CRITIAS
My dear Triepho, I’ve just heard a speech that was long, puzzling, devious and involved, and I’m still counting up its nonsensicalities and keeping my ears closed for fear I may hear it again and die of madness, becoming a story for poets as was Niobe once. But I would have cast myself headlong over a precipice in my dizziness, if you hadn’t called out to me, my good fellow, and stories would have credited me with the leap of Cleombrotus, the Ambraciot.
TRIEPHO
2. By Heracles, what marvels to see or hear these were if they so astounded Critias! For how many thunderstruck poets and marvellous tales of philosophers failed to make the slightest impression on your mind, but became so much empty talk for you!
CRITIAS
Stop for a little; don’t pester me any further, for you won’t be ignored or neglected by me.
TRIEPHO
I know that it’s nothing small or contemptible that you keep turning over in your mind, but some profound mystery. For your colour, your angry look, your uncertain steps and your wanderings up and down make that right manifest. Take a rest from your tribulations, spit out these follies, “for fear you suffer aught of ill.”
CRITIAS
You must retire a good thirty yards from me, Triepho, for fear lest the breeze lift you up, the multitude see you ‘mid earth and sky and you fall down somewhere to give your name to a Triephontian Sea after the manner of Icarus of old. For what I have heard to-day from these trebly cursed professors has caused my belly greatly to swell.
TRIEPHO
I for my part shall retire as far as you wish, but you must rest from your tribulations.
CRITIAS
Alas, alas, alas, alas for those follies! Woe, woe, woe, woe for these terrible schemes! Alack, alack, alack, alack for those empty hopes!
TRIEPHO
3. Good gracious, what a gust of wind! How it dispersed those clouds! For when the Zephyr was blowing fresh and driving the shipping over the waves, you’ve just stirred up a North Wind throughout the Propontis, so that only by use of ropes will the merchantmen pass to the Euxine, as wind and wave make them roll. What a swelling assailed your internal organs! What a rumbling and agitation afflicted your stomach! You’ve shown yourself possessed of many ears by hearing so many things that you’ve been a prodigy and even heard through your fingernails.
CRITIAS
There’s nothing strange even in hearing through the fingernails, Triepho. For you’ve seen a leg become a womb, a head pregnant, men change to women and women to birds. In short, life’s full of prodigies, if you care to believe the poets. But first, “since in this place I do thee find,” let us depart to where the plane-trees keep off the sun, and nightingales and swallows pour forth sweet melodies, so that our souls may be enchanted by the melody of the birds that delights the ears, and by the gentle murmur of the water.
TRIEPHO
4. Let us go there, Critias. But I’m afraid that perhaps what you’ve heard is a magic incantation and the wonders which amazed you will make me into pestle or” a door or some other inanimate object.
CRITIAS
By Zeus in the skies, this won’t happen to you!
TRIEPHO
You’ve frightened me again by swearing by Zeus. For how could “he thee chastise,” if you broke your oath? For I know that you too are knowledgeable about your Zeus.
CRITIAS
What do you mean? Can’t Zeus send me to Tartarus? Don’t you know that he has hurled all the gods “from heaven’s threshold” and not long ago destroyed Salmoneus with lightning for rivalling his thunder, and still to the present day does so to particularly wanton men, and that he is hymned by poets as “Victor over the Titans” and “Destroyer of the Giants,” as indeed in Homer?
TRIEPHO
You’ve completed your description of Zeus, Critias; now please listen to me. Didn’t he become swan and satyr out of wantonness, yes and bull too? And if he hadn’t been quick in putting that little strumpet on his shoulder and escaped over the sea, your thunder-producing, lightning-hurling Zeus would perhaps have been made to plough, “when that he met a husbandman,” and instead of hurling his lightning would have been pricked by the ox- goad. And as for his feasting along with Ethiopians, dusky men with dark faces, and not stopping for twelve days but sitting there tipsy, though having such a great beard on his face, aren’t these things of which to be ashamed? The episode of the eagle and Mount Ida and his being pregnant all over his body I’m ashamed even to mention!
CRITIAS
5. Shall we then, my good fellow, swear by Apollo, the excellent prophet and doctor?
TRIEPHO
The false prophet, you mean, who destroyed Croesus the other day and after him the men of Salamis and countless others by giving ambiguous oracles to all of them?
CRITIAS
6. And what of Poseidon? Poseidon who wields a trident and in war utters shrill terrifying shouts as loud as nine or ten thousand men, but is also, Triepho, called “Earth-shaker”?
TRIEPHO
The adulterer you mean, who the other day ravished Salmoneus’ daughter Tyro, and still continued his lecherous habits and is the saviour and champion of folk like himself? For when Ares was cramped by his bonds and confined along with Aphrodite in inextricable chains, and all the gods were silent with shame at his adultery, Poseidon, the equestrian god, burst into streams of tears, as infants do when afraid of their teachers or old women when deceiving maidens. He importuned Hephaestus to release Ares, and that lame deity out of pity for the senior god set Ares free. Thus Poseidon too is guilty of adultery by his protection of adulterers.
CRITIAS
7. And what of Hermes?
TRIEPHO
Speak not to me of that base slave of Zeus’ worst lecheries, who in adultery mad, lecherous joy doth take.
CRITIAS
8. I know you won’t accept Ares or Aphrodite as they’ve just been attacked by you. Let us therefore leave them aside. But I can still mention Athena, the virgin, the armed, terrifying goddess with the Gorgon’s head fastened to her bosom, the giant- destroying goddess. You can’t say anything about her.
TRIEPHO
I’ll tell you about her too, if you’ll answer my questions.
CRITIAS
Ask whatever you wish.
TRIEPHO
Tell me, Critias, what’s the use of the Gorgon, and why does the goddess wear it on her bosom?
CRITIAS
Because it’s a frightening sight and protects her from dangers. Moreover she terrifies her enemies and gives victory “unto the other side,” whenever she wishes.
TRIEPHO
Is that why the Goddess Grey of Eye is invincible?
CRITIAS
Yes indeed.
TRIEPHO
And why do we not thighs burn “of bulls, yea and of goats” to those able to save us rather than to those saved by others, so that they may make us as invincible as Athena?
CRITIAS
But you Gorgon hasn’t power to help from afar, as the gods have, but only if it is worn.
TRIEPHO
9. And what is the Gorgon? For I’d like you to tell me, since you have conducted researches into such matters and with very great success. For I know nothing of her but her name.
CRITIAS
She was a beautiful and lovely maiden. But, ever since Perseus, a noble hero famed for his magic, cast his spells around her and treacherously cut off her head, the gods have kept her as their defence.
TRIEPHO
I was unaware of this glorious fact that gods need men. But what use did she have during her lifetime? Was she a courtesan entertaining men in public inns or did she keep her amours secret and call herself a virgin?
CRITIAS
By the unknown god in Athens, she remained a virgin till her head was cut off.
TRIEPHO
And if one did cut off a virgin’s head, would that prove something to frighten most men? For I know that countless maidens have been c
ut limb from limb.
“In a sea-girt isle, which men call Crete.”
If men knew this, my fine Critias, what numbers of Gorgons they would have brought you from Crete! And I would have made you an invincible generalissimo, while poets and orators would have rated me far superior to Perseus as having discovered more Gorgons than he did. But there’s something else I recall about the Cretans. They showed me the tomb of your Zeus and the thickets which nurtured his mother, for they remain verdant for aye.
CRITIAS
But you didn’t know the charm or rites he used.
TRIEPHO
If these things were done by a charm, Critias, perhaps he would also have brought her back from the dead and raised her to the sweet light of day. But all these things are idle talk, fairy tales, myths and wondrous stories spread by the poets. So forget about the Gorgon also.
CRITIAS
11. But don’t you accept Hera, Zeus’ wife and sister?
TRIEPHO
Keep quiet because of her most wanton lovemaking and pass over her who was stretched out with feet and hands extended.
CRITIAS
12. And by whom shall I swear?
TRIEPHO
The mighty god that rules on high, Immortal dwelling in the sky, the son of the father, spirit proceeding from the father, three in one and one in three Think him your Zeus, consider him your god.
CRITIAS
You’re teaching me to count, and using arithmetic for your oath. For you’re counting like Nicomachus, the Gerasene. For I don’t know what you mean by “three in one and one in three.” You don’t mean Pythagoras’ four numbers or his eight or his thirty?
TRIEPHO
“Speak not of things below that none may tell.” We don’t measure the footprints of fleas here. For I shall teach you what is all, who existed before all else and how the universe works. For only the other day I too was in the same state as you, but, when I was met by a Galilean with receding hair and a long nose, who had walked on air into the third heaven and acquired the most glorious knowledge, he regenerated us with water, led us into the paths of the blessed and ransomed us from the impious places. If you listen to me, I shall make you too a man in truth.
CRITIAS
13. Speak on, most learned Triepho; for fear is upon me.
TRIEPHO
Have you ever read the poetic composition of the dramatist Aristophanes called the Birds?
CRITIAS
Certainly I have.
TRIEPHO
He wrote the following words:
“At first Chaos there was and night, Black Erebos and Tartarus broad, But nought of earth or air or sky.”
CRITIAS
Bravo! Then what followed?
TRIEPHO
There was light imperishable, invisible, incomprehensible, which dispels the darkness and has banished this confusion; by a single word spoken by him, as the slow-tongued one recorded, he planted land on the waters, spread out the heavens, fashioned the fixed stars, appointed the course of the planets which you revere as gods, beautified the earth with flowers and brought man into existence out of nothingness. He exists in the heavens, looking down upon the just and the unjust, and writing down their deeds in his books, and he shall requite all men on his own appointed day.
CRITIAS
14. And do they also inscribe the things which the Fates have spun for all men?
TRIEPHO
What things?
CRITIAS
The things of Destiny.
TRIEPHO
Tell me about the Fates, my fine Critias, for I would fain listen to you as an eager disciple.
CRITIAS
Has not Homer, the renowned poet, said, “And Fate I say has none of men escaped”? And of mighty Heracles he says:
“For even mighty Heracles escaped not doom, Although right dear he was to Cronus’ son, king Zeus, But Fate and Hera’s cruel wrath did him o’ercome.”
But he also says that all life and its vicissitudes too are governed by Fate, “Then will he meet what Fate and thread of Spinners grim Did spin for him the day his mother gave him birth,” and that delays on foreign soil arise from Fate.
“To Aeolus we came who gave me welcome glad And sped me on my way. For not as yet was it My Fate that I should reach beloved fatherland.” Thus the poet has testified that all things are brought about by the Fates. He tells us that Zeus did not wish his son “from woeful death to save,” but rather “Did pour upon the earth beneath a bloody rain To honour his dear son, whom Patroclus was soon In Troy to slay.”
Therefore, Triepho, you musn’t feel inclined to say anything more about the Fates, even if perchance you were lifted ‘twixt earth and sky along with your teacher and were initiated into mysteries.
TRIEPHO
15. And how can that same poet, my fine Critias, call Destiny double and doubtful, so that if a man does one thing he encounters one result, but if he does something else he meets with a different result. Thus in the case of Achilles, “Two Fates lead on to death that cometh as the end.
If here I stay and fight around the Trojans’ town, My home-coming is gone, but glory will be mine To all eternity. But if I reach my home, My glorious fame is gone, hut long will be my life.”
Moreover in the case of Euchenor “He knowing well his deadly doom set foot on ship; For Polyidos, that fine old man, had told him oft Either he must succumb to sickness grim at home, Or else sail with the Greeks and fall by Trojan hand.”
16. Are these things not written in Homer? Or do you think them ambiguous, dangerous and deluding words? If you wish, I’ll also tell you about the speech of Zeus. Didn’t he tell Aegisthus that if he refrained from adultery and plotting against Agamemnon he was fated to have a long life, but if he attempted to do these things he wouldn’t have to wait for death? This I too have often foretold, maintaining that if you kill your neighbour you will meet death at the hands of Justice, whereas if you refrain from such actions, you will have an excellent life, “Nor will you quickly meet with death that endeth all.”
Don’t you see how imperfect, ambiguous and unstable are the words of the poets? Therefore leave all these aside, so that they may list your name too in the heavenly books of the good.
CRITIAS
17. How cleverly you bring everything back to the same point. But tell me whether they inscribe the deeds of the Scythians too in heaven.
TRIEPHO
They inscribe the deeds of every good man, even though he be among the Gentiles.
CRITIAS
By your account there must be many scribes in heaven to list all these deeds.
TRIEPHO
“Hush thy mouth and nothing slighting say” of God for he is accomplished, but be instructed and persuaded by me, if you are to live for ever. If he has unfolded the heavens like a curtain, planted land on the water, fashioned the stars, and brought forth men out of nothingness, how is it strange that he should also list the deeds of all men? For even you with the modest house you have built and the serving men and women you have collected are aware of their every deed however unimportant. How much more easily can you expect the god who made all things to keep track of all things, of the thoughts and deeds of each man! For your gods have become a mere bagatelle to men of right mind.
CRITIAS
18. You are absolutely right; you make me experience Niobe’s fate in reverse; for I’ve changed back from tomb-stone to man. Therefore I add this god to my oath in promising you will suffer no harm from me.
TRIEPHO
“If with all your heart you really do me love,” do nothing untoward to me nor let “A different thought your inmost heart conceal, From what your tongue doth outwardly reveal.” But come now, sing to me of the wonderful thing you have heard, that I too may grow pale and be utterly changed, and not grow dumb like Niobe, but become a nightingale like Aëdon, and throughout flower decked meadows celebrate in tragic song the wonder that amazed you.
CRITIAS
By the son o
f the father, that shall not come about!
TRIEPHO
Take powers of speech from the spirit and speak, while I shall sit “Waiting until the son of Aeacus doth cease from song.”
CRITIAS
19. I had gone into the street to buy what things I most needed, when behold I saw a great crowd of people! They were whispering in each other’s ears, with the lips of one glued to the ear of another. I looked at them all and bent my hand round my eyes, straining them to see if I could catch sight of any of my friends. I saw Crato, the man of affairs, who from boyhood had been my friend and drinking companion.
Delphi Complete Works of Lucian Page 118
