Dialogi mortuorum

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 1. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.

Menippus And for this a thousand ships carried warriors from every

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part of Greece; Greeks and barbarians were slain, and cities made desolate.

Hermes Ah, Menippus, you never saw the living Helen; or you would have said with Homer,

  • Well might they suffer grievous years of toil
  • Who strove for such a prize.
    • We look at withered flowers, whose dye is gone from them, and what can we call them but unlovely things? Yet in the hour of their bloom these unlovely things were things of beauty.

    Menippus Strange, that the Greeks could not realize what it was for which they laboured; how short-lived, how soon to fade.

    Hermes I have no time for moralizing. Choose your spot, where you will, and lie down. I must go to fetch new dead.

    Francis George Fowler

    Aeacus Now then, Protesilaus, what do you mean by assaulting and throttling Helen?

    Protesilaus Why, it was all her fault that I died, leaving my house half built, and my bride a widow.

    Aeacus You should blame Menelaus, for taking you all to Troy after such a light-o’-love.

    Protesilaus That is true; he shall answer it.

    Menelaus No, no, my dear sir; Paris surely is the man; he outraged all rights in carrying off his host’s wife with him. He deserves throttling, if you like, and not from you only, but from Greeks and barbarians as well, for all the deaths he brought upon them,

    Protesilaus Ah, now I have it. Here, you—you Paris! you shall not escape my clutches,

    Paris Oh, come, sir, you will never wrong one of the same gentle craft as yourself. Am I not a lover too, and a subject

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    of your deity? against love you know (with the best will in the world) how vain it is to strive; ’tis a spirit that draws us whither it will.

    Protesilaus There is reason in that. Oh, would that I had Love himself here in these hands!

    Aeacus Permit me to charge myself with his defence. He does not absolutely deny his responsibility for Paris’s love; but that for your death he refers to yourself, Protesilaus. You forgot all about your bride, fell in love with fame, and, directly the fleet touched the Troad, took that rash senseless leap, which brought you first to shore and to death.

    Protesilaus Now it is my turn to correct, Aeacus. The blame does not rest with me, but with Fate; so was my thread spun from the beginning.

    Aeacus Exactly so; then why blame our good friends here?

    Henry Watson Fowler

    Menippus In Pluto’s name, Aeacus, show me all the sights of Hades,

    Aeacus That would be rather an undertaking, Menippus. However, you shall see the principal things. Cerberus here you know already, and the ferryman who brought you over. And you saw the Styx on your way, and Pyriphlegethon.

    Menippus Yes, and you are the gate-keeper; I know all that; and I have seen the King and the Furies. But show me the men of ancient days, especially the celebrities.

    Aeacus This is Agamemnon; this is Achilles; near him, Idomeneus; next comes Odysseus; then Ajax, Diomede, and all the great Greeks.