Lucian of Samosata, Piscator, Austin Morris Harmon (Translator), 30

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

FRANKNESS

Hardly had I caught a glimpse of “your doctrines when I conceived admiration for you, as was inevitable, and for all these men, who are the lawgivers of the higher life and lend a helping hand to those who aspire to it by giving advice which is extremely good and extremely helpful if one does not act contrary to it or falter, but fixedly regards the principles which you have established and tries to bring his life into harmony and agreement with them—a thing, to be sure, which very few, even of your own disciples, do!¹

Piscator. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

The Dead Come to Life, or the Fisherman (English) (Lucian, Vol. 3. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921.)

Editions (1)

Ἀναβιοῦντες ἢ Ἁλιεύς Perseus (Lucian, Vol. 3. Harmon, Austin Morris, editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921.) — 30 focus

Παρρησιάδης

κἀπειδὴ μόνον παρέκυψα εἰς τὰ ὑμέτερα, σὲ μέν, ὥσπερ ἀναγκαῖον ἦν, καὶ τούσδε ἅπαντας ἐθαύμαζον ἀρίστου βίου νομοθέτας ὄντας καὶ τοῖς ἐπʼ αὐτὸν ἐπειγομένοις χεῖρα ὀρέγοντας, τὰ κάλλιστα καὶ συμφορώτατα παραινοῦντας, εἴ τις μὴ παραβαίνοι αὐτὰ μηδὲ διολισθάνοι, ἀλλʼ ἀτενὲς ἀποβλέπων εἰς τοὺς κανόνας οὓς προτεθείκατε, πρὸς τούτους ῥυθμίζοι καὶ ἀπευθύνοι τὸν ἑαυτοῦ βίον, ὅπερ νὴ Δία καὶ τῶν καθʼ ὑμᾶς¹ αὐτοὺς ὀλίγοι ποιοῦσιν.

Translations (1)

The Fisher Perseus (The Works of Lucian of Samosata, Vol. 1. Fowler, Henry Watson and Fowler, Francis George, translators. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 30 focus

Parrhesiades

At my first peep into your realm, how could I but admire yourself and all these your disciples? there they were, legislating for the perfect life, holding out hands of help to those that would reach it, commending all that was fairest and best; fairest and best—but a man must keep straight on for it and never slip, must set his eyes unwaveringly on the laws that you have laid down, must tune and test his life thereby; and that, Zeus be my witness, there are few enough in these days of ours to do.

Notes on the current edition

The Dead Come to Life, or the Fisherman

I give Fritzsche’s interpretation of this last clause, though I fear it strains the Greek and is foreign to Lucian’s thought. Another, and I think a better, solution is to excise the clause as an early gloss, reading jas and interpreting it more naturally, “a thing which very few, even in our own time, do.” Compare the late gloss in β: τί ταῦτατοῖς καθ' ἡμᾶς ἔοικε μονάχοις.

Lucian of Samosata Piscator 30

Austin Morris Harmon (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers