The tale begins with the rise of the Persian power, gather-
ing unto itself the strength of the barbarian world.
ing unto itself the strength of the barbarian world.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v13 - Her to Hux
It opens with 'Greece and Sicily'; this series of sonnets
including 'Hercules and the Centaurs,' 'Artemis and the Nymphs,'
and 'Perseus and Andromeda. ' The series that follows is called
'Rome and the Barbarians,' including the sonnets suggested by Catul-
lus in the group 'Hortorum Deus. ' Then come The Middle Age and
the Renaissance,' 'The Orient and the Tropics,' and 'Les Conqué-
rants. ' 'The Conquerors of Gold' and 'Romancero' are not in the
sonnet form. Some of the most exquisite sonnets written in France
are to be found in 'Les Trophées. ' It was no surprise to the readers
of Hérédia when he was elected to the Academy,-which, although
Daudet may parody it and outsiders revile it, cares more for quality
than quantity. But to most of the English-speaking world it was
a matter of amazement. The London critics, anxious to celebrate the
new Academician, were at first in doubt as to who he was. They
were equally amazed to find that this slim book, 'Les Trophées,'
had gone through at least ten editions; but since his election Hérédia
is better known, and his poems are appreciated by those who love
to see human knowledge and human feeling preserved like roses
in a block of imperishable crystal, carved in a thousand forms of
beauty.
Hérédia's impression of the sonnet is somewhat different from
the Italian, but not less difficult. In form it is Petrarcan as to the
octave, and it has no affinity with that English sonnet which closes
with the snappy couplet. The Italian sonnet is a syllogism, more or
less carefully concealed in a mist of sentiment. The French form,
while it holds to the quatrain followed by the two tercets, demands
a veiled climax in the second tercet. It must have a certain element
## p. 7279 (#65) ############################################
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
7279
of surprise. The tercet adds a glow to the stately quatrain. In Ital-
ian, the sextet draws the conclusion or applies the principle suggested
by the quatrain. Henri Taine loved the music of Hérédia, who has
the Miltonic quality of so mingling sonorous proper names in his
sonnets that they make the chords to the lighter treble of the more
melodious phrases of his music. This is evident in 'Epiphany,' where
the names of the Magi are used both in the first line of the quatrain
and the last of the sextet.
"C'est ainsi qu'autrefois, sous Augustus Cæsar,
Sont venus, presentant l'or, l'encens et la myrrhe,
Les Rois Mages Gaspar, Melchior et Balthazar. »
(In other days under Augustus Cæsar
Came, presenting gold, incense, and myrrh,
The magi Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. )
His management of the climax. which must, in the French form,
have an element of surprise, yet not be abrupt is admirable. The
sonnet to Rossi is a good example of this. Here, having dwelt in
the quatrains on the physical aspect of Rossi as Hamlet, Othello, and
Macbeth, he turns in the sextet to the spiritual effect of the actor's
recitation of parts of the 'Inferno,' and cries out that, trembling to
the depth of his soul, he has seen
"Alighieri, living, chant of hell. »
Hérédia varies the sextet by rhyming the first two lines, the third
and the fifth and the fourth and the sixth; and sometimes the third
with the sixth, couplets intervening. In the translation of the sonnet
'On an Antique Medal,' the Petrarcan sextet has been used. In the
'Setting Sun' one of Hérédia's forms has been followed. The other
sonnets, too, are of the mold of the originals.
manne Francis Eggan
-
-
## p. 7280 (#66) ############################################
7280
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
THE CONQUERORS
F
ALCONS fierce they are from charnel nest,
Weary of flight and burdens of their woe;
From Palos of Moguer they spell-bound go,
Heroic dreams and coarse their minds invest.
Far in deep mines the precious gold-veins rest
Waiting for them; and as the trade-winds blow
Filling their sails, they drive them all too slow
To that mysterious shore,-world of the West.
The phosphorescent blue of tropic seas
Colored their dreams when in the languid breeze
They slept each eve in hope of morrows bright,—
Of epic morrows; or in unknown skies,
Leaning entranced, they saw from carvels white
From out the ocean, strange new stars arise.
THE SAMURAI
"It was a man with two swords »
HE bîva in her hand claims thought no more;
THE
Some sounds she thrums, as through the lattice
light
Of twist' bamboo, she sees, where all is bright
On the flat plain, her love and conqueror.
Swords at his sides comes he,- her eyes adore,—
His fan held high, red girdle: splendid sight!
Deep scarlet on dark armor; and unite
Great blazons on his shoulder, feared in war.
Like huge crustacean, shining black and red,
Lacquer and silk and bronze from feet to head,
Plated and brilliant is this loved one.
He sees her, smiles beneath his bearded masque;
And as he hastens, glitter in the sun
The gold antennæ trembling on his casque.
## p. 7281 (#67) ############################################
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
7281
ON PIERRE RONSARD'S BOOK OF LOVE
IN
N BOURGUEIL'S pleasaunce many a lover's hand
Wrote many a name in letters big and bold
On bark of shady tree; beneath the gold
Of Louvre's ceiling, love by smiles was fanned.
What matters it? Gone all the maddened band!
Four planks of wood their bodies did enfold;
None now disputes their love, or longs to hold
Their dried-up dust,- part of the grassy land.
All dead. Marie, Hélène, Cassandra proud,
Your bodies would be nothing in their shroud,—
Lilies and roses were not made to last,-
If Ronsard, on the yellow Loire or Seine,
Had not upon your brows his garlands cast
Of myrtle and of laurel not in vain.
ON AN ANTIQUE MEDAL
THE
HE wine which gave the antique ecstasy
To great Theocritus, in purple gold
Still ripens on Mount Etna;
The gracious girls he sang in Sicily!
Greek Arethusa, slave or mistress free,
- none can hold
SUNSET
-
Lost the pure profile of ancestral mold,
Mixed in her veins of Angevin, proud and bold,
And Saracenic, burning furiously.
Time goes; all dies; marble itself decays;
A shadow Agrigentum! Syracuse
Sleeps, still in death, beneath her kind sky's shades; -
But the hard metal guards through all the days-
Silver grown docile unto love's own use
The immortal beauty of Sicilian maids.
THE
HE sunlit brush light to the dark rock lends,
And gilds the summit of the mountain dome
Where sets the sun; beyond - a bar of foam
The endless sea begins where the earth ends:
XIII-456
## p. 7282 (#68) ############################################
7282
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
Beneath me, night and silence; tired man wends
To where the smoking chimney marks his home.
The Angelus, deadened by the mists that roam,
In the vast murmur of the ocean blends.
As from the depth of an abyss, the sound
Of far-off voices in the space around
Comes from belated herdsmen with their clan.
The western sky is clothed in shadows gray;
The sun on rich dark clouds sinks slow away
And shuts the gold sticks of his crimson fan.
TO THE TRAGEDIAN ROSSI
TRAIL
RAILING thy mantle black, I've seen thee break,
O Rossi, weak Ophelia's saddened heart,
And, as the love-mad Moorish tiger, start
Strangling the sobs thy victim could not wake;
I Lear, Macbeth have seen, and seen thee take
The last cold kiss in love's supremest part
Of older Italy; -high flights of art! -
Yet greater triumphs have I seen thee make:
For I did taste of joy and woe sublime
When I did hear thee speak the triple rhyme,-
In voice of gold you rang its iron knell;
And red, in reflex of the infernal fire,
My very soul moved by deep horror dire
Saw Alighieri, living, chant of hell!
MICHELANGELO
YES,
ES, he was darkly haunted, we may say,
When in the Sixtine, far from festal Rome,
Alone he painted wall or floating dome
With sibyls, prophets, and the Judgment Day.
He heard within him, weeping hard alway,
The Titan he would chain 'bove eagles' home,-
Love, country, glory and defeat,-like foam
In face of conquering death; his marble-falsest clay!
As well those heavy giants languid with strength,
Those slaves imprisoned in a stone vein's length,
As if he twisted them in their strange birth;
## p. 7283 (#69) ############################################
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
7283
And in the marble cold had thrust his soul,
Making a fearful shiver through it roll,—
The anger of a god down-borne by earth.
AFTER PETRARCH
L
EAVING the church, with gesture tender, sweet,
Your noble hands throw gold unto the poor;
Your beauty brightens all the porch obscure,
And fills with Heaven's gold the dazzled street.
Saluting you, I humbly at your feet
Throw down my heart: yet you so proud and pure
Turn quick away; your veil you fast secure
In anger o'er your eyes, mine not to meet!
But love, which conquers hearts that most rebel,
Will not permit me in the gloom to dwell,—
The source of light to me refusing day;
You were so slow to draw the graceful shade
Of tremulous eyelash, which deep shadows made
That from the darkness shot a star's long ray.
EPITAPH
After the Verses of Henri III.
ERE sleeps, O passer, Hyacinth the Lord
Of Maugiron, dead, gone, at rest:
May God absolve and keep him near his breast;
Fallen to earth, he lies in holy sward.
None-even Quélus-wore the pearly cord,
Η
The plumèd cap, or ruff more meetly prest;
Behold by a new Myron well exprest
A spray of hyacinth in marble scored.
And having kissed him and most tenderly
Placed him in coffin, Henry willed that he
At Saint-Germain be laid;- fair, wan, he lies.
And wishing that such grief should never die,
He made in church, all changes to defy,
This sweet, sad symbol of Apollo's sighs.
-
## p. 7284 (#70) ############################################
7284
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
"TIS NOON; THE LIGHT IS FIERCE »
'T¹5
Is noon; the light is fierce; the air is fire;
The ancient river rolls its waves of lead;
Direct from Heaven day falls overhead,—
Phra covers Egypt in relentless ire.
The eyes of the great sphinx that never tire-
The sphinx that bathes in dust of golden-red-
Follow with mystic looks the unmeasurèd
And needle-pointed pyramidal spire.
A darkened spot is on the sky of white,-
An endless flight of circling vulture wings;
A flame immense makes drowsy all earth's things.
The ardent soil is sparkling; full in sight
A brass Anubis, silent, still, and stark,
Turns to the sun its never-ending bark.
All the above translations are by Maurice Francis Egan, for 'A Library of the
World's Best Literature ›
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## p. 7284 (#72) ############################################
YYYY
W
HERODOTUS.
20
## p. 7284 (#73) ############################################
7. 85
T
1.
ash
mest de Tetul storya fer bears, star gɔ to say the tive
f the "thor of a', tory,” The aft ཙཱུ ' story de 15. first
d in the ace of epic poetry, pased into the hangs
hets of the sixth ad with cent es, to whom must
the plan. cly a and rather starting discov ry that
b) a meirim of ht katue of their works we have little
The borderlad's of the Orient, vei in materials of fam-
6. tradition, of mythology, gen slogy, theogany, of diverse
Ps. 12 at a cistom, fumed them the natural straks to
The material hal o, grown the staid restramt of the
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at.
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:
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PT
tre's of plebeian proe, Herein both the historical prose
cph'sophieal fund their source.
tus sted on the berer-line betw log orpay and b
Athriselt in to the logogr phers, art locked back
ther to I'mer as the head of his spild. In entitling his
*sed the word hi toria in the sense of story-teing, "tathi
Chvat r of s comp siten loto signe once es bi tory.
to de tie
Cicero,
v uren the fact that he was the first to shope solve-
its 10 we portrayal of a great historical pro ru 11g, 80
plot. The proccd. gwch h chose as his
: s proved to be one of pre itoportan e n the total pistory
les cydiza lor. It was the confiet betyren Grecoɛ a… 2 P 1.
father of history," fi: tawar I bi
w it w
1:1
Nog'r
of the 7th century B (--a great crisis and
ng history of that strange between Orientalis:n
which ever since bun. nr cord began, as been
progress by the shores of the Egean The
Ins therefore, wh the Eastern Question
is. "
meta y
!
HERODOTUS
600 ? 425 ? B. C. ,
BY BENJAMIN IDE WAFFLEP
7
T
६८
outs's par",
born in 1 ad
me was such as to sugest to him his then e
aruussus, a Doze city on the sontlig torn e ast
abort 450 B. C. , and died, probably at Tour in italy,
tau bet ve 428 and 426. It's life covers thas the pered
1. .
s. 11 wars to the Peloponnesian War, ard is ero *. -
period of Athers's bloom. He was born, vi 15
## p. 7284 (#74) ############################################
HEROLOT!
* J
## p. 7285 (#75) ############################################
7285
HERODOTUS
(490-426? B. C. )
BY BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER
HIS most delightful story-teller bears, strange to say, the title
of the "father of history. " The art of story-telling, first
fashioned in the usage of epic poetry, passed into the hands
of the logographers of the sixth and fifth centuries, to whom must
be accredited the relatively late and rather startling discovery that
prose could be a medium of literature. Of their works we have little
or nothing. The borderlands of the Orient, rich in materials of fam-
ily and city tradition, of mythology, genealogy, theogony, of diverse
national usage and custom, furnished them the natural stimulus to
their work. The material had outgrown the staid restraint of the
genteel epic, and bursting the traditional dikes, it spread itself abroad
in great levels of plebeian prose. Herein both the historical prose
style and the philosophical found their source.
Herodotus stood on the border-line between logography and his-
tory. He felt himself akin to the logographers, and looked back
through them to Homer as the head of his guild. In entitling his
work, he used the word historia in the sense of story-telling; but lifted
it by the character of his composition into its significance as history.
His claim to the title "father of history," first awarded him by Cicero,
rests primarily upon the fact that he was the first to shape a collec-
tion of stories into the portrayal of a great historical proceeding, so
as to endow it with a plot. The proceeding which he chose as his
subject has proved to be one of prime importance in the total history
of human civilization. It was the conflict between Greece and Per-
sia in the beginning of the fifth century B. C. ,—a great crisis and
turning-point in the long history of that struggle between Orientalism
and Occidentalism, which, ever since human record began, has been
almost perpetually in progress by the shores of the Ægean.
writing of history begins, therefore, with the Eastern Question.
The
Herodotus's early home was such as to suggest to him his theme.
He was born in Halicarnassus, a Doric city on the southwestern coast
of Asia Minor, about 490 B. C. , and died, probably at Thurii in Italy,
at some time between 428 and 426. His life covers thus the period
from the Persian wars to the Peloponnesian War, and is commen-
surate with the period of Athens's bloom. He was born, if we may
## p. 7286 (#76) ############################################
7286
HERODOTUS
trust Suidas's evidence, of a highly respectable Halicarnassian family;
and among his near relatives, probably his uncle, was Panyasis,—
a collector of myths and folk-lore, and an epic poet of considerable
distinction, whose influence in determining his younger kinsman's
tastes may well have been decisive. A revolution in the government
of the city, probably of the year 468, occasioned the death of Panyasis
and the exile of Herodotus. It is significant for the later attitude of
Herodotus, as shown in his writings, that in this affair he sided with
the democracy. After an exile of several years, part of which at
least he is said to have spent in Samos, he returned to his native
city, where later-at some time prior to 454-he participated in the
overthrowing of the tyrant Lygdamis. Continued political disturb-
ances caused him finally to withdraw permanently from the city. The
Jealousy of the mob, which had now joined itself to the hatred of the
aristocracy, had made his longer stay impossible.
From this time until 443, when he joined in founding the Athenian
colony of Thurii in Italy, he was a homeless, cityless wanderer on
the face of the earth. Athens, ever hospitable to strangers, afforded
him the nearest approach to a home, and here he naturally made his
abode at the end of his successive voyages. There is no good reason
for rejecting the information that in the year 445 he gave a public
reading of some portion of his history, and received therefor a vote
of thanks from the Athenian Council and a reward of ten talents.
The greater part of his travels was accomplished before this date;
for two years later, in search of a home and rest,—and probably too
of the leisure to complete his work,- he withdrew to Thurii. The
most probable order of his travels is that which takes him first along
the coasts of Asia Minor to the northern islands, Thrace, the Sea of
Marmora, Byzantium, and the coasts of the Black Sea; then at some
time after 445 brings him to the south, along the southern shores
of Asia Minor to Cyprus and the Syrian coast, and into the interior
through Syria and Mesopotamia to Babylon. Egypt he visited almost
certainly after 449, and Kyrene in northern Africa may well have
come next in order. The exploration of Greece proper,-where he
visited Dodona, Zakynthos, Delphi, Thebes, Platæa, Thermopylæ, and
various places in the Peloponnesus, including Corinth, Tegea, Sparta,
and probably Olympia,- belongs in the last years before his depart-
ure for Thurii.
There are not lacking those who, on the basis of inaccuracies in
our author's reports, deny that his itinerary ever took him far from
the coast line of the Egean and eastern Mediterranean. Thus Pro-
fessor Sayce, in his Introduction to Books i. -iii. , limits Herodotus's
travels to coasting trips along the shores of Thrace from Athos to
Byzantium, to Palestine and Syria, among the islands of the Ægean,
## p. 7287 (#77) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7287
with visits to Lower Egypt and certain sites in Greece. Though
Herodotus distinctly says he visited Egyptian Thebes, and pushed on
up the Nile as far as Elephantine, Mr. Sayce prefers to brand our
good friend as a deliberate liar, forsooth, because he calls Elephan-
tine a village instead of an island, and does not wax warm enough in
praise of the wonders of Thebes! To those who have read the pages
of Herodotus as they were meant to be read, and have not used them
exclusively as material for seminary criticism, the genial simplicity of
the writer is likely to be too well known to suffer his being made an
arrant rogue on slight evidence. He loved a good story, and surely
would not let it take harm in his hands; but plain lying was not his
forte. There really exists no sufficient reason for supposing he did
not visit the places he actually says he did.
After settling at Thurii, he may on occasion have taken up again
the wander-staff; but direct evidence does not exist. It is not even
certain that he visited Athens again. His mention of the Propylaia
(Book v. , 77) refers by no means certainly to the Propylaia of Mne-
sicles, completed in 432, but more probably to the older structure on
the same site. His allusion to events in Athenian history occurring
after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431) does not necessi-
tate the hypothesis of residence in Athens. His whole attitude, on
the contrary, toward the issues and events involved in that struggle,
betrays the feeling of one observing from a distance, rather than of
an eye-witness and participant.
Pitifully little it is, therefore, that we know about the man him-
self. When after a period of relative neglect his writings sprang
again into attention in the second century B. C. , the facts of his life
had so far been forgotten- fate of a man without a country! - that
even the busy gleaning of the grammarians failed to find materials
sufficient to construct a fair biography. He lives only in his writ-
ings. Whether he wrote anything else than the nine books of history
that have come down to us under his name is not perfectly certain,
though he in two different passages promises to return to a subject
in his 'Assyrian Notes. ' Aristotle in his Animal History' cites a
remark of Herodotus that may well have had a place in such a work,
and certainly is not taken from his existing writings; but there is no
other evidence that any such book existed. The theory that he wrote
it and intended ultimately to incorporate it in his history, much as
he did the Egyptian Notes' which constitute the second book, is
rendered improbable by the evident completeness of plan characteriz-
ing the existing work.
(
The History as we have it is divided into nine books, named from
the nine Muses. This division, not mentioned by any one before Dio-
doros (who lived in the first century B. C. ), and not presupposed by
-
## p. 7288 (#78) ############################################
7288
HERODOTUS
the author himself in referring to other parts of his history, may
have been the handiwork of the Alexandrine grammarian; but was
fittingly made, and corresponds to real lines of division which must
have been present to the author's mind and purpose. In spite of the
bewildering variety of the material brought together in the single
books, and in spite of digressions and excursuses, each book will be
found to contribute its distinct and appropriate part to the plan of
the whole, and steadily to lead the subject up to its complete unfold-
ing. Reducing to lowest terms, we may summarize the subject of
each book in its relation to the whole as follows:-I. The rise of
the Persian empire through the downfall of the Lydian. II. Egypt.
III. The establishment of the Persian empire,- Cambyses, Smerdis,
Darius. IV. Persia against Scythia and against Libya. V. Advance
of the Persian power towards a conflict with Athens. VI. The self-
assertion of the Hellenic spirit in Ionia, and the quelling of the
Ionian revolt; its self-assertion in Greece, and the battle of Marathon.
VII. Xerxes's march against Greece. VIII. Salamis. IX. Platæa,
Mycale, and the failure of Persia.
The story is complete in itself. It is fashioned after a plot, and
is set forth in all the stately form of a great drama. There is intro-
duction, assembling of the elements of conflict, conflict, catastrophe,
lesson.
The tale begins with the rise of the Persian power, gather-
ing unto itself the strength of the barbarian world. It ends with
Persia's failure and discomfiture. The motif is sounded at the start.
Overweening greatness challenges the envy of the gods, and is smit-
ten with the divine wrath. Hybris meets its Nemesis. The presump-
tion of Croesus received in the first book its rebuke from the Athenian
Solon. The Persian power which rose to greatness on the ruins of
Croesus's power vaunted its pride in Xerxes's host, and received in
the last book its rebuke from the Athenian State.
The last three books stand in marked contrast as well as parallel-
ism to the first three. In the closing section of the work, Hellas is
the scene, Hellenic history is the central interest; in the first section,
barbarian history fills the foreground, and Lydia, Egypt, Mesopotamial
are the scene. In Books vii. , viii. , ix. , we have a single continuous
account, clear and definite in outline and plan; in i. , ii. , iii. , we find a
vast assemblage of various narrative, rich with the varied colorings
and dreamy fancies of the East. These stand in the world of the
known, those issue out of the misty depths of wonderland.
Between these two groups the fourth, fifth, and sixth books play a
mediating part. In geographical location they belong neither to the
civilized Orient nor to the Occident. The fourth reaches far to the
north, then far to the south. The fifth draws near to the frontier,
and deals with Thrace and Ionia. The sixth bestrides the frontier, and
## p. 7289 (#79) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7289
reaches to the shores of Attica. Chronologically they also form the
bridge between the beginning and the end. The first three books
deal with vast stretches of time, quoted not in decades or genera-
tions but in centuries. The three central books limit themselves to
the thirty years prior to the battle of Marathon, as the last three do
to the ten years subsequent thereto. The fourth book is conceived
more after the spirit of its predecessors than its successors, but yet
belongs in scene and purpose to the latter rather than the former.
As Mr. Macan has remarked, the middle books are "intermediate
and transitional in character. They present a dissolving view, or a
series-nay, a large amphitheatre-of dissolving views. " The art
which has fashioned the plan of the whole reveals itself also, on
minuter analysis, in the outline of the separate books. We cannot
be certain that this plan in all its features was outlined by the
author before beginning his work. We are rather inclined to think
that except for some crude vision of the whole, the plan grew upon
him as he wrote and arranged. His first impulse to authorship arose
from his interest in the life and customs of diverse peoples, aroused
perhaps by his uncle's interest, and conditioned and strengthened by
his early residence on the frontier of diverse civilizations, and by his
travels. A suggestion for the classification of his material was pre-
sented by the exhibition of the practical outcome of diverse attitudes
of life, in the conflict joined at Salamis between the two extremes.
The composition was doubtless the work of years. Various at-
tempts to assign certain parts to certain years of his life have proved
vain. He no doubt added from time to time here an anecdote, there
an excursus; and as he inserted and rearranged, the finer details of a
plan emerged. It is not likely that the book was given to the world
before his death; there is indeed a tradition-not all too trustworthy
-that it was published after his death by his friend the poet Plesir-
However that may be, the work was practically complete.
The last revision, which might have removed a few minor inconsist-
encies, had not been made; but as for a purpose to continue the
work so as to cover for instance the age of Pericles, or even some
shorter additional period, it is out of the question. Such work was
not to his mind, nor appropriate to the material he had collected
and which enchained his interest. The deeds of great heroes of the
past, not the political strife of the present, allured him. He was a
child of Homer. The conflict of Asia against Europe was the same
old theme of which Homer had sung. But we are not confined to
negative evidence. The fact that the plan of the work as it stands
is complete, furnishes positive assurance. The closing incident of
the ninth book naturally concludes the story. The hybris of Xerxes
has met its defeat. The expedition to Sestos gave the evidence that
Xerxes's bridge was broken through and Europe rid of the intruder.
## p. 7290 (#80) ############################################
7290
HERODOTUS
The closing words of the last book form an ideal conclusion to the
work. They represent the older policy of the Persians when under
the guidance of Cyrus:-"So the Persians, seeing their error, yielded
to the opinion of Cyrus; for they chose rather to live in a barren
land and rule, than to sow the plain and be the slaves of others. ”
Thus Solon's rebuke of hybris at the beginning of the work is echoed
from the lips of the great Persian at the end.
Herodotus is by no means a trained scientific observer. He sees
with the natural eye. His crocodiles and hippopotamuses are some-
what awry, but he tells what children would like to hear about them.
What is now the every-day cat was then among the marvels of
wonder-land. His contributions to piscatology are not masterly, and
his faith in what is told him concerning the habits of animals he has
not seen is beautifully free from scientific doubt. The description of
Babylon is not that of a Baedeker, but constitutes no evidence that
he had failed to visit it. In regard to geography he thought himself
well in advance of his day, and smiled disdainful smiles at those who
make the earth circular, as if turned out on a lathe. " His remarks
concerning language show that he was innocent of all knowledge of
foreign tongues, and that his capacity for observation was slight.
Thus he presents, as an argument for the connection of the Colchians
and the Egyptians, their similarity of language!
When he is describing the customs of strange peoples he is always
entertaining, and usually instructive. Here his gift as a story-teller
stands him in good stead. When he opens his mouth to tell us a
story, then he is at his best. The ring of Polycrates, the contest for
Thyrea, the boyhood of Cyrus, King Rhampsinitos and his money,
are samples of his tales pitched in every key,- the marvelous, the
genuine, the spirited, the grimly humorous. His descriptions of battles
are full of movement and interest; not precise and strategically clear,
but gossipy and active, and above all things interesting. They were
composed to be heard, and not to be studied out with a map. No
better illustration could be cited than the magnificent story of Sala-
mis. The failure of scholars to agree regarding the plan of this
battle has been in some measure due to their unwillingness to listen
to Herodotus as a naïve story-teller rather than as a naval expert.
There is no general canon by which the credibility of his material
can be tested. Each statement must be weighed by itself. What he
heard, or what he understood, and what he saw or thought he saw,
he reported-so far as it interested him. If he heard two accounts
of an occurrence, he sometimes gave them both and left the reader
to choose. Sometimes he expresses a mild doubt, but generally he
reports the current stories in a delightful miscellany of folk-lore and
history. He does not hesitate on occasion to admit his ignorance,
and carefully distinguishes his inferences from his facts. Neither
## p. 7291 (#81) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7291
infallibility nor dogmatism is his besetting sin. He could not speak
the languages of the foreign countries in which he traveled, and was
therefore often at the mercy of the local dragomans. The statement
concerning the inscription on the great Pyramid, which expressed
the greatness of the work in terms of the onions and garlic con-
sumed by the workmen, savors strongly of dragoman philology. So
soon as he passes the Greek language frontier we mark the effect
upon his material. Books he used relatively little as sources. Heca-
taios is the only logographer he cites. His materials were chiefly
obtained from oral testimony and observation.
Strikingly characteristic of Herodotus is his religious conviction.
History with him was all Providence. The gods rule in the affairs
of men; they declare their will to them in signs and through oracles;
the great events of history and the experiences of individual lives
admit of explanation in terms of Divine purpose. This attitude of
simple faith conditions throughout both the collection of materials
and their use. If we have found in him history still undifferentiated
from folk-lore, quite as much do we find it undifferentiated from
theology. His work is folk-lore, history, theology, and epic all in
one; but history is pushing to the fore. Rich as it is in the materi-
als of history, it cannot be history for the people of to-day. It is
better than that, for it is a picture of what history was to people
then.
Benj. Ide Wheeler.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. -Since the Aldine Editio Princeps (1502),
Herodotus has had many editors. The most helpful recent editions
are those of Stein, one with critical apparatus, another with German
notes. There is a fair annotated edition by Blakesley in the 'Biblio-
theca Classica. ' Much better is the masterly translation into English
by Rawlinson, with copious notes and special essays, in four octavo
volumes, first published in London in 1858. An American reprint
from Rawlinson in two volumes, with abridgment of the expository
material and slight revision of the text, is just announced. There is
also a good translation by G. C. Macaulay (1890). All the citations
which follow are drawn from Rawlinson's original edition, which is
one of the noblest monuments of English classical scholarship.
The best recent English work on Herodotus will be found in the
introduction and appendices of R. W. Macan's 'Herodotus, iv. , v. , vi. '
(London, Macmillan: 1892). An extremely readable French book is
'Hérodote, Historien des Guerres Médiques,' by Amedée Hauvette
(Paris, Hachette: 1894).
B. I. W.
## p. 7292 (#82) ############################################
7292
HERODOTUS
THE KING AND THE PHILOSOPHER
HEN all these conquests had been added to the Lydian
W and the prosperity of Sardis was now at its
empire,
height, there came thither, one after another, all the
sages of Greece living at the time; and among them Solon the
Athenian. He was
on his travels, having left Athens to be
absent ten years, under the pretense of wishing to see the world,
but really to avoid being forced to repeal any of the laws which
at the request of the Athenians he had made for them. Without
his sanction the Athenians could not repeal them, as they had
bound themselves under a heavy curse to be governed for ten
years by the laws which should be imposed on them by Solon.
On this account, as well as to see the world, Solon set out
upon his travels, in the course of which he went to Egypt to the
court of Amasis, and also came on a visit to Croesus at Sardis.
Croesus received him as his guest, and lodged him in the royal
palace. On the third or fourth day after, he bade his servants
conduct Solon over his treasuries and show him all their great-
ness and magnificence. When he had seen them all, and so far
as time allowed inspected them, Croesus addressed this question to
him: "Stranger of Athens, we have heard much of thy wisdom.
and of thy travels through many lands, from love of knowledge
and a wish to see the world. I am curious therefore to inquire
of thee, whom of all the men that thou hast seen thou deemest
the most happy? " This he asked because he thought himself
the happiest of mortals; but Solon answered him without flat-
tery, according to his true sentiments, "Tellus of Athens, sire. "
Full of astonishment at what he had heard, Croesus demanded
sharply, "And wherefore dost thou deem Tellus happiest ? "
To which the other replied: "First, because his country was
flourishing in his days, and he himself had sons both beautiful
and good, and he lived to see children born to each of them,
and these children all grew up; and further, because after a life
spent in what our people look upon as comfort, his end was.
surpassingly glorious. In a battle between the Athenians and
their neighbors near Eleusis, he came to the assistance of his
countrymen, routed the foe, and died upon the field most gal-
lantly. The Athenians gave him a public funeral on the spot
where he fell, and paid him the highest honors. "
## p. 7293 (#83) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7293
Thus did Solon admonish Croesus by the example of Tellus,
enumerating the manifold particulars of his happiness. When
he had ended, Croesus inquired a second time, who after Tellus.
seemed to him the happiest; expecting that at any rate he would
be given the second place. "Cleobis and Bito," Solon answered:
"they were of Argive race; their fortune was enough for their
wants, and they were besides endowed with so much bodily
strength that they had both gained prizes at the games. Also,
this tale is told of them: There was a great festival in honor of
the goddess Juno at Argos, to which their mother must needs
be taken in a car. Now, the oxen did not come home from the
field in time; so the youths, fearful of being too late, put the
yoke on their own necks, and themselves drew the car in which
their mother rode. Five-and-forty furlongs did they draw her,
and stopped before the temple. This deed of theirs was witnessed
by the whole assembly of worshipers, and then their life closed
in the best possible way. Herein, too, God showed forth most
evidently how much better a thing for man death is than life.
For the Argive men stood thick around the car and extolled
the vast strength of the youths; and the Argive women extolled
the mother who was blessed with such a pair of sons; and the
mother herself, overjoyed at the deed and at the praises it had
won, standing straight before the image, besought the goddess to
bestow on Cleobis and Bito, the sons who had so mightily hon-
ored her, the highest blessing to which mortals can attain. Her
prayer ended, they offered sacrifice and partook of the holy ban-
quet, after which the two youths fell asleep in the temple. They
never woke more, but so passed from the earth. The Argives,
looking on them as among the best of men, caused statues of
them to be made, which they gave to the shrine at Delphi. "
When Solon had thus assigned these youths the second place,
Croesus broke in angrily, "What, stranger of Athens! is my hap-
piness then so utterly set at naught by thee, that thou dost not
even put me on a level with private men? "
"O Crœsus," replied the other, "thou askedst a question con-
cerning the condition of man, of one who knows that the Power
above us is full of jealousy, and fond of troubling our lot. A
long life gives one to witness much, and experience much one-
self, that one would not choose. Seventy years I regard as the
limit of the life of man. In these seventy years are contained,
without reckoning intercalary months, twenty-five thousand and
two hundred days. Add an intercalary month to every other
## p. 7294 (#84) ############################################
7294
HERODOTUS
year, that the seasons may come round at the right time, and
there will be, besides the seventy years, thirty-five such months,
making an addition of one thousand and fifty days. The whole
number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be
twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but
will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly acci-
dent. For thyself, O Croesus, I see that thou art wonderfully
rich, and art the lord of many nations; but with respect to that
whereon thou questionest me, I have no answer to give, until I
hear that thou hast closed thy life happily. For assuredly, he
who possesses great store of riches is no nearer happiness than
he who has what suffices for his daily needs, unless it so hap
that luck attend upon him, and so he continue in the enjoyment
of all his good things to the end of life. For many of the
wealthiest men have been unfavored of fortune, and many whose
means were moderate have had excellent luck. Men of the for-
mer class excel those of the latter but in two respects; these last
excel the former in many. The wealthy man is better able to
content his desires, and to bear up against a sudden buffet of
calamity. The other has less ability to withstand these evils
(from which however his good luck keeps him clear), but he
enjoys all these following blessings: he is whole of limb, a stran-
ger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children, and
comely to look upon. If in addition to all this he ends his life
well, he is of a truth the man of whom thou art in search, the
man who may rightly be termed happy. Call him, however,
until he die, not happy but fortunate. Scarcely indeed can any
man unite all these advantages: as there is no country which con-
tains within it all that it needs, but each while it possesses some
things lacks others, and the best country is that which contains
the most, so no single human being is complete in every respect
-something is always lacking. He who unites the greatest num-
ber of advantages, and retaining them to the day of his death,
then dies peaceably,- that man alone, sire, is in my judgment
entitled to bear the name of 'happy. ' But in every matter it
behoves us to mark well the end; for oftentimes God gives men
a gleam of happiness, and then plunges them into ruin. ”
Such was the speech which Solon addressed to Croesus, a
speech which brought him neither largess nor honor. The King
saw him depart with much indifference, since he thought that
a man must be an arrant fool who made no account of present
good, but bade men always wait and mark the end.
## p. 7295 (#85) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7295
A TYRANT'S FORTUNE
THE
HE exceeding good fortune of Polycrates did not escape the
notice of Amasis, who was much disturbed thereat. When
therefore his success continued increasing, Amasis wrote
him the following letter, and sent it to Samos:-"Amasis to
Polycrates thus sayeth: It is a pleasure to hear of a friend and
ally prospering, but thy exceeding prosperity does not cause me
joy, forasmuch as I know that the gods are envious. My wish
for myself, and for those whom I love, is to be now successful
and now to meet with a check, thus passing through life amid
alternate good and ill, rather than with perpetual good fortune.
For never yet did I hear tell of any one succeeding in all his
undertakings who did not meet with calamity at last, and come
to utter ruin. Now therefore give ear to my words, and meet
thy good luck in this way: bethink thee which of all thy treas-
ures thou valuest most and canst least bear to part with; take
it, whatsoever it be, and throw it away, so that it may be sure
never to come any more into the sight of man. Then, if thy
good fortune be not thenceforth checkered with ill, save thyself
from harm by again doing as I have counseled. "
When Polycrates read this letter, and perceived that the advice
of Amasis was good, he considered carefully with himself which
of the treasures that he had in store it would grieve him most to
lose. After much thought he made up his mind that it was a
signet ring which he was wont to wear, an emerald set in gold,
the workmanship of Theodore son of Telecles, a Samian. So he
determined to throw this away; and manning a penteconter, he
went on board, and bade the sailors put out into the open sea.
When he was now a long way from the island he took the ring
from his finger, and in the sight of all those who were on board,
flung it into the deep. This done, he returned home, and gave
vent to his sorrow.
Now it happened five or six days afterwards that a fisher-
man caught a fish so large and beautiful that he thought it well
deserved to be made a present of to the King. So he took it
with him to the gate of the palace, and said that he wanted to
see Polycrates. Then Polycrates allowed him to come in, and
the fisherman gave him the fish with these words following: "Sir
King, when I took this prize I thought I would not carry it to
market, though I am a poor man who live by my trade.
## p. 7296 (#86) ############################################
7296
HERODOTUS
to myself, It is worthy of Polycrates and his greatness; and so
I brought it here to give it to you. " The speech pleased the
King, who thus spoke in reply: "Thou didst right well, friend,
and I am doubly indebted, both for the gift and for the speech.
Come now and sup with me. "
So the fisherman went home, esteeming it a high honor that
he had been asked to sup with the King. Meanwhile the serv-
ants, on cutting open the fish, found the signet of their master
in its belly. No sooner did they see it than they seized upon it,
and hastening to Polycrates with great joy, restored it to him,
and told him in what way it had been found. The King, who
saw something Providential in the matter, forthwith wrote a
letter to Amasis, telling him all that had happened, what he
had himself done, and what had been the upshot; and dispatched
the letter to Egypt.
When Amasis had read the letter of Polycrates, he perceived
that it does not belong to man to save his fellow-man from
the fate which is in store for him; likewise he felt certain that
Polycrates would end ill, as he prospered in everything, even
finding what he had thrown away. So he sent a herald to Samos,
and dissolved the contract of friendship. This he did, that when
the great and heavy misfortune came, he might escape the grief
which he would have felt if the sufferer had been his bond-friend.
CURIOUS SCYTHIAN CUSTOMS
WHAT
concerns war, their customs are the following: The
Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man he over-
throws in battle. Whatever number he slays, he cuts off all
their heads and carries them to the king; since he is thus en-
titled to a share of the booty, whereto he forfeits all claim if he
does not produce a head. In order to strip the skull of its cov-
ering, he makes a cut round the head above the ears, and laying
hold of the scalp, shakes the skull out; then with the rib of an
ox he scrapes the scalp clean of flesh, and softening it by rubbing
between the hands, uses it thenceforth as a napkin. The Scyth
is proud of these scalps, and hangs them from his bridle rein; the
greater the number of such napkins that a man can show, the
more highly is he esteemed among them. Many make themselves
cloaks, like the capotes of our peasants, by sewing a quantity of
## p. 7297 (#87) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7297
these scalps together. Others flay the right arms of their dead
enemies, and make of the skin, which is stripped off with the
nails hanging to it, a covering for their quivers. Now the skin
of a man is thick and glossy, and would in whiteness surpass
almost all other hides.
including 'Hercules and the Centaurs,' 'Artemis and the Nymphs,'
and 'Perseus and Andromeda. ' The series that follows is called
'Rome and the Barbarians,' including the sonnets suggested by Catul-
lus in the group 'Hortorum Deus. ' Then come The Middle Age and
the Renaissance,' 'The Orient and the Tropics,' and 'Les Conqué-
rants. ' 'The Conquerors of Gold' and 'Romancero' are not in the
sonnet form. Some of the most exquisite sonnets written in France
are to be found in 'Les Trophées. ' It was no surprise to the readers
of Hérédia when he was elected to the Academy,-which, although
Daudet may parody it and outsiders revile it, cares more for quality
than quantity. But to most of the English-speaking world it was
a matter of amazement. The London critics, anxious to celebrate the
new Academician, were at first in doubt as to who he was. They
were equally amazed to find that this slim book, 'Les Trophées,'
had gone through at least ten editions; but since his election Hérédia
is better known, and his poems are appreciated by those who love
to see human knowledge and human feeling preserved like roses
in a block of imperishable crystal, carved in a thousand forms of
beauty.
Hérédia's impression of the sonnet is somewhat different from
the Italian, but not less difficult. In form it is Petrarcan as to the
octave, and it has no affinity with that English sonnet which closes
with the snappy couplet. The Italian sonnet is a syllogism, more or
less carefully concealed in a mist of sentiment. The French form,
while it holds to the quatrain followed by the two tercets, demands
a veiled climax in the second tercet. It must have a certain element
## p. 7279 (#65) ############################################
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
7279
of surprise. The tercet adds a glow to the stately quatrain. In Ital-
ian, the sextet draws the conclusion or applies the principle suggested
by the quatrain. Henri Taine loved the music of Hérédia, who has
the Miltonic quality of so mingling sonorous proper names in his
sonnets that they make the chords to the lighter treble of the more
melodious phrases of his music. This is evident in 'Epiphany,' where
the names of the Magi are used both in the first line of the quatrain
and the last of the sextet.
"C'est ainsi qu'autrefois, sous Augustus Cæsar,
Sont venus, presentant l'or, l'encens et la myrrhe,
Les Rois Mages Gaspar, Melchior et Balthazar. »
(In other days under Augustus Cæsar
Came, presenting gold, incense, and myrrh,
The magi Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. )
His management of the climax. which must, in the French form,
have an element of surprise, yet not be abrupt is admirable. The
sonnet to Rossi is a good example of this. Here, having dwelt in
the quatrains on the physical aspect of Rossi as Hamlet, Othello, and
Macbeth, he turns in the sextet to the spiritual effect of the actor's
recitation of parts of the 'Inferno,' and cries out that, trembling to
the depth of his soul, he has seen
"Alighieri, living, chant of hell. »
Hérédia varies the sextet by rhyming the first two lines, the third
and the fifth and the fourth and the sixth; and sometimes the third
with the sixth, couplets intervening. In the translation of the sonnet
'On an Antique Medal,' the Petrarcan sextet has been used. In the
'Setting Sun' one of Hérédia's forms has been followed. The other
sonnets, too, are of the mold of the originals.
manne Francis Eggan
-
-
## p. 7280 (#66) ############################################
7280
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
THE CONQUERORS
F
ALCONS fierce they are from charnel nest,
Weary of flight and burdens of their woe;
From Palos of Moguer they spell-bound go,
Heroic dreams and coarse their minds invest.
Far in deep mines the precious gold-veins rest
Waiting for them; and as the trade-winds blow
Filling their sails, they drive them all too slow
To that mysterious shore,-world of the West.
The phosphorescent blue of tropic seas
Colored their dreams when in the languid breeze
They slept each eve in hope of morrows bright,—
Of epic morrows; or in unknown skies,
Leaning entranced, they saw from carvels white
From out the ocean, strange new stars arise.
THE SAMURAI
"It was a man with two swords »
HE bîva in her hand claims thought no more;
THE
Some sounds she thrums, as through the lattice
light
Of twist' bamboo, she sees, where all is bright
On the flat plain, her love and conqueror.
Swords at his sides comes he,- her eyes adore,—
His fan held high, red girdle: splendid sight!
Deep scarlet on dark armor; and unite
Great blazons on his shoulder, feared in war.
Like huge crustacean, shining black and red,
Lacquer and silk and bronze from feet to head,
Plated and brilliant is this loved one.
He sees her, smiles beneath his bearded masque;
And as he hastens, glitter in the sun
The gold antennæ trembling on his casque.
## p. 7281 (#67) ############################################
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
7281
ON PIERRE RONSARD'S BOOK OF LOVE
IN
N BOURGUEIL'S pleasaunce many a lover's hand
Wrote many a name in letters big and bold
On bark of shady tree; beneath the gold
Of Louvre's ceiling, love by smiles was fanned.
What matters it? Gone all the maddened band!
Four planks of wood their bodies did enfold;
None now disputes their love, or longs to hold
Their dried-up dust,- part of the grassy land.
All dead. Marie, Hélène, Cassandra proud,
Your bodies would be nothing in their shroud,—
Lilies and roses were not made to last,-
If Ronsard, on the yellow Loire or Seine,
Had not upon your brows his garlands cast
Of myrtle and of laurel not in vain.
ON AN ANTIQUE MEDAL
THE
HE wine which gave the antique ecstasy
To great Theocritus, in purple gold
Still ripens on Mount Etna;
The gracious girls he sang in Sicily!
Greek Arethusa, slave or mistress free,
- none can hold
SUNSET
-
Lost the pure profile of ancestral mold,
Mixed in her veins of Angevin, proud and bold,
And Saracenic, burning furiously.
Time goes; all dies; marble itself decays;
A shadow Agrigentum! Syracuse
Sleeps, still in death, beneath her kind sky's shades; -
But the hard metal guards through all the days-
Silver grown docile unto love's own use
The immortal beauty of Sicilian maids.
THE
HE sunlit brush light to the dark rock lends,
And gilds the summit of the mountain dome
Where sets the sun; beyond - a bar of foam
The endless sea begins where the earth ends:
XIII-456
## p. 7282 (#68) ############################################
7282
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
Beneath me, night and silence; tired man wends
To where the smoking chimney marks his home.
The Angelus, deadened by the mists that roam,
In the vast murmur of the ocean blends.
As from the depth of an abyss, the sound
Of far-off voices in the space around
Comes from belated herdsmen with their clan.
The western sky is clothed in shadows gray;
The sun on rich dark clouds sinks slow away
And shuts the gold sticks of his crimson fan.
TO THE TRAGEDIAN ROSSI
TRAIL
RAILING thy mantle black, I've seen thee break,
O Rossi, weak Ophelia's saddened heart,
And, as the love-mad Moorish tiger, start
Strangling the sobs thy victim could not wake;
I Lear, Macbeth have seen, and seen thee take
The last cold kiss in love's supremest part
Of older Italy; -high flights of art! -
Yet greater triumphs have I seen thee make:
For I did taste of joy and woe sublime
When I did hear thee speak the triple rhyme,-
In voice of gold you rang its iron knell;
And red, in reflex of the infernal fire,
My very soul moved by deep horror dire
Saw Alighieri, living, chant of hell!
MICHELANGELO
YES,
ES, he was darkly haunted, we may say,
When in the Sixtine, far from festal Rome,
Alone he painted wall or floating dome
With sibyls, prophets, and the Judgment Day.
He heard within him, weeping hard alway,
The Titan he would chain 'bove eagles' home,-
Love, country, glory and defeat,-like foam
In face of conquering death; his marble-falsest clay!
As well those heavy giants languid with strength,
Those slaves imprisoned in a stone vein's length,
As if he twisted them in their strange birth;
## p. 7283 (#69) ############################################
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
7283
And in the marble cold had thrust his soul,
Making a fearful shiver through it roll,—
The anger of a god down-borne by earth.
AFTER PETRARCH
L
EAVING the church, with gesture tender, sweet,
Your noble hands throw gold unto the poor;
Your beauty brightens all the porch obscure,
And fills with Heaven's gold the dazzled street.
Saluting you, I humbly at your feet
Throw down my heart: yet you so proud and pure
Turn quick away; your veil you fast secure
In anger o'er your eyes, mine not to meet!
But love, which conquers hearts that most rebel,
Will not permit me in the gloom to dwell,—
The source of light to me refusing day;
You were so slow to draw the graceful shade
Of tremulous eyelash, which deep shadows made
That from the darkness shot a star's long ray.
EPITAPH
After the Verses of Henri III.
ERE sleeps, O passer, Hyacinth the Lord
Of Maugiron, dead, gone, at rest:
May God absolve and keep him near his breast;
Fallen to earth, he lies in holy sward.
None-even Quélus-wore the pearly cord,
Η
The plumèd cap, or ruff more meetly prest;
Behold by a new Myron well exprest
A spray of hyacinth in marble scored.
And having kissed him and most tenderly
Placed him in coffin, Henry willed that he
At Saint-Germain be laid;- fair, wan, he lies.
And wishing that such grief should never die,
He made in church, all changes to defy,
This sweet, sad symbol of Apollo's sighs.
-
## p. 7284 (#70) ############################################
7284
JOSÉ-MARIA DE HÉRÉDIA
"TIS NOON; THE LIGHT IS FIERCE »
'T¹5
Is noon; the light is fierce; the air is fire;
The ancient river rolls its waves of lead;
Direct from Heaven day falls overhead,—
Phra covers Egypt in relentless ire.
The eyes of the great sphinx that never tire-
The sphinx that bathes in dust of golden-red-
Follow with mystic looks the unmeasurèd
And needle-pointed pyramidal spire.
A darkened spot is on the sky of white,-
An endless flight of circling vulture wings;
A flame immense makes drowsy all earth's things.
The ardent soil is sparkling; full in sight
A brass Anubis, silent, still, and stark,
Turns to the sun its never-ending bark.
All the above translations are by Maurice Francis Egan, for 'A Library of the
World's Best Literature ›
## p. 7284 (#71) ############################################
## p. 7284 (#72) ############################################
YYYY
W
HERODOTUS.
20
## p. 7284 (#73) ############################################
7. 85
T
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f the "thor of a', tory,” The aft ཙཱུ ' story de 15. first
d in the ace of epic poetry, pased into the hangs
hets of the sixth ad with cent es, to whom must
the plan. cly a and rather starting discov ry that
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tre's of plebeian proe, Herein both the historical prose
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Athriselt in to the logogr phers, art locked back
ther to I'mer as the head of his spild. In entitling his
*sed the word hi toria in the sense of story-teing, "tathi
Chvat r of s comp siten loto signe once es bi tory.
to de tie
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its 10 we portrayal of a great historical pro ru 11g, 80
plot. The proccd. gwch h chose as his
: s proved to be one of pre itoportan e n the total pistory
les cydiza lor. It was the confiet betyren Grecoɛ a… 2 P 1.
father of history," fi: tawar I bi
w it w
1:1
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of the 7th century B (--a great crisis and
ng history of that strange between Orientalis:n
which ever since bun. nr cord began, as been
progress by the shores of the Egean The
Ins therefore, wh the Eastern Question
is. "
meta y
!
HERODOTUS
600 ? 425 ? B. C. ,
BY BENJAMIN IDE WAFFLEP
7
T
६८
outs's par",
born in 1 ad
me was such as to sugest to him his then e
aruussus, a Doze city on the sontlig torn e ast
abort 450 B. C. , and died, probably at Tour in italy,
tau bet ve 428 and 426. It's life covers thas the pered
1. .
s. 11 wars to the Peloponnesian War, ard is ero *. -
period of Athers's bloom. He was born, vi 15
## p. 7284 (#74) ############################################
HEROLOT!
* J
## p. 7285 (#75) ############################################
7285
HERODOTUS
(490-426? B. C. )
BY BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER
HIS most delightful story-teller bears, strange to say, the title
of the "father of history. " The art of story-telling, first
fashioned in the usage of epic poetry, passed into the hands
of the logographers of the sixth and fifth centuries, to whom must
be accredited the relatively late and rather startling discovery that
prose could be a medium of literature. Of their works we have little
or nothing. The borderlands of the Orient, rich in materials of fam-
ily and city tradition, of mythology, genealogy, theogony, of diverse
national usage and custom, furnished them the natural stimulus to
their work. The material had outgrown the staid restraint of the
genteel epic, and bursting the traditional dikes, it spread itself abroad
in great levels of plebeian prose. Herein both the historical prose
style and the philosophical found their source.
Herodotus stood on the border-line between logography and his-
tory. He felt himself akin to the logographers, and looked back
through them to Homer as the head of his guild. In entitling his
work, he used the word historia in the sense of story-telling; but lifted
it by the character of his composition into its significance as history.
His claim to the title "father of history," first awarded him by Cicero,
rests primarily upon the fact that he was the first to shape a collec-
tion of stories into the portrayal of a great historical proceeding, so
as to endow it with a plot. The proceeding which he chose as his
subject has proved to be one of prime importance in the total history
of human civilization. It was the conflict between Greece and Per-
sia in the beginning of the fifth century B. C. ,—a great crisis and
turning-point in the long history of that struggle between Orientalism
and Occidentalism, which, ever since human record began, has been
almost perpetually in progress by the shores of the Ægean.
writing of history begins, therefore, with the Eastern Question.
The
Herodotus's early home was such as to suggest to him his theme.
He was born in Halicarnassus, a Doric city on the southwestern coast
of Asia Minor, about 490 B. C. , and died, probably at Thurii in Italy,
at some time between 428 and 426. His life covers thus the period
from the Persian wars to the Peloponnesian War, and is commen-
surate with the period of Athens's bloom. He was born, if we may
## p. 7286 (#76) ############################################
7286
HERODOTUS
trust Suidas's evidence, of a highly respectable Halicarnassian family;
and among his near relatives, probably his uncle, was Panyasis,—
a collector of myths and folk-lore, and an epic poet of considerable
distinction, whose influence in determining his younger kinsman's
tastes may well have been decisive. A revolution in the government
of the city, probably of the year 468, occasioned the death of Panyasis
and the exile of Herodotus. It is significant for the later attitude of
Herodotus, as shown in his writings, that in this affair he sided with
the democracy. After an exile of several years, part of which at
least he is said to have spent in Samos, he returned to his native
city, where later-at some time prior to 454-he participated in the
overthrowing of the tyrant Lygdamis. Continued political disturb-
ances caused him finally to withdraw permanently from the city. The
Jealousy of the mob, which had now joined itself to the hatred of the
aristocracy, had made his longer stay impossible.
From this time until 443, when he joined in founding the Athenian
colony of Thurii in Italy, he was a homeless, cityless wanderer on
the face of the earth. Athens, ever hospitable to strangers, afforded
him the nearest approach to a home, and here he naturally made his
abode at the end of his successive voyages. There is no good reason
for rejecting the information that in the year 445 he gave a public
reading of some portion of his history, and received therefor a vote
of thanks from the Athenian Council and a reward of ten talents.
The greater part of his travels was accomplished before this date;
for two years later, in search of a home and rest,—and probably too
of the leisure to complete his work,- he withdrew to Thurii. The
most probable order of his travels is that which takes him first along
the coasts of Asia Minor to the northern islands, Thrace, the Sea of
Marmora, Byzantium, and the coasts of the Black Sea; then at some
time after 445 brings him to the south, along the southern shores
of Asia Minor to Cyprus and the Syrian coast, and into the interior
through Syria and Mesopotamia to Babylon. Egypt he visited almost
certainly after 449, and Kyrene in northern Africa may well have
come next in order. The exploration of Greece proper,-where he
visited Dodona, Zakynthos, Delphi, Thebes, Platæa, Thermopylæ, and
various places in the Peloponnesus, including Corinth, Tegea, Sparta,
and probably Olympia,- belongs in the last years before his depart-
ure for Thurii.
There are not lacking those who, on the basis of inaccuracies in
our author's reports, deny that his itinerary ever took him far from
the coast line of the Egean and eastern Mediterranean. Thus Pro-
fessor Sayce, in his Introduction to Books i. -iii. , limits Herodotus's
travels to coasting trips along the shores of Thrace from Athos to
Byzantium, to Palestine and Syria, among the islands of the Ægean,
## p. 7287 (#77) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7287
with visits to Lower Egypt and certain sites in Greece. Though
Herodotus distinctly says he visited Egyptian Thebes, and pushed on
up the Nile as far as Elephantine, Mr. Sayce prefers to brand our
good friend as a deliberate liar, forsooth, because he calls Elephan-
tine a village instead of an island, and does not wax warm enough in
praise of the wonders of Thebes! To those who have read the pages
of Herodotus as they were meant to be read, and have not used them
exclusively as material for seminary criticism, the genial simplicity of
the writer is likely to be too well known to suffer his being made an
arrant rogue on slight evidence. He loved a good story, and surely
would not let it take harm in his hands; but plain lying was not his
forte. There really exists no sufficient reason for supposing he did
not visit the places he actually says he did.
After settling at Thurii, he may on occasion have taken up again
the wander-staff; but direct evidence does not exist. It is not even
certain that he visited Athens again. His mention of the Propylaia
(Book v. , 77) refers by no means certainly to the Propylaia of Mne-
sicles, completed in 432, but more probably to the older structure on
the same site. His allusion to events in Athenian history occurring
after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431) does not necessi-
tate the hypothesis of residence in Athens. His whole attitude, on
the contrary, toward the issues and events involved in that struggle,
betrays the feeling of one observing from a distance, rather than of
an eye-witness and participant.
Pitifully little it is, therefore, that we know about the man him-
self. When after a period of relative neglect his writings sprang
again into attention in the second century B. C. , the facts of his life
had so far been forgotten- fate of a man without a country! - that
even the busy gleaning of the grammarians failed to find materials
sufficient to construct a fair biography. He lives only in his writ-
ings. Whether he wrote anything else than the nine books of history
that have come down to us under his name is not perfectly certain,
though he in two different passages promises to return to a subject
in his 'Assyrian Notes. ' Aristotle in his Animal History' cites a
remark of Herodotus that may well have had a place in such a work,
and certainly is not taken from his existing writings; but there is no
other evidence that any such book existed. The theory that he wrote
it and intended ultimately to incorporate it in his history, much as
he did the Egyptian Notes' which constitute the second book, is
rendered improbable by the evident completeness of plan characteriz-
ing the existing work.
(
The History as we have it is divided into nine books, named from
the nine Muses. This division, not mentioned by any one before Dio-
doros (who lived in the first century B. C. ), and not presupposed by
-
## p. 7288 (#78) ############################################
7288
HERODOTUS
the author himself in referring to other parts of his history, may
have been the handiwork of the Alexandrine grammarian; but was
fittingly made, and corresponds to real lines of division which must
have been present to the author's mind and purpose. In spite of the
bewildering variety of the material brought together in the single
books, and in spite of digressions and excursuses, each book will be
found to contribute its distinct and appropriate part to the plan of
the whole, and steadily to lead the subject up to its complete unfold-
ing. Reducing to lowest terms, we may summarize the subject of
each book in its relation to the whole as follows:-I. The rise of
the Persian empire through the downfall of the Lydian. II. Egypt.
III. The establishment of the Persian empire,- Cambyses, Smerdis,
Darius. IV. Persia against Scythia and against Libya. V. Advance
of the Persian power towards a conflict with Athens. VI. The self-
assertion of the Hellenic spirit in Ionia, and the quelling of the
Ionian revolt; its self-assertion in Greece, and the battle of Marathon.
VII. Xerxes's march against Greece. VIII. Salamis. IX. Platæa,
Mycale, and the failure of Persia.
The story is complete in itself. It is fashioned after a plot, and
is set forth in all the stately form of a great drama. There is intro-
duction, assembling of the elements of conflict, conflict, catastrophe,
lesson.
The tale begins with the rise of the Persian power, gather-
ing unto itself the strength of the barbarian world. It ends with
Persia's failure and discomfiture. The motif is sounded at the start.
Overweening greatness challenges the envy of the gods, and is smit-
ten with the divine wrath. Hybris meets its Nemesis. The presump-
tion of Croesus received in the first book its rebuke from the Athenian
Solon. The Persian power which rose to greatness on the ruins of
Croesus's power vaunted its pride in Xerxes's host, and received in
the last book its rebuke from the Athenian State.
The last three books stand in marked contrast as well as parallel-
ism to the first three. In the closing section of the work, Hellas is
the scene, Hellenic history is the central interest; in the first section,
barbarian history fills the foreground, and Lydia, Egypt, Mesopotamial
are the scene. In Books vii. , viii. , ix. , we have a single continuous
account, clear and definite in outline and plan; in i. , ii. , iii. , we find a
vast assemblage of various narrative, rich with the varied colorings
and dreamy fancies of the East. These stand in the world of the
known, those issue out of the misty depths of wonderland.
Between these two groups the fourth, fifth, and sixth books play a
mediating part. In geographical location they belong neither to the
civilized Orient nor to the Occident. The fourth reaches far to the
north, then far to the south. The fifth draws near to the frontier,
and deals with Thrace and Ionia. The sixth bestrides the frontier, and
## p. 7289 (#79) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7289
reaches to the shores of Attica. Chronologically they also form the
bridge between the beginning and the end. The first three books
deal with vast stretches of time, quoted not in decades or genera-
tions but in centuries. The three central books limit themselves to
the thirty years prior to the battle of Marathon, as the last three do
to the ten years subsequent thereto. The fourth book is conceived
more after the spirit of its predecessors than its successors, but yet
belongs in scene and purpose to the latter rather than the former.
As Mr. Macan has remarked, the middle books are "intermediate
and transitional in character. They present a dissolving view, or a
series-nay, a large amphitheatre-of dissolving views. " The art
which has fashioned the plan of the whole reveals itself also, on
minuter analysis, in the outline of the separate books. We cannot
be certain that this plan in all its features was outlined by the
author before beginning his work. We are rather inclined to think
that except for some crude vision of the whole, the plan grew upon
him as he wrote and arranged. His first impulse to authorship arose
from his interest in the life and customs of diverse peoples, aroused
perhaps by his uncle's interest, and conditioned and strengthened by
his early residence on the frontier of diverse civilizations, and by his
travels. A suggestion for the classification of his material was pre-
sented by the exhibition of the practical outcome of diverse attitudes
of life, in the conflict joined at Salamis between the two extremes.
The composition was doubtless the work of years. Various at-
tempts to assign certain parts to certain years of his life have proved
vain. He no doubt added from time to time here an anecdote, there
an excursus; and as he inserted and rearranged, the finer details of a
plan emerged. It is not likely that the book was given to the world
before his death; there is indeed a tradition-not all too trustworthy
-that it was published after his death by his friend the poet Plesir-
However that may be, the work was practically complete.
The last revision, which might have removed a few minor inconsist-
encies, had not been made; but as for a purpose to continue the
work so as to cover for instance the age of Pericles, or even some
shorter additional period, it is out of the question. Such work was
not to his mind, nor appropriate to the material he had collected
and which enchained his interest. The deeds of great heroes of the
past, not the political strife of the present, allured him. He was a
child of Homer. The conflict of Asia against Europe was the same
old theme of which Homer had sung. But we are not confined to
negative evidence. The fact that the plan of the work as it stands
is complete, furnishes positive assurance. The closing incident of
the ninth book naturally concludes the story. The hybris of Xerxes
has met its defeat. The expedition to Sestos gave the evidence that
Xerxes's bridge was broken through and Europe rid of the intruder.
## p. 7290 (#80) ############################################
7290
HERODOTUS
The closing words of the last book form an ideal conclusion to the
work. They represent the older policy of the Persians when under
the guidance of Cyrus:-"So the Persians, seeing their error, yielded
to the opinion of Cyrus; for they chose rather to live in a barren
land and rule, than to sow the plain and be the slaves of others. ”
Thus Solon's rebuke of hybris at the beginning of the work is echoed
from the lips of the great Persian at the end.
Herodotus is by no means a trained scientific observer. He sees
with the natural eye. His crocodiles and hippopotamuses are some-
what awry, but he tells what children would like to hear about them.
What is now the every-day cat was then among the marvels of
wonder-land. His contributions to piscatology are not masterly, and
his faith in what is told him concerning the habits of animals he has
not seen is beautifully free from scientific doubt. The description of
Babylon is not that of a Baedeker, but constitutes no evidence that
he had failed to visit it. In regard to geography he thought himself
well in advance of his day, and smiled disdainful smiles at those who
make the earth circular, as if turned out on a lathe. " His remarks
concerning language show that he was innocent of all knowledge of
foreign tongues, and that his capacity for observation was slight.
Thus he presents, as an argument for the connection of the Colchians
and the Egyptians, their similarity of language!
When he is describing the customs of strange peoples he is always
entertaining, and usually instructive. Here his gift as a story-teller
stands him in good stead. When he opens his mouth to tell us a
story, then he is at his best. The ring of Polycrates, the contest for
Thyrea, the boyhood of Cyrus, King Rhampsinitos and his money,
are samples of his tales pitched in every key,- the marvelous, the
genuine, the spirited, the grimly humorous. His descriptions of battles
are full of movement and interest; not precise and strategically clear,
but gossipy and active, and above all things interesting. They were
composed to be heard, and not to be studied out with a map. No
better illustration could be cited than the magnificent story of Sala-
mis. The failure of scholars to agree regarding the plan of this
battle has been in some measure due to their unwillingness to listen
to Herodotus as a naïve story-teller rather than as a naval expert.
There is no general canon by which the credibility of his material
can be tested. Each statement must be weighed by itself. What he
heard, or what he understood, and what he saw or thought he saw,
he reported-so far as it interested him. If he heard two accounts
of an occurrence, he sometimes gave them both and left the reader
to choose. Sometimes he expresses a mild doubt, but generally he
reports the current stories in a delightful miscellany of folk-lore and
history. He does not hesitate on occasion to admit his ignorance,
and carefully distinguishes his inferences from his facts. Neither
## p. 7291 (#81) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7291
infallibility nor dogmatism is his besetting sin. He could not speak
the languages of the foreign countries in which he traveled, and was
therefore often at the mercy of the local dragomans. The statement
concerning the inscription on the great Pyramid, which expressed
the greatness of the work in terms of the onions and garlic con-
sumed by the workmen, savors strongly of dragoman philology. So
soon as he passes the Greek language frontier we mark the effect
upon his material. Books he used relatively little as sources. Heca-
taios is the only logographer he cites. His materials were chiefly
obtained from oral testimony and observation.
Strikingly characteristic of Herodotus is his religious conviction.
History with him was all Providence. The gods rule in the affairs
of men; they declare their will to them in signs and through oracles;
the great events of history and the experiences of individual lives
admit of explanation in terms of Divine purpose. This attitude of
simple faith conditions throughout both the collection of materials
and their use. If we have found in him history still undifferentiated
from folk-lore, quite as much do we find it undifferentiated from
theology. His work is folk-lore, history, theology, and epic all in
one; but history is pushing to the fore. Rich as it is in the materi-
als of history, it cannot be history for the people of to-day. It is
better than that, for it is a picture of what history was to people
then.
Benj. Ide Wheeler.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. -Since the Aldine Editio Princeps (1502),
Herodotus has had many editors. The most helpful recent editions
are those of Stein, one with critical apparatus, another with German
notes. There is a fair annotated edition by Blakesley in the 'Biblio-
theca Classica. ' Much better is the masterly translation into English
by Rawlinson, with copious notes and special essays, in four octavo
volumes, first published in London in 1858. An American reprint
from Rawlinson in two volumes, with abridgment of the expository
material and slight revision of the text, is just announced. There is
also a good translation by G. C. Macaulay (1890). All the citations
which follow are drawn from Rawlinson's original edition, which is
one of the noblest monuments of English classical scholarship.
The best recent English work on Herodotus will be found in the
introduction and appendices of R. W. Macan's 'Herodotus, iv. , v. , vi. '
(London, Macmillan: 1892). An extremely readable French book is
'Hérodote, Historien des Guerres Médiques,' by Amedée Hauvette
(Paris, Hachette: 1894).
B. I. W.
## p. 7292 (#82) ############################################
7292
HERODOTUS
THE KING AND THE PHILOSOPHER
HEN all these conquests had been added to the Lydian
W and the prosperity of Sardis was now at its
empire,
height, there came thither, one after another, all the
sages of Greece living at the time; and among them Solon the
Athenian. He was
on his travels, having left Athens to be
absent ten years, under the pretense of wishing to see the world,
but really to avoid being forced to repeal any of the laws which
at the request of the Athenians he had made for them. Without
his sanction the Athenians could not repeal them, as they had
bound themselves under a heavy curse to be governed for ten
years by the laws which should be imposed on them by Solon.
On this account, as well as to see the world, Solon set out
upon his travels, in the course of which he went to Egypt to the
court of Amasis, and also came on a visit to Croesus at Sardis.
Croesus received him as his guest, and lodged him in the royal
palace. On the third or fourth day after, he bade his servants
conduct Solon over his treasuries and show him all their great-
ness and magnificence. When he had seen them all, and so far
as time allowed inspected them, Croesus addressed this question to
him: "Stranger of Athens, we have heard much of thy wisdom.
and of thy travels through many lands, from love of knowledge
and a wish to see the world. I am curious therefore to inquire
of thee, whom of all the men that thou hast seen thou deemest
the most happy? " This he asked because he thought himself
the happiest of mortals; but Solon answered him without flat-
tery, according to his true sentiments, "Tellus of Athens, sire. "
Full of astonishment at what he had heard, Croesus demanded
sharply, "And wherefore dost thou deem Tellus happiest ? "
To which the other replied: "First, because his country was
flourishing in his days, and he himself had sons both beautiful
and good, and he lived to see children born to each of them,
and these children all grew up; and further, because after a life
spent in what our people look upon as comfort, his end was.
surpassingly glorious. In a battle between the Athenians and
their neighbors near Eleusis, he came to the assistance of his
countrymen, routed the foe, and died upon the field most gal-
lantly. The Athenians gave him a public funeral on the spot
where he fell, and paid him the highest honors. "
## p. 7293 (#83) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7293
Thus did Solon admonish Croesus by the example of Tellus,
enumerating the manifold particulars of his happiness. When
he had ended, Croesus inquired a second time, who after Tellus.
seemed to him the happiest; expecting that at any rate he would
be given the second place. "Cleobis and Bito," Solon answered:
"they were of Argive race; their fortune was enough for their
wants, and they were besides endowed with so much bodily
strength that they had both gained prizes at the games. Also,
this tale is told of them: There was a great festival in honor of
the goddess Juno at Argos, to which their mother must needs
be taken in a car. Now, the oxen did not come home from the
field in time; so the youths, fearful of being too late, put the
yoke on their own necks, and themselves drew the car in which
their mother rode. Five-and-forty furlongs did they draw her,
and stopped before the temple. This deed of theirs was witnessed
by the whole assembly of worshipers, and then their life closed
in the best possible way. Herein, too, God showed forth most
evidently how much better a thing for man death is than life.
For the Argive men stood thick around the car and extolled
the vast strength of the youths; and the Argive women extolled
the mother who was blessed with such a pair of sons; and the
mother herself, overjoyed at the deed and at the praises it had
won, standing straight before the image, besought the goddess to
bestow on Cleobis and Bito, the sons who had so mightily hon-
ored her, the highest blessing to which mortals can attain. Her
prayer ended, they offered sacrifice and partook of the holy ban-
quet, after which the two youths fell asleep in the temple. They
never woke more, but so passed from the earth. The Argives,
looking on them as among the best of men, caused statues of
them to be made, which they gave to the shrine at Delphi. "
When Solon had thus assigned these youths the second place,
Croesus broke in angrily, "What, stranger of Athens! is my hap-
piness then so utterly set at naught by thee, that thou dost not
even put me on a level with private men? "
"O Crœsus," replied the other, "thou askedst a question con-
cerning the condition of man, of one who knows that the Power
above us is full of jealousy, and fond of troubling our lot. A
long life gives one to witness much, and experience much one-
self, that one would not choose. Seventy years I regard as the
limit of the life of man. In these seventy years are contained,
without reckoning intercalary months, twenty-five thousand and
two hundred days. Add an intercalary month to every other
## p. 7294 (#84) ############################################
7294
HERODOTUS
year, that the seasons may come round at the right time, and
there will be, besides the seventy years, thirty-five such months,
making an addition of one thousand and fifty days. The whole
number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be
twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty, whereof not one but
will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly acci-
dent. For thyself, O Croesus, I see that thou art wonderfully
rich, and art the lord of many nations; but with respect to that
whereon thou questionest me, I have no answer to give, until I
hear that thou hast closed thy life happily. For assuredly, he
who possesses great store of riches is no nearer happiness than
he who has what suffices for his daily needs, unless it so hap
that luck attend upon him, and so he continue in the enjoyment
of all his good things to the end of life. For many of the
wealthiest men have been unfavored of fortune, and many whose
means were moderate have had excellent luck. Men of the for-
mer class excel those of the latter but in two respects; these last
excel the former in many. The wealthy man is better able to
content his desires, and to bear up against a sudden buffet of
calamity. The other has less ability to withstand these evils
(from which however his good luck keeps him clear), but he
enjoys all these following blessings: he is whole of limb, a stran-
ger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children, and
comely to look upon. If in addition to all this he ends his life
well, he is of a truth the man of whom thou art in search, the
man who may rightly be termed happy. Call him, however,
until he die, not happy but fortunate. Scarcely indeed can any
man unite all these advantages: as there is no country which con-
tains within it all that it needs, but each while it possesses some
things lacks others, and the best country is that which contains
the most, so no single human being is complete in every respect
-something is always lacking. He who unites the greatest num-
ber of advantages, and retaining them to the day of his death,
then dies peaceably,- that man alone, sire, is in my judgment
entitled to bear the name of 'happy. ' But in every matter it
behoves us to mark well the end; for oftentimes God gives men
a gleam of happiness, and then plunges them into ruin. ”
Such was the speech which Solon addressed to Croesus, a
speech which brought him neither largess nor honor. The King
saw him depart with much indifference, since he thought that
a man must be an arrant fool who made no account of present
good, but bade men always wait and mark the end.
## p. 7295 (#85) ############################################
HERODOTUS
7295
A TYRANT'S FORTUNE
THE
HE exceeding good fortune of Polycrates did not escape the
notice of Amasis, who was much disturbed thereat. When
therefore his success continued increasing, Amasis wrote
him the following letter, and sent it to Samos:-"Amasis to
Polycrates thus sayeth: It is a pleasure to hear of a friend and
ally prospering, but thy exceeding prosperity does not cause me
joy, forasmuch as I know that the gods are envious. My wish
for myself, and for those whom I love, is to be now successful
and now to meet with a check, thus passing through life amid
alternate good and ill, rather than with perpetual good fortune.
For never yet did I hear tell of any one succeeding in all his
undertakings who did not meet with calamity at last, and come
to utter ruin. Now therefore give ear to my words, and meet
thy good luck in this way: bethink thee which of all thy treas-
ures thou valuest most and canst least bear to part with; take
it, whatsoever it be, and throw it away, so that it may be sure
never to come any more into the sight of man. Then, if thy
good fortune be not thenceforth checkered with ill, save thyself
from harm by again doing as I have counseled. "
When Polycrates read this letter, and perceived that the advice
of Amasis was good, he considered carefully with himself which
of the treasures that he had in store it would grieve him most to
lose. After much thought he made up his mind that it was a
signet ring which he was wont to wear, an emerald set in gold,
the workmanship of Theodore son of Telecles, a Samian. So he
determined to throw this away; and manning a penteconter, he
went on board, and bade the sailors put out into the open sea.
When he was now a long way from the island he took the ring
from his finger, and in the sight of all those who were on board,
flung it into the deep. This done, he returned home, and gave
vent to his sorrow.
Now it happened five or six days afterwards that a fisher-
man caught a fish so large and beautiful that he thought it well
deserved to be made a present of to the King. So he took it
with him to the gate of the palace, and said that he wanted to
see Polycrates. Then Polycrates allowed him to come in, and
the fisherman gave him the fish with these words following: "Sir
King, when I took this prize I thought I would not carry it to
market, though I am a poor man who live by my trade.
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HERODOTUS
to myself, It is worthy of Polycrates and his greatness; and so
I brought it here to give it to you. " The speech pleased the
King, who thus spoke in reply: "Thou didst right well, friend,
and I am doubly indebted, both for the gift and for the speech.
Come now and sup with me. "
So the fisherman went home, esteeming it a high honor that
he had been asked to sup with the King. Meanwhile the serv-
ants, on cutting open the fish, found the signet of their master
in its belly. No sooner did they see it than they seized upon it,
and hastening to Polycrates with great joy, restored it to him,
and told him in what way it had been found. The King, who
saw something Providential in the matter, forthwith wrote a
letter to Amasis, telling him all that had happened, what he
had himself done, and what had been the upshot; and dispatched
the letter to Egypt.
When Amasis had read the letter of Polycrates, he perceived
that it does not belong to man to save his fellow-man from
the fate which is in store for him; likewise he felt certain that
Polycrates would end ill, as he prospered in everything, even
finding what he had thrown away. So he sent a herald to Samos,
and dissolved the contract of friendship. This he did, that when
the great and heavy misfortune came, he might escape the grief
which he would have felt if the sufferer had been his bond-friend.
CURIOUS SCYTHIAN CUSTOMS
WHAT
concerns war, their customs are the following: The
Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man he over-
throws in battle. Whatever number he slays, he cuts off all
their heads and carries them to the king; since he is thus en-
titled to a share of the booty, whereto he forfeits all claim if he
does not produce a head. In order to strip the skull of its cov-
ering, he makes a cut round the head above the ears, and laying
hold of the scalp, shakes the skull out; then with the rib of an
ox he scrapes the scalp clean of flesh, and softening it by rubbing
between the hands, uses it thenceforth as a napkin. The Scyth
is proud of these scalps, and hangs them from his bridle rein; the
greater the number of such napkins that a man can show, the
more highly is he esteemed among them. Many make themselves
cloaks, like the capotes of our peasants, by sewing a quantity of
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HERODOTUS
7297
these scalps together. Others flay the right arms of their dead
enemies, and make of the skin, which is stripped off with the
nails hanging to it, a covering for their quivers. Now the skin
of a man is thick and glossy, and would in whiteness surpass
almost all other hides.
