man, I would not advise you to give way to such fits of passion in the streets. If Aristophanes were to see you, you would infallibly be in a comedy next spring. CAL. You have more reason to fear Aristophanes than any fool living. Oh, that he could but hear you trying to imitate the slang of Stratton and the lisp of Alcibiades!† You would be an inexhaustible subject. You would console him for the loss of Cleon. SPE. No, no. I may perhaps figure at the dramatic representations before long, but in a very different way. CAL. What do you mean! SPE. What say you to a tragedy? CAL. Oh, Hercules! Oh, Bacchus ! This is too much. Here is a universal genius; sophist,-orator, -poet. To what a three-headed monster have I given birth! a perfect Cerberus of intellect! CAL. And what have you chosen? SPE. You know there is a law which permits any modern poet to retouch a play of Eschylus, and bring it forward as his own composition. And as there is an absurd prejudice, among the vulgar, in favour of his extravagant pieces, I have selected one of them, and altered it. CAL. Which of them? SPE. Oh! that mass of barbarous absurdities, the Prometheus. But I have framed it anew upon the model of Euripides. By Bacchus, I shall make Sophocles and Agathon look about them. You would not know the play again. CAL. By Jupiter, I believe not. SPE. I have omitted the whole of that absurd dialogue between Vulcan and Strength, at the beginning. CAL. That may be, on the whole, an improvement. The play will then open with that grand soliloquy of Prometheus, when he is chained to the rock. "Oh! ye eternal heavens! ye rushing winds! Ye fountains of great-streams! Ye ocean waves, That in ten thousand sparkling dimples wreathe * See Aristophanes; Equites, 1375. ↑ See Aristophanes; Vespa, 44. Your azure smiles! All generating earth! Well, I allow that will be striking; I did not think you capable of that idea. Why do you laugh? SPE. Do you seriously suppose that one who has studied the plays of that great man, Euripides, would ever Alterations. begin a tragedy in such a ranting style? CAL. What, does not your play open with the speech of Prometheus? SPE. No doubt. CAL. Then what, in the name of Bacchus, do you make him say? SPE. You shall hear; and, if it be not in the very style of Euripides, call me a fool. CAL. That is a liberty which I shall venture to take, whether it be or no. But go on. SPE. Prometheus begins thus, "Cœlus begat Saturn and Briareus CAL. Very beautiful, and very natural; and, as you say, very like Euripides. SPE. You are sneering. Really, father, yon do not understand these things. You had not those advantages in your youth CAL. Which I have been fool enough to let you have. No; in my early days, lying had not been dignified into a science, nor politics degraded into a trade. I wrestled, and read Homer's battles,. instead of dressing my hair, and reciting lectures in verse out of Euripides. But I have some notion of what a play should be; I have seen Phrynichus, and lived with Eschylus. I saw the representation of the Persians. SPE. A wretched play; it may amuse the fools who row the Change in taste. triremes; but it is utterly unworthy to be had by any man of taste. CAL. If you had seen it acted ;-the whole theatre frantic with joy, stamping, shouting, laughing, crying. There was Cynægerius, the brother of Eschylus, who lost both his arms at Marathon, beating the stumps against his sides with rapture. When the crowd remarked him But where are you going? SPE. To sup with Alcibiades; he sails * See Eschylus; Prometheus, 83. SCENE-A Hall in the house of Alcibiades. ALCIBIADES, SPEUSIPPUS, CALLICLES, HIPPOMACHUS, CHARICLEA, and others, seated round a table, feasting. ALC. Bring larger cups. This shall be our gayest revel. It is probably the last -for some of us at least. SPE. At all events, it will be long before you taste such wine again, Alcibiades. CAL. Nay, there is excellent wine in Sicily. When I was there with Eurymedon's squadron, I had At supper. many a long carouse. You never saw finer grapes than those of Etna. HIP. The Greeks do not understand the art of making wine. Your Persian is the man. So rich, so fragrant, so sparkling! I will tell you what the Satrap of Caria said to me about that when I supped with him. ALC. Nay, sweet Hippomachus; not a word to-night about satraps, or the great king, or the walls of Babylon, or the * See Thucydides, vi. 13. ↑ Callicles plays a conspicuous part in the Gorgias of Plato. Pyramids, or the mummies. Chariclea why do you look so sad? CHA. Can I be cheerful when you are going to leave me, Alcibiades? ALC. My life, my sweet soul, it is but for a short time. In a year we conquer Sicily. In another, we humble Carthage.* I will bring back such robes, such necklaces, elephants' teeth by thousands, ay, and the elephants themselves, if you wish to see them. Nay, smile, my Chariclea, or I shall talk nonsense to no purpose. HIP. The largest elephant that I ever saw was in the grounds of Teribazus, near Suza. I wish that I had measured him. ALC. I wish that he had trod upon you. Come, come, Chariclea, we shall soon return, and then CHA. Yes; then indeed. "Then for revels; then for dances, "Come in laughing crowds to greet us Bring the myrtles, bring the dice, SPE. Whose lines are those, Alcibiades? ALC. My own. Think you, because I do not shut up myself to meditate, and drink water, and eat herbs, that I cannot write verses? By Apollo, if I did not spend my days in politics, and my nights in revelry, I should have made Sophocles tremble. But now I never go beyond a little song like this, and never invoke any Muse but Chariclea. But come, Speusippus, sing. You are a professed poet. Let us have some of your verses. SPE. My verses! How can you talk so? I a professed poet! A professed poet. sex? Would you have me forget his Phædras and Sthenobas? No: if ever I suffer any lines of that woman-hater, or his imitators, to be sung in my presence, may I sell herbs* like his mother, and wear rags like his Telephus.† ALC. Then, sweet Chariclea, since you have silenced Speusippus, you shall sing yourself. CHA. What shall I sing? ALC. Nay, choose for yourself. CHA. Then I will sing an Ionian hymn; which is chanted every spring at the feast of Venus, An Ionian. hymn. near Miletus. I used to sing it in my own country when I was a child; and-ah, Alcibiades ! ALC. Dear Chariclea, you shall sing something else. This distresses you. CHA. No: hand me the lyre :-no matter. You will hear the song to disadvantage. But if it were sung as I have heard it sung:-if this were a beautiful morning in spring, and if we were standing in a woody promontory, with the sea, and the white sails, and the blue Cyclades beneath us, and the portico of a temple peering through the trees on a hugh peak above our heads,and thousands of people, with myrtles in their hands, thronging up the winding path, their gay dresses and garlands disappearing and emerging by turns as they passed round the angle of the rock,then, perhaps ALC. Now, by Venus herself, sweet lady, where you are we shall lack neither sun, nor flowers, nor spring, nor temple, nor goddess. CHARICLEA. (Sings.) "Let this sunny hour be given, And the murmurs of the sea, Thou hast taught to lovers' eyes, Glowing cheeks and stifled sighs; *The mother of Euripides was a herb-woman. This was a favourite topic of Aristophanes. The hero of one of the lost plays of Euripides, who appears to have been brought upon the stage in the garb of a beggar. See Aristophanes, Acharn, 430, and in other places. Come with music floating o'er thee; Come with violets springing round; All their golden zones unbound, Now, with slender fingers fair, The long curls of rose-crowned hair." ALC. Sweetly sung; but mournfully, Chariclea; for which I would chide you, but that I am sad myself. More wine there. I wish to all the gods that I had fairly sailed from Athens. Parting. CHA. And from me, Alcibiades? ALC. Yes, from you, dear lady. The days which immediately precede separation are the most melancholy of our lives. CHA. Except those which immediately follow it. ALC. No; when I cease to see you, other objects may compel my attention; but can I be near you without thinking how lovely you are, and how soon I must leave you! HIP. Ay; travelling soon puts such thoughts out of men's heads CAL. A battle is the best remedy for them. CHA. A battle, I should think, might supply their place with others as unpleasant. CAL. No. The preparations are rather disagreeable to a novice. But as soon as the fighting begins, by Jupiter, it is a noble Travelling and fighting. time;-men tramping, shields clashing,-spears breaking,-and the pœan roaring louder than all. CHA. But what if you are killed? CAL. What indeed? You must ask Speusippus that question. He is a philosopher. ALC. Yes, and the greatest of philosophers, if he can answer it. SPE. Pythagoras is of opinion HIP. Pythagoras stole that and all his other opinions from Asia and Egypt. The transmigration of the soul and the vegetable diet are derived from India, I met a Brachman in Sogdiana CAL. All nonsense! CHA. What think you, Alcibiades! CHA. If I were to be your dove, Alcibiades, and you would treat me as Anacreon treated his, and let me nestle in your breast and drink from your cup, I would submit even to carry your loveletters to other ladies. CAL. What, in the name of Jupiter, is the use of all these speculations about death? Socrates once* 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 HIP. I differ from you. The enlightened Egyptians bring skeletons into their banquets, in order to remind their guests to make the most of their Skeletons at banquets. life while they have it. CAL. 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? CHA. And what are those stories? ALC. Are not you initiated, Chariclea? CHA. No; my mother was a Lydian, a barbarian; and therefore ALC. I understand. Now the curse of Venus on the fools who made so hateful a law! Speusippus, does not your friend Euripides 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 CHA. Where? ALC. Here. CHA. Delightful! SPE. But there must be an interval of a year between the purification and the initiation. ALC. We will suppose all that. SPE. And nine days of rigid mortification of the senses. ALC. We will suppose that too. I am sure it was supposed, with as little reason, when I was initiated. SPE. But you were sworn to secrecy. ALC. 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."* SPE. But, Alcibiades ALC. What! Are you afraid of Ceres and Proserpine? SPE. No-but-but-I-that is I-but it is best to be safe-I mean-Suppose there should be something in it. ALC. Now, by Mercury, I shall die with laughing. O Speusippus, Spensippas! Go back to your old father. Dig vineyards, and judge causes, and be a respectable citizen. But never, while you live, again dream of being a philosopher. SPE. Nay. I was only not that the beginning of it? Come, man, do not be angry. Why do you pace up and down with such long steps? You are not at Tartarus yet. You seem to think that you are already stalking, like poor Achilles, "With stride Majestic through the plain of Asphodel." SPE. How can you talk so, when you know that I believe all that foolery as little as you do? ALC. Then march. You shall be crier.t Callicles, you shall carry the torch. Why do you stare? CAL. I do not much like the frolic. ALC. Nay, surely, you are not taken with a fit of piety. If all be true that is told of you, you have as little reason to think the gods vindictive as any man breathing. If you be not belied, a certain golden goblet which I have seen at your house was once in the temple of Juno at Corcyra. And men say that there was a priestess at Tarentum CAL. A fig for the gods! I was think See Homer's Odyssey, xi. 538. + The crier and torchbearer were important functionaries at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. ing about the Archons. You will have an accusation laid against you to-morrow. It is not very pleasant to be tried before the king.* ALC. Never fear: there is not a sycophant in Attica who would dare to breathe a word against me, for the golden planetree of the great king. HIP. That plane-tree ALC. Never mind the plane-tree. Come Callicles, you were not so timid when you plundered the merchantman off Cape Malea. Take up the torch and move, Hippomachus, tell one of the slaves to bring a sow.t CAL. And what part are you to play? ALC. I shall be Hierophant. Herald, to your office. Torchbearer, advance with the lights. Come forward, fair novice. We will celebrate the rite within. |