to his wife about some money,—he will be sure to come down again soon. He tries in vain to bribe the Inexorable by offers of gold. Or, he will give his son, his only son, as a hostage. Clothe reminds him that his prayer used to be that this son might survive him. That had been his wish, he confesses; but now he knows better. Clotho bids him take comfort; his son will follow him here speedily; he will be put to death by the tyrant who succeeds. At least he desires to know how things will go after his death. He shall hear, though the information will hardly be pleasant. His statues will be thrown down and trampled on: his wife, who has already been faithless to him, will marry her lover: his daughter will go into slavery. In vain he begs for life, though the life be that of a slave. Mercury, with the help of Cyniscus, drives him into the boat, and threatens to tie him to the mast. At this moment a little figure rushes forward, and begs not to be left behind. It is Micyllus, a poor cobbler. He has not found life on earth altogether so pleasant, that he cares to continue it. "At the very first signal of Atropos," says he, "I jumped up gladly, threw away my knife and leather, and an old shoe I had in my hand, and without stopping even to put on my slippers or wash off the black from my face, followed her at once—or rather led the way. There was nothing to call me back, I had no tie to life,—neither land, nor houses, nor gold, nor precious furniture; no glory and no statues had I to leave behind. Indeed I like all your ways down below very much; there's equality for all, and no man is better than his neighbour; it all seems to me uncommonly pleasant. I suppose nobody calls in debts here, or pays taxes: above all, there is no cold in winter, no sickness, and no beatings from great people. Here all is peace, and conditions seem quite reversed; we poor laugh and are merry, while your rich men groan and howl." He is eager to be ferried over at once to that further shore; and when Charon sulkily declares there is no room in the boat for him, he strips and proposes to swim across the Styx; he shall get over that way perhaps as fast as they will. At last it is settled that he is to sit on the tyrant's back; "and kick him well," says Clotho. The Cynic now takes up the dialogue. He, like his fellow-philosopher Menippus, has no money to pay his passage.
Cyniscus. I'll tell you the plain truth, Charon—I haven't a penny to pay for my passage: nothing in the world but my scrip and staff here. But I'm quite ready to pump or to row: you shall have no reason to complain, if you can find me a good strong oar.
Charon. Pull away, then. I must be content to get that much out of you.
Cyn. Shall I give you a song?
Cha. Well, do; if you know a good sea-stave.
Cyn. I know plenty, Charon. But these fellows are blubbering so loud, they'll drown my voice.
Dead men, in discordant chorus. O my riches!—O my lands!—Oh, what a beautiful house I've left behind me!—Alas! for all the money my heir will squander!—Alas, my poor dear children!—Ah! who'll gather the grapes from those vines I planted last year?
Merc. Have you nothing to lament, Micyllus? Indeed it's against all rule for any one to make this voyage without a few tears.
Micyllus. Nonsense! I've nothing to cry for, on such a pleasant voyage.
Merc. Nay, just cry a little, do—just to keep up the custom.
Mic. Very well, if you wish it, Mercury—here goes.—O my leather-parings! O my old shoes! Alas! no longer shall I go from dawn till evening without food, nor walk barefoot and half-clad all the winter, with my teeth chattering for cold! And, oh dear! who will inherit my old awl and scraper?
Merc. There, that'll do; we've almost got across.
Cha. Now, pay your fares, all of you, the first thing. You there, fork out! And you! Now I've got all, I think.—Micyllus, where's your penny?
Mic. You joke, my friend; you might as well try to get blood out of a turnip, as they say, as money out of Micyllus. Heaven help me if I know a penny by sight—whether it's round or square!
The scene which follows, satire though it be, has a terrible amount of truth in it. The tone of burlesque passes almost into that of tragedy. It reads like a passage from some dramatic mediæval sermon. The dead are summoned one by one before the tribunal of Rhadamanthus. Each has to strip for examination: for, burnt in upon the breast of every man, patent now to the Judge of Souls, though invisible to mortal eyes, will be found the marks left by the sins of his past life.[8] Cyniscus presents himself first, cheerfully and confidently. Some faint indications there are upon his person of scars, healed over and almost obliterated. He explains that these are the traces of great faults committed in his youth through ignorance, which by the help of philosophy he has amended in his maturer years. He is acquitted, and bid to take his place among the just, after he shall have given evidence against the tyrant Megapenthes. Micyllus, the poor cobbler, who has had few temptations, shows no marks at all. But when Megapenthes, hanging back in terror from the scrutiny, is hurled by Tisiphone into the presence of the judge, Cyniscus has a terrible list of crimes to charge against him. He has abused his power and wealth to the most atrocious deeds of lust and cruelty. In vain he tries to deny the accusations: his Bed and his Lamp, the unwilling witnesses of his debaucheries, are summoned, by a bold and striking figure of impersonation, to bear their evidence against him; and when he is stripped for examination, his whole person is found to be livid with the marks imprinted on it by his crimes. The only question is what punishment shall be assigned him. The Cynic philosopher begs to suggest a new and fitting one.
Cyniscus. It is the custom, I believe, for all your dead here to drink the water of Lethe?
Rhadamanthus. Certainly.
Cyn. Then let this man alone not be permitted to taste it.
Rhad. And why so?
Cyn. So shall he suffer the bitterest punishment in the recollection of all that he has been and done, and all the power he had while on earth, and in the thought of his past pleasures.
Rhad. Excellently well advised! Sentence is passed. Let him be fettered and carried away to Tartarus, there to remember all his past life.
The keen intellect which rejected, as some of the greatest minds of antiquity had done before him, the inventions of poet and mythologist as to the future state, could appreciate the awful truth of a moral hell which the sinner carried always within him. Lucian would have said, with that great Roman poet who found no refuge from superstition but in materialism,—
As his vast bulk lies tost on Acheron's wave;
·····
But he is Tityos, whose prostrate soul
The fangs of guilty love and vain regret,
And fruitless longings ever vex and tear."[9]
In that thought, at least, the Christian poet is in accord with the heathen. It is the punishment which Milton imagines for the Great Tempter himself:—
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him now from Hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place; now conscience works despair
That slumbered,—wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be."[10]
CHARON'S VISIT TO THE UPPER WORLD.
This is one of the author's best pieces, and though classed amongst the miscellaneous Dialogues, may very well find a place here. The dramatis personæ are the same, and the contrast between the world of the living and the world of ghosts is still the theme.
MERCURY AND CHARON.
Mercury. What are you laughing about, Charon? And what has made you leave your boat and come up here into our parts? You don't very often favour us with a visit.
Charon. Well, I had a fancy, Master Mercury, to see what kind of a thing human life was, and what men do in the world, and what it is that they have to leave behind them, that they all bemoan themselves so when they come down our way. For you know that never a one of them makes the voyage without tears. So I begged leave of absence from Pluto, just for a day, like Protesilaus, and came up here into the daylight. And I think myself very lucky in falling in with you; you'll be good enough to act as my guide, I know, and go round with me and show me everything—you know all about it.
Merc. Really, Mr Ferryman, I can't spare time. I have to go off to do an errand for Jupiter upon earth. He's very irascible, and if I loiter on the road, I fear he may banish me entirely into your dark dominions, or do to me as he did to Vulcan lately,—take me by the foot and pitch me down from heaven, and so I shall have to go limping round with the wine, like him.
Cha. And will you let me go wandering about the earth and losing my way—you, my old friend and messmate? It wouldn't be amiss for you to remember, my lad, how I have never made you bale the boat, or even pull an oar, but you lie snoring on the deck, for all those great broad shoulders; or if you find any talkative fellow among the dead men, you chatter with him all the way over, leaving a poor old fellow like me to pull both oars myself. By your father's beard, now, my good Mercury, don't go away! Show me round this upper world, that I may see something before I go home again. Why, if you leave me here by myself, I shall be no better than the blind men. Just as they go stumbling about in the darkness, so do I in this confounded light. Oblige me now, Mercury, do—and I'll never forget the favour.
Merc. This job will cost me a beating, I plainly foresee—all the wages I shall get for acting as guide will be blows. But I suppose I must oblige you: what can a fellow do when a friend presses him? But as to seeing everything thoroughly, Mr Ferryman, that's impossible—it would take a matter of years. There would have to be a hue and cry sent after me by Jupiter, as a runaway; and it would stop your business in the service of Death, and Pluto's empire would suffer, by your stopping all transportation there for some time; and then Æacus would be in a rage about his fees, when he found not an obol coming in. But I'll manage to let you see what's best worth seeing.
Cha. You know best, Mercury; I'm a perfect stranger here, and know nought about this upper world.
Merc. First, then, we must find some commanding spot, where you can see everything from. If you could have got up into heaven, now, there would have been no trouble—you might see it all from there, as from a watch-tower. However, since your ghostly functions are a bar to your admittance into Jove's dominions, we must look out for a good high mountain.
Cha. You know what I used to say when we were aboard my boat. Whenever the wind took us on the quarter, and the waves rose high, then you, in your ignorance, would be calling to me to shorten sail, or let go the sheet, or run before the wind,—and I always bid you all sit still and hold your tongues—I knew what was best to be done. So now do you just take what course you think best: you are captain now; and I, as all passengers should do, will sit still and do as you tell me.
Merc. Very right. I know the best plan, and I'll soon find a good look-out place. Would Caucasus do? or is Parnassus higher—or Olympus higher still? When I look at Olympus, a bright idea comes into my head; but you must help me, and do your fair share of the work.
Cha. Give your orders—I'll help as far as I can.
Merc. The poet Homer says that the sons of Aloeus—they were but two, and they were only youths—designed once upon a time to wrench up Ossa and put it on Olympus, and then Pelion on top of that—thinking so to get a good ladder to climb into heaven by. Now those lads suffered for it, and it served them right, for if was a very insolent trick. But you see we are not scheming anything against the gods, so why should not we two roll these mountains one on top of the other, so as to get a good view from a commanding position?
Cha. And could we two by ourselves lift and carry Pelion or Ossa?
Merc. Why not, Charon? you don't mean to say that we are weaker than those two boys,—we, who are divinities?
Cha. No; but the thing itself seems, to my mind, impossible.
Merc. Very likely; because you're so illiterate, Charon, and destitute altogether of the poetic faculty. But that grand Homer makes a road into heaven in two lines—he claps the mountains together so easily. I wonder, too, that this should seem to you such a prodigy, when you know how Atlas bears the weight of the whole globe himself, and carries us all on his back. I suppose you've heard, too, of my brother Hercules, how he supplied Atlas's place once, just to allow him a little rest, while he took the weight upon his own shoulders?
Cha. Yes, I've heard all about it; but whether it be true or not, you and the poet only know.
Merc. Quite true, I assure you, Charon: why should such clever men tell lies? So let's set to work upon Ossa first, as the poet and his verse recommend;
Do you see how easy it is? We've done it capitally—and most poetically. Now let me get up and see whether it will do, or whether we must build a little higher yet. Ah! we are still under the shadow of Olympus, I see. Only Ionia and Lydia are visible yet on the east: on the west, we can't see further than Italy and Sicily: on the south, only this side the Danube,—and Crete only indistinctly down here. I say, Ferryman, we shall have to move Œta too, and then clap Parnassus on top of all.
Cha. So be it; only take care we don't attempt too much,—I mean, beyond what poetical probability allows. Homer will prove a very unlucky architect for us, if we tumble down with all this weight upon us and break our skulls.
Merc. Never fear—it's all quite safe. Move Œta now—now up with Parnassus. There—now I'll get up and look again. All right—I can see everything. Now you come up too.
Cha. Lend us a hand then, Mercury—it's no joke getting up such a place as this.
Merc. Well, if you want to see everything, you know, Charon, you can't expect to gratify your curiosity and never risk your neck. But take fast hold of my hand—and take care you don't put your foot upon a slippery stone. Well done!—now you're safe up. Parnassus, luckily, has two tops, so you can sit upon one and I on the other. Now look all round you and see what you can see.
Cha. I see a large extent of land, and as it were a great lake all round it, and mountains and rivers bigger than Cocytus or Phlegethon,—and men,—oh! such little creatures! and some kind of hiding-places or burrows they have.
Merc. Those are cities, which you call burrows.
Cha. Do you know, Mercury, we seem to have done no good, after all, in moving Parnassus, and Œta, and these other mountains?
Merc. Why so?
Cha. Because I can see nothing distinctly from this height. I wanted not merely to see cities and hills, as one does in a picture, but men themselves, and what they do, and what they talk about,—as I did when you met me first and found me laughing; I had just been uncommonly amused at something.
Merc. And what was that, pray?
Cha. Some man had been invited by one of his friends to dinner, I conclude, for to-morrow. "I'll be sure to come," says he—and just as he was speaking, down comes a tile from the roof somehow, and kills him. So I laughed to think he couldn't keep his appointment. And now I think I had better get down again, that I may see and hear better.
Merc. Stay where you are. I've a remedy for this difficulty too, I can make you marvellously keen-sighted, by using a certain incantation from Homer, invented for this special purpose. The moment I say the words, you'll find no more difficulty as to vision, but will see everything quite plain.
Cha. Say them, then.
Merc.
How now? Can you see belter?
Cha. Wonderful! Lynceus himself would be blind in comparison! Now explain things to me, and answer my questions. But first, would you like me to ask you a question out of Homer, that you may see I'm not quite ignorant of the great poet?
Merc. How come you to know anything about him,—a sailor like you, always at the oar?
Cha. Look here now,—that's very disrespectful to my craft. Why, when I carried him across after he was dead, I heard him rhapsodising all the way, and I remember some of it. A terrible storm we had that voyage, too. He began some chant of not very happy omen for seafaring folk,—how Neptune gathered the clouds, and troubled the sea—stirring it up with his trident, like a ladle—rousing all the winds and everything else. He so disturbed the water with his poetry, that all on a sudden we had a perfect tempest about us, and the boat was wellnigh overset. Well, then, he fell sick himself, and vomited up great part of his poem,—Scylla and Charybdis, and the Cyclops, and all. I had no great trouble in picking up a few scraps of the contents. So, as the poet has it,—
By head and shoulders towering o'er the throng?"
Merc. That's Milo of Crotona, the great wrestler. The Greeks are applauding him because he has just lifted a bull and is carrying it across the arena.
Cha. They'll have much better reason to applaud me, Mercury, when I get hold of Milo himself, as I shall do very shortly, and clap him on board my boat, when he comes down our way after having been thrown by that invincible wrestler, Death; no back-trick that he knows can manage him. He'll weep and groan then, we shall see, when he remembers all his laurels and triumphs; but now he is very proud because they all admire him for carrying the bull. Do you suppose, now, that man ever expects to die?
The visitor from the lower world, under Mercury's instruction, surveys many other scenes in human life. Space and Chronology are, of course, set entirely at defiance under the potent incantation which Mercury has borrowed from the poet—as they are, indeed, sometimes by poets themselves. He sees Cyrus planning his great expedition against Crœsus; overhears the latter monarch holding his celebrated conversation with Solon on the great question of human happiness; is shown the Scythian Tomyris on her white horse, the savage queen who is to give the Persian conqueror "his fill of blood." He sees the too fortunate Polycrates receiving back his lost ring from the fisherman,
and learns from his guide (who has heard it as a secret from Clotho) the miserable end of the tyrant's prosperity. Then Mercury shows him the now desolate site of what once was Nineveh, and tells him how the great Babylon is fated to perish in like manner. As for the remains of Mycenæ, and Argos, and, above all, of the renowned Troy,—these Mercury is afraid to show his friend, lest when he returns to the Shades below he should strangle the poet for his exaggerations. The whole dialogue is very fine, and in a higher tone than is Lucian's wont to use, though no writer could use it with better effect.
Cha. Strange and multiform indeed is the crowd I see, and human life seems full of trouble. And their cities are like hives of bees, in which each has his own sting, and therewith attacks his neighbour; and some, like wasps, plunder and harry the weaker. But who are that crowd of shadows, invisible to them, who hover over their heads?
Merc. These, Charon, are Hope, and Fear, and Madness; and Lusts, and Desires, and Passions, and Hate, and suchlike. Of these, Folly mingles with the crowd below, and is, as one may say, their fellow-citizen. So also Hate, and Anger, and Jealousy, and Ignorance, and Distress, and Covetousness. But Fear and Hope hover above them; and the first, when she swoops down upon them, drives them out of their minds, and makes them cower and shudder; whilst Hope, still fluttering over them, the instant one thinks he has surely laid hold of her, flies up out of his reach, and leaves him balked and gaping, like Tantalus below, when the water flies his lips. Also, if you look close, you will see the Fates too hovering over them, each with her spindle, whence are drawn slender threads which are attached to all.
Charon compares human life to the bubbles which rise and float along the stream—some small, which quickly burst and disappear; some larger, which attract others in their course, and so grow larger still, but which soon break also in their turn, and vanish into nothing;[13] and Mercury assures him that his comparison is quite as good as Homer's celebrated one of the leaves on the trees. It puzzles him also to discover what there is in this life so very desirable, that men should so take the loss of it to heart; and he would fain himself take a journey to earth, and preach wisdom to these miserable mortals, to warn them to "cease from vanity, and live with death ever before their eyes. 'O fools!' I would say to them, 'why are ye anxious about such little things? Cease from thus wearying yourselves; ye cannot live for eyer: none of those things ye so admire is everlasting, nor can a man carry aught of it away with him when he dies, but naked he must depart below; and house and lands and gold must change their master, and pass into other hands.'"
But all such preaching, Mercury assures him, would be in vain. Their ears are so fast stopped with error and ignorance, that no surgeon's instrument can bore them. What Lethe does for the dead, obstinacy does for the living. Some there are, however, among these mortals, "whose ears are open to the voice of truth, and whose vision is purged to see the things of human life in their real aspect." Charon would read his lesson, then, to them. "That would be labour lost," replies Mercury, "to teach them what they know well already. See how they sit apart from the vulgar herd, smiling at all that passes, and feeling never any kind of satisfaction in it: but plainly meditating an escape to your quiet regions, out of the weariness of life; hated, moreover, as they are by their fellows, because they seek to convict them of their folly." "These seem but few," says Charon. "They are enough," replies Mercury. Enough to be the salt of the earth; such, even in the heathen’s estimate, must always be few. And cynicism and suicide,—these, as we see, were the heathen's remedies for the vanity and vexation of life.
- ↑ "The dead," says Fontenelle in his preface, "ought to speak wisely, from their longer experience and greater leisure; it is to be hoped that they take rather more time to think than is usual with the living."
- ↑ The term "Cynic," applied to that school of philosophy, is derived from the Greek for "dog."
- ↑ "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come."—Hamlet, act v. sc. 1.
- ↑ Hom., Il. iii. 156.
- ↑ Hom., Odyss. xi. (Worsley).
- ↑ The many offices of Mercury were a favourite subject of jest with Aristophanes as well as with Lucian. Some figures of the god represented him with his face painted half black and half white, to signify his double occupation, above and below.
- ↑ At which spot there was one of the reputed descents to the Shades.
- ↑ This is from Plato. In his 'Gorgias' (524) Rhadamanthus finds the soul of the tyrant "full of the prints and scars of perjuries and wrongs which have been stamped there by each action." Tacitus (Ann. vi. 6), speaking of Tiberius, introduces the idea as that of Socrates: "If the minds of tyrants could be laid open to view, scars and wounds would be discovered upon them: since the mind is lacerated by cruelty, lust, and evil passions, even as the body is by stripes and blows."
- ↑ Lucretius, iii. 997.
- ↑ Par. Lost, iv. 18.
- ↑ Hom., Odyss. xi.
- ↑ Hom., Il. v. 127.
- ↑ Jeremy Taylor has adopted and enlarged this passage from Lucian, in the opening paragraph of his "Holy Dying."