Volume I Part 7 (1/2)

CALLICLES. What, in the name of Jupiter, is the use of all these speculations about death? Socrates once (See the close of Plato's Gorgias.) lectured me upon it the best part of a day. I have hated the sight of him ever since. Such things may suit an old sophist when he is fasting; but in the midst of wine and music--

HIPPOMACHUS. I differ from you. The enlightened Egyptians bring skeletons into their banquets, in order to remind their guests to make the most of their life while they have it.

CALLICLES. I want neither skeleton nor sophist to teach me that lesson.

More wine, I pray you, and less wisdom. If you must believe something which you never can know, why not be contented with the long stories about the other world which are told us when we are initiated at the Eleusinian mysteries? (The scene which follows is founded upon history.

Thucydides tells us, in his sixth book, that about this time Alcibiades was suspected of having a.s.sisted at a mock celebration of these famous mysteries. It was the opinion of the vulgar among the Athenians that extraordinary privileges were granted in the other world to alt who had been initiated.)

CHARICLEA. And what are those stories?

ALCIBIADES. Are not you initiated, Chariclea?

CHARICLEA. No; my mother was a Lydian, a barbarian; and therefore--

ALCIBIADES. I understand. Now the curse of Venus on the fools who made so hateful a law! Speusippus, does not your friend Euripides (The right of Euripides to this line is somewhat disputable. See Aristophanes; Plutus, 1152.) say

”The land where thou art prosperous is thy country?”

Surely we ought to say to every lady

”The land where thou art pretty is thy country.”

Besides, to exclude foreign beauties from the chorus of the initiated in the Elysian fields is less cruel to them than to ourselves. Chariclea, you shall be initiated.

CHARICLEA. When?

ALCIBIADES. Now.

CHARICLEA. Where?

ALCIBIADES. Here.

CHARICLEA. Delightful!

SPEUSIPPUS. But there must be an interval of a year between the purification and the initiation.

ALCIBIADES. We will suppose all that.

SPEUSIPPUS. And nine days of rigid mortification of the senses.

ALCIBIADES. We will suppose that too. I am sure it was supposed, with as little reason, when I was initiated.

SPEUSIPPUS. But you are sworn to secrecy.

ALCIBIADES. You a sophist, and talk of oaths! You a pupil of Euripides, and forget his maxims!

”My lips have sworn it; but my mind is free.” (See Euripides: Hippolytus, 608. For the jesuitical morality of this line Euripides is bitterly attacked by the comic poet.)

SPEUSIPPUS. But Alcibiades--