Cataplus

CLOTHO And we, Charon, were condemning Hermes for neglecting his duty, indeed !

CHARON Well, why do we keep dilly-dallying as though we had not had delay enough already.

CLOTHO Right ; let them get aboard. I will hold the book and sit by the gangway as usual, and as each of them

comes aboard I will see who he is, where he comes from, and how he met his death ; you receive them, and as you do so, pack and stow them. LTlermes, heave these babies aboard first, for what in the world can they have to say to me?

HERMES Here you are, ferryman, three hundred of them, including those that were abandoned.

CHARON I say, what a rich haul! It’s green-grape dead you have brought us.

HERMES Clotho, do you want us to get the unmourned aboard next ?

CLOTHO You mean the old people? Yes, for why should I bother now to investigate what happened before the food?[*](Literally, "before Euclid,” the Athenian archon of 403 B.C., the year in which the democracy was restored and the misdeeds of the oligarchy obliterated by a general amnesty.) All of you who are over sixty go in now. What’s this? They don’t heed me, for their ears are stopped with years. You will probably have to pick them up and carry them in, too.

HERMES Here you are again, three hundred and _ninetyeight, all tender and ripe and harvested in season.

CHARON Good Lord, yes! They’re all raisins now !

CLOTHO Bring in the wounded next, Hermes. (To the DEAD) First tell me what deaths brought you

here—but no, I myself will refer to my papers and pass you. Eighty-four should have died in battle yesterday in Media, among them Gobares, the son of Oxyartas.

HERMES Here they are!

CLOTHO Seven committed suicide for love, among them the philosopher Theagenes for the courtesan from Megara.[*](This man can hardly be other than the Cynic of Patras mentioned in The Passing of Peregrinus, who died in the teign of Marcus Aurelius. To be sure, Galen says he was killed by his doctor (x, p. 909), but he may well have been alive when Lucian wrote this.) HERMES Right here beside you.

CLOTHO Where are the men who killed each other fighting for the throne?

HERMES Here they stand.

CLOTHO And the man who was murdered by his wife and her lover ?

HERMES There beside you.

CLOTHO Now bring in the output of the courts, I mean those who died by the scourge and the cross. And where are the sixteen who were killed by pirates, Hermes ?

HERMES Here they are, these wounded men whom you see. Do you want me to bring in all the women together ?

CLOTHO By all means, and also those lost at sea, for they died in the same way. And those who died of the fever, bring them in together, too, and their doctor Agathocles along with them.

Where is the philosopher Cyniscus, who was to die from eating the dinner of Hecate and the lustral eggs and a raw squid besides ?[*](The dinner of Hecate (mentioned also in Dialogues of the Dead, 1) was a purificatory offering made at cross-roads and,to judge from Aristophanes (Plutus 594), very well received by the poor. For the use of eggs in purification see Ovid, Ars Amat. ii. 329; Juv. vi. 517. The raw squid is mentioned because Diogenes is said to have died from eating one (Diog. Laert. 156 ap; cf. Philosophers for Sale, 10).) CYNISCUS Ihave been standing at your elbow a long time, kind Clotho. What have I done that you should leave me on earth so long? Why, you nearly ran off your whole spindle for me! In spite of that, I have often tried to cut the thread and come, but somehow or other it could not be broken.

CLOTHO I left you behind to observe and prescribe for the sins of man. But get aboard, and good luck to you. :

CYNISCUS No, by Heaven, not till we have put this man in fetters aboard. I am afraid he may come it over you with his entreaties.

CLOTHO Come, let’s see who he is.

CYNISCUS Megapenthes,[*](“Great woe.”) son of Lacydes, a tyrant.

CLOTHO Aboard with you !

MEGAPENTHES Oh no, good lady Clotho! Do let me go back to earth for a little while. Then [ll come of my own accord, you will find, without being summoned by anyone.

CLOTHO Why is it that you want to go back ?

MEGAPENTHES Let me finish my house first, for the building has been left half-done.

CLOTHO Nonsense! Come, get aboard.

MEGAPENTHES It’s not much time that I ask for, Lady of Destiny ; let me stay just this one day, till I can give my wife directions about my money—the place where I kept my great treasure buried.

CLOTHO It is settled ; you can’t be permitted.

MEGAPENTHES Then is all that gold to be lost?

CLOTHO No, it will not be lost. Be easy on that score your cousin Megacles will get it.

MEGAPENTHES What an outrage! My enemy, whom I was too easy-going to put to death before I died ?

CLOTHO The very man ; and he will outlive you forty years and a little more, taking over your concubines and your clothing and all your plate.

MEGAPENTHES You are unjust, Clotho, to bestow my property on my worst enemies.

CLOTHO Why, did not it formerly belong to Cydimachus, and did not you take it over after killing him and slaughtering his children upon him while the breath was still in his body ?

MEGAPENTHES But it was mine now.

CLOTHO Well, the term of your ownership has now expired.

MEGAPENTHES Listen, Clotho, to something that I have to say to you in private, with nobody else listening. (Yo the others.) You people stand aside a moment. (Yo ctoruo) If you let me run away, I promise to give you a thousand talents of coined gold to-day.

CLOTHO What, you ridiculous creature, have you gold and talents still on the brain ?

MEGAPENTHES And I'll give you also, if you wish, the two winebowls that I got when I put Cleocritus to death ; they are of refined gold and weigh a hundred talents each.

CLOTHO Hale him off: it seems that he won’t go aboard willingly.

MEGAPENTHES I call you all to witness, the town wall and the docks remain unfinished. I could have finished them if I had lived only five days longer.

CLOTHO Never mind ; someone else will build the wall.

MEGAPENTHES But this request at all events is reasonable.

CLOTHO What request ?

MEGAPENTHES To live only long enough to subdue the Pisidians and subject the Lydians to tribute, and to build myself a huge mausoleum and inscribe on it all the great military exploits of my life.

CLOTHO Why, man, you are no longer asking for this one day, but for a stay of nearly twenty years !

MEGAPENTHES But I tell you I am ready to give bail for my speedy return. If you wish, I’ll even surrender you my beloved as a substitute for myself.

CLOTHO Vile wretch! Have not you often prayed that he night outlast you on earth?

MEGAPENTHES That was long ago, but now I perceive whawi is for the best.

CLOTHO He too will soon be here, you'll find, slain by the new ruler.

MEGAPENTHES Well, at all events don't refuse me this, Lady of Destiny. ,

CLOTHO What ?

MEGAPENTHES I want to know how things will turn out after my death.

CLOTHO Listen, for it will vex you all the more to know. Midas, your slave, will have your wife ; indeed, he has been her lover a long time.

MEGAPENTHES Curse him, I set him free at her request !

CLOTHO Your daughter will be enrolled among the concubines of the present tyrant, and the busts and statues which the city long ago set up in your honour will all be pulled down and will make everyone who looks at them laugh.

MEGAPENTHES Tell meé, will none of my friends get angry at these doings ?

CLOTHO Why, what friend did you have, and how did you make him? Don’t you know that all those who bowed the knee and praised your every word and deed did so either from hope or from fear, being

friends of your power, not of you, and keeping their eyes on the main chance?

MEGAPENTHES But as they poured their libations at our drinking parties they used to pray at the top of their voices that many blessings might descend upon me, saying every one of them that he was ready to die for me if so might be ; in a word, they swore by me.

CLOTHO Consequently, you died after dining with one of them yesterday : it was that last drink he gave you that sent you down here.

MEGAPENTHES Then that is why I noticed a bitter taste. But what was his object in doing it?

CLOTHO You are asking me many questions when you ought to get aboard.

MEGAPENTHES There is one thing that sticks in my throat above all, Clotho, and on account of it I longed to slip back again to the light of day, if only for a moment.

CLOTHO What is that? It must be something tremendous.

MEGAPENTHES As soon as Cario, my valet, saw that I was dead, toward evening he came into the room where I lay, having nothing to do, for nobody was doing anything, not even guarding me, and brought in my mistress Glycerium; they had been on good terms a long time,

Isuppose. Shutting the door, he began to make free with her as though nobody was in the room, and then, when he had enough of it, he gazed at me and said: “You wretched little shrimp, you often gave me beatings when I was not at fault.” With that he pulled my hair and hit me in the face, and finally, after clearing his throat raucously and spitting on me, went away saying: “Off with you to the place of the wicked!” I was aflame with rage, but could not do a thing to him, for I was already stiff and cold. And as for the wretched wench, when she heard people approaching she smeared her eyes with spittle as if she had been crying over me and went away weeping and calling my name. If I should catch them—