Fugitivi

The unschooled, seeing all this, now spit scornfully at philosophy, thinking that all of us are like this and blaming me for my teachings, so that for a long time now it has been impossible for me to win over a single one of them. I am in the same fix as Penelope,[*](The story of Penelope’s web is told several times in the Odyssey ; II, 93-110; XIX, 138-156; XXIV, 129-146. ) for truly all that I weave is instantly unravelled again; and Stupidity and Wrongdoing laugh in my face to see that I cannot bring my work to completion and my toil to an end.

ZEUS Ye gods! what treatment our dear Philosophy has had from those scoundrels! It is high time, then, to see what is to be done and how they are to be punished. Well, the thunderbolt despatches at a single blow, and the death is a swift one.

APOLLO I will offer you a suggestion, father, for I myself have come to detest the knaves; the Muses mean nothing to them, so I am indignant on behalf of the Nine. Those fellows are by no means worthy of a thunderbolt or of that right hand of yours. Send Hermes down to get after them, if you think best, with unlimited powers in the matter of their punishment. As he himself is interested in argumentation, he will very soon know those who are genuine students of philosophy and those who are not. Then he will commend the former, naturally, and the latter will be punished as he sees fit in the circumstances.

ZEUS A good idea, Apollo. But you go too, Heracles; take along Philosophy herself and all be off, as quickly as you can, to the world. Bear in mind that you will be doing a thirteenth labour of no mean order if you exterminate such pestilential, shameless beasts.

HERACLES On my word, father, I should have preferred to clean out the muck of Augeas once more, rather than to get involved with these creatures. Let us be off, however.

HERMES Let us be going down, so that we may exterminate at least a few of them to-day. What direction should we take, Philosophy? You know where they are. In Greece, no doubt?

PHILOSOPHY Not by any means, or only a few, those who are genuine students of philosophy, Hermes. These others have no use for Attic poverty; we must look for them in some quarter where much gold or silver is mined.

HERMES Then we must make straight for Thrace.

HERACLES Quite right, and indeed I will show you the way, as I know the whole of Thrace from repeated visits. So, if you please, let us now take this direction.

HERMES What direction do you mean?

HERACLES Do you see two ranges, Hermes and Philosophy, the highest and most beautiful of all mountains (the higher is Haemus, the one opposite is Rhodope), and a plain of great fertility outspread beneath them, beginning at the very foothills of each? Also,

HERMES Yes, by Zeus, Heracles, the greatest and loveliest of all cities! In fact, its beauty is radiant from afar. And also, a very large river flows past it, coming quite close to it.

HERACLES That is the Hebrus, and the city was built by the famous Philip.[*](Philippopolis. ) We are now close to earth and the clouds are above us, so let us make a landing, with the blessing of Heaven.

HERMES Very well. But what is to be done now? How are we to track the beasts out?

HERACLES That is up to you, Hermes; you are a crier, so be quick and do your office.

HERMES Nothing hard about that, but I do not know their names. Tell me, Philosophy, what I am to call them, and their marks of identification as well.

PHILOSOPHY I myself do not know for certain what they are called, because of my not having had anything to do with them ever. But to judge from the craving for

HERMES Right you are.—But who are these people and why are they too looking about them? However, they are coming up and want to ask a question.

HUSBAND Could you tell us, gentlemen, or you, kind lady, whether you have seen three rogues together, and a woman with her hair closely clipped in the Spartan style, boyish-looking and quite masculine ?

PHILOSOPHY Aha! They are looking for our quarry!

HUSBAND How yours? Those fellows are all fugitive slaves, and for my part I am particularly in search of the woman, whom they have kidnapped.

HERMES You will soon find out why we are in search of them. But at present let us make a joint proclamation. «If anyone has seen a Paphlagonian slave, one of those barbarians from Sinope, with a name of the kind that has ‘rich’ in it, sallow, close-cropped,[*](As a Cynic, the man should wear his hair long; but we are informed that he has Stoic leanings (§ 31). ) wearing a long beard, with a wallet slung from his shoulder and a short cloak about him, quick-

FIRST SLAVE-OWNER Your proclamation does not tally, man! His name when I had him was Scarabee; furthermore, he wore his hair long, kept his chin hairless, and knew my trade. It was his business to sit in my fuller’s shop and shear off the excessive nap that makes cloaks fuzzy.

PHILOSOPHY That is the very man, your slave; but now he looks like a philosopher, for he has given himself a thorough dry-cleaning. FIRST SLAVE-OWNER (to Second and Third) The impudence of him! Scarabee is setting up for a philosopher, she says, and we do not enter into his speculations at all!

SECOND SLAVE-OWNER Never mind, we shall find them all, for this woman knows them, by what she says.

HERMES Who is this other person coming up, Heracles, the handsome man with the lyre?

HERACLES It is Orpheus, my shipmate on the Argo, the most tuneful of all chanteymen. Indeed, as we rowed to his singing, we hardly grew tired at all.

ORPHEUS A very good-day to you also, Philosophy, Heracles, and Hermes. But the time has come to pay your reward, since I am very well acquainted with the man for whom you are looking.

HERMES Then show us where he is, son of Calliope, for you have no need of gold, I take it, being a wise man.

ORPHEUS You are right. I will show you the house where he lives, but not the man himself, so as not to be slanged by him. He is excessively foul-mouthed; that is the only thing he has thoroughly mastered.

HERMES Only show us.

ORPHEUS Here it is, close by. I am going away from your neighbourhood, so that I may not even see him.

PHILOSOPHY Hold! Is not that the voice of a woman, reciting something of Homer’s?

HERMES Yes, surely; but let us hear what she is saying.

WOMAN Ever his host he abuseth, if anyone showeth him kindness.[*](Iliad, II, 354, with a slight change, ῥέξεν for ῥέξαι. Iliad, I, 325 ; TI, 202, 246 (the close is Lucian’s: Homer has λιγύς, περ ἐὼν. ἀγορητής), and 214, or ) HUSBAND That verse refers to me, for he went off with my wife because I took him in.

WOMAN Heavy with wine, dog-eyed, with the timid heart of a roe-deer, Never of any account in the fray or in giving of counsel, Loose-mouthed fool, Thersites, of evil jackdaws the foremost * Idle strife with kings to promote in no spirit of order! 8 FIRST SLAVE-OWNER The verses just fit the scoundrel !

1. Dog in the fore-parts, aye, and a lion behind; in the middle a she-goat,
2. Shedding the terrible reek of the third dog’s furious onslaught

HUSBAND Dear me, wife! how outrageously you have been treated by all those dogs! It is even said that they have lined her.

HERMES No fear, you will soon have her bringing into the world a Cerberus or a Geryon, to make more work for Heracles here.[*](The progeny of three Cynics is expected to have three heads, like the dog Cerberus, whom Heracles, as his eleventh labour, brought up from Hades, or three bodies, like Geryon, whose cattle Heracles lifted as his tenth labour. )—But they are coming out, so there is no need to knock at the door. FIRST SLAVE-OWNER I’ve got you, Scarabee! Now you have nothing to say, have you? Come, let us see what your wallet. has in it, lupines, no doubt, or a crust of bread. No, by Zeus! A purse of gold!

HERACLES Don’t be surprised! Formerly, in Greece, he claimed to be a Cynic, but here he reveals himself in his true colours as a Chrysippean. Therefore you

SECOND SLAVE-OWNER And you, scoundrel! are you not Pomander, who ran away from me? Nobody else! O how you make me laugh! After that, what cannot happen? Even Pomander a philosopher !

HERMES This third fellow—has he no master among you? THIRD SLAVE-OWNER Yes, I am his master, but even so, I gladly consign him to perdition ! Why?

HERMES THIRD SLAVE-OWNER Because he is a fearful sort of rotter. The name we used to call him was Stinkadore.

HERMES Heracles, deliver us! do you hear that? And then wallet and staff! Here, you! (to HusBaNpD) Take away your wife, yourself!

HERMES Book? What do you mean?

HUSBAND My dear fellow, there is a book called Tricipitine.[*](The book called Three-Headed was an attack on Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, attributed to Theopompus (cf. below, p. 409) but probably written by Anaximenes. ) HERMES Nothing surprising in that, as there is one called Triphallic.[*](The Triphales of Aristophanes, supposed to have been a scurrilous satire on Alcibiades. )

PHILOSOPHY It is for you, Hermes, to give judgement now.

HERMES This is my decision. As for the woman, to insure against her bringing into the world anything portentous or many-headed, she shall go back to Greece to live with her husband. This pair of runaway slaves shall be turned over to their masters and continue to learn their former trades; Pomander to wash dirty linen, Stinkadore once again to mend torn cloaks; but first they shall both be beaten with mallows.[*](This meant a good caning, for the mallow that is meant is the kind that according to Theophrastus “grows tall and becomes tree-like” and “becomes as great as a spear, and men accordingly use it as a walking-stick’? (Lavatera arborea; see Sir A. Hort’s Theophrastus, Enguiry into Plants (L.C.L.), Vol. I, p. 25, and Vol. II, p. 463). But probably its prescription by Lucian in this and other similar cases is due in part at least to the implication of ‘softness’ in the name. ) Finally, this fellow (to scaRABEE)

SCARABEE Ah, woe is me! Oh, oh! Alackaday! FIRST SLAVE-OWNER Why are you lugging in that quotation out of those melodramatic discourses of yours? Come along with me to the pitch-plasterers now; but first strip off that lion skin, that you may be known for the ass that you are.