Delphi Complete Works of Lucian

by Lucian Samosata

  Come then, Exposure, best of prologues and divinities, take care to inform the audience plainly that we have not resorted to this public utterance gratuitously, or in a quarrelsome spirit, or, as the proverb has it, with unwashen feet, but to vindicate a grievance of our own as well as those of the public, hating the man for his depravity. Say only this, and present a clear exposition, and then, giving us your blessing, take yourself off, and leave the rest to us, for we shall copy you and expose the greater part of his career so thoroughly that in point of truth and frankness you can find no fault with us. But do not sing my praises to them, Exposure dear, and do not prematurely pour out the bald truth about these traits of his; for it is not fitting, as you are a god, that the words which describe matters so abominable should come upon your lips.

  “This self-styled sophist” (Prologue is now speaking) “once came to Olympia, purposing to deliver to those who should attend the festival a speech which he had written long before. The subject of his composition was the exclusion of Pythagoras (by one of the Athenians, I suppose) from participation in the Eleusinian mysteries as a barbarian, because Pythagoras himself was in the habit of saying that before being Pythagoras he had once been Euphorbus. In truth, his speech was after the pattern of Aesop’s jackdaw, cobbled up out of motley feathers from others. Wanting, of course, to have it thought that he was not repeating a stale composition but making up offhand what really came from his book, he requested one of his familiars (it was the one from Patras, who has so much business in the courts) to select Pythagoras for him when he asked for subjects to talk about. The man did so, and prevailed upon the audience to hear that speech about Pythagoras. In the sequel, he was very unconvincing in his delivery, glibly reciting (as was natural) what he had thought out long before and learned by heart, no matter how much his shamelessness, standing by him, defended him, lent him a helping hand, and aided him in the struggle. There was a great deal of laughter from his hearers, some of whom, by looking from time to time at that man from Patras, indicated that they had not failed to detect his part in the improvisation, while others, recognising the expressions themselves, throughout the performance continued to have that as their sole occupation, testing each other to find out how good their memories were at distinguishing which one of those sophists who achieved fame a little before our time for their so-called “exercises “ was the author of each expression.

  “Among all these, among those who laughed, was the writer of these words. And why should not he laugh at a piece of cheek so manifest and unconvincing and shameless? So, somehow or other, being one who cannot control his laughter, when the speaker had attuned his voice to song, as he thought, and was intoning a regular dirge over Pythagoras, our author, seeing an ass trying to play the lyre, as the saying goes, burst into a very melodious cachinnation, and the other turned and saw him. That created a state of war between them, and the recent affair sprang from it. It was the beginning of the year, or rather, the second day after the New Year, the day on which the Romans, by an ancient custom, make prayers in person for the entire year and hold sacrifices, following ceremonies which King Numa established for them; they are convinced that on that day beyond all others the gods give ear to those who pray. Well, on that festival and high holiday, the man who burst out laughing then in Olympia at the suppositious Pythagoras saw this contemptible cheat approaching, this presenter of the speeches of others. It happened that he knew his character, too, and all his wantonness and unclean living, both what he was said to do, and what he had been caught doing. So he said to one of his friends: ‘We must give a wide berth to this ill-met sight, whose appearance is likely to make the most delightful of all days nefandous for us. On hearing that, the sophist at once laughed at the word nefandous as if it were strange and alien to the Greeks, and paid the man back, in his own estimation, at least, for the laughter of that former time, saying to all: ‘Nefandous! What, pray, is that? A fruit, or a herb, or a utensil? Can it be something to eat or drink? For my part I have never heard the word, and should never be able to guess what it means.’ He thought he was directing these remarks at our friend, and he subjected ‘nefandous’ to a great deal of laughter; but he had unwittingly brought against himself the uttermost proof of his want of education. Under these circumstances he who sent me in to you in advance has written this composition to demonstrate that the renowned sophist does not know expressions common to all the Greeks, which even men in the workshops and the bazaars would know.”

  Thus far Exposure. In my own turn (for I myself have now taken over the rest of the show), I might fittingly play the part of the Delphic tripod and tell what you did in your own country, what in Palestine, what in Egypt, what in Phoenicia and Syria; then, in due order, in Greece and Italy, and on top of it all, what you are now doing at Ephesus, which is the extremity of your recklessness and the culminating point and crowning glory of your character. Now that, in the words of the proverb, you who live in Troy have paid to see tragedians, it is a fitting occasion for you to hear your own misadventures. But no! not yet. First about that ‘nefandous.’

  Tell me, in the name of Aphrodite Pandemus and the Genetyllides and Cybebe, in what respect did you think the word nefandous objectionable and fit to be laughed at? Oh, because it did not belong to the Greeks, but had somehow thrust its way in among them from their intercourse with Celts or Thracians or Scyths; wherefore you — for you know everything that pertains to the Athenians — excluded it at once and banished it from the Greek world, and your laughter was because I committed a barbarism and used a foreign idiom and went beyond the Attic bounds!

  “Come now, what else is as well established on Athenian soil as that word?” people would say who are better informed than you about such matters. It would be easier for you to prove Erechtheus and Cecrops foreigners and invaders of Attica, than to show that ‘nefandous’ is not at home and indigenous in Attica. There are many things which they designate in the same way as everybody else, but they, and they alone, designate as nefandous a day which is vile, abominable, inauspicious, useless, and like you. There now! I have already taught you in passing what they mean by nefandous!

  When official business is not transacted, introduction of lawsuits is not permissible, sacrifice of victims is not performed, and, in general, nothing is done that requires good omens, that day is nefandous. The custom was introduced among different peoples in different ways; either they were defeated in great battles and subsequently established that those days on which they had undergone such misfortunes should be useless and invalid for their customary transactions, or, indeed — but it is inopportune, perhaps, and by now unseasonable to try to alter an old man’s education and reinstruct him in such matters when he does not know even what precedes them. It can hardly be that this is all that remains, and that if you learn it, we shall have you fully informed! Nonsense, man! Not to know those other expressions which are off the beaten path and obscure to ordinary folk is pardonable; but even if you wished, you could not say nefandous in any other way, for that is everyone’s sole and only word for it.

  “Well and good,” someone will say, “but even in the ease of time-honoured words, only some of them are to be employed, and not others, which are unfamiliar to the public, that we may not disturb the wits and wound the ears of our hearers.” My dear sir, perhaps as far as you are concerned I was wrong to say that to you about yourself; yes, yes, I should have followed the folk-ways of the Paphlagonians or the Cappadocians or the Bactrians in conversing with you, that you might fully understand what was being said and it might be pleasing to your ears. But Greeks, I take it, should be addressed in the Greek tongue. Moreover, although even the Athenians in course of time have made many changes in their speech, this word especially has continued to be used in this way always and by all of them.

  I should have named those who have employed the word before our time, were I not certain to disturb you in this way also, by reciting names of poets and rhetoricians and historians that would be foreign
to you, and beyond your ken. No, I shall not name those who have used it, for they are known to all; but do you point me out one of the ancients who has not employed the word and your statue shall be set up, as the saying goes, in gold at Olympia. Indeed, any old man, full of years, who is unacquainted with such expressions is not, I think, even aware that the city of Athens is in Attica, Corinth at the Isthmus, and Sparta in the Peloponnese.

  It remains, perhaps, for you to say that you knew the word, but criticised the inappropriate use of it. Come now, on this point too I shall respond to you fittingly, and you must pay attention, unless not knowing matters very little to you. The ancients were before me in hurling many such taunts at the like of you, each at the men of their day; for in that time too there were, of course, dirty fellows, disgusting traits, and ungentle dispositions. One man called a certain person “Buskin,” comparing his principles, which were adaptable, to that kind of footwear; another called a man “Rampage” because he was a turbulent orator and disturbed the assembly, and another someone else “Seventh Day” because he acted in the assemblies as children do on the seventh day of the month, joking and making fun and turning the earnestness of the people into jest. Will you not, then, in the name of Adonis, permit me to compare an utterly vile fellow, familiar with every form of iniquity, to a disreputable and inauspicious day?

  We avoid those who are lame in the right foot, especially if we should see them early in the morning; and if anyone should see a cut priest or a eunuch or a monkey immediately upon leaving the house, he returns upon his tracks and goes back, auguring that his daily business for that day will not be successful, thanks to the bad and inauspicious omen at the start. But in the beginning of the whole year, at its door, on its first going forth, in its early morning, if one should see a profligate who commits and submits to unspeakable practices, notorious for it, broken in health, and all but called by the name of his actions themselves, a cheat, a swindler, a perjurer, a pestilence, a pillory, a pit, will not one shun him, will not one compare him to a nefandous day?

  Well, are you not such a person? You will not deny it, if I know your boldness; indeed, it seems to me that you are actually vain over the fact that you have not lost the glory of your exploits, but are conspicuous to all and have become notorious. If, however, you should offer opposition and should deny that you are such a person, who will believe what you say? The people of your native city (for it is fitting to begin there)? No, they know about your first source of livelihood, and how you gave yourself over to that pestilential soldier and shared his depravity, serving him in every way until, after reducing you to a torn rag, as the saying goes, he thrust you out. And of course they remember also the effrontery that you displayed in the theatre, when you acted secondary parts for the dancers and thought you were leader of the company. Nobody might enter the theatre before you, or indicate the name of the play; you were sent in first, very properly arrayed, wearing golden sandals and the robe of a tyrant, to beg for favour from the audience, winning wreaths and making your exit amid applause, for already you were held in esteem by them. But now you are a public speaker and a lecturer! So those people, if ever they hear such a thing as that about you, believe they see two suns, as in the tragedy, and twin cities of Thebes, and everyone is quick to say, “That man who then — , and after that —?” Therefore you do well in not going there at all or living in their neighbourhood, but of your own accord remaining in exile from your native city, though it is neither “bad in winter” not “oppressive in summer,” but the fairest and largest of all the cities in Phoenicia. To be put to the proof, to associate with those who know and remember your doings of old, is truly as bad as a halter in your sight. And yet, why do I make that silly statement? What would you consider shameful, of all that goes beyond the limit? I am told that you have a great estate there — that ill-conditioned tower, to which the jar of the man of Sinope would be the great hall of Zeus!

  In view of all this, you can never by any means persuade your fellow-citizens not to think you the most odious man in the world, a common disgrace to the whole city. Could you, though, perhaps win over the other inhabitants of Syria to vote for you if you said that you had done nothing bad or culpable in your life? Heracles! Antioch was an eye-witness of your misconduct with that youth from Tarsus whom you took aside — but to unveil these matters is no doubt shameful for me. However, it is known about and remembered by those who surprised the pair of you then and saw him doing — you know what, unless you are absolutely destitute of memory.

  Well, perhaps people in Egypt do not know you, who received you when, after those marvellous performances of yours in Syria, you went into exile for the reasons which I have mentioned, pursued by the clothiers, from whom you had bought costly garments and in that way obtained your expense-money for the journey. But Alexandria knows you to be guilty of offences just as bad, and should not have been ranked second to Antioch. No, your wantonness there was more open and your licentiousness more insane, your reputation for these things was greater, and your head was uncloaked under all circumstances.

  There is only one person who would have believed you if you denied having done anything of the sort, and would have come to your assistance — your latest employer, one of the first gentlemen of Rome. The name itself you will allow me to withhold, especially in addressing people who all know whom I mean. As to all the liberties taken by you while you were with him that he tolerated, why should I speak of them? But when he found you in the company of his young cup-bearer Oenopion, — what do you think? Would he have believed you? Not unless he was completely blind. No, he made his opinion evident by driving you out of his house at once, and indeed conducting a lustration, they say, after your departure. And certainly Greece as well as Italy is completely filled with your doings, and your reputation for them, and I wish you joy of your fame! Consequently, to those who marvel at what you are now doing in Ephesus, I say (and it is true as can be) that they would not wonder if they knew your early performances. Yet you have learned something new here having to do with women.

  Does it not, then, fit such a man to a hair to call him nefandous? But why in the name of Zeus should you take it upon yourself to kiss us after such performances? In so doing you behave very offensively, especially to those who ought least of all to be so treated, your pupils, for whom it would have been enough to get only those other horrid boons from your lips — barbarity of language, harshness of voice, indistinctness, confusedness, complete tunelessness, and the like, but to kiss you — forfend it, Averter of Ill! Better kiss an asp or a viper; then the risk is a bite and a pain which the doctor cures when you call him. But from the venom of your kiss, who could approach victims or altars? What god would listen to one’s prayer? How many bowls of holy water, how many rivers are required?

  And you, who are of that sort, laughed at others in the matter of words and phrases, when you were doing such terrible deeds! For my part, had I not known the word nefandous, I should have been ashamed, so far am I from denying that I used it. In your own case, none of us criticised you for saying “bromologous” and “tropomasthletes” and “to rhesimeter,” and “Athenio,” and “anthocracy” and “sphendicise” and “cheiroblime.” May Hermes, Lord of Language, blot you out miserably, language and all, for the miserable wretch that you are! Where in literature do you find these treasures? Perhaps buried somewhere in the closet of some composer of dirges, full of mildew and spiders’ webs, or from the Tablets of Philaenis, which you keep in hand. For you, however, and for your lips they are quite good enough.

  Now that I have mentioned lips, what would you say if your tongue, summoning you to court, let us suppose, should prosecute you on a charge of injury and at the mildest, assault, saying: “Ingrate, I took you under my protection when you were poor and hard up and destitute of support, and first of all I made you successful in the theatre, making you now Ninus, now Metiochus, and then presently Achilles. After that, when you taught boys to spell, I kept you for a long time;
and when at length you took to delivering these speeches of yours, composed by other people, I caused you to be considered a sophist, attaching to you a reputation which had nothing at all to do with you. What charge, then, have you to bring against me, so great that you treat me in this way, imposing disgraceful tasks and abominable services? Are not my daily tasks enough, lying, committing perjury, ladling out such an amount of silliness and twaddle, or (I should say) spewing out the nastiness of those speeches? Even at night you do not allow me, unlucky that I am, to take my rest, but unaided I do everything for you, am abused, defiled, treated deliberately like a hand rather than a tongue, insulted as if I were nothing to you, overwhelmed with so many injuries. My only function is to talk; other parts have been commissioned to do such things as those. Oh if only someone had cut me out, like the tongue of Philomela. More blessed in my sight are the tongues of parents who have eaten their children!”

  In Heaven’s name, if your tongue should say that, acquiring a voice of its own, and getting your beard to join in the accusation, what response would you make? The reply, manifestly, which you made recently to Glaucus when he rebuked you just after a performance, that by this means you had speedily become famous and known to everyone, and how could you have become so notorious by making speeches? It was highly desirable, you said, to be renowned and celebrated in any way whatsoever. And then you might tell it your many nicknames, acquired in different nations. In that connection I marvel at it that you were distressed when you heard ‘nefandous’ but were not angry over those names. In Syria you were called Rhododaphne; the reason, by Athena, I am ashamed to tell. So as far as lies in me, it will still remain a mystery. In Palestine, you were Thorn-hedge, with reference, no doubt, to the prickling of your stubbly beard; for you still kept it shaved. In Egypt you were called Quinsy, which is clear. In fact, they say you were nearly throttled when you ran afoul of a lusty sailor who closed with you and stopped your mouth. The Athenians, excellent fellows that they are, gave you no enigmatic name but called you Atimarchus, honouring you with the addition of a single letter because you had to have something that went even beyond Timarchus. And in Italy — my word! you got that epic nickname of Cyclops, because once, over and above your old bag of tricks, you took a notion to do an obscene parody on Homer’s poetry itself, and while you lay there, drunk already, with a bowl of ivy-wood in your hand, a lecherous Polyphemus, a young man whom you had hired came at you as Odysseus, presenting his bar, thoroughly made ready, to put out your eye; “And that he missed; his shaft was turned aside.