Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 1

ALCIBIADES. Nay, choose for yourself.

CHARICLEA. Then I will sing an old Ionian hymn, which is chanted every spring at the 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,
Venus, unto love and mirth:
Smiles like thine are in the heaven;
Bloom like thine is on the earth;
And the tinkling of the fountains,
And the murmurs of the sea,
And the echoes from the mountains,
Speak of youth, and hope, and thee.

By whate'er of soft expression
Thou hast taught to lovers' eyes,
Faint denial, slow confession,
Glowing cheeks and stifled sighs;
By the pleasure and the pain,
By the follies and the wiles,
Pouting fondness, sweet disdain,
Happy tears and mournful smiles;

Come with music floating o'er thee;
Come with violets springing round:
Let the Graces dance before thee,
All their golden zones unbound;
Now in sport their faces hiding,
Now, with slender fingers fair,
From their laughing eyes dividing
The long curls of rose-crowned hair.

ALCIBIADES. Sweetly sung; but mournfully, Chariclea; for which I would chide you, but that I am sad myself. More wine there. I wish to all the gods that I had 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. Ay; travelling soon puts such thoughts out of men's heads.

CALLICLES. A battle is the best remedy for them.

CHARICLEA. A battle, I should think, might supply their place with others as unpleasant.

CALLICLES. No. The preparations are rather disagreeable to a novice. But as soon as the fighting begins, by Jupiter, it is a noble time;—men trampling,—shields clashing,—spears breaking,—and the poean roaring louder than all.

CHARICLEA. But what if you are killed?

CALLICLES. 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—

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 (Homer's Odyssey, xii. 63.) 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 to other ladies.

CALLICLES. What, in the name of Jupiter, is the use of all these speculations about death? Socrates once (See the close of Plato's Gorgias.) 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 Eleusinian mysteries? (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 celebration of these famous mysteries. It was the opinion of the vulgar among the Athenians that extraordinary privileges were granted in the other world to alt who had been initiated.)

CHARICLEA. And what are those stories?

ALCIBIADES. Are not you initiated, Chariclea?

CHARICLEA. No; my mother was a Lydian, a barbarian; and therefore—

ALCIBIADES. I understand. Now the curse of Venus on the fools who made so hateful a law! Speusippus, does not your friend Euripides (The right of Euripides to this line is somewhat disputable. See Aristophanes; Plutus, 1152.) 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 initiated.

CHARICLEA. When?

ALCIBIADES. Now.