Moreover, was it not silly and completely absurd
that when they were talking about things so uncertain they did not make a single assertion
hypothetically but were vehement in their insistence
and gave the rest no chance to outdo them in
exaggeration; all but swearing that the sun is a mass
of molten metal, that the moon is inhabited, and
that the stars drink water, the sun drawing up the
moisture from the sea with a rope and bucket, as it
were, and distributing the beverage to all of them
in order?
As for the contradictory nature of their theories,
that is easy to appreciate. Just see for yourself, in
Heaven’s name, whether their doctrines are akin and
not widely divergent. First of all, there is their
difference of opinion about the universe. Some
think it is without beginning and without end, but
others have even ventured to tell who made it and
how it was constructed; and these latter surprised
me most, for they made some god or other the
creator of the universe, but did not tell where he
came from or where he stood when he created it all;
and yet it is impossible to conceive of time and
space before the genesis of the universe.
They are very presumptuous charlatans by what
you say, Menippus.
But my dear man, what if I should tell you all they
said about “ideas” and incorporeal entities, or their
theories about the finite and the infinite? On the
latter point also they had a childish dispute, some
of them setting a limit to the universe and others
considering it to be unlimited; nay more, they asserted that there are many worlds and censured
those who talked as if there were but one. Another,
not a man of peace, opined that war was the father
of the universe.Heraclitus. The lack of connection between this sentence and the foregoing leads me to suspect that we have lost a ortion of the Greek text containing a reference to the theories of the other Ionians.
As for the gods, why speak of them at all, seeing
that to some a number was god, while others swore
by geese and dogs and plane-trees?Socrates. See Philosophies for Sale, 16. Moreover,
some banished all the rest of the gods and assigned
the governance of the universe to one only, so that
it made me a little disgusted to hear that gods were
so scarce. Others, however, lavishly declared them
to be many and drew a distinction between them,
calling one a first god and ascribing to others second
and third rank in divinity. Furthermore, some
thought that the godhead was without form and
substance, while others defined it as body. Then
too they did not all think that the gods exercise
providence in our affairs; there were some who
relieved them of every bit of responsibility as we are
accustomed to relieve old men of public duties;
indeed, the part that they give them to play is just
like that of supers in comedy. A few went beyond
all this and did not even believe that there were any
gods at all, but left the world to wag on unruled and
ungoverned.
When I heard all this, the result was that I did not
venture to disbelieve “high-thundering” gentlemen
with goodly beards, and yet did not know where to
turn in order to find a point of doctrine that was unassailable and not in any way subject to refutation
by someone else. So I went through just what
Homer speaks of; again and again I was fain to
believe one of them,
“but other counsel drew me
back.Od. 9, 302.
At my wit’s end in view of all this, I despaired of
hearing any truth about these matters on earth and
thought that the only way out of my whole dilemma
would be to get wings somehow and go up to
Heaven. The wish was father to the thought, of
course, but the story-teller Aesop had something to
do with it also, for he makes Heaven accessible to
eagles and beetles and now and then even to camels.
Well, that I myself could ever grow wings was not in
any way possible, I thought; butif L put on the wings
of a vulture or an eagle (for no others would be
large enough to uphold the weight of a man’s body),
perhaps my attempt would succeed. So catching my
birds, I carefully cut of the right wing of the eagle
and the left wing of the vulture, tied them tightly
together, fitted them to my shoulders with stout
straps and made grips for my hands at the ends of
the primary feathers. Then I first tried myself by
jumping up and down, working my arms and doing
as geese do—lifting myself along the ground and
running on tiptoe as I flew. When the thing began
to work well for me, I went in for the experiment
with greater boldness.
Going up to the acropolis, I
let myself drop down the cliff right into the theatre.
Since I flew down without mischance, I began to
aspire high and used to take wing from Parnes or
Hymettus, flying to Geraneia and from there up to
Acrocorinthus and then over Pholoe and Erymanthus
clear to Taygetus.
Now that I had thoroughly practised my experiment and had become an adept and a lofty soarer,
I no longer had fledgling aspirations but ascended
Olympus, provisioned myself as lightly as I could
and this time made straight for Heaven. At first
I was dizzied by the height, but afterwards I stood
even that without discomfort. But when I had
left the clouds far below and had got close to
the moon, I felt myself getting tired, especially in
the left wing, the vulture’s. Flying up, therefore,
and perching on the moon, I rested myself, looking
down on the earth from on high and like Homer’s
Zeus,Iliad 13, 4. now observing the land of the horse-loving
Thracians, now the land of the Mysians, and
presently, if I liked, Greece, Persia and India; and
from all this I got my fill of kaleidoscopic pleasure.
Then do tell me about it, Menippus, so that I
may not miss a single detail of the trip, but may even
know whatever you may have found out incidentally.
I assure you, I am looking forward to hearing a good
deal about the shape of the earth and about
everything upon it as it looked to you, viewing it all
from above.
You are right in your assumption, my friend, so
mount up to the moon in fancy as best you can and
share my trip and my view of the whole scheme of
things on earth.
In the first place, imagine that the
earth you see is very small, far less than the moon, [
mean; so that when I suddenly peered down I was
long uncertain where the big mountains and the
great sea were, and if I had not spied the Colossus of
RhodesThe Colossus of Rhodes had been lying prostrate for several centuries at the time this dialogue was written. It stood upright for only 56 years (ca. 283-2278.¢.). Consequently the allusion is thought to come from Menippus. and the lighthouse on Pharos, I vow I
shouldn’t have known the earth at all. But as it
was, the fact that they were high and prominent
and that the ocean glinted in the sun showed me
that what I saw was the earth. But as soon as I
had concentrated my gaze fixedly, the life of man
in its entirety disclosed itself to me, and not only
the nations and cities but the people themselves
as clear as could be, the traders, the soldiers, the
farmers, the litigants, the women, the animals and,
in a word, all the life that the good green earth
supports.A reminiscence of Homer; cf. Il. 2, 548 ; Od. 4, 229; 9, 357- 2 Od. 16, 187
What you say is completely beyond belief and
self-contradictory, for you told me just now that you
had to look for the earth because it was diminished
by the intervening distance, and that if the Colossus
hadn’t given you your bearings, perhaps you would
have thought you were looking at something else.
How is it, then, that you have suddenly turned into a
Lynceus and can make out everything on earth—
the men, the animals and very nearly the nests of
the mosquitoes ?
Thanks for reminding me; somehow or other I
neglected to say what I certainly should have said.
When I recognised the earth by sight, but was
unable to distinguish anything else on account of the
height, because my vision did not carry so far, the
thing annoyed me excessively and put me in a great
quandary. I was downcast and almost in tears when
the philosopher Empedocles came and stood behind
me, looking like a cinder, as he was covered with
ashes and all burned up. On catching sight of him
I wasa bit startled, to tell the truth, and thought I
beheld a lunar spirit ; but he said “Don’t be alarmed,
Menippus;
No god am I: why liken me to them? Od. 16, 187.
I am the natural philosopher Empedocles, at your
service. You see, when I threw myself head-first
into the crater, the smoke snatched me out of
Aetna and brought me up here, and now I dwell in
the moon, although I walk the air a great deal, and
I live on dew. So I have come to get you out of
your present quandary ; for it annoys and torments
you, I take it, that you cannot clearly see everything
on earth.” “Thank you very much, Empedocles,”
said I; “you are most kind, and as soon as I fly
down to Greece again I will remember to pour you a
drink-offering in the chimneyJn the chimney, because the burned and blackened appearance of Empedocles suggested this as the most appropriate spot; and then too, the smoke goes up to the moon. and on the first: of
every month to open my mouth at the moon three
times and make a prayer.” “Great Endymion !”
said he, “I didn’t come here for pay; my heart was
touched a bit when I saw you sorrowful. Do you
know what to do in order to become sharp-sighted ?”
“No,” said I, “unless you are going to take the mist
from my eyes somehow. At present my sight seems
to be uncommonly blurred.” “Why,” said he, “you
won’t need my services at all, for you yourself have
brought the power of sharp sight with you from
the earth.” “What is it, then, for I don’t know?” I
said. “Don’t you know,” said he, “that you are
wearing the right wing of an cagle?” “Of course,”
said I, “but what is the connection between wings
and eyes?” “This,” said he; “the eagle so far
surpasses all the other creatures in strength of sight
that he alone can look square at the sun, and the
mark of the genuine royal cagle is that he can face
its rays without winking an eye.” “So they say,” I
replied, “and I am sorry now that when I came up
here I did not take out my own eyes and put in those
of the eagle. As things are, I have come in a_halffinished condition and with an equipment which is
not fully royal; in fact, I am like the bastard, disowned eaglets they tell about.”If an eaglet failed to stand the test, he was pushed out of the nest; cf. Aelian de Nat, Anim, 2, 26. “Why,” said he,
“it is in your power this minute to have one eye
royal, for if you choose to stand up a moment, hold
the vulture’s wing still, and flap only the other one,
you will become sharp-sighted in the right eye to
match the wing; the other eye cannot possibly help
being duller, as it is on the inferior side.” It will
satisfy me,” said I, “if only the right one has the
sight of an eagle; it would do just as well, for I am
sure I have often seen carpenters getting on better
with only one eye when they were trimming off
timbers to the straight-edge.”
This said, I set about doing as Empedocles advised,
while he receded little by little and gradually dissolved into smoke.
No sooner had I flapped the
wing than a great light broke upon me and all that
was formerly invisible was revealed. Bending down
toward earth, I clearly saw the cities, the people and
all that they* were doing, not only abroad but at
home, when they thought they were unobserved. I
saw Ptolemy lying with his sister, Lysimachus’ son
conspiring against his father, Seleucus’ son Antiochus
flirting surreptitiously with his stepmother, Alexander
of ‘Thessaly getting killed by his wife, Antigonus
committing adultery with the wife of his son, and
the son of Attalus pouring out the poison for him.
In another quarter I saw Arsaces killing the woman,
the eunuch Arbaces drawing his sword on Arsaces,
and Spatinus the Mede in the hands of the guards,
being dragged out of the dining-room by the leg
after having had his head broken with a golden
cup.These events, in so far as they are historical, are not synchronous. For some of them (Antigonus, Attalus, and the Parthian incidents) Lucian is our only sponsor. Similar things were to be seen going on in
Libya and among the Thracians and Scythians in the
palaces of kings—men committing adultery, murdering, conspiring, plundering, forswearing, fearing
and falling victims to the treason of their closest kin.
Although the doings of the kings afforded me such
rare amusement, those of the common people were
far more ridiculous, for I could see them too—
Hermodorus the Epicurean perjuring himself for a
thousand drachmas, the Stoie Agathocles going to
law with his disciple about a fee, the orator Clinias
stealing a cup out of the Temple of Asclepius and the
Cynic Herophilus asleep in the brothel. Why mention
the rest of them—the burglars, the bribe-takers, the
money-lenders, the beggars? In brief, it was a motley
and manifold spectacle.
Really, you might as well tell about that too,
Menippus, for it scems to have given you unusual
pleasure.
To tell it all from first to last, my friend, would be
impossible in such a case, where even to see it all
was hard work. However, the principal features
were like what Homer says was on the shield.Iliad 18, 478 ff. In
one place there were banquets and weddings, elsewhere there were sessions of court and assemblics ;
in a different direction a man was offering sacrifice,
and close at hand another was mourning a death.
Whenever I looked at the country of the Getae I
saw them fighting ; whenever I transferred my gaze to
the Seythians, they could be seen roving about on their
wagons: and when I turned my eyes aside slightly,
I beheld the Egyptians working the land. The Phoenicians were on trading-ventures, the Cilicians were
engaged in piracy, the Spartans were whipping themselves and the Athenians were attending court.
As
all these things were going on at the same time, you
can imagine what a hodge-podge it looked. It is as
if one should put on the stage a company of singers,
or I should say a number of companies, and then
should order each singer to abandon harmony and
sing a tune of his own; with cach one full of
emulation and carrying his own tune and striving to
outdo his neighbour in loudness of voice, what, in the
name of Heaven, do you suppose the song would be
like ?
Utterly ridiculous, Menippus, and all confused.
Well, my friend, such is the part that all carth’s
singers play, and such is the discord that makes
up the life of men. Not only do they sing different
tunes, but they are unlike in costume and move at
cross-purposes in the dance and agree in nothing
until the manager drives each of them off the stage,
saying that he has no further use for him. After
that, “however, they are all quiet alike, no longer
singing that unrhythmical medley of theirs. But
there in the play-house itself, full of variety and
shifting spectacles, everything that took place was
truly laughable.
I was especially inclined to laugh at the people who
quarrelled about boundary-lines, and at those who
plumed themselves on working the plain of Sicyon
or possessing the district of Oenoe in Marathon or
owning a thousand acres in Acharnae. As a matter
of fact, since the whole of Greece as it looked to
me then from on high was no bigger than four
fingers, on that scale surely Attica was infinitesimal.
I thought, therefore, how little there was for our
friends the rich to be proud of ; for it seemed to me
that the widest-acred of them all had but a single
Epicurean atom under cultivation. And when I
looked toward the Peloponnese and caught sight
of Cynuria, I noted what a tiny region, no bigger in
any way than an Egyptian bean, had caused so many
Argives and Spartans to fall in a single day.Compare the close of the Charon. Again,
if T saw any man pluming himself on gold because
he had eight rings and four cups, I laughed heartily
at him too, for the whole of Pangacum, mines and
all, was the size of a grain of millet.
You lucky Menippus, what a surprising spectacle !
But the cities and the men—for Heaven’s sake, how
did they look from on high ?
I suppose you have often seen a swarm of ants,
in which some are huddling together about the
mouth of the hole and transacting affairs of state in
public, some are going out and others are coming
back again to the city; one is carrying out the dung,
and another has caught up the skin of a bean or half
a grain of wheat somewhere and is running off with
it; and no doubt there are among them, in due proportion to the habits of ants, builders, politicians,
aldermen, musicians, and philosophers. But however that may be, the cities with their population
resembled nothing so much as ant-hills. If you think
it is belittling to compare men with the institutions
of ants, look up the ancient fables of the Thessalians
and you will find that the Myrmidons, the most
warlike of races, turned from ants into men.
Well, when I had looked and laughed at everything to my heart’s content, I shook myself and flew
upward,
Unto the palace of Zeus, to the home of the other
immortals.Iliad1, 222.
Before I had gone a furlong upward, the moon spoke
with a voice like a woman’s and said: “Menippus,
Pll thank you kindly to do me a service with Zeus.”
"Tell me what it is,’ said I, “it will be no trouble
at all, unless you want me to carry something.”
"Take a simple message and a request from me to
Zeus. I am tired at last, Menippus, of hearing
quantities of dreadful abuse from the philosophers,
who have nothing else to do but to bother about me,
what I am, how big I am, and why I become semicircular, or crescent-shaped. Some of them say I am
inhabited, others that I hang over the sea like a
mirror, and others ascribe to me—oh, anything that
each man’s fancy prompts. Lately they even say
that my very light is stolen and illegitimate, coming
from the sun up above, and they never weary of
wanting to entangle and embroil me with him,
although he is my brother; for they were not
satisfied with saying that Helius himself was a stone,
and a glowing mass of molten metal.