Part 5 (2/2)
When Jupiter had done all his business we repaired to the feast, for it was now supper-time, and Mercury bade me sit down by Pan, the Corybantes, Attis, and Sabazius, a kind of demi-G.o.ds who are admitted as visitors there. Ceres served us with bread, and Bacchus with wine; Hercules handed about the flesh, Venus scattered myrtles, and Neptune brought us fish; not to mention that I got slyly a little nectar and ambrosia, for my friend Ganymede, out of good- nature, if he saw Jove looking another way, would frequently throw me in a cup or two. The greater G.o.ds, as Homer tells us {187a} (who, I suppose, had seen them as well as myself,) never taste meat or wine, but feed upon ambrosia and get drunk with nectar, at the same time their greatest luxury is, instead of victuals, to suck in the fumes that rise from the victims, and the blood of the sacrifices that are offered up to them. Whilst we were at supper, Apollo played on the harp, Silenus danced a cordax, and the Muses repeated Hesiod's Theogony, and the first Ode of Pindar. When these recreations were over we all retired tolerably well soaked, {187b} to bed,
”Now pleasing rest had sealed each mortal eye, And even immortal G.o.ds in slumber lie, All but myself--” {187c}
I could not help thinking of a thousand things, and particularly how it came to pa.s.s that, during so long a time Apollo {188a} should never have got him a beard, and how there came to be night in heaven, though the sun is always present there and feasting with them. I slept a little, and early in the morning Jupiter ordered the crier to summon a council of the G.o.ds, and when they were all a.s.sembled, thus addressed himself to them.
”The stranger who came here yesterday, is the chief cause of my convening you this day. I have long wanted to talk with you concerning the philosophers, and the complaints now sent to us from the Moon make it immediately necessary to take the affair into consideration. There is lately sprung up a race of men, slothful, quarrelsome, vain-glorious, foolish, petulant, gluttonous, proud, abusive, in short what Homer calls,
”An idle burthen to the ground.” {188b}
These, dividing themselves into sects, run through all the labyrinths of disputation, calling themselves Stoics, Academics, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and a hundred other names still more ridiculous; then wrapping themselves up in the sacred veil of virtue, they contract their brows and let down their beards, under a specious appearance hiding the most abandoned profligacy; like one of the players on the stage, if you strip him of his fine habits wrought with gold, all that remains behind is a ridiculous spectacle of a little contemptible fellow, hired to appear there for seven drachmas. And yet these men despise everybody, talk absurdly of the G.o.ds, and drawing in a number of credulous boys, roar to them in a tragical style about virtue, and enter into disputations that are endless and unprofitable. To their disciples they cry up fort.i.tude and temperance, a contempt of riches and pleasures, and, when alone, indulge in riot and debauchery. The most intolerable of all is, that though they contribute nothing towards the good and welfare of the community, though they are
”Unknown alike in council and in field;” {189}
yet are they perpetually finding fault with, abusing, and reviling others, and he is counted the greatest amongst them who is most impudent, noisy, and malevolent; if one should say to one of these fellows who speak ill of everybody, 'What service are you of to the commonwealth?' he would reply, if he spoke fairly and honestly, 'To be a sailor or a soldier, or a husbandman, or a mechanic, I think beneath me; but I can make a noise and look dirty, wash myself in cold water, go barefoot all winter, and then, like Momus, find fault with everybody else; if any rich man sups luxuriously, I rail at, and abuse him; but if any of my friends or acquaintance fall sick, and want my a.s.sistance, I take no notice of them.'
”Such, my brother G.o.ds, are the cattle {190} which I complain of; and of all these the Epicureans are the worst, who a.s.sert that the G.o.ds take no care of human affairs, or look at all into them: it is high time, my brethren, that we should take this matter into consideration, for if once they can persuade the people to believe these things, you must all starve; for who will sacrifice to you, when they can get nothing by it? What the Moon accuses you of, you all heard yesterday from the stranger; consult, therefore, amongst yourselves, and determine what may best promote the happiness of mankind, and our own security.” When Jupiter had thus spoken, the a.s.sembly rung with repeated cries, of ”thunder, and lightning! burn, consume, destroy! down with them into the pit, to Tartarus, and the giants!” Jove, however, once more commanding silence, cried out, ”It shall be done as you desire; they and their philosophy shall perish together: but at present, no punishments must be inflicted; for these four months to come, as you all know, it is a solemn feast, and I have declared a truce: next year, in the beginning of the spring, my lightning shall destroy them.
”As to Menippus, first cutting off his wings that he may not come here again, let Mercury carry him down to the earth.”
Saying this, he broke up the a.s.sembly, and Mercury taking me up by my right ear, brought me down, and left me yesterday evening in the Ceramicus. And now, my friend, you have heard everything I had to tell you from heaven; I must take my leave, and carry this good news to the philosophers, who are walking in the Poecile.
NOTES.
{17} One of Alexander's generals, to whose share, on the division of the empire, after that monarch's death, fell the kingdom of Thrace, in which was situated the city of Abdera.
{18a} A small fragment of this tragedy, which has in it the very line here quoted by Lucian, is yet extant in Barnes's edition of Euripides.
{18b} This story may afford no useless admonition to the managers of the Haymarket and other summer theatres, who, it is to be hoped, will not run the hazard of inflaming their audiences with too much tragedy in the dog days.
{19a} This alludes to the Parthian War, in the time of Severian; the particulars of which, except the few here occasionally glanced at, we are strangers to. Lucian, most probably, by this tract totally knocked up some of the historians who had given an account of it, and prevented many others, who were intimidated by the severity of his strictures, attempting to transmit the history of it to posterity.
{19b} This saying is attributed to Empedocles.
{20a} The most famous of the Pontic cities, and well known as the residence of the renowned Cynic philosopher. It is still called by the same name, and is a port town of Asiatic Turkey, on the Euxine.
{20b} A kind of school or gymnasium where the young men performed their exercises. The choice of such a place by a philosopher to roll a tub in heightens the ridicule.
{21} See Homer's ”Odyssey,” M 1. 219.
{23} Alluding to the story he set out with.
{24a} [Greek]. Gr. The Latin translation renders it ”octava duplici.” See Burney's ”Dissertation on Music,” Sect. 1.
{24b} Gr. [Greek], aspera arteria, or the wind-pipe. The comparison is strictly just and remarkably true, as we may all recollect how dreadful the sensation is when any part of our food slips down what is generally called ”the wrong way.”
{25a} See Homer's ”Iliad,” [Greek] 1. 227, and Virgil's ”Camilla,”
in the 7th book of the ”AEneid.”
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