The wise men of Greece, in a series of dramatic dialogues, by John Stuart Blackie. / Blackie, John Stuart, 1809-1895

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THE 

WISE MEN OF GREECE 



THE 

WISE MEN OF GREECE 



IN A SERIES OF 



DRAMATIC DIALOGUES 



BY 



JOHN STUART BLACKIE 

PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 



Sed docemus nullam sectam fuisse tarn deviam, nee philoso- 
phum tam inanem qui non aliquid viderit ex vero. 

Lactantius. 



X3N1 ' 1Y 



EonUon 

MACMILLAN AND COMPANY 

1877 



sy-~] cy 



Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. 






CONTENTS. 



i. Epistle Dedicatory 

2. Pythagoras 

3. Thales . 

4. Xenophanes 

5. Heraclitus 

6. Empedocles 

7. Anaxagoras 

8. Aristodemus; or, the Atheist 

9. Aristippus; or, Pleasure . 

10. The Death of Socrates 

11. Plato .... 
Notes .... 



PACE 

vii 

I 

47 

77 

105 

131 
195 
231 

253 

275 

315 
349 



TO 

TOM TAYLOR, Esquire. 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 

My Dear Taylor. — I have requested the honour of 
dedicating this book to you, partly that I might 
signify, in a small way, the respect which I entertain 
for your character and efficiency as a literary man ; 
partly because, if there is anything of a wise concep- 
tion in the structure of these dialogues, and any 
degree of adequacy in their execution, I know no 
person in these islands at once more willing and more 
able than yourself to pronounce a judgment on their 
merits or demerits, which I shall think it my duty 
to respect. The conception of the book was simply 
this : Take the first six names in the list, Pythagoras, 
Thales, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxa- 
goras, and you will see in a moment that, though few 
persons in these times, who have received what is 
called a liberal education, can be ignorant of these 



viii EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 

names, as of certain sign-posts, land-marks, or mile- 
stones in the history of human thought, very few 
persons, even of the best educated, have anything 
but the most meagre notion of the philosophical 
significance, intellectual dignity, and moral power of 
the men whom these names represent. What I have 
attempted is to give the general reading public, so 
far as they may care for wisdom, a living concrete 
notion of what the thought of Thales was in his day 
to the society of Miletus ; what Pythagoras, with his 
school of moral discipline, was to Crotona ; Xeno- 
phanes to Colophon, and so with the rest. And, as 
what we know of the pre-Socratic philosophy in 
Greece exists only in the shape of scattered notices 
and a few fragments, it appeared to me that the 
natural way of making these imperfect remains 
interesting was to follow the example of the archi- 
tects, who restore a ruined edifice in the original 
style by the clear indication of its ruins ; and, in 
order to do this two things were necessary, an ac- 
curate study of the fragments, and a sympathetic 
appreciation of the soul by which the fragments were 
originally animated. How far I have succeeded in 
this delicate work, scholars and thinkers will judge. 
I can only tell them that they will get here no mere 
soap-bubbles, lightly blown for a summer's recreation, 
but the produce of hard work, and years of study. 
I had no ambition, even if I had had the ability, to 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. ix 

make a Pythagoras or an Empedocles a mere mouth- 
piece to spout my sentiments. I strove everywhere 
to give a true picture of what was actually thought 
and said by those old worthies, or at least of what 
lay in their most distinctive maxims by plain impli- 
cation ; and, if the lines of the portraiture shall seem 
to agree in a very striking way, sometimes, with cer- 
tain recent phases of modern thought, or the obvious 
opposite of those phases, this is not that I have 
interpolated anything which, to the best of my judg- 
ment, did not lie in the original, but because the 
fundamental principles of all wisdom have always been 
present in the spiritual world wherever human beings 
in a normal state of culture have lived and thought. 
Reason is the light of the soul ; and, though, like the 
sun in the heavens, it may be largely overclouded, 
and shine only by glimpses for a space, yet it is 
always there ; and the glimpse, where it appears, is 
a sure prophecy of the full radiance, which, under 
more favourable circumstances will surely be re- 
vealed. 

I have mentioned the above six names because it 
was the fragmentary condition of the sources of our 
knowledge of their wisdom that naturally suggested 
the work of imaginative reconstruction which these 
pages contain. The other two names, Socrates and 
Plato, stand in a different position. In the case of these 
two, I could not possibly entertain the vanity of pre- 



x EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 

tending to expound their views of the most important 
truths in other form than they had done themselves ; 
at the same time, I thought that a historical gallery 
of the principal figures in Greek philosophy would be 
felt to be strangely imperfect without these two great 
names, which in fact are as naturally the issue of 
what went before as the blossom of a beautiful flower 
is of the bud and leafage out of which it grew. 
Besides, the little book of Xenophon, which is our 
best authority for the Socratic disputations in their 
original shape, just perhaps because it is so unpre- 
tending and so sensible, happens to be little read ; 
and a free English rendering, or rifaccimcnto, as the 
Italians call it, of one or two of the conversations 
in that book, seemed to me not unlikely, if fairly 
managed, to introduce Socrates in a favourable way 
to a class of readers to whom the simple prose of 
Xenophon might not be sufficiently attractive. As 
for Plato, I should certainly have excluded him 
altogether from my collection, had it not been that, 
as the greatest poet among the philosophers, he had 
a peculiar right to a place in a poetical portrait- 
gallery of the wise men of Greece ; and besides, on 
reviewing the nine previous dialogues, I found that 
the important subject of Love had been altogether 
omitted, and that, for a sort of completeness, I could 
do nothing better than give the philosophy of that 
noble passion in the words of its greatest expositor. 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. xi 

And the reader may rely upon it that in these four 
last dialogues I have invented only a few adjuncts ; 
all the essential facts in the account of the death of 
Socrates, and the whole formal exposition of the 
doctrine of Socrates and his great disciple, being 
given almost literally from passages of the Greek texts 
familiar to every scholar. 

There are two points on which a word or two may 
render the position of the old philosophers in Hellenic 
society more intelligible to the modern reader and 
more profitable. These are their relation to the 
popular religion and to the political government of 
the States to which they belonged. Now, with regard 
to the first of these matters, the relation of early 
Greek philosophy to the popular religion was in the 
main friendly, and naturally so, because, though Plato 
at a more advanced period readily found matter of 
offence in Homer as a theologian, there was a rich- 
ness, a significance, and a flexibility in the mythology 
of Greece which attracted rather than repelled a 
philosophy more indebted to constructive imagina- 
tion than to scientific analysis. If in recent times 
philosophy, or what, in an unphilosophising country, 
readily passes for such, has been associated with any- 
thing rather than with piety, we must remember that 
this divorce of science from religion is something 
altogether abnormal, and to be regarded generally as 
the product of a reaction from certain aspects of 



xii EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 

anthropomorphic orthodoxy, combined with the feeble- 
ness of the constructive faculty, and the starvation 
of reverential emotion, which are the natural conse- 
quences of the usurpation of the whole man by the 
barren processes of analysis and induction. Not 
that there is anything contrary to piety in a sound 
induction, for Bacon was a good theist, and so was 
Locke; but that induction, like everything else, is 
liable to be exaggerated or misapplied ; and so scien- 
tific persons, who deal only with what is tangible and 
measurable in the external world, fall into an incapacity 
of believing anything but what they can collect with 
their hands and count with their fingers, and perversely 
endeavour to explain the multiplicity of phenomena in 
the reasoned universe, without reference to that forma- 
tive plastic unity of an inherent Xoyog, without which 
neither a cogniser nor a cognised in any world is pos- 
sible. The Greeks were not so. The same Thales who 
taught that water was the first principle of all things, 
taught likewise that " all things are full of gods ;" and 
the fire of Heraclitus was instinct with Xoyog or reason, 
as certainly as the agi&'Ug of the pious Pythagoras. 
And, if any person thinks that the theology of these old 
Hellenic speculators was more akin to the Pantheism 
of the Brahmins and Buddhists than to the theistic 
dualism of the Christian churches, I believe we may 
pretty safely say he is right; even Plato, whose 
language in the main certainly is not Pantheistic, talks 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. xiii 

of the world in the Timaeus as a 6e?ov £5>ov, or a divine 
animal; but Pantheism has nothing necessarily to 
do either with atheism or materialism ; it only asserts 
a necessary bond between the outward and the inward 
of the universe ; and this is quite consistent with a 
pious faith in the essential unity of the rb tkk and the 
necessary postulate of an indwelling reason or Xoyoc, 
to render that unity possible ; and it will be readily 
seen how much more easy it was to reconcile any sort 
of Pantheistic or semi-Pantheistic philosophy with an 
imaginative polytheism, like the Hellenic, than for a 
purely analytic physical science, such as that which 
now makes broad its phylacteries, to keep on amicable 
relations with a religion which glows furnace-hot with 
moral emotion, and a theology bristling all round with 
stereotyped dogma and scholastic formulas. So much 
for the general relation of philosophy in ancient 
Greece to what, by a somewhat free transference of 
modern phraseology, we may call the Church. Perfect 
orthodoxy, of course, or conformity in all points to 
the popular conception of the gods, was not to be 
looked for in a class of men inspired by a dominant 
passion for truth ; but the orthodoxy of the Greeks 
was not a stiff, rigid affair, defiant of all change, 
and challenging all reason, like the Athanasian creed 
or the Calvinistic Confessions, but a very rich garden 
of beautiful flowers, which a thoughtful man might 



xiv EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 

glean according to his own taste and interpret accord- 
ing to his own fancy. I have accordingly represented 
only one of my philosophers in an attitude of positive 
polemical attack towards the popular creed ; and 
Xenophanes, in fact, is the only one who at an early 
period came forward as a public impugner of the 
polytheistic theology. Latterly, no doubt, as culture 
advanced, scepticism became more common ; and 
the vulgar irreverence with which some leaders of the 
sceptical school attacked not only the popular faith, 
but the principles of all social ethics, gave some colour 
of justice to the intolerant spirit which, in the name 
of religion, vented itself on the head of a philosopher 
so characteristically devout as Socrates. But even in 
the latest times the great teachers of the Greeks were 
neither atheists nor agnostics : Aristotle and Zeno 
were as good theists as Socrates and Plato, though, 
of course, somewhat less fervid in their temperament 
and more analytic in their habit. The real atheists 
or agnostics among the Greeks in the. days before 
Epicurus, were the sophists, against whose slippery 
doctrine of fingering externalism in all departments, 
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, asserted triumphantly 
for all times the doctrine of a divine dominant \6yog 
as the cause of unity and the bond of intelligibility 
in the universe. Our modern sophists, Hume, 
Bentham, the Mills, Bain, Grote, and others, have 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. xv 

declared their natural kinship to their Hellenic pre- 
figurements significantly enough, by pretentiously set- 
ting Epicurus on the throne of Plato, industriously 
confounding Socrates with the sophists (with whom 
he had only the logical method and the reasoned dis- 
course in common), and in every form of scholastic 
exposition preaching a morality not rooted in reason, 
and a philosophy not centred in God. 

The relation of the wise men of Greece to Greek 
political life took shape pretty much as the same 
relation between similar parties in modern times. As 
a rule, the search after ultimate causes and the most 
catholic truths tends to draw a man away from that 
adjustment of opposing forces and balance of con- 
tending interests, in which the government of human 
beings in a free society mainly consists ; and there- 
fore we find for the most part that the Greek 
philosopher took no prominent part in public affairs. 
The 6sugr}Tix6g fiiog, or contemplative life, and the 
vrpayf&ara, or public affairs, were marked in their habit 
of thinking and acting by a very distinct line of 
separation. Even when a philosopher, like Socrates, 
was of a predominantly practical turn of mind, there 
were weighty reasons in the democratic constitution 
of Athens which forced him, however unwillingly, to 
retire from a scene, where his noblest teaching could 
find no audience, and his best actions were sure to 



xvi EPISTLE DEDICATORY 

be misunderstood. In a society where power was 
legitimately exercised by a mere majority, a wise man, 
who measured polls by quality rather than by quantity, 
would naturally not feel in his element ; and so the 
philosopher in a land of unreined liberty, from the 
retreat of his Academic bowers, contented himself 
with preaching the philosophy of order, as a divinely 
ordained counteracting power, which might indirectly 
infuse some sobering virtue into the wild fire of 
democratic individualism. Thus Plato. His great 
predecessor and prototype, Pythagoras, had ventured 
a step further, and took up an educational position in 
the old Greek aristocracies, meant to mould society 
directly, somewhat in the fashion that St. Columba, 
and his school of missionaries in Iona, acted upon 
the moral character of the age to which they belonged. 
On the other hand, though philosophers do not natur- 
ally assume the character of revolutionists, as the 
hatred of tyranny, or usurped authority, was one of the 
strongest feelings in every Greek breast, it could not 
be but that, as occasion offered, a wise man might 
now and then appear as an apostle of freedom, or 
what we call a liberal politician. This attitude of 
the Greek philosopher I have endeavoured to portray 
in the case of Empedocles. 

So much for the point of view from which this 
book was conceived, and from which it may be most 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. xvii 

profitably read. In so far as I may either have 
misconceived any important doctrine, or misstated 
any significant fact, I shall be happy to receive cor- 
rection from you, or any person who shares your 
good qualities ; and am, 

My dear Taylor, 

Ever yours, 

With sincere esteem, 

JOHN S. BLACKIE. 

Altnacraig, Oban, 
October 1877. 



PYTHAGORAS 



6 /3t'os av9punrois \oyi<j/j.ov Kapid/xov Setrat irdw' 
ZuipLev apidjJ.1^ Kai XoyicrfMi^ ' ravra yap awfci (3poTovs. 

Epichaemus. 



PYTHAGORAS. 

PERSONS. 
i. Pythagoras. 

2. Diagoras, High Priest of Jove in Metapontum. 

3. Milo, an Athlete of Crotona, disciple of Pythagoras. 

4. Chorus of Maidens. 

5. Chorus of Young Men. 

Scene. — Before the Temple of the Lacinian Hera, on the 
coast of the Hadriaiic, a few miles north of Crotona. Tlie body 
of the stage is occupied by groups of priests and their attendants, 
with sacrificial implements ; and a band of matrons. In the 
foreground a chorus of maidens ; behind, a chorus of young men. 

Chorus of Maidens. 

{Advancing, and forming themselves into a square, rank 
and file, in the front of the stage.] 

Strophe. 

Fell was the force of Titan times, 
When Kronos swayed the world with awe ; 
Ere Jove lent to the spheral chimes 
The sweet accords of ordered law. 

Red Heaven on reeking Earth made war, 
And hot fire strove with hissing water ; 
And life was discord, din, and jar, 
Of monstrous births that throve on slaughter. 



PYTHAGORAS. 

But when the lawless troop was bound 
'Neath sulphurous ^Etna's throne sublime, 
A kindlier dam the Father found 
To nurse the hopeful birth of Time. 

The ancient rule of Force and Fraud 
He scorned, and choosing for his mate 
Wise-counselling Metis, overawed 
The strife that rent Earth's crude estate. 



Antistrophe. 

Then to make fair reform more fair, 
A babe, with glory on its face, 
The mighty mother Rhea bare, 
Stamped by the Fates for queenly place. 

And gave it to the shining Hours, 
With fostering care to tend it well, 
And to the primal watery Powers 
Conveyed it, safe from harm to dwell, 

In ancient Ocean's sparry dome, — 

Laved by the stream of sleepless waters, 
Where hoary Tethys keeps her home 
With troops of twinkling-footed daughters. 

And there to maiden grace she grew, 
And there the fount beheld with awe 
Whence men, and all the Olympian crew, 
Their sacred sreneration draw. 



PYTHAGORAS. 



Epode. 



A woman now she stood, a wonder 
For stately tread, and blooming pride, 
And the strong launcher of the Thunder 
Claimed great-eyed Hera for his bride. 

Where Thornax on the Argive billow 
Looks down, and soft the cuckoo calls, 
There the Fates spread the bridal pillow 
That thrilled with hope the Olympian halls. 

And every god brought gifts of beauty, 
To her that slept great Jove beside, 
And ancient Earth did loyal duty 
With golden apples for the bride. 

And the soft couch was curtained grandly 
With clouds distilling nectarous dew, 
And child-eyed flowers looked forth more blandly, 
And the green blade more greenly grew, 

When Jove knew Hera's love ; and sweetly 
The Muses sound blithe Hymen's hymn ; 
While round the hill of cuckoos featly 
In tuneful dance the Graces swim. 

And thus new seeds of strength were sown 
For Him that wields the flashing levin ; 
Now firmly stablished stood his throne, 
And a new law from Fate was given, 



PYTHAGORAS. 

With bliss in store, 
That freed from bonds of force and fraud, 
By planful wisdom overawed, 
All men should crook the loyal knee, 
Thou thunder-belted king, to thee, 
And great-eyed Hera, Queen of heaven 
For evermore. 

\Diagoras advances \\ 
Diagoras. 

'Twas well enacted. I have seldom seen 

A seemlier pomp, and worthier of the gods ; 

And for the hymn, our Metapontine bard 

At the last great Diasia, for an ode 

As like to this as tin to silver, reaped 

A golden talent. Our light temple bards 

Will string a medley of Pelasgian myths, 

That have no more coherence than a heap 

Of coloured pebbles, spread out by the storm 

Upon a windward shore, and with big mouth 

Baptize it poetry ! Poets should be wise, 

Else with long arms they perch their gods on high 

For every fool to scoff at. These loose tales 

Some day will eat the heart from all respect, 

And leave our holiest shrines like painted toys 

For girls to play with. But who comes ? Ho, Milo ! 

[Enter Miloi\ 
Hail king of wrestlers ! on well-omened day 
Well-omened meeting ! 'tis some moons since last 



PYTHAGORAS. 7 

We met at Pisa, when the people hailed thee 
Live Hercules, for that your shoulders bore 
The heifer through the ring, which then for dinner 
You did digest entire ! 

Milo. 

A god-like meal ! 
I am right glad to see thee. Never yet 
Have I beheld Lacinian Hera's feast 
So well appointed. 

Diagoras. 
'Twas a four-square work : 
All parts did aptly fit, as to a ship 
Well-corded tackle when it takes the breeze. 

Milo. 
The praise is hers, the wise Theano, our 
New priestess, a disciple of Pythagoras. 

Diagoras. 
Pythagoras ? surely I have known that name, 
But not in western seas. 

Milo. 

He sojourns here 
Some twelve moons only. 

Diagoras. 

Travelled whence ? 

Milo. 

From Samos. 



PYTHAGORAS. 



DlAGORAS. 



I now remember ; once I heard the name 
At Heliopolis from a learned priest, 
Who said he was a subtle-thoughted man, 
And for all sleight of mathematic lore 
Named with the first on Nile. 

Milo. 

I marvel not ; 
He says that mathematic is the porch 
Through which our sense-bound groping intellect 
Into the temple of pure reason passes, 
Where sun-bright gods are throned. 'Tis strange 

to see 
How he will sit, and look, and brood, and think 
His soul out of itself into a square, 
Or circle, or triangle. In my school 
A young athlete once found him with fixed gaze 
Bent o'er the dust, where he had traced a web 
Of inter-crossing figures ; there he sat, 
Motionless as a sphynx in Memphian sands, 
Or Niobe on Sipylus ; when, behold ! 
Even as a flash from thunder-pregnant cloud, 
Sudden he starts, and like an uncaged bird 
That flaps free wings, and shrills with ecstasy, 
He cried — si)g»jxa — I have found it ! 

DlAGORAS. 

Well, 
What did he find ? 



PYTHAGORAS. 9 

Milo. 

I know not, nor have wit 
For such strange ken. Some quaint equality 
Of squares with squares, built on contrarious sides 
Of a right-angled triangle ; but he said 
To me one day that by this measure he 
Would gauge deep hell, and take the girth of 
heaven. 

Diagoras. 
These mathematic men have thoughts that march 
From sphere to sphere, and measure out the blue 
Of infinite space like roods of garden ground, 
And talk of suns and stars, as they were lights 
From reef to reef in some well-sounded sea ; 
But say, how do Crotona's sons affect 
The Samian sage ? 

Milo. 

As tides affect the moon, 
Gay flowers the sun, or fish the wavy pool ; 
They hold him of their very blood, who changed — 
For that he knew our nobler nature — soft 
Silk-vested Lydia — we interpret thus — 
For our plain Doric use and hardiment 
Of manly breeding. There be evil women 
Who kill with glances ; but this godlike man 
Bears blessing in his look, and all who see 
Drink gladness. Like the strength of some blue 

mount 
Swathed in the smiles of bright-eyed spring, he 

stands, 



io PYTHAGORAS. 

Reaping both love and worship. Old and young 

By cheerful magic of wise words he draws, 

As Orpheus drew the beasts : nay, even women 

He rings about him, eloquent to preach 

Philosophy from spindles : everywhere 

Love, awed by wonder, like a faithful page, 

Follows his favoured footing where he goes. 

Diagoras. 
Who were his parents ? 

MlLO. 

Thereby hangs a doubt. 
Some say his sire was of Tyrrhenian stock, 
To Lemnos first, and thence to Samos driven ; 
Some vaunt him fathered by Apollo ; some 
Deem him Apollo's self; and some declare 
He is nor man nor god, but god and man, 
Aptly confounded for our double need ; 
God for the strength that our ambition claims, 
Man for the pity that our frailty craves : 
Howbeit the air is rife with buzzing bruits 
Of marvel since he came, so vouched that he 
Must smother hearing who would bar belief. 
'Tis voiced abroad that when he passed the stream 
That flows by Sybaris, the floods did lift 
Their crests with — Hail, Pythagoras ! And some 
Do swear that on the selfsame day and hour 
At Metapontum and Crotona, he 
Was seen, two selves, as men report twin suns 
Sometimes to sail the welkin. All believe 



PYTHAGORAS. n 

He hath a golden thigh ; and many tales 

Are told of his mysterious communings 

"With Abaris, an Hyperborean priest, 

Who from the frosted Caucasus to Greece 

Posted through air upon a golden arrow. 

The wild barbarian and the savage beast 

His mild word tames. An unkempt Getan youth, 

Zamolxis hight, born in a bearskin coat, 

He took and taught, and sent with wisdom's claim 

To smooth the rude rough-mannered shaggy kerns 

That roam on Ister's banks. Nay, even they tell, 

A Daunian bear, caught in a hut, he tamed, 

Fed it with cakes and acorns, and adjured 

To lick sweet blood no more. But most they praise 

How, when he preached in the Trincacrian land, 

Of righteousness and temperance and truth, 

The blood-daubed tyrant of Centauripi, 

Pricked in his heart, and plucking out his lusts, 

Flung down his sceptre, and his broad domain 

Gave free to public use. 

Diagoras. 

'Tis wondrous strange ! 
Full surely he is wise above the mark 
Of wisest men, and by some mystic bond 
Holds subject Nature tutored to his will. 
But how stands he affected to the gods ? 

Milo. 

As sons to sires whom sires delight to own. 
There is no Greek from Padus to Pachynus 



12 PYTHAGORAS. 

More strict in all religious exercise 

That sacred right or use of country claims. 

Diagoras. 

I'm very glad on't ; for 'tis sad, but true, 
These wise men are not always wise to know 
The gods, true wisdom's root. All Italy tells 
How Pherecydes mocked the Olympian Powers, 
Boasting, albeit no altar ever knew 
Or cake from him, or savoury thigh, his life 
Flowed in a stream of fair prosperity, 
As smooth as theirs who vowed their hecatombs ; 
For which bold blasphemy the Delian god 
Scourged him with loathsome foul disease, that all 
His festering flesh with live corruption swarmed, 
And crept into putrescence. 

MlLO. 

'Tis a tale 
Far voiced through all the isles ; but Pherecydes, 
Pythagoras says, was a god-fearing man. 

Diagoras. 
Grant it be so ! but where the rings are spread, 
A stone fell in the water ; rumour swells 
In multiplied additions as it rolls, 
In circles ever larger with more lies, 
But not from nothing. 

Milo. 
Rumour hath not yet dared 
To fling a shade athwart the pious fame 



PYTHAGORAS. 13 

Of pure Pythagoras, who from fount divine 

All truth and goodness draws j whose virgin soul 

Such breath of chastest reverence breathes, that not, 

Like others, in light-thoughted talk he names 

The names of gods ; but with well pondered phrase, 

In solemn protestation only, swears ; 

A word, he says, is short and quick, but works 

A long result ; therefore look well to words, 

And ever swear with prayer upon your lips. 

Diagoras. 

'Tis a most holy man ; hath he then many 
Disciples in Crotona? 

Milo. 
They are counted 
Now not by tens or hundreds ; but not all 
Are sworn in bonds of secret brotherhood. 

Diagoras. 
What ? brotherhoods ? and sworn ? at Metapontum 
Our archons with a wary eye will watch 
Such secret gatherings, where, as in a nest, 
Ill-will is fostered, discontent enhanced, 
Wild plans of crude ambition hatched, and schemes 
Of deep-designing counsel laid, that breed 
A state within a state. 

Milo. 

Of this you need 
Fear nothing from Pythagoras \ our guilds 



14 PYTHAGORAS. 

Are peaceful, loyal, reverent, and pure 
From fretful taint of sour democracy. 

Diagoras. 
What is their scope, their rule, their discipline ? 

Milo. 

Tis simply said : He is the supreme head, 

And chooses whom he tries, and tries by test 

Of eye, that in the outward feature reads 

The inner soul. He hath a wondrous gift 

To know a true man by the brotherhood 

Of truth, which breathes in all who love the truth ; 

And having proved their will, capacity, 

Courage, and single aim, he leads them through 

The fruitful silence of a five years' school 

Of pondered preparation, for a life 

Of reasoned usefulness, remote from strife 

Of hot ambition, and the hunt for gold ; 

And having trained their minds by thought, their 

wills 
By wise subjection to superior will, 
He makes them grow in course of kindly acts 
Like very brothers, owning him the head 
Of their large family. With their common goods 
They help each other ; and what human woe 
May cry for help, needs but the name of man 
To stir the eager promptings of their heart, 
And arm their hand with liberal grace to reach 
Each poor unfriended sufferer, who receives 
Unhired the loyal service of their love. 



PYTHAGORAS. 15 

DlAGORAS. 

How many be there of this conclave sworn 
Here in Crotona? 

Milo. 

Some three hundred ; but 
Four years of their probation still remain. 

DlAGORAS. 

Are women of them ? 

Milo. 
Certes ; for he says, 
Use not a suppliant or a woman harshly, 
Both come from Jove, and wisdom hath no sex. 

DlAGORAS. 

He speaketh well. In Athens men do use 
Women to breed their brats, and spread their 

boards, 
The slaves, and not the fellows, of their lords. 

Milo. 
Our Samian hath a just and gentle soul 
That hates all masterdom, usurped beyond 
The use of nature and the need of life ; 
Not women only, — inarticulate brutes, 
And the mute denizens of the brackish pools, 
Have claimed his care. I guess your worship 

knows 
The famous marketing he made last week 
With the fishermen at Sybaris ? 



16 PYTHAGORAS. 

DlAGORAS. 

In faith not I. 
I have been some weeks absent at the feast 
Of Atabyrian Jove in Agrigentum ; 
And as a waxen tablet, smooth, un scratched, 
My mind lies blank to write your tale upon. 

Milo. 

Well, thus it was. He sauntered on the beach 

This side of Sybaris, where some fishermen 

With sweatful strain were pulling in their nets, 

And says to them, — " A goodly draught ye draw, 

Brave fellows, here ; and in my mind I know 

The exact tale that your stout net involves." 

They laughed, and said, — " Ha ! if you are a wizard, 

And prove your vaunt, we'll do what thing you bid 

Within our human reach." The net was drawn, 

And all the fish were counted on the beach ; 

Ten score and ten, precise, as he foretold. 

Then as they marvelling stood, he bade them fling 

The finny gaspers back into the brine 

Wholesale ; which, when they did, each- bright-scaled 

thing 
Paddled alert into the wrinkled pool, 
No whit the worse ; whereat the sage took forth 
Two golden Darics from his belt, and said, 
" Here's payment for your draught : I well have 

gained 
My wager, and the fishes gain their lives." 
Wherewith he left them ; and the story ran 



PYTHAGORAS. 17 

Through all Crotona, as from glen to glen 
The travelling thunder rolls. 

Diagoras. 

Does this tale 
Deserve our sober credence ? 

Milo. 

Who were there 
Can answer that ; myself can only say 
He hath a marvellous gift of casting count, 
That overleaps the function of our wit 
By Nature's common grant ; and, for his love 
To fish and every breathing form that moves 
It is a prime point in his discipline 
To touch the life of things with holy fear, 
Which some do hold so nicely that they brook 
No flesh for food, and do repair their bloods 
With innocent herbs, sweet milk, and barley cakes. 

Diagoras. 

In Egypt there are sacred beasts that live 
More honoured than the king ; and I have heard 
On Ganga's banks the twice-born priests withdraw 
Their lips from blood, for subtle reasons laid 
In their theology. 

Milo. 

I have heard it said 
That in his youth he travelled far beyond 
High-cedared Lebanon, and the pastoral bounds 



18 PYTHAGORAS. 

Of the men-hating Hebrews, to the banks 
Of Indus and Hydaspes, gathering there 
Deep-thoughted dogmas, about march of souls 
Through masks of changeful bodies. 



Diagoras. 

Even so ; 
And 'tis most likely that he spares the brutes, 
Fearing to harm some soul of kindred man 
That walks in bestial tenement encased, 
For castigation of some bestial sin 
That shamed his human form, 

Milo. 

'Tis very like ; 
And in the common parley of the town 
Himself hath memory of precedent states 
In which he walked the earth : some say he was 
Euphorbus, son of Panthous, whose sharp spear 
Wounded Patroclus on red Ilium's plain ; 
Since when through various shapes of men he 

passed 
By steps of just ascension, till he scaled 
The top of virtue, and now lives a sage. 
But these are matters which his wisdom shuns 
To fling upon the glass of common minds, 
Prone still to mar the image they reflect ; 
All things to all men only fools will tell, 
Truth profits none but those who use it well ; 
So I have heard him oft. 



PYTHAGORAS. 19 

DlAGORAS. 

What man is that 
With long white robe, and white-dependent beard, 
Who with serene and sober gravity 
Winds round the rock 1 

Milo. 

Where mean you? 

DlAGORAS. 

Here below. 
Milo. 



It is himself. 



DlAGORAS. 

What self? — Pythagoras? 



Milo. 
Most surely : up the swallow rock he climbs, 
And will be here anon. 

DlAGORAS. 

He comes this way. 

Milo. 
Jove speed the chance ! now bring your questioning 
Before the oracle ; henceforth I am dumb. 

[Enter Pythagoras from Mow.] 
Pythagoras. 
How art thou, Milo ? Would I were as strong 
In all the strength that makes a man a man 
As Milo is in muscle ! 



20 PYTHAGORAS. 

Milo. 

Were I as strong 
In all the strength that makes a wise man wise 
As now to sinewy grasp and litheness bred, 
I'd be more wise than wise Pythagoras. 

Pythagoras. 
Jove give you grace for many years to live 
The Hercules of Crotona, more to earth 
Than he in heaven to heaven ! but who's your 
friend ? 

Milo. 
A worthy man, high honoured priest of Jove, 
From Metapontum come to grace the feast 
Of the Lacinian Hera, sister spouse 
To the great god he serves. 

Pythagoras. 

Hail, honoured sir ! 

Diagoras. 
Mine eyes are blest to-day, beholding what, 
From the vague witness of the ear, I knew 
At priestly Memphis. 

Pythagoras. 

Wert thou in Egypt ? 

Diagoras. 
The strong desire of wisdom stayed me there 
Two years in converse with the learned priests. 



PYTHAGORAS. 21 

Pythagoras. 
Would that all Greeks were with your wisdom wise 
To learn before they teach ! we are the growth 
Of yesterday, and in our green conceit 
Deem that, unfathered by an older race, 
We from our native Argive glebe upshot 
And blossomed into virtue from a seed, 
Self-sown, self-watered ! but where sacred Nile 
Pours his salubrious flood through fields that heave 
With rich vivific slime, old Wisdom sits 
On hoary throne, and peers serenely great 
Above us pigmies, as a glittering-crowned 
Star-neighbouring peak o'erlooks the undulant 

downs 
That edge the coast with greenness. To be wise 
Greece first should know her ignorance. 

Diagoras. 

" We Greeks 

Are always children ;" so the high priest said 

To me at Heliopolis ; and the word 

Came like a goad, and like a nail remains. 

Pythagoras. 

No word is worth that not in goadwise comes 
And pricks to action ; men there be that make 
Parade of fluency, and deftly play 
With points of speech as jugglers toss their balls ; 
A tinkling crew, from whose light-squandered wit 
No seed of virtue stows. 



22 PYTHAGORAS. 

DlAGORAS. 

When I was young 
Such talkers tickled me ; then all my soul 
Lodged in mine ear, and facile fancy fed 
On twinkling tropes : now, wary-wise, I learn 
From no man who makes market of his wit, 
But from the tree that in ripe season drops 
The fruit of long years of unvaunted growth 
I gather wisdom ; and in chief from thee, 
Whose school of virtue is Crotona's crown, 
Would gladly glean what truth thy ken may deem 
Meet for my learning. 

Pythagoras. 

We have a sentence famous in our school — 
" Wear not the types of gods iipon your ring." 

DlAGORAS. 

A pictured parable, and meaning ? 

Pythagoras. 

This, 
Show not to all men always all the things 
Most worth the showing. 

DlAGORAS. 

And the application ? 

Pythagoras. 

This simply — to the vulgar class with whom 
Raw sense usurps ripe reason's seat we teach 



PYTHAGORAS. 23 

Nothing ; but on the unfilmed eye we pour 
Intelligential light ; and to Jove's priest, 
Who from the supreme wisdom wisdom draws, 
Unsworn, unpledged, Pythagoras may unveil 
The golden best of all Pythagoras knows. 

Diagoras. 
Jove make me worthy of your trust ! even now 
I talked with Milo of your doctrine pure 
And discipline severe, and inly long 
From your own lips to imbibe the sage discourse, 
As he who scents a fragrant fruit desires 
To sip its sweetness. 

Pythagoras. 

What I can I will 
Give to your questioning ; but I make no boast 
Of novel dogmas ; I have never forged 
Private conceits, nor hugged, for they were mine, 
The pretty pets, the bantlings of my brain. 
Old truth I preach, from sempiternal source 
Of primal inspiration, owned by men 
When men lived near the gods ; if I am wise, 
I know whence wisdom flows ; the biggest stream 
Is but the small fed by the small, and all 
By Jove's pure wells were fathered in the sky. 

Diagoras. 
The wise man of Miletus thus declared 
The first of things is water ; I would know 
If he spake well in this. 



24 PYTHAGORAS. 

Pythagoras. 

Well : but before 
His first of causes a diviner first 
Gave law to wet and dry, and hot and cold. 

Diagoras. 
What first was that ? 

Pythagoras. 

Number. 

Diagoras. 
How mean you this ? 

Pythagoras. 

Hear, and digest : this single word unlocks 

The riddle of the world. The world is order ; 

Order is numbered multitude, marshalled well 

In calculated spaces. See this flower 

That spreads its starry coronet to the sun, 

Beautiful, golden, in the dainty trim 

Of its bright circlet, and the delicate green 

Embracement of the cup that bears the crown ; 

Each part is numbered, every leaflet cut 

With living arithmetic, nice and true, 

That shames all skill of craftsman. Count the parts. 

Diagoras. 

Five golden segments in the crown, and ten 
Green leaflets in the cup, five large, five small, 
With cunning alternation finely set. 



PYTHAGORAS. 25 

Pythagoras. 
Count now the stamens that like satellites 
Keep circular guard around the central germ. 

Diagoras. 
I've told them twice : I think they number ten. 

Pythagoras. 
So right ; and thus the number of the plant 
Is ten, what else were lawless huddlement, 
Chaotic, rude, unknown, unknowable ; 
But by the sacred limit of the ten 
Now from the waste infinitude redeemed 
Into chaste order's ranks, and disciplined 
Into the file of beauty. 

Milo. 

I see this now 
For the first time ; what published fools we are, 
Looking with open eyes on miracles 
From day to day — beneath — above — around, 
And seeing — nothing ! 

Pythagoras. 

If but Athena's grace 
Would salve our eyes, we'd see a host of gods 
In every tumult working to a plan. 

Diagoras. 
I've heard it said that 'neath the stony ribs 
Of inorganic rocks there dwells a power 



26 PYTHAGORAS. 

That moulds the obdurate atoms of the flint 
Into fine angles, measured most exact 
By mathematic rule. 

Pythagoras. 

And I have walked 
In lands where hills in measured platforms rose 
Tier upon tier, and every tier was built 
Of jointed blocks that fitted each to each 
With nice compagination, like the bars 
Welded in Vulcan's stithy ; thou canst find 
Nowhere in Nature where not number reigns. 

Diagoras. 

When the birds sing in spring, and zephyrs shake 
The leafy grove, the rush of warbled sounds 
That thrills the bosom of the fragrant air 
With the wild gladness of new procreant life, 
Seems a most sweet confusion. 

Pythagoras. 

Least of all 
In sounds confusion reigns ; and melody, 
Without nice number fitting note to note, 
Would shriek like tempest in the tortured ear, 
And rend all hearing with discordant bray. 

Diagoras. 
How know you this? What man that measures fields 
With chain and rod and mathematic law, 
Can tell the inches of the cuckoo's note ? 



PYTHAGORAS. 27 

Pythagoras. 
The cuckoo's note is a most cunning lute, 
And lutes have numbered strings, and oaten pipes 
Have numbered stops. Come thou to me to-morrow 
In the cool plane-tree walk behind the school, 
And I will show thee how the self-same string 
With nicely varied tension gently glides 
From wave to wave concordant, though the whole 
Sweet sequence of brave harmonies that wake 
The chambered ear to rapture ; break the law 
Of numbered intervals that links the chain 
Of just vibrations, and the clashing sounds 
With grating din will saw the shrinking ear 
Of him that heard in rooted ecstasy, 
Till he pray Jove for deafness ! 

Diagoras. 

Tis most strange ! 
But certes some things be that scorn control 
And wanton in confusion. Who hath measured 
The cloud, the storm-wind, and the waterfall ? 

Pythagoras. 
God measures all things ; is himself the measure 
Of all that is, hath been, or yet may be. 
The headlong waterfall that o'er the cliff 
Flings its full-breasted force, and fiercely smites 
The grey rocks with its sweeping scourge, and in 
The deep brown granite cauldron boils below, 
With sleepless whirling eddies, and white foam 
Of bubbles bursting still, and still to burst — 



28 PYTHAGORAS. 

This water hath a number, every drop 
Atom to atom joined by certain law, 
Nice as the notes of melody adjured 
From strings by harper's magic. Take that crust 
Of curled black lichen creeping o'er the face 
Of the red rock ; thou see'st no order there ; 
But if some god might point thine eye more keen 
To see what now its grosser view ignores, 
And thou mightst dive into its heart, and probe 
The pulsing alleys of its tissued life, 
Then wouldst thou find with fine ecstatic ken 
A mustered and a marshalled beauty there, 
As perfect as the ordered strategy 
Of that proud Memphian conqueror who mapped 
The world with battle-fields, and played with lives 
As children play with bowls, and made all lands 
The chess-board of his vast imperial scheme. 
His movements, as they hurried to and fro 
Freighted with death, seemed lawless as the rush 
Of savage beasts unkennelled ; but full well 
He knew the portioned number of his host ; 
And with one glance from him, they from afar 
Gathered the sundered looseness of their ranks, 
And with concentric curious-counted speed 
Bore on the station marked for doom, and burst 
In calculated thunder. Dost thou see 
This small brown hillock ? 

Diagoras. 

Yes ; it is an ant-hill. 



PYTHAGORAS. 29 

Milo. 
How deftly they drive on, and whirl about, 
Some here, some there, o'er one another's heads ! 
And some creep into holes, and some creep out, 
And some with straws are galloping, and some 
With little sticks are hobbling, and some push 
A small white roll upon their tiny snouts ; 
Incalculable maze ! I marvel much 
If evermore they make this motley stir ; 
Their reeling makes me dizzy, as the light 
Far shimmering o'er the million-pointed wave 
Palsies the eye. 

Pythagoras. 

The palsied eye proclaims 
His own defect ; and weak nerves are confounded 
Where no confusion is. 

Diagoras. 

Is there none here ? 

Pythagoras. 
More order than in your weak brain or mine, 
Or any brain that harbours human thoughts. 
Not less than Memphian pontiffs, nicely trained 
To measure the long-centuried march of stars, 
Instinct with mathematic skill from Jove, 
These puny craftsmen know what number means. 

Diagoras. 
Have they a plan ? 



30 PYTHAGORAS. 

Pythagoras. 

Doubt not ; as much as he 
Who piled the numbered legions of the bricks 
Into the pyramids that sentinel 
The seven-mouth'd Nile. 

Diagoras. 

'Tis wondrous strange. 

Pythagoras. 

Far stranger, if thou knew 
The hot heart of that sphered metropolis, 
Whereof thou now but seest the outer ports, 
And a few hundred peaceful citizens 
By our ungracious intrusion frayed. 
Not Babylon the mighty, nor the pomp 
Of hundred-gated, many-templed Thebes, 
Hath streets more orderly. Every lane, I wot, 
Is numbered here, and every crossway swept. 
This busy people, as their skill may be, 
Hath each his portioned task; some delve and 

burrow, 
And carve huge tunnels where a passage fails, 
And span the void with arches, and some scoop 
A drain for water, whose untimely swell 
Might flood the colony ; some are sent abroad 
To cater stores for winter ; and some pile 
The newly plundered grain. Some run, some wait, 
Some sweat and serve, some hold a high command, 
But each a needful work fulfils, and all 
By mystic number's harmony combine 
The swarming units to a jointed whole. 



PYTHAGORAS. 31 

Milo. 
And in my garden I have marked the bees, 
Most cunning engineers, and ordered well. 

Pythagoras. 
All things are full of cunning ; even fools 
Have wisdom for their need ; and multitude 
By number grouped, and by discretion used 
Is power. Hold thou this faith with grappling- 

hooks, 
All things in the vast world are done by law, 
And law is number, and all numbers are 
The thoughts of gods that from deep counsel take 
Significant masks to play their pictured parts 
Upon the stage of being. Every grain 
Of the ribb'd sand is numbered, every whiff 
Of every breeze, all fleecy mists that fleck 
The blue concave, all bubbles of the brine, 
All flies that swarm from hot-fermenting beds 
In sweltering summer, every seed that floats 
On plumy vans into the bosomed earth ; 
All sounds of earth and sky, the chirp of birds, 
The roar of lions, and the lisp of babes, 
The pealing thunder, and the tinkling rill, 
The trumpet-tongued exploits of dinful Avar, 
And the low syllabled breath of fearful prayer, 
God speaks their mystic number, and they are. 

Diagoras. 
At Heliopolis an aged priest, 
White with the ripe repose of well-spent years, 



32 PYTHAGORAS. 

Oft times at set of sun discoursed to me 
Of special virtue in the ordered tale 
Of every number, and above the rest 
With eloquent loving preference he praised 
The sacred trine. 

Pythagoras. 

Wisely the wise man spake. 
There is no number of rare quality 
Like three ; it is the strong and plastic bond 
That bridges two extremes, and nicely shapes 
From three a unity, a whole that meets 
The claim of reason and the plan of Jove. 
For Jove is one ; and, when two stand apart 
Without a third to link them, unity 
Is lost, and God divided from Himself. 
Thus earth and fire, the heavy and the light, 
Are bound together by the graded kinds 
Of air and water ; as to fire the air, 
So to the air the water ; and as air 
To water, so is water to gross earth 
By just degrees of apt proportion tuned ; 
And thus by process of well-blended threes, 
And linked gradations cunningly combined, 
The sundered many to their primal type 
Slide kindly back, and the great world is one. 

Milo. 
And therefore three libations at a feast 
Give perfect thanks ; and in wise Homer's song 
By three great deities each hero swears, 
Dark-clouded Jove, Athena, and Apollo. 



PYTHAGORAS. 33 

DlAGORAS. 

Oft times in pictured Memphian fanes I saw 
Three seated gods one common altar grace ; 
And the priest said an old thrice-sacred law 
Forbade their sundering. 

Pythagoras. 

Something more than law, 
Nature and the necessity of things 
Demand the three. On Ganga's sacred banks 
The gymnosophists to a triform God 
Pray wisely. Three in one, and one in Three, 
Strong to create, to save, and to destroy 
Eternal Trine of functions that must be, 
While the Unlimited and Absolute walks 
Self-bounded into Finitude. They are fools 
Who deem that aught in holy creed revered 
Stands by a law which he who made can mar ; 
Jove may not will to do what if he willed 
He were not Jove ; a trinity in God 
Egypt and Greece, and Ganga's sons adore 
By the essential virtue of the Trine ; 
Even as in man, in whom a god doth dwell, 
Between the naked Thought and harnessed Deed, 
To bridge the gap the spoken Word appears, 
And through the word full-panoplied the Thought 
Goes conquering forth in stable act complete ; 
And thought and deed by word are unified, 
Being three into one energizing whole, 
A trinity in unity of powers 
That makes a man a man, the world a world. 

D 



34 PYTHAGORAS. 

DlAGORAS. 

Thou hast unveiled my sight ; and now I see 
Where I saw nought, the office of the Three ; 
"And I remember Asclepiades 
The wise old leech in Metapontum, skilled 
In all the virtues of all herbs that grow, 
Said that Demeter gives the nurturing wheat 
Fruited from flowers whose number is the three. 

Pythagoras. 

That any child may learn who in the spring 
Looks in the bloom that shoots out from the sheath 
By summer's heat unhardened. There you count 
Three threads erect, that stand with yellow caps 
Like sentinels around the chambered cell, 
Where swells the foodful grain. 

DlAGORAS. 

How wonderful ! 
Pythagoras. 

All things are wonderful ; who wonders not, 
Hath eyes and sees not ; wonder is the key 
Of knowledge and of worship to the wise ; 
And if there be who with unloving hands 
Push the rich loveliness of things aside, 
Nor bend the knee before the shaping Power 
That works in blazing star, and breathing dust, 
Poor frosty souls ! if I could strain cold ice 
To my warm bosom, I could live with them 
In bonds of love ; but let them live alone, 



PYTHAGORAS. 35 

Knowing that nought is worthy to be known, 
Nourished by heartless sneers and hollow jests 
And worshipping — if worship be for them — 
Their little selves ! f 

Diagoras. 

Would God that all 
Our priests in Metapontum with like phrase, 
Seasoned their chanted liturgies ; but now 
They turn the crazy mill-wheel of old rites 
With plashing driblets, and rehearse their store 
Of monstered legends to a gaping throng, 
Which makes the prudent scoff; and much I fear, 
Lest with the rank offence of sleepy prayers 
And fables moulded when the baby-world 
Lay cradled in light dreams, fair Greece be turned 
From faith, and live divorced from holy fear 
That links men with the gods. Ourselves have 

taught 
The babbling sophist to bemock the gods ; 
Ourselves, who shame divinity with tales 
That make chaste maidens blush ; and now our youth 
Are trained to slight our worship, and to serve 
The gods with sham lip-mumbled prayers, of which 
The heart knoAvs nothing. Oft times I have wept 
With tears that no man sees, and I make moans 
With moans that no man hears, when I revolve, 
How, if this rank-sown sceptic seed shall shoot 
To natural topping, our fair host of gods 
That makes a world a garden good for men, 
Well watered and well sunned, shall, by the frost 



36 PYTHAGORAS. 

Of pert-mouthed witlings blasted, shrink and droop, 
And blacken into dust, trod under foot 
Of aweless men, who in the sun delight 
To spy black spots, and make most holy things 
A theme for laughter, and a text for sneers. 
Of powers they talk, and forces, vortices, 
Figures, and spaces, fulness and a void, 
Attractions and repulsions, atoms wed 
Blindly to atoms, and all blindly borne 
Through blank infinitude with fortuitous reel, 
Till with a random bump they meet, and from 
Their chaos strike out order ; this they teach, 
And this they vend for wisdom ; but of Jove 
They speak not, by whose counsel all things stand, 
Dread thunder-launching lord ; nor of his spouse, 
The great-eyed Hera, matronly and proud ; 
Nor of Apollo with his blazing darts 
Chasing god-hated darkness from the sky ; 
Nor of the flashing-eyed Athena, wise 
To purchase peace by prompt display of war. 
All this must perish, if dear Greece shall stint 
Her lovely faith, and barrenly increase 
Mere itch of knowledge, leaving to lean eyes, 
For the bright smile that warms the face o' the 

world, 
A bald, disgodded, lightless, loveless grey ! 

Pythagoras. 

Fear not ; the faith that in the hearts of men 
Lives now shall live for ever. The Jove that reigns 
To-day, eternal as the stable skies 



PYTHAGORAS. 37 

Whose power he wields, sits on unshaken throne. 
All things are full of change ; but all the change 
Is the new mask of him that changeth never ; 
If Zeus might cease to reign, another name 
Shall launch the thunderbolt and wheel the spheres ; 
Greek or Barbarian, Jove shall still be Jove, 
Voiced with Hellenic or Phoenician breath, 
His fateful essence with impartial glance 
Shoots through the shifting shibboleths of creeds 
With multiform acknowledgment, yet one Power, 
Who by the heart, not by the tongue, discerns 
His worshippers ; names are but minted signs 
For needful currency, the thing behind 
By thousand symbols symbolled is but one. 
Zeus recks not what we call him, how men may 
With hoar traditional pomp of customed style, 
Parade him for their reverence ; he is pleased 
With the best form that suits each suppliant's need, 
And owns alike the wise man's reasoned hymn, 
And the rude savage with his mumbled charm 
And neck-strung amulet. And for the tales 
That bards with fancy's airy tissue weave, 
When men have ceased to hear them and believe, 
Jove is well pleased that Time shall ring their knell. 

Diagoras. 

Grant it be so : yet must I fear the hand 
That plucks a flower from a well-woven wreath ; 
A drunken Hercules may pull down a house 
That long shall wait the master-builder's craft 
To set its shaken joints. Jove sits secure 



38 PYTHAGORAS. 

In heaven, you say ; 'tis well ; meanwhile below 

We rock on seas of doubt, and see old thrones 

Start from their roots, by sharp earth-shaking throes 

Of fearful change. And if the grey report 

Of ancient piety shield our shrines from touch 

Of shameless force, and awful reverence shun 

To rend the sacred vest that robes a god, 

Not shielded by such fear, our archons sit 

On the high bench of state. I long have marked 

How in this land the bonds of old respect 

Are snapt ; and now a green unseasoned brood, 

Blown with the bubbling yeast of yesterday, 

And spreading broad their fans of mushroom wealth, 

Spurn the conditions of their birth, and stretch 

Unlicensed hands to snatch the ancestral mace 

From ancient honour's gripe. Fair order thus 

Is marred in States ; old dignity departs ; 

The due gradations of just rank and place 

Are levelled ; no man owes respect to man ; 

And each man seizes what he knows to hold 

By right of might and sleight of juggling phrase; 

For all are free they say, and equal all, 

And one as good as t'other. 

Pythagoras. 

I have known 
Enough of men and their unreasoned ways 
To deem your fears not causeless. Liberty 
Is a strong wine all men would gladly quaff, 
But few quaff wisely ; 'tis a gallant ship, 
That with full-bellied sail spread to the breeze, 



PYTHAGORAS. 39 

Needs weightier ballast and a wiser helm. 
Men are like school-boys wishing to be free 
From masters whom, to learn, they must obey ; 
The boys are stupid, foolish, what you will, 
And still will wish the thing that hurts them still ; 
But this remember, if the master be 
False to his function, and unlearned to spell, 
No one will blame the boys if they rebel. 
Take hence your lesson ; you by old descent 
The natural heads and helmsmen of the State 
Are lawful masters of the school, and sit 
On thrones of order ; if you order well 
Your States are happy, and your seats are sure ; 
Men hate control ; but for the fear of worse 
They live content when they are well controlled. 
The reins are yours ; and, if some colt shall kick, 
Use well the lash, and Jove will help the strong ; 
But if you live self-pleasers, being perched 
On thrones of honour for the general weal, 
And use the people but as sheep to shear 
That you may sit in woolly coats, while they 
Stand shivering in the blast, then righteous Jove 
Will send twin scourges to chastise your sins, 
The democrat and despot, this of that 
The lawful offspring, both of liberty 
The natural growth, where pampered privilege 
Rules for itself, and to its work untrue, 
Neglects the many and corrupts the few. 

Diagoras. 
Wisely you speak : ourselves the vipers breed 
That bite us ; insolence in the few begets 



4 o PYTHAGORAS. 

Hate in the many ; hatred breeds revolt ; 
Revolt, where all are free to rise and rule, 
Breeds anarchy, whose wild chaotic reign 
Calls in the despot with strong will to keep 
Sharp knives from maddened hands ; and thus we 

reel 
From vassalage to vassalage, through fits 
Of drunken freedom, — glorious for an hour ! 

Pythagoras. 

We are but children practising to walk, 
Still, stumbling, still to tempt our feet again. 
The gods are patient ; time is long ; and change 
Treads on the steps of change, till men shall learn 
From mighty heads discrowned and trampled 

thrones, 
That Wisdom only reigns by right divine, 
And where the wise rule, and the fools obey 
Not force, but aptly-balanced forces sway ; 
And for this end in our sworn brotherhood 
We work here in Crotona, training each, 
By course of wise obedience disciplined, 
To know his betters, and to own their rule ; 
Thus each for each, and all for all are trained, 
As in the high-wrought quaintly builded ode 
Note answers note, and verse to verse responds. 

Milo. 

Our Greekish ears, I fear, shall sooner hear 
The spheral chimes than win this harmony 
From the harsh bray of democratic brawls. 



PYTHAGORAS. 41 

Pythagoras. 

Milo, all growth is slow ; but Jove hath made 
The blustering March to pledge the blooming May ; 
The seasons come ; we cannot spur their coming. 
And if the Greeks, in wisdom's work the first, 
Should lag in polity behind the march 
Of some barbarian tanling, cradled now 
Behind the Oscan hills, 'tis but a page 
In the great lesson-book of Time, — a word 
The stammering school-boy cannot spell to-day, 
But some day will, when moons that grow from 

moons 
Bring sweet from sour, and ripeness from the 

crude. 
The gods give leash enough for human fools 
To follow fools, and loss to breed more loss, 
Till men by blunder upon blunder piled 
Shall choose to cease from faith in multitudes, 
Who, weighing wisdom by their blustering breaths, 
Fling in the air their smutty caps, and cry 
Huzza, to every flatterer ! The crude world 
Takes centuries to learn one mellow truth. 

Diagoras. 

And I in this short hour have learned enough 
To last me for a life. What sound was that ? 

Milo. 

It is the chorus of young men which rounds 
This festive day with melody. Stand we aside, 



42 PYTHAGORAS. 

While they shall mass their files. You will admire 
Theano's skill, as you admired before ; 
The youths were trained by her ; the verses drew 
Their numbers from her fine harmonious soul. 

The chorus of Young Men advances on the platform before the 
temple, and disposing themselves as in the opening chorus of 
Maidens, sing as folloius : — 

STROPHE. 

When man first rose from teeming ground 
A rude unfinished thing was he, 
And looked with blank amaze around 
On the strange sky, and land, and sea. 

Whether from Egypt's genial mud 
When earth was young he crawled to view, 
Or Argive Inachus' sacred flood 
The big untutored baby knew. 

Naked he stood ; to veil his shame 
No curious-tissued rag he wore ; 
No edged tool he knew to frame, 
Or sheltering roof, or barring door. 

But in the self-built cavern rude 
His lazy length on stony bed 
He stretched supine, and all his food 
Was mountain berries black and red. 

The horn'd and talon'd brood he feared, 
The nightly wolves that howl and roam ; 



PYTHAGORAS. 43 

And when the snake his crest upreared, 
He slunk into his craven home. 

A helpless, shiftless, aimless thing, 
With weak, unpractised, blundering brain ; 
In woods he owned the lion king, 
And the wild bull upon the plain. 

ANT1STROPHE. 

But when his brain to firmness grew, 
And Thought his manly stature gained, 
The wildered world its master knew, 
Force bowed the neck, and Reason reigned. 

The sturdy ox, the snorting steed, 
The light-heeled, the slow-gaited brute 
He caught, and trained to serve his need 
With lustier loins or fleeter foot. 

The pointed flint he made his tool, 
His sceptre was the bleached bone ; 
The splintered oak, the twisted wool, 
The cleaved slate his service own. 

From sifted sand the twinkling ore 
He drew ; with nicely sundering sleight 
Black iron's adamantine store 
He charmed from stone to arm his might. 

And where he came with skilful plan 
And reason's mild subduing law, 



44 PYTHAGORAS. 

The dwindled forest fled from man, 
The waste a blooming garden saw. 

And tents with polished poles were reared, 
And pillared domes, and vaulted aisles, 
And porch and pictured wall appeared, 
And towers, and proud palatial piles, , 



EPODE. 

And kings with sceptred honour ruled ; 
And hostile clans in brawling bred, 
By common dangers harshly schooled 
Took law from one imperial head. 

But most to help the noblest need 
Of human thought, Religion grew, 
With winged hymn, and awful creed, 
And myth of various woven hue. 

And prophets spake, and oracles 
Gave fateful note of coming harm, 
And sacred rites and holy spells 
Smoothed the guilt-stricken soul's alarm. 

And saintly sage and thoughtful seer 
On meditation's brooding wings 
Sublimely borne, with vision clear 
Pierced through the sensuous veil of things. 

And through creation's starry girth 
With reverent joy and wonder saw 



PYTHAGORAS. 45 

Of things in heaven, and things on earth 
The mystic number and the Law. 

And heard with raptured ear the chime 
Of spheres on spheres that wheel for ever, 
The swell and fall of shoreless Time, 
The roll of Life's exhaustless river. 

And taught man's creeping soul to rise 
From stony glebe and dusty sod, 
And track with ever new surprise 
The flaming footsteps of a god. 

Such strength by fate's far-stretching plan 
To wise deep-thoughted man was given 
By Jove, who rules the Olympian clan 
And great-eyed Hera, queen of heaven. 

Pythagoras. 

Good sirs, adieu ! these vesper notes shall ring 
My lullaby to-night. To-morrow morn 
Jove give us happy meeting, when the great 
Procession crowns the feast ! 

MlLO. 

Farewell, good master ! 

Diagoras. 
Jove rain great grace on wise Pythagoras i 



THALES 

'0 /xkv odp 0aX?5s v8wp elvai tt\v dpxv v 'f >7 I (riv f ^«/3tDc i.'<rws tt\v 
vtt6\t)\I/iv £k tov iravTWv bpdv ttjv rpo(p7]v vypav ofiaau, Kal did rb 
TravTUv rd (nripfxara tt)v <pvaiv vypdv ^X elv t T ?> ^ vSwp dpxv v t^s 
(ptjcreus efrcu rots vypo'is. Akistotle. 



THALES. 

PERSONS. 

1 . Thales, a Philosopher of Miletus. 

2. Ctesibias, the Friend of Thales. 

3. Chorus of Maidens and Youths. 

' SCENE. — The villa of Thales, near the sea-shore; the philo- 
sopher discovered sitting on a low ledge of rock, tracing mathe- 
matical figures in the sand. 

Thales. 
It must be so ; the complete rounded form 
Which, in the wide caerulean's naming bound, 
And in the briny droplet of the sea, 
Asserts its beauty, and declares its power ; 
This perfect whole, with all equalities 
Conditioned so that part to part responds 
With native nice adaptness, like the notes 
Which cunning harper lures from measured strings 
Of a well-tempered lute — it cannot be 
But in this circle's finely-featured round, 
Born of its beauty, by its law controlled, 
Lie other forms with fair-proportioned bounds, 
Which whoso thinks may from their germ forth-draw, 
As a keen-nosing hound from brake to brake 

E 



50 THALES. 

Scents out the game. Well ! let me see : I shape 

This circle on the ribbed sand, and make 

Within its half a triangle, and find, 

Change as I may the legs on either side, 

Still on the base the bridging angle stands 

A right angle. And why ? It cannot be 

Far hid. Ha, now 'tis clear ! I cut in twain 

This topping angle by a line which meets 

The centre, and my one triangle makes 

Two equal-legged triangles, and each half 

Of the top angle hath an equal fork 

With that which fronts it at the adverse base, 

With corresponding slant ; and both the halves 

Make up the whole ; and right angle must be 

That in a just three-cornered figure sums 

The other two. O foolish, foolish Thales ! 

That saw not this before, even with a glance, 

But pondering went, and picked my painful way, 

As some wayfarer stops with feeling foot 

From tuft to tuft across a faithless quag ! 

Well, well ! all men are dull of wit, and why 

Should I out-top my fellows ? We have gained 

A footing slow but sure : the cosmos stands 

By numbered nice congruities ; and, if 

From stage to stage with wary move we march, 

Threading the fine invisible links which bind 

The distant, unapproachable, undreamt, 

To things of close touch and familiar ken, 

O then ! with measured angles fine we'll tell 

The travel of far-wheeling orbs, and be 

Prophets of storm and sun's eclipse, and sign 



THALES. 51 

The eccentric comet's pathway, ere he comes ! 
We'll swim the air with light-blown spheres, and 

sup 
With Jove some day, like fabled Tantalus, 
And reap — pray Heaven — more blissful fruit than 

he 
From empyrean converse ! 

[Enter Ctcsibias.~\ 
Ctesibias. 

Thales, is this you ? 

Thales. 

Ctesibias ! All hail, good friend ! You are 
The gladfullest sight that holds mine eyes since I 
Returned from Libya. 

Ctesibias. 

May the gods rain joy 
On my best friend ! When came you to Miletus ? 

Thales. 
But yesternight. 

Ctesibias. 

Had you a favouring breeze ? 

Thales. 

Winged like a bird, and as an arrow straight 
We shot from Pharos. 



52 



Not always. 



THALES. 

Ctesibias. 

Good luck dwells with you. 

Thales. 

Ctesibias. 
When did any god behold 
Thales askance ? 

Thales. 
Once. 

Ctesibias. 

When ? 

Thales. 

You will remember 
When on a cold and crisp December night 
I walked out in the fields to meditate, 
And read the stars, and as I gazed, I strode 
Unwitting of my steps, into a ditch, 
And gored my knee, and scarred my skin, and from 
Its just compactness well nigh wrenched awry 
This jointed frame. 

Ctesibias. 

And all Miletus then 
Laughed at philosophers, and every dull, 
Soft-witted, pudding-brain felt wiser then 
On two sound legs than Thales, whom the god 
Graced with the tripod to the wisest due, 



THALES. 53 

And whom the tripod, by its proper lord 
Unwisely wise disowned, refused to quit, 
And still returned, as to its baffled bite 
A greedy fish. Do you still read the stars ? 

Thales. 
I read the sand. 

Ctesibias. 
How so ? 

Thales. ' 

Look here. 

Ctesibias. 

I see. 
What mean these circles ? Do these lines contain 
Some wisdom of the Egyptians from the banks 
Of the sweet-watered Nile ? 

Thales. 

They understand 
Triangles there and squares, and every bound 
That limits land ; else when the flood o'erswept 
Their fields with fertile mud, no man were wise 
To claim his father's roods. 

Ctesibias. 

I oft have heard 
Our sailors say the strangest of all lands 
Is Egypt : what say you ? 



54 THALES. 

Thales. 

O ! passing strange. 
The world contains one Egypt, and one Nile, 
Which floods like ocean, when our streams retreat, 
And creep in threads beneath the blanched stones ; 
Think all things there to all things here reverse, 
And thus know Egypt. Women walk abroad, 
While men sit weaving carpets in the shade 
Of their own eaves ; all burdens on their heads 
The bearded bear, the beardless on their backs ; 
No shrine of Memphian god or goddess holds 
A priestess, but all where the male enacts 
The sacred rite ; and every priest doth show 
A shaven crown, as who esteems profane 
The honour of his hair, and with their feet 
Serviced for hands they knead the foodful dough. 
From right to left they write, and circumcise 
Their flesh from Nature's fulness ; but what most 
Out-steps all march of reason is their bond 
To brutes, which other men do hotly hunt 
Out of all breathing room. 

Ctesibias. 

I've heard it said 
They worship leeks. 

Thales. 

That I never knew ; 
But I have seen them crook most loyal knees 
To crocodiles and cats. 



THALES. 55 

Ctesibias. 

To crocodiles ! 

Thales. 

Ay ! And for crawling cruel crocodiles 

They build high-pillared fanes, more stately domes 

Than Pisa piles to Jove. A crocodile 

They keep in chambered circumstance apart, 

And trick his arms and legs with jewelled gauds, 

And spread soft cushions for his flanks, — the flanks 

Which shake with scaly terror when he floats 

The troubled floods, that every troutling flies ; 

And cushioned thus in purple pomp he lies 

With most devoted service from a guild 

Of linen-vested and bald-pated priests, 

Like some light leman whom a brainish youth, 

Fevered with frothy spume of puberty, 

Mis-names a goddess. 

Ctesibias. 

I do thank the gods 
That I was born a Greek, and no barbarian. 

Thales. 

In this, believe, my pebble follows yours. 
They have some sacred legends about cats, 
And crocodiles, and hooded snakes, and hawks, 
That may excuse their oddness. But for us 
The wisdom of the thunder-rolling Jove, 
And the strong maid that from the Father's head 
Unmothered leapt in full-grown armature ; 



56 THALES. 

The glory of unshorn Apollo's locks, 

Refulgent with the golden gloss of youth ; 

And His broad-breasted might who holds the seas 

In harness, and from out their pregnant beds 

Sends finny myriads forth to thrill the floods 

With glancing life ; these are the gods whom Greeks 

May wisely worship, by such worship raised 

To high communion with a nobler kind, 

And by their reverent contemplation changed 

Into some taste of likeness. 

Ctesibias. 

You are moved 
Most timeously to pious thoughts. To-day 
Is the great feast of whom your lips have named 
The strong Poseidon ; here his temple stands, 
Where halts the festal pomp to hymn the god 
With many-winding sweep of numerous verse 
From craft of praiseful band. Lo, where they come ! 
Sit we apart a moment. 

[ Thales and Ctesibias go aside to leave room for the procession 
to advance. Enter in rank and file distinguished citizens of 
Miletus, the priests of Poseidon, the marine Aphrodite, the Didy- 
mean Apollo, and other local gods. Then a chorus of boys and 
girls, who sing the following hymn in front of the temple.] 

I. 

General Chorus. 

God of the waters, Poseidon the mighty, 
Lording the brine with thy queen Amphitrite, 
Brother of Kronos Supreme, 



THALES. 57 

Zoning the globe with thy slumberless current, 
Scourging the rock with thy sharp-hissing torrent, 

Ruling in flood and in stream, 
Hear from the hall where the blue wave rides o'er thee, 
Hear from the cave where the sea-nymphs adore thee, 

Brother of Kronos Supreme ! 

II. 

Chorus of Maidens. 

Holiest water's 

Beautiful sheen, 

First of thy daughters 

In glory was seen 

The fair Aphrodite, 

The golden, the mighty, 

Of beauty the Queen ! 

Holiest island's 

Sea-girdled frame 

Of far and of nigh lands 

The fairest in fame, 

Fronting the high lands 

Cythera we name ! 

For there from the bosom 

Of billows benign 

The foam bore a blossom 

Of wonder divine : 

The waters were stirred 

With musical swell, 

Like the voice of sweet birds 

In a deep woody dell ; 



58 THALES. 



With roseate blushes 

Like breath of the morn 

The blue billow flushes, 

And lo ! she is born, 

The fair Aphrodite, 

From watery sheen, 

The golden, the mighty 

Soul-conquering queen. 

Moulded from essence 

Of undulant shows, 

In bright iridescence 

To glory she rose. 

Through the breadth of the waters 

Sweet tremor was spread, 

And the Nereid daughters 

From white coral bed 

Came trooping uncounted. 

The gambolling crew 

Of Tritons came mounted 

On dolphins to view ; 

But their riotous chorus 

Was bound by the spell, 

And the challenge sonorous 

Was dumb in their shell. 

Young Amorets round her 

Did sportively play, 

And the Zephyrs that found her 

Stole fragrance away, 

As clothed on with beauty 

Sublimely she soars, 

Where the Hours, in their duty, 



THALES. 59 

Unbarred the bright doors 
Of the welkin to meet her ; 
And each god from his throne 
Rose raptured to greet her, 
First star of the zone ; 
And the strongest above 
Was a child in that hour, 
And Jove was no Jove 
When she smiled in her power ; 
And Poseidon the mighty 
Rejoiced when he saw 
The sea-Aphrodite 
Thrill heaven with awe, 
His fairest of daughters, 
More dear than his eye, 
A gem from the waters 
To brighten the sky ! 



III. 

Chorus of Boys. 

In the old heroic time, 
From the cloudless Attic clime, 
The son of Cadmus voyaged with a people strong 
and free ; 

From the good Milesian land 
He drave out the Carian band, 
And bade the Greeks be captains of the island-studded 
sea ! 



60 THALES. 

On the courses of the deep 
With a fearless rein we sweep, 

And East and West in bonds of golden amity we bind; 
Like fleet birds on the wing, 
From land to land we bring 

The reward that lightens labour to the toilsome human 
kind. 

By Helle's sounding shore, 

Where the swirling currents roar, 
And Priapus loves at Lampsacus the fiery flushing vine; 

And in the Thracian hold 

Of Abydos, rich in gold, 
We reared Apollo's golden head to flash across the 
brine ! 

Where the Euxine's gusty flail 
Smites the tightly-reefed sail, 

Beyond the blue Symplegades we ploughed the horrid 
main; 

Where Sinope flouts the storm, 
And the glancing tunnies swarm, 

The willing Paphlagonian received our golden chain. 

In the Amazonian land, 
Where Lycastes rolls his sand, 
We bade the frosty Pontus glow with sparks of Attic 
fire; 

With the fruits our labour bore 
We sowed the barren shore, 
And fattened with our merchandise the plains of 
Themiscyre. 



THALES. 61 

To Poseidon be the praise, 
Who across the liquid maze 

Cut a highway broad and open to a people strong 
and free, 

To Poseidon, and the Queen 
Born of water's foamy sheen, 

Who bade Miletus lord it o'er the island-studded sea ! 



IV. 

General Chorus. 

God of the waters, Poseidon the mighty, 
Lording the brine with thy queen Amphitrite, 

Brother of Kronos supreme, 
Zoning the globe with thy slumberless current, 
Scourging the rock with thy sharp-hissing torrent, 

Ruling in flood and in stream. 
God, to whom rises the worshipful paean 
From the myriad isles of the laughing ^Egean, 

Quick with the summery beam : 
Mighty with vans of the whirlwind tremendous, 
To lash into fury the billow stupendous, 

Brindled with gloom and with gleam, 
Mighty to snaffle the hurricane's wildness, 
Smoothing the rough with a spirit of mildness 

Softer than infancy's dream : 
Lord of the waters, Poseidon, broad-breasted, 
Riding the billows, blue-necked, many-crested, 

Rolling with limitless stream ; 
Hear from the hall where the big wave rides o'er thee, 



62 THALES. 

Hear from the cave where the sea-nymphs adore thee, 
Hear where the men of Miletus implore thee, 
Regent of ocean supreme ! 

Ctesibias. 
Now they are done. 

Thales. 
And will make sacrifice ? 

Ctesibias. 
Anon ; but first they wend them round the bay, 
And at the other temple of the god 
That visages Meander's mouth they chaunt 
The hymn again, then to the king of storms 
They fell the swarthy bull. 

Thales. 

My heart goes with them. 
All gods compel our worship ; but each man 
Within his soul's particular shrine reveres 
Some partial power; and from my heart there 

mounts 
A hymn with largest sweep of song to praise 
The Regent of the waves. 

Ctesibias. 

Even so with me 
It hath been alway. 

Thales. 

And for most rightful cause, 



THALES. 63 

Not only that the sea-queen beautiful, 
Our loved Miletus, draws her wealthy store 
From favour of the trident-wielding god, 
But subtle reasons with wise Homer's verse, 
Make league to vouch our preference. 

Ctesibias. 

How so? 

Thales. 
How so ? None in this land should better know 
Than my Ctesibias, who not with gold 
And silver only prinks his princely hall, 
But with rare garniture of learned scrolls 
Makes every wall to preach. 

Ctesibias. 

Would that my books 
Were measure of my wits, and I could count 
My high-summed knowledge as I tell my tomes ! 
In Homer's song Poseidon lifts for Greeks 
A mighty mace, but from superior Jove 
Reaps sharp rebuff. 

Thales. 
Not this I mean ; for all 
Must duck to Jove, and follow to what end 
His marshalling finger points, else blindly borne 
To whirling chaos, spoiled of unity 
And fair coherence : but of water's power 
In the first mingling of prime elements 



64 THALES. 

To mass the world, before the Fate assigned 
The cosmic helm to Jove, the poet sings 
As ever, wisely. 

Ctesibias. 

Homer doth not grub 
Into the dark roots of the world, nor flings 
His song, like sea-bird's cry, in gustful air ; 
But o'er the lightsome flower's sun-tinted bloom 
Flits like a bee, and sucks the nectared sweet. 

Thales. 

'Tis the most proper bliss of bards to sip 

The top-cream of enjoyment : yet sometimes 

The darksome root more than the lightsome crown 

Brews healthful food and medicinal juice ; 

And I about the roots am fond to grope, 

And find that poets, when I ask for facts, 

Oft tickle me with fancies finely spun, 

And fob me off with phrases. But good Homer 

What could be known and was known in his day, 

Knew all ; and, sometimes wise beyond himself, 

Redeemed some waif of wisdom from an age 

Of simpler faith, and broader lines of truth, 

Some shell of thought from an old ocean spume 

That in the hurtle of his deedful verse, 

Hot with the chariot wheels of reeking war, 

Shows like a gaping stranger in a town 

That streams with market ; or, as sometimes we see, 

A separate crystal gleaming, all compact, 

From close embracement of the stiff old clay. 



THALES. 65 

Ctesibias. 

Most likely so ; but where does Homer praise 
The power of Water ? I would hear the line. 

Thales. 
" Ocean, the Father of gods immortal, and Tethys the 
Mother." 

Ctesibias. 

Now I remember; 'tis where wily Hera 
Borrows the amorous cest of Aphrodite 
And girds her charms, and in its virtue strong, 
Cozens the Thunderer's might, and proudly lays 
His bolt asleep. 

Thales. 
So to the point exact ; 
And Ocean means the water, and the power 
Of that fine flowing permeant element, 
Whose subtle essence, like a viewless breath, 
Pervades all space, and latent lurks in all 
The frame of things. 

Ctesibias. 

The frame of things is firm, 
Compact, and solid. 

Thales. 

Not of things that five. 
All vital power in soft and succulent bed 
Lies cradled, and in moist enswathement grows, 

F 



66 THALES. 

But frosted in concretion's gripe, becomes 
Another name for death. 

Ctesibias. 

But seeds are hard ; 
And from the grooved stone the blushful peach 
Swells into downy sweetness. 

Thales. 

But the stone 
Holds a soft kernel ; what you call the seeds 
Are but the shells that shield the seeds from harm ; 
There is no life but where the liquid reigns. 
Cast round thy gaze, and see with feeling eyes 
The living tide and pulse of fluent things ; 
Where the young sap climbs up the vernal twig, 
Where the hot blood careers through throbbing 

veins, 
Where the hard womb of barren-gaping earth 
Drinks in the genial drenching from the sky, 
Or where the stars in sempiternal round 
Are fed by steams that blossom from the sea, 
All where old Ocean works, by Homer praised, 
Father of gods and men. 

Ctesibias. 

But the Ascrasan, 
If I remember, tells a diverse tale ; 
Father of gods, he says, was Uranus, 
Black Earth their dam. 



THALES. 67 

Thales. 

In that he surely erred, 
Swerving from Homer. Earth from Ocean comes, 
Not Ocean from the Earth ; the liquid holds 
The solid in its womb ; the firm hard bones 
Grow from the yielding flesh ; the flesh from flow 
Of the more yielding water. Age to youth 
May sooner pass than from unwatery crust 
Be birth of water. Yet Hesiod hath some snatch 
Of the great power of liquid, when he sings 
The progeny of Pontus. 

Ctesibias. 

I remember 
The passage well. My first schoolmaster was 
A grave Boeotian, a poor fisherman 
Who lived by dredging sponges at Anthedon, 
And went a-voyaging and was wrecked, and found 
A lodgment at Meander's slimy mouth, 
And — for he could not beg and would not starve — 
Became schoolmaster; and from him I learned 
To con the whole theogony, and all 
The works and days to boot. He said that none 
Knew the true doctrine of the gods but those 
Bred neath the slopes of Helicon, who quaffed 
The lymph of Hippocrene. 

Thales. 

Well, every bird 
Does well to praise its nest ; Bceotia's bard 
May teach Boeotians, and where wheaten loaves 



68 THALES. 

Are few,' men will esteem the barley cake. 
But let me hear the lines. 

Ctesibias. 
Pontus begot the seer of the sea, the truth-speaking 

Nereus, 
Eldest born of his brood, yclept the infallible old man, 
Kind and gentle and good, and wearing in faithful 

remembrance 
Sanctions of law, and counsels of right, and maxims 

of wisdom. 
Then with the Earth he mingled in love, and mag- 
nanimous Phorcys 
Leapt to the light, and great-limbed Thaumas, and 

beautiful Ceto, 
Likewise Eurybia, wearing an adamant heart in her 

bosom. 
Nereus mingled in love with Doris of beautiful tresses, 
Daughter of Ocean the perfect stream ; and the vast 

unfertile 
Deep soon swarmed with a brood of desireful maidens 

immortal, 
Proto and Sao came forth, Eucrante and Amphitrite, 
Glauce, Eudora, Thetis, Ei'one, and Galene, 
Spio, Cymothoe, Halia lovely, and Thoe the rushing, 
Melete's grace, Eulimene's pride, and the shining 

Agave, 
Doto, Pasithae fair, and rosy-armed Euneice ; 
And with Dynamene Erato came, and the tripping 

Pherousa, 
Sistered with Protomedea, Actsea, and lovely Nissea, 



THALES. 69 

Doris, and Panope fair, and beautiful Galatea. 
Shall I say more ? 

Thales. 

O yes, tell out the roll ! 
The names do ring most sweetly in mine ear, 
And march into the audience of my thought 
With apt suggestion. Names are pictures : he 
Who stamped these sea-maids with their signatures 
Was wise to paint with words. 

Ctesibias. 
Then was Hippothoe named, and Hipponoe rosy- 
armed, and 
Fair Cymodoce, with fair Cymotolege her sister, 
And Amphitrite the delicate-ankled, in wake of 

the storm, who 
Sails with a charm in her touch, and smooths the 

fret of the billow ; 
Cymo likewise, and fair Halymede, with beautiful 

crownlet, 
Pontoporeia, and wreathed in smiles Glauconome 

fair, and 
Laomedeia, Leiagora, and Evagora ; likewise 
Lysianassa, Polynome, and Autonoe ; fairest 
Then of the fair Euarne appeared, all blameless in 

beauty, 
Psamathe, twinkling with light, and beaming with 

godhead Menippe ; 
Pronoe then, Eupompe, Themisto, Neso, Nemertes, 



70 THALES. 

Youngest, but gifted the most with the wit of her 

father prophetic ; 
These to Nereus were born, the blameless seer of 

the billow, 
Fifty daughters well skilled in works of maidenly 

cunning ! 

Thales. 

Bravo ! and fifty fifty times, and that 
Increased by myriad fifties, were too small 
To count the issue of that primal fount 
Of pregnant virtue ! Tell me this, good friend, 
How many children have you known from one 
Milesian mother at a birth ? 

Ctesibias. 

I knew 
Porphyronymphe, Apollonius' wife, 
The high priest of the Didymean god, 
Who brought a threefold burden to the light ; 
But they, I wis, were slight and flimsy brats, 
Like plants that grow in pits where light is scant 
And breezes come not : and at Colophon 
Spermatothalpe, spouse of Polygen, shook 
Four chickens from her lap : but they, alas ! 
Fell all, like green buds, by untimely frost 
Nipped in the May. 

Thales. 

And you may well perceive 
The why of this mischance. Man doth contain 



THALES. 71 

Too little of the fluent fruitful force 

In his strong-jointed frame, built up of earth 

Firmly, for earthly uses ; but the sea 

Breeds monsters like itself, immense, with swinge 

Of huge vitality, marvellous to send forth 

An issue countless as the waves that flash 

Their multitudinous twinkle to the orb 

That rides the noon. I knew a fisherman 

Who vouched me once a single cod contains 

Some hundred myriad codlings in its roe. 

Ctesibias. 

I well believe ; but deem you Hesiod dreamt 
Of mullet's spawn or sturgeon's, when he sang 
Of Nereus' daughters ? 

Thales. 

Poets are inspired, 
Like her who raves at Delphi, to cast forth 
From the hot crater of their god-stirred thought 
Types that outride the compass of their ken, 
And hold far fates in germ. Science doth limp 
After, with sober count, and slow remark, 
And nice inspective glance, to understand 
What it might not create. The birds whose flight 
Gives wise forewarning of the mustered storm, 
The snails that from their holes creep forth to catch 
Far-scented rains, tell what they know not, stirred 
By Nature's prophet power. All prophecy 
Comes without knowledge, being truth direct 
Shot from the heart of the informing God, 



72 THALES. 

Like rays from Helios, far before, and far 

Beyond our bounded sense. The typeful dream 

Zeus to the poets gave to frame and paint, 

For us to spell its lesson ; they of gods 

And goddesses, in air, and earth, and sea, 

Tritons and Nereids, a gamesome group, 

Sing with sweet sport and reverential joy ; 

We, whom you call the wise, though wise in this 

Chiefly to know the limits of our ken, 

We, in our sober reason's current phrase 

The home-grown vesture of quotidian thought, 

Teach from their text, with less of pictured lore, 

But with a serious awe that inly chants 

One hymn with them. Our science doth not scant 

Our piety. O ! if Homer's self were here, 

I could discourse to him of water's power, 

Of Ocean, father of immortal gods, 

And Tethys, primal mother, in a strain 

That hearins; even Homer might commend. 



Ctesibias. 
Are you a poet ? 



Thales. 

No ; but poetry 
Is writ in Nature's face, which any man 
With open sense may read. Great Homer's eye 
Looked on the lives of men, I on the life 
Of nature : and the perfect river, Ocean, 
Whose broad untainted stream engirds the globe, 
Speaks to my thought a truth, which, had he known, 



THALES. 73 

He would have hymned in strains that dwarfed the 

praise 
Of Ajax and Achilles. 

Ctesibias. 

Does the belt 
Of Ocean gird the globe in other sense 
With you than with the poet ? 

Thales. 

He but spake 

Of this broad briny humour, which our ships 

Tread as a common pathway : I intend 

The cosmic water's subtle-streaming force, 

Interfluent, circumfluent, without 

End or beginning, all in all complete. 

Ctesibias. 
I pray thee, dearest friend, let thy friend know 
More of this doctrine. 

Thales. 

Marvellous is the power 
That binds the fluent floating stores within 
The dewy-curtained chambers of the sky 
To the broad expanse of the crisped flood 
Which men call ocean, sea, and fiord, and mere, 
A mystic cycle ; in whose start we see 
Only the end of that which went before, 
And from whose end a fresh young birth wells forth 
In plenitude exhaustless. From the sea 
The breathed vapour mounts ; no eye discerns 



74 THALES. 

The floating bells of the transmuted wave 

Which yet impregn each wandering wind that blows 

With juicy potency, engreen the hills, 

And from the harsh face of the wrinkled rock 

Make the exuberant creeping pulp fling forth 

A fringe of shining tongues. Soaring through air 

(Which is itself a sea of wider wave 

More light and tenuous), the vaporous breath 

Of the vast ocean masses into clouds, 

And sails abroad, and kisses every peak 

Snow-capped, and sleeps on every verdurous slope, 

And through the green and long-withdrawing glen 

Creeps, footed like a dream. Then in the cool 

Of dim grey-vested eve it weepeth down 

In gracious drops its fine vivific dew, 

And, pearling from high craggy cornice slips 

Into the mossy cradle of a stream, 

Around whose birth each star-eyed flowret peeps 

With modest grace benign. The baby flood 

Unheard beneath the oozy greenness flows, 

Then trickles with a tremulous pace through low 

Invisible crannies, and in rivulets winds, 

Till at some favouring turn it breach the brae 

And bursts, a brook ! Then down the steep it trots 

With fretful purl, then leaps and rushes on, 

Impetuous, and in boisterous league made one 

With sister floods, it swirls, and boils, and roars 

In mighty cauldrons, and with sleepless din 

Deafens the eagle's clamour. Then at once, 

Charmed into mildness, through long glades it glides 

Where shepherds fence their folds to fend their flocks 



THALES. 75 

From wintry drift ; then rolls into the plain 
Where stout-thewed farmers from its fertile slime 
Reap fatness ; and the frequent hamlet grows 
That on its fulness feeds, and lives by draughts 
Of its unfading freshness. Then, to crown 
The triumphs of the life-dispensing wave, 
The city rises on its banks, with walls 
And towers, and temples of the gods, and long, 
High-tiered, palatial dwellings of proud man, 
A wonder to behold ; and great ships sail 
Into the bosom of its queenly flood, 
And mighty bays their broadened wings outstretch 
To greet its coming. Thus the blissful flow 
Ends where it started, and when ended starts, 
Unfainting, deathless, potent to perform 
Perpetual harmonies. 

Ctesibias. 

Now, I need not ask 
Are you a poet 'i Only take these words 
And march them out in the majestic roll 
Of— 
Sing, O goddess, the worth of Achilles, the god-like 

Pel ides / 
And all Ionia will declare there are 
Three most religious poets worthy found 
To praise the gods, as gods are duly praised ; 
Homer, and Hesiod, and Milesian Thales ! 

Thales. 
Did I not tell thee that all men are poets, 
When they may yield their heart-strings as a lyre 



76 THALES. 

Freely to Nature's touch ? if we are blind 

"lis for with open eyes we blink ; if fools 

'Tis that we stand apart, and plant ourselves 

In our most crude and impotent conceit 

Too high for Nature's teaching. We would teach 

Before we know to learn, and thus we die 

Mere fools as we were born. But who comes here ? 

Ctesibias. 
I think it is the page of the high priest 
Who serves the gods, whose praise we hymned 

to-day, 
Good Posidonius. 

[Enter a page from Posidonius i\ 
Page. 
Wise Thales and Ctesibias hear my hest ; 
The high priest greets your worthiness, and bids 
You both partake the sacred feast to-night 
In honour of the god. 

Thales. 

Tell him, we come. 
[Exit Page.] 
Farewell, Ctesibias ; the day declines ; 
I must be gone. We with the worthy priest 
Shall bravely sup. Who sups with pontiffs lines 
With gold his stomach. This Posidonius fails 
In nought of priestly duty ; keeps a cask 
Of special Samian for this pious tide. 
All liquid things are best, and of this best 
The best is wine well used, ill used the worst. 



XENOPHANES. 

Eevoipdwqs k'Xeyeu on ofxoiws a<re(3ov<nv ol yevecrOat (p&OKOvres 
toOs Beovs rots awodaveiv \£yov<riV ajxcporipus yap ffv/x^alvei /j.7] 
etvai tovs deovs irore. ARISTOTLE. 

"Ei' tovto Kal irav tov debv e\eyev 6 ^evocpdvrjs, Kal dy£vr)TOv 
e 1 vcu . SlMPLlClUS. 



XENOPHANES. 

PERSONS. 

1. Xenophanes, a Philosopher of Colophon. 

2. Damon, a Schoolmaster. 

3. Apollodorus, a Priest of Apollo in Claros, near Colophon. 

Scene. — A garden behind the schoolmaster's house in Colophon. 

[Enter Damon and Xenophanes in conversation] 

Damon. 
'Tis very strange ! 

Xenophanes. 

All things are full of strangeness 
To seeing eyes. Say, 'where got you this stone ? 

Damon. 

From a sailor boy, who being in Syracuse, 
At the stone quarries, near the famous shrine 
Of Temenite Apollo, picked it up. 

Xenophanes. 
Have you other such ? 



80 XENOPHANES. 

Damon. 

Yes, I have one from Paros, 
And one from Melita. 

Xenophanes. 

Pray show me them. 

[Damon goes back into the schoolhoti.se, and returns with 
some minerals in his hand.] 

Damon. 
Here they are. 

Xenophanes. 
[After looking at them minutely?^ 

These are the types of fishes. 

Damon. 
This other has no type, but it is dotted 
All through with pinkish pebbles, round as peas, 
And little hollows like the airy bells 
That rise through stagnant pools in heat of noon. 

Xenophanes. 
Whence came this stone? 

Damon. 

From Thera. 

Xenophanes. 

I have seen 
Such like from many quarters. They are all 
Children of fire, and in huge cauldron born 
Beneath the seething sea. 



XENOPHANES. Si 

Damon. 

Fire 'neath the sea ! 

Xenophanes. 
Nay marvel not ! that vine-enwreathed rock, 
Stout Doric root, whence fair Cyrene sprang, 
Was once a molten slag, a glowing crust, 
Shot from the fervent tumult of the deep 
By central fire, then by corrosive tooth 
Of wasting weather pounded. In this wise 
Big worlds were brewed, and genial beds were 

spread 
For verdurous wealth to grow. These stony types 
Of finny creatures mailed with glancing scales 
Sprang from the primal fire. 

Damon. 

How mean you that ? 

Xenophanes. 
These fishes in the fish-abounding sea 
Were bred, which now upon the topmost ridge 
Of long-stretched hills the wondering quarryman 
With clinking hammer from dark bed redeems 
Into the stare of day. When a strong blast 
Flung them by thousands huddled on a beach, 
They gasped and died, and in much mud enswathed 
For myriad years their bony framework lay, 
Paving the unplumbed deep, whence suddenly 
The insurrection of long-prisoned flame 
Heaved them in giant sport, and made them thrones 
For gods to sit on. 

G 



82 XENOPHANES. 

Damon. 
This is wondrous strange ! 

Xenophanes. 
The story of the world, as in a book, 
Lies scriptured in the rocks. If men had eyes, 
In a poor pebble scraped from shelvy shore 
They might read more than now they dare to guess 
With all their dreamings. 

Damon. 

I must teach my scholars 
To read this book. 

Xenophanes. 

Much better so than what 
You teach them now : lewd tales of shameless gods, 
That mutilate their sires, and eat their sons, 
Cozen and cog, and lie, and falsely swear, 
And fill the lucid azure halls serene 
With brawls and bickering, ribaldry, and lust ; 
I marvel that on earth we live no worse, 
Having such faulty patterns in the sky. 

Damon. 

You judge not evenly. Homer names the gods 
Givers of good, friends of the friendless poor, 
Stay of the feeble, refuge of the stray, 
Of right the arbiters, the foes of wrong, 
And stern avengers of a perjured tongue. 



XENOPHANES. 83 

Xenophanes. 
Homer is bad and good, bitter and sweet, 
But his vice harms more than his virtue heals. 
When on one tree both fruit and poison grow 
He's a wise child who knows to eat and live. 
Hold forth to men in your right hand the truth, 
And in your left a flattering lie, they'll take 
The left unasked, and leave the right to beg. 

Damon. 
I once did praise your wisdom, scarcely now, 
Hearing you thus blaspheme the wisest bard. 
If there are spots in Helios' face, and flecks 
In the clear round of the night-wandering moon, 
These are but specks which wiser who ignores 
Than who observes. The gods are shining types 
Each of his own perfection, all together 
Lords of a perfect Universe. Complete 
In golden beauty Aphrodite stands, 
Here in queenly state, in manly grace 
Apollo, Hermes in bright bloom of youth ; 
But wisdom, sovran virtue, chiefly dwells 
With Zeus, the aegis-bearer, and the maid 
Who only of the Olympian's high compeers 
Launches his thunder, and his counsel knows, 
Flashing-eyed Pallas, by whose thought inspired 
Each Jove-born hero, first in peace and war 
Controls the council, rides the battle-field, 
Fights with the gods, and conquers all but fate. 
'Tis but this morn when to my eager imps 
I read the first song of the tale of Troy ; 



34 XENOPHANES. 

You know it well, where Agamemnon, wroth 
With the Greek host for taking back the maid, 
Meed of his prowess, gave his men command 
To reave, for reparation of his wrong, 
The fair Briseis of the blooming cheeks, 
Achilles' rightful prize ; whereat the chief, 
His big heart boiling 'neath his shaggy breast, 
Blazed up in wrath, and flung in bitter spite 
Sharp stinging words against the Jove-born king. 
Then on the moment's inconsiderate spur 
He grasped his sword to draw ; when lo ! from 

Heaven 
The daughter of high-counselling Jove shot down 
And stood behind, and seized his yellow hair, 
And with the power flashed from her flaming eyes 
Charmed down the hot sedition of his blood 
Into most loyal meekness. Even so 
In every song the wisest bard sets forth 
Bright types of wisdom pictured to the eye 
Through changeful gloom and gleam of war, which 

gain 
A firmer hold of sense-bound men than all 
The laws of Solon, or the awful lore 
Of Orphic mystagogues. 

Xenophanes. 

I have listened well ; 
Have you aught else to say ? 

Damon. 

Ay, if I chose 
To ape the rhapsodists, who in solemn feasts 



XENOPHANES. 85 

From hour to hour in choicest sequence chaunt 
The tale of Troy divine. It is a song 
Which doth unroll the counsel of high Jove, 
In one grand show of rapid shifting scenes, 
As when a fleet strong-winded racer runs, , 
Nor bates his pace from starting point to goal, 
And, if he stumbles once, replants his foot 
More firmly for the fall 

Xenophanes. 

Some men get drunk 
With wine, and say they worship Dionysus ; 
You're drunk with Homer, and not fit to hear 
Sober reply from me. 

Damon. 

Speak on. 

Xenophanes. 

I too 
Will sketch a picture from the bard. You know 
The song where Paris and king Menelaus 
Do battle, making each his life a gauge 
For the issue of the war. A truce was sworn, 
And hoary Priam came from Pergamus 
With lambs for sacrifice, and blood was poured, 
And Agamemnon lifted holy hands 
Before the host, and looked to heaven, and prayed. 
And on his head who broke the oath invoked 
A fearful curse ; and thus the paction ran ; 
If Alexander, son of Priam, slay 



86 XENOPHANES. 

The fair-haired Menelaus in the fight, 
The lovely Helen, and all her costly stores 
Shall he possess, and in the dark-hulled ships 
The Greeks steer home. But if the righteous Jove 
Give glory to the fair-haired Menelaus, 
Then Helen, by her rightful lord resumed, 
Shall sail to Greece, and the Greek men shall pay 
A fine to Troy, that in the years to come 
Each wanton guest may fear to break the laws 
Of hospitable Jove. You know the rest. 

Damon. 
Go on. 

Xenophanes. 

The king was conqueror, and the prince 
Slunk from the mortal peril of the fight 
Wrapt in a mist of refuge, by device 
Of golden Aphrodite. Helen now 
Was forfeit to the Greeks, and Peace held forth 
Her liberal arms to greet returning love, 
When lo ! in heaven the full-eyed spouse of Zeus, 
Grudgeful that Troy no bloodier bane should brook 
Than the pricked skin of princely tenderling, 
With Jove's assenting nod sent Pallas down 
Into the breast of Pandarus to breathe 
The perjured purpose. He, by her inspired, 
Shot from his Lycian bow the lawless bolt 
That drew the righteous judgment of the Fates 
On traitor Troy. Is this a picture fair 
For men to see, and learn to hate a lie ? 



XENOPHANES. 87 

And with such primer in his hand, will you 
Dare birch a boy who weaves a cunning tale 
To cheat the master or befriend a chum ? 
Small wonder the barbarian oft-times rates 
The Greek for falsehood ; he may falsely swear 
With Pallas for his voucher. How came this, 
That the wise singer makes his gods do deeds 
That many a human knave would blush to own ? 

Damon. 

I know not ; there are learned men who know 
To smooth the blur ; but for my needful use 
I am content to think not Homer's self, 
But some unskilful wandering spouter wove 
This patch into the purple. 

Xenophanes. 

You are honest ; 
At least you choose not, with far-laboured shifts 
Of forged conceit, to prove that black is white, 
And rough is smooth, and every crooked straight, 
As I have known some deft expounders do, 
Who make the bard a peg on which to hang 
Their own pet fancies. But this suits not me, 
Nor with my nail to scratch a scale or two, 
And say I've healed the leprosy. So you 
Stick to your text, and I will stand by mine ; 
While you admire the paint, I cannot choose 
But fear the poison. I must still believe 
Homer has gods that cheat poor trustful men, 
As Hesiod men that cheat all-knowing gods. 



i XENOPHANES. 

If idiots maunder wisdom, Homer sings 
Sublime theology ; if asses bray 
Divinest melody, the Smyrnean bard 
Shall teach my children what a pious Greek 
Should think of Zeus. But who comes here ? 

Damon. 

I think 
It is the priest from Clarus, our good friend 
Apollodorus. 

Xenophanes. 

He' s no friend of mine. 

Damon. 

How so ? Whose fault is that ? He is a man 
That hath more craft in making friends than foes : 
Men score him high in Asia. 

Xenophanes. 

For a priest 
He hath all priestly virtues. 

Damon. 

What are these? 

Xenophanes. 

He hath a solemn look, a stately air, 

And a grave face to welcome mummery, 

And for the need a gracious smile put on, 

Which wins weak women and women-hearted men. 



XENOPHANES. 89 

In all traditions of the holy shrine 
He is a walking record, and in all 
The doctrines of its hoar theology- 
Infallible. He is an honest hater, 
And when he wounds a foe delights to leave 
A sting behind ; and, when he loves a man, 
Prays Jove to bless him for the coat he wears 
More than the heart that beats beneath the coat. 
He is a shepherd, all whose sheep must bear 
His brand ; and who displays it not must stand 
Disowned outside the shelter of his fold, 
And rot i' the rain. But soft ! — he comes ! 

[Enter Afiollodo?'us^\ 



Apollodorus. 



All hail ! 



Damon. 

Long live the high priest of the radiant god ! 
What cast of luck hath brought thee here to-day ? 

Apollodorus. 

There is a lestal sacrifice to-morrow 

At Clarus to the god. We crave your presence, 

Dear Damon, at the rite ; and, for your friend, 

This son of Dexias, whom I partly know, 

If he will share our worship, we with him 

Will share the friendly board. 

Xenophanes. 

I'd rather not. 



90 XENOPHANES. 

Apollodorus. 
For why ? 

Xenophanes. 
My reasons love their home, — my breast. 

Apollodorus. 
If they are reasons kin to holy light, 
They'll peep out from the windows of the soul 
Gladly, to greet the day. 

Xenophanes. 

Nay, do not deem 
I court the darkness ; but my words are not 
A coin to serve all needs, a seed to spread 
On every soil ; I would not give sharp tools 
To children ; nor with noon-day light invade 
The night-bird's nest. 

Apollodorus. 

The god I serve doth love 
The sharp-eyed hawk. 

Xenophanes. 

Hear me ; if you have eyes 
That love the light, and will not blink at truth 
Like the great mob of men, nor overbear 
With saucy spleen the nay that meets your yea, 
I'll make you freeman of my thought, and you 
May use it to your humour. If your faith 
Were mine, my faith would follow where you lead ; 



XENOPHANES. 9 1 

But having kindled mine own torch from fire 
Not stolen from thee or any man, I walk 
Where I find ways, and where I find a shrine 
Of reasonable worship, worship there. 

Apollodorus. 
The gods I worship are the gods of Greece. 

Xenophanes. 
The gods you worship are no gods at all. 

Apollodorus. 
Ha ! say'st thou so ? I've long suspected this ; 
And more— the general voice impeaches you 
Of most unseasoned speech ; but now mine ears 
Avouch a worse offence ; you are declared 
An atheist, and you glory in your shame. 

Xenophanes. 

I am no atheist ; I did deny 

Your gods ; the one true God I humbly own. 

Apollodorus. 
What God ? what one ? there is no one but Zeus, 
Father of gods and men, Apollo's father. 

Xenophenes. 

God nor begets nor is begotten. You 

What tender seedlings show and bursting buds 

In chain of generation, link from link, 

To that great Cause transfer, which to all growth 



92 XENOPHANES. 

Is seed and soil in one. You should be wiser. 
Some show the birthplace of your gods, and some 
The sepulchre of Zeus, and both make clear 
They are no gods whose nature not transcends 
The limits which all finite life confine, 
Growth and decay. A cause may not be born. 
Your Homer's golden chain hath many links, 
But the last link from supreme Jove depends, 
To his firm footstool bound. This Jove I own ; 
Sole source of all, causer and caused in one, 
Not him in Ida born and sepulchred. 

Apollodorus. 
Thou doest well to own the supreme Zeus ; 
And with wise reverence too dost well withhold 
A gaping ear from every pious tale 
Of poet's fancy bred, or peasant's dream. 
But their true shapes, their names and titles, all 
By hoar tradition's signet vouched, command 
Our willing credence. What wise Homer sings 
We own ; but, for the Cretan, he doth bear 
Repute of lies ; with Crete let lies remain. 
Art thou more wise than Homer ? 

Xenophanes. 

In some things 
A carpenter is wiser. Homer sings 
The wain he could not make. 

Apollodorus. 

What things know you 
That Homer knew not ? 



XENOPHANES. 93 

Xenophanes. 

I have thought and proved 
The nature of the gods. 

Apollodorus. 

That Homer knew 
And Hesiod. Every pious Greek receives 
The names and natures of the gods from them. 

Xenophanes. 

1 blame not Homer. What he knew he sung 
With blossomy phrase and with full-breasted glee 
To laud his heroes, Of the gods he knew 
Just what he heard, the common talk of men, 
Which he had gleaned, as lightly as a girl 
Wandering at thoughtless ease in leafy spring 
Plucks from the grassy knoll a yellow flower, 
And sets it in her bosom. Homer knew 
That Zeus was strong above all strength of men, 
And nothing more. 

Apollodorus. 

Strong, and in counsel wise. 

Xenophanes. 

So be it ; but his gods are men, and think 
With human thoughts, and work with human hands, 
And fret, and fume, and fuss, and make a pother 
Like brabbling hucksters. Man is ever noisy. 
Small labour makes him sweat, and then he struts 



94 XENOPHANES. 

In grand procession for his paltry deed, 

And compensates by breadth of flaunting show 

For lack of substance. When he cracks a shell, 

He blows a trumpet ; and no end of drums 

Into a mimic thunder swells his praise. 

But Zeus is quiet as a sleeping child, 

Then when he most achieves, as frailest stalk 

With noiseless increase shoots from hour to hour 

Into the stature of high-tufted trees ; 

And all this vasty globose Universe 

From the unmoved all-moving Mind depends, 

As lightly as a bell-flower in the breeze 

Hangs from the stalk. Men to the gods are like 

As workman's work is to the workman's wit, 

Not otherwise. And yet all types must limp 

Long leagues behind the truth, when of the gods 

We lisp with baby lips. The demiurge 

Who sphered the world is to the world much more 

Than wisest workman to his work. All eye, 

All ear, and all intelligence, not so 

As men know knoweth he, but knowing makes, 

And all his thoughts are deeds. The sculptor shapes 

The marble to his wish, a thing extern ; 

Jove is both shaping power and shapen thing, 

Sculptor and marble, thought and deed in one. 

Apollodorus. 

This is most dreamy talk — a god who is 
Himself, and something else, and everything ! 
You take the human body from the god, 
And leave behind what no man comprehends, — 



XENOPHANES. 95 

A name, a sound, unknown, unknowable, 
One and yet many, a something and a nothing. 
This thing you worship ; and for such grey mist 
Greece must resign her fairest heritage — 
Gods whose familiar face she knows and fears 
As children fear a father whom they love ! 

Xenophanes. 

You worship your own selves, and make your gods 
A monstered self. As one who stands sublime 
Sometime on mist-wreathed mountain-top beholds 
His shadowed self colossal in the clouds, 
And deems that phantom form a Titan, so 
Great Zeus must take his shape and quality 
From man's reflection. If your nose be flat, 
Woolly your hair, and big your hanging lip, 
Roasted your skin, and by the tyrannous sun 
Burnt black as blasted Typhon, Jove, forsooth, 
Must gloom like you, and only Ethiop men 
Be limners to the Thunderer ! In the North 
The roving Scythian, with his carrot curls 
And flaring cattish eyes, must lend his mould 
To heaven's high lord ; and so we make our gods 
In our own likeness, and we cringe the knee 
Before the magnified deformity 
Of our poor human selves ! 'Tis well that sheep, 
Oxen, and asses, and the grunting kind, 
The slow earth-crawling toad, the slimy worm, 
And all the vermin of the festering pool, 
Have got no hands to mould the clay withal, 
Else would they knead out gods, and people heaven 



96 XENOPHANES. 

With, crawling, shambling, braying, bellowing Joves, 
A sight to blot the stars out ! So 't must be 
When man will make his creeping thought the 

measure 
Of what as far outwings our proudest flight 
As Homer's song a gnat's. The lichen crust 
That with its juiceless patches spots the crag 
Is, to yon reach of rosy oleander 
That flames the watered glade with pride of bloom, 
More like than we to Jove. 

Apollodorus. 

He blames the gods 
Who cheapens their most godlike creature, Man. 

Xenophanes. 
The gods do laugh to see their creature man 
Ween that he knows what passes men to know. 

Apollodorus. 
We know the sun, being warmed by his heat ; the 

gods 
By their good gifts to men : the foodful corn 
Comes from Demeter, and the gladdening grape 
From Dionysus ; wisdom from wise Jove. 

Xenophanes. 

The gods, you say, taught men to cleave the clod, 
And strew the genial seed ; and Semele's son 
Trod Earth in triumph, making rocks to blaze, 
With the vine's purple grace — mere idle tales ! 



XENOPHANES. 97 

For thus you make the gods bad schoolmasters, 
As knowing not that scholars are best taught, 
When taught to teach themselves. Who learns to 

swim, 
Unschooled in wavy water ? Who to think 
Except by use of thinking ? What a man 
With shaping thought and hand may for himself 
No god will for him. Human wit is slow, 
Stumbling nine times for one firm footing gained, 
But still made strong by striving, and sharp-eyed 
To find the light through darkness and distress 
By time and toil, and Reason's happy guess. 

Apollodorus. 

This is the fruit your atheist wisdom bears ! 
The gods do nothing ; and what man achieves 
He does by stumbling, blundering into light 
Out of mere blindness ; if this text be true 
Something may come from nothing, and all things 
From anything ; our sires were moles ; and we 
May wake some day and find a monkey's whelp 
Give laws from Solon's chair ! 

Xenophanes. 

You talk of gods 
Much too familiar for my reach, as if 
Yourself had been arch-chancellor to Zeus 
When first the stars peeped forth. I rather choose 
To spare my words, than by unlicensed guess 
To fool the truth. To father Jove I bend 
The reverent knee ; with brother man I talk ; 

H 



XENOPHANES. 

With him I weep, with him I toil, with him 

I breast the storm of life, to sink or swim. 

The glory of Olympus makes me blind ; 

Earth is my home, and earthly is my task, 

To live a man with men, and nobly strive 

To make bad good, and crown the good with 

best; 
A task more glorious than with fervid wheel 
To whirl the Elean dust, outstrip the wind 
With emulous-flying feet, or make the cheeks 
Of stout antagonists crackle 'neath the hail 
Of blows from iron fist. My wisdom loves 
Within their human bounds to lead mankind 
To reason, and, to reason's pointing true, 
To shun the evil, and the good pursue. 

Apollodorus. 

You are fair preachers ; but without the gods 
And the pure faith breathed into human breasts 
In primal times when gods did walk with men, 
Your wisdom is a tree that hangs i' the air 
Rootless. Our true Hellenic Zeus, you say 
You cannot own ; Olympus strikes you blind. 
Where will you end ? and in what mighty void 
Of Nothingness shall storm-tost mortals cast 
Their anchor ? Have you any creed at all ? 
If not in Jove, say then do you believe 
In Pluto and in Hades, the dim home 
Of souls disbodied, in Elysian fields, 
The blissful islands, and black Tartarus, 
Den of the damned ? 



XENOPHANES. 99 

Xenophanes. 

These things I'll know when I 
Return to earth and water, whence I came. 
Or here or there, by God's high gauge my soul 
Is safe, if by the one appointed path 
I seek salvation. 

Apollodorus. 

What path is that ? 

Xenophanes. 

A priest 

Should know this better than the wisest man. 

What boots your worship, and your sacrifice, 

Your sprinkled bloods, lustrations, ceremonies, 

Well-parted livers, fitly spiring flames, 

Omens and oracles, amulets and charms, 

Your fumigations, festal pomps, and all 

The drowsy tale of mumbled litanies, 

If how to please the gods the one sure path 

Your wit miscounts. 

Apollodorus. 

Not so : we please them well, 
Even by that service which your words bemock. 

Xenophanes. 

Alas, poor priest ! if this be all you know, 
Greece must owe thanks to Thales and myself, 
And wise Pythagoras, who with modest doubt 
Fill up the gaps with which your doctrines gape. 



ioo XENOPHANES. 

And for your service, which with gay festoons 
Ye decorate to hide its hollowness, 
As men do strew the dead man's bed with flowers 
To mask death's ugliness, it never raised 
From ground the stumbling foot of one that groped 
For truth, or chased the dark from clouded brain. 
Your prayers do vex the gates of heaven for what 
Jove gave you eyes to see and hands to find. 
You plant false trophies where no fight was won, 
And wail where wailing proves that grief is mad ; 
For, if the god you serve immortal be 
Why weep for him ? if mortal, why adore ? 

Apollodorus. 

I've born the unchastened onslaught of your tongue 
Too long ; a fool is he who treats with fools. 
'Tis time that Colophon should know what snake 
She nurses in her bosom. To blaspheme 
The public gods, and by unsanctioned will 
Set forth strange gods, confounding sacred wont 
Is capital by law. Farewell, good Damon ! 
The glorious god shall greet my pious friend, 
A welcome guest to-morrow. 

Damon. 

Ay ! without fail. 
[Exit Apollodorus.'] 

He's gone. And you, Xenophanes, have walked 
Into a nest of wasps with open eyes. 
Straightway he'll go and mightily infect 



XENOPHANES. 101 

The city with himself, till every breast 
Bristle with bans against your impious head ; 
And then, if one can rest in peace beside 
A buzzy army of mosquitoes, you 
May brook sweet sleep in Colophon. 

Xenophanes. 

You are right. 

I was too hasty ; 'tis an evil humour 
Sown in my blood ; a boyish bold delight 
To pluck full-robed pretension by the beard, 
And tear the mask from reputable lies. 

Damon. 
Grant they be lies, they sit enthroned in hearts 
Of thousands, and may reck no breath from thee ; 
Not wise is he who wisely talks to fools, 
And lends to foes a spear to pierce his skin. 
For me, I own the gods, nor seem to find 
Your new religion wiser than the creed 
That Homer sings, and general Greece receives ; 
But I respect your doubts, and from your tongue 
Crave honour for my faith. But for this priest 
He's like a dog, to whom he loves most fond, 
But whom he hates he bites. Yourself have drawn 
The lightning from the cloud that smites your head. 
What's marred may not be mended; you must leave 
This country for a time. 

Xenophanes. 

I'd liefer live 
Upon the rim of Aetna's burning bowl 



i2 XENOPHANES. 

Than herd with men, with whom to draw free breath 
Is sin, who hold free thought in freeman's breast 
For treason and rebellion. 

Damon. 

All approve 
That he is zealous for the gods. A priest 
Is by his office sworn to gag the mouths 
That fling defiance on his country's creed. 

Xenophanes. 

If I could fancy, as some sages teach, 
That souls of men once walked in brutish case, 
I'd say this fellow lived an owl, a bat, 
Blindworm, or mole, or any lightless thing. 
As when you lift an old grey stone, the grubs 
Run troubled from the broad-invading beam 
And healthful breeze, so from the sun of truth 
And sifting ventilation of discourse 
These bigots flee. 

Damon. 

It grieves me sore to think 
You are not safe in Colophon. I lose 
A wise instructor, and a dear-loved friend. 

Xenophanes. 

'Tis no new purpose in me, dearest Damon, 
To leave the Lydian land, tho' this hot priest, 
Or my hot stomach, spurs my will to take 
The jump of action. I am scarcely more 



XENOPHANES. 103 

With this loose people pleased than with their priest. 
If Homer's gods are scant so good as men, 
At least his men are men ; but now the Greek 
Here in the East hath caught the Eastern taint, 
And crisps his hair with gold, and sweeps the street 
With purple, spreading, like a lady's kerchief, 
Sweet perfumes round, and all the day they creak 
Their shoes upon the well-paved agora, 
And ask what news ; and all the night they drink. 
I'll wend me Westward. What the pomp of wealth 
And the far-reaching arm of power commands 
Let Asia boast ; what the adventurous thought 
May scheme, and the slow-gathering hand can store 
With careful harvest of long sweatful years 
Is the West's heritage ; and, if the gods are kind, 
I'll have my part in't. 

Damon. 

Would you might remain ! 

Xenophanes. 
It cannot be ; yourself have spoke my doom. 
Though every pine on high Galesus' brow, 
And every ripple in cool Hale's brook, 
Cried out, Xenophanes, stay here and love us ! 
I must be gone. 

Damon. 

When a few years have run, 
And smoothed the memory of this crude offence, 
You will return. Your wisdom being known 
With proof of years will make them seek the wise. 



104 XENOPHANES. 

Xenophanes. 

It needs the wise to seek the wise ; they'll call 
Xenophanes back when schoolboys sigh for books, 
Slaves carry crowns, priests sit at Wisdom's feet, 
And women languish for philosophy. 
But when I'm dead and lost to human quest, 
With my name blazed for some not worthless deed 
In the far West, as with the gods may chance, 
Belike they'll fetch my dust, and gild my bones, 
And show my monument for an obolus 
To gaping loungers. 

Damon. 

You are sharp of speech. 

Xenophanes. 

I '11 take a vow of silence for a year ! 
Meanwhile farewell ; meet me at Notium, 
Where Plution, my friend, with freighted keel, 
Waits bound for Syracuse. If the wind hold fair, 
We'll sail to-morrow. Let me see you there 
Once more before I go. 

Damon. 

The gods be with you ! 

\_Exeunt^\ 



HERACLITUS 

'Ek Trvpbs ra Tr&VTCt avveardvai, koX eh tovto dvaXtjeffdai' irdvra 
d£ ytyveaOai /car' elp.app.iv7]v, teal dia rrjs evavTiorpowijs fipp,6cr9at. 
ra vdvra. Diogenes Laertitts. 

elp.app.€V7]v \6yov £k rrjs ivavri.odpop.ias 8y]p.iovpybv rQv 'ovtosv. 

Stobaeus. 



HERACLITUS. 

PERSONS. 

1. Heraclitus, Son of Blyson, an Ephesian. 

2. Aenesidemus, a Priest of Diana of the Ephesians, in 

Ephesus. 

SCENE.— The country near Ephesus. In the back-ground the 
Temple of Diana of the Ephesia?is. In the middle distance a 
winding road. In the foreground Heraclitus is discovered sitting 
on the banks of a brook, playing at astragals with a boy. 

Boy. 

I'm tired with playing. 

Heraclitus. 

So am I, but you 
Should not be so. 

Boy. 

I'm tired; 'tis very hot. 
I wish I had a broad-brimmed hat like yours. 

Heraclitus. 
You're hot with victory ; five times you have caught 
All the five pebbles on the back o' your hand. 



108 HERACLITUS. 

Boy. 

My mother taught me in the rainy weather 
Last Maimacterion. 

Heraclitus. 

You beat me hollow. 

Boy. 

'Tis a girl's game, and little praise for me. 
When skies are foul and meads are moist, it can 
Beguile an hour ; but when the Titan sun 
Rides forth in strength, and freshening breezes blow, 
I seek a sport that draws the muscles tight, 
And leave this to my sisters. 

Heraclitus. 

You're a brave boy ; 
You'll be an admiral some day, no doubt, 
And sweep the seas with triumph. 

Boy. 

You are wise ; 
Do answer me a question. 

Heraclitus. 

If I can. 

Boy. 

They say that you know all things. 



HERACLITUS. 109 

Heraclitus. 

Who are they ? 

Boy. 
The people ; everybody ; the high priest. 

Heraclitus. 

Well, well, a silver drachm or two, no doubt, 
Of virgin knowledge, native from my mine, 
Will stamp me rich in their conceit, whose soil 
Is packed with rubbish. What I know I know, 
And what I guess I guess, and where I find 
Place for my foot I plant it firmly there. 

Boy. 
Why does the sun not burn all night ? 

Heraclitus. 

A lamp 
Can burn no longer than the wick supplies 
The needful oil. The sun is blazing mist 
Fed by the vaporous issues of the sea, 
Which, while the vapours last, burns on, then dies. 

Boy. 
Then every day a new sun shines on Earth. 

Heraclitus. 

Of course ; as every spring new Oleanders \ 

Flush the grey gorge. All things are full of change, / 
Yet changing in a changeless round, the same. 



no HERACLITUS. 

Boy. 

Why does the Moon not give both heat and light, 
Like her strong brother? 

Heraclitus. 

She is nearer placed 
To this gross Earth, and being grossly fed 
With earthly humours, gives less heavenly light. 
The hottest virtue loftiest mounts, and thence 
In streams of quivering radiation shoots 
Life through the vast of things. 

Boy. 

'Tis passing strange. 

[A sound of flutes and tambours is heard. A procession oj 
singing boys and girls, with a long accompaniment of peasants 
aicd citizens, passes along the road in the middle distance. They 
are follcnued by the image of Diana of the Ephesians, drazvn in 
a sacred car, preceded by the high priest. As the procession 
moves on, the following hymn is sung:] 

Hail to the Queen of the vasty creation, 
Hail to the fountain of joy and of life, 
The goddess that loves the Ionian nation, 
The maker of peace, and the soother of strife ! 

Hail to the virtue with various names, 

Whom country from country in rivalry claims ! 

We worship Thee, worshipful Virgin and Mother. 

Thou art the Queen, and we know of none other ; 

Jove is thy sire, and the Sun is thy brother, 
Holy Artemis, mighty mother ! 



HERACLITUS. in 

Hail to the mother of life many breasted ; 
Its food from the mother each creature receives, 
The eagle that soars o'er the peaks snowy-crested, 
The swallow that flits 'neath the lowliest eaves. 
Hail to the virtue, etc. 

Hail to the goddess that rideth the lion, 
The tamer of tigers, the bridler of bears ! 
The leopard kneels down when her chariot is nighing, 
The hind hath no fear when in triumph she fares. 
Hail to the virtue, etc. 

She maketh the stream of the sacred Cayster 
With fruitfullest slime to impregnate the mould ; 
Jove rains, and Apollo smiles down on his sister, 
And flushes the meadow with vegetive gold. 

Hail to the virtue, etc. 

Her's is the glory the summer is heir to, 
The green-mantled glen, and the fresh-tufted tree ; 
She touches the herbs, and with magical virtue 
They brew the sweet juice for the flower-working bee ! 
Hail to the virtue, etc. 

Her's is the strength of the proud rising palace, 
She wears on her head a tiara of towers ; 
Who live by her rivers, and drink from her chalice, 
Grow rich by the bounty that Artemis showers. 
Hail to the virtue, etc. 

Praise ye the queen of the vasty creation 
Praise her with tabor, with fife, and with flute ! 



112 HERACLITUS. 

Praise her with paeans of high inspiration, 

And for ever be dumb who to-day shall be mute ! 

[The music passes.] 
Boy. 

I can no longer stay : I must be off 
And join the troop. 

Heraclitus. 
Zeus bless thee, gallant boy ! 

\_The boy rims off after the procession.] 

Heraclitus. 

[Putting his feet into the brook, and looking on the water.] 

The same, and not the same ; how wonderful ! 

Here and not here ; a Yes, and yet a No; 

An ever-changing play of contradiction ; 

A thing that is, and by that being still 

Ceases to be ; such thing am I, and all 

The things I see. This thread of wimpling water, 

In which I bathe my feet, is fled and lost 

To me for ever, even while I touch it. 

Nor man, nor god, into the self-same flood 
Can enter twice. There is no thing that stands 
Self-based, self-strung, self-cased, that in the face 
Of the still-changing universe can say 
I am myself, and to myself belong, 
With proper lordship separate and apart. 
The stoutest things are but the fleeting foot-marks 
Of the great, hidden, silent-marching Power, 



HERACLITUS. 113 

Whose steps are being, and whose walk is life. 
As in the garden creeping herbs put forth 
Long sprawling arms far from their parent root, 
Which arms strike out new roots, from which new 

plants 
Seek separate nurture, bearing many now 
Which late were one, and still are one by grace 
Of common pedigree, and common sap, 
And common soil, from which they draw their 

life; 
So all things in the all are one and many ; 
Many, like germs upon a sprawling stem, 
One in the stem to which the germs belong ; 
All living, and of one great life the parts, 
Parts which from infinite to Infinite 
Exist by growing, and by growing die. 
Yet Death is but new start of life, and life 
New food for death. There is nor death nor life, 
In separate quality and in act ; but both 
Are nicely mingled, flowing each through each, 
Threads of one web. No single thing exists : 
As when we mix a bowl of Kykeon, 
The draught well stirred doth make a wambling 

whole, 
Which is nor wine nor honey, and yet both. 
There is no individual drop can stand ^ 
And say, I am myself, or wine or honey; 
But every drop by others interflowed 
Makes all a something which no part can be ; / 
So is the world a complex web, where thread 
Still crosses thread, an interthreaded maze, 
1 



114 HERACLITUS. 

Where every thread with shifting virtue thrills 
Now up, now down; the same, and not the same. 
\He continues for some time looking into the water, 
muttering to himself ~\ 
The same, and not the same, how wonderful ! 
All things roll in the mighty whole, 
Like the flow of a sleepless river, 
Ever the same, and never the same, 
Swirling on for ever ! 
[Enter Aenesidemus from behind.'] 

Aenesidemus. 
Ho, my good friend ! 

[Patting Heraclitus on the shoulder?^ 

Heraclitus. 
What ass is here that brays through heavenly hymns 1 

Aenesidemus. 
The hymns are ended ; the procession closed. 

Heraclitus. 

Ha ! is it you, all-reverend friend 1 I meant 
The hymn a god was harping in my soul ; 
But may the many-breasted Queen forgive 
My harsh address ; your coming found me rapt 
In meditation. 

Aenesidemus. 

You are wont to brood ; 
But on this festive day amid the throng 



HERACLITUS. 115 

Of worshippers by holy fervour fired, 
The friends of Heraclitus sought in vain 
The wisest man in Ephesus. 

Heraclitus. 

That matters not ; 

Here too are gods no less than in the temple ; 
The pomp of worship fills the gaping eye, 
The gaping ear luxuriates in the swell 
Of rival choirs ; but these feed not the soul, 
Which rather, by the rush of dinsome shows 
Dumfounded and distraught, retreats and finds 
Converse with gods in awful solitude. 

Aenesidemus. 
The living world is full of sounds and shows. 
But tell me ; well thou know'st I love thee, much 
Desire that all should love thee, even as I ; 
Therefore thine honest fame in Ephesus 
I would build up. There goes a common bruit 
That Heraclitus doth deny the gods 
Whom general Asia worships. I have heard 
Thee called an atheist, and have wept for thee. 

Heraclitus. 
Weep rather for the fools that call me so ; 
All things are full of gods, whom who not sees 
Is blind at noonday. 

Aenesidemus. 

I knew thou wert too wise 
To think with those who, living in a palace 



n6 HERACLITUS. 

Fair and well-builded, with ungracious lips 
Disown the builder. But there are many gods, 
Even as thou say'st, and not from all men all 
Claim equal reverence. In Ephesus 
We worship Artemis. 

Heraclitus. 

The first of gods, 
The fount of Godhead to all gods is Zeus. 

Aenesidemus. 
In this all Ephesus doth chime with thee. 

Heraclitus. 
If so, I with myself would disagree. 

Aenesidemus. 
How ? is thy Jove not ours ? who then is Zeus ? 

Heraclitus. 
Zeus is what many dream and few discern. 

Aenesidemus. 

Speak plainly. If thou knowest more than others, 
I would be taught. 

Heraclitus. 

To my thought Jove is Fire. 

Aenesidemus. 
Nay ; 'tis Hephaestus lords the plastic Flame. 



HERACLITUS. 117 

Heraclitus. 

He's but the hand that works ; the head is Jove j 
Even as Apollo from the Father's fount 
Wells oracles to men. There is no god 
Owns force or function, or wields shaping power 
Divorced from Jove. 

Aenesidemus. 

Here also I avouch 
Thee orthodox in what all Greeks believe ; 
Yet to make Zeus the all-devouring might 
Of Fire hath strangeness to Ionian ears. 

Heraclitus. 

Strangeness, of course ; for Truth is ever strange 
To fools ; and the unreasoning multitude 
Clamours at Reason as a monstrous thing 
Like beggars' curs that bay with vicious bark 
At each well-vested traveller, as who own 
Only their master's rags. But, my good friend, 
Be wiser thou, not numbered with the mob 
Who dream fond dreams, and dream their dream- 
ing true. 
Fire is in Nature the divinest Power 
All-permeant, all-plastic, all-instinct 
With vitalising force. 

Aenesidemus. 

Somewhat I catch 
Thy meaning, but would gladly hear thee more. 



n8 HERACLITUS. 



Heraclitus. 



Know then this earth on which we stoutly tread 
Is but a thin crust and a hardened slag, 
Beneath the which strong fiery currents flow 
Through realms of smoky vent and caverned flues ; 
And with this nether fire the fire sublime 
Holds converse in the strong far-travelling sun, 
Essence of light and heat, begotten high 
In the pure ether, which with flaming belt 
Enspheres the world, mother of countless stars ; 
These fires 

Aenesidemus. 

All men the Empyrean know, 
Prankt with the pomp of ever-twinkling lamps, 
Which light the gods upon their path sublime, 
Thick as with isle and islet quaintly sown 
Blossoms the broad Aegean ; but the stream 
Of subterranean fire whereof thou speakest 
I know not, nor have heard. 

Heraclitus. 

Thou knowest more 
Than thou dost deem. Thy knowledge is a babe 
Conceived in darkness, born to find the light. 
Hast heard of the Chimaera ? 

Aenesidemus. 

Who has not ? 



HERACLITUS. 119 

Heraclitus. 

Well, in Cilicia even now the soil 

Spirts jets of flame from that dire monster's throat. 

Aenesidemus. 
Say'st thou so, truly? 

Heraclitus. 

What I say I saw 
Even with these eyes ; and furthermore, have seen 
In divers parts hot fountains, bubbling wells, 
And hills that steamed with sulphur, all avouching 
The hidden working of the travelling fire 
That underscoops the earth. 

Aenesidemus. 

I do bethink me, 
Once in my youth with wondering eyes I saw 
A mountain spitting fire. 

Heraclitus. 

Fair hap was yours ; 
Where saw you this ? 

Aenesidemus. 

I was a little boy, 
Some fifty years are flown, when from the East 
A fair Phoenician galley bravely rode 
Into our harbour, westward bound, in quest 
Of tin in far Britannia, where it grows 



o HERACLITUS. 

Native with copper. My father, as you know, 

Was no home-bird bog-trotter of the shop, 

That loved to weigh the obols safely won, 

And count them in the tiller day by day, 

With grateful tinkle to a thrifty ear, 

But rather chose, as hunters track their game, 

By the bold venture and the perilous chance 

To gather gold. So with these trading men 

He made a common purse ; and — for my mother, 

Dear soul, was gone to the dim shades below — 

He took me with him, and in Trinacria, where 

We anchored for sweet water, I beheld 

A naming mountain. 

Heraclitus. 

Aetna was its name ? 



Aenesidemus. 



Even so. 



Heraclitus. 

'Tis bruited over all the East ; 
But tell me how it showed? 

Aenesidemus. 

The time I well remember. It was June ; 

The day was hot, and all the hills around 

Were swathed in sickly white, and ominous clouds, 

Massive and gross, like mighty battlements 

Of Titans when they warred against the gods, 

Towered in the air, and awful silence held 



HERACLITUS. 121 

The expectant earth, a stillness like the pause 

Before the clash of battle. At set of sun 

An earthquake came and shook men from their 

homes ; 
The solid ground did rock, and swoll, and sobbed, 
And rose and sank like to a thing diseased 
That pants in agony. From house to house 
Of the near town, the giant tremor ran, 
Which straightway toppled down, and lay in rows 
Like a mowed phalanx in a battlefield. 
Rocks left their seats ; the lowly valleys heaved ; 
And trees did with their branches flog the ground. 
Nor was the sea long unparticipant 
Of the land's fever, but with swift retreat 
Fled from the rattling beach, and back anon, 
Like a mad racer, leapt upon the land, 
And from its foamy mane and hissing crest 
Tossed huge destruction. All was blank dismay, 
And all stood trembling who not bit the sod, 
Deeming that Zeus for sins of men had doomed 
This frame of things to ruin. But now came 
The fiery horror to which this ague fit 
Was but the prelude. Who looked up beheld 
A pitchy pillar of thick-volumed smoke 
Shoot bolt to heaven, and then disparted spread, 
Even as the flat top of a mighty pine 
Blinding the day ; then with explosive roar 
The huge side of the mountain gaped, and belched 
Red rivers, which in surges rose, and smote 
The threshold of the gods. The troubled sky 
Rained cinders down, and rocks, which hurtling fell. 



122 HERACLITUS. 

A sulphurous mist o'ercanopied the earth, 
Through which the blue-red lightnings flaring shot 
Their forky tongues ; from their long-centuried beds 
The rivers fled, which straightway were usurped 
By streams of molten granite that o'erflowed 
Their narrow banks, and with a fiery deluge 
O'erswept whole cities. If I spent a day 
In Tartarus, where blasted Typhon lies, 
And all the blasphemous serpent-footed crew 
Of Jove-denying monsters, I might not 
Behold more terror than invaded then 
My scared regard. 

Heraclitus. 

Would I had shared with thee 
So grand a terror ! but consider now 
Whither this tends. Not Sicily alone, 
Such subterranean fiery vents contains, 
But the whole earth is tunnelled with them ; and 
Huge cindered mountains once ablaze with fire, 
As you may see by scratching, which reveals 
The hollow bubbles' mould, and glassy slag, 
And the light white-blown pumice, now are cropped 
By woolly sheep, and to the careful hoe 
Yield the heart-gladdening vine ; and thus we live 
Engirdled by a fiery belt above, 
And by a fiery furnace scooped below ; 
And by the power of this fine element 
All things are what they are, and may not freeze 
Into the hard and wasteful barrenness 
Of a dead chaos. 



HERACLITUS. 123 

Aenesidemus. 

But the Fire I saw 
Made chaos rather. 

Heraclitus. 

As the woodman's axe 
Makes chaos in a wood ; but the wood grows 
The better being thinned. The thing you saw 
Was but a part ; as when a worm is crushed 
Beneath some conqueror's chariot wheels, one breath 
Hath ceased, but the wide sentient earth no less 
Echoes with paeans. From the yeasty wave 
Ye can no more interpret the benign 
And genial essence of the pregnant deep, 
Than from a sudden spurt of reinless flame 
Tell the fine power of heat. The reinless flame 
Hath its own work ; it only can subdue 
The stubborn adamant ; but the subtle fire 
Which doth ensoul the flow of crimson blood 
Burns, but not blazes, to the measured march 
Which men call life. All life is heat, and heat 
Is fire well tempered and by reason reined. 
Deem not the essence of creative fire 
A wild, untempered, reckless-rending power, 
To waste a city or consume a straw. 
Instinct with reason and inventive force 
It moulds the world, and, magical, transmutes 
This thing to that, and that to this again ; 
In all and of all, as the flowing sap 
In the green tree, or in the living bone 



124 HERACLITUS. 

The vital blood. 'Tis the incarnate reason 
That is the world and makes it. What we call 
Making is but the being of the world, 
Which is by ever being something new ; 
And what it makes must still unmake, that nothing 
May stand apart, and by its being bar 
The prime necessity of ceaseless change, 
Which is a law to Jove. 

Aenesidemus. 

But Jove, thou said'st 
But now, was Fire. 

Heraclitus. 

And even so I say 
Again. Nought is in heaven or earth but Fire 
Of things that live, if any death there be ; 
The virtue of all being centres here : 
Fate and the Furies, Justice, Reason, Law, 
Necessity, and Jove, and Fire, are names 
For one thing many. Names are marks which bring 
Food to the foolish, to the feeble fear, 
Sport to the wise, mere jugglers' tricks which strike 
The gaping throngs with wonder, while the man 
Who is the fellow in the fine deceit 
Stands and admires the trickster, not the trick. 

Aenesidemus. 
Is Jove a juggler, and is life a cheat ? 



HERACLITUS. 125 



Heraclitus. 



Spell not my words too gingerly. I say 

What men call many things are one, transformed 

By Fire's all-fusing virtue. 

Aenesidemus. 

How can Fire 
Become its adverse 1 Water quenches flame. 

Heraclitus. 
I thank thee for that instance. Tell me first 
How ice becometh water ? 

Aenesidemus. 

By added heat. 

Heraclitus. 
Then solid things to fluid change by power 
Of plastic heat, a rock becomes a river ; 
And that which murders red-faced Fire, itself 
Was born of very Fire. See here the type 
Of the vast universe. Fire in the watery form, 
Masked in its contrary, moulds all things to life. 
Heat makes the humid ; heat to reason joined 
Subduing hardest things to liquid laws, 
With procreative virtue pulsing flows, 
A mighty sea, whose waves are vital seeds. 
Down through the fluid every soul descends 
That with incarnate separate entity 
Stands manifest to sense. This vital sea 
Ye call Oceanus, ancientest of gods, 



126 HERACLITUS. 

And with his foamy-footed daughters wisely 
Make populous the brine. Their name is legion ; 
And kin to them is Dionysus, born 
Of rainful Jove, himself the sapful life 
Of smooth-leaved ivy, and the needled fir, 
And fervid-blooded vine. 

Aenesidemus. 

You use the words 
Of wise old Homer ; but your sense, I deem, 
He little dreamt of. You interpret him 
To grace your fancies with his honoured name. 

Heraclitus. 

Whip Homer from the schools, and with him send 
Archilochus ! 

Aenesidemus. 

What ! shall all our learning go 
For nothing ? did the old theologer 
Of Ascra teach in vain ? Are we all fools ? 

Heraclitus. 

Learning more cumbers than informs the soul ; 
Strong thinkers, like alert athletes, wear not 
Their limbs in bandages. What I know, I know 
Direct from Jove, who not more surely spake 
To Homer than to me. 

Aenesidemus. 
Methinks you nurse a huge conceit. 



HERACLITUS. 127 

Heraclitus. 

I nurse 
What thought a man, being complete man, may nurse. 

Aenesidemus. 
What boast is this ? mortal of mortal born. 

Heraclitus. 

Not so ; all mortal from immortal flows ; 
Gods are immortal men, men mortal gods. 

Aenesidemus. 
You deal in riddles. 

Heraclitus. 

So does the god who sits 
Upon the navel of the earth at Delphi. 

Aenesidemus. 
You say that Jove is Fire ; what is Apollo ? 

Heraclitus. 
The flaming right hand of his father Jove. 

Aenesidemus. 

And she, the mighty mother, many-breasted, 
Whom general Asia worships and all Greece, 
If thou be doctor in old Hesiod's room, 
Say who is she, and what her virtue ? 



128 HERACLITUS. 

Heraclitus. 

Plainly 

Her form declares her nature. From her breasts 
The milky juice, the food of delicate life, 
Flows copious ; and with quaint display all round 
Cinctured with figured zones, she proudly shews 
Her shaggy children whom she feeds and rears ; 
She is the Earth by genial heat informed, 
With pregnant humours gushing into life. 

Aenesidemus. 

Thy words are fair : but, should the people ask 
If Heraclitus holds one creed with all 
That worship Dian, I were loath to swear 
The rightness of thy creed. 

Heraclitus. 

Swear not at all, 
As what implies that thou dost lightly speak, 
Apart from swearing. Ever speak the truth, 
Nor with one crude unpondered word divorce 
Thy small particular from the general fact 
That links the world ; only true words prevail ; 
And light opinions, lightly squandered, are, 
To thwart the truth, not stronger than a fly 
To baffle Boreas. 

Aenesidemus. 

I would my tongue 
Were Orpheus' lyre to move thee. Why dost thou 
Still sit apart as one possessed, who loves 



HERACLITUS. 129 

The lonely places where the bittern booms, 
And fenny vipers creep, and spotted newts 
Crawl 'neath the crumbled granite. In this land 
Thales was wise, and with his wisdom knew 
To rule the olive market. But you sit 
Self-banished here, with perverse waste of wit, 
Spinning a strong entanglement of thought, 
That but enmeshes thee and profits none. 
Keep not thy wisdom to thyself, but rise 
And spread it as the lavish sun his light. 
It suits the rich to squander ; with their wealth 
To serve the public. All who live must serve. 

Heraclitus. 

I serve the public ? If I did so, they 

Would serve me as they did good Hermodorus, 

And banished him, for that with too much love 

He would advance their good. " Let none presume 

To do us good, except as we shall please, 

And with such partners as we choose to name ; 

Who does us good against our will usurps 

Our liberty." And so, to prove them free, 

They cast out the best man in Ephesus. 

Who serves a kicking horse may look to earn 

Kicks for his kindness. I am wiser grown. 

Aenesidemus. 
But a good rider rules a restive steed. 

Heraclitus. 
Ay ; but the People, many-headed brute, 

K 



i 3 o HERACLITUS. 

Tiger arid ass, viper and bear in one, 
Was never tamed ; and who such brute would lead 
Must be his slave. My humour keeps me free. 
Talk we no more to-day : Farewell, good friend ! 

Aenesidemus. 

I do commend thee to the mighty Mother, 
That free from error she may keep thy soul 
In the true faith and worship of herself. 

Heraclitus. 
As I do thee. The mighty Mother bless thee ! 

\Exennt~\ 



EMPEDOCLES 



Insula quern iriqitetris terrarum gessit in oris, 
Quae, cum magna modis multis miranda videtur, 
Nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclariiis in se 
Nee sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur, 
Ut vix humana video tur stirpe creatus. 

Lucretius. 



EMPEDOCLES. 

PERSONS. 

1. Empedocles, a Philosopher of Agrigentum. 

2. Embadius, a Citizen of Agrigentum. 
3. ' Other Citizens. 

4. Pausanias, a Physician, Friend of Empedocles. 

5. Senators of Selinus. 

Scene. — In the city of Agrigentum, or in the neighbouring 
district. 

SCENE I. 

The market-place of Agrigenticm. Enter Embadius and other 
tradesmen and citizens of Agrigentum. 

Embadius. 
Well, my masters, your talk of yesterday wore a 
serious face, and must be looked to. I have now- 
been vamping neat's leather for thirty years in Agri- 
gentum, and I ought to know where the shoe pinches. 
I have made all sorts of shoes : sandals and slippers 
of most multiform variation, and shoes properly so 
called. I have made Spartan shoes for men, as red 
as boiled lobsters, to look warlike ; I have made felt 
shoes for fine ladies, with cork heels to make them 
look lofty; I have made hunting shoes, after the 



i 3 4 EMPEDOCLES. 

fashion of short-kirtled Dian, for Numidian hunters ; 
and heavy shoes, with hobnails, for swine-herds, stone- 
breakers, and muleteers in the Nebrodian mountains. 
If any man in Agrigentum ought to know where the 
shoe pinches, that man is old Embadius, whose head 
hath snowed itself into a precocious winter by 
ministering comfort to the soles of all Sicily. 

First Citizen. 

Well, sir, your occupation, though a lowly one, is 
of high service. But what hath this to do with our 
discourse of yesterday ? Our talk, I guess, was not of 
shoes. 

Embadius. 

Timotheus, thou art a most literal-witted knave; 
hast thou no comprehension of similitudes ? I spake 
of shoes, true; but the shoes were an allegory. I 
meant, of course 

Second Citizen. 
Of course he meant the oligarchy. 

First Citizen. 
O, I see now ! 

Second Citizen. 
Ay, Timotheus you can see, when you are told to 
see, and sometimes not even then. 

First Citizen. 
Peace, yellow beak ! what Embadius would enforce 
is, that we, the people, are the feet ; that the laws of 



EMPEDOCLES. 135 

Agrigentum are the shoes ; that the oligarchy, the Ten 
Hundred who make the laws, are our shoemakers ; 
and, being shoemakers, they make shoes which, being 
shoes, ought to solace our soles, but do in fact torture 
our great toes most outrageously. 

Embadius. 

Thou hast applied the similitude justly. Gorgias 
could not have expounded it more aptly according to 
the just laws of the art rhetorical. 

First Citizen. 

And does it not hold most properly that, as the feet 
were not made for the comfort of the shoes, but the 
shoes for the comfort of the feet, the Ten Hundred 
hold their places and brook their power not for their 
private pleasure and profit, but for the service and 
satisfaction of the people. 

Embadius. 
Athenian Solon, whose ashes have slept in an urn 
for ten times ten years and more, were he to leap into 
flesh again, could not have spoken more wisely. Thou 
art the very man for our need. 'Tis plain we must 
have a revolution. 

Second Citizen. 

Certainly a revolution. Why should we stuff sausages 
to feed the beast that devours us ? Why from our 
proper sweat lend strength to their sinews to tramp our 
lives out ? Why should we, who count by thousands, 



136 EMPEDOCLES. 

sit out all night in the cold with our nets in the sea, 
fetching ourselves rheumatism and ague, that these 
who poll by the hundred may sit by the fireside and 
fatten on the fry? 

First Citizen. 

There thou sayest well. Whoso belongs not to the 
Ten Hundred hath no place in Agrigentum. We 
belong to the city, but are not citizens ; slaves rather, 
nay, worse than slaves ; for any liberty we may boast 
of seemeth to consist in this — we are free from the 
bother of keeping the reins in our own hands, only 
that we may feel the bitterness of a strong rider's 
goad in our ribs. Worse than slaves, I say again, to 
every intent ; for slaves indeed find who care for them, 
and live not scurvily from the superfluity of sugared 
crumbs that drops to them from their master's table. 
We are nobodies in Agrigentum ; we must make our- 
selves somebodies. 

Second Citizen. 

Well, then, how shall we proceed? Let us elect 
Embadius for our captain ; rouse the people ; storm 
the council-chamber ; drive out the few ; and install 
the many, that is, ourselves, in their seats. 

Embadius. 

Softly, softly, my masters ! Embadius is an honour- 
able man ; but the people will not be led by an 
honourable man who trades in neat's leather. They 
will have a gentleman to lead them. We may not 



EMPEDOCLES. 137 

confront the polished and blazoned worshipfulness of 
the Ten Hundred, with our blank smocks and un- 
curried roughness. We shall show like an army of 
crows marching against eagles. We must have an 
eagle to flap for us. 

Second Citizen. 
Are we not men ? are we not brave ? have we not 
brains ? do we lack brawn ? 

Embadius. 
Young man, thou understandest these things not. 
The world is governed by show, by custom, and by 
authority. I tell thee a revolution never was made, 
never can be made, to any prosperous issue without 
the help of that very oligarchy whom the revolution 
shall overthrow. The burglar bribes the servants of 
the strong man's house, and thus enters. Excuse the 
similitude. We are not burglars, neither you nor I ; 
but we are about to proceed violently against the 
house of a strong man. Therefore, I say to thee, 
young man, we must proceed with discretion. 

First Citizen. 
Well, then, let us tell the tale of them. Who are 
the men drawing their blood from the founts of the 
old families, whom we might invite to be head of this 
tumour ? 

Second Citizen. 
Tumour ! you old blunderer ! don't degrade us by 
calling a revolution a tumour j no doubt, you meant 



138 EMPEDOCLES. 

to say tumult ; but this word no less hath a bad 
odour ; say rather, an eruption, an eruption of Aetna, 
or an irruption into the houses of the oligarchs. 

First Citizen. 

Peace, pedant ! What say you, Embadius, to 
Hipposthenes, the son of the rich merchant, Chry- 
sogonus, who married the Carthaginian captain's 
daughter ? 

Embadius. 

He is like all other sons of rich merchants, the 
first article of whose creed is that their fathers gathered 
gold with much thinking that they may scatter it with 
none. There is nothing very bad about the youth, 
but neither is there anything very good. He hath 
no measure in his doings, but either loafs about the 
streets like a dainty girl, perusing a jeweller's window, 
or drives about the country like Orestes hounded by 
the Furies. But the worst is, he is utterly destitute 
of counsel. He hath science only in dogs and 
horses, cocks and quails, dicing, drinking, dancing- 
girls and flute-players ; and his special dexterity is in 
spirting water upon tinkling scales, to hit the heads 
of gilded mannikins. There is no cottabist in Sicily 
to match him. Nevertheless, he is infinitely better 
than a school-boy who goes unwillingly to school, or 
a crab that goes backwards, or a mule that will not 
go at all. Put him on a horse's back and he will 
ride gallantly whither a god may drive him. But, as 
aforesaid, he lacks counsel. We must sauce our 



EMPEDOCLES. 139 

enterprise with brains, my masters ; otherwise, the 
hot crudity of our start may engender wind, and we 
shall explode. 

First Citizen. 
What say you to Polus ? 

Embadius. 

Polus is a right supple sophist. He hath a tongue 
lithe as a lizard's tail, and loud as the flap of a goose- 
wing. He is a hero of most catholic championship, 
who will plead for any cause, and fight for none. 
He is no oligarch ; that is one virtue, though scarcely 
a virtue in him ; for, having no quality of reverence 
in the inventory of his brain-pan, how should he 
affect to crook the knee to pedigree, or bow the head 
to authority ? He carries himself with a most re- 
gardless lightness to all things, and hanging the 
world on his little finger, says, it is my jewel. He 
cares not for the people ; in fact, he cares not much 
for anything but Polus. He is a good fencer ; he 
fences with his tongue ; but he hath neither cause 
nor country, nor conscience ; and, conclusively, is no 
patriot. Dismiss him. 

First Citizen. 
Then there is Polyphantes. 

Embadius. 
Dream not of him. He is a rank oligarch. Once 
he gave the people a banquet ; for why ? Not for 



Ho EMPEDOCLES. 

that he loves the people, but that the people might 
love him. He hath a most royal pride in dispensing. 
If the people are contented to be beggars, he will 
delight to show his liberality by feasting them; if 
they style themselves brothers, it will be the office of 
his dignity to spurn them. 

First Citizen. 

What hold you of the worthy physicians, Acron 
and Pausanias? 

Embadius. 

What all Agrigentum holds. There are no better 
men in Sicily, friends of the people, true to the back- 
bone. Nevertheless they are of that quality which is 
more quick to spy what is bad in the conduct of 
affairs than apt to strike for what is good. Pausanias, 
certainly, will go with us ; but he will be more pro- 
fitable in teaching another to move than in moving 
himself. 

Second Citizen. 

What other ? Empedocles ? 

Embadius. 

Whom else? There is no man in Agrigentum 
will serve our purpose like the son of Meton. He 
carries a weight and authority with all classes that 
belongs to no man else. He is clothed with a certain 
majesty that sits upon him as naturally as a helmet 
on the head of Mars, and as lightly as a plume on an 
eagle's wing. There is not a senator in the whole 



EMPEDOCLES. 141 

hall of Audience can do a base thing and look Empe- 
docles in the face. The splendid purple of their 
fair pretences pales at his breath, and shrinks to 
tatters at his touch. He is a man from top to toe ; 
cataphract behind and before ; plated with golden 
proof against all knavery. 

First Citizen. 
He is in sooth right noble both in blood and bear- 
ing ; there is no house in Agrigentum of more un- 
stained precedents. I remember his father's father, 
a right lordly man, coming home victor from the 
games, his high-blood steeds tossing their saffron 
manes, rich and soft, as the cream which my Xan- 
thippe skims from the milk of the dun cow, snorting 
a challenge to all riders, and out-pacing all runners, 
like Hermes pitted in the stadium against the lame 
Hephaestus. 

Embadius. 
Our city was ever famed for horses. I remember 
when good Exaenetus, being victor at the games, 
rode through the streets with a group of ten times 
thirty chariots, drawn by white horses. 

Second Citizen. 
But for Empedocles himself, it is rumoured that he 
is tainted with strange fancies, shaping his life more 
to the whim of private conceit than to the known rule 
of general consent. They say he eats no flesh ; and 
on one occasion, having to make sacrifice to Olym- 
pian Jove, that he might spill no blood — for the 



i 4 2 EMPEDOCLES. 

which he hath an emphatic horror — he bolstered up 
an ox with a wooden frame and painted canvas, and 
stowing it full of all sorts of spiceries, thus enacted 
the sacred rite. Now this is both a folly and a 
sham. 

First Citizen. 

And an impiety to boot, if true. 

Embadius. 

A wise addition — if true. But 'tis an idle tale, 
believe me, that squares with Empedocles' wit as 
nicely as a beggar's cloak does with a king's back ; a 
patch, doubtless, taken from the wardrobe of that 
meek and milky-blooded brotherhood, who, being 
banished from the Oscan land for their impertinent 
oligarchic pedantries, crossed the strait at Zancle to 
fill with their dreamy stuff any empty polls that 
might be found here waiting for such furnishing. But 
Empedocles — trust me, for I know him, and have 
weighed him every grain, and surveyed him all round 
— Empedocles is not the man to feed on dreams ; and, 
if he hath an imagination, his fancies have pith in 
them very different from that Pythagorean juggle 
about triangles that contain nothing, and figures 
whose sums are less substantial than soap-bubbles. 

Second Citizen. 

Yet was he seen only two nights ago, upon a bare 
ridge, beneath the cold moon, gazing at the stars, and 
muttering to the breeze, and holding parle with him- 



EMPEDOCLES. 143 

self like a madman. Certainly he hath melancholic 
lunes, and affects solitude. Some say he gives him- 
self out for a god. 

Embadius. 

Peace, young pea-blossom ! You know no more 
what such a man as Empedocles cogitates beneath the 
moon, than a mite does about a cheesemonger. 

First Citizen. 
Or a worm about a war-horse ! 

Embadius. 
Pythagoras, as I said, was a dreamer ; but one wise 
rule his maundering fraternity had, videlicet, that every 
young man should keep silence for seven years after 
the first sprouting of his beard, before he unbarred the 
fence of his teeth in open council to counter thwart 
long years and large experience. Let us, therefore, 
my brave masters, put this business, so forth, into 
shape. We will speak to Pausanias, that he speak to 
Empedocles, that he head the conjuration ; and our 
complotting shall not be in vain. Follow me ! have 
your finger on your lips • keep your tinder dry ; and 
your knives sharp ; and Empedocles shall help you to 
help the Ten Hundred lightly out of their chairs. 

[Exeunt.] 



144 EMPEDOCLES. 



SCENE II. 

A villa in the high country, on the banks of the Acragas, north 
of Agrigentmn. Empedocles comes forth from an arbour and 
appears on a platform from which there is a view of the city. 

Pythagoras was a marvellous man ; if he 
Had not a golden thigh, as story tells, 
His words are ore more precious than the grace 
Of golden Aphrodite. But what gold ? 
What would this foulest fair addition, still 
Tagged to the good ? O vain, sense-juggled world, 
To symbolise the best things by the worst, 
And seek divine significance in what 
Of earth is earthiest, and bears no more 
Kinship to man, and what in man is best, 
Than this dull clod to life. What thing is gold ? 
It is a stage piled high for dwarfs to stand on, 
And deem them giants : 'tis a venal whore, 
That sells her womanhood for short lease of life 
More loathly than the grave ; a painted hag 
That cooks her stale unseasoned cheek to mock 
The bloom of Hebe ; or, if I must deal 
In mild comparisons — (though my boiling blood 
111 brooks them, when I see how men are fobbed 
Out of all manhood by this swindler gold) — 
Then let me say this gold is a long ladder, 
With steps that soar to heaven or sink to hell. 
Ay ! there's the rub ! the blessing or the bane 
Lies with the climber, as he plants the steps 
Upwards or downwards ; to his feet they are 



EMPEDOCLES. 145 

But arrant slaves, blind hands that wait his will, 
For good or evil. Blind things cannot lead ; 
And if strong Briareus had an hundred arms, 
Lacking the wit to wield them, he would boast 
From fate a bitter boon, a hundred whips 
To flog himself. O, foolish, foolish world ! 
One thing is needful, for one thing I pray ; 
Zeus, grant me wisdom ! Daughter of great Jove, 
Immortal, flashing-eyed, divinely chaste, 
Give me a glimpse of that most glorious truth 
Thou sharest with thy father ; touch mine eyes, 
As thou didst salve the sight of Diomede, 
With heavenly virtue, that, dull films removed, 
I may behind this mortal strife behold 
The gods that weave the broidery of the web 
Which men call life. For this one thing I pray, 
And consecrate to thee this day my soul, 
Making my wish thy slave ; and for such boon 
The juggling gold, and all the glistering pomp 
That struts upon the painted stage of man, 
The blazon and the boast of fools, I fling 
For swine to tramp on ! 

Pythagoras was a marvellous man, and yet 
His numbers tell not all the mystery 
That moves the wheel of life. All things must share 
Redemption from old chaos ; shapeless things 
Were no things; shape from numbered sequence grows, 
And bounded number. This the Samian saw ; 
And sooner shall a blind man flood the world 
With light, and asses bray soul-soothing hymns, 
L 



146 EMPEDOCLES. 

And screaming vultures thrill the groves with song, 

Than worlds be worlds where marshalling number fails. 

But we must number something ; there is dust 

Of gold, and dust of earth, and briny spray, 

And dust of mealy flowers. We cannot coin 

Gold into cowslips, cowslips into gold, 

By counting two or three, or perfect ten, 

Or the high-honoured function of the four. 

All quality, all substantial virtue, lies 

In the great elemental roots of things, 

And these are four ; a child may tell their types, 

Earth, Water, Air, and all-ensphering Fire ; 

Earth makes the solid framework, the strong base 

Of firm resistance, and the peg on which 

All lighter being hangs, the soil whence springs 

The delicate-petalled flower, and sturdy tree, 

And with broad-breasted native strength upbears 

The starry architecture, home of gods. 

Then comes the pure and all-interfluent power 

Of billowy Water, peopling every creek 

And gaping hollow of wide-bosomed earth, 

With lake and sea, and richly-rolling stream, 

Clear-bubbling well, and roaring cataract ; 

Here dwells the softening quality that subdues 

All hardness, so made docile to receive 

Fair shape, and rounds each sharp invasive line 

To graceful sweep of softly-falling curve, 

And oozing subtly through each viewless pore 

Lives latent in the stone, and slowly breaks 

The flinty heart of most obdurate rock 

To serviceable grain ; here teems with power 



EMPEDOCLES. H7 

The fecund finny tribe ; no living thing 

Lives without liquid, and the stony seed 

Feels the insinuant dew, and the green blade 

Bursts forth miraculous. Third mighty root of things 

The soft-breathed Air, mother of life, appears, 

With music on its wings, and floats sublime 

With tenuous substance through its sphery flow, 

Finely dispersed, and bears from life to life 

Far-waving pulse of odorous messengers, 

With soothing wafture. Then divinest root 

Of things that be, all-moulding Fire is named, 

Soul of all soul, and very life of life ; 

Most pure, most quick, most unconfined, most keen 

To stir all vital rapture, or to burst 

All bonds of corporate jointure, and create 

What men call death. Of this the mighty gods 

Are framed compact, robed in essential flame, 

Undying forms, like mortal men, but free 

From mortal taint ; great far-careering spheres 

Of fiery virtue, scattering radiant force, 

Through all the sentient world that undulates 

In subtle transport to the touch divine : 

These are the roots of things, the cosmic strings 

Which mighty Number tunes to harmony, 

And plays the hymn called Life. 

But I am borne 
Too hotly to my goal. . These primal seeds 
Were weak to shape a world without thy force, 
Primeval Aphrodite, Queen of Charms, 
Thou and that rival Might, whom to subdue 
Was still thy boast, Discord, and Jar, and Din, 



148 EMPEDOCLES. 

Contention and Debate. Strong Love and Hate 
Divide the world ; but with diviner sway 
Love wields, and welds, and unifies what else 
Were a long bicker and a deathless strife 
Of unharmonious opposites. All things 
Would start centrifugal, and fill wide space 
With strange distraction ; but thy virtue came, 
Sweet reconciler of harsh contraries, 
Zoned with all blandishment ; and at thy touch 
The strong bowed to the weak, the rough received 
The soft in sisterhood, and blissful bonds 
Made male and female one, and thus arose 
That balanced mean of sundered opposites, 
Which men call health and beauty, reason, right, 
And every praiseful name. But not stern Fate 
And strong Necessity, and the hoar decree 
Of deathless gods, by sempiternal oath 
Sanctioned and sealed, allowed the Cyprian's reign 
For ever ; else sweet sameness had grown tame, 
Fond iteration wearisome, and all 
The hostile hues that make a varied world 
Been merged in blank identity. Discord lives, 
A snake still scotched by Love, but never killed, 
Which, when the world would slide into repose, 
And hug itself in unadventurous ease, 
Knocks at the door, whips off the rosy dream, 
Drags forth the sleeper, shakes the tenement, 
And all the soldered opposites rebound 
Into their primal hates. 

Thus might I sketch 
Rough-handed outline of a doctrine fit 



EMPEDOCLES. 149 

To fill the gaps which wise Pythagoras left ; 
And by the favour of the prophet-god 
Whose laurelled rod I bear, I will enquire, 
And with persistent-searching ken unravel 
The tangled tissue of this shifting web 
Which men call life, still weaving, still unwoven ; 
And what I find with faithful voice declare. 

And yet how little can a mortal man 
Know worth the knowing ! narrow is our view, 
Feeble our grasp, and many an adverse fate 
Buffets our sense, and blunts its keenest edge, 
Defies our conjuring, from our torture slips, 
And with seven-bolted mystery bemocks 
Our crude surmises. In the dark we sweat, 
Feeding on glimpses, through our little span 
Of life much like to death ; and, when our lamp 
Sinks with a puff, we pass away like smoke, 
• And are not ; knowing what each chanced to know 
In drift of circumstance, but of the whole 
Incognisant, nor functioned to cognise 
By sense that peers without or pries within. 
So it must be ; we cannot burst the cage 
Whose bonds are bounds that shape us what we are ; 
For limit is the very law that makes 
All Finites possible ; and, to be at all, 
We must be marked off from the boundless whole 
With divers functions, aptitudes, and powers, 
Each in his own encasement, which to pass 
Is to break down our being. Therefore I, 
Within the limits of my little life 
Will chastely live, and piously depend 



ISO EMPEDOCLES. 

On the great source of life, even as a babe 

Hangs from its mother's breast. But who comes here? 

[Enter Pausanias!\ 

The good gods love thee, my Pausanias ! 
Would I were sick, that so the drugful leech 
Might profit me the more ! 

Pausanias. 

Are you quite sure 
That you are not sick ? 

Empedocles. 

Sick of mine own self 
I am sometimes, and of the thoughts that strain 
My faculty to think, more than they glut 
My greed to know. 

Pausanias. 

Empedocles is wise, 
And should not strain the cord till it may crack. 

Empedocles. 

I have been musing, like a keen-nosed hound 
Close on the game once started. 

Pausanias. 

You are lost 
Too much in thought. What are those scrolls that lie 
There on the table ? 



EMPEDOCLES. 151 

Empedocles. 

Tis a book. 

Pausanias. 

More books ! 
And verses too, by Jove ! In sooth you spin 
Your soul too hotly out ; you will not live 
Half your just time. Is this a tragedy 
Like those you flapped out, when you imped your wings, 
Or have you piled another Xerxiad, 
Like that your sister burned ? 

Empedocles. 

Not so, good friend ; 
These were light essays of the fledgling then 
When but to fly was pleasure. I have now 
Wise purpose in my verse ; and with thy science 
My song is sistered. 

Pausanias. 
Troll a little stave. 

Empedocles. 

Hear me, friends, who dwell where Acragas mingles 
his golden 

Flow with the sea, who cherish wise thoughts, a bless- 
ing to mortals, 

Friends all guiltless of harm, and a haven of love to 
the stranger. 

Hail ! a mortal no more, but like to immortals in 
honour 



152 EMPEDOCLES. 

Wreathed I walk through your street, and crown'd 

with worshipful badges ; 
Cities fling open their gates, and old and young to 

receive me 
Stream in reverent throngs, and woo my ear with 

petitions ; 
Some the secrets of fate, and some the hope of their 

labour 
Eager to know, and some with limb-distorting diseases 
Bent to the ground, or pierced with pangs that harry 

the vitals 
Take the word from my lips, like drops of balm to 

the wounded. 

Pausanias. 

Well promised ! May the cake you eat be white 
As that you knead ! 

Empedocles. 

Little he still receives 
Who little hopes ; weak is our ken to grasp 
The far swing of the vasty world, but strong 
A wise man's arm to save who will be saved. 

Pausanias. 
Read on. 

Empedocles. 

Come and learn from my lay what drugs the drugful 

physician 
Brooks to strangle disease, and lighten life's burden 

to sapless 



EMPEDOCLES. 153 

Sorrowful eld. The secret I know to fetter the cold 

wind's 
Bluster that blackens the tree and blights the blade 

to the farmer ; 
I can banish the breeze, and swell its current at 

pleasure. 
Listen to me, and from black-browed storms thou 

shalt bring in its season 
Warmth to yellow the grain, and, when green leaves 

droop in the summer, 
Up from its wells thou shalt conjure the freshening 

might of the river 
Over the gasping land ; the dead that wander in 

darkness 
Hearing thy call shall revisit life's lightsome dwellings 

to praise thee ! 

Pausanias. 
'Tis well to praise our skill, and helping hand ; 
But science hath its bounds, and we must hope 
Within our human reach. 

Empedocles. 

I am content 
To be a man. I would not fight with gods ; 
But how far wing of mortal wit may strain 
We know not till we try. The bird that sits 
In wiry cage, well pleased, will never find 
Proof of its pinion. Man may bridge the seas, 
Back turn the rivers, underbore the hills, 
Yea rein the reinless fire and puffing steam, 



154 EMPEDOCLES. 

If but in Nature's track, devoutly traced, 
Careful he walks, and what he aptly schemes 
With caution dares. 

Pausanias. 

Beloved Empedocles, 
All men admire thy daring, and allow 
Thy skill supreme ; and I much more than all 
Cling to thy strength, as to the elm the vine ; 
But in the crowd I live, and glean what men 
Say of my friend — mostly a mass of dreams — 
But sometimes seasoned with a dash of truth 
That gives my love to ponder. 

Empedocles. 

Art thou come 
To preach to me to-day ? I love the man 
Who shows my sins. How shall the surgeon's knife 
Bring saving lancet to a wound untold ? 
The sickly soul that hugs his sickness dies ; 
Make me clean bare, and probe me to the bone, 
And with no butter on thy knife, Pausanias. 

Pausanias. 

Well, let me play the surgeon. Sooth to say 
Thou art too much alone ; thou dost remove 
Thy life from the great life of Agrigentum ; 
Cranes herd with cranes, with oxen, oxen. Men 
Should troop with men. 



EMPEDOCLES. 155 

Empedocles. 

Blame me not, friend, in this, 
Here in the solitude I hold discours'e 
With gods, who in the forum's wrangling din 
Are overbawled. When gods would speak to men, 
They choose not markets, where contentious crowds 
Make mighty chaffering for a paltry gain ; 
Nor theatres, where sounding plaudits swell 
To strut of buskined revellers ; nor shrines 
With swarms of wondering worshippers enringed, 
And seas of praise ; but in the soft-winged breeze, 
In the green stillness of a pastured wold, 
By brooks that whisper 'neath a fringe of ferns, 
Or wimple through a cowslip-broidered mead 
In woods at noon, when not a leaf is stirred ; 
On grassy slopes mantled in mellow gold, 
When summer suns are soft and evenings sweet, 
And in the fall of gentle night, when drifts 
The frequent fire-fly through the breezeless grove, 
They speak to the heart, alone with man alone, 
That he with whole will to their awful charge 
Lend no divided ear. 

Pausanias. 

There you are right ; 
We learn to think in solitude, to live 
In stream of men. But you — you plant yourself, 
Self-moulded and self-tutored, in their front, 
And in a high regardless humour cuff 
The crest of their opinion, without need 



156 EMPEDOCLES. 

In things indifferent. They are children — well, 
Not wise is he who children treats as men ; 
The potter makes the dish, but not the clay ; 
The angler trims his bait to suit the trout ; 
And even so you, if you would fish for men, 
Must note their likings. People see your dress, 
But not your soul, and they are much offended. 

Empedocles. 

My dress ! O ! peacocks claim their plumes, but not 
Empedocles his coat ! — What more ? . Sweep clean ; 
Mince not your mission. 

Pausanias. 

Dear Empedocles, 
I have no mission, but in love I speak. 
If your red cloak offends a furious bull, 
You should not wear it. Dress makes not the man, 
But helps the popular verdict on the man, 
And, if a king walks forch in beggar's weeds, 
He passes for a beggar. For your dress, 
They say 

Empedocles. 

That is the foolish part of men 
In Agrigentum. 

Pausanias. 
Well, well ! most men are fools ; 
They say that you are blown with huge conceit ; 
And blame that, like the unshorn god, you nurse 
Strange length of locks ; that like a king you wear 



EMPEDOCLES. 1 57 

A purple mantle, and invest your feet 
With Amyclean boots, whose brazen ring 
Proclaims your coming. Some say you put forth 
Your words like oracles, and in all your port 
Affect the god. 

Empedocles. 

Pausanias, you know 
Empedocles better ; know I not affect, 
But am, the voice of God to all whose faith 
Accepts the truth I preach. There is no truth 
That God not teaches ; and the thing we know 
We hold as surely from inspiring Jove 
As when we breathe the fluent air instinct 
With vital force. And, for my body's clothing, 
By Hera, all my blood fumes up to think 
I should be so belorded by the whim 
Of the unreasoned many, that my cloak 
Is not mine own to choose. There's young Gorgias 
Wears golden shoes, making his feet to chime 
With his golden mouth. Nature's a gaudy dame; 
With golden cups she studs the mead, with bells 
Of purple every steep sun-facing crag 
She richly hangs, with flash of purple stars 
Fringes her streams ; why should a man be grey ? 
I'll not wear duffel when all nature flaunts 
In naming garniture. I will wear purple. 

Pausanias. 
Purple beseems your kingly state of thought : 
But for the people who should own your state 



158 EMPEDOCLES. 

To bate some jot of your most kingly due 
Were kingliest policy. You stand too high 
Above their judgment. Gods must stoop to help 
Their creeping worshippers. 

Empedocles. 

What they understand 
The rabble will despise. If the gods walked 
The streets like common men, the common man 
Would hold them common. If I walk apart, 
'Tis that I fear in fellowship with them 
To share their baseness. Sooner than be used 
For their base ends, a pliant clay to take 
Their mould of low instructions, I would leap 
Into hot ^Etna's boiling bowl, and die 
A cindered death. 

Pausanias. 

Thus would you die in flame 
Like Heracles, and be a god like him ! 

Empedocles. 

Just so ; a bonfire draws the dullest eye, 
Where men, like moths, do feed the flame and die. 
The people worship what doth make them stare, 
And know not what they stare at. But who conies ? 

Pausanias. 

I know not ; 'tis a goodly company 

Of reverend seniors ; strangers, by their look. 



EMPEDOCLES. 159 

Empedocles. 

Right ; and by the shining parsley in their caps 
I read them from Selinus. 

\Enter a body of senators, and other citizens from 
Se/inus.~\ 

Gentlemen, 
You are right welcome : in your palmy groves 
Oft times I walked, and loved your city well ; 
What business in this hot and reeking time 
Brings you to Agrigentum ? 

Senator. 

A grievous hest 
Compels us to disturb your sapient ease, 
A business full of weeping and of wail, 
And rueful moaning, and black-mantled woe ; 
Our hope in you, as night-lost wanderers seek 
The guiding light. 

Empedocles. 

Would I were wise in what 
Men need my wisdom ! what I can I will. 

Senator. 
A sore disease hath come upon our people. 

Empedocles. 
Disease ! home bred, or brought from yont the sea ? 



160 EMPEDOCLES. 

Senator. 

The cause is dark : some say the air is sown 

With seeds of death ; some that the sun's eclipse 

Hath tainted nature ; some that summer's heat, 

Beyond all seasonable wont, hath fired 

The currents of the blood ; some that the serfs, 

The old Sicanian malcontents, have drugged 

The wells with poison ; some that stinted prayer 

And offering niggardised have turned the smile 

Of gods to frowning ; but we rather deem 

A ship from Carthage, stranded on our coast, 

Did with his other out-cast stores disgorge 

An Aethiop, hated of the gods, who brought 

This evil from his country, where the sun 

Breeds monstrous maladies ; from whose lethal touch 

The mortal terror through the land was spread, 

And, marching like a scythe behind the grass, 

Mowed down all lustihood, and heaped the ways 

With death. 

Empedocles. 

Alack ! alack ! but this thing let me know, 
What tokens had the harm? 

Senator. 

Its ugly face 
Was worse than its black core ; its way to death 
More dire than very death. As lightnings strike 
The tallest towers, and winds the topmost trees, 
So first the head and citadel of man 



EMPEDOCLES. 161 

This plague usurped. The fever of the brain 
Shot flame into the eyes ; and throat and tongue 
Like fresh paint blistered in the sun, did show 
The hot infection ; and revolted Nature 
Belched forth her bile, till she had pumped her well 
Clean dry ; but still she strained, and struggling lay 
In gasping hiccup, empty of all birth 
But sheer prostration. The disnatured skin 
Showed livid, flecked with crimson, blossomed o'er 
With loathsome sores. Nor rest nor soothing sleep 
The victim knew. Anon the feverous fire 
Like a strong wrestler grasped the heart : the bowels 
Did rage like furnace ; and like brize-stung ox 
Beneath the sultry star, the tortured wretch 
Intolerant of vesture, naked lies, 
To hug the oozing moss, or dripping rock, 
And still the more he drinks the more he cries 
For the cool draught that heals to enforce the harm. 
Eight days or nine this living death they drag 
(So tough is Nature), till life finds its sole 
Relief in death. Or, if their strength defies 
A nine days' torture, more like death than life, 
With maimed and blasted forms they scare the day, 
Having eyes that see not, feet and hands curtailed 
Of toes and fingers, like the blackened stumps 
Of branchless trees when some outrageous heat 
Hath fired the forest ; and— fresh food for tears — 
Some from the burning anguish save their frames, 
To maunder with their joints of reason cracked, 
And with a blank and idiot stare look round, 
As one who, started from a hideous dream, 

M 



162 EMPEDOCLES. 

Rubs undiscerning eyes. But worse than death, "' 

Or the long deathly torture, or the life 

That's booked halfway to death, is the despair 

Of help from god or man that goads the soul 

Into a reckless unconcern of all 

That gods or men call right. All prayer is dumb 

I' the sacred shrines ; all aid from man but brings 

Double distress, death to the helpless, death 

To him who hoped to help ; to use the hour, 

While hours are counted, is the one strong law 

That rules ; from death to death the prowler roves, 

To seize what all may lose, and few can claim. 

The dead unburied lie about the walls, 

Like stranded fish, when strong-winged blasts for weeks 

Battered the beach, or with their loathly wreck 

Bestrew the temples and pollute the gods. 

Empedocles. 

O Jove ! ye snap my heart-strings ; was no help 
From cunning leech ? — no drug ? — no charm ? 

Senator. 

This plague 
Holds such hostility to the thought of life 
That even the vultures who on carrion feast, 
Tasting the ruin of our tainted frames, 
Drop dead. 

Pausanias. 
Ye see how he is moved ; our art 
He knows much better than ourselves ; and if, 
In all the range of his far-reaching ken, 



EMPEDOCLES. 163 

Hope lives for you, he will nor sleep nor eat, 

Till you are helped. Mark where he meditates ! 

I know his wont when any sudden force 

Of sorrow grips him ; he will go apart, 

Ponder and pray, and from the god who heals 

Body and soul implore the wise device 

That lames disease, and baffles death, and turns 

Sharp pangs to pleasure. Mark ! now he will speak. 

Empedocles. 
I thank the gracious god whose laurel bough 
I bear prophetic, I have probed the harm 
Even to the core ! Right worthy seniors 
Of a most worthy city dear to me 
By ties of grateful memory, if the god 
Deceives me not, and gods may not deceive, 
Both root and remedy of your dire disease 
I see in vision. Every mortal plague 
Is doubly gendered, as, to make a growth 
Both seed and soil combine. That leprous son 
Of swart-faced Aethiopia in your blood 
Distilled a venom, harmless else, but that 
Yourselves the soil and atmosphere do breed 
Which in their motherly womb receive the germ 
That bears a bloody blossom and black fruit. 
'Tis not the flood that drowns the leaking boat; 
The leak invites the flood. Yourselves have bred 
The snake that bites you. 

Senator. 

How so, my lord ? 
How could we know? 



1 64 EMPEDOCLES. 

Empedocles. 

Men could know much, 
And more than much, if, having eyes to see, 
They saw, and, having thoughtful organs, thought. 
You have a river that flows by your town ? 

Senator. 

Ay, the Selinus, creeping through a marsh, 
Smothered in mud, and coated with a web 
Of lazy bubbles, happy paradise 
Of newts and adders, and the Museful frogs ! 

Empedocles. 

Ay ! lazy bubbles ; but most quick to breed 

The subtle poison that with viewless teeth 

Tears the fine tissue of the tenuous thread 

Which mortals call their life. This lucid air, 

Which shows so pure, and fair, and innocent, 

Is a wide sea, where oft-times there may swim 

To mortal eye invisible, thick swarms 

Of harmful things, whose hostile essence holds 

No parley with the fleshly frame of man, 

But through the avenues of our breath will walk 

Into the temple of stout breasts, and steal 

The god from out the shrine. On your green pools 

The bubble bursts, and winged death flies round 

Thick as the thistle down o'er stubby fields, 

Before the autumnal breeze. Listen to me ! 

Above the town, some thirteen stadia, 

The river forks in two, and losing halt 



EMPEDOCLES. 165 

Its current hath no power to plough its way, 

But in the reedy mesh entangled rots. 

Bank up the fork, and with projecting mound 

Compel the water's undivided stream 

To sweep the valley : thus you dry the marsh ; 

The healthy flood flows on ; and hottest suns 

Can brew no ferment to impregn the air 

With floating foulness. This the god reveals 

To me : and in Apollo's holy name 

Empedocles commands you to make clean 

The river's path ; else shall the glorious Sun, 

Giver of life, bring death to you and yours, 

And your dear homes, where babes drink mother's 

milk, 
Be fields, manured and sown by your own hands, 
To grow rich crops for Charon. 

Senator. 

We will obey ; 
But does the god demand no sacrifice, 
No holocaust, no precious thing, which we 
Torn from our heart roots, would right gladly bring 
To soothe his wrath ? 

Empedocles. 

The most wise gods demand 
That you should use your reason, being made 
Not like the brutes, but planful like themselves. 
Farewell ! Apollo keep you ! waste no words ! 
When the great Healer shows the healing plan, 
Each squandered minute is a murdered man. 



1 66 EMPEDOCLES. 

Senator. 
We go, my lord. The city thanks the god. 

[Exeunt Senators^ 

Pausanias. 

How blest the function of my god-taught friend, 
To scatter healing as the fragrant flower 
Exhales delight, and with a breath to melt 
The frost that numbs a nation ! Would that here 
Thou wert less chary of what thy shrewd wit 
Could work for Agrigentum. 

Empedocles. 

The sower works 
When he sows seeds; the reaper when he reaps; 
But oft-times, when the reaper piles the sheaf, 
The unthinking many praise him, how he toils 
For the public good ; but no man notes what sweat 
Fell from the sower's brow. 

Pausanias. 

'Tis very like ; 
The people see the flower and eat the fruit, 
But think not of the root. But one may be 
Reaper and sower both, root, flower, and fruit, 
In one heaped excellence, and win due praise 
From thinker and from thoughtless. Such an one 
Is my Empedocles. 



EMPEDOCLES. 167 

Empedocles. 

Pausanias, I see 
Plainly your scope. You would entice me back 
Into the battle and the babblement 
Of those contentious factions in the town, 
Which I have left, as you, my friend, should know, 
That I may grow in studious solitude, 
And consecrate my soul to search of truth 
In service of Apollo. 

Pausanias. 
Very good ; 
But, if your mother or your brother cried 
To you, in mid the service of the god, 
You would not let them starve? 

Empedocles. 

No, but if I 
Were measuring the stars, and in the ditch 
A drunkard fell, I'd let the drunkard lie ! 

Pausanias. 
Drunkards and brawlers are like nettles ; he 
Who touches harms himself, and helps not them ; 
But if your brother fell into a ditch 
Not drunk, but wandering in a starless night, 
Or pushed into it by an insolent sot, 
What would you then ? 

Empedocles. 

Why, then, I'd leave the stars 
And flog the sot, and pull my brother out 



168 EMPEDOCLES. 

Pausanias. 

Like a true man, and like a sage who loves 

His fine thought much, but his poor brother more ! 

Empedocles. 
Now your conclusion ? 

Pausanias. 

If the ship o' the state 
Should sail and labour in a tossing sea, J 
And if the pilot's wit lay drenched in drink, 
Who, being sober, should have saved the crew, 
Would then, Empedocles swim in his own boat 
And leave the ship to sink? 

Empedocles. 

You know my arm 
Helped to strike down the tiger Thrasydaeus. 

Pausanias. 

The arm that struck down one may help to strike 
A thousand. 

Empedocles. 

Ha ! I understand you now ! 
The people grumble, we shall have revolt ; 
The thunder growls, anon will flash the bolt. 
The thousand are no friends of mine ; but I 
Am less a demagogue than an oligarch, 
And as I grow from youth I farther grow 
From hot unruly movements. I do love 



EMPEDOCLES. 169 

The people ; but I stand too far apart 

To touch their humour ; I would coolly do 

What thing I do ; they with a violent plunge 

Reel into change ; and, all unreined, their right 

Rushes to wrongness. Like accepts from like 

Its native guidance. Boys should captain boys ; 

And old grey cats are out of date to head 

Light kittens in their sport. We do not seek 

Sense from the centaurs, nor from drifts of men 

Deliberation. With the thoughtful few 

Chaste wisdom dwells, and shuns the clamouring crowd 

Who love not wisdom but in loftier phrase 

To hear their folly echoed. Whoso gives 

Their thought in loudest replication back 

Is styled their friend. Fling the dear dog a sop, 

And he will worship you ! 






Pausanias. 

You are much changed 
From that Empedocles who, as you said, 
Smote Thrasydaeus. 

Empedocles. 

Then I was young, and then 
I carried in my breast the fiery stuff 
Blazed up at every spark ; but, for that beast, 
Did his foul presence now profane the air, 
My wrath would spring to head, and burst upon him 
Like spouts from rifted Aetna ! I cannot live 
A Greek and be a slave ! 



170 EMPEDOCLES. 

Pausanias. 

Yet you despise 
The people whom your hand holp to be free. 

Empedocles. 
I not despise them ; I suspect them ; rather 
Suspect myself that I was never made 
To captain a revolt, or rule a mob, 
By waiting on its humours. I will not be 
A ruler of the people. 

Pausanias. 
But the Thousand — 



I hate them ! 



Empedocles. 

Pausanias. 
Why? 



Empedocles. 

Because they love themselves, 
And take the children's meat to fatten swine. 

Pausanias. 
Just so. There spake my old Empedocles ! 
But who comes here? 

Empedocles. 

It seems a train of men 
From Agrigentum. Grant the gods that not 
The Selinuntian plague hath taken wings, 
And touched them with its foulness ! 



EMPEDOCLES. 171 

Pausanias. 

I know them now, all citizens and men 
Of substance in the town. I can discern 
One of their oracles, Embadius, 
A man of counsel, who might reap respect, 
Did he not stage himself before the people 
Too much like Jove, making his knotty staff 
Play thunderbolt ; but here they come. 

{Enter a body of citizens from Agrigentuni.~] 

Empedocles. 

Welcome, good gentlemen ; what is your business ? 

First Citizen. 

Most honoured sir, we fear to steal the time 
That being yours is sold to wisdom's work, 
But we are urged by very grievous wrongs 
To crave your ear a moment. 

Empedocles. 

Is the matter 
Private or public? 

Embadius. 
What we come on is certainly of public, not of 
private concern ; and yet of private also, for we who 
are private persons are all touched by it; and, in- 
deed, public rightly interpreted is but the sum of all 
privates. As a drachm signifieth only all the oboli 
that it numbers, so every public wrong is the wrong 



172 EMPEDOCLES. 

of all the private persons, whereof the public is con- 
stituted. 

Pausanias. 

Speak more curt, Embadius ; this is no forum 
for rhetoric ; you will anger the priest, who hates 
above all things sounding sentences and big-bottled 
phrases. 

Empedocles. 

Well ! let us hear. 

First Citizen. 

High-sapient sir, the fact is simply this ; 
We by the oligarchy sorely galled, 
And knowing you the people's friend, beseech 
Your hand to break the yoke. 

Empedocles. 

I am not used 
To meddle with affairs of state ; you know 
Where the shoe pinches. 

Embadius. 

In truth, sir, we do know : 
for it fits so closely, and is screwed down so tight, 
that we lack strength to draw it off. Thereto require 
we a strong arm, that is, with your liberty, your most 
excellent self. 

First Citizen. 

'Tis even so ; and therefore stand we here ; 
We are the twigs that ask a bond to bind us 



EMPEDOCLES. 173 

And make us one. We wield a thousand bows, 
But, sans a head, we, like a blinded Cyclops, 
Fumble for lack of counsel. 

Empedocles. 

What special wrong now stirs your discontent ? 
We bear no evils now but what we bore 
These twenty summers. The snail is used to bear 
His house, so men their burdens. 

Embadius. 
This is precisely the text of our complaint, that we 
are not snails. The burden which is laid on my 
back, if Fate had made me a snail, that I will bear, 
but being a man I bear only such burdens as to 
man's nature appertain ; and being a man born, and a 
free Greek to boot, I will not bear the yoke of vas- 
salage. 

First Citizen. 

Grave sir, 'tis very true : we know to bear, 
And patiently have borne, till we can bear 
No longer. 

Empedocles. 
Name your grievances. I live 
Without a murmur ; why not you ? 

First Citizen. 

You are 
So placed that their offence not reaches you, 
Or, reaching, may be slighted. We are poppies 



174 EMPEDOCLES. 

That grow i' the open field, which they may lop 

For pastime as they go, and no man blame them. 

Such is their measure ; and their measure makes 

Our fate ; but we say we are human kind, 

One blood with them, and claim full brotherhood 

Of civic right. Our fathers won this soil 

In common feud with the Sicanian hordes ; 

Our fathers drew the common sword against 

The sea-marauding Carthaginians ; we 

With them drove out the tiger Thrasydaeus, 

And now they fatten on the roods we sowed, 

And for our wage they kick us ! Nevermore 

May this consort with justice, that our backs 

Be weighted with all fardels that they choose 

To strap upon us. They alone do make 

The laws that lend them wings, and link our chains ; 

The council and the judgment-seat they hold 

As private heirlooms. In the rich man's cause 

The rich man judges, and condemns the poor ; 

All favour, honour, privilege they heap 

Upon their sons, and kin and cousinship, 

While we stand by, and spill our blood, and cry 

Huzza ! to see them decked with dignities, 

Whose flaring splendour from our bleeding wounds 

Hath drawn its purple pride. We were not made 

That men should spit upon us, and expect 

Low-crouching loyalty ; we claim to share 

The making of the laws, and so to bear 

Apportioned burdens, freely with the free, 

And with the equal equal. 



EMPEDOCLES. 175 

Embadius. 
This, my lord, is precisely the posture of our plead- 
ing ; Liberty and Equality are the two points of our 
charter, the two hinges on which our whole of citizen- 
ship turns ; and the one answers to the other as the 
two shells of an oyster, or the two jaws of a mouth. 
For, if we are all equal then are we all free, being 
equal in the quality of freedom ; and, if we are all 
free, then are we all equal, being in the like measure 
all gifted with freedom. 

Empedocles. 
Gentlemen, I have heard you to the end, 
And well I know that not from empty air 
You pluck your grievances. 'Tis the vice of power 
To lord it o'er the powerless, as unpruned 
A sturdier growth spreads rampant o'er the plot, 
And smothers all the feeble. If the god 
Whose will I serve, and who commands my art 
Wills that I lift my hand to strike again 
I' the public cause, as once I struck before 
When blood was hot in me, and wrongs were red, 
In Agrigentum, and all Sicily cried 
Aloud for vengeance, and the vengeance came, 
I wait his mandate. If he shall refuse 
His sanctioning nod, my name may never be 
Mixed with this new embroilment. For yourselves 
Work out your own salvation, prized the more 
For that you spend your proper sweat, and blood, 
And brain, and brawn to earn it. Fare ye well. 
[Exeunt Citizens.] 



176 EMPEDOCLES. 

Pausanias, I will go consult the god, 
And what he counsels do. A stroke well planted 
May shake a crazy palace ; when the pear 
Is ripe, a little breeze may loose the stalk, 
And strew the ground with plenty. If I shake 
The pillars, they from ruinous heap may pile 
What building suits them. I am not the man 
To work their work ; but I may help their plan. 



SCENE III. 

The Senate-House in Agrigentum, a committee of the Thousand 
sitting in Council. 

President. 

Well, worthy counsellors, who bear with me 
The weight of thinking for the public weal, 
Say with what humour do the people brook 
The new adjustment of the common rates, 
Our latest ordinance, 

First Senator. 

As they always bear 
What's for the general good, each from himself 
Eager to shift the burden on his brother. 
Self-counselled, each would for himself repeal 
His rated service, till no rate remain, 
And all agree to snap all bonds of order, 
Banish all common store, and tumble back 
To naked use of self-willed savagery, 
Which knows no taxes. 



EMPEDOCLES. 177 

Second Senator. 

And no ruler knows ; 
And so, being free and equal, they would all 
Have equal right to claim what all desire ; 
And being free to fight for't, they would fight, 
And hew each other down ; then vote a king 
Into the chair to still their own hubbub, 
And save the remnant ! 

President. 

And their king would be ? 

Second Senator. 
Tiger or fox ; or one of mingled kind, 
Both fox and tiger ; certes not a lion ! 
The people never yet were wise to choose 
Their master ; but, like children, being sick, 
From the confectioner take the candied death, 
And spurn the leech's bitter-healing drug. 

President. 
Well said : the people, children, women, slaves, 
Have one same need, firm-handed rule ; and this 
They get from us. But for their present mood, 
'Tis but the common grumble, I opine, 
From fretful stomachs, which least peril bring 
When least regarded ; Nature's bubbling vent 
We should not close : let them bescrawl the town 
With slander, and make sacred dignities 
A mark for public gibe, — but let them know 
We hold the whip. 

N 



178 EMPEDOCLES. 

Second Senator. 

Trust me, 'tis nothing more 
Than the old fret ; the frogs make war with croaking. 
Coax ! coax ! 

First Senator. 

I fear 'tis more than croaking : 
^Etna will grumble twenty times before 
He spits fire once. We must not sleep with snakes 
Beneath our pillows. 

President. 
Have you aught observed ? 

First Senator. 

I have observed what not to have observed 

Had proved me blind. They wear a serious look 

On their lean faces, and on holidays 

At the street corners thickly congregate, 

And look, and wink, and mutter. But t'other night 

I saw Embadius, that booted pedant, 

Talking, like sophist, to a wondering ring 

Of sallow hearers, who devoured his words, 

As starving fowls pick corn. I make no doubt 

His speech had matter in't with danger fraught 

To peace and public order, though I stood 

Too far to catch its scope. 

Second Senator. 

Pooh, he has talked 
This way for years, and means no more, in fact, 



EMPEDOCLES. 179 

Than to see himself on waves of plaudit ride 
Before the mob. I fear no man whose great 
Tool is his tongue ; your silent men wear knives. 

President. 

Besides he's but a king of rabblement, 
And leads the rats to battle. There is none 
Of mark or substance in the town who sell 
Their ears to him. 

First Senator. 
'Tis whispered that Pausanias and Acron, 
The wise physicians, have been seen with him 
In private parley. 

President. 
There may danger lurk. 

Second Senator. 
Pshaw ! fear them not !• a pair of peeping knaves, 
Well trained to wander o'er the hill o' nights, 
And cull strange herbs beslavered by the moon, 
Or memorise the virtues of a patch 
Of crusted lichen, torn from dripping rock, 
And laid on for a plaster ! — fear not them ! 
In the blind alleys of a frame diseased, 
Their hand is drastic ; but on public stage, 
And the broad day-light of large policy, 
They show like moles uncustomed to the light, 
And from the face of manful action creep, 
Like road-side snakes that scuttle 'neath the stones, 



180 EMPEDOCLES. 

When the stout traveller's knotted staff comes nigh. 
Such men are harmless. 

President. 

But Empedocles? 

Second Senator. 
Him I might fear. 

President. 
But is he of them ? 

First Senator. 

They say that what Pausanias thinks he thinks ; 
And when Empedocles thinks, his thought will soon 
Grow to a deed. 

Second Senator. 

He lives not with the people, 
And loves not us. He keeps a soul apart. 
Long months I have not seen him. Rumour says 
That he has doffed all state concern, and now, 
Like leech Pausanias, affects a skill 
In drugs and fumigations. Some avouch 
He's turned a poet, and gives his passion vent 
In peopling parchment with sky-scaling dreams. 

President. 

Most like. I knew him when a boy ; he was 
Always a dreamer. I remember well, 
Some fifty years ago, the urchin was 



EMPEDOCLES. 18 

In the back garden of his father's house, 

With whom I stood in serious talk upon 

The house-top. Well, we turned our eyes, and lo ! 

We see an altar in the middle green 

Conspicuous piled ; and young Empedocles 

Stood vested like a priest, and in his hand 

Held stones, and fruits, and herbs of spicy power, 

And wood of various splinter ; these he heaped, 

Row after row, pyramidal, upon 

The altar's top ; then looked in face of Heaven, 

And voiced a prayer to Jove ; and then the child 

Took from his belt a little rounded glass 

Bought by his father from Sidonian men 

Bound for Carchedon ; this he held before 

The sun's bright orb, and by its potent virtue 

Massed all the rays that fell upon its round 

Into a point, which, with concentred heat 

Flamed all the pyre ; and thus my baby-priest 

Had done his sacrifice. 

Second Senator. 

O, rare conceit ! 

First Senator. 

And he is still a priest ; the boy's the bud 
That blossoms in the man. Men say he holds 
Himself more surely than the Pythoness, 
Apollo's mouth-piece, and with awful words 
Speaks doom oracular. With large promising 
He vaunts to gag the winds, and fling his rein 
On the imperious floods, and from the face 



182 EMPEDOCLES. 

Of the hot copper sky bring spouts of rain, 
To drench the gaping earth ; he hath control 
Of every element ; his skill defies 
Death ; and the dark, long-shadowed pestilence, 
Spell-bound by word of wise Empedocles, 
Droops his black wing, and drops. 
[Enter officer.'] 

Officer. 

Most honoured councillors, a man demands 
Admission to your session. 

President. 

Who is he ? 

Officer. 
I know not ; he is vested like a priest ; 
A man of presence and imperial port, 
Most like a god to look on. 

First Senator. 
Tis himself — Empedocles. 

President. 

Let him come in ! 
[Enter E}>i_pedocles.~\ 
Good morrow, worthy sage ; what happy chance 
Brings you, divorced from lofty communings, 
To fellowship of trivial talk with us, 
Who in the trodden paths of dusty life 
Do vulvar service. 



EMPEDOCLES. 183 

Empedocles. 

My will obeys no chance ; 
But like a ship well freighted I am bound 
With message to your grace. 

President. 

From whom ? 

Empedocles. 

The god 
Bids me declare his will. Lend me your ears. 

President. 

What god ? Have you been missioned, and by whom 
To Delphi or Dodona, or the shrine 
Of horned Amnion in the Libyan sand ? 

Empedocles. 
No man need travel far to seek the gods, 
Who are as near us in our narrowest home 
As when we wander o'er the spacious globe, 
Who speak their will in nightly dreams, and in 
The reverent silence of a bosom purged 
From impure passion. 

President. 

Well, let the gods 
Speak, or yourself. The worship of this place 
May not deny meet audience to a man 
So wise reputed. 



1 84 EMPEDOCLES. 

Empedocles. 
First hear a parable 
Spoke by the Phrygian sage, the friend of Solon, 
Who knew the speech of beasts. There was a man 
Once travelled through a waste far-stretching plain, 
When suddenly from out a shaggy wood, 
Prickly with pine, and grown with ancient moss, 
There rushed a bull with brazen bellowing, 
And plunging head, and tail to fury lashed ; 
What shall he do ? no tree is near, no wall, 
No fence, no shelter, and his limbs are weak, 
And weary from long march 'neath sultry skies ; 
He spied a horse, some space apart, and said, 
Good horse, if you allow me mount your back, 
And use your legs, that I escape this bull, 
I'll feed you in the grassiest lawn in Greece, 
And you shall largely roam. I'll keep your crib 
High-heaped with corn ; you shall be free from goad 
Of vulgar service, and the wearing use 
Of heartless boors ; only on holidays, 
Trapped in fine gold, and gay with heraldry, 
Thou shalt be seen in front of all the pomp, 
Bearing your master to the shrine of gods. 
Well, said the horse, swear by great Jove, and I 
Will serve you. The man swore ; and on the back 
Of the brave brute he mounted, and away 
He scampered into safety. Now attend. 
The man stood faithful to his promise, firm and fast, 
For twelve moons and a day, but after bought 
A high-blood roan of pure Thessalian breed, 
And gave it all his love. The horse who saved 



EMPEDOCLES. 185 

His master's life now scarce could save his own ; 

His corn was stinted ; from the bleakest moors 

He cropped the stiff grass ; every saucy knave 

Might scourge his flanks, and yoke his pride to drag 

Rubbish or offal ; he grew lean and lank, 

And the flies fed their gory appetite 

On his out-staring bones. Upon a day 

The favourite roan fell sick ; and now perforce 

The master must content him to bestride 

His ancient benefactor, for a short 

But needful journey. The most patient brute 

Meekly uptook the rider, but in heart 

Vowed sharp revenge. The road lay by the sea, 

Upon the edge of a high-toppling cliff, 

Naked and sheer ; when at a sudden bend 

The horse full deftly jerked his rider down 

Into perdition, while himself escaped 

With dusty speed into the wilderness. 

Here ends my parable. 

President. 

And where begins 
Its pertinence to us ? 

Empedocles. 

Jove stole your wits, 
If this you see not. Thou'rt the rider ; thou, 
And these, thy grave compeers ; and, for the horse, 
He is the people, whom you stint of joy, 
To pamper your own pride. The will of Jove, 
From Loxias, prophet of his father, speaks 



186 EMPEDOCLES. 

Now from my mouth. Make free this people ; speak 
Impartial dooms ; make equal laws ; embrace 
With arms of love, whom now with haughty heel 
Ye spurn : else have a care how the poor horse 
May hurl you into Hades ! 

Second Senator. 

Sir, you rave : 
Your moody temper, fostered with cold moons, 
Is cousin to hot madness. You forget ! 

Empedocles. 
Not I forget, but you. When Thrasydaeus, 
That raging bull, tramped on all holy things, 
Tossed right and statute with insensate'horns, 
To all the winds, gave to his hand free course 
Through all men's pockets, and from every field 
Reaped corn where others sowed, yea with such 

sweep 
Of lawless haviour ramped, as the big world 
Were all his toy to play with, or a cake 
For him to slice ; this bull, this wolf, this bear, 
Tiger, hyaena, viper, sum and soul 
Of every beastly fierceness — him this hand, 
And every hand that wields an honest tool 
In Agrigentum, drave out from your bounds 
And made you masters — for what fee ? to earn 
Neglect, and scorn, and cold contempt, and airs 
Of high disdainful eminence, and the right 
To hoe, and sow and reap for you, while we 
Are left to grub the out-field ! No, grave sirs, 



EMPEDOCLES. 187 

This may not be ; we must have equal laws ; 
Jove rules the world for all his creatures, not 
For a few monstrous feeders ; every Greek 
Must help to make the laws which he obeys ; 
Thus saith the god I serve. 

Second Senator. 

My lord, we sin 
Gravely against the duty of this place 
To let this dreamer spew his frothy spite 
Against the state we bear. This cant he brought 
From Athens, where, since Xerxes bowed his head 
At Salamis, the naval people flown 
With insolent esteem of their high worth, 
Spurn ancient rule, and from most sacred seats 
Cast down revered authority. We who hold 
By Doric use and strong consistency 
Of due subordination, may not leave 
Our ears, the warders of our wit, unhinged 
To such seditious babble. Call the officers 
And bid them bind him ! 

President. 

Ho ! a traitor ! seize 
This man and bind him ! officers ! 

[The officers come forzuard and proceed to bind JEmpedocles.~\ 

Empedocles. 
Poor fools ! your withes may bind me, but yourselves 
Are bound already in the iron meshes 
Of Justice, daughter of wise-counselling Zeus. 



1 88 EMPEDOCLES. 

Here take my hand, and let your fetters eat 
Into my flesh, my soul ye may not reach ; 
Freely I give my ankles to your gyves. 
Poor fools ! the barking of a thousand curs 
Stays not Jove's thunder ! 

[A loud knocking is heard without ; then suddenly enter 
Embadius and a great throng of Agrigentine labourers and 
artisatis, with halberts, picks, mattocks, and other instruments of 
violence. They seize the councillors arid bind them. The pre- 
sident and a few others escape by a hidden passage, through a 
back door. They strike the gyves from £mpedocles.] 

First Voice. 
Down with the oligarchs ! 

Second Voice. 

Down ! down ! 

Third Voice. 

To the crows ! 

Fourth Voice. 

Strike for freedom ! strike ! strike ! down 
With the oligarchs ! 

Embadius. 

Now, my masters, thank the gods, we have made 
quick work of it ! There is no such cowardly beast 
in creation as an oligarchy, that has usurped the 
chair of a free people. Their strength lies all in our 
lethargy : when we sleep they ride and rule ; when 
we awake they are straws and we are the hurricane ! 
A hurricane — yes ! my valiant fellow-citizens, I have 



EMPEDOCLES. 189 

said the very word ; a god spake in me when I said 
it ; in that word lies our strength, and in that word 
also, mark me, lies our weakness. 

First Citizen. 

How our weakness? 

Embadius. 

Timotheus, perpend. A hurricane is powerful to 
blow down, powerless to build up. We have now 
finished only the first act of the drama, and that the 
easiest. There remains to make a new constitution, 
a democratic constitution, a constitution that shall 
please everybody, and give just offence to nobody. 
Where is the man that shall curiously carve out and 
cunningly concatenate so marvellous a piece of en- 
ginery? Wilt thou, Timotheus? 

First Citizen. 

Indeed, sir, I am, to speak with humility, a weak 
brother. I can see that we ought to bear equal 
burdens, but I cannot forge constitutions. 

Embadius. 

Can you, Physcon? 

Second Citizen. 

In sooth, sir, my notion was, that, if the oligarchs 
were once fairly ousted, we might with small trouble 
rule ourselves. We are all free citizens, and, there- 
fore, by natural right of man, all privileged to use our 



190 EMPEDOCLES. 

freedom, that is, to rule ourselves with freedom, and 
without taxation. 

Embadius. 

Physcon, thou art a fool ; there is more wit in thy 
paunch than in thy poll. That all men should 
rule all is impossible. Try it, and this our fair 
cosmos, which we call the state of Agrigentum, will 
resolve into chaos incontinently. Mark what I say : 
if a chariot, like the helmet of Pallas, could contain 
ten thousand warriors, there would still be but one 
charioteer : I propose, therefore, that, being now free 
to choose, we proceed to elect our charioteer ; the 
charioteer of the democratic constitution — who shall 
he be? 

A Voice. 
Empedocles ! 

Another Voice. 
Empedocles ! ! 

A Third Voice. 

Empedocles ! ! ! 

General Cry. 
Long live Empedocles and the constitution ! 

Embadius. 

[Advancing to Empedocles. ,] 

Most sage and worshipful sir, you hear what your 

fellow-citizens say. They elect you archon of the 

democracy tof Agrigentum. You are our head, our 



EMPEDOCLES. 191 

hand, our spear, our shield, our everything. Without 
you we are, so to speak, a shoe without a foot, a mill 
without a mill-wheel, a kitchen without a cook. 

Empedocles. 

Hear me, good citizens, and weigh my words. 

Not from the prompture of mine own conceit, 

Or spur of private vantage, I did freight 

My shoulders with the task to speak for you, 

And your Greek liberties. What the god enjoined 

I did, as works a slave his master's will, 

My function but to voice the high command 

Of Jove, the all-wise counsellor, to proclaim 

The right of reason, to unlock the prison, 

And set the captives free ; yours, being free, 

To use that freedom easily. If I knew 

That wit in me to move the general heart, 

And from the jar of harsh-contending claims 

To charm forth harmony by smooth address 

And wise device, and combinations fine, 

I'd be the willing servant of your will, 

Clept archon, aesymnete, or any name 

The sweetest to your ears. But I have lived 

Some fifty changes of the moony year, 

If less for others than my prayer desired, 

Not vainly for myself. I have surveyed 

The length and breadth of what I ken and can. 

I may not be a ruler. I am sworn 

To search of truth, and worship of the gods, 

And witness of the harmonies of things 

In wise discourse. Within this bounded field 



192 EMPEDOCLES. 

I move content, serene, and free from fear, 
Vexed only by the dulness of my sense, 
The briefness of our span, and the short range 
Of mortal wit. Therefore, dear friends, farewell. 
I will to Aetna, being called to note 
The workings of that potent central Fire 
Which rends the iron bowels of the rock 
With dread disruption. For you, I pray the Father, 
Upon that surgeful sea where you are launched, 
To give you seaman's craft, and venture bold, 
With wakeful caution. This from me receive, 
My latest word. If you shall fail to keep 
This new-won freedom, blame not the wise gods, 
But your own folly. Freedom's a glorious thing, 
But 'tis a wine, which being largely used 
Turns joy to madness, madness to despair. 
Rejoice with trembling. The excess of life 
Lodges next door to death. If ye shall fail 
To rule yourselves with wisdom, Jove will send 
New oligarchs to whip his naughty boys 
With scorpions, not with scourges. Fare ye well ! 
\Exit^\ 

First Citizen. 
He's gone ! a marvellous man ! 

Second Citizen. 

Marvellous indeed ! one who will not taste a fat 
pudding when it steams into his nose, and, when a 
throne is set for him to sit on, lies on the grass like a 
dog. 



EMPEDOCLES. 193 

Third Citizen. 

A most unaccountable man ! one who risks his 
life to cut down a fruit-laden tree, and, when it falls, 
is resolute to touch not with one of his fingers the 
best apple that grows on it ! 

Fourth Citizen. 

One of your philosophers, an incalculable genera- 
tion, who never do anything like other people. They 
may help us, but they certainly know not to help 
themselves. 

Fifth Citizen. 

I have heard it said he hath a magic mantle can 
sail on the wind ; who knows but he may be supping 
to-night with the Hyperboreans whom his god Apollo 
loves, or with dart-rejoicing Dian on the horns of the 
moon ! 

Embadius. 

He can do many things ; but this I know of him, 
he'll stick to his purpose. A little child shall sooner 
draw his fingers out of a crab's pincers than any 
mortal man turn Empedocles from the fixed mark of 
his intention. If he were now to say that he would 
jump into the bowels of Aetna to see the secret brewst 
of that Cyclopean cauldron, by Styx he would do it. 
Meanwhile we must do what we can do without him. 
It may be that he is right after all, perhaps a little 
too good for us, and a little too dainty-fingered for 
the rough work we have to do. 
o 



194 EMPEDOCLES. 

First Citizen. 
Let's to the agora ! 

Second Citizen. 
To the agora ! 

Third Citizen. 

And Embadius shall lead us. 

All. 

loo ! loo ! long live Embadius ! Embadius and 
the Constitution ! to the agora ! to the agora ! 

[Exeunt omnes.] 



ANAXAGORAS 

Now' 5£ tls eliruv elvai, Ka9direp ev rots ^wols, Kal iv rrj cpvcret 
Kal tov aiTLOv Kal rod Kocp-ov Kal rrjs rd^ews Trdarjs, olov vr\<pwv 
€(pdvrj Trap' elK?i Xeyovras tovs rrpdrepov. 

Aristotle. 



ANAXAGORAS. 

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. 

1. Anaxagoras, a Philosopher of Clazomenae, residing 

in Athens. 

2. Pericles, an Athenian Statesman. 

3. Aspasia, Beloved by Pericles. 

Scene. — The house of Aspasia, in the suburbs of Athens. 
Time sunset. Aspasia discovered reclining on a couch, and look- 
ing towards the city. 

Aspasia. 

I wish the man I love were less to Greece, 

And more to me ; more to himself, and each 

Dear friend that loves him. Whoso serves the people 

Sweats for a hard taskmaster, who demands 

All labour and no rest, for scanty fee. 

Zeus has his cares : the vasty universe 

Hangs on his nod ; his thought is Fate ; but here, 

In this Athenian world our Zeus, the Demos, 

Knoweth not thinking, and my Pericles 

To his wild will must be both brain and brawn, 

And rule by studying wisely to obey. 

Well ! well ! 'tis better so, no doubt, than love 

A silken fopling, or a creamy-cheeked 



198 ANAXAGORAS. 

Soft-bearded Ganymede, to watch my wink, 

Swear me a goddess, deck me like a doll, 

And lackey me with amorous services. 

My Hercules must live to fight with lions ; 

Or bears, may be, sometimes — yes, bears, — while I 

From the keen edge of expectation peer, 

And with a lean and hungered outlook wait 

To wipe the bloody trophy from his hands, 

And hymn Athena's booty-bearing praise, 

When he returns. 

[She rises, and walks about the roomJ] 

What's here? — My lute, Ah, no ! 
I cannot touch a string unless to work 
His present pleasure ! Here's a book ! Right so ! 
The old theologer, Boeotia's boast. 
I 've had my fancies too about the gods, 
Though I 'm a woman ; let me ruminate ! 
If that fat country makes not fat the wits, 
Nor all the subtle glibness of the soil 
The eel usurps in the Copaic pool, 
There should be wisdom here. 

[She unfolds the roll of the theogony of Hcsiod, and reads ~\ 

In the beginning had Chaos his birth, and then into 

being 
Earth, broad-breasted, arose, firm footstool of gods 

who inhabit 
High on immortal thrones the peaks of the snowy 

Olympus ; 
Earth and Tartarus dim in deep subterranean combs? 

and 



ANAXAGORAS. 199 

Eros, fairest of gods, who with thrills of delicate rapture 

Counsel subdues in the hearts of men and of gods 
immortal. 

Then from Chaos was Erebus born, and the murky- 
mantled 

Pitchy Night ; and from Night sprang Ether and Day 
into being, 

Fathered by Erebus mingling with Night in fruitful 
embracement. 

Here I must pause ; here's food for thinking, much 
Beyond my stomach. In distinctest phrase 
He says, not was, but had his birth, and grew 
And into being came ; but why, and how, 
Whence, and for what, the prophet gives no sign. 
" In the beginning" — when was the beginning ? 
Or how could things begin to be, and leap 
Into this something from the womb of nothing ? 
All plants shoot from a seed ; all mighty rivers 
Are strained out of the clouds ; all clouds do mass 
Their volumes from the sea. 

Then what could Chaos, 
With infinite waves of seething ferment, breed 
But mere confusion ? Chaos breedeth Night, 
And Night to Day gives birth ; what means he here ? 
Sooner could love from hate, and fire from frost, 
Milk from sharp vinegar, sweet from the sour, and 

reason 
From distraught madness, fulness from the void, 
And every thing from nothing, than that Light, 



200 ANAXAGORAS. 

The blessed Light, from hated Night be born, 

Which is in fact mere nothing, being naught 

But sheer defect of light. Here is no hope. 

If this is all that grave theologers 

Can teach a questioning and curious girl, 

I'll take to levity again, and strum 

A catch of the old Teian. 

[S/ie takes up her lute.] 

But who comes ? 
I hear a footstep. Let me see ! 'Tis he ! 
Right sure 'tis he ! Adieu theology ! 
And welcome Pericles ! 

[Enter Pericles, who embraces her.] 

Pericles. 

Well, queen of beauty, have you entertained 
The hours with light-winged fancies since I left ? 

Aspasia. 

Partly ; but partly, touched with moodiness, 
For want of better company than myself 
I plunged into a book, — but you, — how went 
The slippery game to-day with that wild beast 
Which knows your bit ? 

Pericles. 

O ! to a wish ! sing forth 
Loud paeans to the gods ; hi ! hi ! 
For I have slain mine enemies, and now 
Sparta doth count two kings, and Athens one. 



Thucydides 



ANAXAGORAS. 

ASPASIA. 

Pericles. 
Is ostracised. 



Aspasia. 

And all 
His faction down ? 

Pericles. 

Down ; bruised and battered all 
Flat as a toad, squelched by a weighty wain, 
And quenched in its own venom. I am free 
To pitch this Athens in the general eye, 
The cynosure of Greekdom, where the hate 
Of Persia lives, and Freedom flaps her wings, 
And to the Maiden goddess, whom all Greece 
Adores, conjunct with her wise-counselled sire, 
To pile a fane in pillared state beyond 
The scope of small ambitions, that shall draw 
The worship of all people, and out-dure 
In strength of marble majesty severe, 
The Memphian wonders. Athens votes free use 
Of all the Delian dues. 

Aspasia. 

O wise decree ! 
A fierce, and yet a very facile beast, 
I always knew the Demos. You may lead 
The wild boar by a string, if you but sound 



202 ANAXAGORAS. 

The lion's march, and bid all beasts bow down 

To their huge sovereign ; but I always said 

That you could noose their necks, and make them bite 

Your bit with pleasure. Though I am a woman, 

I knew that Pericles was Fate's chosen child 

To tickle the tiger. 

Pericles. 

O yes ! you women know 
All things ; where Jove first tasted Hera's lips, 
Where Aphrodite keeps her zone, and Mars 
His sword, and Mercury his cap ! Some day 
I doubt not you'll aspire to grow our beards, 
And vote with pebbles, and engrave your hates 
On damnatory shells, expound the law, 
Surgeon the wounded, renovate the sick, 
Command the agora, harangue the people 
On war and policy, and shrewd device, 
To foil the Spartan. 

Aspasia. 

When you were a boy, 
And mighty Xerxes, like a locust drift, 
Swept with his wasteful myriads o'er the land, 
There was a woman followed in his train, 
So wise in counsel, and in field so brave, 
That, had she been the head, and he the hand 
Of that huge host, all Greece, from high Olympus 
To Taenarus, were now a footstool planted 
For insolent Persia's golden-sandalled foot ; 
But Xerxes was a fool. 



ANAXAGORAS. 203 

Pericles. 

Thank Heaven for that ! 
For Artemisia 

Aspasia. 
Never would have leapt 
Into the net spread by Themistocles. 

Pericles. 
And glorious Salamis had been the key 
Of Hellas to the Mede. 

Aspasia. 

And Pericles 
Had been a pretty page with ministrant hand 
To hold a golden trencher to the king ! 

Pericles. 
Who knows what might have been, if Greeks were not 
Greeks, and barbarians not barbarians. But 
Tell me, thou fairest of fair womankind, 
Unchartered wisdom, and tenth Muse that failed 
To top the nine, say in what lettered roll 
You plunged your searching nose. 



Aspasia. 



Pericles. 
Hesiod ! 

Aspasia. 
Even so. 



You have it there. 



204 ANAXAGORAS. 

Pericles. 

And did he teach you much ? 

Aspasia. 
Nothing, and less than nothing ! With my blind foot 
I stumbled on the threshold of the shrine, 
And galled my flesh, and called the oracle 
A fool, and turned my back upon the god. 

Pericles. 
As I have done before, and all the men 
Whom I call wise in Greece. What else could be ? 
Boeotia had one Pindar ; but I fear 
The sober old Ascraean's homely wit 
Helped your Ionian subtlety to more 
Puzzle than progress. It can calender 
A shepherd's shearing or a reaper's sheaves, 
Tell when to bait a fish, or lime a bird, 
Warn a rash sailor from a rainy star, 
Or from unlucky marriage-day a maid ; 
But that's his utmost. Homer has a glimpse 
At times of deeper truth, and in his sweep 
Of old Pelasgic legendary drift 
Brings down some precious gem that shows 
Like a big golden nugget in the sand. 

Aspasia. 
The poet sings the praiseful deeds of men, 
But Hesiod is a grave theologer 
And makes the gods his text ; and we should look 
To learn from such. 



ANAXAGORAS. 205 

Pericles. 

Not till Pentelicus 
Shall top Parnassus, and Ilissus swell 
To Achelous, may Aspasia learn 
From Hesiod. 

Aspasia. 

I have heard Pythagoras saw 
Once in the under world where he had been 
Not once before, the old Ascraean bound 
To a brazen pillar, moaning piteously, 
Doomed to such torture for unseemly words 
About the gods, far-wandering from the truth. 

Pericles. 

I know not ; for Pythagoras is a name 
Round which there gathers every monstrous tale 
That fools could dream, or itching fancy feign 
In Hellas ; but, fair sage, more sage than thou 
A friend comes here to-night. 



Aspasia. 

Pericles. 
You've seen him once. 



One whom I know? 



Aspasia. 

Or twice, perhaps ? 



206 ANAXAGORAS. 

Pericles. 

Or thrice ; 
But seen him only as you see a swallow 
That flits across the eaves, or as you see 
A traveller at a cross-way, where you change 
A civil word and pass ; you never looked 
Into the mirror of his soul, to know 
The pictured wonders there. 

Aspasia. 

Whom may you mean ? 

Pericles. 

All Athens holds but one who could affect 
To teach Aspasia. 

Aspasia. 

Nay, I am not learned ; 
But from the wise can glean some random truths, 
As from the deep flood where huge monsters swim, 
A little child that sits upon the brink 
Can fang a stickleback with pin for hook. 
But whose your friend ? I 'm sharply set to know. 

Pericles. 
Guess. 

Aspasia. 

Well ; belike the man you mean is that 
Odd son of Sophroniscus, whom we found 
The other evening glowering moodily 
On the departing sun, and looking like 



ANAXAGORAS. 207 

A young Silenus, with snub nose, and eyes 
That seemed to wander round his head, and see 
All possible things. 

Pericles. 

No ! sweetest. No ! not he ; 
He's in the bud ; the man I mean hath cast 
The summer blossom of his power, and bears 
The autumn fruit of wisdom. 

Aspasia. 

Then you mean 
The Clazomenian, whom the hierophant 
Of boon Demeter called an atheist 
But yesterday. 

Pericles. 
Even so. 

Aspasia. 

He's very grave. 

Pericles. 
And so am I, save when I look on you. 

Aspasia. 

'Tis well he comes ; we shall have sport anon ; 
But first he'll brush the cobwebs from my brain 
I caught from Hesiod. Lo, he comes ! I hear 
The rustling of his beard. 

[Enter Anaxagoras^\ 



2 o8 ANAXAGORAS. 

Pericles. 

Good even, friend ! 
After the blustering storms, and venomed spite, 
And bitter ferment, and hot-blooded brawls 
That vex the PnyX, thy tempered face, serene 
With mellow thought, attunes me like the breath 
Of this sweet eve, and the mild-mingled hues 
Of yon soft sky. Aspasia, know the man 
Who fathers more of good in Pericles 
Than did the sire who gat him. 

Aspasia. 

You're welcome sir; 
You have been known to me, as are the notes 
Of a wood-bird to him that sits at home ; 
And oft I wished to levy from your stores 
The tax that knowledge owes to ignorance. 



Anaxagoras. 



I 



Know nothing, lady, but a hundred guesses, 
And half a score of reasoned truths that lend 
These guesses grace. 

Aspasia. 

Men say you know all things ; 
But chiefly can interpret, as a book, 
The starry scripture of the sky, each phase 
Of changeful seasons, and the speechful sense 
Of every portent that confounds the heart 
Of apprehensive man, shakes into fits 



ANAXAGORAS. 209 

Old-seated Powers that hope no good from change, 
And from their stable basements pluck, like weeds, 
Time-rooted thrones. Sir, if you love my lord, 
Do me this kindness : let the overflow 
Of your much thinking pour into my dust, 
And make me sapful ! Can you tell me why 
The flaming face of the all-seeing sun, — 
You well remember, — some three months ago, 
Even at the top of noon, his brightness dimmed 
And flung a tremulous leaden veil athwart 
The sickened earth. They say you can foretell 
The fainting fits o' the moon. 

Anaxagoras 

Well, I have tried. 

Aspasia. 
Men say the bright gods, frowning on the fault 
Of sinful men, their brightness veil, and thus 
Eclipses come. 

Anaxagoras. 

Men say they know not what. 

Aspasia. 
Then make me know. 

Anaxagoras. 

You see this lamp ? 

Aspasia. 

I do. 



210 ANAXAGORAS. 

Anaxagoras. 

Mark with how clear and stout a cone it shines ; 
But let me move my palm between your eye 
And the full radiance — now you see it winks, 
And shows but half a face, as children do 
Peeping behind a door. 

Aspasia. 

Or beacon lights 
Swept by a mist. 

Anaxagoras. 
Well, now you comprehend. 

Aspasia. 
Is this the whole ? 

Anaxagoras. 

What more need be ? the moon 
Travelling serene through silent wastes of air, 
Sails with her spotty sphere between your eye 
And the sun's disc ; and curtained thus we feel 
Darkness at noon. 

Aspasia. 

How simple, yet how sage ! 
And is this all that shakes the hearts of kings 
With fever fits, blanches the rose of hope, 
Staggers all calculation, lames all speed, 
Cracks the strong nerves of stout-thewed enterprise, 
And makes the imperious march of conquerors 
Reel backwards, like a stream that meets a tide ! 



ANAXAGORAS. 21 

Anaxagoras. 
Fair lady, man is proud, but man is weak ; 
We are the slaves of powers we may not know, 
And on the vacant chair of knowledge throned, 
Usurping Fancy flaps her busy vans, 
And with the shadow of their own conceit 
Affrays the boldest ; as a little child, 
Left by its nurse in the lone darkness, fears 
The touch of nothing. 

Aspasia. 

Can your ken discern 
All things as plainly as you saw what masque 
Dims the sun's glory 1 

Anaxagoras. 

Lady, human wit 
Knows, safely creeping, but makes guess with wings. 
Some things are certain ; many things are dark ; 
All things mysterious in their primal spark. 
But what a thoughtful man, who lives for truth, 
Of true may know, and things most like the true, 
As the gods show to me, my duty bids 
Impart to who inquire. 

Aspasia. 

What is the sun? 



A glowing sphere. 



Anaxagoras. 

Aspasia. 
A glowing sphere ! how large ? 



212 ANAXAGORAS. 

Anaxagoras. 

The chain, fair lady, no smith yet hath linked 

To measure that ; but, for a modest guess, 

That lustrous orb that to our vision shows 

No bigger than a shield, and wheels his dance 

Daily from rosy east to rosy west, 

O'er azure fields with starry flowers besprent, 

Is larger twice, or thrice, or four times more, 

Than Peloponnesus. If a man could ride 

Like Ganymede upon an eagle's back, 

And soaring sunward with unwinking eye, 

Engaze the radiant round, he'd see it grow 

Bigger and bigger, as a sailor, when 

With nearing keel he ploughs the browner flood, 

Sees the dim spot, that through the whiteness loomed, 

Swell to a continent. 

Aspasia. 
What hold you of the moon ? 

Anaxagoras. 

The moon's a land with mountains, rivers, caves, 
Peoples and cities, even as our earth, 
And, like our earth, made luminous by rays 
From the all-permeant sun. 

Aspasia. 

Our poets sing 
That the Nemean lion from the moon 
Came down to roar at Hercules ; is this true ? 



ANAXAGORAS. 213 

Anaxagoras. 

I know not ; stones have fallen from the moon 
As large as lions. 

Aspasia. 
Stones ? 

Anaxagoras. 

Yes ; large and hot, 
And hissing from some Aetna in the moon ; 
Doubt not. 

Aspasia. 
What man hath seen them fall ? 

Anaxagoras. 

The priest 
Who salved them where they fell, and sacrificed, 
And rained his prayers upon them, and made smooth 
The lustrous trunk of the new god with wealth 
Of slavered kisses. 

Aspasia. 
Have you seen such stones ? 

Anaxagoras. 

Yes ! a good dozen ; like an iron mass 
They showed, all brown and burnished and harsh- 
grained 
From forge Cyclopean. 

Aspasia. 

Wonderful ! 



214 ANAXAGORAS. 

Anaxagoras. 



All things 



Are full of wonder. 



The milky way 1 



Aspasia. 
Tell me, what should be 



' Anaxagoras. 
'Tis but the softened light 
Of thickly clustered stars, the most remote, 
With interflowing rays, not overblazed 
As at bright noon by the all-mastering sun. 

Aspasia. 

Your words have likelihood ; and as his foot 
Proclaims all Hercules, so one word from the wise 
Well said, gives note of many yet to say. 
Dear Pericles, I pray thee hold me not 
Oblivious of your presence, if I urge 
This Delphian with more questions. 

Pericles. 

Beauty stoops 
To pick a charm beyond herself, when she 
Is found at Wisdom's feet ; for mine own self, 
Redeemed from that crude babble in the Pnyx, 
With such high doctrine sounding in mine ears 
I feel like one from bedlam rout uncaged, 
And by sure winged ministry of Jove 
Whipt upward to a green and gardened land, 



ANAXAGORAS. 215 

Where I may sit and muse, the breezeless night, 
Lulled by the songs of nightingales. Talk on. 

Aspasia. 

Well, if the windy Mimas ever blew 

To fair Clazomene's sea-cinctured isles 

Fine inspirations, like the voiceful oaks 

In hoar Dodona, I shall gain from you, 

Most learned sir, swift riddance of some doubts 

That vex my reason. I have here a book 

Of lofty scope and high theology, 

Which says that Chaos was the first of things. 

[Shows Mm Heswd's Theogony.'] 
Shall I accept it ? 

AXAXAGORAS. 

Hesiod is, like many, 
Half wise, half foolish ; like a sculptor's block 
Cut on the one side into shapely lines 
Of apt significance, on the other left 
In unhewn blankness. Chaos surely was, 
And yet may be, where needful wisdom fails 
To draw from the crude-mingled brewst of things 
Like drops to like, and from all possibles 
Make something real, and many somethings marked 
Each with his regnant virtue. You have seen 
The harsh-grained rock before the rude assault 
Of windy buffets, and the gradual siege 
Of softening dews and slow-consuming rains, 
Slide from its nature into speckled sand, 
Formless and colourless, nor black, nor white, 



216 ANAXAGORAS. 

Nor green, nor red, but all with all commixed. 
Here Chaos grows before your eyes ; and what 
The thing becomes when shaken from its joints 
It was before the jointing. With his wheel 
A potter turns a lump of shapeless clay, 
And makes a shapely jar ; your servant goes 
At sunrise to the well, and stumbling breaks 
The cunning form, and it is dust again. 
Infinite Chaos is the bed from which 
All being grows, and in each part of .Chaos 
All possible being sleeps. 

Aspasia. 

How mean you this ? 

Anaxagoras. 
In a mixed heap of black and white, each part 
May become black or white, which now is neither : 
And oft-times what no eye perceives lies spread 
With large infection through the floating mass. 
A drop of ink into a bowl of milk 
Being dropt, is present allwhere through the white, 
From the creamy top to the thin waterish dreg, 
But nowhere seen ; so all in all, believe me, 
Lies hidden, uncognised ; for nothing springs 
From nothing ; and what each thing now contains 
Lay in the general womb and seed of things, 
Else had not been at all. 



Aspasia. 

This I believe ; 



But whence grew Chaos ? 



ANAXAGORAS. 217 

Anaxagoras. 

Chaos nowhere grew ; 
It was. 

Aspasia. 

But my theologer says it came 
First into being. 

Anaxagoras. 

There he errs. The world, 
Not Chaos, had a birth. The primal stuff 
From which all being is compacted knows 
Nor birth nor death, still equal to itself, 
Through the long masquerade of changeful forms 
Changeless. Thou see'st how water, charged with heat, 
Is viewless vapour ; reft of heat becomes 
The hoar and frosted rock which men call ice. 
All firmness comes from fluency ; from air 
All watery flow ; the form of things departs, 
The power remains ; no force is lost in Nature ; 
But all substantial being is conserved 
With every various virtue, form, and hue, 
By right of its own essence. 

Aspasia. 

This I see ; 
For nothing comes of nothing, and by mere will 
To make a garden bloom forth from no seeds 
Beggars the wit of gods ; but this I ask — 
How from this jumbled welter of all possibles 
Came forth the fairest possible, the World ? 



2i8 ANAXAGORAS. 

Anaxagoras. 
Here Hesiod halts ; but any child may teach you 
The link he lacks. What made the world is Mind. 

9 

ASPASIA. 

How prove you this ? 

Anaxagoras. 

It was but yesterday 
I chanced in the Piraeus to be cheapening 
Some saffron from Cilicia, when I saw, 
Close by the shrine of Zeus and Pallas sitting 
A little maid, a most industrious imp, 
With eyes like stars, and hair like flowing waves 
Of boon Demeter's gift in harvest month ; 
She with nice craft had moulded from the clay 
A panoplied Pallas, and in her hand had put 
A long straw for a spear. 

Aspasia. 

Well, what of that ? 

Anaxagoras. 

Suppose I had not seen that pretty maid 
Into the goodly likeness of a god 
Moulding the clay, but stumbled on the work 
As she had left it, what then had I said ? 

Aspasia. 

Some child had made it. 



ANAXAGORAS. 219 

Anaxagoras. 
With her fingers ? 

ASPASIA. 

Ay. 

Anaxagoras. 
And with her fingers only ? 

Aspasia. 

No ; her hand 
Was but the tool with which her genius toiled. 

Anaxagoras. 

Such genius is the Mind that made the world ; 
Such Mind from Chaos' seething cauldron charmed 
All this fair order. 

Aspasia. 
Sayst thou that mind may be 
In hurricanes, and whirlwinds, and the swing 
Of tossing torrents, and the air-rending claps 
Of terrible thunder ? 

Anaxagoras. 

Lady, you have mind, 
Not only when you measure thoughts with me, 
As a cool fencer measures stroke to stroke, 
But when you trip the graceful maze, and in 
The dizzy whirl of your light twinkling feet 
Sweep the admiring gaze. Believe me, lady, 
'Twas mind that made the world a world at first, 



220 ANAXAGORAS. 

And only mind upholds it, being made. 

All torrents, tempests, squalls, and hurricanes, 

Loud-rolling thunders, and huge tidal swells, 

Which over-sweep our ease, and rudely shake 

The tenon from the mortise of our lives, 

Are in the vast admeasurement of things 

Part of a balanced whole, as nicely true 

As the fine tactics of your mimic men 

Upon the chess-board. What we mean by world 

Is order, and all order comes from mind ; 

Else might the letters in a school-boy's box 

Leap into sense, and Homer's rhyme be piled 

From a sick baby's dream. All things are slaves 

But Mind which, strong by autocratic right, 

Moulds and controls, musters and marshals all. 

Matter with matter mingles, dust with dust, 

With water water, till the confluent drops 

Swell to an ocean ; but from mixture free, 

Like Jove, remote from all the throng of gods 

Mind sits enthroned, even as an army counts 

Thousands of hoplites, but one general, 

And all the uncounted troop o' the radiant stars, 

One sun. Mind being one fills all 

The multiform with oneness, wandering else 

In babblement inane, and spent like spray 

In barren dissipation. 

Aspasia. 

You behold 
This rose : how came it not to be a lily ? 



ANAXAGORAS. 221 



Anaxagoras. 



There are who talk of puissant circumstance, 

Fine combinations, born of dateless time, 

Formative forces, self-evolving laws, 

Consistent sequence, and perdurant form, 

From chanceful-falling dice ; but these are fools, 

Who please their ears with pomp of cunning phrase, 

As strange to reason and the law of thought 

As is the mumbled shibboleth of a creed 

To God-discerning piety. I have 

One answer to such questions ; in the chaos 

Nor rose nor lily lay ; but when the power 

Of mind in plastic circles swept the tide 

O' the infinite germs of things, as amber rubbed 

Draws straws to itself, or as the magnet makes 

Iron from sand disparted form in threads, 

So from confusion order rose, and things 

By dominance of kindred particles 

Took each his separate feature and his type. 

That which makes difference in things is mind ; 

A block of wood becomes a stool, a chair, 

A spoon, an oar, a sceptre, or a god, 

As in the cunning carver's shaping soul 

The type was gendered. Shape is but the stamp 

Of quality imposed on formless stuff, 

Which else were all, or nothing. To create, 

We needs must separate, and like to like 

Welding, strike out the measured marks that make 

Classes and kinship. Thus the Cosmos grew 

Out of rude Chaos, and still growing spreads 



222 ANAXAGORAS. 

To difference more rich and vast, and swells 
The simple cuckoo's note to thundering sweep 
Of Titan harper on uncounted strings. 
Mind is the harper, and the harp the world, 

Aspasia. 

But a good harper makes no jars ; the world 
Is full of jarring. 

Anaxagoras. 

There again you speak 
Not like Aspasia. Who knows but the midge 
That buzzes o'er the bubbling marsh esteems 
Aspasia's lute, a discord, when she sings 
The praise of gods and heroes to the march 
Of Pindar's Muse ? 

Aspasia. 

Thus in the sum of things 
You swamp all difference, if worms may rank 
With serpents, man take measure from a midge. 

Anaxagoras. 

Blame me not, lady ; man and midge are both 

Great by comparison, or small ; a fly 

Is small to you ; the Thunderer in the sky 

Holds you a minim ; in the wimpled wave 

A floating bubble, breaking with a puff, 

Is to great Ocean as Aspasia's soul, 

Or mine, or any human soul that thinks, 

To the great soul o' the world. 



ANAXAGORAS. 223 

ASPASIA. 

In this wise 
Your wisdom plucks the plumes from our conceit 
Right royally ; and king or beggar thus 
Is but a dot to Jove. 

Anaxagoras. 

Weak swimmers need 
Bladders to float them, and delusion feeds 
Weak stomachs that reject unsugared truth. 
Man is most little then when least he knows 
His littleness, and blares his mighty nothings 
Into a breadth of trumpeted display, 
Which tickles children, and makes mirth to Momus. 
All things are small but God, and all things great 
In his great purpose. We are great by being 
Part of the mighty thought that shapes the whole. 

Aspasia. 
Well spoke, high-honoured sir. Apollo's priest, 
Who from the Clarian well makes pure the blood, 
To course with prophet virtue through his veins, 
Never spake wiselier. I could lecture now 
On high theogony with tripping tongue 
As glib as Gorgias ; I could sell my words 
For gold, and make dear market of my wit, 
Like many a famous sophist : let me see ! 

[S/ie retires with Hesiod in her hand.'] 

Anaxagoras. 
What means she now? 



224 ANAXAGORAS. 

Pericles. 
Wait ; 'tis her wont, you'll see. 

Aspasia. 

[Returning after a little.'] 

Yes ! now I have it. 

In the beginning was Chaos ; then Mind, the mighty 

magician, 
Strong, with circular sweep set the mingled atoms in 

motion, 
And in concentric whirls was monad from monad 

disparted, 
Seeking divergent homes, and moulded to opposite 

natures ; 
Some were heavenward sent, the light, the winged, 

the fiery ; 
Some to drops were condensed, and formed wide 

ocean ; and some were 
Hardened to rock, and became the crusted face of 

the broad Earth ; 
Like came rushing to like, and countless forms of 

existence 
Massed in limited types, were marshalled in beautiful 

order. 
Thus the Cosmos arose — 

Pericles. 
Bravo ! bravo ! 

Aspasia. 
And Mind was monarch of all things. 



ANAXAGORAS. 225 

Pericles. 
Thus the Cosmos arose, and Chaos was conquered 
for ever ! 

Aspasia. 

Bravo ! bravo ! and formless Chaos shall reign again 
never ! 

Anaxagoras. 

I too say bravo ! would I oft might find 
Such apt disciples ! Sophroniscus' son 
Not from my flask more greedily drained the oil, 
When first I trimmed his lamp. But I must go. 

Aspasia. 
Nay, you remain ; a glass of Pramnian wine 
Waits for you in the arbour. 

Anaxagoras. 

Lady, wine is good, 
And, seasoned with the sweetness of your wit, 
Is named with nectar. 

Aspasia. 

Sages too can flatter j 
But you must sup with us. 

Anaxagoras. 

Fair lady, no ! 
I'm bargained to Euripides to-night, 
Who in his plays is fond to prink the verse 
With shining granules from the golden sand 
Of our philosophy. 

Q 



226 ANAXAGORAS. 

ASPASIA. 

He should have been 
A sophist ; he hath much delight to make 
Parade of speeches, and unfolds his case 
Even as a practised pleader 'fore a jury, 
With pleasing amplitude of polished phrase, 
To entertain their dulness. 

Pericles. 

Ay; myself 
Sometimes have filched his phrases ; Socrates, 
Who noses all fine qualities, declares 
A play of wise Euripides as good, 
Better, perhaps, than tractate most profound 
On Nature by our sagest ! 

Anaxagoras. 

Even so ! 
Verse is the very mintage of our gold 
That gives it currency ; we thinkers dig, 
But neither buy, nor sell ; — Good night to both ! 

Aspasia. 

Good night ! and come again. When you lack ears 
To listen, think on me. 

[Exit Anaxagoras.'] 

Well, Pericles, 
Bright stars with bright keep company, and the wise 
Herd with the wise. 



ANAXAGORAS. 227 

Pericles. 

He is a man of thought, 
And as he thinks he acts ; he might have been 
For wealth the foremost in Clazomenae ; 
But, counting gold a hindrance to his scope, 
Unfettered by the small economies 
That peg proud speculation's wing, he lives 
To search deep-reasoned truth, and to proclaim 
Its harmonies to men ; he taught me much. 

Aspasia. 
And me. You saw with what a flashing edge 
He clave my dulness, and gave me a sense 
To spell my Hesiod. 

Pericles. 
So it chances aye : 
With eyes we see not, and with ears not hear, 
Till, touched with salve of high philosophy, 
We lift our lids, and lo ! all Nature shines 
With flaming miracles. 

Aspasia. 
The gods be praised 
That we are Greeks, and wisdom dwells where you 
Rule wisely, schooled by Anaxagoras wise ; 
But mark me well, and let me prophecy ! 
This your wise friend, whose life enriches yours, 
Will not live long in Athens. 

Pericles. 

Not live ! for why ? 



228 ANAXAGORAS. 

ASPASIA. 

He is too wise and good : his wisdom shows 
Here, like a sharp invasive ray that cleaves 
The general dark, whose questioned sovereignty 
Will cast him out. Himself hath taught me this ; 
Like draws to like, and bird with bird is paired ; 
'Tis bruited much that, like Protagoras, 
He is an atheist. 

Pericles. 

Protagoras, I potently believe, 

Is a most pious man, though far from wise 

In that he blazed into the vulgar view 

Of purblind peepers, truths as apt for them 

As noon-day glare for owls ; he doth deny 

The gods, the people say ; and so, indeed, 

His book says to the ear, but to the sense 

Of him who thinks, and thinking reads, his word 

Denies not gods, but what weak mortals deem 

Or dream about the gods. 

Aspasia. 

Belike ; but he 
And Anaxagoras are atheists, both 
In the intolerant tyrannous conceit 
Of our poll-counted demos, who, you know, 
Do rate themselves the very crest and crown 
Of Greekish piety, and this town the loved 
Abode of gods, and fortress of immortals ; 
In whose esteem the man whose clearer sight 
Hath spied a flaw in their high-lauded faith 



ANAXAGORAS. 229 

Is but the stinking fly within the pot 

Of their most fragrant ointment ; they have the power, 

And will not lack or will or skill to cast 

The offender out. 

Pericles. 
We cast Thucydides out ! 

Aspasia. 
That was a chance by wisdom wisely used. 

Pericles. 
Have you no faith in our Athenian men ? 

Aspasia. 
Yes ; but as men. In monkeys I have faith 
That they will mow and mock and grin ; in bears 
That they will growl ; in dogs that they can nose ; 
I do believe in hens that they will cluck 
And run from rain, and store the straw with eggs ; 
In cocks that they will crow, and strut, and fight ; 
In Persians that they sweep the streets with silk ; 
In Spartans that their arms can brandish steel, 
And that their fingers love to stick to gold ; 
And in Athenians I believe that they 
Can talk, and laugh, and dance, and sing, and flash 
With points of wit, like light on shimmering seas, 
Or stars in cloudless skies, but not that they 
Can leap out of their skins. 

Pericles. 

'Tis ever thus ; 
You women paint, in black and white, and find 



230 ANAXAGORAS. 

Your chiefest bliss in hugging hoCextremes, 
Trusting in all points, or in all suspecting. 

Aspasia. 
So be it ! Pericles is king of Athens, 
And brooks no NO to-night : but mark me well, 
Women can prophesy ; and I shall be 
Cassandra to your fate and Pythia now ; 
You'll have a wrestling-bout with Demos soon 
For Anaxagoras, and yourself, and all 
The friends that love you. 

Pericles. 

The gods make true your word ! 
A goodlier death I could not choose to die, 
Than with my sword drawn for what most I prize, 
Aspasia fair and Anaxagoras wise. 

Aspasia. 

Well, fights are always splendid when we win, 
And easy when we dream. But let's go in ! 

[She leads him out into the supper room.~\ 



SOCRATES. 



I. ARISTODEMUS ; OR, THE ATHEIST. 

ihyade, KardfiaOe 6t<. ko.1 6 <rbs vovs ivibv rb abv crtS/tcc oVws 
j3ou\erai. /xeraxecpi^eTai' otecrdau. odv XPV Kai T W % v T V "ira-vrl 
(ppburjcnv to. ivavra Situs &v avrrj 7/5i) ?) outu) rlOeadai. 

Xenophon. 



ARISTODEMUS ; OR, THE ATHEIST. 

PERSONS. 

Aristodemus, A young Athenian. 
Chaerephon, an Athenian, Disciple of Socrates. 
Socrates. 

Scene. — A Street in Athens. 

[Enter Aristodemus 7\ 

Aristodemus. 

Protagoras was right ; if there be gods, 
Or if there be not, overjumps my ken ; 
But this I know, I am a man, and take 
Of things that be the measure for myself, 
And things that be not. Each man for himself 
Is God in his own world, his world the hour, 
And what it brings — all else is blank and void. 
The moment and its thrill of soothed sense 
Is heaven to man and moth. 

\Chaerephon appears in the distance^ 

But who comes here ? oh ! 'tis my boxwood friend, 
My yellow face, my bloom of asphodel, 
Who feeds on moonwort and on meditation, 






234 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

And hangs on Socrates, that quibbling pedant, 

As children on their nurse's skirts, and curs 

On heels of them that kick them. Yet I ween 

He is no pudding-pated fool, no dough 

That lends itself with apt servility 

To the first hand will knead it ; he hath bone 

And stiff upstanding bristles, being roused, 

And firm-set will, and tough persistency ; 

And, when he claps the spur to his conceit, 

He'll ride the battlefield of argument 

Fierce as Achilles, and with fearless chase 

Out-gallop all the Furies. Jove knows how 

A fellow full of nerve and fire, and made 

To head a rattling charge of cavalry, 

Should get him so entangled and enmeshed 

In that old proser's quirks and quiddities ! 

How now, good comrade, whither drives your speed ? 

Chaerephon. 
To Socrates. 

Aristodemus. 

To Socrates ! what can you hope to learn 
From him ? 

Chaerephon. 
All things. 

Aristodemus. 

O yes, all things he knows, 
Like that Margites, of whom Homer sings, 
Who knew all trades, and all trades badly knew. 



THE ATHEIST. 235 

Chaerephon. 

I fear you know him not, the godlike man ; 

Else had you loved him. Hast thou drawn thy breath 

In this wise Athens, and not felt his power 

As broad and gracious, as when Phoebus draws 

From lawn and hill-top, and from bosky dell/ 

Bright flowers to strew the pathway of the spring. 

Aristodemus. 

O yes ; I know him ; but not know to use 

Your fragrant fine similitudes, and tropes 

That smack of nectar. I have heard him called 

The great man midwife of our Attic youth, 

Who brings to birth each green and crude conceit 

Of men, whose waking business is to dream. 

Chaerephon. 
You know him wrong. The Delphic oracle 



Aristodemus. 
Bah ! who believes in oracles ? I have heard 
Our politicians buy their prophecies, 
Like other wares, with gold. 

Chaerephon. 

I know not ; but I know the Pythoness 
This answer gave to me, and got no gold — 
Your Sophocles is wise ; wiser than he, 
Euripides ; but wiser far than both 
Is Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus. 



236 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

Aristodemus. 
I'm sick of him ; his wisdom were no harm, 
Would he but keep it to himself, and ride 
His hobby in the riding school ; but now 
He makes the public square his training floor, 
Haunts the palaestras, and infects the streets 
With his snub nose, and big out-standing eyes 
That walk about, and see all round his head. 
One cannot miss him in the agora 
More than the henwives, when they bring their hens 
Well-cooped to market ; would he too were cooped ! 

Chaerephon. 

What harm does he ? — he loves all men and wears 
A smile for every comer ; fair or foul, 
He's ever bright. Apollo knows a cloud, 
Socrates never. 

Aristodemus. 

He hath a wealth of smiles, 
As ever on good terms with his sweet self. 

Chaerephon. 
Not without cause : wise men are happy men. 

Aristodemus. 

The cat is happy when it plays a mouse ; 
The angler when he lands a lively trout ; 
So this old quibbler when in verbal noose 
He traps a simple wit, and tortures him 
On hooks of contradiction. 



THE ATHEIST. 237 

Chaerephon. 

You mistake; 
The man I venerate traffics not in words. 
Not his the craft to thrash the wind, or sow 
The barren sea, or twist a rope of sand, 
Or measure slippers for a flea, or take 
The cube root of a mustard seed, or roof 
A tent with beetle's wings, or plant a cone 
Upon its apex by the dexterous craft 
Of words well set in rank and file. Not he ; 
Euclid of Megara might cobwebs weave 
For flies ; but who would fish for souls of men 
Must twine his meshes of a stronger cord. 
My master brooks no jugglery of phrase, 
But tears the swelling purfles of your speech, 
And shows the naked frame, or fair or foul, 
With every pin and pivot of your thought, 
Bare to the day. He's a brave fellow too, 
And when hard blows are needful deals in blows. 
I've heard old grey-beards tell, when all the rest 
Fled like a whirl of snow-drift from the fight 
At Delium, he, like Ajax, his retreat 
Footed as nicely as a dancing-girl 
May time her paces. 'Tis a rare thing that men 
So deft of tongue can with such cunning wield 
Their limbs, and with such brawny forwardness 
Launch out their arms to action. 

Aristodemus. 
He's a cool dog, and looks you in the face 
With a fixed stare, as blushless as a bull ; 



238 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

Oft-time I've wished to slap him on the cheek, 
And pluck his beard. 

Chaerephon. 

And, if you did, you'd reap 
A barren triumph. Water shall sooner wet 
A water-fowl, or fish be drowned in sea, 
Or birds in air, than insult or reproach 
Fret the fair summer softness of his soul. 
He knows not wrath, and scorns hostility, 
As Phoebus in his April increase laughs 
At the sour drift which baffled Winter flings 
On his enforced retreat. I well remember 
When a rude fellow heaped him with abuse, 
He turned aside and said — This bitter blast 
Warns me seek shelter ; with a north wind keen 
He fighteth best who plants a hill between. 

Aristodemus. 
He is well schooled to bear all contumely, 
And from a scolding woman's tongue hath learned 
To vail his crest in meekness. 

Chaerephon. 

There you are right. 
Whoso would sit, like Centaur, on a horse 
Takes not the dull, demure, down-trodden hack, 
But the high-blooded, mettlesome, and apt 
To throw his rider ; this he tames, and sits, 
And rides secure upon the skittish brute, 
As on the storm an eagle. Even so 



THE ATHEIST. 239 

I choose my wife, said Socrates, for this end, 
To learn to manage her, and manage thus 
The worser steed, myself. 

Aristodemus. 

O, he's perfection ! 
Right pious too, I understand, and prays 
To Pallas, Jove, and all the host of gods, 
Of whom the baby-world erst fondly dreamed 
When Homer rocked its cradle ! 

Chaerephox. 

Here he comes ! 
Of Homer and the gods you may discourse 
At large with him : he'll give you line, believe, 
And leave you flouncing on a muddy shore, 
Like an old eel, when the deep pool is dried 
Where it grew long and fat. 

[Enter Soci-aies^ 

Good Socrates, 
Here is a friend who gladly would be taught 
The power and virtue of the gods from thee. 

Socrates. 

Hail, noble youth ! the fountain of all good 
Is Jove, and reverent piety the root 
Of all the virtues. 

Aristodemus. 
Virtue is good ; but, for your piety, 
Who worships Jove worships he knows not what. 



240 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

Socrates. 
Who taught you that ? 

Aristodemus. 

Protagoras, and all 
The famous sophists who from town to town 
Make knowledge travel by contagious power 
Of wise discourse. 

Socrates. 

I know Protagoras, 
A very just, well-worded gentleman ; 
Who knows him not ? to round a sentence well 
Lives not his equal from the rugged Thrace 
To fruitful Sicily ; but, for the gods, 
If he denies them, then, for once full surely 
A wise man's mouth hath brought forth foolishness, 
And from sweet fountain bitter water flowed. 
Come, answer me. 

Aristodemus. 
Right willingly, so be 
You use plain speech, and deal not over subtly 
With my untutored wit. I think as men 
Think in the field and in the market-place, 
And know no paces but what bear my limbs 
To where my business calls me. 

Socrates. 

That is wise ; 
You'll find no man-traps in the agora 
Nor in my speech. Now this thing tell me first, 



THE ATHEIST. 241 

Who, by your reckoning, were the wisest men 
In Athens ? 

Aristodemus. 

Well, I fancy he who found 
His heritage a wilderness, and left it 
A garden to his children. 

Socrates. 

There my wit 
Sails close with yours. Now, further say wherein 
This wisdom lies, more than in other works 
Of the much-labouring race of deedful men. 

Aristodemus. 

Why, to make much of little, and to bring 
Blossoms from barrenness, and from hideous scars 
The blush of beauty, surely this must be 
The witchcraft of high thought. 

Socrates. 

Even so. 'Tis Thought, 
Plan, Calculation, Purpose, that creates. 

Chaerephon. 

And, when I find a wilderness, and say, 

Here from this bog I'll drain the stagnant tide, 

And lead it kindly o'er the thirsty heath, 

And make it trickle down the arid rocks 

In fertilising rills, and from this parched 

And shingly slope I'll teach the white-stemmed birch 

To fling her graceful tresses, and the pine 

R 



242 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

To spread his broad green fan, and in this nook, 
Where spiteful Boreas droops his baffled wing, 
I'll plant my cottage, and I'll plough my field, 
And of this wide and wasteful moor I'll make 
A grassy lawn, and pile my mansion here, 
Cinctured with roses, and with leafy shield 
Of laurel shaded and of sycamore ; 
I speak with Reason's prophecy, and all 
I do is Reason ripened into deed. 

Aristodemus. 
Just so ; he fills his mouth with tropes, and makes 
My sense look bigger ; what I said, short-summed 
Was this, that fruit of wisdom chiefly shines 
When Thought brings order from confusion, and 
Growth from decay. 

Socrates. 

Our Solon thus was wise, 
Who tvvixt the stout and overlusty lords, 
And their poor bondsmen growling discontent, 
Made sweet accord of well-poised government. 

Chaerephon. 
And wise was he who from the babblement 
Of multitudinous voices, and the strange 
Wild intertanglement of sound with sound, 
Which we call language, framed an alphabet ; 
By whose high-reasoned order all the vast 
Luxuriant storm of moulded speech becomes 
As clear and measurable as the rank and file 
Of a well-marshalled host. 



THE ATHEIST. 243 



Aristodemus. 



Yes ! Cadmus was wise, 
Phoenician Cadmus or Egyptian Thoth, 
Or both together ; for most like our stream 
Flows from barbarian founts, and vainly we 
Deem ourselves earth-born, native to the soil, 
Like rocks and oaks. Not wisely may the tree, 
Which the sun kisses on its breezy tip, 
Despise the darksome far-fanged root by which 
It stands and grows. 

Socrates. 

Bravo ! you too have tropes. 
I am no poet, but a plain-worded man 
That would live wisely, and help men to live ; 
Yet much I love true thought that for itself 
Shapes an apt body in a pictured phrase. 
Now tell me this : If Solon was most wise, 
Phoenician Cadmus, and Egyptian Thoth ; 
If Polycleitus, Zeuxis, and his hand 
Who made the formless and insensate block 
Breathe forth the awful majesty of Jove, 
And the bright terror of his daughter's eyne, 
Know you none wiser ? 

Aristodemus. 

Well ; I cannot say. 

Socrates. 
If Polyclete and Phidias were wise 
To type the living in the lifeless, say 



244 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

Who made the living prototype must be 
Wiser by much. 

Aristodemus. 

Belike ; but no man knows 
This hidden Maker. Chaos and old Night 
By secret throes of primal Eros stirred, 
And bound by bonds of strong Necessity 
Brought forth— so our theologers bravely sing — 
This struggling, blustering, battling, whole of things, 
This bubbling pot of crude hostilities, 
Which men call life, or rather life and death, 
To endless scuffle damned. I cannot see 
Much wisdom here. 

Socrates. 

If mid the dust and heat 
Of a far-spreading battle, whose wide lines 
Outreach the eye, some soldier, posted far 
In the extremest flank, should know no more 
Of the great plan and purpose of the fray, 
Than a strange wanderer through a pathless wood 
Knows of the marks which guide the forester, 
Not less the artful captain knows the how 
And why of every calculated move 
That wins the game o' the battle. 

Aristodemus. 

Very likely. 
But, if he recks not me, nor spares my life, 
And I am kicked about from risk to risk, 



THE ATHEIST. 245 

Even as a ball that makes the children sport, 
And with a blind obedience led to woo 
The slashing sword, harsh barb, and pointed spear, 
Why should I love him ? 

Socrates. 

Curb thy hasty tongue ; 
Deem'st thou that thou and I are in such wise 
Entreated of the gods ? O say not so, 
Unless, belike, my teeth were made to ache, 
And every breath of wind brought hellish smoke, 
To smart mine eyes. I pray thee cast a thought 
Upon that goodly framework, called thy body, 
So curious-piled, so cunningly composed, 
So strong to bear, so jointed well to bend, 
So quick to move with every various thrill 
Of pleasurable power. That little eye, 
Whose circlet holds the vasty world in view, 
Who made it was an architect, and wise 
To roof it with a moving pent-house lid, 
And guard it with the cornice of the brows. 
Bethink thee also what a wealth of sounds 
Wends through the teclmic chambers of the ear, 
Nor this for luxury only, but for need 
To sentinel what danger from behind 
Might steal unseen. The teeth with reasoned skill, 
These to divide, and those to grind were made ; 
The mouth, where sight and scent might indicate 
The healthful food received well-ordered place ; 
While, from each delicate sense removed, what failed 
To nourish life from life was cast away. 



246 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

Deem'st thou this workhouse of assorted tools, 
This stately pile of nicely-portioned rooms, 
Was tumbled into form by chance, as when 
A dicer throws the highest throw three times, 
And marvels at the kindness of the dice ? 

Aristodemus. 
Well, there does seem strange wisdom in these things ; 
But this fair order with disorder foul 
Is paired ; sweet honey with sour vinegar 
So madly mixed, one knows not with what name 
To bless or ban the potion. 

Socrates. 

Rein thy tongue, 
Young man ; nor blame my free speech when I say 
Thy words run wild, and from the Muses far. 
Shall sun and moon, and every trooping star 
Stoop from the shining battlements of heaven 
To pleasure thee ? and, if a little chink 
Gapes in thy boat, belike from thy neglect, 
Shalt thou blaspheme the carpenter, whose hand 
Timbered the floating house ? What thou dost call 
Disorder is but order more complex, 
And plan too vast and multiform for man's 
Baby-conception. Chance is nowhere found, 
Or all chance is divine : a god commands 
The gusty blast, and twists the chambered shell. 

Aristodemus. 
But I not see this god ; the blast to me 
Is but a terrible confounding force. 



THE ATHEIST. 247 

Socrates. 

And when Aristodemus flaps a fly 

From off his nose, his flap to the poor fly 

Is but a terrible confounding force ; 

And yet Aristodemus is a man, 

And, if his mouth might truly voice his thought, 

A very proper man. You do not see 

The gods, you say; — pray do you see yourself? 

Or can I see the thing that is yourself, 

The soul that is the king of what you call 

Your body? Soul is nowhere seen, but felt. 

No revelation of the mighty Jove 

Can be, but the fair world which he hath made, 

Indwelt by him, and fashioned as befits 

The immortal vesture of immortal Mind. 

Aristodemus. 

Well, be it so j but why should I besiege 

His throne with prayers, and mock his mightiness 

With the poor ministrations of a moth ? 

He needs not me, nor recks my little breath, 

More than the chariot-rider recks the fly 

Caught in the whirling fervour of his wheels. 

Socrates. 
Most natural thought, and yet ill-sorted. You 
And I have no concern with flies ; but God 
Makes them, and wings them, when with rare delight 
They weave their sportive dances in the sun, 
And, if they die upon a whirling wheel 
Or in a honey-pot, there is no harm : 



248 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

They've had their joy ; all mortal things must die ; 
But if you deem the gods need not your prayers, 
'Tis true ; the need is yours to pray to them 
With kindly trust, even as a little child 
Hangs by its mother. 

Aristodemus. 

But, when I shall pray, 
Will the gods answer? 

Socrates. 

Chaerephon and I 
E'en on that theme wove very grave discourse 
But yesterday. Perhaps he'll give you now 
The fruit of our debate. 

Chaerephon. 

Right willingly. 
Casting our eyes upon the breathing wealth 
Of life in the vast-heaving world, we found 
All kinds, all types, all faculties, all forms, 
In rich gradation ; from the slimy worm, 
The blind earth-burrowing mole, the fluttering fly, 
To the keen-scented hound, the stately steed, 
The sun-confronting eagle, the vast troop 
Of glancing swimmers in the swarming deep, 
The brindled strong-jawed tiger, and the tramp 
Of huge-limbed elephant by Ganga's flood : 
All these by inspiration from the gods, 
In every guise of beauty and of power, 
Walk the broad-breasted earth, and with their being 



THE ATHEIST. 249 

Praise mighty Zeus. But of all creatures, Man 

Stands forth pre-eminent ; in him great Jove 

Hath capped and summed his wondrous workmanship, 

As in the bright-hued bloom the plant beholds 

The crowning joy of its transmuted green. 

All other kinds that walk the earth declare 

Prone-faced their earthy kinship ; he alone 

Looks upwards from the ground, and with proud glance 

Holds converse with the stars ; his pliable limbs 

By dexterous shaping make the world his slave ; 

And, where his strength may fail, his subtle wit 

Commands an army of Promethean tools, 

That make earth, fire, and water work his will, 

To ride in triumph o'er the subject globe. 

And, if the light air-winnowing birds outrun 

His earth-bound movement, Jove hath gifted him 

With magic of far-travelling thought, which swift 

As lightning darts from pole to pole, and scales 

The flaming battlements of the universe 

With fearless wing. But, crowning all the gifts 

Wherewith the gracious Fate hath richly dowered 

High-favoured Man, the chiefest is that he 

Alone can know the gods, and own the source 

Whencehis rare greatness flows. Hence prayers ascend, 

And hymns of grateful praise, and temples rise 

Conspicuous far in each well-peopled land, 

And creeds with various phrase that strive to lisp 

The wonder of our being. Never brute 

Had thought of God (brute knows not thinking, nor 

Can say, I know) ; though in his outward form, 

And in the pulpy volume of his brain, 



250 ARISTODEMUS; OR, 

The tricksy ape oft time hath seemed to claim 
Close brotherhood with man. So great a gap 
Betwixt the reasonless and the reasoning life 
A favouring God hath set. 

Aristodemus. 

Hold now, my friend ! 
You play the painter ; and I must admire 
Your range of pictures ; but my question was, 
Will the gods answer, when I pray to them ? 

Socrates. 

Aristodemus, that is simply said. 

When in the pillared Parthenon we pray 

The grace of the strong-fathered, flashing-eyed, 

Spear-shaking Pallas, not like starving beggars 

We beat the doors of her white-fronted shrine, 

Nor, with the greedy piety of curs, 

Fawn for the customed crust. Our hymn of praise 

Spontaneous mounts like the lark's matin song ; 

And, if we ask a boon, we ask it thus : 

" O Pallas, or whatever gods there be 

That love this spot, grant me a soul within 

Pure and chaste-thoughted ; and, for outward things, 

May they hold harmony with inward power 

To grasp and to enjoy them ; rich let me be 

In wisdom chiefly ; and, for gold, of that 

Give me what ration I can wisely use 

To make life sweet and help a brother's need." 

Pray thus, and make no doubt the gracious Powers 

Will drop their grace like dew upon your vows ! 



THE ATHEIST. 251 

Aristodemus. 
Yet such are not the prayers we mostly hear. 

Socrates. 
That matters not ; wise men have their own prayers. 
A fool will pray, for that he sails to Rhodes, 
May Jove make all the winds his ministers, 
And for some petty merchandise divert 
The airy currents that invest the globe 
With tides of vital virtue unconfined. 
Thou doest well from such presumptuous prayers 
To keep thy lips. To every human prayer 
The Alpha and the Omega be this, 
Jove's will be done I But from their frosty use, 
Who nip the bud of prayer, and rudely snap 
The bond of fellowship 'twixt men and gods, 
Abstain no less. 

Aristodemus. 
Thou seemest to speak well. 
I will bethink me of thy words, when next 
I hear Protagoras discourse. Meanwhile, 
This answer me, how know we that the gods 
Have such a form, such human features, and 
Such signs and badges, and accoutrements, 
As Homer sings, and god-like Phidias moulds, 
And Polycletus paints? 

Socrates. 

What matters form 
To God's pure essence ? A form is but a sign 



252 ARISTODEMUS. 

Outward of inward power ) a naked sword 

The Scythian worships ; Hellas bends the knee 

To harnessed Mars ; in spirit Greek and Goth 

Do reverence to the same. But I must go, 

And share a festal sacrifice to-day 

With Plato's father, for the love I bear 

To sire and son, — a very marvellous boy, 

Dear to the gods. Some other day with thee 

And Chaerephon I'll hold a high debate 

Of shape and dress significant, and all 

The symbols of the gods, which godly Athens 

Delights to heap with honour. [Exit] 

Chaerephon. 

The sage is gone. 
I hope you find yourself affected now 
More kindly to him. 

Aristodemus. 

Yes ; I must confess, 
He cheats opinion strangely. He's a bee, 
All honey without sting. I never knew 
So mild a disputant ; so courtly kind, 
And so like other men in all he says, 
No cloudy notion, and no prickly phrase. 
Sure Aristophanes wittier was than wise, 
Who swung him up for laughter in the skies. 

Chaerephon. 
Now, let us go ! — I've business at the Pnyx. 



SOCRATES. 



II. AEISTIPPUS ; OR, PLEASURE. 

Tow irovwv wuXovaiv i]/uuv ■na.VTa Tar/aff 1 ol deoi. 

Epichai:mus. 



ARISTIPPUS; OR, PLEASURE. 

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. 
Socrates. 

Chaerephon, an Athenian, disciple of Socrates. 
Aristippus, of Cyrene, founder of the Cyrenasan Sect. 
Young Men of Athens. 

Scene. — Before the temple of Theseus in Athens. Socrates 
and Chaerephon discovered sitting on the lowest steps of the temple. 
Enter a company of Athenian young men. 

First Young Man. 

Here sits that old eccentric gentleman, 
Whom all men love, and no man understands, 
On the steps o' the temple. 

Second Young Man. 
Whom all men love ? Not so. I know a few 
Who hate him inly. 

Third Young Man. 

And for why is plain. 

First Young Man. 
Not plain to me ; unless mine eyes might learn 
To hate the sun. 



256 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

Third Young Man. 

Owls hate the sun, and bats. 
This son of Sophroniscus hath a trick 
That men don't like. 

First Young Man. 
What trick ? 

Third Young Man. 

He deals in truth, 
And though 'tis fenced oft-times all round with thorns, 
And stings like nettles, and as hard to bear 
As bitter drug or surgeon's ruthless knife, 
He flings it lightly under each man's nose, 
As it were dust of roses. You cannot drop 
A word with him but he will pick it up 
And weigh it well, and look it through and through, 
And measure it all round ; and, if it fail 
A jot of nice propriety of art — 
His triple joint of if, and but, and therefore — 
He damns it for false coin, and you who passed it 
A forger or a fool. 

First Young Man. 

That's hard to bear 
For fools and forgers ; but an honest man 
Turns to the truth, as flowers turn to the light. 

Second Young Man. 
Such honest men are few. If he goes on 
In this large way to ferret out conceit 



PLEASURE. 257 

From each pretentious fool who entertains 
Porch or palaestra with the quack, quack, quack, 
Of croaking Muses from his bubbling brain, 
He'll sow a seed of enmity, and reap 
A crop of curses ; and, for that he takes 
No silver for his broad-cast tutoring, 
They'll deem a cup of hemlock for his supper 
May fee him fitly. 

First Young Man. 
No fear of that. 
Thank Jove we live in Athens, not beneath 
Tyrannic yoke in bonded Syracuse. 
If an Athenian may not wag his tongue, 
Fowls shall not fly, nor fish shall saw the sea, 
Nor eels grow fat in slimy Copais. 
But say, to-morrow is, I think, the eighth 
Of Pyanepsia. 

Second Young Man. 

Indeed it is ; 
And we shall have a jolly feast of beans, 
To honour Theseus. 

First Young Man. 

Yes, I see the shrine 
Already all bedecked with festal pomp, 
To greet the feast. Our Attic joys were bought 
With toils of Theseus. Let us honour him ! 

Second Young Man. 

Come, then; the sun is westering, 
s 



258 . ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

First Young Man. 

Let us stroll 
Down to Phalerum, where the hero's sons 
Have a fair temple. 

Third Young Man. 
Just so. Let us go ! 
\They pass oni\ 

Socrates. 
What's all the stir to-night ? 

Chaerephon. 

It is the eve 

Of Pyanepsia. 

Socrates. 
I should have known it. 

Chaerephon. 

Indeed you were not wont to stint your praise 
Of Theseus and the godlike Hercules. 

Socrates. 

Sons of the gods ! I tell thee, Chaerephon, 

There is no feast in all the calendar 

Makes such rare pleasure travel through my veins 

As this our Pyanepsia. In the name 

Of mighty Theseus all his sons rejoice, 

And every worthiest man in Attic bounds 

Rejoices in a worthier than himself, 



PLEASURE. 259 

A name that overtops his topmost worth, 
As the tall pine the thistle. Such worship lifts 
The humblest worshipper, brings down the proud, 
And makes all brothers. 

Chaerephon. 

Tell me in what kind 
You rate our Theseus highest ? 

Socrates. 

At Troezene, 
You know, he spent his boyhood ; and, when years 
Brought round the day should bring him back to 

Athens, 
He might have shot across the gleaming gulf 
In a light shallop, as a sea-gull flies, 
Or plumy seed that with light wafture rides 
On the back o' the breeze from random field to field ; 
But this he chose not. Why ? For that he scorned 
To do what any fisher-boy could do, 
As well as Theseus. At his heart there gnawed 
A noble hunger for the manly deed, 
The toilsome venture, and the stout exploit ; 
And so he spurned the easy way, and chose 
A path thick sown with peril. All the road 
From Epidaurus to Eleusis then 
Bristled with savage and club-bearing men, 
Who made the guileless traveller their prey, 
And either bartered venal ruth for gold, 
Sparing a life where murder gained a loss, 
Or with strange unimagined tortures glutted 
Their tiger natures. Never thought of fear 



260 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

Flung shadow o'er the assured soul of Theseus ; 
But on he went, careering, like a god, 
From bright to brighter, making every foe 
Writhe like a wounded worm, caught in the firm 
Unwavering grip of his heroic hand ; 
And thus by sweat and toil of one brave man 
Brought joy to thousands, and for lawless rule 
Made right prevail, and gave the smiling coast 
Into the golden guardianship of peace. 

Chaerephon. 
And thus I sum your eulogy ; by toil 
To snatch success from danger's iron throat 
Is virtue, excellence, and good of man ; 
But who comes here ? 

Socrates. 

I guess it is our friend 
The Cyrenean, whom we met last night 
With Critias at the banquet. His light step 
And airy look declare him. 

Chaerephon. 

You are right. 
Pity he came not sooner to imbibe 
Your praise of Theseus ; for,_ in sooth, his soul 
Needs hardy discipline. He's not the man 
To pluck confronting Peril by the beard, 
And swerve from flowery path, to have a bout 
With bears or burglars. He doth love delight, 
And says that pleasure is man's only good. 



PLEASURE. 261 

I fear divine philosophy for him 
Will grow but earthly fruit ; albeit his ear 
At the Olympian games, some moons ago, 
Through all the din of dust-upwhirling cars, 
Heard only thee, and the soul-winning voice 
Of thy high-reasoned wisdom. 

Socrates. 

He is a man 
With a strong smack of sensuous delight, 
Which runs to rankness. It may be some taint 
Of Afric blood, with fervid passion fraught, 
From hot Cyrene's verdurous terraces, 
Hath fired the Doric chasteness of his veins. 
But rather this I love than meagre hearts 
Whose watery tides swell with no quicker pulse, 
When beauty's full-rigged splendour sails in view. 

Chaerephon. 
Ay ! there are barren soils where basest weeds 
Disdain to grow ; and where the land is fat 
A thousand weeds spring with the gorgeous flower, 
In rival superfluity to pluck 

Bright honours from the sun. But here he comes ! 
[Enter Aristippicsi\ 

Aristippus. 
Well met ! what knotty point did you debate 
To-day ? 

Chaerephon. 

A point that well beseems this place, 
And the bright eve of Theseus' festal day. 



262 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

For Socrates has just been praising Theseus, 
And of his praise this sentence is the sum, 
To snatch success by strength and sweatful plan 
From danger's throat, is the chief good of man. 

Aristippus. 

That sounds sublime, and for a hero's praise 

Most fit ; but for myself and common men 

An humbler wisdom hits a lower mark, 

Which, planted higher, were no mark for us. 

It shows right brave in things that tread the ground 

To talk of wings and sky-assailing flights ; 

But creeping things must creep ; and things that walk 

Can only tempt the breezy element, 

To eternize their folly with their fall. 

I would not soar above the state of man, 

And pleasure is the highest good I claim ; 

To toil and sweat must ever be a pain, 

And uphill roads are hateful to the horse. 

There are who scale sheer-fronted• heights to view 

A glittering desert of untrodden snows ; 

Some to hear harmless thunders 'neath their heels, 

And some to break their necks in tumbling down ; 

Some for they know not why, and some to boast 

That they have stood more nigh to frosty Jove 

By four or five or good eight thousand feet 

Than other men, who on the common clods 

Clatter their boots. Such sweaty vaunts I hate ; 

For sweetest flowers with brightest tincture grow 

Down in the valleys : and the high-throned Sun 

Brews rarest juices from the lowliest herbs. 



PLEASURE. 263 

I'll have no toiling, struggling, panting life ; 
No juggling fiend shall beck me to my ruin 
With shows of bliss remote. The fruit I find 
On mine own garden wall shall pleasure me, 
More than all golden berries hung sublime, 
That I must plant a ladder to approach, 
And, when I claim the guerdon of my toil, 
They stretch their thorns into my shrinking flesh, 
And pluck mine eyes out. 

Socrates. 

By the dog, well said ! 
But tell me this, before our talk may branch 
Into a random rankness undefined, 
What thing is pleasure ? 

Aristippus. 

Nay, good Socrates, 
I pray thee spare me now this word Define ! 
I leave it to your Megarensian friend 
To build a dainty definition, fenced 
With forecast thought and wary-chosen phrase 
Against the rude assault of contradiction. 
Your definition is a skeleton 
In every joint compact ; with skeletons 
I use not to consort ; but what I know, 
The flushing body of the breathing thing 
Instinct with power, in beauty panoplied, 
That I will tell. There's pleasure in all life, 
Free and unhindered, where no clogs impede, 
Or modish false proprieties confine. 



264 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

There's pleasure to the race of summer flies, 

When in the luminous ocean of the air 

They flit about in multitudinous maze, 

And tune their chorus o'er a breezeless brook ; 

There's pleasure to the finny race of fish, 

Or lolling lazily in a deep brown pool, 

Or darting deftly up the glancing rush 

Of virgin streams rock-born. The snow-white 
lamb 

Footing the noiseless velvet of the grass, 

That fills the solitude with tremulous baa, 

And finds its dam, and frisks about, and drains 
With eager tug the creamy wells of life, 

Hath choicest pleasure. Every flower hath pleasure, 

That leaping from its darkening sheath salutes 

The glorious sun, and revels in the day. 

The green woods ring with pleasure in the spring ; 

The fragrant branches wave it ; all the sky 

Thrills with delight, when fervid Phoebus flings 

His quickening virtue o'er the teeming earth. 

And man, much-labouring man, when dust-besoiled, 

On happy holiday he bursts the bond 

And deadening dulness of enforced toil, 

And on soft bank, flower-carpeted, lies down 

Beside the foam-bells of the silver brook, 

With eye and ear and every sense agape, 

Then cunning Nature harps upon his heart, 

And makes that music on the strings of life 

Which men call pleasure. From his grimy den 

Bring forth the captive long immured, and let 

Some glorious prospect rush into his view 



PLEASURE. 265 

Of hills, and waving fields, and gleaming firths, 
And islands sown like stars upon the deep, 
And white-empurpled orchards, and the strength 
Of pinnacled heights, in living gold aglow, 
His widowed eye now finds his natural mate 
And lives in rapture. Take the brooding boy, 
Expectant on the threshold of sweet life, 
And let the image of his inmost thought 
Of fair perfection, slumbering long, at length 
In virgin grace incorporate pass before him ; 
Rapt in mute ecstasy of gaze he stands 
At sight of that he sought, nor knew he sought ; 
His creeping nature straight usurps the air, 
And floats on pinions of delicious dream. 
And when the lovely worshipped form replies 
With answering thrill, and like a god descends, 
Life of his life, and fills the vacant shrine, 
Then Aphrodite's perfect work is done, 
And Pleasure blossoms to her crown, in Love. 

Socrates. 

O Pan, and Hermes, and Apollo ! sure 

Some god holds haunt in breast of Aristippus, 

And moulds his lips to music ! I must praise 

Thy praise of pleasure ; pleasure's a good thing ; 

But there are divers pleasures not a few 

That make no concord with the chord you 

touch ; 
And puff-cheeked Boreas, when he fills his conch, 
Feels ecstasy no less than soft-plumed dove 
That coos on lap of golden Aphrodite. 



266 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

Chaerephon. 

I always thought a dove was rather stupid, 
And should prefer an eagle for my Cupid. 

Socrates. 

And I full many a hunter keen have known, 
That had more pleasure to course down the hare, 
Than others had with roasted hare for dinner. 
But, tell me, Aristippus, if you had 
A prince to train, — and to your feet the gates 
Of kings are 'wont to gape with willing hinge, — 
How would you breed him, — strong in sturdy act, 
Or in the arms of softness ? 

Aristippus. 

Strong to endure 
What all men must, who would by strength prevail. 

Socrates. 

Strong to deny each dear delight of sense, 
And drown the natural calls of appetite 
In swelling surge of business. 

Aristippus. 

Even so ; 
Else, when he took his sleep, some burglar might 
Make breach in the walled palace of his power, 
And steal the sceptre. 



PLEASURE. 267 

Socrates. 

And from love's close embrace 
Confirmed to tear him, and with an iron foot 
To quash sedition. 

Aristippus. 

Aphrodite shuns 
Sweet converse with the man who sternly rules. 

Socrates. 
Then with his thought a kingly man must toil 
To map and register the state's resources, 
Its points of vantage, chinks of danger, all 
That makes him strong to thrust, and wise to parry ; 
And he must know the weakness of the foe, 
Both how to strike and where to plant the blow ; 
And he must take true measure of the strength 
Which he defies ; else 

Aristippus. 

O ! of course, of course ! 
Jove must know all things, or all things would not 
Be ruled by Jove. 

Socrates. 

Then, mark well what I say ; 
All powers that rule in Earth or on Olympus, 
Hold no account of pleasure ; every ruler 
That wisely sways a prosperous land maintains 
His kingly state by trampling under foot 
What you call chiefest good ; and thus 'tis true, 



268 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

Kings know no pleasure, Pleasure knows no kings, 
But rules sole sovereign over servile things. 

Aristippus. 

And thus you preach that all are slaves of pleasure 
Who love it ? 

Socrates. 

I but preach the naked fact ; 
It is a witchery steals in from without, 
And through the unguarded portals of the sense 
Invades the soul, and takes the reason captive. 
No man can rule the world, or rule himself, 
Who vails his casque to pleasure. Both men and gods 
Who mould and shape all things to their desire 
Do so by power ; and power is his who works 
By strength of reason and by scorn of sense. 
Would you not be a king ? 

Aristippus. 

By Jove, not I ! 
I would not govern slaves whom I despise, 
Nor freemen, who with feverish faction strive 
To hold the substance of the sway, and leave 
To me the shadow. I could make a sport 
To tame the tiger, or to charm the snake ; 
I could flog wisdom into mulish boys ; 
Make tittering girls preach grave philosophy ; 
Or in his foaming madness chain the mad 
Till he grew baby-mild ; but for the trick 
By force of sovereign reason to unite 
To some great end that motley regiment, 



PLEASURE. 269 

That huddle of wild helmless human wills 
(Whose reason serves but to enhance the beast, 
And make stupidity fearful, being armed), 
That million-throated monster with one bray, 
Which men do call the people, to unite 
For reason's sober service to one end 
That holds no bribe to passion — this to do 
Baffles my function. Therefore I have made 
The world my country, and Cyrene knows 
Me now no more than Corinth, or your own 
Fair Athens, violet-crowned. 

Socrates. 

But thus you float, 
A straw upon the current of the time, 
Useless. 

Aristippus. 

The unbound breeze hath uses too, 
And helps the strong firm-rooted plant to grow. 
A wise man hath his country everywhere, 
And, like the wind, brings seeds of wisdom with him. 
Wisdom's too good a thing to stay at home, 
Unless, like Helios, she could hold her seat 
In heaven, and with warm radiance sweep the globe. 

Socrates. 

I love thy aptness to fling back the word 
On him who threw it, as in dexterous sport 
Ball answers ball. But this tell me, friend, 
Ruler or ruled, at home, or far from home 



270 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

Wandering rootless, for one only price 

The gods sell all things ; that price thou must pay. 

Aristippus. 
Speak plainly. 

Socrates. 
Thus wise Epicharmus saith : — 
Seek other worlds who without sweat would smile, 
On earth the gods sell everything for toil. 
And to the same tune Hesiod : — 

Vices are cheap ; a doit will buy a load. 
Near is the house of error, smooth the road ; 
But 7vho would scale fair virtue's height sublime, 
Both long and steep the sweatful path must climb, 
Stony at first and hard, but soft and sweet, 

When near the gods you plant your practised feet. 

Aristippus. 

All this I know, and all can well endure ; 

'Tis but the natural fee we pay for pleasure. 

But to fling pleasure's self away, and all 

The sweetness of sweet life, for some conceit 

That hangs i' the air, some wilful, self-imposed, 

Thorny, and fruitless march of blood and tears, 

This I disown ; I cannot truly shake 

Hands with grim Death, and call him my good friend. 

Socrates. 

Yet 'tis our being's law that we must try 
What being tried may bring us near to die. 
Who lives must venture, and who ventures not 
Must die at home, a sluggard and a sot. 



PLEASURE. 271 

Aristippus. 
Talk not to me of laws ; the law to me 
Is what I feel. If I like honey, well ; 
If you like vinegar, well not less for you ; 
And for the world well, that each may hold 
His separate love, and what he loves enjoy. 
Reason of any form nice reason draws, 
Can tell the nature and declare the laws ; 
But of what things I feel with pain and pleasure 
My sense to me is the sole proof and measure. 
I knew a man who said the trees were blue ; 
And when I lived in Megara I tore 
My tunic on a bramble bush, where I 
Was hunting rabbits with a little dog ; 
Forthwith I gave my rag, being saffron-hued, 
To my good hostess' daughter, pretty maid, 
Who stitched the rent with red, and when I blamed 
The motley tissue — " Nay, but sir !" quoth she, 
" 'Tis all one red !" So to our diverse tongues 
Sweet may be bitter, bitter may be sweet. 
There is no law but Nature's need ; the wind 
Is good to him whose sails it fills ; the shoe 
To whom it pinches not ; and every fly 
That points its base proboscis into dung 
Hath right, with choicest epicures, to thank 
The gods for pudding. That is most divine 
To each, to which each mostly doth incline. 

Socrates. 
And if I do incline to quaff strong wine, 
Till I have drowned my senses in the draught, 



272 ARISTIPPUS; OR, 

And, for a moment lifted to the gods, 
Subside into a beast, what call you this ? 

Aristippus. 
Nay, there you do me wrong, good Socrates ! 
Tis an old saw of sages, who were wise 
Before your Solon gave you laws, that harm 
Lies in extremes, and safety in the mean ; 
So pleasure is not pleasure, being spurred 
Beyond what Nature wills, or sense receives. 
As in the sea when wave doth fight with wave, 
In yeasty trouble tossed, such thing is pain ; 
But as when light winged breezes gently drive 
Ripple on ripple to the pebbly shore 
With silvery break, such to our sense is pleasure. 
And when in waveless calm dull ocean lies, 
This, imaged in our bloods, as mostly haps, 
Is neither pain nor pleasure, but a thing 
Indifferent. In these three kinds our whole 
Of being stands ; our craft of happiness 
To hit the pleasure and to shun the pain. 

Socrates. 

Well, Aristippus, boots not to prolong 
Discourse to-day ; but, if the blue-eyed maid, 
Daughter of Jove, from whom all wisdom flows, 
Shall please to shower her kindly grace on thee, 
The mellow power of time that ripens wine 
May change thy quality of thought to mine ; 
And, ere ten summers shall increase the measure 
Of rapid rolling years, thou'lt find that pleasure 



PLEASURE. 273 

Is but the grease that oils the wheel of life, 
Not the strong racer in the glorious strife. 

Aristippus. 
Who knows what may be ; contraries may kiss, 
Even as two streams that issued from one head 
And wandered far apart, nor mixed again 
And flowed together, till with confounded flood 
They greeted Ocean, so your way of life 
And mine one day may meet. Meanwhile I am 
The man I am, and use the blooming hours. 
Farewell, this night Aegina is my home : 
A boat waits for me now at the Piraeus. \Exit.~\ 

Chaerephon. 
Poor youth ! he drinks from Circe's charmed cup. 

Socrates. 
Judge him not harshly, he is young and rich ; 
His will is wanton, but his thoughts are high ; 
He will not drown him in a sensual stye. 
These men are oft-times better than they seem ; 
Their pride forbids pretension, that they rather 
Stint the profession of their worthiness, 
Than limp behind the worth that they profess. 

Chaerephon. 
This night he goes to Lais. 

Socrates. 

Is she here? 

Chaerephon. 
Ay, in Aegina, where he entertains 
The summer hours with her. 

T 



274 ARISTIPPUS; OR, PLEASURE. 

Socrates. 

He entertains 
His soul with danger, who with lawless love 
Wantons unreined. Brief is the keen delight, 
The limb-dissolving ecstasy of sense, 
Which Aphrodite gives to passioned blood. 
She sells her raptures for a languid life 
And cushioned soft recumbency, which dulls 
The edge of enterprise, and lets each chance 
Of fair achievement slip unheeded by ; 
While sceptred grace, and majesty and power, 
And shaping energy divine, belong 
To Jove, and to his daughter flashing-eyed, 
Who shares his counsel and his thunder wields. 
But let us hence. I see the rosy bands 
Of boys and girls that, with to-morrow's prime, 
Will teach each street of Athens to resound 
With praise of Theseus, and his toilsome mate, 
Stout Hercules, who therefore joined the gods, 
For that above all mortals he abounded 
In fruits that on the soil of labour grew, 
Watered by sweat and blood. 

Chaerephon. 

And we, I wis, 
From hymns of rosy boys and girls to-morrow, 
Praising strong Theseus and stout Hercules, 
Will reap more wisdom, and a purer joy, 
Than he from that Corinthian fair who baits 
Fools with her smile, and sells her kiss for gold. 
\Exeunti\ 



SOCRATES. 



III. THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

"H8e i] TeKevT-q, tou eraipov rjpiv eyevero, avdpbs, ws ■qpe'cs (paifxev 
&i>, tCov Tore Siv eweLpdO-qpev dpiaTov Kal ctMws (ppovLp.OTa.Tov /cat 
Blkmotcltov. Plato. 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 



PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE. 
Socrates, 

SlMMIAS, 

Crito, 
Cebes, 
Apollodorus, 



► Disciples of Socrates 



Scene. — The Prison — Athens. 

Socrates. 
[Discovered sitting^ 
Well friends, the Delian ship hath now performed 
Her sacred voyage. 

Apollodorus. 

She hath been detained 
Beyond her wont by stiff contrarious blasts. 

Socrates. 

A better bird shall beckon on the bark 
Which now I launch. I go to meet the gods, 
And fear no adverse buffets. But here comes 
Our Theban friend, by Philolaus trained 
In the pure lore of sage Pythagoras. 



273 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

[Enter Simmias.] 
Hail, good Cadmeam ! Thou art right welcome, now 
I would that all my friends were here to see 
My vessel ride into that brighter sphere 
Which your wise Samian pictured. Where is your 
brother 1 

Simmias. 
He will be here anon. 

Socrates. 

And where is Plato ? 

Simmias. 
He is sick, good master. 

Socrates. 

Would he had been here ! 
He hath a look of quiet strength about him 
That makes me stronger. I see in him a bud 
Of thoughtful flower that soon will burst in summer, 
And make all Greece a garden to his praise ; 
And, when I fling sometimes a happy thought 
Upon the ground, as a good god inspires, 
He picks it up, and by strange charm of thinking, 
Transforms it to a palace, based on rock, 
And all ablaze with gems. 

Simmias. 

In sooth he hath 
A marvellous grasp, and holds all knowable, 
As Heaven doth clasp the Earth. 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 279 

Socrates. 

Nor only holds, 
But what he holds adorns, making all grey 
Green with his touch. Where is our Libyan friend, 
The bright-eyed, pleasure-loving Aristippus ? 

SlMMIAS. 

He's in Aegina. 

Socrates. 

Fitly planted there ! 
'Mid the rich greenery of tuneful groves, 
And the sweet hum of peaceful-plashing waves, 
More pleasureful to his luxurious whim 
Than these grey walls. 

SlMMIAS. 

He's a light-feathered bird, 
And may not fly with weight upon his wings ; 
But here comes one, in palace or in prison 
Thy friend the same ; the noble Crito comes. 

[Enter Crito.] 

Well Crito, have you seen the women home, 
And the dear child ? 

Crito. 
I have, good master. 

Socrates. 

'Tis well ; 
At deaths and battles women suit not ; for 
They, with their wailing, make men wear blank looks 



28o THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Whose hearts are stout. I wish to meet the gods 
With a bright face. 

Crito. 

Your face did never wear 
A native cloud. 

Socrates. 
I had no cause for gloom. 
For sixty years and nine I've walked the earth 
I' the sun's face with sunny-hearted men, 
And every joy that godlike reason brings 
To reasoning men, was meted full to me ; 
I had two wishes, one to know the truth, 
Such truth as men, being men, may claim to know ; 
And t'other to proclaim it. Both were granted. 
I die as one who from a feast retires 
Pleased with the fare, and grateful to the host. 

Crito. 

But they do kick thee rudely from the table, 
As one uncalled for. 

Socrates. 

That brings blame to them, 
Not pain to me ; and anyhow the threads 
Of the nice-woven web of life are snapt 
Not without rudeness. Better thus, I deem, 
Than to outlive the joys of life, and dwine 
With stiffened sense through slow delightless years, 
Coffined in feckless flesh, at last to drop 
Like a sear leaf, that rots in dull decay 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 281 

From sapless branch in Autumn. But see where 

comes 
Another friend, — your brother, Simmias. 

[Enter Cebes.] 

Good morrow, Socrates. 

Socrates. 

A right good morrow ; 
For now you find me free, who yesterday 
Sat here a bonded slave : you see my gyves 
Are struck off. 

[He sits down and nebs his legs with his hands.'] 

Well, 'tis strange, 'tis passing strange, 
To think how ever in this chain of things 
Pain begets pleasure, pleasure fathers pain ; 
So now I had not known the rare delight 
Of limbs unfettered but for these harsh bonds : 
So light from darkness springs, and peace from war, 
And war from peace again. Thus evermore, 
In a great round of contraries, doth run 
The cycle of existence — enemies, 
That still will hate, and still are fond to love ; 
A daily riddle, by the dog ! a theme 
For Phrygian yEsop's beasts to talk about, 
In wiser parle than reasoning man can weave. 

Cebes. 
Thank you for this ; I wished to talk of ^Esop, 
For I was told you had been writing verses, 
And from his low pedestrian pace had raised 



282 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

The Phrygian slave to mount your Pegasus. 
What may this mean ? oft-time I heard you say 
If crows were nightingales, and saws were flutes, 
Then you might talk in metres. 

Socrates. 

Very true. 
Tell all your poets my death-song will never 
Cheapen their laurels. What I wrote I wrote 
From conscience and religion, not at all 
From inspiration. 

Cebes. 

How so ? you are not wont 
To spur reluctant Nature, when she kicks. 

Socrates. 
Thus it bechanced. Once and again I dreamt 
In diverse guise with one significance ; 
And still the dim night-wandering vision spake : — 
" Up, Socrates, and court the Muses ! " I, 
Well-knowing my infirmity, and far 
From forcing what my natural bent denied, 
Deemed that a voice from Jove had heartened me 
To court the Muses in the search of truth, 
And service of divine philosophy, 
As I was wont. So formerly ; but now, 
Here as I lay in prison, the vision came 
With the same message, but more serious charge ; 
And I, that I might leave the world with no 
Debt to the gods that might be justly due, 
Assayed the rhyme ; this short hymn to Apollo, 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 283 

And this from ^Esop's prose trimmed into verse, 
Ungainly, like a precious purple robe 
Snipt by a botching tailor — rags were better. 
There, take them ; 

[He gives the papers to Cebes. ~\ 

they may not concern me now, 
For I depart to-day ; my hour is come. 
You, when the gods invite, obey the call. 

Apollodorus. 
There are some men in Athens now were willing 
To go with you uncalled. 

Socrates. 

Speak pious words ; 
Uncalled may none go hence who fears the gods. 

Cebes. 
How mean, you this 1 sayst thou no pious man, 
Wearied of life, may fling the load away 
He hath no strength to carry 1 

Socrates. 

Ay ; even so : 
As you, by Philolaus taught, should know. 
We are but chattels of the gods, and wait 
Our masters' pleasure, when and where, and how 
To serve their uses. 

Cebes. 

What you say accords 
With most devout submission to the gods, 



284 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

And we must live like soldiers, with no will 
To march or stand but at the Captain's word. 

Socrates. 
And when the word goes forth, then we depart 
With forward face, firm-footed. 

Cebes. 

Yet, in sooth, 
The best men seldom open wide the door 
To death as to a friend, but bar him out 
As landsmen bar the flood tides, while they may ; 
And wisely. We are slaves and chattels here, 
But slaves of kindly masters ; from the gods 
Why should we gladly flee who tend us here 
So lovingly? 

Socrates. 

I praise thee, friend, for this ; 
Like a coy damsel thou art slow to say 
Yes with thy mouth, though more than half thy heart 
Assents. Thou with an holy jealousy 
Dost keep strict watch against the chance of error, 
As one who fears an ambush, or as one 
Who sees a friendly light shine through the dark, 
And fears to follow, lest the marsh-born fiend 
Decoy him to his ruin. But bethink thee, 
Our masters here, and who await us there, 
Are one. I know to whom I go. The change 
Is not from distant clime to clime, but only 
From room to room of old familiar halls. 
If here, on earth, I leave a wealth of friends, 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 285 

A host of heroes in Elysian fields 

Awaits my coming. And, if these should fail, 

(And who will surely speak of things unseen ?) 

At least the gods, I know, will welcome me, 

Their faithful servant. All who serve the gods 

Faithfully here may hope to find them there, 

Approving masters. To the good belongs 

This hope, not to the bad. Long years of thought 

Have taught me this, with reasons most assured. 

SlMMIAS. 

Assure me too ; your cause and its defence 

Be common to your friends. We wish to stand 

For life or death on one sure ground with you. 

Socrates. 
Right willingly, if what convinces me 
Is proof to you. The goods of friends are common. 

Crito. 
Nay ; but you shall not speak. 

Socrates. 

Not speak — for why ? 

Crito. 
The man who brews the drug declared to me 
That much discourse doth rouse the blood to make 
A stiffer stand against the hostile force 
Of the o'ermastering juice, which then must draw 
His reinforcement from a second dose, 
Or if need be, a third. 



286 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Socrates. 
Let that fear sleep ! 
His office is to work by death, my work 
To entertain the time till death shall come ; 
Which cannot be, I deem, more worthily 
Than by discourse of what belongs to death. 
And if what Crito says be very truth, 
It matters little to the darkened lamp 
If with one puff the light went out, or two. 
Be ye my judges, then ! and I will make 
Before your worshipful authority 
My soul's defence, and show 'tis good to die. 

SlMMIAS AND CEBES. 

Proceed, good master. 

Socrates. 

Well then, this I deem, 
The life which wise men live in fleshly case, 
Is from the cradle to the urn but one 
Long exercise of dying. Should they grieve, 
When what they sought they find ? 

SlMMIAS. 

How mean you this ? 

Socrates. 
If we would argue wisely, ask me first 
What thing is death ? 

SlMMIAS. 

By all means. 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 287 

Socrates. 

Simply this, 
That soul and body from long fellowship 
Part company. 

SlMMIAS. 

I accept it so defined. 

Socrates. 
Then mark me this — Is the soul parted thus 
Better or worse ? of needful tools deprived, 
Or freed from gross incumbrance ? 

SlMMIAS. 

Answer thou. 

Socrates. 

I know, and you, and every man may know, 
That as a clog about a deer-hound's neck, 
So is the body to the soul ; nay more, 
It fouls our fountains of pure thought, and brings 
Quick fuel to our lusts ; beclouds our light ; 
Smothers our reason ; clips our wings ; and lays 
Us level with the brute. What but the body 
Works deeds of violence, rapines, murders, wars, 
And horrors against Nature, that the Sun 
Averts his face, and the incensed gods 
Curse their own creature man. 

SlMMIAS. 

The tragic scene 
Is full of tales that prove your reason good. 



288 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Socrates. 

Next answer this : Does flesh and fleshly sense 
Instruct us in the noblest truths, or rather 
Brew mists to blind us 1 does a man behold 
Virtue, or truth, or wisdom with his eyes, 
Or with his soul 1 

Simmias. 

Mere sense could never raise us 
Above the oxen, which have Hera's eyes, 
But not her godhead. 

Socrates. 

Plainly then the soul 
Gains from the body nothing, but is forced 
To make sharp war on the rebellious flesh, 
To vindicate his kingship. Thus we live 
A daily fight to keep the body down ; 
And, when it falls in dusty death, we stand 
Free from its bonds, and o'er its dragging weight 
Victorious. Thus in death men win the prize 
For which they sweated in the long career 
Of their life race, and from our wings we shake 
The clay that clogged them in our fleshly slough, 
And, being purged from sense, our spirits rise, 
By quality of nature, from dull zone 
Of human grossness to the pure serene 
Of gods and demigods. 

Simmias. 

But few are pure. 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 289 

Socrates. 

'Tis an old saw, ' The men who bear the badge 

Are many, but who know the god are few.' 

Only the pure may find the pure ; with earth 

Remains the soul that's soaked in earthly lust. 

Wise were the old Pelasgic priests, who gave 

The consummating power of mysteries 

To Greece, and taught god-fearing men of yore 

That souls impure and uninitiate 

Sunk in deep Hades shall for ever roll 

In swathes of mud voluminous ; but they, 

Who through the sanctioned grades of holy rite 

Were led to vision of the lifted veil, 

And pictured hopes of life from death re-born, 

Dying, shall brook the fellowship of gods 

In blissful fields. Thus have I pled my cause ; 

Ye Judges ! judge me now if I am wrong, 

Who mount with pleasure from this fleshly cage, 

On whose harsh bars my soul, poor bird ! oft-times 

Hath torn her plumes. 

Cebes. 
Well hast thou spoken now, 
As ever ; and, while thy eloquence holds my ear, 
I or believe or would believe the thing 
Thou preachest, true, or worthy to be true. 
That they are wise who o'er the mutinous flesh 
Assert the soul's imperial mastery, 
And to liege Reason's chariot bind in triumph 
The train of passions, subjugate and tame, 
u 



290 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

I potently believe. But still the doubt 
Whispers within me, What if that be true 
Which many fear, and some aloud declare : 
What if the soul no separate being knows ? 
But from its brittle shelly crust flies off 
Like smoke, by death with rude-disturbing stroke 
Dissolved and dissipate, and nowhere found. 

Socrates. 

Well cautioned, Cebes ; thinking men are slow 
To yield their reason to seductive show 
Of flattering truth, and then most slow when truth 
Jumps like an eager trout, or seems to jump, 
To the first fly we fling. Pursue we then 
The theme well started, looking honest doubt 
With brave heart in the face ; and surely none, 
Not ev'n the light comedian, who buys 
Laughter with slander, and with lies applause, 
Will vote me now a garrulous gossiper, 
Weaving such serious talk with serious friends, 
To serious season suited. 

Cebes. 

Not they will judge 
You by your deeds, but by the itch which pricks them ; 
Like tumblers, who, to please a gaping crowd, 
Walk on their heads, they make all nature grin 
To glass their humour. Boys in tricks delight ; 
And with the juggle of their shallow jests 
These wits amuse the town. 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 291 

Socrates. 

If my round eyes, 
Bald crown, and satyr face, and ways apart 
From vulgar use, can help them to a laugh, 
I grudge it not, so laughter be the food 
Best for their apish stomach. But, for the theme 
We now were handling, hoar tradition tells 
That souls of men not here are born, but travel 
From the great home of shades into our earth, 
And hence again to Hades ; thus the chain 
Of life from death, and death from life runs on 
In endless cycle. 

Cfbes. 
So the wise have taught. 

Socrates. 

Take it more widely. Said we not before 

Pain begets pleasure, pleasure fathers pain ; 

So life from death, and death from life may spring, 

As waking comes from sleep, and sleep from waking. 

'Tis a strange world, stuffed with the unexpected, 

Where a fair show oft veils an ugly sin, 

And a foul outside masks a fair within. 

The peasant on the dry unfruitful sand 

Spreads rottenness and refuse, and the rank 

Ferment of putrid humours ; and behold ! 

From all that life abhors, and beauty loathes, 

A flush of greenness leaps to greet the sun, 

Life from the festering death. 'Tis Nature's law 

That makes us wonder, being ignorant ; 



292 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Belike that she sometimes may cheat her children, 

That they may marvel more. When underground 

A cunning engineer hath pierced the rock 

And forced a path through darkness, take a child, 

A little child, into the lightless void, 

And he will shrink, and to your guiding hand 

Cling fearful, till familiar light press in 

From the near exit. Even so the gods 

Lead us from light to darkness, and from dark 

To light again ; delighting still to soothe 

Our fears with contraries, and make to spring 

Rare transport from despair. 

Cebes. 

And, if we pass 
From death to life, as life to dying leads, 
'Tis like we bring some memories from the home 
Of souls that wait for bodies, as yourself 
Oft-time have taught to me and Simmias, 
That all our learning is what once we knew, 
Old truth, recovered and refurbished. 

Socrates. 

Just 
As, when we see a face we ought to know 
But cannot name, we beat the brain about, 
As one that lost a jewel in the sand ; 
With patient search now here now there we probe, 
Till in some hidden nook we find the link 
That knits the present to the past, and then 
We cry, I kno w ! Thus we, in very fact, 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 293 

Know nothing but from seeds of knowledge brought 

From pre-existence with us, as a delver 

Trenching the sluggish clod, unbars the grave 

Of loveliest flowers, whose seeds long summers there 

Lay sunless and sopite, which straightway leap 

Into the sun's embrace, and spot the fields 

With sudden wealth of blade. If we conceive 

That we from sense the simplest germ derive 

Of thought, we largely err ; the sense can show 

Two things, or equal or unequal matched, 

Each for itself discerned and nicely marked, 

This any dog more sharply does than man ; 

But to compare two things and take their measure, 

To say that one is more or less than t'other 

By so much swerving from equality, 

This baffles sense ; the faculty to know 

Is brought, not born ; we carry it within, 

From spirit-country travelling into flesh ; 

And, as the equal, so the just, the true, 

The beautiful, we learn, not taught by sense, 

But recognise and hold them by a force 

Which we not got but have, and, having it, 

Must bring it from a birth before our birth. 

This is my doctrine, often taught, which says, 

Knowledge is reminiscence. 

SlMMIAS. 

Cebes now, 
Though vastly pleased to kick against persuasion, 
Might grant with me the kindly likelihood 
That our poor human birth bears speaking trace 



294 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Of godlike parentage ; but still the fear 
Recurs (as human hearts are nests of fear) 
To blind our blinking hopes, that after death, 
Its fleshly tenement dissolved, the Mind 
Flies off like smoke, and mingles with the wind. 

Socrates. 

Excellent doubters ! take a post, and run 

Through all Hellenic, all Barbarian ground, 

Till ye shall find a charm to exorcise 

These fine self-torturing Buts. Ye cannot spend 

Your gold more aptly than to find the man 

Whose potent incantation shall soothe down 

Such stout objectors. Meanwhile this I say, 

Who am no prophet, but a sober man 

Seeing and seeking ; Mind is not like smoke. 

Only a thing of many parts compounded 

Can by a blast be blown and dissipated. 

A little child may shake a box of dust, 

And send its floating atoms far apart, 

Seized by contending airs, once and for ever 

Divorced from union. But a simple thing, 

One undivided, indivisible 

(And souls are such), no force or strife of forces 

Can of its own essential unity 

Disrobe and dispossess. As in the field 

A mighty army, huge as Xerxes' host, 

May drift, like flies, before a hurricane, 

And be a host no more, but who commands, 

Fighting or fleeing, is a king the same ; 

So soul is one, of myriad facts the king, 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 291 

On awful throne, or in a captive cell, 
Essential lord. 

Cebes. 

These words are in my soul 
A goad no trick of shifty sophist's tongue 
Will make to budge. If any truth I know, 
'Tis this — the soul is one, and, where it works, 
Stamps all things with its own grand unity. 

Socrates. 

'Tis well ; all souls, the pure and the impure, 

Are in their nature indivisible ; 

The mortal blow that cracks the bodily shell 

Divides not them : yet souls that cannot die 

May by contagion of much grossness grow 

Into gross quality, and, when they pass 

Into another life — so Fate decrees — 

Be clothed in form, to their own baseness kin, 

Ass, fox, or wolf, ferret, or slippery snake, 

Or ravenous vulture, or some spectral thing 

That flits with bats and owls, where no light dwells, 

And gibbers o'er the waste of dead men's graves. 

'Twere well for such, if they were blown away 

To smoke and nothingness ; but souls are souls, 

And to their own substantial oneness bound, 

In bliss or bane must live for evermore. 

[A considerable silence intervenes^ 
Well, Cebes, and you Simmias, you seem 
Scarce satisfied ; as with hungry guests, the sop 



296 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

First served but whets the zest for what's to come. 
You look as one who would and who would not. 

Simmias. 

'Tis even so. Our doubts are hydra-headed, 
And do pursue us, like a routed ghost, 
Still fleeing, still defying. But we fear, 
In such excess of your calamity, 
Like beggars at a rich man's door, to vex 
Your ears with iteration. 

Socrates. 

Say not so. 
My friends should know me better than to call 
My present hap a sore calamity ; 
I thank the gods I have no cause to weep ; 
If others have, may sorrow make them wise, 
Washing their foul deeds with atoning tears ! 
For me, I rather, like the tuneful swan, 
Greet death with hymning, being near the gods. 
Ask without fear ; he only knows who tries ; 
Who smothers doubt gives rightful range to lies. 

Simmias. 

Well then, good master, hear me. Some have taught 

The soul is as a lyre with many strings, 

Now tempered well to dulcet harmony, 

Now stretched to grating sharpness, or to dull 

Tameness relaxed. What if the soul of man 

In all its functions, feelings, offices, 

In fine accord, be even as a tune 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 297 

Played on the stringed harp we call ourselves ; 
A tune, unseen, invisible, and one, 
Though of the many born ? Now, if a man 
Should wrench the lyre's compactness, rudely dash 
The resonant board to flinders, harshly snap 
The eloquent strings, and fling it on the ground, 
Like a ship stranded on a rocky shore, 
Where now is gone the rich concentuous strain, 
Fine viewless essence of light-floating joy? 
Nothing and nowhere is the thing that thrilled 
The ear with tip-toe ecstasy, and subdued 
The heart to sweet subjection ; even so 
The fine articulation of the thing 
We call ourselves, thoughts, feelings, functions, all 
One blow may dash, and the rare tune it played 
Be lost for ever ! 

Socrates. 

\Looking at him with a fixed gazei\ 

Well, I will answer you ; 
But take my reasons as a cautious vendor 
Takes coin, and ring them well, once and again. 
Be apprehensive for the truth, not me. 
Suspect my speech then most when sweetest-tongued 
It steals into your faith, lest with the sweet 
I dose your wits, and, like a bee, depart 
Leaving a sting behind. 

Simmias. 

Thou never didst 
Impose thyself upon us, as a tyrant 



298 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Rides with strong laws the people whom he rules, 
But from the inner witness of our souls 
Thy kindly converse gently drew the truth 
Seemed ours no less than yours. 

Socrates. 

Consider then 
How lightly this rare knot may be untied. 
AVho called the soul a tune forgot, I trow, 
That all the parts which make a harmony, 
Nor each with each, nor with the whole may war ; 
The nice adjustment of the concord knows 
Within itself no power contrarious 
To plant a No against a mutinous Yes ; 
But in the soul imperial Reason stands, 
Controls, diverts, warns, threatens, contradicts 
The impetuous passion billowing to and fro, 
As a strong swimmer breasts the tide, and cuffs 
The tempest's lordly crest. Laertes' son, 
You well remember, in the Odyssey, 
When hard beset, holds commune with himself, 
And beats his breast, and bids his heart stand up 
Against a sea of sorrows. He who called 
The soul a harmony understood not this ; 
But the wise poet knew that Siren strains 
Within us, or without, are not ourselves. 

Simmias. 

I grant thee victor here. This doubleness, 
This strange confronting trick of self with self, 
Is nothing like to harmony. We rather 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 299 

Conjure ourselves against ourselves, and are 
Pilot and tempest, rudder and sail in one ; 
I fail to grasp the mystery of the soul. 

Socrates. 

Who owns the mystery of life is wise ; 

Who would explain it, or by harmonies, 

Or by careering atoms up and down, 

Mingling in love and strife, is as a man 

Who says the house is burned by fire, nor knows 

Whence the spark came. We know in part ; to look 

Into the face of truth direct, and put 

Our finger on its fount, doth far outreach 

The narrow God-set limit of our ken. 

As they who scan the changes of the sun, 

When darkness cuts his rim, regard his orb 

Through coloured glass, or water, lest his ray 

Received direct should strike the gazer blind, 

So we directly cannot know ourselves, 

Nor God, nor any primal force that is ; 

But outward show, and sensuous flourish lead 

By natural divination to their cause. 

There is one cause to all the things that be, 

Eternal mind ; and herein lies the key 

To solve thy doubts, good Simmias. Sense may never 

Or make or mar what stands above ail sense. 

And high above all dissolution throned, 

Lives the great Thought that moulds the world, and 

types 
All things that be. All soul retreats before 
The touch of death, and lives, because to live 



300 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Is its essential nature. God can not 
Himself destroy, nor will the image blot 
Of his own reason in high-reasoning man. 
This is my faith, and in this faith I die. 

SlMMIAS. 

It should be mine too ; but my weak assurance, 
Behind the proud scope of your argument, 
Flags like a poor dipt bird. I fear to rate 
Our mortal stuff so high, that we should dare 
With tainted lips to taste immortal cups, 
That make the blood of gods. 

Socrates. 

Now, by the dog, 
I praise thy modest measure of thyself 
In Truth's despite ! in Athens, here, not many 
Will make their score with Simmais, casting count 
Of their own virtues ! But, for thine honest doubts, 
Have them, good friend, nor fear to entertain 
Their presence kindly. Doubt's the pioneer 
That leads each man to so much of the truth 
As profits him. All things we may not know ; 
But what we know with manly grasp to hold, 
And what we hold with reasoned skill to use, 
And make it parent of immortal deeds, 
This is true wisdom. He who drives a stag, 
With toil and sweat, o'er field and fell, and through 
Far-winding glens, and over stumps and stones 
And miry sloughs, and brings it nobly down, 
Is the true hunter ; not into whose aim 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 301 

The antlered troops are driven by a slave, 

That he — the lazy lord who rules the wild — 

Ensconced behind a rock, with facile shaft 

May pierce them as they pass. A hundred truths 

Are barren in his hand who never sought 

With honest sweat for one. Search then ; and what 

To human wit a kindly god may give 

My Simmias will find. We cannot will 

Conviction or the weather to our need ; 

But both will come to those who wait and watch 

Wisely the hint of Jove. A petted child 

Is he who, worsted in his first conceit, 

Deserts from reason and despairs of truth. 

Who, being cheated once, or twice, or thrice, 

Calls all men swindlers, we call misanthrope ; 

Misologist we name, who being tossed 

In a Euripus of conflicting thoughts, 

Drops reason's rudder — safety of the wise — 

And woos a shallow vain companionship 

With sneers, and gibes, and laughter's barren brood. 

Not so my Simmias ; he will bravely bear 

What doubts to this high argument belong ; 

As when a traveller in a mountain land, 

When from a glen he breaks on open moors, 

Sudden beholds his diverse-forking way 

Wreathed with huge mists, and leading through black 

bogs; 
He stands, and waits, and marks, and calculates, 
And weighs each dubious step, till from the hill 
Either some shaggy shepherd from his hut, 
Or wandering merchant of the lonely braes, 



302 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Or, through the foul investment of the cloud 

Peering victorious, the all-seeing sun, 

Inform his footing. Such be thou, my friend, 

Tracing the obscure path which opes to thee 

The nature and the destiny of souls. 

One thing is sure ; if souls are deathless, they 

Must be of priceless value. Being here, 

The good man tends them well, and reaps the fruit 

Of a well-ordered life. Beyond the grave 

We carry nothing but our naked selves, 

Which, being tettered with the leprosy 

Born of gross carnal itch, may never find 

Good guidance from the gods, but wanders wide 

From bliss divorced, through labyrinthine reach 

Of long recurrent cycles ; while the hand 

Of the kind god that ruled their earthly life 

Conducts the good, by sure and easy path, 

To happy homes, thence, in the appointed time, 

To rise to stages of a higher life, 

Enlarged and purified. 

SlMMIAS. 

I would gladly know- 
More nicely of those homes. 

Socrates. 

Surely to know 
Of that grand unseen world is given to none 
In mortal frame enshelled ; but ancient myths, 
Made in old times when gods with men conversed, 
Give high assurance of what we divine 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 303 

By likelihood of reason. What we call 

The earth, from the inhospitable sea, 

And Phasis, Colchian river, to the West, 

Where stout Alcides raised his pillars, all 

Is but the dregs and grosser sediment 

Of that true world above, which is to this 

As air to water, breezy, light, and pure, 

Peopled with stars, and interpenetrate 

By native glory. But beneath this crust 

Whereon we tread are chasms many and deep, 

And hollow caverns, and dark tunnelled ways, 

Where rivers roll of mud, and some of fire 

With winding spires voluminous, and fierce 

As currents bursting from the ruptured flanks 

Of the flame-belching Aetna. Hugest and last 

Of these dark chasms is the deepest deep 

Of Tartarus, whose horror-breathing name 

Blind Homer knew, and he who told the roll 

Of gods in Ascra. In the swirling pot 

Of this abyss all the dark waters meet ; 

Hither they flow, and hence they are disgorged 

In sempiternal billowy torture tossed, 

Inhaled and exhaled, like the uneasy breath 

Of a sick body. Of these subterrene streams 

The greatest, and whose tideful waters flow 

In the extremest circle winding wide, 

Is Ocean. With opposing current next 

Flows Acheron, which through barren wasteness rolls 

Its slow funereal flood, until it reach 

The Acherusian pool, where the great crowd 

Of bodiless souls their diverse seasons wait 



304 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Of destined incarnation. In the midst 

Of these two rivers Pyriphlegethon 

Outpours his tide, and near his cradle falls 

Into a mighty basin wreathed with flame, 

And makes a lake bigger than our Greek sea, 

Bubbling with mud and water ; issuing thence 

He winds with many a tortuous link about 

The lowest Tartarus, and oft-times upcasts 

Torrents of burning mud and molten rocks 

Where the cracked earth gives vent. Cocytus next, 

Vocal with wails, feeds with his woeful flood 

The black blue hollow of the Stygian pool, 

And issuing thence upon the adverse side 

From Pyriphlegethon, with many a bend 

Rolls under ground, then into Tartarus leaps 

Precipitous. Now, when souls of men arrive 

Unhoused from mortal lodgment to this place, 

His guiding god conducts each to the judge, 

Who with infallible doom, to good and bad 

Their diverse lots declares. Those who had lived 

Indifferent well, nor soaring high to seats 

Of lofty virtue, nor in seas of crime 

Drowning the godlike germ that makes them men, 

These mount the wain that waits their special use, 

And fare to Acheron, where they pay the fines 

Due for their faults, and for their fair deserts 

Reap fair rewards, and from the taints are purged 

That years of sinful act in carnal case 

Had grained into their souls. But they whose sins 

With venomed tooth into their core of being 

Had gnawed corrosive, eating out the seed 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 3°5 

Of good past bettering, they who dared the worst 

Against both gods and men, in hot career 

Of wilful violence, and all-grasping greed, 

For these deep Tartarus by all-righteous doom 

Yawns, and down swallows, and engulphs them there, 

Hopeless, incurable, never more to rise. 

Some souls there be who murderous deeds have dared 

On sudden gust and squall of passion, no' 

Confirmed in fell intent and stout device 

Of wicked will, these — for no lesser doom 

The Fates allow — must with the rest descend 

To deepest hell, and for twelve moons remain 

In durance there, till or Cocytus, or 

Red Pyriphlegethon take them to his flood 

And roll them on to Acheron, where they 

With outstretched arms and piteous cries beseech 

Their shades whom living they had rudely wronged, 

To let them rise and mingle Avith the crowds 

Who brook purgation for repented sin. 

Then, if their quest be granted, from the flood 

They rise, and cease from torture ; but, denied, 

The fiery torrent sucks them back, and sweeps 

Into the gorge of Tartarus, thence again 

Doomed to emerge at stated times, till they 

With prosperous iteration of their prayer 

Shall win the dear redemption from the mouth 

Of whom they wronged ; for thus the Fate ordains. 

But whoso lived above the vulgar herd 

In manful struggle and high-hearted deed, 

Them no unkindly durance underground 

Detains ; but they by natural upwardness 



3o6 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Remount to earth, and live new lives of men 

In purer shell encased ; while of these pure 

The purest, whom divine Philosophy 

Purged from all grossness, now discharged and free 

From fleshly service, in disbodied bliss 

Dwell with the gods for ever. Wisely then, 

My Simmias, we strive, even as we strive, 

To leave this mortal life, participant 

Of virtue and of truth. Olympia boasts 

Her laurelled racers, but to us much more 

Noble the contest and the hope sublime. 

These things, or some such things (for what wise man 

Will myths interpret like a chronicle ?), 

Seem fitting to believe about the home 

Of human souls from human flesh disthralled, 

And such words, like a charm of power, I sing, 

Launching my bark to Hades. Wise is he 

Who, armed with justice, piety, and truth, 

Waits the dim voyage to that distant land, 

When Fate shall call. You, Simmias, and the rest, 

My dear loved friends, abide your hour ; me now 

My destiny — so a tragic bard would say — 

Calls to my end. I must go to the bath. 

'Tis better so, than, having drunk the drug, 

To leave the women — an unhandsome gift — 

My corpse for last ablution. 

Crito. 

Even so ; 
But, ere you go, say is there nought that I 
For you or yours could do, to prove our love 
In face of your departure ? 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 307 

Socrates. 

This one thing 
I ask of you, and of all friends that love me ; 
Take to your heart the truths that I have taught, 
And live as who believe them. 

Crito. 

This we promise ; 
But for your due disposal, being gone, 
We wait your will ; how choose you ? 

Socrates. 

As you please ; 
That is, if you can catch me ! 

[To Cedes and the others, smiling] 

Ye behold, good friends, 
How all my talk was blown, like idle wind, 
About the ears of Crito ! Still he deems 
The soulless trunk that I shall cast behind, 
Having drunk the draught, is very me who speak, 
And what I said, that I should straightway join 
The blessedness of blessed shades in Hades, 
I spoke to ears that heard not. Speak to him 
With words of comfort, and impledge yourselves 
That now indeed I do go hence, and no 
Cold prison walls shall hold me ; nor need he 
Give his dear soul to grief, to think that I 
Feel pain when flame consumes, or earth conceals 
What men called Socrates. 



3o8 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

[To Crito.] 

Trust me, best of friends, 
We train our tongues for arrant juggling knaves, 
To rob us of our wits. Our current trade 
We make with words that have no bones ; as if 
A foolish merchant should for ringing gold 
Take a gilt paper promising to pay, 
Or I should see a stretch of weighty cloud 
Massed into towers, and call it Babylon. 
Use no such trickery ; know that I am gone ; 
And, for my body, mine no more, give it 
Disposal as your own conceit may please, 
Or custom of the State. 

[Exeunt Socrates and Crito.] 

Apollodorus. 
[ Who had been sitting in a corner of the room for some 

time with his face covered^ 
O Jove, Apollo, and Athena, why 
Do the bad live, and all the best men die ? 

Cebes. 
He goes like to himself ; or, like the sun, 
More glorious in his sinking than in all 
The pride of topmost noon ; he weeps no tears 
For his own woe, nor needs ; but we must weep, 
Poor orphaned children, soon no more to look 
On our dear father's face ! 

Apollodorus. 

Our father's face ! 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 309 

SlMMIAS. 

There is more weighty argument to me 
Of immortality in his great life 
Than in the subtle, finely-woven web 
Of his most high discourse. 

[Enter the Officer of the Eleven.'] 
I am come 
To do the duty which the State enjoins ; 
Where is your master? 

Cebes. 

He is gone to take 
His last ablution, and the last farewell 
Of wife and children ; he will come anon. 

Officer. 

I wot it well. There lives no man in Athens 
Whom he kept waiting. Lo ! even now he comes. 

[Re-enter Socrates and Crito.] 
O, Socrates, I come with subject feet 
That go not where I will, but where I must ; 
Ungrateful service, with no gracious words 
Mostly rewarded by the men whose ears 
Drink my ungracious message ; but from you 
I never heard a murmur, and I know 
Thou wilt not blame me now. I am the dog 
That at the shepherd's call must bark : the bell 
That rings alarm when he who holds me fears. 
I know thou wilt not blame me, Socrates, 
The best of men that ever lodged within 



310 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

These hated walls. Thou know'st my message ; thou 
Need'st not my counsel. To the Almighty Must 
All necks must bow. 

[He weeps.] 

Socrates. 

Farewell, my worthy friend ; 
And we what the hour bids will blithely do. 

[Exit officer.] 
A most true-hearted, mellow-blooded man ! 
So was he ever kind to me, and now 
He tides his grief in tears. 

But, Crito, come 
And let us do our duty. Bid them bring 
The poison, if 'tis rubbed; or, if 'tis not, 
Let some one rub it ! 

Crito. 

The sun is not yet set ; 
He hath some space, before he veil his face 
Behind the purple hills. I have seen men 
Ere this within these walls, and by such drug 
Depart from life ; and they, I wis, drew out 
Their time to the latest dregs, and did invite 
Their friends to sup with them, and died with wreaths 
About their brows, and sweet wine in their veins, 
And songs of merriment ; as who had vowed, 
Not sinking like dull brook in sandy beach, 
But like the last scene of a stately play, 
With full-sailed pomp to die. 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 311 

Socrates. 

And wisely so, 
Belike for them, who hoped for nothing more, 
And to the dregs would drain the cup which held 
For them their all. But I, whose quality 
Of bliss is diverse, diversely must choose. 
I would not hug the shadow of the life 
Whose substance is departed, would not gnaw 
The shell that holds no kernel. Tell the boy 
To bring the hemlock. 

Crito. 

Go, boy, tell the man 
That Socrates awaits him. 

[The boy goes, and returns immediately tvith the man, 
who administers the cuj>.] 

Socrates. 

Hail, worthy friend ! tell me — for thou must know — 
What yet remains to do. 

Jail Servant. 

'Tis simply said : 
Having drunk the draught, to walk about a little, 
And when you feel your legs grow heavy, then 
To lay you down. 

[He gives the cup to Socrates, who takes it cheerfully ; 
and then, looking the man steadily in the face, says : — ] 

Socrates. 
What say you of this cup ; 
Is it the use to drink the whole, or may 
Some part serve for libation ? 



312 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

Servant. 
We rub enough for drinking, and no more. 

Socrates. 
I understand ; but pious use commands 
That we implore the gods with happy bird 
To speed our emigration ; and I now 
Implore them so. Jove, and all blessed gods, 
Grant me a smooth departure ! 

[He drinks off the draught ; whereupon all the company cover 
their faces with their cloaks and burst into tears ; especially Apol- 
lodorus, who had been weeping the whole time of the discourse, 
and now breaks out into loud sobs.~\ 

Socrates. 
O, strange disciples, who your master love 
More than the lore he taught you ! Sent I not 
The women from the place, for that we ought 
To die by harsh protesting undisturbed, 
That cuffs at Jove's high will ? I pray you keep 
A manly cheer, and, as I lived in peace, 
So let me die ! 

[Feeling his legs beginning to grow heavy, he lays himself down 
07i the floor on his back, and covers his face. After a little while 
the jail servant comes up, and begins to feel his body.] 

Servant. 
My hand presses your feet ; 
Say, do you feel my touch 1 



THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 313 

Socrates. 

No ; I feel nothing. 

Servant. 

[After an interval^ 

Now I press his limbs ; 
You see he makes no sign ; his legs are cold. 

Socrates. 
I feel no pain here, when I press my finger 
Upon my thigh. When the cold creeping taint 
Shall reach my heart, I die. 

\_Apollodorus sobs, and after a pause.] 

Socrates. 

[Uncovering his face.] 

Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius ; 
I would not die in debt to any god. 

Crito. 

Myself will pay the vow, with fitting speed. 
But say, hast thou aught else ? 

[No answer is given ; Socrates covers his face, and, after a 
short pause, with a convulsion dies. The jail servant, advancing, 
uncovers him ; and Crito closes his eyes and lips. The scene 
drops, ,] 



PLATO 

Audiamus Platonem quasi quemdam Deum philosophorum. 

Cicero. 

"Epws avlKare p.dxav, 
"Epws, 5s ev KTrj^acn TriwTeis 
6s ev fj.a\a.Ka.is irapeiais 
vea.vi.oos evvvxetieis 

<poiTq.s ftvTrepTrovTLOS ev t aypovdfJ-ots avXats. 
koJ. a' otir ddavdriov tpu£i/j.os ov8eis 
ofid' a/xepiuv £tt' dv6punrwv, 6 d'^x uv p.ep.7]vev. 

Sophocles. 



PLATO. 

PERSONS. 
Plato. 

Alciphron, a young Athenian, his disciple. 

Scene. — The gardens of the Academy, near Athens. The 
philosopher discovered sitting in an arbour, with books and papers 
on a rustic table before him. 

Plato. 

How soft the summer sleeps upon the hill ; 
How sweet the lazy wafture of the breeze, 
With the free pillage of redundant growth, 
Comes richly laden ! Aphrodite's term 
Is gone but yesterday, and now bright May 
Assumes her grace, and stands like blooming brid< 
With veil new lifted, making common good 
Of hoarded smiles, and bliss too wide to brook 
The bars of one poor breast. On such a day, 
Albeit now perched on the grey brink of time, 
And stretching forth my hand beyond the gulph 
Of sensuous shows to grasp the great unseen, 
Not less I feel the bonds of mother earth, 
And with a filial fond endearment cling 
To her that bare me, old but ever young, 



318 PLATO. 

Lavish in beauty, scattering waste of life, 

And dowered with deathless virtue to repair 

Her annual loss, making all loss a trick 

To double gain. On such a day sometimes 

I feel the thought within me stealing back 

Into my prime of life, before I knew 

That holy wizard, who with fine-reasoned talk 

Charmed universal Athens into bonds 

Of high discipleship, and free vassalage 

To Jove-born wisdom. For in that green time 

With liberal swing of fearless venturing vans 

Out-vaulting dull sobriety, I oft 

Would leap into a dithyramb, and besing 

The ruddy Dionysus crowned with joy, 

And golden Aphrodite's fervid bliss, 

And limb-dissolving rapture. At that tide 

My friends would ply me, saying : Plato, now 

The wreath is flung for thee, which noblest Greeks 

Have worn before thee ; stoop and pick it up ! 

What weighty Aeschylus, mild Sophocles, 

And wise Euripides bore like a star 

Upon their godlike fronts, the tragic crown, 

Mid the far-billowed resonance of praise 

From most religious Athens, waits for thee 

As for its rightful heir ! But from that voice 

I turned aside, to their great wonderment ; 

For in the life of holy Socrates 

A stronger Siren sang — so let it stand ! 

Our lives are wise interpreters from Jove 

That spell our destinies. I am loftier thus 

Than in the race with poets to contend 



PLATO. 319 

For prizes, at the crude arbitrement 

Of mobs with venal ears, whose praise we stoop 

To buy with well-glossed falsehoods, — but who comes? 

[Enter Alciphron?^ 

My bright-eyed Alciphron, the hopeful boy, 

The pride of Athens, walking in the light 

Of purple youth and flow of native joy, 

Whose beauty makes me glad, when I behold 

The bloom of love and reverence in his face 

Still looking sunward. Alciphron, my boy ! 

Why, what's the matter? You have lost yourself! 

What evil genius, jealous of your bliss, 

Hath blurred your front of gladness with a grief, 

That looks as foreign there as inky mutes 

At marriage feast ? What grieves thee, Alciphron r 

You look as mouldy as a pool in June 

Whence Sirius sucked the humour. Be thyself! 

Look up and smile ; divine Philosophy 

Is sun to all things. 

Alciphron. 
I have lost a friend. 

Plato. 

Just cause of grief, but not so just as theirs 
Who have no friend to lose. But thou art rich, 
And one friend gone leaves many friends behind ; 
All Athens loves thee. 



32o PLATO. 

Alciphron. 

But he was to me 
No wayside flower, which one may pluck and wear, 
And make parade of for a festive hour, 
Then fling aside ; our lives were twined in one, 
And in the sweet exchange of common joy 
We shared like brothers, building up our lives 
With common cares, and growing like twin trees 
Whose roots do interlace with mouths that drink 
A common brook ; but now he knows no friendship. 
Or holds it vilest brass to that fine gold 
Which he calls Love, and I, perforce, must call 
A madness very strange and very sad. 

Plato. 
Why sad? 

Alciphron. 
He lived in heaven some blissful weeks, 
No doubt ; but since that tide he lives in hell, 
Or nowhere. 

Plato. 
Is he dead ? 

Alciphron. 

Yes : dead to me. 

Plato. 
Droop not, dear youth ; for Eros is a god 
That hath his tricks, like Hermes ; what you lose 
By him, you'll find again when he shall choose 
To wave his wand. Who was the friend you loved ? 



PLATO. 321 

Alciphron. 

Erastus, son of Sophroniscus, he 

Who carved the winged Eros at the gate 

Of your Academy here. 

Plato. 

A goodly youth. 
I hope no harm has chanced him ; let me hear 
The tale that brought both bliss and bane to him, 
And left you mateless. Time and thought may bring 
Some happy healing. None who lives despairs. 

Alciphron. 

You know Callippides, whose brother gave 

The year its signature, being archon then, 

When the great Theban soldier bowed to Fate, 

And 'neath the piny brow of Maenalus 

Bought victory with death. Well, this proud wight 

Has a fair daughter passing all conceit 

Of beauty in our common mortal mould, 

So mingling queenly state with natural grace, 

That now she seemed the bride of Jove, erect 

With stately port, treading the Olympian floor, 

And now a shepherd girl that twines a wreath 

For a pet lamb on holiday ; and now 

A nymph of Dian's kirtled troop ; and now, 

With every line to yielding sweetness tuned, 

Mere Aphrodite ; now a paragon, 

Compact of all the four. Her father brought 

The maid to Sophroniscus, that his hand 

Y 



322 PLATO. 

Might teach the Parian block some part to breathe 

The wonder of her charms, and help her father 

To feed on her dear counterfeit, when she 

Were far away, to some high-blooded lord 

Well-mated. To his father's chisel trained, 

The young Erastus — better half of me — 

Oft eyed the maiden, as she came to lend 

Her features to the mould, and drank delight 

From the fine visible music of her form, 

Which slid into his soul, like gentle rains 

Into the bosom of the purple blooms 

By maids and matrons delicately culled, 

A gift to Proserpine in Trinacrian meads, 

For vernal crowns : a pure delight at first, 

Like that which stirs the sculptor's nerve with thrills 

That flow into the block ; but soon, alas ! 

The light that sunned him warmed into a flame, 

And the rare honeyed sweetness which she brought 

Now left a sting behind. My poor Erastus, 

I knew him mine no more ; he was not seen 

At the Palaestra ; in my sports and toils 

He shared not ; in my room he was not found, 

As was his wont, like some familiar bird, 

That loves his cage beside a lady's lap, 

More than the ample air. He walked alone, 

And listened to the cuckoo's note, or plash 

Of wavelets breaking on smooth beach, or croon 

Of silver waters by a thymy brae, 

Where he lay stretched from morn to lazy noon 

In high-wrought fancies rapt ; then, on a thought, 

By sudden inspiration caught, would start, 



PLATO. 3 2 3 

Like whom the Nymphs possess, and make the wood 

Ring with his fitful rapture. When he heard 

My step approach, or any social tread, 

Even as a wounded hind he slunk away, 

And hid him in the thicket ; and so lost 

To friendship and to me, by that strange madness 

Which men call Love. 

Plato. 

All this is common chance, 
Mere fever in the hot blood o' the world, 
Like sultry heat in Scirophorion ; change 
Comes with the changing moons. 

Alciphron. 

Pray it be so ! 
But mark the end, how this hot summer bore 
A bloody harvest. 'Tis ten days now gone, 
There was a feast of Artemis at Brauron, 
Where from old ancestry Callippides 
Owns an estate of many fertile roods, 
And here, by sacred usage of the place, 
Behoved his daughter's grace to lead the pomp 
In honour of the goddess. All Attica 
Thronged to enjoy the season and the sight ; 
And young Erastus, winged with love, outraced 
The sun to greet the feast ; myself was there 
With early morn ; and sure it was a sight 
For gods to look on, and to envy men ; 
All the choice youths and maidens of the land, 
The blood of Codrus and of Solon, led 



324 PLATO. 

By fair Antheia, fronted like a star, 

In one long line of blooming purity, 

Like flowers that flush the bank and climb the brae, 

Marched from the beach, to where chaste Artemis 

Sways from her far-viewed throne. Thou would'st 

have thought 
Herself, the huntress of the woods, was there, 
With all her nymphs, they were so habited 
With bow and quiver from fair shoulder slung, 
And stole succinct, for nimble spring prepared, 
And booted shins, and with a silver moon 
Upon their brows. Antheia in the van 
Peered like a lioness for the festive car 
Of towered Cybele ; her rare wealth of locks 
In undulant fulness overflowed her neck, 
With golden gloss dependent, and her eye 
Showed like the queen of what it looked upon, 
And yet not haughty. At which view enrapt 
Some cried, 'Tis Dian's self! and some fell down 
And kissed the ground with worship. My Erastus 
Stood like a stock in rooted ravishment, 
And eyed Antheia, blind to all beside. 
That hour had signed his doom. With no more 

thought 
Than a wild ox that runs with lashing tail, 
Stung by a summer fly, he seized a style, 
And to the haughty, high Callippides 
Sent a sealed tablet furnace-hot with love 
For his fair daughter ; and himself, he said, 
Might fitliest claim to be her husband, bred 
To that fine art which Phidias used, and taught 



PLATO. 3-5 

Our Pericles to make Erechtheus' rock 

A citadel for gods. Callippides 

Made little score, I trow, of his hot blood ; 

But laughed, then fumed, and flung an oath or two 

Into the air, and said, The boy is mad ! 

And I were doubly mad if I should wed 

My gem of daughters to a Hermes-cutter, 

Tainting the high descendence of my blood 

"With such a puddle. Then, with a stinging NO ! 

He flung the scornful answer to his quest, 

And napped him off, as one would flap a fly, 

That, having battened on a dunghill, now 

With dainty insolence will pitch his nose 

Into our pudding. Since which time I fail 

To find Erastus ; Athens hath no clew 

To track his whitherward ; his poor father weeps ; 

His mother pines ; we know not if he lives 

To look on light, or wanders with the Shades ; 

But this I know, the friend I loved is lost. 

Plato. 

Thy sadness is a witness of thy worth. 

The worthy live by love, as rivers swell 

By drawing in new waters. But believe 

Thy friend is hid, not lost ; the blast hath nipt, 

Not killed his bud of manhood ; he will live 

To call thee friend, and thou to bless his madness. 

Alciphrox. 

I know not ; in the lunacy of love 

Some men have dashed their lives away, and some 



326 PLATO. 

Lived in stale apathy of life, and some, 

Like thundered milk, have turned the sweet to sour, 

And murdered whom they hugged. I may not deem 

This rage a good, nor him a god who spurs 

His moonish votaries to make war on reason, 

And, even as pouting children break their toys, 

Rive the sweet bonds of life. 

Plato. 

Speak soft, my boy ! 
Not wise against the gods who stirs his tongue, 
Ev'n in a whisper ; and of all the gods 
Most ancient, honourable, in virtue prime 
Is Eros, fathered nor by Jove supreme, 
Nor hoary Kronos, unbegotten ; whence 
Sprang the exhaustless progeny of Time, 
Still changing, still the same. Thus Hesiod taught, 
Acusilaus and Parmenides, 
And all the wisest of old bards, inspired 
Not by the tinkling plaudits of the mob, 
But by the brooding silence which informs 
True thought from Jove. A mighty god is Love, 
Whom, if thy tongue blaspheme, a countless host 
Of Hellas' sons and daughters, fairest famed, 
Shall rise to flout thee. Peleus' son ; and she 
Who for her lord the king of Pherae's life 
Yielded her own ; and he, the Cean youth, 
By Dian's grace who saw and loved and won 
The fair Cydippe ; and that valiant pair 
Who with their good swords wreathed in myrtle drave 
The hated home-bred tyrants from their seats, 



PLATO. 327 

Whose tombs you passed to-day upon the road ; 
All these Love's vouchers stand; beyond the craft 
Of sophist to redargue. The gods prove 
Their truths by facts, 'gainst which our dialectic 
Butts with blind horns in vain. And sooner shall 
The sun desert the pole, and all the power 
That spheres the world with fire be caked in ice, 
Than Love shall cease to stir the heart of things 
With plastic pulses, which fish-blooded men, 
Prisoned in lobster crust of cold conceit > 
Call madness ; but the wiser poet sang, 
/ will, I will be mad ! And so sing all 
True worshippers of Love. 

Alciphron. 

But Love brings pain ; 
And pious bards the blest Immortals praise, 
" Givers of good things." Pain is not divine. 



Plato. 

Blame not sweet Love for bitterness it brings ; 
Evil dogs good, as low by lofty lies, 
Shadow by light, and death where life may be. 
No pleasure without pain ; the bright-faced heaven, 
With the sure change of the swift-wheeling hours, 
Shows pitchy black ; only the deathless gods 
Live in unclouded sun ; themselves are suns ; 
We, being shined on, shine a little space, 
Then pass to shadow. 



328 PLATO. 

Alciphron. 

My beloved Erastus 
Must needs be pained, being exiled from the view 
Of that most fair perfection, on whose charms 
He fed, as flowers feed on Hyperion's blaze, 
Not without reason, though his yeasty soul 
Turned the sweet wine to sourness. What he loved 
Was worthy of his love, if love may wear 
A wise man's livery ; but I have known, 
And now I know, a very proper man 
Caught by this phrensy, young Alcidamas, 
You know him, once a passing prudent youth, 
With a bold front of speech, and words exact, 
Grave propositions, and conclusions just, 
Weighed in a balance very right or wrong ; 
But now he talks in tropes like any poet, 
For why? he is in love with little Thisbe, 
The blooming daughter of the blowsy dame 
That sweeps the floor and smooths the bed to Damon, 
The sooty charcoal burner at Acharnae ! 

Plato. 

All men are poets, though bald prosers born, 
When Love shall touch them ; as, when Helios thaws 
The close-ribbed ice on Pindus' gleaming ridge, 
Long prisoned Nature bursts her wintry bars, 
And loveliest blossoms 'neath the frozen rim 
Peer with hot blushes ! 



PLATO. 329 

Alciphron. 

This not causeless comes ; 
And fair Antheia well might Fancy move 
To break her shell, where with numb wing she lay 
In proser's breast j but young Alcidamas 
Raves without reason. Would you heard him talk ! 
His admiration is a theme for laughter, 
Like love that ladies spend on snarling curs, 
Or mothers lavish on mis-shapen brats, 
Or curious scholars waste on sapless books ; 
Earth grew no woman worth a glance till Thisbe 
Sprang at the roots of Parness ; other corn 
Has chaff, but she is chaffless ; other ore 
Takes rust, but she is gold, accepts no taint 
From air or water, but adds grace to all. 
Her eyes, he swears, out-lustre all the stars, 
Her smiles out-blossom all the wealth of summer, 
Her step is Hera's, and her delicate hand 
And foot are Hebe's, her little waist is bound 
With Aphrodite's cest, her voice is sweet 
As summer waves that break on silver shells, 
Which Nereids gathering from the bleached strand 
String into necklaces ; all the gods have showered 
Their grace on this Pandora ; and himself 
Hath heaped her with a century of gifts 
Ten mountains high ; such gifts as women love, — 
Milesian coifs, Sicilian shawls, and what 
Amorgos markets of translucent stuffs, 
Boeotian shoes that show the tiny foot, 
Rings, brooches, jewels, tassels, snoods, and zones, 



33° PLATO. 

And all the bravery of woven gold 
That marshy Elis breeds. He'd fling the ore 
Of all Pangjeus pounded at her feet, 
And swear the dust was honoured by her tread ; 
He'd dance on swords to please her, and declare 
The ground was strewed with violets, so high 
His madness runs ; and yet the maiden is, 
To my poor thinking, but a comely wench, 
Strong to draw water, wise to milk a cow, 
Not sickly-hued, and not ashamed to laugh ; 
Frank, and free-handed ; not afraid of men ; 
And looking rather nice, when nicely dressed, 
Like many another. Women, flowers, and birds, 
Are Nature's broadcast currency in the mart 
Of Beauty. I can smell a perfumed bloom, 
And not get drunk on't ; but this juggling imp, 
This angler Love, that with a maiden's curl 
Trims flies to hook strong men, and leads the wise 
From wisdom with a wink, and blunts the edge 
Of manhood with a smile — what thing is Love ? 

Plato. 

I said he was a god ; but why ask me ? 
There are who worship Aphrodite better. 

Alciphron. 

Thou art my teacher, guide, and oracle ; 
Thou knowest all things ; all things that I know 
Were culled from thee, as children gather fruit 
From shaken groves in autumn. 



PLATO. 331 

Plato. 
All mine is thine that by long thought I know ; 
But to know Eros thou hadst wiselier gone 
To that fair Lesbian marvel, whose rare life 
Was one fine fervid flame of sacrifice 
To golden Aphrodite sparrow-drawn 
On rosy car through ether, or to him 
Who praised her fragrant beauty violet-crowned, 
Sweet honey blossom of light winged smiles, 
But feared to speak his wish. 

Alciphrox. 

Why did he fear ? 

We fear not what we love ; Love killeth fear. 

Plato. 

Pure love hath fear, lest with presumptuous touch 
We wrong the thing we reverence. 

Alciphrox. 

Is Love worship ? 

Plato. 
Not all Love ; there be many Loves ; one hot, 
O'erwhelming, tyrannous, fierce, which wild beasts 

know, 
And men more wild than beasts ; one mild and pure, 
And loyal as a flower that bows its head 
In duty to the sun. Love is a thing 
So wide that vilest things must share it, tasting 
Good, tempered to their vileness : only Death, 



332 PLATO. 

That hideous yawning mask of things that were, 

Knows not Love's witchcraft. Our theologers join 

Uranian Aphrodite with the praise 

Of her whom pigs, if pigs could pray, would greet 

With grunting adoration, — whom men call 

Pandemus, by the swinish multitude 

Supremely honoured. 

Alciphron. 

Call you her a god ? 

Plato. 
All things are gods, or from a god, that pass 
The wit of man with tools of rare device 
To make or mar ; we cannot breathe without 
A god, much less new life from old evolve, 
Link after link in lines of long descent 
From Infinite to Infinite, without 
The procreant Eros. There is love of bodies, 
And love of souls ; the one a sensuous thrill 
Which any dullest slimy thing may know, 
The other bright with winged intelligence, 
The heritage of gods, and godlike men. 

Alciphron. 

Pray tell me of them both : if both are gods, 
I would not ban what Plato bids me bless. 

Plato. 

I do remember, when I was a youth, 

Some twenty summers on my peachy cheeks, 



PLATO. 333 

In sweet discourse with Socrates, one night 

In Hecatombaeon, when, with stinted stream 

Lazy Ilissus drew his lisping thread 

Beneath the blanched stones, he, like a bee 

Well bagged with honey, talked of mighty Love, 

And of an high discourse in Agathon's house 

In praise of Eros, at a banquet given 

By the young bard, what time he gained the crown, 

First in the tragic song, in that red year 

When Athens murdered Melos. In his turn 

Each guest did aptly eulogise the god ; 

And Eryximachus, the wise physician, 

Of the Pancosmian Eros made discourse, 

Which in his wide embracement comprehends 

Pandemian Aphrodite, and all love 

Of body for body. This wondrous frame of things 

We call the world, he said, this universe, 

Is of contrarious powers compaginate, 

With curious balance ; and what simple seems, 

Is of most jarring elements combined 

Into a peaceful amity : the sweet Force 

That welds the diverse, and transmutes their hate, 

Mortals call Love. Thus liquid finds the dry ; 

Cold marries heat ; and sweet the bitter tames ; 

And thus of two imperious fierce extremes 

Each from the other takes the bridling rein, 

And gives, by losing half his former self, 

A genial mildness and a safe restraint. 

By this high law of cosmic love we live, 

Counting the rhythmic pulse of healthy blood, 

Not into hostile alternation tossed 



334 PLATO. 

Of fever and sharp ague. Our great head 

Asclepius knew this, and conquered Death : 

This mystic truth the thoughtful son inspired 

Of Blyson, by Cayster's reedy banks, 

Beloved of cranes. No realm of bliss may be 

From that fine reconciling force divorced ; 

But chiefly Music, voicing procreant joy 

From plumy breasts in spring, doth preach its power, 

Or, winging hymns from hearts of blithesome boys 

In praise of gods, the givers of all good ; 

Or, with the measured breath of resolution, 

Fluting the Spartan to the ordered fray ; 

In these, and all the witchcrafts of sweet sound, 

The high and low, by Nature contrary, 

Being counterpoised, with nice adjustment blend 

Into concentuous oneness, and forth draw 

Concordant tremors from opposing strings. 

Even so, from war of passions in the breast, 

There is a touch that knows to bring sweet peace, 

And spell them into Music. In the strife 

Of seasons too, and war of winds and waves, 

The wise admire the mystic force of Love, 

Now tempered well, now with loose-shaken rein, 

Extravagant, rushing into fervent waste. 

Plagues, frosts, and mildews, and the lashing hail, 

The blasting levin, and the sulphurous bolt, 

Are all but skits of crudely-mingled air, 

Whose elements the harmonising power 

Of Love hath left, which, but for gracious Fate, 

In violent plunges of dissentious rage 

Would bring back chaos, and insanely smite 



PLATO. 335 

All Nature with disease, strangling dear life 

With suicidal clutch. In Titan times 

When earth-born, serpent-footed Power prevailed, 

This war of lawless, wild, distempered Forces 

Fevered the sphere, and shook the thrones of gods ; 

But since what time the son of Kronos reigns 

With Metis, strong in counsel, for his mate, 

These powers are bound, and with safe vent discharge 

Their snaffled wrath at Jove's high beck ; and now 

Love holds all fast ; and by constraint of Love 

The constant seasons wheel with measured change 

Of shifting beauty ; through the vasty void 

The flaming couriers of the blue serene 

Speed their fair sequences, and deftly thread 

Their unentangled ways, and on green earth 

The furious pulses of impatient growth 

Being wisely reined, are moulded into forms 

Of beauty, bursting in exuberant bloom, 

Yet, in full pride, still bending to the law 

Of lovely limitation, which redeems 

Wild force from chaos. And this law divine, 

Of harmonising contraries, prevails 

In loves and marriages of men and plants, 

Where nothing single hath the plastic power 

To procreate itself, but always male 

And female, kindred but in diverse kind — 

The active with the passive aptly paired — 

Produce their like. Thus the physician spake 

And every couch applauded. 



336 PLATO. 

Alciphron. 

I too applaud ; 
But in this reasoned cool discourse I hear 
No voice of comfort for my dear lost friend, 
Transported out of reason's bound by love. 

Plato. 
Your friend is young. We, who are old, expect 
The mellow fruitage with the mellowing year, 
Sour juices with the crimson flush of Spring. 
Our nature is too feeble to endure 
The keen enlargement of immortal love 
Beneath our narrow pale of flesh, without 
Fearful disturbance ; imped with untried wings 
The soul must nutter ere it find a poise, 
Like little boys in eagerness to swim, 
Who beat the flood with palms undisciplined, 
And sink themselves with hurry. 

Alciphron. 

Socrates 
Was there too, I presume, and, being there, 
Would speak ; alway he largely did profess 
Himself a lover of all lovely things, 
■And by a Mantinean prophetess 
'Clept Diotima, was instructed well 
In love's philosophy. What said Socrates ? 

Plato. 
Of course being there he could not choose but speak, 
Like brooks that babble while they flow, and like 



PLATO. 337 

The brooks his speech was music ; but I heard 
The argument not from himself, but from 
Apollodorus, who in the recital 
Seemed lifted somewhat from that drooping vein 
Which he affects, — or, kindlier to phrase it, 
Which affects him. 

Alciphron. 
I greatly long to hear 
The words of Socrates. 

Plato. 

What talk he held 
At Agathon's banquet you shall know hereafter ; 
But for your present need I will rehearse 
His high discourse to Phaedrus, held in praise 
Of the Uranian Aphrodite, strong 
In souls of men and gods — the which to me 
Seems worthiest of the theme ; and Phaedrus said 
He never saw the harp strings of his soul 
So swept with godlike rapture. Would you hear it ? 

Alciphrox. 
I drink your words. 

Plato. 
Well, thus the lecture ran. 
All spirit is immortal. That which moves 
Another, but from some precedent takes 
Its source and spring of motion, fitly dies ; 
But with essential motive virtue dowered 
Soul needs not borrow what it has, nor can 
z 



338 PLATO. 

Part with its self of self. Dull bodies move, 

When they are moved, the lifeless clod, the block, 

The stone, the stock, the lumpish aggregate, 

Blind inorganic hinderment, mere mass 

Unsignatured, uncharactered, from all 

Feature divorced, these, from the boundless vague 

To win the fair redemption, must receive 

The shaping energy of plastic power 

From the fine mobile Essence uncreate, 

Source of all force and form, which men call Soul. 

Alciphron. 
What is the Soul ? 

Plato. 

Dear boy, what in itself 
The soul may be transcends all tongue to tell ; 
But for our sensuous need that knows by types, 
'Tis pictured wisely as an airy car 
Drawn by a brace of winged steeds, and helmed 
By skilful charioteer. The steeds that draw 
The chariots of the gods are goodly, both 
In form and fleetness, and with native ease 
Own the wise rein ; but to our mortal cars 
The uneven Fates an ill-paired yoke assigned, 
Cross and contrarious, as with good the bad 
Holds concert never. The one is tall, erect, 
With kingly neck well-arched, and rounded limb, 
And joints with nice articulation framed 
For suppleness and strength, dark-eyed, but fair 
In glossy felt, and with a nose that looks 



PLATO. 339 

Well out into the air, and to the rein 
Obedient, without whip. The other huge, 
Unwieldy, crooked, with neck thick and short, 
Flat-nosed, dark-skinned, and with an angry eye 
Of flaring blue, with shaggy ears, and deaf 
To the rider's cry, of random plunges full, 
Cross-grained, and going where his pace should go 
By sheer must be, and mastery of goad. 

Thus far of souls, and of their diverse kinds 

In men and gods the heaven-taught master spoke ; 

Then to the journeys of the souls he passed, 

Their wheeling chariots compassing the girth 

Of the illimitable spaces, far 

Beyond the starry vault, at measured terms 

Of festive high occasion, when they leave 

Their customed posts and ordinary charge 

Beneath the blue concave. The splendid pomp 

Of this procession of the souls is led 

By supreme Jove, whom all the host of gods 

Follows in marshalled sequence ; only Vesta 

Remains at home to watch the Olympian hearth 

Then with their fervid steeds on flashing way 

They mount the steep of Heaven, until they climb 

To hypercosmic fields upon the back 

Of the fire vaulted sphere, then draw the reins 

Of their obedient steeds, and feed their gaze 

Upon the shining vast expanse of things 

That are the substance of the shows we see, 

Our sight their shadows. From this fount the gods 

Drink truth and knowledge, justice, temperance, 



34° PLATO. 

The native food of souls, which to their wings 
Gives crescent virtue, plumy grace, and strength 
Of venturous vans. And, when their blood is rich 
With virtue from this supermundane view 
(Which chances when their steeds with willing feet 
Have paced the whole career above the stars), 
Then to his customed station every god 
Returns, and with new strength administers 
His cosmic charge, and works from hour to hour 
With fruitful silence, and unhasting speed. 

Thus far the gods. But souls of mortal men 

That followed in the starry march return 

Not crowned with triumph, but with limping act 

That mocks their purpose. For the native vice 

Of the contrarious cross-grained steed in each 

Checks their smooth speed, perplexes wheel with wheel, 

Plunges awry, and with rebellious rear 

Sends perturbation through the file, and clogs 

Their path with sheer confusion. For which cause 

They lag behind the gods and fail to reach 

The line of prospect ; some but with their heads 

Outpeer the starry rim and gain some part 

Of the celestial vision ; some below 

The vault are dashed, now visionless, and now 

A point regaining, where they snatch a glimpse 

Of things beyond, then downward jerked again 

They reel precipitate ; others plomb as lead 

Fall earthwards, with their wings all torn and crushed, 

Their gallant charioteers all maimed and bruised ; 

All from the perfect vision of the truth 



PLATO. 34i 

Back-thrown, remain condemned to live on earth, 

And feed on husks of vain opinion, fleshed 

In various types of man, by strong decree 

Of Adrasteia. He who closest tracked 

The chariots of the gods in guise appears 

Of thoughtful sage, or passioned worshipper 

Of beauty, lover of all lovely things, 

With soul entuned to harmony divine 

By songs that charm the cosmos. After these 

Who saw most of the truthful vision lives 

On earth a king who rules by chartered right, 

Or a brave warrior with victorious sword, 

Who spends his blood for liberty and law ; 

And third in rank the statesman comes, the just 

Administrator of affairs, or who 

Is skilled by faithful stewartry to give 

Increase to money wisely husbanded. 

Fourth comes the trainer of our fleshly frames, 

Gymnast, or healthful leech ; and then the souls 

Whose earthly mission is from guilt to shrive 

By mysteries, initiations, charms, 

Or clear the dubious path by oracles 

And slippery divinations. Sixth in rank 

The poet comes, slight fancy-monger, pleased 

With fine conceits in superficial play, 

Or whoso, brothered with the rhyming crew, 

Lives careless, monkey-like in mimic show. 

The seventh in order is mechanical, 

Who shapes the inform matter by his tool, 

Or with his spade upturns the pregnant glebe 

To sniff the vital air, and drink the beam 



342 PLATO. 

Of genial day. Below these types of souls 

Two basest classes stand, who in the race 

Fell heaviest from the sphere : the sophist crew, 

The democrat, and who, to please the mob, 

For the slow silent growth of ripening truth 

Gives fence of glittering phrase ; and him, beneath 

The lowest type of low humanity, 

The tyrant, naked from all rags of good, 

Who, to englut his monstrous maw, usurps 

The bleeding world, and swallows all in self. 

Alciphron. 

Excuse me, if I break into your speech 

With an unseasoned question. From your words 

The quality of souls I comprehend, 

And how, hedged round by sensuous shows, we draw 

Our high conceptions of substantial good 

From seats beyond the stars ; but what of Love ? 

Plato. 

Attend, and you shall hear. The soul of man, 
In walls of flesh encased, not lightly dares 
To leap its prison. Some their prison love, 
Like birds that, bred in cages, fear to fly : 
These serve the moment, little raised above 
The earth-perusing brute : Some burst their bonds 
A space, and then with drooping wing return 
To hug their chains : some with persistent poise 
Float on brave wing, and in the body live 
Above the body : these the sense-bound throng 
Call madmen, dreamers, and enthusiasts, fools, 



PLATO. 343 

That to the marked and metalled road prefer 

Helmless balloonings in the pathless air ; 

Nor without cause prefer : for well they know 

Their madness from a god, by whom indwelt 

They rise proud-wing'd above the lowly stage 

And narrow scene of life, and move apart 

Conversing with the gods. These men are prophets, 

And purifying priests, and priestly bards, 

Like Epimenides, whom Athens called 

From Crete to clear the State from guilty taint ; 

Empedocles, who rode the winds, and reined 

The water-courses, and disarmed the plague ; 

Orpheus, and Linus, and Musaeus, men 

Whose songs were sunbeams, by Apollo's grace 

Shot through the dark. More nobly mad than these 

Are lovers, by the incarnate splendour caught 

Of the Eternal Beautiful, revealed 

In chiselled feature and in rounded limb, 

In delicate hue, and queenly gait, and power 

Of speaking eyes, and the rare glamoury 

Of smiles that play about the mobile mouth 

Like sportful children in a flowery mead. 

For Beauty hath this power above all forms 

Of godlike excellence to mortals known, 

It may be seen ; it doth invade the sense, 

Possess the reason, overwhelm the gaze, 

And takes the gazer captive when it stands 

In corporate strength before him ; other goods 

Must be searched out, and to the constant toil 

Yield of the straining chase ; but God hath spread 

His living mantle round the glorious globe, 



344 PLATO. 

Broidered with beauty, that all eyes may drink 
Its catholic goodness, and the stoutest yield 
His reason thralled before its potent charm. 
Now, in that high procession of the gods, 
Of which I spoke, the souls of mortal men 
Followed the track each of some god, and caught 
Contagion from his nearness, and a snatch 
Of his peculiar quality. Some from Mars 
Borrowed the fiery fierceness : some from Jove 
The instinct of command : the grace of youth 
From light-foot Hermes some: and. others took 
Soft plumy luxuries from the Cyprian queen : 
Whence all men, born into this realm of sense, 
Housed in their mortal rind, bring deathless seeds 
Of Heaven-born instincts, aspirations proud, 
And upward gropings in their several kinds, 
Bright dower from lucid supersensual seats, 
The cradle of all souls. Hence divers loves 
In diverse souls the diverse memory wakes 
Of that pre-natal vision ; and by force 
Of fiery Mars possessed, the fiery soul 
Springs with intemperate fervid spur to clasp 
The thing it loves ; but souls who followed Jove 
In that high race, close to his kingly car, 
In whom they love, love kingliness, and show 
All loyal chaste obedience to their love : 
So each with innate preference, and free 
Elective choice discriminates, but all 
By that celestial memory transported 
Beyond their present selves, and stirred to high 
Prevision for the future. The crushed being 



PLATO. 345 

Of the poor spirit dragging earthly cares 

Drinks in sweet dewy nurture from his love, 

And grows and spreads, and with fine-thrilling pains 

Bursts into liberal plumes, and stands redeemed 

From aimless longings and from blind desires ; 

The soul now finds its mate, and with its mate 

The food it feeds on ; loved and lover grow 

By mutual breathing in of excellence, 

Ungrudged, unstinted ; and now either takes 

His likeness from the other, as the light 

Shines on the brazen mirror and returns. 

Thus Love achieves his perfect work, beyond 

The sensuous rudiments of the bodily form, 

And from the pictured vestibule conducts 

"With genial hand into the inmost shrine 

Of radiant gods, before whose grace to bow 

Is better than to hold all earthly thrones 

From Ganges to Gadeira. This is all 

My memory of the words of Socrates. 

Alciphron. 

I would it had been more ; these godlike words 

Possess my soul like memory of a hymn 

Heard through an echoing fane. But I must deem 

The love men talk about in Athens here 

Is to the picture in thy speech as like 

As sooty Vulcan is to Vulcan's wife. 

Plato. 

This is mere weakness of our mortal kind, 
Who seek by groping, and by blundering find. 



346 PLATO. 

No facile work the gods assigned our race 

To hold the track of right, nor touch the line 

Where fevered passion madly vaults, beyond 

All poise of seemliness, and spurs itself 

Into a fault. Our lofty lust to fly 

Oft flings us from the back of our conceit 

Into the mire, while he who lowly walks 

Walks safely. Beasts are never less than beasts, 

Being never more. 

Alciphron. 

And I must be content 
To lose my friend, because he leapt beyond 
His lowly state, maddened by mighty Love. 

Plato. 

And, if he had not leapt, what better then ? 

He might have kept the wheelwork of his life 

As true as tortoise to its morning crawl, 

Or settled into mouldiness by sheer 

Privation of the spur of proud desire, 

Or wallowed in a swinish stye, and rotted 

Into a sensual grave ! But now he loves 

A thing that lifts the level of his life 

Above all low regards ; or, should he die 

(Which gods forefend !) like her who sought and found 

A briny death from the Leucadian cliff, 

All men will weep, none harshly blame the deed. 

'Tis human that we die ; but, being crowned 

With kingly grace above the brutish kind. 

'Tis fit we die with crowns upon our head, 



PLATO. 347 

Not beg our way dispurpled to the grave. 

Your friend hath caught no baseness from his love. 

Alciphron. 
This thought shall comfort me. 

Plato. 

And add this other ; 
The weight of daily tasks, which men call life, 
Sweet friendship lightens ; but to lift ourselves 
Above ourselves, and to behold the gods 
Behind this visual screen of fleeting shows, 
Who from immortal types of beauty weave 
The shifting figures in the loom of time, 
This is the gift of Love ; whom know, and thou, 
Like Diomede, unfilmed, shalt pierce through all, 
And walk through gloom in glory. 

Alciphron. 

I have heard. 
Henceforth my tongue from hasty blame be far ! 
Mine eye, with lowly worship fraught, be near 
To every form of loveliness that treads 
The flower-bespangled earth ! Farewell, good master ! 



NOTES. 



PYTHAGORAS. 

P. 3. Chorus of Maidens. — The idea brought out in this 
chorus, that Jove, by marrying Mtjtls or Counsel, commenced a 
new era in the history of cosmical progress, was familiar to the 
ancients. The dynasty of Jove is the dynasty of order ; order 
proceeds from number and proportion ; and this, being the 
watchword of the Pythagorean philosophy, forms a natural bond 
of connection betwixt the chorus and the philosophical exposi- 
tion which follows. 

Pp. 4 and 5. The mythological allusions to Hera and her 
sacred marriage with Jove are taken from Homer's Iliad, xiv. 
(with my notes), and Pausanias Argolis. 

Pp. 10 and 11. The facts, or rather traditions, about the life 
of Pythagoras, are taken from Diogenes, Porphyry, and Jam- 
blichus. There is a considerable smack in them of the silly 
miracle-mongery of the mediaeval lives of the saints. 

P. 13. In the Pythagorean objection to swearing (Diog. 22, and 
Jamblich. 9), we see a distinctly Christian element. Generally 
speaking, the ancients, both the vulgar and the sage, had no 
special scrupulosity about oaths. 

P. 14. The Pythagorean test of character by physiognomy 
was as famous in its day as the craniological one in the skull- 
philosophy of Combe, and, as I believe, much more practically 
valuable ; Porphyry, 14. 

P. 15. The traditions about Theano, and other sisters of the 



350 NOTES. 

Pythagorean society (Jamblich. 32, Porphyry, 19), are consistent 
with Doric society, as opposed to the usage of Attica. Plato 
inherited this apostleship from his great prototype ; and J. S. 
Mill, and other advocates of women's rights in these latter days, 
should not have forgotten the sage of Samos as the first Greek 
prophet of their gospel. 

P. 21. The superiority of Egypt to Greece, in respect of early 
intellectual culture, is a favourite theme with Plato (Timasus, 
22, B.), with the church fathers and Josephus. 

P. 22. I have represented both Pythagoras and Diogoras as 
quick-witted enough to foresee the mischief that would be done 
by the generation of fluent talkers, called Sophists, who appeared 
in the chief cities of Greece shortly afterwards. For the refu- 
tation of Mr. Grote's views on the Sophists, see my Horae 
Hdlenicae. 

P. 22. The Pythagorean maxim — kv daKrv\lw ehbva deov /it] 
irepicptpeiv, is quoted in Diog. 1 7, and Porphyiy, 42. 

Pp. 32 and 33. Number being the shibboleth of the Pytha- 
goreans, of course, like other shibboleths, led to a large expatia- 
tion on the subtle properties and imaginary excellencies of cer- 
tain numbers. Of these I have thought it sufficient to enlarge 
on the trine. Of course I do not say absolutely that Pythagoras 
ever enunciated the peculiar significance of the theological 
doctrine of the Trinity expressed in the text ; it only appears as 
a very obvious illustration of the general doctrine ; and I have 
little doubt that the Platonising fathers of the early Greek 
church believed in some intelligible Trinity of this kind, not 
in the unintelligible jabber of the Athanasian creed. On the sup- 
posed Trinity of Homer, see my notes to Iliad, iv. 288. 

P. 37. The simile here used by Diagoras, to justify his 
theological conservatism, is a well-known Pythagorean maxim, 
— <STt<pa.vov firj rlWeiv. Porphyry, lxii. 

P. 42. The Darwinian theory of the imperfection and help- 
lessness of the primitive man, set forth in this chorus, was 
extremely familiar to the ancients, and will be found in Diodorus 
Siculus, book i., and not a few fragments of the most ancient 
speculators in Putter and Preller. 



NOTES. 35i 



THALES. 



Thales chronologically stands before Pythagoras, and may be 
tabled in the memory with Solon, 600 B.C., in round numbers. 
The other sages in my list stand in chronological order. 
Socrates died 400 B.C., at which date his disciple Plato was 
twenty-nine years old. 

P. 49. The Greeks early displayed a genius for mathematics, 
though of course the Egyptians preceded them both in the arts 
of field-measuring and star-measuring. The proposition about 
the rectangularity of the angle included in a semicircle (Euclid, 
iii.), belongs by historical tradition to the great Milesian 
Diog. La. i. 1, 3. 

P. 52. The story about the star-gazer falling into the ditch 
is accompanied in Diogenes (i. 1, 8) by the question put by 
an old woman — O Thales, if you cannot see whafs before your 
nose, how can you pretend to read the stars ? Silly ; the fact being 
that just because a man is looking at what is distant he cannot 
at the same moment be regarding what is near. 

P. 52. For the story about the tripod fished up by some 
fishermen of Miletus, and ordered by the oracle to be given to 
the wisest of the Greeks, see Diog. i. 1, 7. 

P. 54. To the ancients Egypt, as to us China, was the home 
of all oddities and eccentricities, some real, some imaginary. 
The instances in the text are from a well-known chapter in 
Herodotus, ii. 

P. 59. The exploits of Miletus, as a mother of colonies, form 
one of the grandest themes in the early history of Greece. 
Some idea of their range is attempted to be given in the chorus. 

P. 65. The verse of Homer, quoted here, is evidently a frag- 
ment of some pre-Homeric elemental theogony. See Iliad, 
xiv. 201, with the illustrations from various quarters in my 
note. 

XENOPHANES. 

P. 79. Among the fathers of geological science, or at least the 
far-sighted prophets of the science to be, Xenophanes certainly 



352 NOTES. 

claims the first place. The passage, which my text follows 
almost literally, will be found in Hippol. Refut. haeres. i. 14. 

P. 89. The attitude of hostility towards the popular theology, 
which I have represented in the conversation between Xeno- 
phanes and the priest of Apollo, is distinctive of the philosopher 
of Colophon, and was the great point to bring out in this 
dialogue. The fragments of his wisdom which remain are suf- 
ficient to give us a clear notion of his theological position ; and 
the most significant of them are, according to my general plan, 
embodied in the text. 



HERACLITUS. 

P. 105. The honourable manner in which Heraclitus is 
spoken of by Plato in various places may be taken as a suffi- 
cient evidence of the high estimation in which he stood among 
the ancients. Like the German Hamann, however, he seems 
to have been as obscure as he was profound ; hence his 
cognomen 6 <xkot€iv6s. I gave myself great pains to get hold of 
his point of view, and hope I have in some measure succeeded. 
Among recent writers, Professor Bernays, of Bonn, has made the 
most important contributions to the understanding of this sage. 
I made a careful study of Lassalle's book (Berlin, 1858). The 
edition of Bywater (Oxon., 1877) did not come into my hands 
till after my work was complete. Ritter and Preller, of course, 
was thoroughly gone through. 

P. 107. That a profound philosopher, who despised the 
shallow thinkers about him, should prefer playing at astragals 
with a boy, is quite natural, and stands in tradition. 
Diog. i. 2, 3. 

P. 112. The great truth that there is no such thing as 
absolute rest in the universe, but that what we call rest is either a 
balance of contrary motions or a rest relatively to our percep- 
tions, and further, as a consequence of this, that there is no 
individual being or thing that can be looked upon as absolutely 
fenced off from the great tidal currents of the unsleeping uni- 
verse, and that through the marks of change there is a funda- 



NOTES. 353 

mental identity at the root of all changeable : This doctrine, 
the favourite theme of the Buddhists, and familiarly expressed by 
the short sentence irdvra pet, belongs prominently to Heraclitus, 
and is set forth in the text in correspondence with what Plato 
says in the Cratylus, 402 A, and the Thecetetus, 152 D. 

P. 116. It was mentioned in the Introductory Epistle that 
there was no such unhappy divorce between piety and philosophy 
among the wise Greeks, as we have seen so lamentably parade 
itself under British skies in these latter days. Here the pan- 
theism of the ancients helped them ; for, though they taught as 
Heraclitus does here, that Fire was the first principle of all 
things, they did not thereby exclude \6yos or Reason, that is 
Divine Wisdom, as it is expressed in the Book of Proverbs, but 
rather quietly, and by an instinct of sound Greek thinking, 
assumed it. Heraclitus, therefore, was no materialist, in the 
vulgar English sense of the word ; but his Fire, as I have ex- 
pressed it at p. 123, was "instinct with reason and inventive 
force." This way of viewing the active forces of the universe 
is no doubt foreign both to the English and the Scotch mind, 
but may not be the less true for that. The Scotch philosophy 
is narrow ; and the English, as a people, are rather inclined to 
make a boast of having no philosophy at all. 

P. 126. I have here quoted two well-known sayings of the 
dark Ephesian. It was impossible for a real philosopher, not- 
withstanding the ready help of allegorical interpretations, to 
accept the theological teaching of Homer without considerable 
recalcitration. Hence his anticipation of the Platonic expul- 
sion of Homer from the schools, e/c tow dyuvuv e/c/3d\Xe<r0cu ical 
paTrl^eadai, Diog. ix. I, 2. Archilochus got his dismissal pro- 
bably on other grounds, somewhat, no doubt, as Lord Byron 
might be treated by a modern school-board. The other maxim, 
about learning, or iroXv/xadir), which occurs in the same chapter 
of Diogenes, was worthy of a stout thinker, and recalls to me 
the well-known saying of Hobbes — " If I had read as much as 
other men, 1 should have been equally stupid 7" What, indeed, is a 
great part of what is called learning in the schools, but a labori- 
ous record of ingenious drivel, blind blundering, and dreaming 
with open eyes ? 

2 A 



354 NOTES. 

P. 127. The Diana of the Ephesians (Acts xix.), whom the 
priest here calls on the philosopher to expound, was plainly 
identical with Cybele or the Earth, an Asiatic goddess, whom 
the Greeks, from certain points of merely external resemblance, 
were forward to confound with their own Artemis, the sister of 
Apollo, or the Moon. 

EMPEDOCLES. 

P. 133. There seems to be veiy little in the philosophical 
doctrine of Empedocles worthy of a poetical treatment. There 
was no particular merit in the prominence given by him to the 
doctrine of the four elements, which, no doubt, had been 
sufficiently recognised by his predecessors, without being form- 
ally talked about. He deserves credit, however, for his doctrine 
of Love and Strife, which he found in Hesiod, and which is 
only the polytheistic expression for the modern doctrine of Attrac- 
tion and Repulsion, exhibited in various familiar departments of 
physical science. What specially claims notice in him is the 
peculiar combination of the priest and the philosopher which his 
character exhibits, and his social action both as a physician — or, 
as we would say, a member of the Board of Health — and a poli- 
tician. In his devotion to physical science generally, he seems 
to have prefigured Democritus ; and the stoiy about his leaping 
into the crater of Mount ^Etna, is no doubt only a popular 
exaggeration of his frequent visits to that mysterious mouth of 
fire in his neighbourhood. A modern Manfred, in the over- 
strained style of so much of the best English poetiy, recently 
fashionable, might have indulged in a mock-sublime catastrophe 
of this kind : not so, certainly, an old Hellenic ao(p6s. 

P. 160. The description of the plague here, as every scholar 
will recognise, is taken from the well-known chapter in Thucy- 
dides, ii. 

P. 181. The sacrifice of the young Empedocles, in this place, 
is not historical, but adapted from a well-known passage of 
Goethe's Aictoblography, which seemed to me admirably fitted 
for exhibiting, in a striking manner, the priestly element, so 
prominent in the character of Empedocles. 



NOTES. 355 

ANAXAGORAS. 

P. 197. The sentence from Aristotle on the fly-leaf sufficiently 
indicates the proud position which Anaxagoras occupies among 
the exponents of ultimate truth. Not that his predecessors, 
after the manner of certain modern sophists, believed in the 
possibility of the creation of a reasonable universe from any com- 
bination of blind sequences ; but that, by enunciating the word 
MIND, as the principle of principles, the sage of Clazomenae 
brought most emphatically into the foreground the essential 
reasonableness of the universe in all its parts. The world, 
according to him, is simply a manifestation of the divine intelli- 
gence of the supreme Zefo, just as the steam-engine is a mani- 
festation of the lower intelligence of James Watt. He thus 
struck the key-note to the beautiful exposition of the doctrine 
of teleology, or final causes, given, as we shall see in the next 
dialogue, by Socrates. 

P. 201. The Thucydides here mentioned was not the his- 
torian, but a politician, the leader of the opposition party in 
Athens, who strained every nerve to oust Pericles from the 
high position, which he maintained so manfully for nearly half 
a century, as the leader of the Athenian demos. One great 
handle which the opposition used against him was the fact that 
he had used the Delian fund, which was federal in its origin, 
for the selfish purpose of beautifying Athens. He, of course, 
replied, that if Greece was to be Greece as a corporate body 
against Persia, that body required a head, and it was right that 
the head should be worthy of the body. 

P. 209. On the explanation of Eclipses by Anaxagoras, see 
Plutarch, Nicias, 23. 

P. 211-12. On the sun and the moon literally, from Diog. 
Laert. ii. 3, 4. 

P. 213. The fact of meteoric stones having fallen on the earth 
was quite familiar to the ancients. They were generally conse- 
crated and worshipped on the spot where they fell. 

P. 214. Anaxagoras taught that the yaXa^ids, i.e. the milky 
way, was dvd/c\acrii> 0wr6s t]\io.kov, /jltj KaraXapLwo/xevuv tuiv 
HcTpuiv. — Diog. ii. 3, 4. 



356 NOTES. 

Pp. 215-16. Here, in reference to Aspasia's question about chaos, 
Anaxagoras takes occasion to explain his doctrine of 6/xoio/xepr] 
ctolx^o-, like draws like, which, when taken along with the 
Pythagorean doctrine of dpi0/j.6s, might seem to be an antici- 
pation of the Daltonian doctrine of atoms and atomic propor- 
tions. Fundamentally, he explains the process — not the cause 
— of the creation of the world by elective affinities, with change 
of form but conservation of force, as we have seen Empedocles 
do with his love and hatred. It is to be noted, however, that 
modern chemistry teaches a much more mysterious doctrine, 
how like draws unlike, — as in the case of oxygen and hydrogen 
— forming a compound possessed of qualities altogether unlike 
the qualities of its two component parts. No merely mechanical 
idea can give any adequate explanation of the action of natural 
forces. There is a divine mystery behind all laws and all phrases, 
the key to which lies, not in the chemist's laboratory, but in the 
bosom of the Divine creativeness. 

P. 227. Aspasia here prophesies the banishment of Anax- 
agoras, on a charge of atheism, concerning which, see Diog. 
Laert. ii. 3, 9. Religion, of course, had something to do with 
the matter (see Plutarch, Nicias, 23) ; but the important fact was 
that Anaxagoras and Aspasia were both the objects of attack to 
the opposition in Athens, as belonging to the party of Pericles. 
Whether at Athens, in Rome, or in London, " the church in 
danger," under various forms, has always been a favourite cry 
with those who were out-flanked in political strategics by men 
who had attained to a largeness of thought and a range of view 
beyond the scope of the majority. 

ARISTODEMUS. 

P. 233. Protagoras, one of the most respectable of the 
Sophists, gives the title to one of Plato's best known dialogues ; 
and the words with which he commenced one of his famous 
books are put aptly here into the mouth of a smart young 
Athenian, full of conceit and void of reverence. 

P. 245. The passage on the wonderful framework of the 



NOTES. 357 

human body, taken literally here from Xenophon, places Socrates 
for all ages in the van of natural theologians, as the first great 
Hellenic assertor of the great doctrine of design in the universe, 
or, as it has been technically called, teleology, i.e. the doctrine of 
final causes. Dr. Paley's well-known work is little more than a 
detailed expatiation of the Socratic text here given. In modern 
times it has become fashionable in certain quarters, where 
wisdom is affected, to speak contemptuously of Dr. Paley and 
the argument from design ; but this, I am firmly convinced, 
will turn out to have been a mere fashion, which will in due 
season yield to the general healthy human judgment on this 
matter. " Opinionuni commenta delet dies ; naturae jicdicia con- 
firmat." It is perfectly true, no doubt, that some persons in 
this mechanical country may have taken Paley's mechanical 
simile too literally ; but it formed no part of his argument to 
say that the world is a watch, or any sort of mechanical manu- 
facture. The world manifestly is a growth, not a manufacture ; 
but a growth full of indwelling plastic Reason, and pervaded 
all through, — from root to topmost branch — with reason- 
able calculation and design. What Lord Bacon said, that 
the search after final causes is a barren virgin, is no doubt 
true in the sense in which he meant it ; for to assert the 
object or purpose for which a thing is made, will help a man 
nothing to the discovery of the how, or by what means the 
making took place ; and in this sense Goethe also was quite 
right when he said that why ? and what for ? are not scientific 
questions. The scientific interrogation is how ? Mere science 
may easily ignore the question with what object? but philo- 
sophy will still maintain its right to say that an object or pur- 
pose did exist in the construction of the universe, and can, on 
many occasions, be clearly traced. The only difficulty is, that 
whereas, in the work of a human architect or engineer, the 
purpose for which the work is made may often be seen at a 
glance, and in all cases be distinctly enunciated by a compe- 
tent judge ; in the works of the great demiurge of the cos- 
mos, there is everywhere too wide a range, and too complex 
a bond of connection, to be exactly measurable by the human 



358 NOTES. 

faculty, or predicable by human speech. The true philosophical 
objection to the argument from design, as it has been sometimes 
handled, therefore, is simply this, — not that there are no manifest 
signs of design in the vital machinery or organised growth of the 
universe, — but that men have been, in not a few cases, hasty to 
interpolate into the divine works and the divine procedure, a 
meaning and a purpose conceived more from the narrowness, one- 
sidedness, and inadequacy of the merely human point of view, 
than from the large range, comprehensive catholicity, and com- 
plex relationship of the divine scheme. Our whole theology, in 
fact, is more or less infected with this vice, which makes many 
a pretentious doctrinal structure, when closely examined, a mere 
castle of cards. But, though man is often foolish in his judg- 
ment of the divine procedure, God is always wise in His works 
and ways ; and, after all the captious babblement of the schools 
against the grand argument of Socrates and Paley shall have 
passed away, the voice of Nature, everywhere, will be heard in 
the words of the great Hebrew singer, proclaiming aloud, 
' ' Understand, ye brutish among the people ; and ye fools, when 
will ye be wise ? He that planted the ear, shall He not hear ? 
He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? He that chastiseth the 
nations, shall not He correct ? He that teacheth man knowledge, 
shall He not know? The Lord knoweth the thoughts 

OF MAN, THAT THEY ARE VANITY." 

Pp. 249-50. Here the reader will note particularly the con- 
trast which the great Father of Moral Philosophy amongst the 
Greeks presents to our modern doctors of physical science. He 
brings into the foreground that distinctive function, viz. the reason- 
able recognition of a divine Reason in the universe, which 
elevates man above the brute : they rejoice to track out his 
brotherhood with the baboon, and to reduce every highest thing 
in creation to the level of the lowest. What effect this doctrine, 
if it shall take root, will have in the education of the human 
species, remains to be seen. 

P. 250. The lines in quotation are a translation of the famous 
prayer of Socrates, at the end of the Phcedrus. 



NOTES. 359 

ARISTIPPUS. 

P. 253. In this dialogue, taken from Xenophon, Socrates 
appears grandly as the true Father of the Aristotelian Ethics, 
which place happiness in virtue, and virtue in energy. The 
revival of the opposite doctrine of Aristippus, placing the 
summitm bonum in pleasure, was reserved for the amiable dog- 
matism of Bentham in the last century ; but its insufficiency as 
an ethical watchword was speedily manifested in its abandon- 
ment for the cry, to which only the most selfish of oligarchs 
could object, — the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 
Bentham, in fact, and Mill, owed their influence rather to their 
being accepted as mouthpieces of the democracy in opposition 
to the dominant English oligarchy, than to any peculiar subtlety, 
soundness, or consistency in their speculations. Bentham was 
great as a judicial reformer ; Mill, as a social reformer and a 
logical teacher : but the philosophy of both was meagre and 
inadequate ; and, wanting the great constructive idea of God, 
remained like a plant without a root, a planetary system with- 
out a sun. Mill was, besides, somewhat of a crotchet-monger, 
and had fixed his eye so long and so intently on certain blots 
and blotches of our moderm social system, that he could see no 
soundness. In opposition to all such, — and their number in 
recent times is not few, — Socrates stands forth as pre-eminently 
the cheerful philosopher. 

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES. 

P. 275. In this dialogue I have imported from well-known 
dialogues of Plato some views and arguments, which, though 
put into the mouth of Socrates, may reasonably be suspected of 
being Platonic rather than Socratic. My manner of dealing 
with the arguments in the Phsdo was to use only such as 
appeared most broadly human, and were at the same time 
most capable of poetic treatment. I believe, however, nothing 
of essential importance in the Platonico-Socratic doctrine of the 
immortality of the soul has been omitted. Those who wish to 



360 NOTES. 

contrast the ancient with the modern point of view on this lofty 
theme will find an excellent statement of them in the Reverend 
Joseph Cook's Lecture on Emerson'' s View of Immortality ; 
London: Dickinson, Farringdon Street, 1S77. Of course, in 
the concluding pages of the Phsedo, where the actual facts of the 
death of Socrates are detailed, I have not dared to alter a word. 



PLATO. 

P. 315. The subject of Love is formally treated in two 
Dialogues of Plato, The Banquet, and the Phcedrus. From both 
of these I have taken what suited my purpose. The character of 
Alciphron I have invented, and what belongs to him. The allu- 
sions in the opening monologue are to the well-known fact that, 
like our Hugh Miller, Plato first assayed his plumes as a poet, 
and was in fact a great poet-philosopher to the very last, though 
some of his Dialogues, as the Philebus, seem conceived rather 
in the bare analytic style of Aristotle than in the almost Aris- 
tophanic play of dramatic humour in the Banquet. His attack 
on the drama, and literature generally, in the last book of the 
Republic, must be looked upon either as the one-sidedness of an 
octogenarian philosopher, or may find justification in the low 
standard of moral dignity into which Hellenic literature had 
fallen since the days of Pindar and iEschylus. 



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