Lucian De saltatione 3

[3] “You will need, therefore, to do a great deal of pleading in your own defence, my fine fellow, when you confront the enlightened, if you wish to avoid being eliminated absolutely and expelled from the fold of the serious-minded. And yet the better course for you, I suppose, is to mend the whole matter b pleading not guilty and not admitting at all that you have committed any such misdemeanour. Anyhow, keep an eye to the future and see to it that you do not surprise us by changing from the man that you were of old to a Lyde or a Bacche. That would be a reproach not only to you but to us, unless, follow- ing the example of Odysseus, we can pull you away from your lotus and fetch you back to your wonted pursuits before you unwittingly fall quite under the spell of these Sirens in the theatre. But those other Sirens assailed only the ears, so that wax alone was needed for sailing past them; you, however, seem to have been subjugated from top to toe, through the eyes as well as the ears.

[3] My friend, you have a long reckoning to settle with men of learning, if you would not be repudiated altogether, and expelled from the congregation of the wise. I think your best course will be a pointblank denial: declare flatly that you never did anything of the kind, Anyhow, you must watch your conduct for the future: we do not want to find that our Lycinus has changed his sex, and become a Bacchante or a Lydian damsel. That would be as much to our discredit as to yours: for ours should be Odysseus’s part,—to tear you from the lotus, and bring you back to your accustomed pursuits; to save you from the clutches of these stage Sirens before it is too late. The Sirens, after all, did but plot against men’s ears; it needed but a little wax, and a man might sail past them uninjured: but yours is a captivity of ear and eye, of body and soul.