De saltatione

And next comes Megara, with Nisus and Scylia, the purple lock, the expedient of Minos, and his ingratitude towards his benefactress.[*](Minos tied her to the stern of his ship and dragged her in its wake. In representing this as an “expedient,” Lucian seems to be thinking of it as Minos’ way of carrying out a revious bargain with Scylla to “take her with him,” or the ike. So Tarpeia bargained with the Sabines for what they had on their arms, expecting their bracelets; but they crushed her with their shields. ) To these succeed Cithaeron, with all that befell the Thebans and the house of Labdacus; the advent of Cadmus, the heifer’s taking ground, the serpent’s teeth, and the emergence of the Sown Men; further, the transformation of Cadmus into a serpent, the rising of the walls to the music of the lyre, the madness of the wall-builder,[*](Amphion, who went mad of grief over the slaying of his and Niobe’s children by Apollo and Artemis. ) the boastfulness of his wife Niobe, and her grief-stricken silence, the story of Pentheus and of Actaeon, the story of Oedipus, Heracles with all his labours, and the murder of his children.

Then comes Corinth, also full of myths, since she has Glauce and Creon, and before them Bellerophon and Stheneboea, and the quarrel between Helius and Poseidon;[*](For the possession of Corinth; Briareus, as mediator, awarded the Isthmus to Poseidon, Acro-Corinth to Helius. ) afterwards, the madness of Athamas, the flight of the children of Nephele through the air on the back of the ram, and the reception of Ino and Melicertes.[*](In Corinth, as the sea-divinities Palaemon and Leucothea. )

Next is the story of the descendants of Pelops, with Mycenae and what happened there, and previously—Inachus, Io, and her warder Argus; Atreus, Thyestes, Aerope, and the golden lamb; the defloration of Pelopeia;[*](Daughter of Thyestes, and by him mother of Aegisthus (Hyginus 87 and 88; cf. Frazer, Apollodorus, II, p. 168, n. 1). She is mentioned as a pantomimic réle by Juvenal, VII, 92: praefectos Pelopea facit, Philomela tribunos. ) the slaying of Agamemnon, and the punishment of Clytemestra. Even before that, the expedition of the Seven Captains, with Adrastus’ reception of the exiles who became his sons-in-law, and the oracle about them,[*](One of Adrastus’ daughters was to wed a boar, the other a lion. Tydeus had a boar for his shield-device, Polynices a lion. ) the refusal to bury the fallen, and the death of Antigone and Menoeceus on that account.

Also what happened on Nemean soil, the story of Hypsipyle and Archemorus, is very essential for the dancer to remember.[*](Just why it should be so essential is not very obvious. The infant Archemorus was killed by a dragon when his nurse Hypsipyle left him at a spring in order to point out the way to Thebes to the army of the seven chieftains. But Lucian’s remark may have been called forth by the thought of Hypsipyle’s earlier history as queen of Lemnos—her killing her husband and saving her father, and her love for Jason. ) And from an earlier time he will know the enforced virginity of Danae, the birth of Perseus, and the quest of the Gorgons which he assumed. Related to this is the Ethiopian tale of Cassiopea, Andromeda, and Cepheus, who have been placed in the roll of constellations by the faith of men of after time. And he will also know that ancient tale of Aegyptus and Danaus, and the bride-night plot.

Sparta, too, affords not a few stories of this sort :[*](One wonders whether Lucian’s omission of the story of Leda is careless or intentional. ) Hyacinthus, and Apollo’s rival, Zephyrus; the lad’s slaying with the discus, the flower that came from the blood, and the word of woe (AI) that is written

For we must recognise that there is a connecting bond between Spartan story and that of Troy, which is copious and full of parts to play; in fact, for each person who fell there, a drama offers itself to the theatre. These themes must be kept in mind above all others, from the time of the rape straight through to what happened in the “Home-farings,” with the wandering of Aeneas and the love of Dido.[*](Dido’s story essentially as it was told in the Greek of Tinaeus may still be read in the Latin of Justin (XVIII, 4-8); but Aeneas played no part in it. His introduction into it cannot be traced further back than Naevius. It probably came to Lucian by way of Vergil, from whom, however, it is hardly likely that he derived it at first hand. )

The dramas that centre upon Orestes, including that hero’s adventures in Scythia, are not alien to all this; and what went before is not incongruous, either, but akin to the story of Troy—the virgin life of Achilles in Scyros, the madness of Odysseus, the marooning of Philoctetes, and, in general, the whole wandering of Odysseus, including Circe, Telegonus,[*](Telegonus, the son of Circe and Odysseus, does not appear in the Odyssey, but was the hero of a late sequel to it, the Telegony. Its content is reflected in an abstract by Proclus (Evelyn White, Hesiod, etc. [L.C.L.], p. 530) and in Apoll., Epit., VII, 34-37. In stating that its author represented Telegonus as Odysseus’ son by Calypso, Eustathius is manifestly in error, for the part played by Circe in the conclusion of the story makes it certain that Circe was his mother. ) Aeolus’ sway over the winds, and all the rest of it, to the punishment of the suitors. Also, preceding this, the plot against Palamedes, and the wrath of Nauplius, the madness of Ajax, and the death of the other Ajax among the rocks.

Elis too has many subjects for those who essay the dance—Oenomaus and Myrtilus, Cronus and Zeus, and the first contestants in the Olympic games ;[*](Probably the wrestling match between Cronus and Zeus, by which Zeus won possession of Olympia, is meant here rather than the games in which the gods competed under the presidency of Zeus (Paus., V, 7, 10), or the wrestling match between Zeus and Heracles (Lyc., 39-43), or the games held by Heracles, in which the competitors were his contemporaries (Pindar, Ol., X, 60-75). )

and the Arcadian mythology also is copious—the flight of Daphne, the transformation of Callisto into a wild beast, the drunken riot of the Centaurs, the birth of Pan, the love of Alpheus, and his journey into foreign parts beneath the sea.

Indeed, even if you go to Crete in fancy, the dance garners very many contributions from there— Europe, Pasiphae, both the bulls,[*](The Minotaur, and the bull that fathered him. ) the labyrinth, Ariadne, Phaedra, Androgeos, Daedalus and Icarus, Glaucus and the soothsaying skill of Polyidus, and Talus, the bronze roundsman of Crete.

Or if you cross over to Aetolia, there too the dance finds a great deal—Althea, Meleager, Atalanta, the brand, the wrestling-match between Heracles and the river (Achelous), the birth of the Sirens,[*](Clearly Lucian has in mind the legend that made them daughters of Earth (Eur., Hel., 168), engendered of the blood that dropped from the wound of Achelous, inflicted by Heracles through breaking off one of his horns (Libanius, Progymn., 4). ) the emergence of the Echinades,[*](Five of the Echinades were nymphs, turned into islands for their failure to invite Achelous to a sacrifice. A sixth, Perimele, was a maiden who was thrown into the sea by her father because she had given herself to Achelous; in answer to Achelous’ prayer, Poseidon changed her into an island. So, at all events, says Ovid (Met., VIII, 577-610). ) and the settlement of Alemaeon there after his madness; then Nessus, and the jealousy of Deianeira, and, consequent upon it, the pyre in Oeta.

Thrace also has much that is essential to one who intends to dance—Orpheus, his dismemberment and his talking head that voyaged on the lyre;[*](The story of the head of Orpheus is told by Lucian in The Ignorant Book-Collector, 11-12 (Vol. III, pp. 188 ff.). )

and Thessaly affords still more—Pelias, Jason, Alcestis, the expedition of the fifty youths, the Argo and her talking keel, the incidents at Lemnos, Aeétes, the dream of Medea,[*](Apollonius of Rhodes (III, 616-682) describes at some length a dream of Medea’s, shortly after the arrival of Jason, to the effect that he came to win her, that she helped him with the oxen; that she was chosen to arbitrate the strife that arose, and decided in Jason’s favour; whereupon her parents clamoured, and she awoke. Since this dream is not traditional, its inclusion in Lucian’s list is perhaps to be explained by assuming that he knew of its actual use as a pantomimic theme. ) the dismemberment of Apsyrtus, the happenings of the cruise,

and after that, Protesilaus and Laodameia.

If you cross the sea again to Asia, there are many dramas there—Samos, at the outset, with the fate of Polycrates and his daughter’s wanderings, extending to Persia,[*](This allusion is puzzling. Nothing about the daughter of Polycrates is known to us except that she foretold her father’s death through a dream (Herod., III, 124). Since Herodotus tells also how Syloson, the brother of Polycrates, went to Egypt as an exile, earned the gratitude of Darius, who was serving there as a guardsman, by giving him a cloak which Darius coveted and sought to buy, and later, after the death of Polycrates, visited Susa and obtained from Darius his restoration to Samos and establishment as ruler of the island, it has been thought that Lucian has been guilty of confusing the brother with the daughter. But Lucian was a little too well acquainted with Herodotus (and the world with the story of Syloson’s cloak) to make this quite credible. A gap in the text here is easily possible, but it may also be that Hellenistic imagination gave the daughter a romantic history which dancers had selected for portrayal. ) and the stories that are still older—the loquaciousness of Tantalus, the feast of the gods at his house, the butchering of Pelops, and his shoulder of ivory.

In Italy, moreover, we have the Eridanus, and Phaethon, and the poplars that are his sisters, mourning and weeping amber.

And a man of the sort I have in mind will know about the Hesperides, too, and the dragon that guards the golden fruit, and the toil of Atlas, and about Geryon, and the lifting of his cattle from Erytheia.

And

In Phoenicia he will know about Myrrha[*](Mother of Adonis, called Smyrna by Apollodorus (III, 14, 4); cf. Ovid, Met., X, 298-518. ) and that Syrian tale of dissevered woe,[*](The words ‘néyBos epiléierar: which I have translated “dissevered woe,” seem to me to be certainly sound, and to reflect the identification of Adonis with Osiris then current, the piecemeal recovery of his dismembered body (with, no doubt, renewed mourning over every part), and in particular, the coming of the head to Byblus; see Lucian’s Dea Syria, 7 (IV, p. 344). The phrase is very similar to the λακιστὸν μόρον (“piecemeal doom”) which Lucian quotes (from a lost tragedy) in the Piscator 2 (III, p. 3), and may have been suggested by it. On “Assyrian” for Syrian, see the Index. ) as well as the more recent happenings that followed the establishment of Macedonian rule, the bold deeds of Antipater as well as those at the court of Seleucus over the affections of Stratonice.[*](The allusion to Antipater is inexplicable, unless it is to the son of Cassander, who murdered his mother (Justin., XVI, 1, 1). The story of Antiochus’ love for Stratonice, the wife of his father, Seleucus Nicator, its detection by 4 physician, and the father’s resignation of wife and kingdom to his son is a favourite with Lucian, and is told in Dea Syria, 17-18 (IV, pp. 360 ff.). )

Since Egyptian tales are somewhat mystic, he will know them, but will present them more symbolically; I mean Epaphus and Osiris and the transfigurations of the gods into their bestial forms.

Before all else, however, he will know the stories of their loves, including the loves of Zeus himself, and all the forms into which he changed himself,

and also the whole show in the realm of Hades, with the punishments and the reasons for each, and how the comradeship of Peirithous and Theseus brought them even to Hades.