Part 7

_Py._ Monster! He cares nothing for her tears. He must be made of stone instead of flesh and blood. But the truth is, my dear, you have spoilt him, by letting him see how fond you are of him. It is a great mistake to make so much of them; they get uppish. Don't cry, dear: take my advice, and shut him out once or twice; it will be his turn to dote on _you_ then.

_Jo._ Shut him out? Don't breathe a word of such a thing! I only wish he would wait till I turned him out!

_Py._ Why, here he is back again.

_Jo._ Pythias! What _have_ you done? If he should have overheard that about shutting him out!

_Ly._ I am coming back on your account, Pythias, not on hers; I will never look at her again, after what she has done: but I don't want _you_ to think badly of me; it shall not be said that Lysias was hard-hearted.

_Py._ Exactly what I _was_ saying.

_Ly._ But what would you have me do? This girl, who is so tearful now, has been disloyal to me, and received another lover; I actually found them together!

_Py._ Well, after all----. But when did you make this discovery?

_Ly._ It must have been something like five days ago; yes, it was, because it was on the second, and to-day is the seventh. My father had found out about this precious Joessa, and how long it had been going on, and he locked me in, and gave the porter orders not to open to me. Well, I wasn't going to be kept away from her, so I told Dromo to slip along the courtyard to the lowest part of the wall, and then let me mount on his back; I knew I could easily get over that way. To make a long story short, I got out, and came here. It was midnight, and I found the door carefully barred. Instead of knocking, I quietly lifted the door off its hinges (it was not the first time I had done so) and passed noiselessly in. Every one was asleep. I groped my way along the wall, and stopped at the bedside.

_Jo._ Good Heavens! What is coming? I am in torment!

_Ly._ I perceived from the breathing that there was more than one person there, and thought at first that Lyde must be sleeping with her. Pythias, I was mistaken! My hands passed over a smooth, beardless _man's_ face; the fellow was close-cropped, and reeked of scent like any woman. I had not brought my sword with me, or you may be sure I should have known what to do with it.--What are you both laughing at? Is it so amusing, Pythias?

_Jo._ Oh, Lysias! is that all? Why, it was Pythias who was sleeping with me!

_Py._ Joessa, don't tell him!

_Jo._ Why not? Lysias, dear, it _was_ Pythias; I had asked her to come and sleep with me; I was so lonely without you.

_Ly._ Pythias? Then her hair has grown pretty fast in five days.

_Jo._ She has been ill, and her hair was falling off, and she had to have it cropped. And now she has got false hair. Pythias, show him that it is so. Behold your rival, Lysias! this is the young gentleman of whom you were jealous.

_Ly._ And what lover would not have been jealous? I had the evidence of my hands, remember.

_Jo._ Well, you know better now. Suppose I were to return you evil for evil? What should you say to that? It is my turn to be angry with you now.

_Ly._ No, you mustn't be angry. We will have some wine, and Pythias must join us; the truce cannot be ratified without her.

_Jo._ Of course not. A pretty scrape you have led me into, Pythias, you nice young man!

_Py._ The nice young man has led you out of it again too, so you must forgive him. I say, Lysias, you need not tell any one--about my hair, you know.

F.

XIII

_Leontichus. Chenidas. Hymnis_

_Le._ And then that battle with the Galatians; tell her about that, Chenidas--how I rode out in front on the grey, and the Galatians (brave fellows, those Galatians, too)--but they ran away directly they saw me; not a man stood his ground. That time, you know, I used my lance for a javelin, and sent it through their captain and his horse as well; and then, as some of them were left--the phalanx was broken up, you see, but a certain number had rallied--well, I pulled out my trusty blade, rode at them as hard as I could go, knocked over half a dozen of the front rank with the mere rush of my horse, brought down my sword on one of the officers, and clove his head in two halves, helmet and all. The rest of you came up shortly, you remember, when they were already running.

_Che._ Oh, but that duel of yours with the satrap in Paphlagonia! that was a fine display, too.

_Le._ Well remembered; yes, that was not so bad, either. A great big fellow that satrap was, supposed to be a champion fighter too--thought nothing of Greek science. Out he came, and challenged all comers to single combat. There was consternation among our officers, from the lowest to the general himself--though he was a pretty good man. Aristaechmus the Aetolian he was--very strong on the javelin; I was only a colonel then. However, I was not afraid. I shook off the friends who clung to me--they were anxious about me when they saw the barbarian resplendent in his gilded armour, towering high with his terrible plume and brandishing his lance--

_Che._ Yes, _I_ was afraid that time; you remember how I clung to you and besought you not to sacrifice yourself; life would not have been worth living, if you had fallen.

_Le._ I ventured it, though. Out I went, as well armed as the Paphlagonian, all gold like him. What a shout there was on both sides! the barbarians recognized me too; they knew my buckler and medals and plume. Who was it they all compared me to, Chenidas?

_Che._ Why, who should it be? Achilles, of course; the son of Peleus and Thetis, of course. Your helmet was so magnificent, your purple so rich, your buckler so dazzling.

_Le._ We met. The barbarian drew first blood--just a scratch with his lance a little above the knee; but my great spear drove through his shield and right into the breast-bone Then I ran up, just sliced his head off with my sword, and came back carrying his arms, the head spiked on my spear dripping gore upon me.

_Hym._ How horrid, Leontichus! what disgusting frightful tales you tell about yourself! What girl would look at a man who likes such nastiness--let alone drink or sleep with him? I am going away.

_Le._ Pooh! I double your pay.

_Hym._ No, nothing shall induce me to sleep with a murderer.

_Le._ Don't be afraid, my dear. All that was in Paphlagonia. I am a man of peace now.

_Hym._ No, you are unclean; the blood of the barbarian's head on the spear has dripped over you! I embrace and kiss a man like that? the Graces forbid! he is no better than the executioner.

_Le._ I am certain you would be in love with me if you had seen me in my armour.

_Hym._ I tell you it makes me sick and frightened even to hear of such things; I see the shades and ghosts of the slain; that poor officer with his head cloven! what would it be if I saw the thing done, and the blood, and the bodies lying there? I am sure I should die; I never saw a chicken killed, even.

_Le._ Such a coward, girl? so poor of heart? I thought you would like to hear it.

_Hym._ Well, try the Lemnian women, or the daughters of Danaus, if you want to please with that sort of tale. I shall run home to my mother, while there is some daylight left. Come along, Grammis. Good-bye, mightiest of colonels, and murderer of however many it is!

_Le._ Stay, girl, stay.--Why, she is gone!

_Che._ Well, Leontichus, you frightened the simple little thing with your nodding plumes and your incredible exploits. I saw her getting pale as far back as the officer story; her face was all puckered up and quivering when you split his head.

_Le._ I thought it would make me more attractive. Well, but it was your fault too; you started the duel.

_Che._ Well, I had to chime in when I saw what you were bragging for. But you laid it on so thick. Pass the cutting off the wretched Paphlagonian's head, what did you want to spike it on a spear for, and let the blood run down on you?

_Le._ That was a bit too strong, I admit; the rest was rather well put together. Well, go and persuade her to come back.

_Che._ Shall I tell her you lied to make her think you a fine fellow?

_Le._ Oh, plague upon it!

_Che._ It's the only way. Choose--a mighty champion, and loathed, or a confessed liar, and--Hymnis?

_Le._ Bad is the best; but I say Hymnis. Go to her, then, Chenidas, and say I lied--in parts.

H.

XIV

_Dorion. Myrtale_

_Do._ So, Myrtale! You ruin me first, and then close your doors on me! It was another tale when I brought you all those presents: I was your love, then; your lord, your life. But you have squeezed me dry now, and have got hold of that Bithynian merchant; so I am left to whimper on the wrong side of the door, while he, the favoured lover, enjoys your embraces, and is to become a father soon, so you tell him.

_Myr._ Come, Dorion, that is too much! Ruined you, indeed! A lot you ever gave me! Let us go through the list of your presents, from the very beginning.

_Do._ Very well; let us. First, a pair of shoes from Sicyon, two drachmae. Remember two drachmae.

_Myr._ Ah, but you were here for two nights.

_Do._ A box of Phoenician ointment, when I came back from Syria; the box of alabaster. The same price, as I'm a seaman!

_Myr._ Well, and when you sailed again, didn't I give you that waistcoat, that you might have something to wear when you were rowing? It was Epiurus the boatswain's, that waistcoat; he left it here one night by mistake.

_Do._ Epiurus recognized it, and took it away from me in Samos, only the other day; and a rare tussle we had before he got it. Then there were those onions I brought you from Cyprus, and five haddocks and four perch, the time we came back from the Bosphorus. Oh, and a whole basket of ship's bread--eight loaves of it; and a jar of figs from Caria. Another time it was a pair of slippers from Patara, gilded ones, you ungrateful girl! Ah, and I was forgetting that great cheese from Gythium.

_Myr._ Say five drachmae the lot.

_Do._ It was all that my pay would run to, Myrtale; I was but a common seaman in those days. I have risen to be mate now, my haughty miss. And didn't I put down a solid drachma for you at the feet of Aphrodite's statue, when it was her feast the other day? Then I gave your mother two drachmae to buy shoes with; and Lyde there,--many is the copper I have slipped into her hand, by twos and threes. Put all that together, and it makes a seaman's fortune.

_Myr._ Onions and haddocks.

_Do._ Yes; 'twas all I had; if I were rich, I should not be a sailor. I have never brought my own mother so much as a head of garlic. I should like to know what sort of presents the Bithynian makes you?

_Myr._ Look at this dress: he bought it me; and this necklace, the thick one.

_Do._ Pooh, you have had that for years.

_Myr._ No, the one you knew was much lighter, and it had no emeralds. My earrings were a present of his too, and so was that rug; and he gave me two minae the other day, besides paying our rent. Rather different from Patara slippers, and Gythium cheeses and stuff!

_Do._ And how do you like him for a lover? you say nothing about that. He is fifty years old if he is a day; his hair is all gone in front, and he has the complexion of a lobster. Did you ever notice his teeth? And so accomplished too! it is a treat to hear him when he sings and tries to make himself agreeable; what is it they tell me about an ass that would learn the lyre? Well, I wish you joy of him; you deserve no better luck; and may the child be like his father! As for me, I'll find some Delphis or Cymbalium that's more in my line; your neighbour, perhaps, the flute-girl; anyhow, I shall get some one. We can't all afford necklaces and rugs and two minae presents.

_Myr._ How I envy the lucky girl who gets you, Dorion! What onions she will have from Cyprus! what cheeses next time you come from Gythium!

F.

XV

_Cochlis. Parthenis_

_Co._ Crying, Parthenis! what is it? how do your pipes come to be broken?

_Par._ Oh! oh! I have been beaten by Crocale's lover--that tall Aetolian soldier; he found me playing at Crocale's, hired by his rival Gorgus. He broke in while they were at dinner, smashed my pipes, upset the table, and emptied out the wine-bowl. Gorgus (the country fellow, you know) he pulled out of the dining-room by the hair of his head, and the two of them, Dinomachus (I think they call him) and a fellow soldier, stood over thumping him. Oh, Cochlis, I doubt whether he will live; there was a great rush of blood from his nostrils, and his face is all swollen and livid.

_Co._ Is the man mad? or was it just a drunken freak?

_Par._ All jealousy, my dear--love run wild. Crocale had asked two talents, I believe, if Dinomachus wanted her all to himself. He refused; so she shut the door in his face, I was told, and would not let him in at all. Instead of him she took Gorgus of Oenoë, a well-to-do farmer and a nice man; they were drinking together, and she had got me in to play the pipes. Well, the wine was going, I was striking up one of those Lydian tunes, the farmer standing up to dance, Crocale clapping, and all as merry as could be. Suddenly there was a noise and a shout, crash went the front door, and a moment after in burst eight great strong men, that brute among them. Everything was upside down directly, Gorgus on the ground, as I told you, being thumped and kicked. Crocale got away somehow and took refuge with Thespias next door. Dinomachus boxed my ears, and 'Go to blazes!' he said, throwing me the broken pipes. I am running to tell master about it now. And the farmer is going to find some of his friends in town and get the brute summonsed in the police-court.

_Co._ Yes, bruises and the courts--that is all we get out of the military. They tell you they are generals and colonels, and then when it comes to paying, 'Oh, wait for settling day,' they say; 'then I shall get my pay, and put everything right.' I wish they were all dead, they and their bragging. But I never have anything to do with them; it is the best way. Give me a fisherman or a sailor or farmer no better than myself, with few compliments and plenty of money. These plume-tossing word-warriors! they are nothing but noise, Parthenis.

H.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Demeter and Persephone.

THE DEATH OF PEREGRINE

LUCIAN to CRONIUS. Greeting.

Poor dear Peregrine--or Proteus, as he loved to call himself,--has quite come up to his namesake in Homer. We have seen him under many shapes: countless have been his transformations for glory's sake; and now--'tis his last appearance--we see him in the shape of fire. So vast was his ambition. Yes, Cronius; all that is left of the best of men is a handful of ashes. It's just like Empedocles; only with a difference. That philosopher would fain have sneaked into his crater unobserved: not so our high-souled friend. He bides his time till all Greece is mustered in full force--constructs a pyre of the largest dimensions--and jumps on top in the eyes of all the world, having briefly addressed the nation a few days before on the subject of his daring enterprise! I fancy I see you chuckling away at the old dotard; or rather I hear you blurting out the inevitable comments--'Mere imbecility'--'Mere clap-trap'-'Mere ...' everything else that we are accustomed to attribute to these gentry. But then you are far enough off to be comparatively safe: now _I_ made my remarks before a vast audience, in the very moment of cremation (and before it for that matter), exciting thereby the indignation of all the old fool's admirers, though there were a few who joined in the laugh against him. I can tell you, I was within an ace of being torn limb from limb by the Cynics, like Actaeon among the dogs, or his cousin Pentheus among the Maenads.--But I must sketch you the whole drama in detail. As to our author, I say nothing: you know the man, you know the sublime utterances that marked his earthly course, out-voicing Sophocles and Aeschylus.

Well, the first thing I did when I got to Elis was to take a turn in the gymnasium, listening the while to the discordant yells of some Cynic or other;--the usual platitudes, you know;--ringing commendations of Virtue--indiscriminate slaughter of characters--finally, a peroration on the subject of Proteus. I must try and give you the exact words, as far as I can remember them; you will recognize the true Cynic yell, I'll be bound; you have heard it before.

'Proteus,' he cried, 'Proteus vain-glorious? Who dares name the word? Earth! Sun! Seas! Rivers! God of our fathers, Heracles! Was it for this that he suffered bondage in Syria? that he forgave his country a debt of a million odd? that he was cast out of Rome,--he whose brilliance exceeds the Sun, fit rival of the Lord of Olympus? 'Tis his good will to depart from life by fire, and they call it vain-glory! What other end had Heracles? 'Twas the thunderbolt, methinks, that slew Asclepius, Dionysus[5]? 'Twas in the crater that Empedocles sought death?'

Theagenes (our friend with the lungs) had got thus far, when I asked one of the bystanders what all this meant about 'fire,' and what Heracles and Empedocles had got to do with Proteus?--'Proteus,' he replied, 'will shortly cremate himself, at the Olympic games.'--'But how,' I asked, 'and why?' He did his best to explain, but the Cynic went on bawling, and it was quite out of the question to attend to anything else. I waited on to the end. It was one torrent of wild panegyric on Proteus. The sage of Sinope, Antisthenes his master,--nay, Socrates himself--none of them were so much as to be compared with him. Zeus was invited to contend for the pre-eminence. Subsequently however it seemed advisable to leave the two on some sort of equality. 'The world,' he cried in conclusion, 'has seen but two works of surpassing excellence, the Olympian Zeus, and--Proteus. The one we owe to the creative genius of Phidias; the other is Nature's handiwork. And now, this godlike statue departs from among mankind; borne upon wings of fire, he seeks the heavens, and leaves us desolate.' He had worked himself up into a state of perspiration over all this; and when it was over he was very absurd, and cried, and tore his hair,--taking care not to pull too hard; and was finally taken away by some compassionate Cynics, sobbing violently all the time.

Well, after him, up jumped somebody else, before the crowd had time to disperse; pouring his libation upon the glowing embers of the previous sacrifice. He commenced operations with a loud guffaw--there was no doubting its sincerity--after which he addressed us as follows. 'Theagenes (Heaven forgive him!) concluded his vile rant with the tears of Heraclitus: I, on the other hand, propose to begin with the laughs of Democritus.' Another hearty guffaw, in which most of us were fain to join. 'One simply can't help it,' he remarked, pulling himself together, 'when one hears such sad stuff talked, and sees old men practically standing on their heads for the public amusement,--and all to keep their grubby little reputations alive! Now, if you want to know all about this "statue" which proposes to cremate itself, I'm your man. I have marked his career from the first, and followed his intellectual development; and I learnt a good deal from his fellow citizens, and others whose authority was unquestionable.

'To begin then, this piece of perfect workmanship, straight from Nature's mould, this type of true proportion, had barely come of age, when he was caught in adultery; in Armenia this was; he received a brisk drubbing for his pains, and finally made a jump of it from the roof, and so got off. His next exploit was the corruption of a handsome boy. This would have brought him before the Governor, by rights; but the parents were poor, and he bought them off to the tune of a hundred and twenty pounds. But perhaps it is hardly worth while mentioning trifles of this kind. Our clay, you see, is yet unwrought: the "perfect workmanship" is still to come. That business about his father makes rather good hearing: only you know all about that;--how the old fellow would hang on, though he was past sixty already, till Proteus could stand it no longer, and put a noose about his neck. Well, this began to be talked about; so he passed sentence of banishment on himself, and wandered about from place to place.