Lexiphanes

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 5. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.

LYCINUS Enough, Lexiphanes, both of the drinking-party and of the reading. I am already half-seas-over and squeamish, and if I do not very soon jettison all this gallimaufry of yours, depend upon it, I expect to go raving crazy with the roaring in my ears from the words with which you have showered me. At first I was inclined to laugh at it all, but when it turned out to be such a quantity and all of a sort, I pitied you for your hard luck, seeing that you had fallen into a labyrinthine maze from which there was no escaping and were afflicted with the most serious of all illnesses—I mean, were as mad as a hatter.

I have been quietly wondering from what source you have culled so much pestilential stuff, and how long it took you, and where you locked up and kept such a swarm of outlandish distorted expressions, of which you made some yourself and resurrected others from the graves in which they lay buried somewhere. As the verse puts it,

  • Plague take you, that you garner mortal woes,
    • such a mess of filthy bilge water did you get together and fling over me, when I had done you no harm at all. Youseem to me not only to be destitute of friends and relatives and well-wishers but never to have fallen in with an independent man practising frank-
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    ness, who by telling you the truth might have relieved you, dropsical as you are and in danger of bursting with the disease, although to yourself you appear to be in good point and you consider your calami the pink of condition. You are praised by the fools, to be sure, who do not know what ails you; but the intelligent fittingly pity you.

    But what luck! here I see Sopolis the physician drawing near. Come now, suppose we put you in his hands, have a consultation with him about your complaint, and find some cure for you. The man is clever, and often before now, taking charge of people like yourself, half crazed and full of drivel, he has relieved them with his doses of medicine. —Good-day to you, Sopolis. Do take charge of Lexiphanes here, who is my friend, as you know, and at present has on him a nonsensical, outlandish distemper affecting his speech which is likely to be the death of him outright. Do save him in one way or another.

    LEXIPHANES Not me, Sopolis, but this man Lycinus, who is patently maggoty and thinks that well-furnished heads want wits, and imposes silence and a truce of the tongue upon us in the style of the son of Mnesarchus, the Samian.[*](Pythagoras; in Philosophies for Sale, 3 (II, 454) Lucian alludes to the five years of silence which he imposed on his pupils. )_ But I protest, by bashless Athena and by mighty Heracles, slayer of ferines, I shan’t bother even a flock or a doit about him! In fact I abominate meeting him at all, and I am fit to snort when I hear him pass such censure. Any-

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    how, I am this moment going off to my comrade Cleinias’s because I am informed that for some time now his wife is irregular[*](As applied to a woman ἧς ἐπεσχημένα τὰ γυναικεῖα, ἀκάθαρτος is accredited in Athen., 98, to “this word-chasing sophist"; i.e. Pompeianus, according to Casaubon. Cf. 97 f. ) and out of sorts by reason of wanting issue, so that he no longer even knows her ; she is unapproachable and uncultivated.

    SOPOLIS What ails him, Lycinus?

    LYCINUS Just that, Sopolis! Can’t you hear how he talks? Abandoning us, who converse with him now, he talks to us from a thousand years ago, distorting his language, making these preposterous combinations, and taking himself very seriously in the matter, as if it were a great thing for him to use an alien idiom and debase the established currency of speech.

    SOPOLIS By Zeus, it is no trivial disorder you tell of, Lycinus. The man must be helped by all means. As good luck would have it, I came away with this medicine, made up for an insane person, so that by taking it he might throw off his bile. Come, you be the first to take it, Lexiphanes, that we may have you cured and cleansed, once you have rid yourself of such impossible language. Do obey me and take it, and you will feel better.

    LEXIPHANES I don’t know what you and Lycinus mean to do to me, Sopolis, plying me with this drench. Indeed, I fear your draught may chill my vocabulary.

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    LYCINUS Drink without delay, that at last you may be human in thought and speech.

    LEXIPHANES There, I obey and drink. Oh me, what is this? The bombilation is vast! I would seem to have swallowed a familiar spirit.[*](Cf. i Sam. (in the Septuagint, i Kings) 28, 8. )