Lucian De saltatione 2

[2]

CRATO

Who that is a man at all, a life-long friend of letters, moreover, and moderately conversant with philosophy, abandons his interest, Lycinus, in all that is better and his association with the ancients to sit enthralled by the flute, watching a girlish fellow play the wanton with dainty clothing and bawdy songs and imitate love-sick minxes, the most erotic of all antiquity, such as Phaedra and Parthenope and Rhodope, ¹ every bit of this, moreover, accompanied by strumming and tootling and tapping of feet?? ² —a ridiculous business in all truth, which does not in the least become a freeborn gentleman of your sort. So for my part, when I learned that you give your time to such spectacles, I was not only ashamed on your account but sorely distressed that you should sit there oblivious of Plato and Chrysippus and Aristotle, getting treated like people who have themselves tickled in the ear with a feather, and that too when there are countless other things to hear and see that are worth while, if one wants them—flute-players who accompany cyclic choruses, singers of conventional compositions for the lyre, ³ and in especial, grand tragedy and comedy, the gayest of the gay; all these have even been held worthy to figure in competitions.

[2]

Crato

Now, my dear sir, can any one who calls himself a man, and an educated man, and in some sort a student of philosophy, —can such a one leave those higher pursuits, leave communing with the sages of old, to sit still and listen to the sound of a flute, and watch the antics of an effeminate creature got up in soft raiment to sing lascivious songs and mimic the passions of prehistoric strumpets, of Rhodopes and Phaedras and Parthenopes, to the accompaniment of twanging string and shrilling pipe and clattering heel? It is too absurd: these are not amusements for a gentleman; not amusements for Lycinus. When I first heard of your spending your time in this way, I was divided betwixt shame and indignation, to think that you could so far forget Plato and Chrysippus and Aristotle, as to sit thus having your ears tickled with a feather. If you want amusements, are there not a thousand things worth seeing and hearing? Can you not hear classical music performed at the great festivals? Are there not lofty tragedy and brilliant comedy,—things that have been deemed worthy of state recognition?