Apocolocyntosis

I wish to place on record the proceedings in heaven October 13 last, of the new year which begins this auspicious age. It shall be done without malice or favour. This is the truth. Ask if you like how I know it? To begin with, I am not bound to please you with my answer. Who will compel me? I know the same day made me free, which was the last day for him who made the proverb true—One must be born either a Pharaoh or a fool. If I choose to answer, I will say whatever trips off my tongue. Who. has ever made the historian produce witness to swear for him? But if an authority must be produced, ask of the man who saw Drusilla translated to heaven: the same man will aver he saw Claudius on the road,[*](Virg. Aen. ii, 724) dot and carry one. Will he nill he, all that happens in heaven he needs must see. He is the custodian of the Appian Way; by that route, you know, both Tiberius and Augustus went up to the gods. Question him, he will tell you the tale when you are alone; before company he is dumb. You see lie swore in the Senate that he beheld Drusilla mounting heavenwards, and all he got for his good news was that everybody gave him the lie: since when he solemnly swears he will never bear witness again to what he has seen, not even if he had seen a man murdered in open market. What

1. Now had the sun with shorter course drawn in his risen light,
2. And by equivalent degrees grew the dark hours of night:
3. Victorious Cynthia now held sway over a wider space,
4. Grim winter drove rich autumn out, and now usurped his place;
5. And now the fiat had gone forth that Bacchus must grow old,
6. The few last clusters of the vine were gathered ere the cold:

Clumsy creature!

The poets are not content to describe sunrise and sunset, and now they even disturb the midday siesta. Will you thus neglect so good an hour?

1. Now the sun's chariot had gone by the middle of his way;
2. Half wearily he shook the reins, nearer to night than day,
3. And led the light along the slope that down before him lay.

Claudius began to breathe his last, and could not make an end of the matter. Then Mercury, who had always been much pleased with his wit, drew aside one of the three Fates, and said: "Cruel beldame, why do you let the poor wretch be tormented? After

Kill him, and let a better man rule in his[*](Virg Georg. iv, 90.) empty court.

Clotho replied: 'Upon my word, I did wish to give him another hour or two, until he should make Roman citizens of the half dozen who are still outsiders. (He made up his mind, you know, to see the whole world in the toga, Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons, and all.) But since it is your pleasure to leave a few foreigners for seed, and since you command me, so be it." She opened her box and out came three spindles. One was for Augurinus, one for Baba, one for Claudius.[*](Augurinus: unknown. Baba: see Sen. Ep. 159, a fool.)

These three,

I will cause to die within one year and at no great distance apart, and I will not dismiss him unattended. Think of all the thousands of men he was wont to see following after him, thousands going before, thousands all crowding about him; and it would never do to leave him alone on a sudden. These boon companions will satisfy him for the nonce.

1. This said, she twists the thread around his ugly spindle once,
2. Snaps off the last bit of the life of that Imperial dunce.
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3. But Lachesis, her hair adorned, her tresses neatly bound,
4. Pierian laurel on her locks, her brows with garlands crowned,
5. Plucks me from out the snowy wool new threads as white as snow,
6. Which handled with a happy touch change colour as they go,
7. Not common wool, but golden wire; the Sisters wondering gaze,
8. As age by age the pretty thread runs down the golden days.
9. World without end they spin away, the happy fleeces pull;
10. What joy they take to fill their hands with that delightful wool!
11. Indeed, the task performs itself: no toil the spinners know:
12. Down drops the soft and silken thread as round the spindles go;
13. Fewer than these are Tithon's years, not Nestor's life so long.
14. Phoebus is present: glad he is to sing a merry song;
15. Now helps the work, now full of hope upon the harp doth play;
16. The Sisters listen to the song that charms their toil away.
17. They praise their brother's melodies, and still the spindles run,
18. Till more than man's allotted span the busy hands have spun.
19. Then Phoebus says, "O sister Fates! I pray take none away,
20. But suffer this one life to be longer than mortal day.
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21. Like me in face and lovely grace, like me in voice and song,
22. He'll bid the laws at length speak out that have been dumb so long,
23. Will give unto the weary world years prosperous and bright.
24. Like as the daystar from on high scatters the stars of night,
25. As, when the stars return again, clear Hesper brings his light,
26. Or as the ruddy dawn drives out the dark, and brings the day,
27. As the bright sun looks on the world, and speeds along its way
28. His rising car from morning's gates: so Caesar doth arise,
29. So Nero shows his face to Rome before the people's eyes;
30. His bright and shining countenance illumines all the air,
31. While down upon his graceful neck fall rippling waves of hair."

1. to speed him on his way
2. With cries of joy and solemn litany.

Oh dear, oh dear! I think I have made a mess of myself.

What happened next on earth it is mere waste of time to tell, for you know it all well enough, and there is no fear of your ever forgetting the impression which that public rejoicing made on your memory. No one forgets his own happiness. What happened in heaven you shall hear: for proof please apply to my informant. Word comes to Jupiter that a stranger had arrived, a man of fair height and hair well sprinkled with grey; he seemed to be threatening something, for he wagged his head ceaselessly; he dragged the right foot. They asked him what nation he was of; he answered something in a confused mumbling voice: his language they did not understand. He was no Greek and no Roman, nor of any known race. On this Jupiter bids Hercules go and find out what country he comes from; you see Hercules had travelled over the whole world, and might be expected to know all the nations in it. But Hercules, the first glimpse he got, was really much taken aback, although not all the monsters in the world could frighten him; when he saw this new kind of object, with its extraordinary gait, and the voice of no terrestrial beast, but such as you might hear in the leviathans of the deep, hoarse and inarticulate, he thought his thirteenth labour had come upon him. When he looked closer, the thing seemed to be a kind of man. Up he goes, then, and says what your Greek finds readiest to his tongue:

Who art thou, and what thy people? Who thy[*](Od. i, 17) parents, where thy home?

Claudius was delighted to find literary men in that place, and began to hope there might be some corner for his own historical works. So he caps him with another Homeric verse, explaining that he was Caesar:

Breezes wafted me from Ilion unto the Ciconian[*](od. ix, 39) land.

But the next verse was more true, and no less Homeric:

Thither come, I sacked a city, slew the people every one.

He would have taken in poor simple Hercules, but that Our Lady of Malaria was there, who left her temple and came alone with him: all the other gods he had left at Rome. Quoth she,

The fellow's tale is nothing but lies. I have lived with him all these years, and I tell you, he was born at Lyons. You behold a fellow-burgess of Marcus.[*](Reference unknown.) As I say, he was born at the sixteenth milestone from Vienne, a native Gaul. So of course he took Rome, as a good Gaul ought to do. I pledge you my word that in Lyons he was born, where Licinus[*](A Gallic slave, appointed by Augustus Procurator of Gallia Lugudunensis, when he made himself notorious by his extortions. See Dion Cass. liv, 21.) was king so many years. But you that have trudged over more roads than any muleteer that plies for hire, you must have come across the people of Lyons, and you must know that it is a far cry from Xanthus to the Rhone.

Then Hercules said,

You just listen to me, and stop playing the fool. You have come to the place where the mice nibble iron.[*](A proverb, found also in Herondas iii, 76: apparently fairyland, the land of Nowhere.) Out with the truth, and look sharp, or I'll knock your quips and quiddities out of you.

1. "Declare with speed what spot you claim by birth,
2. Or with this club fall stricken to the earth!
3. This club hath oft times slaughtered haughty kings!
4. Why mumble unintelligible things?
5. What land, what tribe produced that shaking head?
6. Declare it! On my journey when I sped
7. Far to the Kingdom of the triple King,
8. And from the Main Hesperian did bring
9. The goodly cattle to the Argive town,
10. There I beheld a mountain looking down
11. Upon two rivers: this the Sun espies
12. Right opposite each day he doth arise.
13. Hence, mighty Rhone, thy rapid torrents flow,
14. And Arar, much in doubt which way to go,
15. Ripples along the banks with shallow roll.
16. Say, is this land the nurse that bred thy soul?"

I did hope, Hercules, bravest of all the gods, that you would take my part with the rest, and if I should need a voucher, that I might name you who know me so well. Do but call it to mind, how it was I used to sit in judgment before your temple whole days together during July and August. You know what miseries I endured there, in hearing the lawyers plead day and night. If you had fallen amongst these, you may think yourself very strong, but you would have found it worse than the sewers of Augeas: I drained out more filth than you did. But since I want. . .

(Some pages have fallen out, in which Hercules must have been persuaded. The gods are now discussing what Hercules tells them).

No wonder you have forced your way into the Senate House: no bars or bolts can hold against you. Only do say what species of god you want the fellow to be made. An Epicurean god he cannot be: for they take no trouble and cause none.[*](Compare Diogenes Laertius x, 139: τὸ: The Blessed and Incorruptible neither itself has trouble nor causes trouble to another.) A Stoic, then? How can he be globular, as Varro[*](Author or Saturae Menippeae (now lost), which no doubt burlesqued the Stoic perfect man,totus teres atque rotundus.) says, without a head or any other projection? There is in him something of the Stoic god, as I can see now: he has neither heart nor head. Upon my word, if he had asked this boon from Saturn, he would not have got it, though he kept up Saturn's feast all the year round, a truly Saturnalian prince. A likely thing he will get it from Jove, whom he condemned for incest as far as

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in him lay:[*](Because Juno was et soror et coniunx.) for he killed his son-in-law Silanus, because Silanus had a sister, a most charming girl, called Venus by all the world, and he preferred to call her Juno. Why, says he, I want to know why, his own sister? Read your books, stupid: you may go half-way at Athens, the whole way at Alexandria.[*](Marriage with a half-sister was allowed at Athens; the Egyptian royal family married brother and sister.) Because the mice lick meal[*](Another proverb of uncertain meaning; probably because people like nice things at Rome, as they do everywhere.) at Rome, you say. Is this creature to mend our crooked ways? What goes on in his own closet he knows not;[*](Perhaps alluding to a mock marriage of Silius and Messalina.) and now he searches the regions of the sky, wants to be a god. Is it not enough that he has a temple in Britain, that savages worship him and pray to him as a god, so that they may find a fool[*](Again μωροῦ for θεοῦ as in ch. 6.) to have mercy upon them?

At last it came into Jove's head, that while strangers were in the House it was not lawful to speak or debate.

My lords and gentlemen,

I gave you leave to ask questions, and you have made a regular farmyard[*](Proverb: meaning unknown.) of the place. Be so good as to keep the rules of the House. What will this- person think of us, whoever he is?

Once,

Inasmuch as the blessed Claudius is akin to the blessed Augustus, and also to the blessed Augusta, his grandmother, whom he ordered to be made a goddess, and whereas he far surpasses all mortal men in wisdom, and seeing that it is for the public good that there be some one able to join Romulus in devouring boiled turnips,[*](A quotation from some unknown poet. Martial speaks of Romulus eating turnips, xiii, 16.) I propose that from this day forth blessed Claudius be a god, to enjoy that honour with all its appurtenances in as full a degree as any other before him, and that a note to that effect be added to Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Don't deny me; I make a point of the matter. I'll do as much for you again, when you like; you roll my log, and I'll roll yours: one hand washes another.

Then arose the blessed Augustus, when his turn came, and spoke with much eloquence.[*](The speech seems to contain a parody of Augustus's style and sayings.)

I call you to witness, my lords and gentlemen,

1. Whom seizing by the foot he cast from the threshold of the sky,'

Inasmuch as the blessed Claudius murdered his father-in-law Appius Silanus, his two sons-in-law, Pompeius Magnus and L. Silanus, Crassus Frugi his daughter's father-in-law, as like him as two eggs in a basket, Scribonia his daughter's mother-in-law, his wife Messalina, and others too numerous to mention; I propose that strong measures be taken against him, that he be allowed no delay of process, that immediate sentence of banishment be passed on him, that he be deported from heaven within thirty days, and from Olympus within thirty hours.

A division was taken upon this without further debate. Not a moment was lost: Mercury got a grip of his throat, and haled him to the lower regions, to that bourne from which they say no traveller returns."

[*](Catullus iii, 12.) As they passed downwards along the Sacred Way, Mercury asked what was that great concourse of men? could it be Claudius' funeral? It was certainly a most gorgeous spectacle, got up regardless of expense, clear it was that a god was being borne to the grave: tootling of flutes, roaring of horns, an immense brass band of all sorts, such a din that even Claudius could hear it. Joy and rejoicing on every side, the Roman people walking about like free men. Agatho and a few pettifoggers were weeping for grief, and for once in a way they meant it. The Barristers were crawling out of their dark corners, pale and thin, with hardly a breath in their bodies, as though just coming to life again. One of them when he saw the

Did not I tell you the Saturnalia could not last for ever?

When Claudius saw his own funeral train, he realized that he was dead. For they were chanting his dirge in anapaests, with much mopping and mouthing:

1. "Pour forth your laments, your sorrow declare,
2. Let the sounds of grief rise high in the air:
3. For he that is dead had a wit most keen,
4. Was bravest of all that on earth have been.
5. Racehorses are nothing to his swift feet:
6. Rebellious Parthians he did defeat;
7. Swift after the Persians his light shafts go:
8. For he well knew how to fit arrow to bow,
9. Swiftly the striped barbarians fled:
10. With one little wound he shot them dead.
11. And the Britons beyond in their unknown seas,
12. Blue-shielded Brigantians too, all these
13. He chained by the neck as the Romans' slaves.
14. He terrified Ocean with all his waves,
15. Made fear a new master to lay down the law.
16. O weep for the man! This world never saw
17. One quicker a troublesome suit to decide,
18. When only one part of the case had been tried,
19. (He could do it indeed and not hear either side).
20. Who'll now sit in judgment the whole year round?
21. Now he that is judge of the shades underground
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22. Once ruler of fivescore cities in Crete,
23. Must yield to his better and take a back seat.
24. Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew,
25. And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you!
26. And you above all, who get rich quick
27. By the rattle of dice and the three card trick."

Claudius was charmed to hear his own praises sung, and would have stayed longer to see the show. But the Talthybius[*](Talthybius was a herald, and nuntius is obviously a gloss on this. He means Mercury.) of the gods laid a hand on him, and led him across the Campus Martius, first wrapping his head up close that no one might know him, until betwixt Tiber and the Subway he went down to the lower regions. His freedman Narcissus had gone down before him by a short cut, ready to welcome his master. Out he comes to meet him, smooth and shining (he had just left the bath), and says he:

What make the gods among mortals?

Look alive,

go and tell them we are coming.

Claudius is coming!

The lost is found, O let us rejoice together!

Friends everywhere, on my word! How came you all here?

Pedo brings him before the judgement seat of Aeacus, who was holding court under the Lex Cornelia to try cases of murder and assassination. Pedo requests the judge to take the prisoner's name, and produces a summons with this charge: Senators killed, 35; Roman Knights, 221; others as the sands of the seashore for multitude. Claudius finds no counsel. At[*](Ii. ix, 385) length out steps P. Petronius, an old chum of his, a finished scholar in the Claudian tongue, and claimed a remand. Not granted. Pedo Pompeius prosecutes with loud outcry. The counsel for the defence tries to reply; but Aeacus, who is the soul of justice, will

1. As he did, so be he done by, this is justice undefiled.

   [*](A proverbial line.)

1. "For when he rattled with the box, and thought he now had got 'em,
2. The little cubes would vanish thro' the perforated bottom.
3. Then he would pick 'em up again, and once more set a-trying:
4. The dice but served him the same trick: away they went a-flying.
5. So still he tries, and still he fails; still searching long he lingers;
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6. And every time the tricksy things go slipping thro' his fingers.
7. Just so when Sisyphus his rock once gets atop the mountain,
8. To his dismay he sees it come down on his poor head bounding!"