No More Learning

' 'Thank you, gentlemen,' said
Demonax, 'but I should prefer the doctor. '

He once picked up a little gold charm in the road as he walked, and
posted a notice in the market-place stating that the loser could
recover his property, if he would call upon Demonax and give
particulars of the weight, material, and workmanship. A handsome
young exquisite came, professing to have lost it. The philosopher
soon saw that it was a got-up story; 'Ah, my boy,' he said, 'you
will do very well, if you lose your other charms as little as you
have lost this one. '

A Roman senator at Athens once presented his son, who had great
beauty of a soft womanish type. 'My son salutes you, sir,' he said.
To which Demonax answered, 'A pretty lad, worthy of his father, and
extremely like his mother. '

A cynic who emphasized his principles by wearing a bear's skin he
insisted on addressing not by his name of Honoratus, but as Bruin.

Asked for a definition of Happiness, he said that only the free was
happy. 'Well,' said the questioner, 'there is no lack of free
men. '--'I count no man free who is subject to hopes and fears. '--
'You ask impossibilities; of these two we are all very much the
slaves. ' 'Once grasp the nature of human affairs,' said Demonax,
'and you will find that they justify neither hope nor fear, since
both pain and pleasure are to have an end. '

Peregrine Proteus was shocked at his taking things so lightly, and
treating mankind as a subject for humour: 'You have no teeth,
Demonax. ' 'And you, Peregrine, have no bowels. '

A physical philosopher was discoursing about the antipodes; Demonax
took his hand, and led him to a well, in which he showed him his
own reflection: 'Do you want us to believe that the antipodes are
like _that_? '

A man once boasted that he was a wizard, and possessed of mighty
charms whereby he could get what he chose out of anybody. 'Will it
surprise you to learn that I am a fellow-craftsman? ' asked Demonax;
'pray come with me to the baker's, and you shall see a single
charm, just one wave of my magic wand, induce him to bestow several
loaves upon me. ' Current coin, he meant, is as good a magician as
most.

The great Herodes, mourning the untimely death of Pollux, used to
have the carriage and horses got ready, and the place laid at
table, as though the dead were going to drive and eat. To him came
Demonax, saying that he brought a message from Pollux. Herodes,
delighted with the idea that Demonax was humouring his whim like
other people, asked what it was that Pollux required of him. 'He
cannot think why you are so long coming to him. '

When another person kept himself shut up in the dark, mourning his
son, Demonax represented himself to him as a magician: he would
call up the son's ghost, the only condition being that he should be
given the names of three people who had never had to mourn. The
father hum'd and ha'd, unable, doubtless, to produce any such
person, till Demonax broke in: 'And have you, then, a monopoly of
the unendurable, when you cannot name a man who has not some grief
to endure? '

He often ridiculed the people who use obsolete and uncommon words
in their lectures. One of these produced a bit of Attic purism in
answer to some question he had put. 'My dear sir,' he said, 'the
date of my question is to-day; that of your answer is _temp_.
_Bell_. _Troj_. '

A friend asking him to come to the temple of Asclepius, there to
make prayer for his son, 'Poor deaf Asclepius! ' he exclaimed; 'can
he not hear at this distance? '

He once saw two philosophers engaged in a very unedifying game of
cross questions and crooked answers. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'here is
one man milking a billy-goat, and another catching the proceeds in
a sieve. '

When Agathocles the Peripatetic vaunted himself as the first and
only dialectician, he asked him how he could be the first, if he
was the only, or the only, if he was the first.

The consular Cethegus, on his way to serve under his father in
Asia, said and did many foolish things. A friend describing him as
a great ass, 'Not even a _great_ ass,' said Demonax.

When Apollonius was appointed professor of philosophy in the
Imperial household, Demonax witnessed his departure, attended by a
great number of his pupils. 'Why, here is Apollonius with all his
Argonauts,' he cried.

Asked whether he held the soul to be immortal, 'Dear me, yes,' he
said; 'everything is. '

He remarked a propos of Herodes that Plato was quite right about
our having more than one soul; the same soul could not possibly
compose those splendid declamations, and have places laid for
Regilla and Pollux after their death.

He was once bold enough to ask the assembled people, when he heard
the sacred proclamation, why they excluded barbarians from the
Mysteries, seeing that Eumolpus, the founder of them, was a
barbarian from Thrace.

When he once had a winter voyage to make, a friend asked how he
liked the thought of being capsized and becoming food for fishes.
'I should be very unreasonable to mind giving them a meal,
considering how many they have given me. '

To a rhetorician who had given a very poor declamation he
recommended constant practice. 'Why, I am always practising to
myself,' says the man. 'Ah, that accounts for it; you are
accustomed to such a foolish audience. '

Observing a soothsayer one day officiating for pay, he said: 'I
cannot see how you can ask pay. If it is because you can change the
course of Fate, you cannot possibly put the figure high enough: if
everything is settled by Heaven, and not by you, what is the good
of your soothsaying? '

A hale old Roman once gave him a little exhibition of his skill in
fence, taking a clothes-peg for his mark. 'What do you think of my
play, Demonax? ' he said. 'Excellent, so long as you have a wooden
man to play with. '

Even for questions meant to be insoluble he generally had a shrewd
answer at command. Some one tried to make a fool of him by asking,
If I burn a hundred pounds of wood, how many pounds of smoke shall
I get? 'Weigh the ashes; the difference is all smoke. '

One Polybius, an uneducated man whose grammar was very defective,
once informed him that he had received Roman citizenship from the
Emperor. 'Why did he not make you a Greek instead? ' asked Demonax.

Seeing a decorated person very proud of his broad stripe, he
whispered in his ear, while he took hold of and drew attention to
the cloth, 'This attire did not make its original wearer anything
but a sheep. '

Once at the bath the water was at boiling point, and some one
called him a coward for hesitating to get in. 'What,' said he, 'is
my country expecting me to do my duty? '

Some one asked him what he took the next world to be like. 'Wait a
bit, and I will send you the information. '

A minor poet called Admetus told him he had inserted a clause in
his will for the inscribing on his tomb of a monostich, which I
will give:

Admetus' husk earth holds, and Heaven himself.

'What a beautiful epitaph, Admetus! ' said Demonax, 'and what a pity
it is not up yet! '

The shrunk shanks of old age are a commonplace; but when his
reached this state, some one asked him what was the matter with
them. 'Ah,' he said with a smile, 'Charon has been having a bite at
them. '

He interrupted a Spartan who was scourging his servant with, 'Why
confer on your slave the privilege of Spartans [Footnote: See
_Spartans_ in Notes. ] like yourself? ' He observed to one Danae,
who was bringing a suit against her brother, 'Have the law of him
by all means; it was another Danae whose father was called the
Lawless. [Footnote: See _Danae_ in Notes. ]

He waged constant warfare against all whose philosophy was not
practical, but for show. So when he saw a cynic, with threadbare
cloak and wallet, but a braying-pestle instead of a staff,
proclaiming himself loudly as a follower of Antisthenes, Crates,
and Diogenes, he said: 'Tell us no lies; your master is the
professor of braying. '

Noticing how foul play was growing among the athletes, who often
supplemented the resources of boxing and wrestling with their
teeth, he said it was no wonder that the champions' partisans had
taken to describing them as lions.

There was both wit and sting in what he said to the proconsul. The
latter was one of the people who take all the hair off their bodies
with pitch-plaster. A cynic mounted a block of stone and cast this
practice in his teeth, suggesting that it was for immoral purposes.
The proconsul in a rage had the man pulled down, and was on the
point of condemning him to be beaten or banished, when Demonax, who
was present, pleaded for him on the ground that he was only
exercising the traditional cynic licence. 'Well,' said the
proconsul, 'I pardon him this time at your request; but if he
offends again, what shall I do to him? ' 'Have him depilated,' said
Demonax.

Another person, entrusted by the Emperor with the command of
legions and the charge of a great province, asked him what was the
way to govern well. 'Keep your temper, say little, and hear much. '

Asked whether he ate honey-cakes, 'Do you suppose,' he said, 'that
bees only make honey for fools? '

Noticing near the Poecile a statue minus a hand, he said it had
taken Athens a long time to get up a bronze to Cynaegirus.

Alluding to the lame Cyprian Rufinus, who was a Peripatetic and
spent much time in the Lyceum walks, 'What presumption,' he
exclaimed, 'for a cripple to call himself a Walking Philosopher! '

Epictetus once urged him, with a touch of reproof, to take a wife
and raise a family--for it beseemed a philosopher to leave some one
to represent him after the flesh. But he received the home thrust:
'Very well, Epictetus; give me one of your daughters. '

His remark to Herminus the Aristotelian is equally worth recording.
He was aware that this man's character was vile and his misdeeds
innumerable, and yet his mouth was always full of Aristotle and his
ten predicaments. 'Certainly, Herminus,' he said, 'no predicament
is too bad for you. '

When the Athenians were thinking, in their rivalry with Corinth, of
starting gladiatorial shows, he came forward and said: 'Men of
Athens, before you pass this motion, do not forget to destroy the
altar of Pity. '

On the occasion of his visiting Olympia, the Eleans voted a bronze
statue to him. But he remonstrated: 'It will imply a reproach to
your ancestors, men of Elis, who set up no statue to Socrates or
Diogenes. '

I once heard him observe to a learned lawyer that laws were not of
much use, whether meant for the good or for the bad; the first do
not need them, and upon the second they have no effect.

There was one line of Homer always on his tongue:

Idle or busy, death takes all alike.

He had a good word for Thersites, as a cynic and a leveller.

Asked which of the philosophers was most to his taste, he said: 'I
admire them all; Socrates I revere, Diogenes I admire, Aristippus I
love. '

He lived to nearly a hundred, free from disease and pain, burdening
no man, asking no man's favour, serving his friends, and having no
enemies. Not Athens only, but all Greece was so in love with him
that as he passed the great would give him place and there would be
a general hush. Towards the end of his long life he would go
uninvited into the first house that offered, and there get his
dinner and his bed, the household regarding it as the visit of some
heavenly being which brought them a blessing. When they saw him go
by, the baker-wives would contend for the honour of supplying him,
and a happy woman was the actual donor. Children too used to call
him father, and bring him offerings of fruit.

Party spirit was once running high at Athens; he came into the
assembly, and his mere appearance was enough to still the storm.
When he saw that they were ashamed, he departed again without
having uttered a word.

When he found that he was no longer able to take care of himself,
he repeated to his friends the tag with which the heralds close the
festival:

The games are done,
The crowns all won;
No more delay,
But haste away,

and from that moment abstaining from food, left life as cheerfully
as he had lived it.

When the end was near, he was asked his wishes about burial. 'Oh,
do not trouble; scent will summon my undertakers. ' Well, but it
would be indecent for the body of so great a man to feed birds and
dogs. 'Oh, no harm in making oneself useful in death to anything
that lives. '

However, the Athenians gave him a magnificent public funeral, long
lamented him, worshipped and garlanded the stone seat on which he
had been wont to rest when tired, accounting the mere stone
sanctified by him who had sat upon it. No one would miss the
funeral ceremony, least of all any of the philosophers. It was
these who bore him to the grave.

I have made but a small selection of the material available; but it
may serve to give readers some idea of this great man's character.




A PORTRAIT-STUDY

_Lycinus. Polystratus_


_Ly_. Polystratus, I know now what men must have felt like
when they saw the Gorgon's head. I have just experienced the same
sensation, at the sight of a most lovely woman. A little more, and
I should have realized the legend, by being turned to stone; I am
benumbed with admiration.

_Poly_. Wonderful indeed must have been the beauty, and
terrible the power of the woman who could produce such an
impression on Lycinus. Tell me of this petrifying Medusa. Who is
she, and whence? I would see her myself. You will not grudge me
that privilege? Your jealousy will not take alarm at the prospect
of a rival petrifaction at your side?

_Ly_. Well, I give you fair warning: one distant glimpse of
her, and you are speechless, motionless as any statue. Nay, that is
a light affliction: the mortal wound is not dealt till _her_
glance has fallen on _you_. What can save you then? She will
lead you in chains, hither and thither, as the magnet draws the
steel.

_Poly_. Enough! You would make her more than human. And now
tell me who she is.

_Ly_. You think I am exaggerating: I fear you will have but a
poor opinion of my eloquence when you see her as she is--so far
above my praise. _Who_ she is, I cannot say: but to judge from
the splendour of her surroundings, her retinue, her host of eunuchs
and maids, she must be of no ordinary rank.

_Poly_. And you never even asked her name?

_Ly_. Why no; but she is from Ionia; because, as she passed, I
heard one of the bystanders speak aside to his neighbour: 'See, he
exclaimed, 'what Smyrna can produce! And what wonder, if the
fairest of Ionian cities has given birth to the fairest of women? '
I thought he must come from Smyrna himself, he was so proud of her.

_Poly_. There you acted your stony part to perfection. As you
could neither follow her, nor make inquiries of the Smyrnaean, it
only remains for you to describe her as best you can, on the chance
of my recognizing her.

_Ly_. You know not what you ask. It is not in the power of
words--certainly not of _my_ words--to portray such wondrous
beauty; scarcely could an Apelles, a Zeuxis, a Parrhasius,--a
Phidias or an Alcamenes, do justice to it; as for my flimsy
workmanship, it will but insult the original.

_Poly_. Well, never mind; what was she like? There can be no
harm in trying your hand. What if the portrait be somewhat out of
drawing? --the critic is your good friend.

_Ly_. I think my best way out of it will be to call in the aid
of some of the old masters I have named: let them fashion the
likeness for me.

_Poly_. Well, but--will they come? They have been dead so
long.

_Ly_. That is easily managed: but you must not mind answering
me a few questions.

_Poly_. You have but to ask.

_Ly_. Were you ever at Cnidus?

_Poly_. I was.

_Ly_. Then you have seen the _Aphrodite_, of course?

_Poly_. That masterpiece of Praxiteles's art! I have.

_Ly_. And heard the story they tell there,--of the man who
fell in love with the statue, and contrived to get shut into the
temple alone, and there enjoyed such favours as a statue is able to
bestow. --But that is neither here nor there. --You have seen the
Cnidian _Aphrodite_, anyhow; now I want to know whether you
have also seen our own _Aphrodite of the Gardens_,--the Alcamenes.

_Poly_. I must be a dullard of dullards, if that most
exquisite of Alcamenes's works had escaped my notice.

_Ly_. I forbear to ask whether in the course of your many
visits to the Acropolis you ever observed the _Sosandra_ of
Calamis. [Footnote: This statue is usually identified with one of
Aphrodite by the same sculptor, mentioned in Pausanias. Soteira
('saviour') is known as an epithet of Aphrodite: but Sosandra
('man-saving') is explained as a nickname of the particular statue,
in playful allusion to Callias, the donor, who was apparently
indebted to Aphrodite for his success with a certain Elpinice. ]

_Poly_. Frequently.

_Ly_. That is really enough for my purpose. But I should just
like to know what you consider to be Phidias's best work.

_Poly_. Can you ask? --The Lemnian _Athene_, which bears
the artist's own signature; oh, and of course the _Amazon_
leaning on her spear.

_Ly_. I approve your judgement. We shall have no need of other
artists: I am now to cull from each of these its own peculiar
beauty, and combine all in a single portrait.

_Poly_. And how are you going to do that?

_Ly_. It is quite simple.
All we have to do is to hand over
our several types to Reason, whose care it must be to unite them in
the most harmonious fashion, with due regard to the consistency, as
to the variety, of the result.

_Poly_. To be sure; let Reason take her materials and begin.
What will she make of it, I wonder? Will she contrive to put all
these different types together without their clashing?

_Ly_. Well, look; she is at work already. Observe her procedure.
She begins with our Cnidian importation, from which she takes only
the head; with the rest she is not concerned, as the statue is
nude. The hair, the forehead, the exquisite eyebrows, she will keep
as Praxiteles has rendered them; the eyes, too, those soft, yet
bright-glancing eyes, she leaves unaltered. But the cheeks and the
front of the face are taken from the 'Garden' Goddess; and so are
the lines of the hands, the shapely wrists, the delicately-tapering
fingers. Phidias and the Lemnian _Athene_ will give the outline of
the face, and the well-proportioned nose, and lend new softness to
the cheeks; and the same artist may shape her neck and closed lips,
to resemble those of his _Amazon_. Calamis adorns her with
Sosandra's modesty, Sosandra's grave half- smile; the decent seemly
dress is Sosandra's too, save that the head must not be veiled. For
her stature, let it be that of Cnidian _Aphrodite_; once more we
have recourse to Praxiteles. --What think you, Polystratus? Is it a
lovely portrait?

_Poly_. Assuredly it will be, when it is perfected. At present, my
paragon of sculptors, one element of loveliness has escaped your
comprehensive grasp.

_Ly_. What is that?

_Poly_. A most important one. You will agree with me that
colour and tone have a good deal to do with beauty? that black
should _be_ black, white be white, and red play its blushing
part? It looks to me as if the most important thing of all were
still lacking.

_Ly_. Well, how shall we manage? Call in the painters, perhaps,
selecting those who were noted for their skill in mixing and laying
on their colours? Be it so: we will have Polygnotus, Euphranor of
course, Apelles and Aetion; they can divide the work between them.
Euphranor shall colour the hair like his _Hera's_; Polygnotus the
comely brow and faintly blushing cheek, after his _Cassandra_ in
the Assembly-room at Delphi. Polygnotus shall also paint her
robe,--of the finest texture, part duly gathered in, but most of it
floating in the breeze. For the flesh-tints, which must be neither
too pale nor too high-coloured, Apelles shall copy his own
_Campaspe_. And lastly, Aetion shall give her _Roxana's_ lips. Nay,
we can do better: have we not Homer, best of painters, though a
Euphranor and an Apelles be present? Let him colour all like the
limbs of Menelaus, which he says were 'ivory tinged with red. ' He
too shall paint her calm 'ox- eyes,' and the Theban poet shall help
him to give them their 'violet' hue. Homer shall add her smile, her
white arms, her rosy finger-tips, and so complete the resemblance
to golden Aphrodite, to whom he has compared Brises' daughter with
far less reason. So far we may trust our sculptors and painters and
poets: but for her crowning glory, for the grace--nay, the choir of
Graces and Loves that encircle her--who shall portray them?

_Poly_. This was no earthly vision, Lycinus; surely she must
have dropped from the clouds. --And what was she doing?

_Ly_. In her hands was an open scroll; half read (so I surmised)
and half to be read. As she passed, she was making some remark to
one of her company; what it was I did not catch. But when she
smiled, ah! then, Polystratus, I beheld teeth whose whiteness,
whose unbroken regularity, who shall describe? Imagine a lovely
necklace of gleaming pearls, all of a size; and imagine those
dazzling rows set off by ruby lips. In that glimpse, I realized
what Homer meant by his 'carven ivory. ' Other women's teeth differ
in size; or they project; or there are gaps: here, all was equality
and evenness; pearl joined to pearl in unbroken line. Oh, 'twas a
wondrous sight, of beauty more than human.

_Poly_. Stay. I know now whom you mean, as well from your
description as from her nationality. You said that there were
eunuchs in her train?

_Ly_. Yes; and soldiers too.

_Poly_. My simple friend, the lady you have been describing is
a celebrity, and possesses the affections of an Emperor.

_Ly_. And her name?

_Poly_. Adds one more to the list of her charms; for it is the
same as that of Abradatas's wife. [Footnote: See _Panthea_ in
Notes. ] You know Xenophon's enthusiastic account of that beautiful
and virtuous woman? --you have read it a dozen times.

_Ly_. Yes; and every time I read it, it is as if she stood
before me. I almost hear her uttering the words the historian has
put into her mouth, and see her arming her husband and sending him
forth to battle.

_Poly_. Ah, my dear Lycinus, _this_ lady has passed you
but once, like a lightning flash; and your praises, I perceive, are
all for those external charms that strike the eye. You are yet a
stranger to her nobility of soul; you know not that higher, more
god-like beauty. _I_ am her fellow-countryman, I know her, and
have conversed with her many times. You are aware that gentleness,
humanity, magnanimity, modesty, culture, are things that I prize
more than beauty-and rightly; to do otherwise would be as absurd as
to value raiment above the body. Where physical perfection goes
hand-in-hand with spiritual excellence, there alone (as I maintain)
is true beauty. I could show you many a woman whose outward
loveliness is marred by what is within; who has but to open her
lips, and beauty stands confessed a faded, withered thing, the
mean, unlovely handmaid of that odious mistress, her soul. Such
women are like Egyptian temples: the shrine is fair and stately,
wrought of costly marble, decked out with gilding and painting: but
seek the God within, and you find an ape--an ibis--a goat--a cat.
Of how many women is the same thing true! Beauty unadorned is not
enough: and her true adornments are not purple and jewels, but
those others that I have mentioned, modesty, courtesy, humanity,
virtue and all that waits on virtue.

_Ly_. Why then, Polystratus, you shall give me story for story,
good measure, shaken together, out of your abundance: paint me the
portrait of her soul, that I may be no more her half-admirer.

_Poly_. This will be no light task, my friend. It is one thing
to commend what all the world can see, and quite another to reveal
what is hidden. I too shall want help with my portrait. Nor will
sculptors and painters suffice me: I must have philosophers; it is
by their canons that I must adjust the proportions of the figure,
if I am to attain to the perfection of ancient models.

To begin then. Of her clear, liquid voice Homer might have said,
with far more truth than of aged Nestor's, that

honey from those lips distilled.

The pitch, exquisitely soft, as far removed from masculine bass as
from ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice
breaks; sweet, seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still
vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener's ears, and
Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy,
to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre's accompaniment. Let swans
and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers;
Philomela's self, 'full-throated songstress' though she be, is all
unskilled beside her. Methinks Orpheus and Amphion, whose spell
drew even lifeless things to hear them, would have dropped their
lyres and stood listening in silence to that voice. What should
Thracian Orpheus, what should Amphion, whose days upon Cithaeron
were divided betwixt his lyre and his herd,--what should they know
of true concord, of accurate rhythm, of accentuation and time, of
the harmonious adaptation of lyre and voice, of easy and graceful
execution? Yes; once hear her sing, Lycinus, and you will know
something of Sirens as well as of Gorgons: you have experienced
petrifaction; you will next learn what it is to stand entranced,
forgetting country and kindred. Wax will not avail you: her song
will penetrate through all; for therein is every grace that
Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope herself, could inspire. In a word,
imagine that you hear such notes as should issue from those lips,
those teeth that you have seen. Her perfect intonation, her pure
Ionic accent, her ready Attic eloquence, need not surprise you;
these are her birthright; for is not Smyrna Athens' daughter? And
what more natural than that she should love poetry, and make it her
chief study? Homer is her fellow citizen. --There you have my first
portrait; the portrait of a sweet-voiced songstress, though it
fall far short of its original. And now for others. For I do not
propose to make one of many, as you did. I aim higher: the complex
picture of so many beauties wrought into one, however artful be the
composition, cannot escape inconsistency: with me, each separate
virtue of her soul shall sit for its own portrait.

_Ly_. What a banquet awaits me! Here, assuredly, is good
measure. Mete it out; I ask for nothing better.

_Poly_. I proceed then to the delineation of Culture, the
confessed mistress of all mental excellences, particularly of all
acquired ones: I must render her features in all their manifold
variety; not even here shall my portraiture be inferior to your
own. I paint her, then, with every grace that Helicon can give.
Each of the Muses has but her single accomplishment, be it tragedy
or history or hymn: all these Culture shall have, and with them the
gifts of Hermes and of Apollo. The poet's graceful numbers, the
orator's persuasive power, the historian's learning, the sage's
counsel, all these shall be her adornments; the colours shall be
imperishable, and laid on with no niggardly brush. It is not my
fault, if I am unable to point to any classical model for the
portrait: the records of antiquity afford no precedent for a
culture so highly developed. --May I hang this beside the other? I
think it is a passable likeness.

_Ly_. Passable! My dear Polystratus, it is sublime;
exquisitely finished in every line.

_Poly_. Next I have to depict Wisdom; and here I shall have
occasion for many models, most of them ancient; one comes, like the
lady herself, from Ionia. The artists shall be Aeschines and
Socrates his master, most realistic of painters, for their heart
was in their work. We could choose no better model of wisdom than
Milesian Aspasia, the admired of the admirable 'Olympian' [Footnote:
See _Pericles_ in Notes. ]; her political knowledge and insight,
her shrewdness and penetration, shall all be transferred to our
canvas in their perfect measure. Aspasia, however, is only
preserved to us in miniature: _our_ proportions must be those
of a colossus.

_Ly_. Explain.

_Poly_. The portraits will be alike, but not on the same
scale. There is a difference between the little republic of ancient
Athens, and the Roman Empire of to-day; and there will be the same
difference in _scale_ (however close the resemblance in other
respects) between our huge canvas and that miniature. A second and
a third model may be found in Theano, and in the poetess of Lesbos;
nay, we may add Diotima too. Theano shall give grandeur to the
picture, Sappho elegance; and Diotima shall be represented as well
by her wisdom and sagacity, as by the qualities for which Socrates
commended her. The portrait is complete. Let it be hung.

_Ly_. 'Tis a fine piece of work. Proceed.

_Poly_. Courtesy, benevolence: that is now my subject. I have
to show forth her gentle disposition, her graciousness to
suppliants. She shall appear in the likeness of Theano--Antenor's
Theano this time--, of Arete and her daughter Nausicaa, and of
every other who in her high station has borne herself with
constancy. Next comes constancy of another kind,--constancy in
love; its original, the daughter of Icarius, 'constant' and 'wise,'
as Homer draws her; am I doing more than justice to his Penelope?
And there is another: our lady's namesake, Abradatas's wife; of her
we have already spoken.

_Ly_. Once more, noble work, Polystratus. And now your task
must be drawing to a close: here is a whole soul depicted; its
every virtue praised.

_Poly_. Not yet: the highest praise remains. Born to magnificence,
she clothes not herself in the pride of wealth; listens not to
Fortune's flattering tale, who tells her she is more than human;
but walks upon the common ground, far removed from all thought of
arrogance and ostentation. Every man is her equal; her greeting,
her smile are for all who approach her; and how acceptable is the
kindness of a superior, when it is free from every touch of
condescension! When the power of the great turns not to insolence
but to beneficence, we feel that Fortune has bestowed her gifts
aright. Here alone Envy has no place. For how should one man grudge
another his prosperity when he sees him using it with moderation,
not, like the Homeric Ate, an oppressor of the weak, trampling on
men's necks? It is otherwise with those meaner souls--victims of
their own ignoble vanity--, who, when Fortune has raised them
suddenly beyond their hopes into her winged aerial car, know no
rest, can never look behind them, but must ever press upwards. To
such the end soon comes: Icarus-like, with melted wax and moulting
feathers, they fall headlong into the billows, a derision to
mankind. The Daedaluses use their waxen wings with moderation: they
are but men; they husband their strength accordingly, and are
content to fly a little higher than the waves,--so little that the
sun never finds them dry; and that prudence is their salvation.

Therein lies this lady's highest praise. She has her reward: all
men pray that her wings may never droop, and that blessings may
increase upon her.

_Ly_. And may the prayer be granted! She deserves every
blessing: she is not outwardly fair alone, like Helen, but has a
soul within more fair, more lovely than her body. It is a fitting
crown to the happiness of our benevolent and gracious Emperor, that
in his day such a woman should be born; should be his, and her
affections his. It is blessedness indeed, to possess one of whom we
may say with Homer that she contends with golden Aphrodite in
beauty, and in works is the equal of Athene. Who of womankind shall
be compared to her

In comeliness, in wit, in goodly works?

_Poly_. Who indeed? --Lycinus, I have a proposal to make. Let
us combine our portraits, yours of the body and mine of the soul,
and throw them into a literary form, for the enjoyment of our
generation and of all posterity. Such a work will be more enduring
than those of Apelles and Parrhasius and Polygnotus; it will be far
removed from creations of wood and wax and colour, being inspired
by the Muses, in whom alone is that true portraiture that shows
forth in one likeness a lovely body and a virtuous soul.




DEFENCE OF THE 'PORTRAIT-STUDY'

_Polystratus_. _Lycinus_


_Poly_. Well, here is the lady's comment. _Your pages are most kind
and complimentary, I am sure, Lycinus. No one would have so
over-praised me who had not felt kindly towards me. But if you
would know my real feeling, here it is. I never do much like the
complaisant; they always strike me as insincere and wanting in
frankness. But when it comes to a set panegyric, in which my much
magnified virtues are painted in glaring colours, I blush and would
fain stop my ears, and feel that I am rather being made fun of than
commended.

Praise is tolerable up to the point at which the object of it can
still believe in the existence of the qualities attributed to him;
pass that point, and he is revolted and finds the flatterer out. Of
course I know there are plenty of people who are glad enough to
have non-existent qualities added to their praises; who do not mind
being called young and lusty in their decline, or Nireuses and
Phaons though they are hideous; who, Pelias-like, expect praise to
metamorphose or rejuvenate them.

But they are mistaken. Praise would indeed be a most precious
commodity if there were any way of converting its extravagances
into solid fact. But there being none, they can only be compared to
an ugly man on whom one should clap a beautiful mask, and who
should then be proud of those looks that any one could take from
him and break to pieces; revealed in his true likeness, he would be
only the more ridiculous for the contrast between casket and
treasure. Or, if you will, imagine a little man on stilts measuring
heights with people who have eighteen inches the better of him in
stocking feet_.

And then she told this story. There was a noble lady, fair and
comely in all respects except that she was short and ill-proportioned.
A poet wrote an ode in her honour, and included among her beauties
that of tallness; her slender height was illustrated from the poplar.
She was in ecstasies, as though the verses were making her grow, and
kept waving her hand. Which the poet seeing, and realizing her
appetite for praise, recited the lines again and again, till at last
one of the company whispered in his ear, 'Stop, my good man; you will
be making her get up. '

She added a similar but still more absurd anecdote of Stratonice
the wife of Seleucus, who offered a talent to the poet who should
best celebrate her hair. As a matter of fact she was bald, with not
a hair to call her own. But what matter what her head was like, or
that every one knew how a long illness had treated her? she
listened to these abandoned poets telling of hyacinthine locks,
plaiting thick tresses, and making imaginary curls as crisp as
parsley.

All such surrenders to flattery were laughed to scorn, with the
addition that many people were just as fond of being flattered and
fooled by portrait-painters as these by verbal artists. _What
these people look for in a painter_ (she said) _is readiness
to improve nature: Some of them insist upon the artist's taking a
little off their noses, deepening the shade of their eyes, or
otherwise idealizing them to order; it quite escapes them that the
garlands they afterwards put on the picture are offered to another
person who bears no relation to themselves_.

And so she went on, finding much in your composition to approve,
but displeased in particular with your likening her to Hera and
Aphrodite. _Such comparisons are far too high for me_, she
said, _or indeed for any of womankind. Why, I would not have had
you put me on a level with women of the Heroic Age, with a
Penelope, an Arete, a Theano; how much less with the chief of the
Goddesses. Where the Gods are concerned_ (she continued; and
mark her here), _I am very apprehensive and timid. I fear that to
accept a panegyric like this would be to make a Cassiopeia of
myself; though indeed_ she _only challenged the Nereids, and
stopped short of Hera and Aphrodite_.

So, Lycinus, she insisted that you must recast all this; otherwise
she must call the Goddesses to witness that you had written against
her wishes, and leave you to the knowledge that the piece would be
an annoyance to her, if it circulated in its present shape, so
lacking in reverence and piety.