home:texts_and_library:dialogues:hermotimus
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Both sides previous revisionPrevious revision | |||
home:texts_and_library:dialogues:hermotimus [2019/07/06 15:54] – [1] frank | home:texts_and_library:dialogues:hermotimus [2019/07/06 15:58] (current) – frank | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 4: | Line 4: | ||
The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Translated by Fowler, H W and F G. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1905. | The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Translated by Fowler, H W and F G. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1905. | ||
- | Lucian, in the character of Lycinus, which he assumes in this dialogue, laughs at the various sects of philosophers, | + | Lucian, in the character of Lycinus, which he assumes in this dialogue, laughs at the various sects of philosophers, |
- Based on Francklin | - Based on Francklin | ||
Line 95: | Line 95: | ||
//Ly// . By Heracles (and his death on Oeta), they quit themselves like men, and have their reward, it seems. But there is one thing I should like to know: are they allowed to come down from their elevation sometimes, and have a taste of what they left behind them? or when they have once got up, must they stay there, conversing with Virtue, and smiling at wealth and glory and pleasure? | //Ly// . By Heracles (and his death on Oeta), they quit themselves like men, and have their reward, it seems. But there is one thing I should like to know: are they allowed to come down from their elevation sometimes, and have a taste of what they left behind them? or when they have once got up, must they stay there, conversing with Virtue, and smiling at wealth and glory and pleasure? | ||
- | //Her// . The latter, assuredly; more than that, a man once admitted of Virtue' | + | //Her// . The latter, assuredly; more than that, a man once admitted of Virtue' |
//Ly// . Well, but - if one might dare to say what one thinks - but no - let me keep a good tongue in my head - it were irreverent to pry into what wise men do. | //Ly// . Well, but - if one might dare to say what one thinks - but no - let me keep a good tongue in my head - it were irreverent to pry into what wise men do. | ||
Line 205: | Line 205: | ||
//Her// . Well, no; I didn't count; I just guessed. | //Her// . Well, no; I didn't count; I just guessed. | ||
- | //Ly// . Now, now! you are not teaching, but hoaxing me; judge by guess work and impression, indeed, on a thing of this importance! You are hiding the truth. | + | //Ly// . Now, now! you are not teaching, but hoaxing me; judge by guesswork |
- | //Her// . Well, that was not my only way; every one told me the Epicureans were sensual and self-indulgent, | + | //Her// . Well, that was not my only way; everyone |
==== 17 ==== | ==== 17 ==== | ||
Line 227: | Line 227: | ||
==== 18 ==== | ==== 18 ==== | ||
- | //Her// . But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgement entirely, but on my own too. I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently dressed and groomed, ever with a thoughtful air and a manly countenance, | + | //Her// . But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgement entirely, but on my own too. I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently dressed and groomed, ever with a thoughtful air and a manly countenance, |
//Ly// . Did you ever see them behaving like your master, as I described him to you just now? Lending money and clamouring for payment, losing their tempers in philosophic debates, and making other exhibitions of themselves? Or perhaps these are trifles, so long as the dress is decent, the beard long, and the hair close-cropped? | //Ly// . Did you ever see them behaving like your master, as I described him to you just now? Lending money and clamouring for payment, losing their tempers in philosophic debates, and making other exhibitions of themselves? Or perhaps these are trifles, so long as the dress is decent, the beard long, and the hair close-cropped? | ||
Line 277: | Line 277: | ||
==== 24 ==== | ==== 24 ==== | ||
- | I remember hearing a description of it all once before from an old man, who urged me to go there with him. He would show me the way, enroll me when I got there, introduce me to his own circles, and promise me a share in the universal Happiness. But I was stiff-necked, | + | I remember hearing a description of it all once before from an old man, who urged me to go there with him. He would show me the way, enroll me when I got there, introduce me to his own circles, and promise me a share in the universal Happiness. But I was stiff-necked, |
==== 25 ==== | ==== 25 ==== | ||
Line 305: | Line 305: | ||
//Her// . Well, of course. | //Her// . Well, of course. | ||
- | //Ly// . So you have not solved my puzzle; I know just as little as before which traveller to trust; I find that each of them, as well as his guide, has tried one only, which he now recommends and will have to be the only one leading to the city. Whether he tells the truth I have no means of knowing; that he has attained //some// end, and seen //some// city, I may perhaps allow; but whether he saw the right one, or whether, Corinth being the real goal, he got to Babylon and thought he had seen Corinth - that is still undecided; for surely | + | //Ly// . So you have not solved my puzzle; I know just as little as before which traveller to trust; I find that each of them, as well as his guide, has tried one only, which he now recommends and will have to be the only one leading to the city. Whether he tells the truth I have no means of knowing; that he has attained //some// end, and seen //some// city, I may perhaps allow; but whether he saw the right one, or whether, Corinth being the real goal, he got to Babylon and thought he had seen Corinth - that is still undecided; for surely |
//Her// . But that is absurd, Lycinus; they go opposite ways, you see. | //Her// . But that is absurd, Lycinus; they go opposite ways, you see. | ||
Line 311: | Line 311: | ||
==== 28 ==== | ==== 28 ==== | ||
- | //Ly// . Then, my dear good man, this choice of roads and guides is quite a serious matter; we can by no means just follow our noses; we shall be discovering that we are well on the way to Babylon or Bactria instead of to Corinth. Nor is it advisable to toss up, either, on the chance that we may hit upon the right way if we start upon any one at a venture. That is no impossibility; | + | //Ly// . Then, my dear good man, this choice of roads and guides is quite a serious matter; we can by no means just follow our noses; we shall be discovering that we are well on the way to Babylon or Bactria instead of to Corinth. Nor is it advisable to toss up, either, on the chance that we may hit upon the right way if we start upon anyone |
==== 29 ==== | ==== 29 ==== | ||
Line 349: | Line 349: | ||
So say all of them, one after the other. | So say all of them, one after the other. | ||
- | I suspect that Plato, with his intimate knowledge of Sicily, will add an anecdote from there. Gelo of Syracuse had disagreeable breath, but did not find it out himself for a long time, no one venturing to mention such a circumstance to a tyrant. At last a foreign woman who had a connexion with him dared to tell him; whereupon he went to his wife and scolded her for never having, with all her opportunities of knowing, warned him of it; she put in the defence that, as she had never been familiar or at close quarters with any other man, she had supposed all men were like that. So Hermotinus (Plato will say) after his exclusive association with Stoics, cannot be expected to know the savour of other people' | + | I suspect that Plato, with his intimate knowledge of Sicily, will add an anecdote from there. Gelo of Syracuse had disagreeable breath, but did not find it out himself for a long time, no one venturing to mention such a circumstance to a tyrant. At last a foreign woman who had a connexion with him dared to tell him; whereupon he went to his wife and scolded her for never having, with all her opportunities of knowing, warned him of it; she put in the defence that, as she had never been familiar or at close quarters with any other man, she had supposed all men were like that. So Hermotinus (Plato will say) after his exclusive association with Stoics, cannot be expected to know the savour of other people' |
==== 35 ==== | ==== 35 ==== | ||
Line 357: | Line 357: | ||
//Ly// . Away with them, then, if you find their company superfluous. And now do you proceed; my expectations are high. | //Ly// . Away with them, then, if you find their company superfluous. And now do you proceed; my expectations are high. | ||
- | //Her// . Well, it seems to me perfectly possible, Lycinus, after studying the Stoic doctrines alone, to get at the truth from them, without going through a course of all the others too. Look at it this way: if any one tells you simply, Twice two is four, need you go round all the mathematicians to find out whether there is one who makes it five, or seven; or would you know at once that the man was right? | + | //Her// . Well, it seems to me perfectly possible, Lycinus, after studying the Stoic doctrines alone, to get at the truth from them, without going through a course of all the others too. Look at it this way: if anyone |
//Ly// . Certainly I should. | //Ly// . Certainly I should. | ||
Line 367: | Line 367: | ||
//Ly// . Not to the point. You compare accepted with disputed facts, whereas they are completely different. Tell me, did you ever meet a man who said twice two was seven or eleven? | //Ly// . Not to the point. You compare accepted with disputed facts, whereas they are completely different. Tell me, did you ever meet a man who said twice two was seven or eleven? | ||
- | //Her// . Not I; any one who did not make four of it must be mad. | + | //Her// . Not I; anyone |
//Ly// . But on the other hand - try to tell the truth, I adjure you -, did you ever meet a Stoic and an Epicurean who did //not// differ about principles or ends? | //Ly// . But on the other hand - try to tell the truth, I adjure you -, did you ever meet a Stoic and an Epicurean who did //not// differ about principles or ends? | ||
Line 413: | Line 413: | ||
==== 39 ==== | ==== 39 ==== | ||
- | For the source of all the difficulty is this: every one who is stripped has something or other on him, one a bowl, one a cup, one a garland, which again may be bronze, gold, or silver; but whether the one he has is the sacred one, is not yet clear. It is absolutely impossible to know which man to accuse of sacrilege; even if all the objects were similar, it would be uncertain who had robbed the God; for such things may be private property too. Our perplexity, of course, is simply due to the fact that the missing cup - assume it to be a cup - has no inscription; | + | For the source of all the difficulty is this: everyone |
//Her// . You suppose right; and in many places too. | //Her// . You suppose right; and in many places too. | ||
Line 467: | Line 467: | ||
==== 44 ==== | ==== 44 ==== | ||
- | //Ly// . Look at the same thing another way. Suppose we put no letters at all on the lots, but, instead of them, signs and marks such as the Egyptians use for letters, men with dogs' or lions' heads. Or no, those are rather too strange; let us avoid hybrids, and put down simple forms, as well as our draughtsmanship will allow - men on two lots, horses on two, a pair of roosters, a pair of dogs, and let a lion be the mark of the ninth. Now, if you hit upon the lion at the first try, how can you tell that this is the bye-maker, until you have gone all round and seen whether | + | //Ly// . Look at the same thing another way. Suppose we put no letters at all on the lots, but, instead of them, signs and marks such as the Egyptians use for letters, men with dogs' or lions' heads. Or no, those are rather too strange; let us avoid hybrids, and put down simple forms, as well as our draughtsmanship will allow - men on two lots, horses on two, a pair of roosters, a pair of dogs, and let a lion be the mark of the ninth. Now, if you hit upon the lion at the first try, how can you tell that this is the bye-maker, until you have gone all round and seen whether |
//Her// . Your question is too much for me. | //Her// . Your question is too much for me. | ||
Line 473: | Line 473: | ||
==== 45 ==== | ==== 45 ==== | ||
- | //Ly// . No wonder; there is no plausible answer. Consequently if we mean to find either the man who has the sacred cup, or the bye, or our best guide to the famous city of Corinth, we must absolutely go to and examine them all, trying them carefully, stripping and comparing them; the truth will be hard enough to find, even so. If I am to take any one's advice upon the right philosophy to choose, I insist upon his knowing what they all say; every one else I disqualify; I will not trust him while there is one philosophy he is unacquainted with; that one may possibly be the best of all. If some one were to produce a handsome man, and state that he was the handsomest of mankind, we should not accept that, unless we knew he had seen all men; very likely his man is handsome, but whether the handsomest, he has no means of knowing without seeing all. Now we are looking not simply for beauty, but for the greatest beauty, and if we miss that, we shall account ourselves no further than we were; we shall not be content with chancing upon some sort of beauty; we are in search of a definite thing, the supreme beauty, which must necessarily be //one// . | + | //Ly// . No wonder; there is no plausible answer. Consequently if we mean to find either the man who has the sacred cup, or the bye, or our best guide to the famous city of Corinth, we must absolutely go to and examine them all, trying them carefully, stripping and comparing them; the truth will be hard enough to find, even so. If I am to take any one's advice upon the right philosophy to choose, I insist upon his knowing what they all say; everyone |
==== 46 ==== | ==== 46 ==== | ||
Line 557: | Line 557: | ||
//Her// . Are you the only man who has found the truth, and are all the people who go in for philosophy fools? | //Her// . Are you the only man who has found the truth, and are all the people who go in for philosophy fools? | ||
- | //Ly// . You wrong me, Hermotimus, when you imply that I put myself above other people, or rank myself at all with those who know; you forget what I said; I never claimed to know the truth better than others, only confessed that I was as ignorant of it as every one else. | + | //Ly// . You wrong me, Hermotimus, when you imply that I put myself above other people, or rank myself at all with those who know; you forget what I said; I never claimed to know the truth better than others, only confessed that I was as ignorant of it as everyone |
==== 54 ==== | ==== 54 ==== | ||
- | //Her// . Well, but, Lycinus, it may be all very well to insist on going the round, testing the various statements, and eschewing any other method of choice; but it is ridiculous to spend so many years on each experiment, as though there were no such thing as judging from samples. That device seems to me quite simple, and economical of time. There is a story that some sculptor, Phidias, I think, seeing a single claw, calculated from it the size of the lion, if it were modelled proportionally. So, if some one were to let you see a man's hand, keeping the rest of his body concealed, you would know at once that what was behind was a man, without seeing his whole body. Well, it is easy to find out in a few hours the essential points of the various doctrines, and, for selecting the best, these will suffice, without any of your scrupulous exacting investigation. | + | //Her// . Well, but, Lycinus, it may be all very well to insist on going the round, testing the various statements, and eschewing any other method of choice; but it is ridiculous to spend so many years on each experiment, as though there were no such thing as judging from samples. That device seems to me quite simple, and economical of time. There is a story that some sculptor, Phidias, I think, seeing a single claw, calculated from it the size of the lion, if it were modelled proportionally. So, if someone |
==== 55 ==== | ==== 55 ==== | ||
Line 605: | Line 605: | ||
//Her// . What do you mean? | //Her// . What do you mean? | ||
- | //Ly// . You take a thing whose nature is self-evident and universally admitted, like wine, and argue from it to perfectly unlike things, whose nature is obscure and generally debated. In fact I cannot tell what analogy you find between philosophy and wine; there is just one, indeed: philosophers and wine-merchants both sell their wares, mostly resorting to adulteration, | + | //Ly// . You take a thing whose nature is self-evident and universally admitted, like wine, and argue from it to perfectly unlike things, whose nature is obscure and generally debated. In fact I cannot tell what analogy you find between philosophy and wine; there is just one, indeed: philosophers and wine-merchants both sell their wares, mostly resorting to adulteration, |
==== 60 ==== | ==== 60 ==== | ||
Line 681: | Line 681: | ||
//Her// . So that, even if we go all through all philosophy, we shall have no certainty of finding the truth even then; that is what you say. | //Her// . So that, even if we go all through all philosophy, we shall have no certainty of finding the truth even then; that is what you say. | ||
- | //Ly// . Please, please do not ask //me// ; once more, apply to reason itself. Its answer will perhaps be that there can be no certainty yet - as long as we cannot be sure that it is one or other of the things they say it is. | + | //Ly// . Please, please do not ask //me//; once more, apply to reason itself. Its answer will perhaps be that there can be no certainty yet - as long as we cannot be sure that it is one or other of the things they say it is. |
//Her// . Then, according to you, we shall never finish our quest nor be philosophers, | //Her// . Then, according to you, we shall never finish our quest nor be philosophers, | ||
Line 717: | Line 717: | ||
==== 70 ==== | ==== 70 ==== | ||
- | //Ly// . Why, my friend, even if we find some one who claims to know this art of demonstration, | + | //Ly// . Why, my friend, even if we find someone |
==== 71 ==== | ==== 71 ==== | ||
Line 743: | Line 743: | ||
==== 76 ==== | ==== 76 ==== | ||
- | But now for goodness' | + | But now for goodness' |
//Her// . I never saw such a man. | //Her// . I never saw such a man. | ||
Line 749: | Line 749: | ||
==== 77 ==== | ==== 77 ==== | ||
- | //Ly// . I am glad you do not palter with the truth. But what are your hopes in pursuing philosophy, then? You see that neither your own teacher, nor his, nor his again, and so on to the tenth generation, has been absolutely wise and so attained Happiness. It will not serve you to say that it is enough to get near Happiness; that is no good; a person on the doorstep is just as much outside and in the air as another a long way off, though with the difference that the former is tantalized by a nearer view. So it is to get into the neighbourhood of Happiness - I will grant you so much - that you toil like this, wearing yourself away, letting this great portion of your life slip from you, while you are sunk in dullness and wakeful weariness; and you are to go on with it for twenty more years at the least, you tell me, to take your place when you are eighty - always assuming | + | //Ly// . I am glad you do not palter with the truth. But what are your hopes in pursuing philosophy, then? You see that neither your own teacher, nor his, nor his again, and so on to the tenth generation, has been absolutely wise and so attained Happiness. It will not serve you to say that it is enough to get near Happiness; that is no good; a person on the doorstep is just as much outside and in the air as another a long way off, though with the difference that the former is tantalized by a nearer view. So it is to get into the neighbourhood of Happiness - I will grant you so much - that you toil like this, wearing yourself away, letting this great portion of your life slip from you, while you are sunk in dullness and wakeful weariness; and you are to go on with it for twenty more years at the least, you tell me, to take your place when you are eighty - always assuming |
==== 78 ==== | ==== 78 ==== | ||
Line 769: | Line 769: | ||
==== 81 ==== | ==== 81 ==== | ||
- | The youth' | + | The youth' |
==== 82 ==== | ==== 82 ==== | ||
- | When he had finished, mark the reverend philosopher' | + | When he had finished, mark the reverend philosopher' |
==== 83 ==== | ==== 83 ==== | ||
Line 791: | Line 791: | ||
==== 86 ==== | ==== 86 ==== | ||
- | //Her// . You are quite right. And now I will be off to metamorphose myself. When we next meet, there will be no long, shaggy beard, no artificial composure; I shall be natural, as a gentleman should. I may go as far as a fashionable coat, by way of publishing my renunciation of nonsense. I only wish there were an emetic that would purge out every doctrine they have instilled into me; I assure you, if I could reverse Chrysippus' | + | //Her// . You are quite right. And now I will be off to metamorphose myself. When we next meet, there will be no long, shaggy beard, no artificial composure; I shall be natural, as a gentleman should. I may go as far as a fashionable coat, by way of publishing my renunciation of nonsense. I only wish there were an emetic that would purge out every doctrine they have instilled into me; I assure you, if I could reverse Chrysippus' |
home/texts_and_library/dialogues/hermotimus.1562446465.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/07/06 15:54 by frank