used in cookery. Having understood that at Hypata,* which is the principal city of all Thessaly, new cheese of exquisite flavour was to be sold at a very reasonable price, I made the best of my way to that place, .with the intention of buying up the whole of it. But, as generally is the case, starting unluckily with the left foot foremost,† all my hopes of gain were utterly disappointed. For a person named Lupus, a merchant in a large way of business, had bought the whole of it the day before.

"Weary with my rapid journey, undertaken to so little purpose, I proceeded, early in the evening, to the public baths, when, to my surprise, I espied an old companion of mine, named Socrates. He was sitting on the ground, half covered with a sorry, tattered cloak, and looked almost another person, he was so miserably wan and thin; just like those outcasts of Fortune, 'who beg alms in the streets. Consequently, although he had been my friend and particular acquaintance, I yet accosted him with feelings of hesitation.

"How now, friend Socrates,' said I, 'what is the meaning of this? Why this appearance? What crime have you been guilty of? Why, you have been lamented at home, and for some time given up for dead.‡ Guardians have been assigned to your children, by decree of the provincial magistrate. Your wife, having fulfilled what was due to the dead, § all disfigured by grief and long-continued sorrow, and having almost cried herself blind with excessive weeping, is being worried by her parents to repair the misfortune of the family by the joys of a new marriage. But here you come before our eyes like some spectral apparition, to our extreme confusion.'

Hypata]-This was a famous city of Thessaly, situate on the banks of the river Spercheus.

+ Left foot foremost.]-To start on a journey by putting the left foot foremost was considered to be especially significant of ill luck; so much so, that the expression came to be generally used to denote a bad omen.

Given up for dead.]—' Conclamatus es.' After a person was dead it was the custom of the Romans to call on him by name, for the purpose of recalling him to life, in case he should be only in a trance. This ceremony was called 'conclamatio,' and was generally performed while the body was being washed, once a day for seven days; after which period the body was burnt.

§ Due to the dead.]—Ovid, in his Fasti, b. i. 1. 36, mentions ten months as the period assigned by Numa for widows to mourn the loss of their husbands.

“O Aristomenes!' said he, 'it is clear that you are ignorant of the slippery turns, the unstable freaks, and the everchanging vicissitudes of Fortune.'

"As he said this, he hid his face, which was crimsoned with shame, in his cobbled covering of tatters, so that he left the rest of his body naked, from the navel downward, as far as the groin. At last, unable to endure the sight of such a miserable spectacle of woe, I took hold of him, and endeavoured to raise him from the ground. But, with his head covered up as it was, he exclaimed, 'Let me alone, let me alone; let Fortune still enjoy the trophy she has erected.'

"However, I prevailed upon him to accompany me: and at the same time pulling off one of my own two garments, I speedily-clothed, or covered him, shall I say? immediately after which, I took him to a bath, and, myself, applied to him the requisite anointing and scrubbing processes, and laboriously rubbed off the coat of filth with which he was defiled. Having paid every attention to him, though tired myself, I supported his enfeebled steps, and with great difficulty brought him to my inn; where I made him rest on a couch, gave him plenty of food, cheered him with wine, and entertained him with the news of the day. And now our conversation took quite a merry turn, we cracked jokes, and grew noisy in our prattle; when, heaving a bitter sigh from the bottom of his breast, and violently striking his forehead with his right hand:

"Miserable man that I am!' said he; 'to have fallen into these misfortunes while intent on gratifying myself with a famous gladiatorial spectacle. For, as you are very well aware, I went to Macedonia on an affair of business; and after being detained there for the space of ten months, I was on my return homewards, having gained a very pretty sum of money. I had nearly reached Larissa,* which I had included in my route for the purpose of seeing the spectacle I mentioned, when I was attacked by some desperate robbers, in a lonely and rugged valley, and only effected my escape, after being plundered by them of all I possessed. Being thus reduced to extreme distress, I betook myself to a certain woman named Meroë, who kept a tavern, and who, though old, was remarkably engaging; and to her I related the circumstances of my lengthened absence, of my earnest desire to reach home, and of my being

* Larissa.]-A city of Thessaly, situated near the river Peneus.

plundered of my property on that day. After I, unfortunate wretch, had related such particulars as I remembered, she treated me with the greatest kindness, supplied me with a good supper, all for nothing, and afterwards, instigated by lust, admitted me to her bed. But from the very moment that I, unhappy man, first lay with her, my mind contracted a lasting malady; and I even made her a present of those garments which the robbers, in their humanity, had left me to cover my nakedness. I likewise presented her with the little earnings I made by working as a cloakmaker while I was yet in good condition of body; until at length this worthy partner, and ill fortune together, reduced me to that state in which you just now saw me.'

"By Pollux, then,' said I, 'you deserve to suffer extreme misfortunes, if there is anything still more extreme than that which is most extreme, for having preferred the pleasures of dalliance and a wrinkled harlot, to your home and children.'

"Hush! hush!' said he, raising his forefinger to his mouth, and looking round with a terror-stricken countenance to see if he might speak with safety; Forbear to revile a woman skilled in celestial matters, lest you do yourself an injury through an intemperate tongue.'

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Say you so?' said I. 'What kind of woman is this tavernkeeper, so powerful and queenly?'

"She is a sorceress,' he replied,' and endowed with powers divine; she is able to draw down the heavens, to uplift the earth, to harden the running water, to dissolve mountains, to raise the shades of the dead, to dethrone the Gods, to extinguish the stars, and to illumine the depths of Tartarus itself.' "Come, come,' said I, 'do draw asunder this tragic curtain,* and fold up the theatric drop-scene, and let's hear your story in ordinary parlance.'

666

'Should you like,' said he, 'to hear of one or two, ay, or a

* Tragic curtain.]—The ' siparium' was a piece of tapestry, stretched on a frame, and, rising before the stage, answered the same purpose as the curtain or drop-scene with us in concealing the stage till the actors appeared. Instead of drawing up this curtain to discover the stage and actors, according to our present practice, it was depressed when the play began, and fell beneath the level of the stage; whence aulæa premuntur,' meant that the play had commenced. 'Aulæa' seems here to mean the stage curtain, which divided in the middle and was drawn aside: while the siparium' would more nearly correspond with our drop-scene.

great many of her performances? Why, as for making not only her fellow-countrymen love her to distraction, but the Indians even, or the inhabitants of both the Ethiopias,* and even the Antichthones † themselves; these are only the leaves, as it were, of her art, and mere trifles. Listen, then, and hear what she has performed in the presence of many witnesses. By a single word only, she changed a lover of hers into a beaver, because he had by force debauched another woman; since that beast, when in fear of being taken, escapes from its pursuers by the abscission of its genitals; and she desired that the same might likewise befall him, as a punishment for having been connected with another woman. She likewise changed an innkeeper, who was her neighbour, and of whom she was envious on that account, into a frog; and now the old fellow, swimming about in a cask of his own wine, or buried in the dregs, croaks hoarsely to his old customers, quite in the way of business. She likewise transformed another person, an advocate of the Forum, into a ram, because he had conducted a cause against her; and to this very day that ram is always at loggerheads. Then there was the wife of a lover of hers, whom she condemned to perpetual pregnancy, when on the point of increasing her family, by closing her womb against the egress of the infant, because she had chattered scandal against the witch; and, for these eight years, according to the general computation, this poor creature has been swelling with her burden, as if she were about to be brought to bed of an elephant.§ "After this woman, however, and many other persons, had been injured by her arts, the public indignation became aroused against her; and it was determined that on the following day a most dire vengeance should be wreaked upon her, by stoning her to death. But, by the power of her enchant

* The Ethiopias.]—The eastern and the western, separated from each other by the river Nile, which the ancients (as we are informed by Strabo, Geograph. lib. ii.) considered as the boundary of Asia and Africa.

+ The Antichthones.]-So called from inhabiting tǹv ¿vavríav xoóva, i.e. earth contrary to that on which we dwell. Hence they are either the same with the Antipodes, or, at least, are those who dwell in the inferior hemisphere which is contrary to ours.

Is always at loggerheads.]—' Causas agit.' This Sir G. Head cleverly renders, and gives rebutters and surrebutters as he used to do.'

Brought to bed of an elephant.]-Pliny asserts that the elephant goes with young ten years.

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ments, she frustrated this design and as Medea, having obtained by entreaty from Creon the truce of a single day, prior to her departure, burned his whole palace, his daughter, together with the old man himself, with flames issuing from a garland, so, likewise, did this sorceress, having performed certain deadly incantations in a ditch,* (as she herself lately told me in a fit of drunkenness), confine all the inhabitants of the town, each in his own house, through a secret spell of the dæmons; so that, for two whole days together, neither could the bars be wrenched off, nor the doors be taken off the hinges, nor, in fine, could a breach be made in the walls; until, by mutual consent, the people unanimously cried out, and swore in the most sacred manner, that they would not lift a hand against her, and would, in case any one should think of so doing, afford her timely assistance. Being after this manner appeased, she liberated the whole city.

"In the middle of the night, however, she conveyed the author of this conspiracy, together with all his house, that is to say, with the walls, the very ground, and all the foundations, close shut as it was, into another city, situate at the hundredth milestone hence, and on the summit of a craggy mountain, in consequence of which it is deprived of water. And, as the dwellings of the inhabitants were built so close together, that they did not afford room to this new comer, she threw down the house before the gate of the city, and took her departure."

"You narrate,' said I, 'marvellous things, my good Socrates, and no less terrible than marvellous. In fine, you have excited in me too, no small anxiety, indeed, I may say, fear, not inoculating me with a mere grain of apprehension, but piercing me with dread as with a spear, lest this old hag, employing in a similar manner the assistance of some dæmon, should come to know this conversation of ours. Let us, therefore, with all speed, betake ourselves to rest, and when we have relieved our weariness by a night's sleep, let us fly hence as far as we possibly can, before daylight.'

"While I was yet advising him thus, the worthy Socrates, overcome by more wine than he had been accustomed to, and by the fatigue of the day, had fallen asleep, and was now

* Incantations in a ditch.]—Sacrifices to celestial gods were offered on raised altars; those to terrestial gods, on the ground; those to infernal gods, in a pit or ditch.