Charon. From where in the world did you bring us this dog, Hermes ? And what language he used during the passage-laughing and jeering at all the whole lot of passengers, and, while the rest were groaning and lamenting, the only one to give us a song! Hermes. Don't you know, Charon, what personage it is you have brought over-a free man and no mistake; he cares for nobody. He is the famous Menippus everyone knows. Charon. All the same, should I ever catch you (shaking his fist) Menippus. Should you catch me, my fine Sir: but you don't catch me twice (making off). XXIII. PROTESILAUS, AN ACHEAN HERO, WHO HAD FALLEN BEFORE ILIUM, SUPPLICATES PLUTO TO PERMIT HIM TO RETURN TO LIFE, FOR A DAY, TO VISIT HIS WIFE LAODAMEIA, AND ADDUCES AS PRECEDENTS THE EXAMPLES OF ORPHEUS AND ALKESTIS. AT THE INTERCESSION OF PERSEPHONE, PLUTO AT LENGTH GRANTS THE FAVOUR. Protesilaus,1 Pluto, and Persephone. Protesilaus. O Lord, and King, and our God here below, and you, daughter of Demeter, do not contemn a lover's prayer. Pluto. And you-what do you want from us, or who may you be? Protesilaus. I am Protesilaus, the son of Iphiklus, of Phylake, who fought with the Achæans, and was the first of the army against Ilium to die, and my supplication is that I may have leave of absence for a short time, and return to life again. Pluto. That's a sort of love, Protesilaus, all dead people indulge in but not one of them will ever succeed in it. Laert. With the poets of the New Comedy it was a fertile subject for ridicule, as displayed in Athenæus. 1 See N. A. xix. Protesilaus. But it's not life, Aïdoneus,' I am in love with, but my wife, whom I left behind still a young bride in the bridal chamber, and went off on the voyage: for, ill-fated wretch, I died by the hands of Hektor, at the disembarkation.2 Love for my wife, accordingly, wears me away immeasurably, my Lord, and I am ready, after having appeared to her, if only for a brief time, to come down again. Pluto. Did you not drink the water of Lethe, Protesilaus? Protesilaus. Yes, indeed, my Lord: but the matter was beyond all bounds. Pluto. Then just wait for her; for she, too, will arrive at some time or other, and there will be no need for you to Protesilaus. But I can't endure the delay, Pluto. You've been in love 3 yourself, before now, and you know what a thing love is. Pluto. Besides, what good will it do you to live again for one day, when you will have to experience the same griefs shortly afterwards? Protesilaus. I think I shall persuade her, too, to follow me to you, so that, in a little while, in place of one you will receive two dead people. Pluto. It is not lawful and right that this should be, nor has it ever been so. Protesilaus. I will refresh your memory, Pluto. Why, on this very same plea you delivered up Eurydike to Orpheus, and you sent off my kinswoman Alkestis to gratify Herakles. Pluto. But would you wish thus, with your bare and ugly skull, to appear to that beautiful bride of yours? and how, too, will she admit you to her, when she is not able even to distinguish you? Why, she will be frightened, I am well A paragogic form of Aides or Hades. 2 In the Iliad (ii. 695) his slayer is anonymous. Lucian here follows Ovid (Metam. xii. 67) or some other authority. 3 With Persephone, in particular, who: 66 : 'Gathering flowers, Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis Was gathered." assured, and will flee from you, and you will have made your long journey to the upper world to no purpose. Persephone. Do you all the same, my husband, set that right, and direct Hermes, as soon as ever Protesilaus is in daylight, to touch him with his caduceus,' and make him a handsome youth again, such as he was when he came out from the nuptial chamber. Pluto (to Hermes). Since it's Persephone's pleasure, conduct this man to the upper regions, and just make him a bridegroom again.—(To Protesilaus.) And do you remember you have got only one day. XXIV. KARIAN SATRAP, THE IDOGENES DEMANDS OF MAUSOLUS, THE Diogenes and Mausolus.2 Diogenes. For what reason are you so high and mighty, and claim to have precedence of us all in honour, Karian ? Mausolus. Indeed, by reason of my kingdom, O Sinopian-seeing I was king of all Karia, and ruled over some 1 For the magic property of the paßdos, see e. A. vii. 2 Mausolus was Satrap of Karia, on the S.W. of the Lesser Asia, under the Persian monarch Artaxerxes the Second, or Mnemon (as he was called by the Greeks). With other Satraps he revolted, and established himself as an independent prince-377-353 B.C. At his death, his sister and wife Artemisia, who succeeded him, built the splendid monument which has given its name to succeeding edifices of the kind— none of which in the Western world have any title to rivalry with it. For a description, see Pliny, Hist. Nat. iv. 36. More justly than were most of the others, it was reckoned among the " seven wonders." modern times, however, in the Eastern world the tomb of Mausolus has been surpassed by that paragon of architectural beauty, the Taj Mahal at Agra. In of the Lydians, also, and subjugated to my dominion several islands, and advanced as far as Miletus, overrunning the greater part of Ionia. And I was handsome and great, and strenuous in wars. But, what is greatest reason of all, is that I possess in Halikarnassus a very great monument lying over me, of dimensions such as no other dead man has; nay, nor one so elaborately beautified-horses and men having been copied with the greatest accuracy in the most beautiful marble-of such sort as one could not easily find even a temple. Seem I not to you justly to be high and mighty on those grounds? Diogenes. On account of your kingdom, you say, and your handsome appearance, and the weight of your tomb? Mausolus. Assuredly, on those grounds. Diogenes. But, my handsome Mausolus, neither that power of yours nor your figure any longer pertains to you. If, however, we should choose some judge of good looks, I am unable to say why your skull should be preferred to mine; for both are bald and bare, and we display our teeth with equal prominence, we are both deprived of our eyes, and have been both provided with snub-noses. And as for your tomb, and those costly marbles, they, perhaps, may be of use to the good people of Halikarnassus, to show off for their own benefit and to get honour for themselves from strangers and visitors as having, no doubt, a certain big building. But as for you, my fine Sir, I don't see what benefit you derive from it, unless 1 you affirm this-that you bear a heavier burden than we, inasmuch as you are weighed down by such huge stones. Mausolus. Will all those things, then, be of no advantage to me, and will Mausolus and Diogenes have an equality of privilege? Diogenes. Not an equality of privilege, most excellent Sir, certainly not. For Mausolus will groan and lament, in remembering his possessions above ground, in which he used to imagine himself to be happy, while Diogenes will laugh at him. And as for the tomb at Halikarnassus-he 1 П εi μǹ. “Lucian himself has animadverted upon this expression in his Solæcistes, for correct writers wrote πλὴν εἰ, or εἰ μὴ. But Lucian has often not attended to his own rule."-Hemst. 1 will call it his own, though it was constructed by his wife and sister Artemisia; whereas Diogenes does not know whether even he has any tomb for his carcass; for he did not even bestow a thought about it; but he has left behind, for the best part of mankind, the memory of himself as of a man, who has lived a life much more sublime than your monument, greatest of Karian slaves, and built on a firmer foundation. XXV. NIREUS AND THERSITES, DISPUTING WHICH OF THEM WAS THE MORE DISTINGUISHED BY GOOD LOOKS, APPEAL TO MENIPPUS. MENIPPUS, DISREGARDING THE AUTHORITY OF HOMER, PRONOUNCES THE ἰσοκάλλος AS WELL AS ΤΗΕ ἰσοτιμία, IN HADES, TO BE AS COMPLETE AS IT IS UNALTERABLE. Nireus, Thersites, and Menippus. Nireus. See, I say, Menippus here shall judge which of the two is more shapely. Say, Menippus, don't I seem to you the better-looking? Menippus. But who are you, really? For it is first necessary, I suppose, that I know that. Nireus. Nireus and Thersites. Menippus. Which, pray, is Nireus, and which Thersites ? For that's not clear as yet. Thersites. This one point in my favour I have already— that I am like you, and that you by no means are so far 1 See N. A. i. His master Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic School, displayed equal indifference to the rites of sepulture. 2 For Nireus, see N. A. xviii. The agreeable picture of this representative demagogue, Thersites, painted by the poet of the Iliad, is well known: αἴσχιστος δὲ ἀνὴρ ὑπὸ Ιλιον ἦλθε· Φολκὸς ἔην, χωλὸς δ ̓ ἕτερον πόδα· τὼ δὲ ὤμω See 'AX. 'IoT., where Thersites brings an action (ypapn üßpɛws) against the poet for calumny, before the Court of Rhadamanthys, and gains his case (ii. 280). |