Nigrinus

Furthermore, one has cause to admire philosophy when he beholds so much folly, and to despise the gifts of fortune when he sees on the stage of life a play of many réles, in which one man enters first as servant, then as master; another first as rich, then as poor; another now as beggar, now as nabob or king; another as So-and-so’s friend, another as his enemy ; another as an exile. And the strangest part of it all is that although Fortune attests that she makes light

“But I have said that there is food for laughter and amusement in what goes on; let me now explain it. To begin with, are not the rich ridiculous? They display their purple gowns and show their rings and betray an unbounded lack of taste. Would you believe it ?—they make use of another man’s [*](The nomenclator : his proper office was merely to present the guests to his master, but in reality he often received them in his master’s stead.) voice in greeting people they meet, expecting them to be thankful for a glance and nothing more, while some, lordlier than the rest, even require obeisance to be made to them: not at long range, though, or in the Persian style. No, you must go up, bow your head, humbling your soul and showing its feelings by carrying yourself to match them, and kiss the man’s breast or his hand, while those who are denied even this privilege envy and admire you! And the man stands for hours and lets himself be duped! At any rate there is one point in their inhumanity that I commend them for—they forbid us their lips!

“Far more ridiculous, however, than the rich are those who visit them and pay them court. They get up at midnight, run all about the city, let servants bolt the doors in their faces and suffer themselves to be called dogs, toadies and similar names. By way of reward for this galling round of visits they get the much-talked-of dinner, a vulgar thing, the source of many evils. How much they eat there,

“For my part I hold that the toadies are far worse than the men they toady to, and that they alone are to blame for the arrogance of the others. When they admire their possessions, praise their plate, crowd their doorways in the early morning and go up and speak to them as a slave speaks to his master, how can you expect the rich to feel? If by common consent they refrained but a short time from this voluntary servitude, don’t you think that the tables would be turned, and that the rich would come to the doors of the poor and beg them not to leave their happiness unobserved and unattested and their beautiful tables and great houses unenjoyed and unused? It is not so much being rich that they like as being congratulated on it. The fact is, of course, that the man who lives in a fine house gets no good of it, nor of his ivory and gold either, unless someone admires it all. What men ought to do, then, is to reduce and cheapen the rank of the rich in this way, erecting in the face of their wealth a

“That common men who unreservedly admit their want of culture should do such things might fairly be thought reasonable; but that many selfstyled philosophers should act still more ridiculously than they—this is the surprising thing! How do you suppose I feel in spirit when I see one of them, especially if he be well on in years, among a crowd of toadies, at the heels of some Jack-in-office, in conference with the dispensers of his dinner-invitations ? His dress only marks him out among the rest and makes him more conspicuous. What irritates me most is that they do not change their costume: certainly they are consistent play-actors in everything else. Take their conduct at dinners—to what ethical ideal are we to ascribe it?

Do they not stuff themselves more vulgarly, get drunk more conspicuously, leave the table last of all, and expect to carry away more delicacies than anyone else? Some, more subtle than the rest, have often gone so far as to sing.” All this, he thought, was ridiculous: and he made special mention of people who cultivate philosophy for hire and put virtue on sale over a counter, as it were : indeed, he called the lecture-rooms of these men factories and bazaars. For he maintained that one who intends to teach contempt for wealth should first of all show that he is himself above gain.

Certainly he used to put these principles into practice consistently, not only giving instruction without recompense to all who desired it, but helping the needy and holding all manner of super-

He always advised his disciples not to postpone being good, as most people do, by setting themselves a limit in the form of a holiday or a festival, with the intention of beginning from that date to shun lies and do as they should; for he deemed that an inclination towards the higher life brooked no delay. He made no secret of his condemnation of the sort of philosophers who think it a course in virtue if. they train the young to enduré “full many pains and toils," [*](Evidently a quotation: the source is unknown.) the majority recommending cold baths, though some whip them, and still others, the more refined. of their sort, scrape ” the surface of their skin with a knife-blade.

It was his

At length leaving the philosophers, he recurred to the rest of mankind, and told about the uproar of the city, the crowding, the theatres, the races, the statues. of the drivers, the names of the horses, and the conversations in the streets about these matters. The craze for horses is really great, you know, and men with a name for earnestness have caught it in great numbers.

Next he touched upon another human comedy, played by the people who occupy themselves with life beyond the grave and with last wills, adding that sons of Rome speak the truth only once in their whole lives (meaning in their wills), in order that they may not reap the fruits of their truthfulness ! [*](A famous instance is the case of Petronius, who expressed his opinion of Nero in his will and made the emperor his executor.) I could not help interrupting him with laughter when he said that they want to have their follies buried with them and to leave their stupidity on record, inasmuch as some of them leave instructions

He thought he could guess what they had done in life when they issued such injunctions touching the hereafter: “It is they,” said he, “who buy expensive dainties and let wine flow freely at dinners in an atmosphere of saffron and perfumes, who glut themselves with roses in midwinter, loving their rarity and unseasonableness and despising what is seasonable and natural because of its cheapness’; it is they who drink myrrh.” And that was the point in which he criticised them especially, that they do not even know how to give play to their desires, but transgress in them and obliterate the boundary-lines, on all sides surrendering their souls to luxury to be trodden under foot, and as they say in tragedy and comedy, “forcing an entrance alongside the door." [*](The phrase does not occur in any of the extant plays. As Greek houses were generally of sun-dried brick, it was not difficult to dig through the wall, but only an inveterate ‘wall-digger’ (housebreaker) would choose that method of entry when the door was unlocked.) These he called unidiomatic pleasures.

From the same standpoint he made a comment exactly like that of Momus. Just as the latter found fault with the god [*](Poseidon: see Hermotimus, 20.) who made the bull for not putting the horns in front of the eyes, so he censured those who wear garlands for not knowing where they should go. “If it is the scent of their violets

Another thing, he ridiculed the men who devote such a surprising degree of energy to dinners in the effort to secure variety in flavours and new effects in pastry. He said that these underwent a great deal of inconvenience through their devotion to a brief and temporary pleasure. Indeed, he pointed out that all their trouble was taken for the sake of four finger-breadths, the extent of the’ longest human throat. “Before eating,” said he, “they get no good out of what they have bought, _\and after eating, the sense of fulness is no more agreeable because it derives from expensive food ; it follows, then, that it is the pleasure of swallowing which has cost them so dear.” And he said that it served them right for being uneducated and consequently unfamiliar with the truer pleasures, which are all dispensed by philosophy to those who elect a life of toil.

He had much to say about their behaviour in the baths—the number of their attendants, their offensive actions, and the fact that some of them are carried by servants almost as if they were corpses on their way to the graveyard. There is one practice, however, which he appeared to detest above all others, a wide-spread custom in the city and in the baths. It is the duty of certain servants, going in advance of their masters, to cry out and warn them to mind their footing when they are about to pass something high or low, thus reminding them, oddly enough, that they are walking! He was indignant,

When he had said this and much more of the © same sort, he ended his talk. Until then I had listened to him in awe, fearing that he would cease. When he stopped, I felt like the Phaeacians of old,[*](Odyss. 11, 333.) for I stared at him a long time spellbound. Afterwards, in a great fit of confusion and giddiness, I dripped with sweat, I stumbled and stuck in the endeavour to speak, my voice failed, my tongue faltered, and finally I began to cry in embarrassment; for the effect he produced: in me was not superficial or casual. My wound was deep and vital, and his words, shot with great accuracy, clove, if I may say so, my very soul in twain.

For if I too may now adopt the language of a philosopher, my conception of the matter is that the soul of a well-endowed man resembles a very tender target. Many bowmen, their quivers full of words of all sorts and kinds, shoot at it during life, but not with success in every case. Some draw to the head and let fly harder than they should: though they hit the target, their arrows do not stick in it, but owing to

1. with a mere fret o’ the skin,

But a good bowman like Nigrinus first of all scans the target closely for fear that it may be either very soft or too hard for his arrow—for of course there are impenetrable targets. When he is clear on this point, he dips his arrow, not in venom like those of the Scythians nor in vegetable poison like those of the Curetes, but in a sweet, gently-working drug, and then shoots with skill. The arrow, driven by just the right amount of force, penetrates to ghe point of passing through, and then sticks fast and gives off a quantity of the drug, which naturally spreads and completely pervades the soul. That is why people laugh and cry as they listen, as I did— of course the drug was quietly circulating in my soul. I could not help quoting him the well-known line:

1. Shoot thus, and bring, mayhap, a ray of hope!

A What a noble, marvellous,—yes, divine tale you have told, my dear fellow! I did not realise it, but you certainly were chock-full of your ambrosia and your lotus! The coysequence is that as you talked I felt something like a change of heart, and now that you have stopped I am put out: to speak in your own style, I am wounded. And no wonder! for yeu. know that people bitten by mad dogs not: only go mad themselves, but if in their fury they treat others as the dogs treated them, the others take leave of their senses too. Something of the affection is transmitted with the bite; the diseage multiplies, and there is a great run of-madness.

B Then you admit your madness?

A Why, certainly ; and more than that, I ask you to think out some course of treatment for us both.

B We must do as Telephus did, I suppose.

A What’s your meaning now?

B Go to the man who inflicted the wound and beg him to heal us ! [*](Telephus had been grievously wounded by Achilles. Acting on the advice of the oracle at Delphi : "He who burt will heal you” (ὁ τρώσας καὶ ἰάσεται), he applied to Achilles for relief, and was at last cured with the rust of his spear.)