Deipnosophistae

TragedyFishmongersMisconduct of FishmongersUse of particular WordsUse of Silver PlateSilver PlateGolden TrinketsUse of Gold in different CountriesParasitesGynæconomiParasitesFlatterers of DionysiusFlatterers of KingsFlattery of the AtheniansFlatterersThe Tyrants of ChiosThe Conduct of PhilipFlatterers and ParasitesThe MariandyniSlavesDrimacusCondition of SlavesSlavesBanquetsThe Effects

SINCE you ask me every time that you meet me, my friend Timocrates, what was said by the Deipnosophists, thinking that we are making some discoveries, we will remind you of what is said by Antiphanes, in his Poesy, in this manner—

1. In every way, my friends, is Tragedy
2. A happy poem. For the argument
3. Is, in the first place, known to the spectators,
4. Before one single actor says a word.
5. So that the poet need do little more
6. Than just remind his hearers what they know.
7. For should I speak of Œdipus, at once
8. They recollect his story—how his father
9. Was Laius, and Jocasta too his mother;
10. What were his sons', and what his daughters' names,
11. And what he did and suffer'd. So again
12. If a man names Alcmæon, the very children
13. Can tell you how he in his madness slew
14. His mother; and Adrastus furious,
15. Will come in haste, and then depart again;
16. And then at last, when they can say no more,
17. And when the subject is almost exhausted,
18. They lift an engine easily as a finger,
19. And that is quite enough to please the theatre.
20. But our case is harder. We are forced
21. T' invent the whole of what we write; new names,
22. Things done before, done now, new plots, new openings,
23. And new catastrophes. And if we fail in aught,
24. Some Chremes or some Phido hisses us.
25. While Peleus is constrain'd by no such laws,
26. Nor Teucer.

And Diphilus says, in his Men conducting Helen—

1. O thou who rulest, patroness and queen,
2. Over this holy spot of sacred Brauron,
3. Bow-bearing daughter of Latona and Jove,
4. As the tragedians call you; who alone
5. Have power to do and say whate'er they please.

But Timocles the comic writer, asserting that tragedy is

useful in many respects to human life, says in his Women celebrating the Festival of Bacchus—

1. My friend, just hear what I'm about to say.
2. Man is an animal by nature miserable;
3. And life has many grievous things in it.
4. Therefore he has invented these reliefs
5. To ease his cares; for oft the mind forgets
6. Its own discomforts while it soothes itself
7. In contemplation of another's woes,
8. And e'en derives some pleasure and instruction.
9. For first, I'd have you notice the tragedians;
10. What good they do to every one. The poor man
11. Sees Telephus was poorer still than he,
12. And bears his own distress more easily.
13. The madman thinks upon Alcmæon's case.
14. Has a man weak sore eyes? The sons of Phineus
15. Are blind as bats. Has a man lost his child
16. Let him remember childless Niobe.
17. He's hurt his leg; and so had Philoctetes.
18. Is he unfortunate in his old age?
19. Œneus was more so. So that every one,
20. Seeing that others have been more unfortunate,
21. Learns his own griefs to bear with more content.

And we accordingly, O Timocrates, will restore to you the relics of the feast of the Deipnosophists, and will not give them, as Cothocides the orator said, meaning to ridicule Demosthenes, who, when Philip gave Halonnesus to the Athenians, advised them

not to take it if he gave it, but only if he restored it.

And this sentence Antiphanes jested upon in his Neottis, where he ridicules it in this manner—

1. My master has received (ἀπέλαβεν) as he took (ἔλαβεν)
2. His patrimonial inheritance.
3. How would these words have pleased Demosthenes!

And Alexis says, in his Soldier—

1. A. Receive this thing.
2. B. What is it
3. A. Why the child
4. Which I had from you, which I now bring back.
5. B. Why? will you no more keep him?
6. A. He's not mine.
7. B. Nor mine.
8. A. But you it was who gave him me.
9. B. I gave him not.
10. A. How so?
11. B. I but restored him.
12. A. You gave me what I never need have taken.

And in his Brothers he says—

1. A. For did I give them anything? Tell me that.
2. B. No, you restored it, holding a deposit.

And Anaxilas, in his Evandria, says—

1. . . . . Give it not,
2. Only restore it.
3. B. Here I now have brought it.

And Timocles says in his Heroes—

1. A. You bid me now to speak of everything
2. Rather than what is to the purpose; well,
3. I'll gratify you so far.
4. B. You shall find
5. As the first fruits that you have pacified
6. The great Demosthenes.
7. A. But who is he?
8. B. That Briareus who swallows spears and shields;
9. A man who hates all quibbles; never uses
10. Antithesis nor trope; but from his eyes
11. Glares terrible Mars.

According, therefore, to the above-mentioned poets, so we, restoring but not giving to you what followed after the previous conversation, will now tell you all that was said afterwards.

Then came into us these servants, bringing a great quantity of sea fish and lake fish on silver platters, so that we marvelled at the wealth displayed, and at the costliness of the entertainment, which was such that he seemed almost to have engaged the Nereids themselves as the purveyors. And one of the parasites and flatterers said that Neptune was sending fish to our Neptunian port, not by the agency of those who at Rome sell rare fish for their weight in money; but that some were imported from Antium, and some from Terracina, and some from the Pontian islands opposite, and some from Pyrgi; and that is a city of Etruria. For the fishmongers in Rome are very little different from those who used to be turned into ridicule by the comic poets at Athens, of whom Antiphanes says, in his Young Men—

1. I did indeed for a long time believe
2. The Gorgons an invention of the poets,
3. But when I came into the fish-market
4. I quickly found them a reality.
5. For looking at the fish women I felt
6. Turn'd instantly to stone, and was compelled
7. To turn away my head while talking to them.
8. For when I see how high a price they ask,
9. And for what little fish, I'm motionless.

And Amphis says in his Impostor—

1. 'Tis easier to get access to the general,
2. And one is met by language far more courteous,
3. And by more civil answer from his grace,
4. Than from those cursed fishfags in the market.
5. For when one asks them anything, or offers
6. To buy aught of them, mute they stand like Telephus,
7. And just as stubborn; ('tis an apt comparison,
8. For in a word they all are homicides;)
9. And neither listen nor appear to heed,
10. But shake a dirty polypus in your face;
11. Or else turn sulky, and scarce say a word,
12. But as if half a syllable were enough,
13. Say

    se'n s'lings this,

    this turb't eight'n-pence.

14. This is the treatment which a man must bear
15. Who seeks to buy a dinner in the fish-market.

And Alexis says in his Apeglaucomenos—

1. When I behold a general looking stern,
2. I think him wrong, but do not greatly wonder,
3. That one in high command should think himself
4. Above the common herd. But when I see
5. The fishmongers, of all tribes far the worst,
6. Bending their sulky eyes down to the ground,
7. And lifting up their eyebrows to their foreheads,
8. I am disgusted. And if you should ask,

9. Tell me, I pray you, what's this pair of mullets?

10. Tenpence.

    Oh, that's too much; you'll eightpence take

11. Yes, if you'll be content with half the pair.

12. Come, eightpence; that is plenty.

    "I will not
13. Take half a farthing less: don't waste my time."
14. Is it not bitter to endure such insolence?