The largest elephant that I ever saw was in the grounds of Teribazus, near SCENE-A Hall in the House of ALCI- Susa. I wish that I had measured him. BIADES. ALCIBIADES, SPEUSIPPUS, CALLICLES, ALCIBIADES. I wish that he had trod upon you. HIPPOMACHUS, CHARICLEA, and Come, come, Chariclea, we shall soon others, seated round a table, feast-return, and then ing. feast of Venus, near Miletus. I used to sing it in my own country when I was a child; and—Ah, Alcibiades ! ALCIBIADES. Dear Chariclea, you shall sing something else. This distresses you. CHARICLEA. No: hand me the lyre:-no matter. You will hear the song to disadvantage. But if it were sung as I have heard it sung;-if this were a beautiful morning in spring, and if we were standing on a woody promontory, with the sea, and the white sails, and the blue Cyclades beneath us,-and the portico of a temple peeping through the trees on a huge peak above our heads,—and thousands of people, with myrtles in their hands, thronging up the winding path, their gay dresses and garlands disappearing and emerging by turns as they passed round the angles of the rock, then perhaps ALCIBIADES. Now, by Venus herself, sweet lady, where you are we shall lack neither sun, nor flowers, nor spring, nor temple, nor goddess. CHARICLEA. (Sings). Let this sunny hour be given, And the echoes from the mountains, Thou hast taught to lovers' eyes, ALCIBIADES. Sweetly sung; but mournfully, Chariclea; for which I would chide you, but that I am sad myself. More wine | vegetable diet are derived from India. there. I wish to all the gods that II met a Brachman in Sogdianahad fairly sailed from Athens. CHARICLEA. And from me, Alcibiades? ALCIBIADES. Yes, from you, dear lady. The days which immediately precede separation are the most melancholy of our lives. CHARICLEA. Except those which immediately follow it. ALCIBIADES. No; when I cease to see you, other objects may compel my attention; but can I be near you without thinking how lovely you are, and how soon I must leave you? HIPPOMACHUS. CALLICLES. All nonsense! 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 like such an office? 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 Ay; travelling soon puts such thoughts to other ladies. out of men's heads. CALLICLES. CALLICLES. What, in the name of Jupiter, is the A battle is the best remedy for them. use of all these speculations about CHARICLEA. death? Socrates once lectured me upon it the best part of a day. I have A battle, I should think, might sup-hated the sight of him ever since. Such ply their place with others as unpleasant. I want neither skeleton nor sophist to teach me that lesson. More wine, I What indeed? You must ask Speu-pray you, and less wisdom. sippus that question. He is a philosopher. ALCIBIADES. 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 Yes, and the greatest of philosophers, initiated at the Eleusinian mysteries? 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 * Homer's Odyssey, xii. 63. See the close of Plato's Gorgias. The scene which follows is founded upon history. Thucydides tells us, in his sixth book, that about this time Alcibiades was suspected of having assisted at a mock celebra tion of these famous mysteries. It was the that extraordinary privileges were granted in opinion of the vulgar among the Athenians the other world to all who had been initiated. Or shall you sit starved and thirsty in the midst of fruit and wine like And nine days of rigid mortification Tantalus? Poor fellow! I think I see of the senses. ALCIBIADES. We will suppose that too. I am sure it was supposed, with as little reason, when I was initiated. *The right of Euripides to this line is somewhat disputable. See Aristophanes; Plutus, 1152. your face as you are springing up to the branches and missing your aim. Oh Bacchus! Oh Mercury! Alcibiades! SPEUSIPPUS. *See Euripides; Hippolytus, 608. For the jesuitical morality of this line Euripides is bitterly attacked by the comic poet. 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 poor Achilles, "With stride Majestic through the plain of Asphodel."* SPEUSIPPUS. How can you talk so, when you know that I believe all that foolery as little as you do? ALCIBIADES. Then march. You shall be the crier. It is not very pleasant to be tried before the king.* ALCIBIADES. Never fear: there is not a sycophant in Attica who would dare to breathe a word against me, for the golden † planetree of the great king. HIPPOMACHUS. That plane-tree ALCIBIADES. Never mind the plane-tree. Come, Callicles, you were not so timid when you plundered the merchantman off Cape Malea. Take up the torch and move. Hippomachus, tell one of the slaves to bring a sow. CALLICLES. And what part are you to play? ALCIBIADES. I shall be hierophant. Herald, to your office. Torchbearer, advance with the lights. Come forward, fair novice. We will celebrate the rite within. (Exeunt.) Callicles, you shall carry the torch. CRITICISMS ON THE PRINCIPAL Why do you stare? CALLICLES. I do not much like the frolic. ALCIBIADES. Nay, surely you are not taken with a fit of piety. If all be true that is told of you, you have as little reason to think IN a review of Italian literature, Dante the gods vindictive as any man breathing. If you be not belied, a certain golden goblet which I have seen at your house was once in the temple of Juno at Corcyra. And men say that there was a priestess at Tarentum CALLICLES. A fig for the gods! I was thinking about the Archons. You will have an accusation laid against you to-morrow. * See Homer's Odyssey, xi. 538. The crier and torchbearer were important functionaries at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. has a double claim to precedency. He was the earliest and the greatest writer of his country. He was the first man who fully descried and exhibited the powers of his native dialect. The Latin tongue, which, under the most favourable circumstances, and in the hands of the *The name of king was given in the Athenian democracy to the magistrate who exercised those spiritual functions which in the monarchical times had belonged to the sovereign. His court took cognisance of offences against the religion of the state. † See Herodotus, viii. 28. A sow was sacrificed to Ceres at the admission to the greater mysteries. |