Verae historiae

Lucian of Samosata

Selections from Lucian. Smith, Emily James, translator. New York; Harper Brothers, 1892.

During this same time Pythagoras of Samos also put in an appearance after his seventh transformation, his lives in the forms of as many animals, and his completion of the cycles of the soul. His whole right thigh was of gold. He was judged worthy to dwell with the others, but there was doubt whether he ought to be called Pythagoras or Euphorbos. Empedokles also came, done to a turn, with his whole body roasted. He, however, was not admitted, though he begged hard.

Some time after this their games were held in honor of the Festival of the Dead. Achilles presided for the fifth time and Theseus for the seventh. A full description would be too lengthy, but I will narrate the most important events. Karos, of the line of Hercules, won the wrestling prize, although he had Odysseus for a competitor. The boxing-match was a tie between Areion the Egyptian, who is buried in Corinth, and Epeios, who contended together. For the all-round contest they offer no prize there, and as for the footrace, I no longer remember who was the winner. Among the poets Homer was easily the real victor, but nevertheless Hesiod won the prize. The prize for all alike was a wreath woven of peacock's feathers.

Hardly were the games at an end when word was brought that the criminals who were being punished in the realm of the wicked had broken

p.179
their chains and overpowered the guard, and were marching against the island. Phalaris of Agrigentum was in command, the report said, with Busiris the Egyptian, the Thracian Diomede, and Skeiron and the Pine-bender, with their followers. When Rhadamanthos heard these tidings he marshalled the heroes on the beach, the commanders being Theseus, Achilles, and Telamonian Ajax, who had by this time recovered his wits. The forces joined battle and the heroes were victorious, owing chiefly to the exploits of Achilles. Sokrates, too, distinguished himself in the right wing much more than at the battle of Delium, while he was living. For when the enemy advanced he kept his place with unflinching front. As a reward for his bravery a prize was bestowed on him later in the shape of a very large and beautiful garden in the suburbs, where he assembled his followers and conversed with them, calling the place the Academy of the Dead.

The vanquished were collected, of course, and sent back again in irons to still greater punishments. Homer wrote an account of this battle, too, and presented me with a copy on my departure for me to carry to men in this land, but I lost it afterwards, with my other belongings. The first line of the poem was this:

  1. Sing to me now, O Muse, the wars of the shades of the heroes.
p.180
Their next proceeding was to cook some beans, according to their custom after a successful war, and hold a festival of victory with a great banquet. But Pythagoras alone would not partake. He sat a distance fasting, and filled with loathing at the eating of beans.

Six months had already gone by and half of the seventh when a disaster happened. Kinyras, Skintharos's son, tall and handsome, had for some time already been in love with Helen, who, on her side, made no secret of her lively passion for the youth. At any rate, they were constantly making signs to one another at table and pledging each other as they drank their wine, and then they would rise and wander off alone in the forest. Well, at last Kinyras, urged on by his passion and his helpless condition, conceived the plan of stealing Helen and running off with her. She, too, approved the idea of going off to one of the neighboring islands, either Cork or Cheeseland. They had some time ago taken three of my most valiant comrades into the conspiracy, but Kinyras had not mentioned it to his father, for he knew he would hinder him. They carried out their preconcerted plan. The night came. I was not at hand, for I happened to be asleep in the banquet-hall. The conspirators eluded the others, captured Helen, and set sail in haste.

About midnight Menelaus awoke, and, finding

p.181
his wife gone, he gave the alarm and went with his brother to the king, Rhadamanthos. At daybreak the watchmen brought word that they could make out the ship at a great distance. Accordingly Rhadamanthos ordered fifty of the heroes into a vessel made of a single log of asphodel, and bade them give chase. They rowed with a will, and overtook the fugitives towards noon just as they were entering the sea of milk in the neighborhood of Cheeseland; so near were they to getting off! They made the ship fast to their own with a chain of roses and sailed back, Helen weeping for shame behind her veil. Kinyras and his followers were first asked by Rhadamanthos whether they had any other accomplices, and when they said they had not, he bound them, flogged them with mallows, and sent them off to the realm of the wicked.

They decided that we, too, must be sent out of the island on short notice, giving us only the following day. Thereupon I burst into lamentations and wept at the thought of leaving so many delights and setting forth on my wanderings again. But the heroes heartened me by saying that before many years I should return to them, and they showed me a chair and a couch made ready against that day near the noblest. I went to Rhadamanthos and begged and besought him to read the future for me and map out my voyage, and he told me I should return

p.182
to my native land after many wanderings and dangers, but he persisted in refusing to set the time of my arrival. However, he pointed out the neighboring islands, of which five were visible, with a sixth in the distance, and told me these were the islands of the wicked, these nearer ones, “from which," said he, "you see the great fires flaming up, and the sixth, yonder, is the City of Dreams. Beyond this is Kalypso's island, but you cannot see it from here. When you have sailed past these you will come to the great continent which is opposite your own. There you will have many adventures and pass among all sorts of tribes, and visit barbarous people, and in time you will come to the other continent."

So much he told me; and, plucking a mallow-root from the earth, he handed it to me, bidding me call upon this in my greatest perils. He also laid these injunctions on me in case I should ever get back to this country: never to stir the fire with my sword, never to eat beans, and never to kiss a girl more than eighteen years old. If I should keep these rules in mind I might confidently hope to return to the island. After this I made ready for the voyage, and when the time was come I feasted together with them. The next morning I went to Homer, the poet, to ask him to write me a distich for an inscription,

p.183
and when he had composed it I erected a pillar of beryll stone above the harbor, and inscribed it as follows:
  1. Lucian, beloved of the gods who dwell in bliss everlasting,
  2. Saw these realms, and then returned to the land of his fathers.

This was our last day; on the next we set forth, escorted by the heroes. At this juncture Odysseus, too, came to me unbeknownst to Penelope, and gave me a letter to carry to Kalypso in the island of Ogygia. [The first land made by Lucian on this voyage was one of the Islands of the Wicked, where Timon of Athens was gate-keeper. Here he saw Kinyras and others in torment, but the severest punishments were reserved for liars and inaccurate historians, among whom he saw Ktesias the Knidian and Herodotus. Thence he sailed to the Island of Dreams, and so to Ogygia.]

On the third day thereafter we made the island of Ogygia and went ashore, but first I opened the letter and read the contents. It ran as follows:

ODYSSEUS GREETS KALYPSO.

Know that as soon as I sailed away from your island on the raft I had built I suffered shipwreck,

p.184
and was only just saved by Leukothea and brought to the country of the Phaeacians. They conveyed me to my own land, where I found my wife's numerous suitors revelling at my expense. I killed them all, but was afterwards taken off by Telegonos, my son by Circe. At present I am in the Island of the Blest, repenting deeply that I left your hospitality and the immortality you offered me, and as soon as I get a chance I will make my escape and come to you."

This was what the letter said, together with a request that she would show us hospitality.

When I had advanced a short distance from the sea I found a cave such as Homer described, and the lady herself spinning wool. When she had taken the letter and read it through she burst into tears and wept a long time, but after a while she invited us to dinner and feasted us nobly. She asked questions about Odysseus and about Penelope, what she was like to look at, and whether her good sense was so remarkable as Odysseus used to boast it. We made such answers as we thought would be agreeable to her. Then we went off to the ship and bivouacked near by on the beach.

These, then, were my adventures on the sea, during my voyage among the islands, in the air,

p.185
afterwards in the whale and when we had escaped thence, and among the heroes . . . until I reached the opposite continent. What happened to me on land I will describe in the following books.