[22] When Thersagoras had finished this harangue, I remarked
‘Your intention is plain; I am to be convinced that you are more than a good poet; so you have constructed your prose Demosthenes as a pendant to your verse Homer.’ ‘No, no,’ he said; ‘what made me run on so long was the idea that, if I could ease your mind by showing how light your task was, I should have secured my listener.’ ‘Then let me tell you that your object has not been furthered, and my case has only been aggravated.’ ‘A fine doctor I seem to be!’ he said. ‘Not knowing where the difficulty lies,’ I continued, ‘you are a doctor who mistakes his patient’s ailment and treats him for another.’ ‘How so?’
‘Your intention is plain; I am to be convinced that you are more than a good poet; so you have constructed your prose Demosthenes as a pendant to your verse Homer.’ ‘No, no,’ he said; ‘what made me run on so long was the idea that, if I could ease your mind by showing how light your task was, I should have secured my listener.’ ‘Then let me tell you that your object has not been furthered, and my case has only been aggravated.’ ‘A fine doctor I seem to be!’ he said. ‘Not knowing where the difficulty lies,’ I continued, ‘you are a doctor who mistakes his patient’s ailment and treats him for another.’ ‘How so?’
'You have been prescribing for the troubles that would attend a first attempt; unfortunately it is years and years since I got through that stage, and your remedies are quite out of date.’ ‘Why, then,’ he exclaimed, ‘the cure is complete; nobody is nervous about a road of which he knows every inch.’
Demosthenis encomium. Lucian of Samosota. Henry Watson Fowler (Translator), Francis George Fowler (Translator). Medford, MA, USA. 2023-08-01.
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Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.