What indeed? You must ask Speusippus that question. He is a philosopher. ALCIBIADES. Yes, and the greatest of philosophers, if he can answer it. SPEUSIPPUS. Pythagoras is of opinion HIPPOMACHUS. Pythagoras stole that and all his other opinions from Asia and Egypt. The transmigration of the soul and the vegetable diet are derived from India. I met a Brachman in Sogdiana All nonsense! CALLICLES. CHARICLEA. What think you, Alcibiades? ALCIBIADES. I think that, if the doctrine be true, your spirit will be transfused into one of the doves who carry ambrosia to the gods or verses to the mistresses of poets. Do you remember Anacreon's lines? How should you ike such an office? 1 Homer's Odyssey xii. 63. CHARICLEA. If I were to be your dove, Alcibiades, and you would treat me as Anacreon treated his, and let me nestle in your breast and drink from your cup, I would submit even to carry your love-letters to other ladies. CALLICLES. What, in the name of Jupiter, is the use of all these speculations about death? Socrates once1 lectured me upon it the best part of a day. I have hated the sight of him ever since. Such things may suit an old sophist when he is fasting; but in the midst of wine and music HIPPOMACHUS. I differ from you. The enlightened Egyptians bring skeletons into their banquets, in order to remind their guests to make the most of their life while they have it. CALLICLES. I want neither skeleton nor sophist to teach me that lesson. More wine, I pray you, and less wisdom. If you must believe something which you never can know, why not be contented with the long stories about the other world which are told us when we are initiated at the 2 Eleusinian mysteries. 2 The scene which follows is founded upon history. Thucydides tells us, m his sixth book, that about this time Alcibiades was suspected of having assisted at a mock celebration of these famous mysteries. It was the opin'on of the vulgar among the Athenians that extraordinary privileges were granted in the other world to all who had been initiated. ALCIBIADES. Are not you initiated, Cha iclea? CHARICLea. No; My mother was a Lydian, a barbarian; and therefore I understand. ALCIBIADES. Now the curse of Venus on the fools who made so hateful a law. Speusippus, does not your friend Euripides1 say — 'The land where thou art prosperous is thy country? Surely we ought to say to every lady "The land where thou art pretty is thy country." Besides, to exclude foreign beauties from the chorus of the initiated in the Elysian fields is less cruel to them than to ourselves. Chariclea, you shall be intiated. When? CHARICLEA. ALCIBIADES. Now. CHARICLEA. Where? ALCIBIADES. Here. . CHARICLEA. Delightful! SPEUSIPPUS. But there must be an interval of a year between the purification and the initiation. ALCIBIADES. We will suppose all that. 1 The right of Euripides to this line is somewhat disputable. See Aris tophanes; Plutus, 1152. SPEUSIPpus. And nine days of rigid mortification of the senses. ALCIBIADES. We will suppose that too. I am sure it was sup posed, with as little reason, when I was initiated. SPEUSIPPUS. But you are sworn to secrecy. ALCIBIADES. You a sophist, and talk of oaths! You a pupil of Euripides, and forget his maxims! "My lips have sworn it; but my mind is free." 1 SPEUSIPpus. But Alcibiades ALCIBIADES. What! Are you afraid of Ceres and Proserpine? No- but be safe-I mean in it. SPEUSIPPUS. but I that is I-but it is best to Suppose there should be something ALCIBIADES. Now, by Mercury, I shall die with laughing. Oh Speusippus, Speusippus! Go back to your old father. Dig vineyards, and judge causes, and be a respectable citizen. But never, while you live, again dream of being a philosopher. Nay, I was only SPEUSIPPUS. 1 See Euripides; Hyppolytus, 608. For the jesuitical morality of this ne Euripides is bitterly attacked by the comic poet. ALCIBIADES. A pupil of Gorgias and Melesigenes afraid of Tar tarus! In what region of the infernal world do you expect your domicile to be fixed? Shall you roll a stone like Sisyphus? Hard exercise, Speusippus ! SPEUSIPPUS. In the name of all the gods ALCIBIADES. Or shall you sit starved and thirsty in the midst of fruit and wine like Tantalus? Poor fellow! I think I see your face as you are springing up to the branches and missing your aim. Oh Bacchus! Oh Mercury! SPEUSIPPUS. Alcibiades! ALCIBIADES. Or perhaps you will be food for a vulture, like the huge fellow who was rude to Latona. Alcibiades! SPEUSIPPUS. ALCIBIADES. Never fear. Minos will not be so cruel. Your eloquence will triumph over all accusations. The furies will skulk away like disappointed sycophants. Only address the judges of hell in the speech which you were prevented from speaking last assembly. "When I consider" is not that the beginning of it? Come, man, do not be angry. Why do you pace up and down with such long steps? You are not in Tartarus yet. You seem to think that you are already stalking like Door Achilles, |