The Lydian cannot abide the outspokenness and the truthfulness of his words, Charon; it seems strange to him when a poor man does not cringe but says frankly whatever occurs to him. But he will remember Solon before long, when he has to be captured and put on the pyre by Cyrus. The other day I heard Clotho reading out the fate that had been spun for everyone, and among other things it had been recorded there that Croesus was to be “captured by Cyrus, and that Cyrus was to be slain by yonder woman of the Massagetae. Do you see her, the Scythian woman riding the white horse?
Indeed I do.
That is Tomyris ; and after she has cut off Cyrus’
head she will plunge it into a wine-skin full of
blood. And do you see his son, the young man?
That is Cambyses ; he will be king after his father,
and when he has had no end of ill-luck in Libya and
How very funny! But now who would dare to look at them, so disdainful are they of the rest of the world? And who could believe that after a little the one will be a prisoner and the other will have his head in a sack of blood?
But who is that
man, Hermes, with the purple mantle about him, the
one with the crown, to whom the cook, who has just
cut open the fish, is giving the ring,
Well done, Clotho, noble lady that you are!
Burn them, gracious lady, cut off their heads and
crucify them, so that they may know they are
human. In the meantime let them be exalted,
only to have a sorrier fall from a higher place. For
my part I shall laugh when I recognize them aboard
my skiff, stripped to the skin, taking with them
neither purple mantle nor tiara nor throne of gold.
That is the way their lives will end. But do you see the masses, Charon, the men voyaging, fighting, litigating, farming, lending money, and begging ?
I see that their activities are varied and their life full of turmoil ; yes, and their cities resemble hives, in which everyone has a sting of his own and stings his neighbour, while some few, like wasps, harry and plunder the meaner sort. But what is that crowd of shapes that flies about them unseen ?
Hope, Fear, Ignorance, Pleasure, Covetousness, Anger, Hatred and their like. Of these, Ignorance mingles with them down below and shares their common life, and so do Hatred, Anger, Jealousy, Stupidity, Doubt, and Covetousness; but Fear and Hope hover up above, and Fear, swooping down from time to time, terrifies them and makes them cringe, while Hope, hanging overhead, flies up and is off when they are most confident of grasping her, leaving them in the lurch with their mouths open, exactly as you have seen Tantalus served by the water down below.
If you look close, you will also
see the Fatés up above, drawing off each man’s
thread from the spindle to which, as it happens, one
and all are attached by slender threads. Do you see
cobwebs, if I may call them so, coming down to each
man from the spindles? .
With good reason, ferryman; it is fated for that man to be killed by this man and this man by another, and for this man to be heir to that one, whose thread is shorter, and that man in turn to this one. That is what the entanglement means. You see, however, that they all hang by slender threads. Furthermore, this man has been drawn up on high and hangs in mid-air, and after a little while, when the filament, no longer strong enough to hold his weight, breaks and he falls to earth, he will make a great noise; but this other, who is lifted but little above the ground, will come down, if at all, so noiselessly that even his neighbours will hardly hear his fall.
All this is very funny, Hermes.