Herakles himself is in the company of the Gods in heaven, and 66 Enjoys Hebe of the beautiful ancles," while I, his ghost, am here. Diogenes. What—a ghost of a God? And is it possible for one to be a God in one half of one's person, and to have died in the other half? Herakles. Yes: for he has not died, but I, his simulacrum. Diogenes. I understand. He handed you over as a substitute, in place of himself, to Pluto; and you, therefore, are a dead man in the stead of that hero. Herakles. Something of the sort. Diogenes. How, pray, did Eakus, who is so particular, not distinguish you were not he, but accepted a supposititious Herakles, as soon as ever he appeared ? 2 Herakles. Because I resembled him so exactly. Diogenes. You speak the truth: for so exactly do you resemble him that you are he. Consider a moment, however, whether the contrary is not the case-you, in fact, are the Herakles, while it's your ghost that has married Hebe in heaven. Herakles. You are an insolent and prating fellow; and, if you don't stop your jeering at me, you shall presently know of what sort of God I am ghost. Diogenes. Your bow, indeed, is out of its case,3 and ready to hand but I,-why should I, once dead, any longer be 1 Καὶ ἔχει καλλίσφυρον Ἣβην. The whole Dialogue is a parody of the account in the Odyssey of the interview of the hero (among other ȧμɛvýva кapýva of celebrities in Hades) with that of the son of Alkmene : ἐσενόησα βίην Ηρακληείην Εἴδωλον· αὐτὸς δὲ μετ ̓ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι The visit of Odysseus to the infernal regions, or, at least, his method of conjuration, it must be admitted, is barbarous enough to excuse severer satire than even that of Lucian. 2 Αντανδρὸν. Α word peculiar to Lucian. Cf. Κατάπλους ἤ Τύραννος, the offer of the tyrant Megapenthes to Klotho:—εἰ βούλεσθε δὲ, καὶ ἀντανδρὸν ὑμῖν ἀντ ̓ ἐμαυτοῦ παραδώσω τὸν ἀγαπητόν. 3 Parody of 'Od. xi. 606. afraid of you? But tell me, in the name of your own Herakles-when he was alive, did you associate with him at that time as his ghost; or, were you one and the same during your life, and, when you died, did you separate and did he fly off to heaven, and you, the ghost, as was natural, come to Hades ? Herakles. I ought not even to have replied to a man who talks thus lightly. However, pray, just hear this, too. As much as there was of Amphitryon in Herakles,' that has died, and I am all that; but what there was of Zeus is living with the Gods in heaven. Diogenes. Now I clearly understand. For Alkmene gave birth, you imply, to two Herakleses at the same time—the one by Amphitryon, and the other from Zeus; so that, without its being known, you were twins, born of the same mother. Herakles. No, vain trifler: why, we both were one and the same person. Diogenes. It's not so easy to understand this-that there were two Herakleses compounded into one-excepting, perhaps, in the manner, as it were, of some hippocentaur, you had grown together, man and god. Herakles. What! don't you suppose all men to be so composed of two parts-soul and body? So what is to hinder the soul from being in heaven, which was from Zeus, and the mortal part-myself-from being with the dead? Diogenes. Nay, most excellent son of Amphitryon, you would have fairly advanced that argument if you were a body; but now you are a bodiless ghost. So you are perilously near making Herakles just now into a trinity. Herakles. How a trinity? Diogenes. In this way about. If the one, whoever it is, is in heaven, and the one who is with us are you the ghost, while your body has already been dissolved and become dust on Æta, these surely are three. And consider, therefore, whom you will devise for the third parent for your body." 2 Herakles. You are an impudent and sophistical fellow. And who, pray, may you happen to be, too? 1 See 0. A. X. 2 See . A. xiii. and 'Epμoriuos, vii. • Hemsterhuis quotes a Latin epitaph which divides the human Diogenes. The ghost of Diogenes, the Sinopian. But, on my faith, he is not "with the Gods immortal"': nay, rather, I associate with the best of the Dead, and laugh heartily at Homer and such like frigid nonsense. XVII. 2 MENIPPUS DERIDES THE FABLE AND FATE OF TANTALUS.2 Menippus and Tantalus. Menippus. Why weep you, Tantalus, or why stand you by the lake and bemoan yourself? Tantalus. Because, Menippus, I am dying of thirst. Menippus. Are you so lazy as not to stoop and drink, or, by all that's sacred, even to draw up water in the hollow of your hand? Tantalus. No good, if I were to stoop down, for the water flees away whenever it feels me approaching it. And if even, too, I drew any up and put it to my mouth, I have not wetted the tip of my lips, before somehow or other it animal into four distinct elements, destined for as many separate habitations: "Bis duo sunt homines-manes, caro, spiritus, umbra; Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra, 1 The well-known hemistich from the Iliad. 2 Another satire on the poet of the Odyssey, and on the received theology:: Τάνταλον εἰσεῖδον, χαλέπ ̓ ἄλγε ̓ ἔχοντα Cf. Ov. Met. iv. 458; Hor. Sat. i. 68; Epod. xvii. 66, &c.; Lucian, Περὶ Πένθους, Νεκρομαντεία. Euripides ("Ορεστ. 5) repeats another account of his torture, by which he floats in the Tartarean air, and is in constant terror from a rock suspended over his head: a version of the fable which Lucretius follows: "Nec miser impendens magnum timet aere saxum flows through my fingers, and leaves my hand again as dry as ever. Menippus. Your experience is somewhat of the miraculous, Tantalus. But tell me why, pray, have you even any need to drink? For you have no body; but that which could suffer hunger and thirst, lies buried somewhere in Lydia and as for you, the spirit, how can you any longer be thirsty, or drink? Tantalus. That's the very nature of the punishment—that my spirit should thirst as though it were body. Menippus. Well, I will believe it to be so, since you declare you are being punished by the feeling of thirst. But what, pray, will there be terrible to you in that? Is it that you fear dying from want of something to drink? But that can't be, for I do not observe another Hades after this one, or another death to go to, from here to another place? Tantalus. You are right, and this, in fact, is part of my sentence the longing to drink, without having any need to do so. Menippus. You talk nonsense, Tantalus; and you seem truly enough to be in need of a draught-unmixed hellebore, by heaven!—who have experienced a fate the opposite to that of those who have been bitten by mad dogs,' since you are afraid, not of water, but of thirst. Tantalus. Not even hellebore, Menippus, do I refuse to drink; let me only have it. Menippus. Keep up your spirits, Tantalus, since neither you nor anyone else of the Dead will drink: for it's an impossibility. However, not all, like you, by the terms of their sentence, thirst for water that will not stay for them. 1 "Mad" dogs, evidently, were not unknown in ancient cities, maddened, doubtless, by much the same causes as in modern daysterror, ill-treatment, bad, and insufficient food. Horace numbers them among the terrors of the streets of Rome. For a panic excited by a supposed mad donkey, see Apuleius, De Aureo Asino. Cf. Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, Ixix. XVIII. MENIPPUS DESIRES HERMES TO POINT OUT TO HIM THE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN AND HANDSOME MEN CELEBRATED BY THE POETS. HERMES SHOWS HIM THE GHOSTS OF THE MOST FAMOUS OF THEM, AND, IN PARTICULAR, THAT OF HELENE. MENIPPUS CYNICALLY EXPRESSES HIS ASTONISHMENT THAT A BARE SKULL SHOULD HAVE CAUSED A GREAT WAR, AND THE DEATHS OF SO MANY THOUSANDS. Menippus and Hermes. Menippus. And where are the belles and the beaux, Hermes? Be my cicerone, for I am a new arrival. Hermes. I have no leisure, Menippus: look carefully, however, at that spot, to the right, where are Hyakinthus, and Narkissus, and Nireus, and Achilleus, and Tyro, and Helene, and Leda,1 and in fine all the beauties of old? Menippus. I see only bones and skulls, bare of flesh," for the most part all alike. Hermes. Yet these are the bones that all the poets rave about, which you appear to contemn. 1 Propertius (Eleg. ii. 21), in praying for the safety of his mistress, recounts some of the famous beauties of Greek antiquity, who, he thinks, ought to be enough to satisfy Pluto : "Sunt apud infernos tot millia Formosarum : Et quot Iona tulit, vetus et quot Achaia Formas, Cf. O. A. ii. Tyro and Leda were among the many belles who appeared to Odysseus in Hades. '08. xi. 234-296. 2 According to the poet of the Odyssey, ghosts are divested of the "muddy vesture " of flesh and bones : Οὐ γὰρ ἔτι σάρκας τε καὶ ὀστέα ἵνες ἔχουσιν. 'Od. xi. 2. |