Part 7 (1/2)
THE POET, ON BELIEVING, AND NOT BELIEVING.
It is dangerous alike to believe or to disbelieve. Of either fact, I will briefly lay before you an instance.
Hippolytus met his death,[25] because his step-mother was believed: because Ca.s.sandra was not believed, Troy fell. Therefore, we ought to examine strictly into the truth of a matter, rather than {suffer} an erroneous impression to pervert our judgment. But, that I may not weaken {this truth} by referring to fabulous antiquity, I will relate to you a thing that happened within my own memory.
A certain married Man, who was very fond of his Wife, having now provided the white toga[26] for his Son, was privately taken aside by his Freedman, who hoped that he should be subst.i.tuted as his next heir, {and} who, after telling many lies about the youth, and still more about the misconduct of the chaste Wife, added, what he knew would especially grieve one so fond, that a gallant was in the habit of paying her visits, and that the honor of his house was stained with base adultery.
Enraged at the supposed guilt of his Wife, the husband pretended a journey to his country-house, and privately stayed behind in town; then at night he suddenly entered at the door, making straight to his Wife's apartment, in which the mother had ordered her son to sleep, keeping a strict eye over his ripening years. While they are seeking for a light, while the servants are hurrying to and fro, unable to restrain the violence of his raging pa.s.sion, he approaches the bed, and feels a head in the dark. When he finds the hair cut close,[27] he plunges his sword into {the sleeper's} breast, caring for nothing, so he but avenge his injury. A light being brought, at the same instant he beholds his son, and his chaste wife sleeping in her apartment; who, fast locked in her first sleep, had heard nothing: on the spot he inflicted punishment on himself for his guilt, and fell upon the sword which a too easy belief had unsheathed. The accusers indicted the woman, and dragged her to Rome, before the Centumviri.[28] Innocent as she was, dark suspicion weighed heavily against her, because she had become possessor of his property: her patrons stand[29] and boldly plead the cause of the guiltless woman. The judges then besought the Emperor Augustus that he would aid them in the discharge of their oath, as the intricacy of the case had embarra.s.sed them. After he had dispelled the clouds raised by calumny, and had discovered a sure source of truth[30]: ”Let the Freedman,” said he, ”the cause of the mischief, suffer punishment; but as for her, at the same instant bereft of a son, and deprived of a husband, I deem her to be pitied rather than condemned. If the father of the family had thoroughly enquired into the charge preferred, and had shrewdly sifted the lying accusations, he would not, by a dismal crime, have ruined his house from the very foundation.”
Let the ear despise nothing, nor yet let it accord implicit belief at once: since not only do those err whom you would be far from suspecting, but those who do not err are {sometimes} falsely and maliciously accused.
This also may be a warning to the simple, not to form a judgment on anything according to the opinion of another; for the different aims of mortals either follow the bias of their goodwill or their prejudice. He {alone} will be correctly estimated {by you}, whom you judge of by personal experience.
These points I have enlarged upon, as by too great brevity I have offended some.
[Footnote III.25: _Met his death_)--Ver. 3. The story of Hippolytus, who met his death in consequence of the treachery of his step-mother Phaedra, is related at length in the Play of Euripides of that name, and in the Fifteenth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The fate of Ca.s.sandra, the daughter of Priam, who in vain prophesied the fall of Troy, is related in the Second Book of the aeneid, l. 246, _et seq._]
[Footnote III.26: _The white toga_)--Ver. 10. The ”toga praetexta,” or Consular robe, was worn by the male children of the Romans till their sixteenth year; when they a.s.sumed the ordinary ”toga,” which was called ”pura,” because it had no purple border, and was entirely white.]
[Footnote III.27: _The hair cut close_)--Ver. 27. This is appropriately introduced, as the hair of youths was allowed to grow long until they had reached the age of manhood, on which it was cut close, and consecrated to the G.o.ds.]
[Footnote III.28: _The Centumviri_)--Ver. 35. The ”Centumviri”
were a body of 105 officers, whose duty it was to a.s.sist the praetor in litigated questions. They were sometimes called ”judices selecti,” or ”commissioned judges.”]
[Footnote III.29: _The patrons stand_)--Ver. 37. The patrons stood while pleading the causes of their clients, while the judges sat, as with us.]
[Footnote III.30: _Sure source of truth_)--Ver. 43. It is suggested that the source of information here alluded to was the evidence of the slaves, who had heard their master mention in his last moments the treachery of his freedman. It is not probable that the freedman voluntarily came forward, and declared the truth to Augustus. In l. 39, Augustus is called ”Divus,” as having been deified after his death. Domitian was the first who was so called during his lifetime.]
FABLE XI.
THE EUNUCH TO THE ABUSIVE MAN.
A Eunuch had a dispute with a scurrilous fellow, who, in addition to obscene remarks and insolent abuse, reproached him with the misfortune of his mutilated person. ”Look you,” said {the Eunuch}, ”this is the only point as to which I am effectually staggered, forasmuch as I want the evidences of integrity. But why, simpleton, do you charge me with the faults of fortune? That {alone} is really disgraceful to a man, which he has deserved to suffer.”[31]
[Footnote III.31: _Deserved to suffer_)--Ver. 7. Though this moral may apply to all misfortunes in general, it is supposed by some of the Commentators that by the insulter some individual notorious for his adulteries was intended to be represented; who consequently merited by law to be reduced to the same situation as the innocent Eunuch.]
FABLE XII.
THE c.o.c.k AND THE PEARL.
A young c.o.c.k, while seeking for food on a dunghill, found a Pearl, and exclaimed: ”What a fine thing are you to be lying in {so} unseemly a place. If any one sensible of your value had espied you here, you would long ago have returned to your former brilliancy. And it is I who have found you, I to whom food is far preferable! I can be of no use to you or you to me.”
This I relate for those who have no relish for me.[32]
[Footnote III.32: _Have no relish for me_)--Ver. 8. From this pa.s.sage we may infer either that Phaedrus himself had many censurers at Rome, or that the people in general were not admirers of Fables.]
FABLE XIII.
THE BEES AND THE DRONES, THE WASP SITTING AS JUDGE.