Cataplus

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 2. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1915.

CHARON Come, now, pay us your fares, all of you, the first thing you do. (Yo micytius) You there, pay yours too; I have it from everybody now. I say, Micyllus, pay your obol too. °

MICYLLUS You’re joking, Charon, or if not, you might as well write in water as look for an obol from Micyllus. I haven’t the slightest idea whether an obol is round or square.

CHARON What a fine, profitable cruise this has been to-day !

v.2.p.43
Ashore with you, all the same. I am going after horses and cattle and dogs and the rest of the animals, for they have to cross now.

CLOTHO Take them in charge, Hermes, and lead them off. I myself will go back to the other side to bring over the Chinamen Indopates and Heramithras, for they have just died fighting with one another over boundaries.

HERMES Let’s move on, good people—or better, all follow me in order.

MICYLLUS Heracles, how dark it is! Where now is handsome Megillus, and who can tell here that Simiche is not more beautiful than Phryne? All things are alike and of the same colour, and nothing is either beautiful or more beautiful; indeed, even my short cloak, which till now I thought ugly, is as good as the purple mantle of the king, for both are invisible and submerged in the same darkness. Cyniscus, where in the world are you?

CYNISCUS Here I am, talking to you, Micyllus. Come, let’s walk together, if you like. :

MICYLLUS Good! Give me your hand. Tell me—for of course you have been through the Eleusinian Mysteries, Cyniscus—don’t you think this is like them ?

CYNISCUS Right you are; indeed, here comes a woman with

v.2.p.45
a torch, who looks very fierce and threatening. Do you suppose it is an Erinys ?[*](The Erinyes, or Furies, were Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. The torch of Tisiphone enhances the resemblance to the Mysteries, which were carried on by torch-light.) MICYLLUS Probably, to judge from her appearance.

HERMES Take these people in charge, Tisiphone, a thousand and four.

TISIPHONE Indeed, Rhadamanthus here has been awaiting you this long time.

RHADAMANTHUS Bring them before me, Erinys. Be crier, Hermes, and summon them by name.

CYNISCUS Rhadamanthus, in the name of Zeus your father I beseech you to have me up first and judge me.

RHADAMANTHUS For what reason ?

CYNISCUS Come what may, I wish to prosecute a certain tyrant for the wicked deeds that I know him to have done in life, and I cannot expect to be believed when I speak unless I first make it plain what sort of man I am. and what sort of life I led.

RHADAMANTHUS Who are you?

CYNISCUS Cyniscus, your worship, by profession a philosopher.

RHADAMANTHUS Come here and be tried first. Call the plaintiffs.

v.2.p.47

HERMES If any one has charges to prefer against this man Cyniscus, let him come this way.

CYNISCUS No one comes.

RHADAMANTHUS But that is not enough, Cyniscus: strip yourself, so that I can judge you from the marks on your back.

CYNISCUS Why, how did I ever come to be a marked man?[*](As orvypyartas (branded man) was applied to rogues in general, there is a slight word-play in the Greek also.) RHADAMANTHUS For every wicked deed that each of you has done in his life he bears an invisible mark on his soul.

CYNISCUS Here I am naked, so seek out the marks you mention.

RHADAMANTHUS The man is altogether free from marks, except for these three or four, very faint and uncertain. But what is this? There are many traces and indications of brandings, but somehow or other they have been erased, or rather, effaced. How is that, Cyniscus, and how is it that you looked free from them at first ?

CYNISCUS I will tell you. For a long time I was a wicked man through ignorance and earned many marks thereby ; but no sooner had I begun to be a philosopher than I gradually washed away all the scars from my soul.

v.2.p.49
RHADAMANTHUS At any rate he made use of a cure that is sound and very efficacious. Well, go your way to the Isles of the Blest to live with the good, but first prosecute the tyrant you spoke of. Hermes, summon others.

MICYLLUS My case also is a trifling one and needs but a short investigation. In fact, I have been stripped and waiting for you a long time, so inspect me.

RHADAMANTHUS Who are you?

MICVLLUS The cobbler Micyllus.

RHADAMANTHUS Good, Micyllus, you are quite clean and unmarked. Be off and join Cyniscus there. Call the tyrant now.

HERMES Let Megapenthes, son of Lacydes, come this way. Where are you turning to? Come here! It is you I am calling, tyrant. Thrust him in among us, Tisiphone, with a push on the neck.

RHADAMANTHUS Cyniscus, open your prosecution and state your case now, for here is the man.

CYNISCUS On the whole, there is no need of words; you will at once discover what sort of man he is from his marks. But in spite of that I will myself unveil the man to you and show him up more plainly. All

v.2.p.51
that the cursed scoundrel did while he was a private citizen I intend to pass over; but when he had leagued himself with the boldest men and had got together a bodyguard, and so had set himself over the city and had become tyrant, he not only put to death more than ten thousand people without a hearing but confiscated their properties in each case ; and after he had made himself extremely rich, he did not leave a single form of excess untried, but practised every sort of savagery and high-handedness upon his miserable fellow-citizens, ravishing maids, corrupting boys, and running amuck in every way among his subjects. And for his superciliousness, his pride, and his haughtiness toward all he met you never could exact from him a fitting penalty. It would have been less dangerous to look steadily at the sun than at this man. Then, too, in the matter of punishments who could describe his cruel inventiveness? Why, he did not even let his closest kin alone! And that all this is not mere empty calumny against him you will soon find out if you summon up the men he murdered—but no, they are here unsummoned, as you see, and press about him and throttle him. All these men, Rhadamanthus, have met their death at the scoundrel’s hands, some of them entrapped in plots because of pretty wives, others because they were angry on account of sons outrageously kidnapped, others because they were rich, and others because they were honest and decent ind did not like his actions in the least.
v.2.p.53

RHADAMANTHUS What have you to say to this, you villain ?

MEGAPENTHES The murders which he speaks of I did commit, but in all the rest of it—the intrigues, the outrages against boys and the injuries to girls—in all that Cyniscus has maligned me.

CYNISCUS Then for that too, Rhadamanthus, I shall produce you witnesses.

RHADAMANTHUS Whom do you mean?

CYNISCUS Hermes, please summon up his lamp and his bed, for they will appear in person and testify to the things that they know he has done.

HERMES Bed and Lamp of Megapenthes, appear. They have been so good as to comply.

RHADAMANTHUS Now then, tell us what you know this man Megapenthes to have done. You speak first, Bed.

BED All that Cyniscus has charged is true. But I am ashamed, Rhadamanthus, my lord, to speak of these matters, such were the deeds he did upon me.

RHADAMANTHUS Well, you give the clearest of testimony against him by your very reluctance to speak of the facts. Now, Lamp, it is your turn to testify.

v.2.p.55
LAMP I did not see what happened by day, for I was not there, and what went on at night I am loth to say; I witnessed many things, however, that were unspeakable and overleaped the bounds of all outrageousness. In fact, I often tried of my own accord to keep my wick from drinking the oil, for I wanted to go out ; but he for his part even put me closer to the scene and polluted my light in every way.

RHADAMANTHUS Enough witnesses ! Come, strip off your purple robe that we may see the number of your marks. Well, well! The fellow isall livid and crisscrossed ; indeed, he is black and blue with marks. How can he be punished? Shall he be thrown into the River of Burning Fire or turned over to Cerberus ?

CYNISCUS No, no! If you like, I will suggest you a punishment that is new and fits his crime.

RHADAMANTHUS Speak out; I shall be most grateful to you for it.

CYNISCUS It is customary, I believe, for all the dead to drink the water of Lethe?

RHADAMANTHUS Certainly.

CYNISCUS Then let this man be the only one not to drink it.

RHADAMANTHUS Why, pray?

v.2.p.57
CYNISCUS He will pay a bitter penalty in that way, by remembering what he was and how much power he had in the upper world, and reviewing his life of luxury.

RHADAMANTHUS Good ! Let sentence stand in that form, and let the fellow be taken off and put in fetters near Tantalus, to remember what he did in life.