Pro lapsu inter salutandum

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 6. Kilburn, K., translator. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.

It is difficult for a mortal to avoid the caprice of some power on high, but it is much more difficult to find a defence for a silly slip sent by some such heavenly power. Both of these misfortunes have now happened to me. When I came to you to give you the morning greeting, I ought to have used the usual expression “Joy to you,” but like a golden ass I blundered and said “Health to you,” a pleasant enough greeting, but not suitable—it is not for the morning. As soon as I had said it I was all sixes and sevens. I began to sweat and went pink. Some of the company thought it a slip—naturally enough; others thought that I had become a fool in my old age, or that it was a hangover from yesterday’s drinking. You took it very well, though—not a trace of a smile to mark my slip of the tongue. So I thought it a good idea to write something to comfort myself, so as not to be too upset over my slip, or think it intolerable if I, an old man, had fallen so far from what was proper before so many witnesses. I don’t think an apology was necessary for a tongue that slipped into a wish so pleasant.

When I began to write, I thought that I was taking on an impossible task, but as I went on I found

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plenty to say. But before I tell you this, let me say a few suitable words about these greetings “Joy to you,” “Do well,” and “Health to you.” “Joy to you” is the ancient greeting, not however confined to the morning or to the first meeting, but they used it whenever they first caught sight of one another, as in

“Joy to you, you lord of this Tirynthian land,” [*](Trag. adesp. 292 N-2.)

and after dinner when they were ready to talk over their wine, as in

“Joy to you, Achilles, there is no lack
Of meat for all alike.” [*](Homer, Il. ix, 225.)

when Odysseus was declaring to him his embassy’s mission. They used it also when they took their leave, as in

“Joy to you! No longer mortal know me now,
To you a god divine.” [*](A verse of Empedocles (B 112 D.-K).)

This greeting was not reserved for a special time, as now only for morning. Indeed even on the most unwelcome and inauspicious occasions they used it nevertheless, as in Euripides when Polynices at the end of his life says

“Joy to you! For now does darkness gird me
round.” [*](Euripides, Phoenissae, 1453.)

It was not just a sign for them of friendly feeling, but also of dislike and final parting. For example, to bid “Joy to it and a long one” meant that they washed their hands of it.

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Philippides, the one who acted as courier, is said to have used it first in our sense when he brought the news of victory from Marathon and addressed the magistrates in session when they were anxious how the battle had ended; “Joy to you, we’ve won,” he said, and there and then he died, breathing his last breath with that “Joy to you.” Cleon the Athenian demagogue also began his letter from Sphacteria with “Joy to you,” when he gave the good news of the victory there and the capture of the Spartiates. [*](424 B.C., during the Peloponnesian War. Cf. Aristoph., Clouds, 609.) However after him Nicias in his despatches from Sicily followed the old practice and began right away with the matter in hand. [*](Thuc. VIII. 11.)

The admirable Plato himself, a most sound authority on such matters, altogether rejected the use of “Joy to you” as bad and pointless. He substitutes “Do well,” which implies a good state of both body and soul. In a letter to Dionysius [*](Ep. III, 315B.) he censures him for greeting Apollo with “Joy to you” in his poem to the god; it is unworthy of the Pythian, he says, and not even for men of taste is it becoming, let alone gods.

The divine Pythagoras chose not to leave us anything of his own, but if we may judge by Ocellus the Leucanian and Archytas and his other disciples, he did not prefix “Joy to you” or “Do well,” but told them to begin with “Health to you.” At any rate all his school in serious letters to each other began straightway with “Health to you,” as a greeting

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most suitable for both body and soul, encompassing all human goods. Indeed the Pentagram, the triple intersecting triangle which they used as a symbol of their sect, they called “Health.” In short they thought that health included doing well and joy, but that the converse did not altogether hold. Some of them called the Quaternion, [*](The sum of the first four integers, i.e. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10.) their most solemn oath, which made for them the perfect number, the Beginning of Health. Philolaus, for example.

But why quote the ancients when there is Epicurus? He certainly enjoyed joy, and chose Pleasure as the chief good. In his more serious letters (there are not many of these) and in those to his dearest friends he generally began straightway with “Health to you.” In tragedy too and in Old Comedy you will often find “Health” said straightway first. The greeting

“Good health and joy be yours” [*](Homer, Od. xxiv, 402.)

clearly puts health before joy. Alexis [*](Frag. 297 K.) says

“Good health, my lord! At long last you are
here,”

and Achaeus [*](Frag. 44 N-2.)

“I come in dreadful case, but health I wish to
you,”

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and Philemon [*](Frag. 163 K.)

“First I beg good health, and second doing well,
Thirdly to have joy, and last to owe no debts.”

What does the writer of that drinking-song which Plato mentions say [*](Plato, Gorgias, 451e. The scolium is quoted in full by Athenaeus, Deipn., xv, 40.) ? “Good health is best, then good looks, third wealth,” and he never mentions joy at all. I need hardly mention that most familiar piece of all which everybody quotes,

“I’d live with thee, O Health, chief of the gods
Through all the mortal life that’s left to me.” [*](Attributed to Ariphron of Sicyon, Ath., Deipn., xv, 63.)

Then if health is the chief of the gods, her work—the enjoyment of good health—is to be preferred to other blessings.

I could show you thousands of other passages in the poets and historians and philosophers which put health first, but I shall beg to be excused, or my writing will be guilty of the bad taste of an adolescent, and only knock one nail out with another. But a few things from ancient history I remember are to the point, and I may as well add them for you.

Just before the Battle of Issus, as Eumenes of Cardia says in his letter to Antipater, Hephaestion came early into Alexander’s tent. He blundered or was confused (as I was) or was driven to it by some god when he gave my greeting: “Health to you, king,” he said, it is already time to set the battle-line.”

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The others present were upset by the strange address, and Hephaestion almost died for shame. But Alexander said, “I accept the omen. It has now promised us a safe return from the battle.”

When Antiochus Soter was about to engage the Galatians, he dreamed he saw Alexander standing by him, who told him to give the army the password “Health” before the battle, and under that word he won his amazing victory.

Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, when writing to Seleucus clearly reversed the usual order by putting “Health to you” at the beginning of his letter, and at the end “Joy to you” instead of wishing him strength. Dionysodorus who collected his letters tells us this.

Then Pyrrhus of Epirus also is worthy of mention. As a general he was second only to Alexander and endured a myriad changes of fortune. In all his prayers to the gods and sacrifices and offerings he never asked them for victory or increased kingly dignity or glory or excessive wealth; his prayer was for this thing alone—good health; he was sure that if he had this he would easily get all the rest. I think he was right when he considered that all the blessings in the world are worth nothing when health is the one thing he hasn’t got.

Yes, someone will say, we have assigned the proper time for each phrase, but you have switched it; and even if you have done nothing else wrong, you have still in all justice made a slip; you’ve put a

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helmet on your shins and greaves on your head. Oh, yes, my good sir, I would answer, that would be reasonable if there were any time at all when health wasn’t needed; as it is you always need health—morning, noon, and night—, especially you magistrates and busy men who depend so much on your bodily vigour. “Joy to you” is only an auspicious beginning, a prayer in fact. “Health to you” is positive and useful; it reminds you of what makes for good health; it is a warning as well as a prayer.

Now in the book of instructions you always get from the emperor, isn’t the first injunction to you to take care of your health? And rightly so. You would not be of much use otherwise. Indeed you yourselves, if I know any Latin, also often return the word “Health” [*](In Latin “Salve.”) when you shake hands.

In saying all this I did not want deliberately to discard “Joy to you” and put “Health” in its place; this was an accident—it would be ridiculous for me to surprise you all by changing the usual times of the greetings.

I am grateful to heaven that my slip was a switch into something much more auspicious and slid into something better. Perhaps the goddess Health or Asclepius himself inspired me on purpose to promise you health through me. I could certainly never have done it without a god’s intervention,

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when I was never confused like this before in a long life.

But, if I must make a human apology for what has happened, there is nothing strange, if a fervent desire for your good opinion in all that is best was too strong and in my utter confusion I stumbled into the opposite effect. A man might also be startled away from proper deliberation by the crowd of soldiers pushing their way to the front or not waiting their turn in presenting their petitions.

But I know that you at any rate have taken the affair as a sign of modesty and simplicity and a mind un-debased and unsophisticated, even if the others referred it to ignorance or bad training or idiocy. Excessive boldness in such matters is not far off audacity and shamelessness. May I never make such a slip, or, if I do, may I happen on some lucky phrase!

Indeed they say that something like this happened to the first Augustus. It happened that he had decided a certain case correctly and acquitted a defendant who had been unjustly prosecuted on a most serious charge. The man acknowledged his gratitude in a loud voice: “Thank you, Emperor, for your bad and unjust judgment!” Augustus’s courtiers were furious and would have torn him to pieces, but the emperor said, “Calm your anger. It is his meaning, not his words, that you must consider.” That was his answer, but if you look at my

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meaning, the intention, you’ll see, was good; if at my words, they too were auspicious.

Having now reached this point, I think I may reasonably be afraid of something else: some may think the slip deliberate, a pretext for writing this defence. May my composition, dearest Asclepius, be such that all may see it as a starting point of a display, not as a defence.