Part 8 (1/2)
_A story of the physician Asclepiades._
19. The famous Asclepiades, who ranks among the greatest of doctors, indeed, if you except Hippocrates, as the very greatest, was the first to discover the use of wine as a remedy. It requires, however, to be administered at the proper moment, and it was in the discovery of the right moment that he showed especial skill, noting most carefully the slightest symptom of disorder or undue rapidity of the pulse. It chanced that once, when he was returning to town from his country house, he observed an enormous funeral procession in the suburbs of the city. A huge mult.i.tude of men who had come out to perform the last honours stood round about the bier, all of them plunged in deep sorrow and wearing worn and ragged apparel. He asked whom they were burying, but no one replied; so he went nearer[62] to satisfy his curiosity and to see who it might be that was dead, or, it may be, in the hope to make some discovery in the interests of his profession. Be this as it may, he certainly s.n.a.t.c.hed the man from the jaws of death as he lay there on the verge of burial. The poor fellow's limbs were already covered with spices, his mouth filled with sweet-smelling unguent. He had been anointed and was all ready for the pyre. But Asclepiades looked upon him, took careful note of certain signs, handled his body again and again and perceived that the life was still in him, though scarcely to be detected. Straightway he cried out 'He lives! Throw down your torches, take away your fire demolish the pyre, take back the funeral feast and spread it on his board at home'. While he spoke a murmur arose; some said that they must take the doctor's word, others mocked at the physician's skill. At last, in spite of the opposition offered even by his relations, perhaps because they had already entered into possession of the dead man's property, perhaps because they did not yet believe his words, Asclepiades persuaded them to put off the burial for a brief s.p.a.ce. Having thus rescued him from the hands of the undertaker, he carried the man home, as it were from the very mouth of h.e.l.l, and straightway revived the spirit within him, and by means of certain drugs called forth the life that still lay hidden in the secret places of the body.
[Footnote 62: _uti_ (Beyte) _cognosceret more ingenii_ (MSS.). _more ingenii_ may be corrupt. If it may stand, it must mean 'as his nature prompted him', i.e. to satisfy his curiosity.]
_A panegyric on his own talents._
20. There is a remarkable saying of a wise man concerning the pleasures of the table to the effect that, 'The first gla.s.s quenches thirst, the second makes merry, the third kindles desire, the fourth madness.' But in the case of a draught from the Muses' fountain the reverse is true. The more cups you drink and the more undiluted the draught the better it will be for your soul's good. The first cup is given by the master that teaches you to read and write and redeems you from ignorance[63], the second is given by the teacher of literature and equips you with learning, the third arms you with the eloquence of the rhetorician. Of these three cups most men drink. I, however, have drunk yet other cups at Athens--the imaginative draught of poetry, the clear draught of geometry, the sweet draught of music, the austerer draught of dialectic, and the nectar of all philosophy, whereof no man may ever drink enough. For Empedocles composed verse, Plato dialogues, Socrates hymns, Epicharmus music, Xenophon histories, and Xenocrates satire. But your friend Apuleius cultivates all these branches of art together and wors.h.i.+ps all nine Muses with equal zeal. His enthusiasm is, I admit, in advance of his capacity, but that perhaps makes him all the more praiseworthy, inasmuch as in all high enterprises it is the effort that merits praise, success is after all a matter of chance. As an ill.u.s.tration I may remind you, that the law punishes even the premeditation of crime, though the criminal's purpose may never have been carried out; the hand may be pure, but there is blood upon the soul, and that suffices. As, then, to call down the doom of law it suffices to purpose deeds meet for punishment, so to win praise it is sufficient to essay deeds worthy of the voice of fame; and what greater or surer claim to praise may any man have than to glorify Carthage? For you, her citizens, are full of learning to a man, your boys learn, your young men display, and your old men teach all manner of knowledge. Carthage is the venerable instructress of our province, Carthage is the heavenly muse of Africa, Carthage is the fount whence all the Roman world draws draughts of inspiration.
[Footnote 63: _litteratoris, ruditate_ (Kruger).]
_An excuse for delay caused by social duties._
21. Sometimes even when haste is most inc.u.mbent on us, the delays that slow our progress may bring such honour, that often we shall be glad to have been thwarted of our purpose. For instance, take the case of persons who are compelled to journey in such high haste, that they prefer the perils of the saddle to a seat in a carriage on account of the trouble caused by their baggage, the weight of the vehicle, the delays to progress, the roughness of the track, not to mention the boulders that beset the route, the tree trunks fallen across the way, the rivers that intersect the level, and the steep slopes of the mountains. Well, then, those who wish to avoid all these obstacles select a horse of tried endurance, mettle, and speed, that is to say, one strong to bear and swift to go, like the horse described by Lucilius that
_With one sole stride o'erpa.s.ses plain and hill._
None the less, if as this horse bears them along on the wings of his speed, they chance to see some great personage, a man of n.o.ble birth, high wisdom, and universal fame, then, however pressing their haste, they refrain their speed that they may do him honour, slacken their pace and rein in their horse: then straightway leaping to the ground they transfer to their left hand the switch, which they carry wherewith to beat the horse, and with right hand thus left free approach the great man and salute him. If it please him for a while to ask questions of them, they will walk with him for a while and talk with him: in fact they will gladly suffer any amount of delay in the performance of the duty which they owe him.
_On the Virtues of Crates._
22. Crates, the well-known disciple of Diogenes, was honoured at Athens by the men of his own day as though he had been a household G.o.d. No house was ever closed to him, no head of a family had ever so close a secret as to regard Crates as an unseasonable intruder: he was always welcome; there was never a quarrel, never a lawsuit between kinsfolk, but he was accepted as mediator and his word was law. The poets tell that Hercules of old by his valour subdued all the wild monsters of legend, beast or man, and purged all the world of them.
Even so our philosopher was a very Hercules in the conquest of anger, envy, avarice, l.u.s.t, and all the other monstrous sins that beset the human soul. He expelled all these pests from their minds, purged households, and tamed vice. Nay, he too went half-naked and was distinguished by the club he carried, aye, and he sprang from that same Thebes, where Hercules, men say, was born. Even before he became Crates pure and simple, he was accounted one of the chief men in Thebes: his family was n.o.ble, his establishment numerous, his house had a fair and ample porch: his lands were rich and his clothing sumptuous. But later, when he understood that the wealth which had been transmitted to him, carried with it no safeguard whereon he might lean as on a staff in the ways of life, but that all was fragile and transitory, that all the wealth that is in all the world was of no a.s.sistance to a virtuous life....
_On the uncertainty of fortune._
23. Imagine some good s.h.i.+p, wrought by skilled hands, well built within and fairly adorned without, with rudder answering to the touch, taut rigging, lofty mast, resplendent tops, and s.h.i.+ning sails; in a word, supplied with all such gear as may serve either for use or the delight of the eye. Imagine all this and then think how easily, if the tempest and no helmsman be her guide, the deep may engulf her or the reefs grind her to pieces with all her goodly gear. Again, when physicians enter a sick man's house to visit him, none of them bids the invalid be of good cheer on account of the exquisite balconies with which they see the house to be adorned, nor on account of the fretted ceilings all overlaid with gold, or the mult.i.tudes of handsome boys and youths that stand about the couch in his chamber. Rather the physician sits down by the man's bedside, takes his hand, feels it and explores the beat and movements of the pulse. If he discovers any irregularity or disorder, he informs his patient that he is seriously ill. Our rich man is bidden fast: on that day mid all the abundant store of his own house, he touches not even bread: and meanwhile all his slaves feast and are merry, and their servile state makes no difference to them.