Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 1. Томас Бабингтон Маколей

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СКАЧАТЬ I am mounting the stand.

      CALLIDEMUS. Of curiosity! yes, and of something else too. You will infallibly be dragged down by main force, like poor Glaucon (See Xenophon Memorabilia, iii.) last year.

      SPEUSIPPUS. Never fear. I shall begin in this style: "When I consider, Athenians, the importance of our city;—when I consider the extent of its power, the wisdom of its laws, the elegance of its decorations;—when I consider by what names and by what exploits its annals are adorned; when I think on Harmodius and Aristogiton, on Themistocles and Miltiades, on Cimon and Pericles;—when I contemplate our pre-eminence in arts and letters;—when I observe so many flourishing states and islands compelled to own the dominion, and purchase the protection of the City of the Violet Crown" (A favourite epithet of Athens. See Aristophanes; Acharn. 637.)—

      CALLIDEMUS. I shall choke with rage. Oh, all ye gods and goddesses, what sacrilege, what perjury have I ever committed, that I should be singled out from among all the citizens of Athens to be the father of this fool?

      SPEUSIPPUS. What now? By Bacchus, old man, I would not advise you to give way to such fits of passion in the streets. If Aristophanes were to see you, you would infallibly be in a comedy next spring.

      CALLIDEMUS. You have more reason to fear Aristophanes than any fool living. Oh, that he could but hear you trying to imitate the slang of Straton (See Aristophanes; Equites, 1375.) and the lisp of Alcibiades! (See Aristophanes; Vespae, 44.) You would be an inexhaustible subject. You would console him for the loss of Cleon.

      SPEUSIPPUS. No, no. I may perhaps figure at the dramatic representations before long; but in a very different way.

      CALLIDEMUS. What do you mean?

      SPEUSIPPUS. What say you to a tragedy?

      CALLIDEMUS. A tragedy of yours?

      SPEUSIPPUS. Even so.

      CALLIDEMUS. Oh Hercules! Oh Bacchus! This is too much. Here is an universal genius; sophist,—orator,—poet. To what a three-headed monster have I given birth! a perfect Cerberus of intellect! And pray what may your piece be about? Or will your tragedy, like your speech, serve equally for any subject?

      SPEUSIPPUS. I thought of several plots;—Oedipus,—Eteocles and Polynices,—the war of Troy,—the murder of Agamemnon.

      CALLIDEMUS. And what have you chosen?

      SPEUSIPPUS. You know there is a law which permits any modern poet to retouch a play of Aeschylus, and bring it forward as his own composition. And, as there is an absurd prejudice, among the vulgar, in favour of his extravagant pieces, I have selected one of them, and altered it.

      CALLIDEMUS. Which of them?

      SPEUSIPPUS. Oh! that mass of barbarous absurdities, the Prometheus. But I have framed it anew upon the model of Euripides. By Bacchus, I shall make Sophocles and Agathon look about them. You would not know the play again.

      CALLIDEMUS. By Jupiter, I believe not.

      SPEUSIPPUS. I have omitted the whole of the absurd dialogue between Vulcan and Strength, at the beginning.

      CALLIDEMUS. That may be, on the whole, an improvement. The play will then open with that grand soliloquy of Prometheus, when he is chained to the rock.

      "Oh! ye eternal heavens! ye rushing winds! Ye fountains of great streams! Ye ocean waves, That in ten thousand sparkling dimples wreathe Your azure smiles! All-generating earth! All-seeing sun! On you, on you, I call." (See Aeschylus; Prometheus, 88.)

      Well, I allow that will be striking; I did not think you capable of that idea. Why do you laugh?

      SPEUSIPPUS. Do you seriously suppose that one who has studied the plays of that great man, Euripides, would ever begin a tragedy in such a ranting style?

      CALLIDEMUS. What, does not your play open with the speech of Prometheus?

      SPEUSIPPUS. No doubt.

      CALLIDEMUS. Then what, in the name of Bacchus, do you make him say?

      SPEUSIPPUS. You shall hear; and, if it be not in the very style of Euripides, call me a fool.

      CALLIDEMUS. That is a liberty which I shall venture to take, whether it be or no. But go on.

      SPEUSIPPUS. Prometheus begins thus:—

           "Coelus begat Saturn and Briareus

           Cottus and Creius and Iapetus,

           Gyges and Hyperion, Phoebe, Tethys,

           Thea and Rhea and Mnemosyne.

           Then Saturn wedded Rhea, and begat

           Pluto and Neptune, Jupiter and Juno."

      CALLIDEMUS. Very beautiful, and very natural; and, as you say, very like Euripides.

      SPEUSIPPUS. You are sneering. Really, father, you do not understand these things. You had not those advantages in your youth—

      CALLIDEMUS. Which I have been fool enough to let you have. No; in my early days, lying had not been dignified into a science, nor politics degraded into a trade. I wrestled, and read Homer's battles, instead of dressing my hair, and reciting lectures in verse out of Euripides. But I have some notion of what a play should be; I have seen Phrynichus, and lived with Aeschylus. I saw the representation of the Persians.

      SPEUSIPPUS. A wretched play; it may amuse the fools who row the triremes; but it is utterly unworthy to be read by any man of taste.

      CALLIDEMUS. If you had seen it acted;—the whole theatre frantic with joy, stamping, shouting, laughing, crying. There was Cynaegeirus, the brother of Aeschylus, who lost both his arms at Marathon, beating the stumps against his sides with rapture. When the crowd remarked him—But where are you going?

      SPEUSIPPUS. To sup with Alcibiades; he sails with the expedition for Sicily in a few days; this is his farewell entertainment.

      CALLIDEMUS. So much the better; I should say, so much the worse. That cursed Sicilian expedition! And you were one of the young fools (See Thucydides, vi. 13.) who stood clapping and shouting while he was gulling the rabble, and who drowned poor Nicias's voice with your uproar. Look to it; a day of reckoning will come. As to Alcibiades himself—

      SPEUSIPPUS. What can you say against him? His enemies themselves acknowledge his merit.

      CALLIDEMUS. They acknowledge that he is clever, and handsome, and that he was crowned at the Olympic games. And what other merits do his friends claim for him? A precious assembly you will meet at his house, no doubt.

      SPEUSIPPUS. The first men in Athens, probably.

      CALLIDEMUS. Whom do you mean by the first men in Athens?

      SPEUSIPPUS. Callicles. (Callicles plays a conspicuous part in the Gorgias of Plato.)

      CALLIDEMUS. A sacrilegious, impious, unfeeling ruffian!

      SPEUSIPPUS. Hippomachus.

      CALLIDEMUS. A fool, СКАЧАТЬ