έvvέa roi ζώζι yeveizs λαχέρυζα κυρώνη άνδρών ηβώντων.
Nine ages of men in their flower doth live The cawing crow.) The elephant’s jaw is like the head of an ox, because to the observer his mouth appears to have two horns; these are, however, in reality the elephant’s curved tusks. Between them grows his trunk, in appearance and size not unlike a trumpet, and very convenient for all that the beast may require; it takes up his food for him or anything that he finds to eat; if it is proper nutriment for an elephant, he takes it at once, and then bending inwards towards his jaw, delivers it to his mouth; but if he sees that it is anything too rich for him, he seizes it, twists up his find in a circle, raises it on high, and offers it as a gift to his master. This master is an Ethiopian who sits on his back, a sort of elephant horseman; the beast fawns on him and fears him, and attends to his voice and submits to be beaten by him, the instrument with which he is beaten being an iron axe. I once saw an extraordinary sight; there was a Greek who had put his head right into the middle of the animal’s jaws; it kept its mouth open and breathed upon him as he remained in that position. I was surprised at both, the audacity of the man and the amiability of the elephant; but the man told me that he had in fact given the animal a fee for it, because the beast’s breath was only less sweet than the scents of India, and a sovereign remedy for the headache. The elephant knows that he possesses this power of healing, and will not open his mouth for nothing; he is one of those rascally doctors that insist on having their fee first. When you give it him, he graciously consents, stretches open his jaws, and keeps them agape as long as the man desires; he knows that he has let out on hire the sweetness of his breath.”
5. “From what source,” said I, “does this ugly beast get this delightful scent of his?”— “From the character of his food,” said Charmides. “The country of the Indians is close to the sun: they are the first to see the sun-god rising; his rays are very hot when they strike them, and their body preserves the tint due to exposure to his fire. (Ovid, Met ii. 235 (of Phaethon’s fatal drive): —
The Aethiopians at that time (as men for truth uphold)
— The blood by force of that same heat drawn to the outer part
And there adust from that time forth — became so black and swart.) We Greeks have a certain flower as dark as a negro’s skin: in India it is not a flower, but a leaf, such as we find on trees in our country: there, it conceals its fragrance and gives no evidence of its scent; for it either hesitates to vaunt its qualities before those who know them well, or grudges them to those of its own country. But if it remove but a little from its own haunts and pass the borders of its own land, it throws open the sweetness that it has hidden, turns into a flower instead of a leaf, and becomes invested with scent. This is the black rose of the Indians; it is the food of the elephant, as is grass to our oxen. Nurtured on it from birth, the whole animal acquires the scent of its food and sends forth its breath endowed with the sweetest savour — its breathing is the origin of its fragrance.”
6. Not very long after the general had made an end of these stories (for he who has suffered Cupid’s attack cannot long endure torture in his fire), he sent for Menelaus and took him by the hand, saying: “Your services to Clitophon shew that you have a genius for friendship; and you shall find the same in me. I ask of you a favour which is quite easy for you to perform; and by granting it you can save my life, if you will. Leucippe is the death of me; do you come to the rescue. She is already in your debt for saving her life; your reward for the service you can do me will be fifty pieces of gold, while she can have as much as she likes.”
“No,” said Menelaus, “keep your money for those who make their friendship a matter of barter; I, who am already your friend, will try to be of service to you.” With these words, he came to me and related the whole story, and we took counsel what to do. Our conclusion was that it was best to cozen him; for open opposition was not without danger, in case he should employ force, while flight was impossible, as we were surrounded on every side both by the robbers and by his own very large retinue of soldiers.
7. Menelaus therefore waited a short time, and then returned to Charmides. “Your business is done,” he said. “At first she refused most vehemently, but when I implored her, reminding her that she was under obligations to me, she consented. She makes, however, a reasonable request, and that is a short delay of a few days; ‘Until,’ she says, ‘I arrive at Alexandria; this is only a village, where everything is in the public view, and there are too many here who see everything that goes on.’ “— “It is a long time to wait,” said Charmides, “for her favours. When one is at war, how can one postpone one’s desires? And when a soldier is just going into battle, how can he know whether he will survive? There are so many different roads to death; if you can get my safety guaranteed to me by Fate, I will wait. I am just going out to fight against buccaneers; but within my soul there is a different kind of conflict. A warrior, (Cupid.) armed with bow and arrows, is ravaging me: I am beaten, I am covered with wounds; call, my friend, call quickly the physician that can heal me; the wound is dangerous. I shall carry fire into the country of my enemies; but Love has lit up another kind of torch against me; do you, Menelaus, quench this fire first. Love’s congress would be a fair omen before we join in battle; let it be Aphrodite that sends me out on my way to Ares.”
“But you must see,” said Menelaus, “that it is not easy for her here to trick her future husband, especially as he is greatly in love with her.”
“Tush,” said Charmides, “it is easy enough to send off Clitophon somewhere else.”
Menelaus saw that Charmides was in earnest, and began to fear for my safety; he therefore hastily concocted a plausible excuse saying: “Do you wish to know the real reason of the delay? Only yesterday there was upon her after the manner of women, so that she cannot be approached by a man.”
“Very well then,” said Charmides, “we must wait here three or four days, which will be quite enough. But ask her to do what is possible; let her at any rate come into my sight and converse with me; I wish to hear her voice, to hold her hand, to touch her — the consolations of lovers. Yes, and I may kiss her too; in her condition there is no objection to this.”
8. When Menelaus came and told me this, I cried out that I would much rather die than see Leucippe’s kiss bestowed upon another. “What,” I said, “can be sweeter than her kiss? Love’s full enjoyment comes to an end and one is soon sated with it — it is nothing, if you take away the kisses from it; the kiss does not come to an end, never brings satiety, and is always fresh. Three very charming things come from the mouth; the breath, the voice, and the kiss; we kiss those whom we love with the lips, but the spring of the pleasure comes from the soul. Believe me, Menelaus, when I tell you (for in my troubles I will reveal to you the most sacred secrets), that this is all that even I have received from Leucippe; she is still a virgin; only as far as kisses go she is my spouse; and if another is to ravish these from me, I will not tolerate the rape; there can be no adultery with my kisses.”
It is clear, then,” said Menelaus, “that we need good and speedy counsel. For when a man is in love, he can bear it so long as he cherishes a hope of success, striving eagerly to that very success; once drive him to despair, and he will transform his desire into a passion to inflict pain in return upon that which stands in his way. And suppose he has power also, so as to inflict, without suffering, an injury, then the fact that his spirit is without fear inflames his fury further; and the opportunity urges him to deal drastically with his difficult situation.” (I do not feel at all sure of the exact meaning of Menelaus’ last sentence. It might also mean: “Yes, and the occasion [the short time we have in which to act] increases our difficulties in dealing with the situation.”)
9. We were still looking for a plan when a man rushed in, greatly disturbed, and told us that Leucippe, while walking abroad, had suddenly fallen down, her eyes rolling; so we jumped up and ran to
her, and found her lying on the ground. I went up to her and asked her what was the matter, but no sooner had she seen me than, her eyes all bloodshot, she struck me in the face; and when Menelaus tried to constrain her, she kicked him. This made us understand that she was afflicted with some kind of madness, so that we forcibly seized her and tried to hold her; she struggled against us, however, and seemed to care little for womanly modesty. As a result of all this, a great hubbub arose in the tent, so that the general himself hurried in and saw what was happening. At first he suspected that this illness of hers was but a pretence against his advances, and looked suspiciously at Menelaus; when he saw the truth, as he soon did, he too grieved and felt pity for her. Ropes were therefore brought, and the poor girl tied up. But when I saw the bonds about her wrists, I could not but implore Menelaus (the others had gone away), saying, “Loose them, I beseech you, loose them; these tender hands cannot bear fetters. Leave me with her; I alone will, with my embrace, be the rope to bind her; let her madness rage against me. For what profits it me to live longer? I am here, and Leucippe knows me not; there my love lies bound, and I, heartless wretch, could loose her and will not. Has Fate only saved us from the hands of the robbers for you to become the sport of madness, ill-starred that we were, when we seemed to be most fortunate? We escaped the terrors that awaited us at home, only to suffer shipwreck; we were saved from the sea,.... (The rhetorical structure of the sentence seems to shew that something is here lost, such as “only to fall into the hands of robbers.”); we were rescued from the robbers, only to find madness waiting for us. Yes, dearest, even if you recover, I still fear the visitation of God has some ill to work upon you. Who can be more wretched than we are, who are in fear even of what seems our good fortune? But do you but once get well and come again to your senses, and let Fortune again play what pranks she will!”
10. At these words of mine Menelaus’ companions tried to comfort me; such troubles, they said, were not lasting, but often occurred at the hot season of youth, when the blood, being young and new, and boiling at its approach to full age, overflows the veins and floods the brain, drowning the fount of reason. It was proper, therefore, to send for doctors and attempt to find a cure. Accordingly, Menelaus approached the general and asked that the army doctor might be called in; the general assented with pleasure, for those in love are glad enough to obey the behests which love lays upon them. When the physician had come: “First,” said he, “we must make her sleep, in order to overcome the violent crisis of the disease from which she is suffering — sleep is the remedy for all illness — and after that we will prescribe a further course of treatment.” With this intention he gave us a small medicament about the size of a nut, bidding us dissolve it in oil and rub the crown of her head with it; later, he said, he would prepare another to purge her. We followed out his instructions, and after being rubbed with the drug she quickly fell asleep and remained so for the rest of the night until morning. I kept watch the whole night long, and as I sat I could not but weep and say, as I beheld her bonds, “Alas, my darling, you are a prisoner even while you slumber; even your sleep is not free. I wonder of what you are dreaming; are you, in your sleep, in your right senses, or are your dreams too those of a madwoman?” But even when she woke, she again cried out some meaningless words; the doctor was at hand, and gave her the other medicine.
11. While this was going on, a messenger came from the Satrap of Egypt, bidding the army set forth, and it appears as if the letter must have ordered the general to make haste to give battle, for he at once ordered all his men to arm themselves to engage with the buccaneers. They therefore hurried with all speed to their arms and were soon in readiness with their company-commanders. He then gave them the watchword, bade them encamp, and stayed where he was; on the next morning at day-break he led them out against the enemy. Now the situation of the village held by the robbers was as follows. The Nile flows down in a single stream from Thebes of Egypt as far as Memphis; a little below is a village (Cercasorus is its name), at the end of the undivided body of the river. From that point it breaks up round the land, and three rivers are formed out of one; two streams discharge themselves on either side, while the middle one flows on in the same course as the unbroken river, and forms the Delta in between the two outer branches. None of these three channels reaches the sea in an unbroken state; each, on reaching various cities, splits up further in different directions. The resulting branches are all of them larger than the rivers of Greece, and the water, although so much subdivided, does not lose its utility, but is used for boats, for drinking, and for agricultural irrigation.
12. This great Nile is the centre of their existence — their river, their land, their sea, their lake; it is a strange sight to see close together the boat and the hoe, the oar and the plough, the rudder and the winnowing-fan — the meeting-place of sailors and husbandmen, of fishes and oxen. (Compare the epigram of Philippics of Thessalonica, Αnth. Pal ix. 299, where two oxen, used to ploughing, complain that they are compelled to pull a dragnet.) Where you have sailed, there you sow; where you sow, there is a sea subject to tillage. For the river has its due seasons, and the Egyptian sits and waits for it, counting the days. Nor does the Nile ever deceive; it is a river that keeps its appointments both in the times of its increase and the amount of water that it brings, a river that never allows itself to be convicted of being unpunctual. You may see a conflict between river and land: each struggles with the other, the water to make a sea of so wide an expanse of soil, and the soil to absorb so much fresh water. In the end it is a drawn battle, and neither of the two parties can be said to suffer defeat, for water and land are coextensive and identical.
About the haunts of the robbers previously mentioned there is always plenty of water standing; when it floods the land, it forms lakes, and these remain undiminished when the Nile goes down, full of water, and also of the water’s mud. The natives can either walk or row over them, but only in boats just large enough to contain a single passenger (any kind strange to the locality the mud there chokes and stops); theirs are small and light vessels., (These must have been like our old-fashioned coracles. Pliny (H.N. xiii. 11) tells us of what they were made: “The very body and pole of the papyrus itself serveth very well to twist and weave therewith little boats”; cf. Lucan, iv. 136.) drawing very little water; if there is no water at all, the boatmen pick up their craft and carry it on their backs until they come to water again. In the middle of these lakes lie some islands dotted here and there. Some of them have no houses upon them, but are planted with papyrus, and the stems of it grow so close that there is only just room for a man to stand between them; over the head of this thick jungle the leaves of the plant make a close covering. Robbers therefore can slip in there, make their plans, devise ambushes or lie hid, using the papyrus-plants as their fortifications. Others of the islands have cabins upon them, and present the appearance, the huts being closely packed together, of a town protected by water. These are the resorts of the buccaneers; one of them, larger than the others and with a greater number of cabins upon it, was called, I think, Nicochis; there, as their strongest fastness, they all collected, and took courage both from their numbers and the strength of the position. It was made a peninsula by a narrow causeway, a furlong in length and twelve fathoms broad, on either side of which the waters of the lake entirely surrounded the town.
13. When they saw the general approaching they devised the following stratagem. They collected all their old men and provided them with branches of palm, to make them look like suppliants, while behind them they drew up the flower of their youth, armed with shield and spear; the veterans were to hold the branches aloft, so as to hide those in the rear behind the foliage, while the latter were to keep their spears horizontal and trail them along the ground, so that they might not be apparent. If the general were overcome by the old men’s prayers, the armed warriors were not to make any attempt to join battle; but if he were not, they were to invite him to enter their city, as if they were t
here to give themselves up to their fate; and when they arrived at the middle of the causeway, the old men, at a signal previously arranged, were to run away, throwing down the branches, while the men in arms were to turn and charge and fight their hardest.
They were there then in their places, drawn up according to this plan, and implored the general to shew respect to their grey hairs and to the supplicatory palm-branches, and to have pity upon the town; they were ready, they said, to give him for his private purse a hundred talents of silver, and to send to the Satrap a hundred men willing to offer themselves as hostages for the city, so that he might be able to carry his superior some spoils of war. This offer of theirs was quite genuine, and if the general had chosen to accept their terms, they would have paid the money and given the hostages; but as he would not agree, “Very well,” said the old men, “ if that is your decision we must accept what is fated for us. Only grant us one favour in our distress; do not kill us without our gates, or far from our town, but take us to the spot where our fathers lived, to the hearths where we were born, and let our town be also our tomb. Look, we will lead the way for you to our death.” The general, hearing this request, released his troops from their battle formation, and bade them follow after him at leisure.
14. There were some scouts who were watching the course of events from a distance; they had been posted by the buccaneers, who had ordered them, when they saw the enemy crossing, to break down the dykes and let all the water in upon them as they advanced. For this is the arrangement adopted with the waters of the Nile: at the mouth of every canal the Egyptians keep a dyke, so that the river should not overflow its banks and inundate the land before the time of need; when they wish to irrigate the soil, they open the dyke a little way, until it is turned into a swamp. There was in this way behind the town a long and wide canal from the river; and those appointed for the task, when they saw the entry of the hostile forces, quickly cut through the dyke. All happened in a moment; the old men in front suddenly disappeared, the others raised their spears and rushed forward, and the water flowed in at once; the lagoons rose, the water swelling on every side, the isthmus was flooded and the whole country became like a sea. The buccaneers fell on their enemies and transfixed with their spears those in front, including the general; for they were unarmed and quite disordered at the unexpected attack. As for the rest, the ways in which they met their death were too many to describe. Some at the first rush never even drew their weapons, but perished at once; others had no time in which to make their defence; they were cut down in the same moment that they realised they were being attacked; others even before they realised it. Others, struck into immobility by the unexpected event, stood and waited for death. Some slipped directly they attempted to move, the water undermining their footsteps; others, as they attempted to flee, rolled into the deep part of the lake, and were dragged under. As for those who were standing on the firm ground, the water came up as far as their navels, and thereby turned up their shields, thus exposing their bodies to the blows of the enemy. The water in the lagoon was everywhere above the height of a man’s head; indeed, it was impossible to tell which was lake and which was land; those who attempted to run away upon land had to go slowly for fear of making a mistake, and so were quickly captured; while those who mistook their way into the lake, thinking it to be land, were drowned. It was a paradoxical kind of mishap, innumerable wrecks, but no ship. Both indeed were new and strange, a land-fight in the water and a shipwreck on land. The conquerors were greatly elated by the result, and in high conceit with themselves, imagining that they had gained their victory by their bravery, and not by an underhand stratagem; for the Egyptian is subject to the most slavish cowardice when he is afraid and the most fool-hardy rashness when encouraged by his position; in neither case has he any moderation — he either bows to fortune with over-great pusillanimity, or displays in success more than idiotic temerity.
Complete Works of Achilles Tatius Page 9
