HERMES
What are you going to say to this, Master Syrian? THE SYRIAN Gentlemen of the jury, the suit that I am contesting now before you is unexpected. In fact, I should have looked for anything else in the world sooner than that Dialogue should say such things about. me. When I took him in hand, he was still dour, as most people thought, and had been reduced to a skeleton through continual questions. In that guise he seemed awe-inspiring, to be sure, but not in any way attractive or agreeable to the public. So first of all I got him into the way of walking on the ground like a human being; afterwards by washing off all his accumulated grime and forcing him to smile, I made him more agreeable to those who saw him: and on top of all that, I paired him with Comedy, and in this way too procured him great favour from his hearers, who formerly feared his prickles and avoided taking hold of him as if he were a sea-urchin.
I know, however, what hurts him most. It is that I do not sit and quibble with him about those obscure, subtle themes of his, like “whether the soul is immortal,” and “when God made the world, how many pints of pure, changeless substance he poured into the vessel in which he concocted the universe,”
1
and “whether rhetoric is the false counterpart of a subdivision of political science, the fourth form of parasitic occupation.”
2
Somehow he delights in dissecting such problems, just as people like to scratch where it itches. Reflection is sweet to him, and he sets great store by himself if they say that not everyone can grasp his penetrating speculations about “ideas.”
That is what he expects of me, naturally; and he demands those wings of his and gazes on high without seeing what lies at his feet. As far as the rest of it goes, he cannot complain, I am sure, that I have stripped him of that Greek mantle and shifted him into a foreign one, even though I myself am considered foreign. Indeed I should be doing wrong to transgress in that way against him. and to steal away his native costume. I have made the best defence that I can. Please cast the same ballot as before. (The votes are counted.)
What are you going to say to this, Master Syrian? THE SYRIAN Gentlemen of the jury, the suit that I am contesting now before you is unexpected. In fact, I should have looked for anything else in the world sooner than that Dialogue should say such things about. me. When I took him in hand, he was still dour, as most people thought, and had been reduced to a skeleton through continual questions. In that guise he seemed awe-inspiring, to be sure, but not in any way attractive or agreeable to the public. So first of all I got him into the way of walking on the ground like a human being; afterwards by washing off all his accumulated grime and forcing him to smile, I made him more agreeable to those who saw him: and on top of all that, I paired him with Comedy, and in this way too procured him great favour from his hearers, who formerly feared his prickles and avoided taking hold of him as if he were a sea-urchin.
I know, however, what hurts him most. It is that I do not sit and quibble with him about those obscure, subtle themes of his, like “whether the soul is immortal,” and “when God made the world, how many pints of pure, changeless substance he poured into the vessel in which he concocted the universe,”
1
and “whether rhetoric is the false counterpart of a subdivision of political science, the fourth form of parasitic occupation.”
2
Somehow he delights in dissecting such problems, just as people like to scratch where it itches. Reflection is sweet to him, and he sets great store by himself if they say that not everyone can grasp his penetrating speculations about “ideas.”
That is what he expects of me, naturally; and he demands those wings of his and gazes on high without seeing what lies at his feet. As far as the rest of it goes, he cannot complain, I am sure, that I have stripped him of that Greek mantle and shifted him into a foreign one, even though I myself am considered foreign. Indeed I should be doing wrong to transgress in that way against him. and to steal away his native costume. I have made the best defence that I can. Please cast the same ballot as before. (The votes are counted.)
Bis accusatus sive tribunalia. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.