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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. 
 
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 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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