HERMES
Hold still; I will remedy that for you too and will. make you sharp-sighted in a minute by getting a charm out of Homer for this purpose as well as the other. When I say the verses remember not to ‘be short-sighted any longer, but to sce everything distinctly.
Hold still; I will remedy that for you too and will. make you sharp-sighted in a minute by getting a charm out of Homer for this purpose as well as the other. When I say the verses remember not to ‘be short-sighted any longer, but to sce everything distinctly.
CHARON
Only say them!
Only say them!
HERMES
Lo, from your eyes I have lifted a veil that before was upon them.
So that your sight may be sure to distinguish a god from a mortal.
Iliad5, 127 ff.
"Lo, from your eyes I have lifted a veil that before was upon them. So that your sight may be sure to distinguish a god from a mortal.”! How about it? Do you see now?
Lo, from your eyes I have lifted a veil that before was upon them.
So that your sight may be sure to distinguish a god from a mortal.
CHARON
Marvellously! Lynceus was a blind man beside me; so now give me the necessary instruction and answer. my questions. But would you like me to ask them in the language of Homer, so that you may know that I myself am not unfamiliar with his poetry?
Marvellously! Lynceus was a blind man beside me; so now give me the necessary instruction and answer. my questions. But would you like me to ask them in the language of Homer, so that you may know that I myself am not unfamiliar with his poetry?
HERMES
How can you know any of it when you are always on shipboard and at the oar?
How can you know any of it when you are always on shipboard and at the oar?
CHARON
See here, that is a libel on my calling! When I set’ him over the ferry after his death, I leard him recite a quantity of verses and still remember some of them, although a good bit of a storm caught us then. You see, he began to sing a song that was not too auspicious for ‘the passengers, telling how Poseidon brought the clouds together, stirred up the deep by plunging in his trident as if it were a ladle, excited all the gales and a lot more of it. Thus he put the sea in a commotion with his verses, and a black squall suddenly struck us and just missed capsizing the boat. Then he became seasick and jettisoned most of his lays, including Scylla and Charybdis and the Cyclops; so that it wasn’t hard for me to get a little salvage out of all that he let go.
1
See here, that is a libel on my calling! When I set’ him over the ferry after his death, I leard him recite a quantity of verses and still remember some of them, although a good bit of a storm caught us then. You see, he began to sing a song that was not too auspicious for ‘the passengers, telling how Poseidon brought the clouds together, stirred up the deep by plunging in his trident as if it were a ladle, excited all the gales and a lot more of it. Thus he put the sea in a commotion with his verses, and a black squall suddenly struck us and just missed capsizing the boat. Then he became seasick and jettisoned most of his lays, including Scylla and Charybdis and the Cyclops; so that it wasn’t hard for me to get a little salvage out of all that he let go.
1
Contemplantes. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.