moon, so that, stooping down I could into exertion for aiding the flight. Per- imagine you see the earth as an extremely ceiving now that the project succeeded, diminutive orb,-I mean still less than the I grew bolder after every experiment, and getting up to the extreme pinnacle of the citadel, I threw myself headlong down and alighted in the theatre. Having at this time escaped without danger, I began now to conceive loftier and superterrestrial imaginations. I elevated myself from Hymetus and flew to Geronea, from thence to the top of the castle at Corinth, then over Mount Pholoë and Erymanthus all the way to Taygetus. And as my courage increased with my dexterity, and I now might pass for a perfect master in the art of flying, I determined no longer to confine myself to essays only fit for the cawing brood, but ascended Olympus,' and having first, as lightly as possible, provisioned myself, steered my course direct for heaven. At first I became a little dizzy when I looked down on the abyss below; however, I soon was accustomed to it. Having already made my way through an infinite number of clouds, and being now quite close to the moon, I felt myself by long exertion, particularly in the left wing of the vulture, somewhat faint. I, therefore, landed on it, and sitting down to rest awhile, I amused myself with contemplating the subjacent earth from that elevated station, and like the Homeric Jupiter, turning my eyes now to "Where the brave Mycians prove their martial force, And hardy Thracians tame the savage horse;" then upon Greece, Persia, India and wherever I pleased,-a survey which yielded me great and manifold delight. Friend. You would oblige me much, dear Menippus, by omitting nothing of what you observed upon your travels, however trivial; for I expect to learn from you many curious particulars touching the figure of the earth, and how everything upon it must have appeared to you from so lofty a situation. Menippus. Nor will you be entirely disappointed. Transport yourself, then, as well as you can in thought, with me up to the moon, and travel after me and observe how the objects upon the earth will look from thence. In the first place, 1 Supposed to be the loftiest mountain in Greece. Iliad XII. 4. "That lives and moves upon the fruitful earth." Friend. What you tell me now, Menippus, with your permission, is incredible, since it does not properly chime with what you said before. For how is it possible that you, who found the earth so small that you were obliged to look narrowly for it, and if the Colossus at Rhodes had not served you as a pointer. you would have mistaken it for something else! how, I now say, could you now be suddenly metamorphosed into such a lynx-eyed creature as to spy out everything upon the earth,-men, beasts and atmosphere? almost distinguish the little flies in the 3 After the proofs that Menippus has already given of his strength in the higher sciences it was to be hoped that we should not be shocked by any new assurance of his ignorance. As to our author, to whose account all the absurdities of his Arlequin philosophe might be brought, I think his Grecian readers or hearers would freely grant him the liberty to regulate them according to his good liking, and as appeared most suited to his purpose, in a burlesque fiction constructed purely upon popular prejudices and idle conceits throughout. Besides the ludicrous incident that, unless he had descried the Colossus of Rhodes, he should not have even per ceived the earth from its very littleness, is perfectly in the same taste with the assurance of Sancho in Don Quixote, in his famous aerial jaunt on the palfrey of the fair Magellone, that the earth appeared only like mustard seed, and the men upon it hardly as big as hazel-nuts. 4 Again an Homeric parody. Menippus. Well remembered! For, what is the best of all, and what I should nave mentioned first, had well-nigh slipt out of my memory. When I first began to discern the earth, by reason of the vast depth, and because my sight would not reach so far, I could distinguish nothing, I found myself in no small perplexity, and was so vexed that I began to weep. All at once I perceived standing at my back, a figure as black as a coal, heavily covered with ashes, and in his whole appearance as if he had been broiled. I cannot deny that at this sight I was aghast, thinking I beheld some lunar demon, but the figure bade me take cour"Compose thyself, Menippus," age. said it, ແ "I am no god, nor to th' immortals like." "I am the renowned naturalist Empedocles, who, having leaped into the crater of Etna, was carried up with the ascending smoke and conducted hither. Being aware how sadly you were grieved at being unable to discern clearly the objects of the earth. I come to your relief." "That is very kind of you, dearest Empedocles," returned I; as soon as I have flown back to the earth I will not forget to present you with a libation up the flue of my chimney, and thrice every new moon, in honor of you, devoutly gaze upon that planet." "No, by Endymion " replied he; "I did not come with any mercenary views, but purely because it pained me to the soul to see you so dejected. Do you know what you must do to amend your sight and make it sharper ?" "No by Jupiter!" answered I, "unless 'thou from these films canst purge my visual orbs," for at present, methinks, I am not much better than blind." "You will have no need of my assistance," he rejoined, "for you have brought the best eye-salve with you from the earth." As I could not conceive what he meant, he continued: "Have not you strapped an 1 Odyss, xvi. 187. 2 According to vulgar report. The truth of the matter was, without all doubt, that Empedocles, by venturing for observation's sake too far into the crater, tumbled down against his intention. 3 A comic asseveration by the famous favorite of Luna. eagle's wing about your right shoulder?" And what, then, has that to do with my eyes?" says I. This; that of all living beings the eagle is by far the most sharpsighted, so that he alone can look direct against the sun; and an eagle that can behold the sun without winking is legiti mated as a true-born eagle and king of birds." "So it is said," I replied; "and now I am sorry that when I was preparing for my journey I did not pluck out both my eyes and insert a pair of eagleeyes, instead of coming hither so badly equipped, and resembling those ejected bastards." "It depends entirely upon yourself to procure this other royal eye in its place. For if you will but rise a little, and without moving the vulture's wing flap the other wing alone, you will see as clear with the right eye as an eagle; whereas the left, do what you can, will remain dim because it is on the defective side." "I shall be perfectly satisfied with only one eagle-eye," I said. "I shall lose nothing by it. For I have frequently observed that carpenters by means of one eye work by the level as true as if they used both eyes." With these words I set about the business in pursuance of the advice I had received. In the mean time Empedocles gradually vanished from my sight, and was dissolved in smoke. I had scarcely begun to flap my right wing when I was suddenly surrounded by a great light, and all that till now was concealed from me immediately became visible. Looking down upon the earth I plainly discerned cities and men, and everything that was done, not only in the open air, but even what was transacting in private houses, where all seemed safe from observation. I saw King Ptolemy committing incest with his sister, the son of Lysimachus plotting against his father, and Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, casting stolen glances at his mother-in-law, Stratonice. I saw how Alexander, of Thessaly,' was murdered by his own wife, 5 Ptolemæus Philopator openly espoused his sister, Arsinoe. Lysimachus, successor to Alexander the Great, in Macedonia, at the instigation of his second wife, Arsinoe, had poison administered to him by his eldest son, Agathocles. 7 Possibly the tyrant of Pheræ, of that name, whom we read of in Diodorus, lib. xv., cap. 80, and in Plu 4 Allusion to the 127th verse of the Fifth Book of the tarch's Pelopidas. There is indeed a half-century wantIliad. ing for rendering this Alexander and the three fore All Antigonus seducing his daughter-in-law, shield: in one compartment feastings and Attalus drinking a cup of poison and weddings, in another courts of juspresented him by his son. On another tice and popular assemblies; here is one side I beheld how Arsaces, raging with offering up a sacrifice on account of his jealousy, fell upon his concubine with a good fortune, while not far off is another drawn sword, and how Arbaces, her rending the air with his lamentations. chamberlain, coming to her assistance, Looking towards the country of the attacked Arsaces with a naked sabre, Getes, I beheld them with arms in their while the handsome Mede, Spartinus, hands; proceeding to the Scythians, I being wounded on the forehead with saw them traveling about, with bag and a golden cup, was dragged out by the baggage, in caravans; turning my eye a heels by some of the satellites. The like little to the other side, I found the Egypwas to be seen in Africa, and among the tians engaged in tilling their lands, the Scythians and Thracians, in the palaces Phoenicians merchandizing, the Cilicians of kings; everywhere nothing but princes plundering, the Spartans being flogged, living in perpetual terror, surrounded by and the Athenians were litigating. robbery and perjury, and betrayed by these being in action in one instant, you their most confidential favorites. In this may imagine what a mishmash it made. manner I entertained myself awhile with Figure to yourself a great choir of singers the affairs of kings. But the acts of brought together upon the stage, and private persons were still more comical. commanded not to sing in unison, but There I saw the epicurean, Hermodicus, each one his peculiar tune, without carforswearing himself for a thousand ing about the rest; and now let them drachmas; the stoic, Agathocles, suing his begin all at once, every one to sing his scholars for payment of tuition; the own song with all his might, and striving, rhetor, Clinias, stealing a silver patera as if it were for a wager, who should. vofrom the temple of Esculapius; and ciferate the loudest; what think you of Herophilus, the cynic, passing the night the harmony this concert would produce? in a brothel. To sum up all the various And yet all the dwellers upon earth are scenes I beheld, of house-breakers, petti- such choristers; and of such inharmofoggers, cheats of all descriptions, un- nious and discordant notes is human life conscious of such an attentive spectator, composed; and not only of unmusical tones afforded me a most variable and diverting but of dissonant and incongruous movecomedy. ments-a drama wherein the persons harmonize neither externally nor internally, but in language, figure, complexion, man. ners, and habits of life, are infinitely variable and incoherent; ever thwarting and counteracting one another, and by thought or inclination never agreeing in one point; till at length the master of the band, being wearied out, drives them one after another off the stage. Friend. It would not be amiss to hear all the particulars of it; at least it seems to have yielded you much pleasure. Menippus. To go articulated through the whole of it, my friend, would be impracticable. It was as much as ever I could do to stand the sight of it, however, to cut the matter short, imagine you were viewing the scenes described on Homer's named princes contemporaries; yet it is not more difficult to conceive how Menippus could know what had passed fifty years backwards, as present, than how he could see from the moon into the bed-chamber of King Ptolemy. In a dream all is extremely possible, and more may not perhaps be required of a journey in the moon and to Jupitersburg. 1 Of what Antigonus and Attalus mention is here made is just as uncertain and unknown as who the Arsaces is whom Menippus sees with a drawn sword, perhaps from jealousy of the handsome Spartinus, attacking his concubine. It has all the appearance as if some picture, to which a Persian anecdote had furnished the subject, was the foundation of it, as is often the case with Lucian's sketches. They are then all at once struck dumb; and the harsh and jarring discord is at an end. To conclude, the actors in this motley and inconsistent farce of human life appeared to me extremely ridiculous. Yet I thought I had reason to laugh at none more than at those honest men who A humorous allusion to a custom of the Spartans of scourging their sons on the festival of Diana Orchia, round the altar of the goddess even to blood. Menippus here characterizes five celebrated nations ludicrously, each by a single expression. That the Athenians were extremely litigious sufficiently appears from the Birds and the Wasps of Aristophanes. |