Euripides does not like girls, interrupted Protagoras.
That is not true, answered Euripides; I like girls, but not women.
Pericles rose: Let us go to supper, and have walls round our conversationwalls without ears! Support me, Phidias, I am tired.
Plato approached Socrates: Master, let me carry your mantle? he asked.
That is my function, boy, said Alcibiades, intercepting him.
It was once, objected Socrates; now it belongs to Plato of the broad head. Notice his name! He descends from Codrus, the last king, who gave his life to save his people. Plato is of royal birth.
And Alcibiades is of the race of heroes, the Alcmaeonidae, like his uncle Pericles; a noble company.
But Phidias is of the race of the gods; that is more.
I am probably descended from the Titans, broke in Protagoras. I say probably, for one knows nothing at all, and hardly that. Dont you think so, Socrates?
You know nothing at all, and least of all what you talk about. The company passed through the Sacred Street, and went together to the theatre of Dionysus, near which Alcibiades lived.
The demagogue Cleon had really been lurking out of sight, and listening to the conversation. And so had another man with a yellow complexion and a full black beard, who seemed to belong to the artisan class. When the brilliant company had departed, Cleon stepped forward, laid his hand on the strangers shoulder, and said:
You have heard their conversation?
Certainly I have, he answered.
Then you can give evidence.
I cannot give evidence, because I am a foreigner.
Still you have heard how they spoke against the gods of the State.
I am a Syrian, and only know one true God. Your gods are not mine.
You are a Hebrew, then! What is your name?
I am an Israelite, of the family of Levi, and call myself now Cartophilus.
A Phoenician, then?
No, a Hebrew. My forefathers came out of Ur of the Chaldees, then fell into bondage in Egypt, but were brought by Moses and Joshua to the land of Canaan, where we became powerful under our own kings, David and Solomon.
I dont know them.
Two hundred years ago our city Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, and our people were carried captive to Babylon. But when Babylon was overthrown by the King of Persia, we fell under the power of the Persians, and have groaned under the successors of your Xerxes of Salamis, whom we called Ahasuerus.
Your enemies, our enemies! Very well, friend; how did you come here.
When the Assyrian was about to carry us for the first time into captivity, those who could flee, fled to Rhodes, Crete, and the islands of Greece. But of those who were carried away some were sent northwards to Media. My ancestors came hither from Media, and I am a new-comer.
Your speech is dark to me, but I have heard your nation praised because they are faithful to the gods of the State.
God! There is only One, the Single and True, who has created heaven and earth, and given the promise to our people.
What promise?
That our nation shall possess the earth.
By Heracles! But the commencement is not very promising.
That is our belief, and it has supported us during our wanderings in the wilderness, and during the Captivity.
Will you give evidence against these blasphemers of the gods?
No, Cleon, for you are idolaters. Socrates and his friends do not believe in your gods, and that will be counted to them for righteousness. Yes, Socrates appeared to me rather to worship the Eternal and Invisible, whom we dare not name. Therefore I do not give evidence against him.
Is that the side you are on? Then go in peace, but beware! Go!
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will protect me, so long as I and my house keep His laws.
Cleon had espied his friend and fellow-artisan in the colonnade, and therefore let the inflexible Hebrew go. The latter hastened towards the sycamore avenue of the oil-market, and disappeared there.
Anytos the tanner and politician approached, rehearsing a written speech which he was intending to deliver: Athens or Sparta,that is the whole question at issue....
Cleon, full of curiosity, interrupted him: What are you rehearsing, Anytos?
A speech.
So I heard! Athens or Sparta! Government by the people, or government by donkeys. The people, the weightiest element in the State, the cultivators of the land, the producers of wealth, lie at the bottom like gold. The worthless, the drones, the rich, the aristocratic, the most frivolous, swim on the surface like chips and corks. Athens has always represented government by the people, and will always do so; Sparta represents the donkey-government.
The oligarchy, you mean, Cleon.
No; donkeys. Therefore, Anytos, Athens is badly governed, for Pericles the rich man, who boasts of royal ancestors, has come to power. How can he sympathise with these people, since he has never been down there below? How can he see them rightly from above? He sits on the gable-roof of the Parthenon, and views the Athenians as ants, while they are lions, with their claws pared and their teeth drawn. We, Anytos, born down there amid the skins of the tanyard and dogs-dung, we understand our perspiring brotherswe know them by the smell, so to speak. But like readily associates with like; therefore Sparta feels attracted to Athens, to Pericles and his followers. Pericles draws Sparta to himself, and we sink....
Anytos, himself an orator, did not like to hear eloquence from others, therefore he cut abruptly through Cleons speech.
Pericles is ill.
Is he ill?
Yes, he has fever!
Really? Perhaps the plague.
Perhaps.
This interjected remark of Anytos had crossed Cleons prolix discourse, and a new hope glimmered before him.
And after Pericles? he said. Cleon, of course.
Why not? The man of the people for the people, but no philosophers nor actors. So, Pericles is sick, is he? Listen, Anytos? Who is Nicias?
He is a grandee who believes in oracles.
Dont attack the oracles. I certainly do not believe in them, but a State requires for its stability a certain uniformity in everythinglaws, customs, and religion. Therefore I support the gods of the Stateand what belongs to them.
I also support the gods of the State, so long as the people do.
The two orators began to be mutually weary, and Cleon wished for solitude in order to hatch the eggs which Anytos had laid for him. Therefore he remarked, You say that Nicias....
I am going to bathe, broke in Anytos; otherwise I will get no sleep to-night.
But Alcibiades, who is he?
He is the traitor Ephialtes, who will lead the Persian King to Thermopylae.
The Persian King in the east, Sparta in the south.
Macedonia in the north.
And in the west, new Rome.
Enemies in all four quarters! Woe to Athens!
Woe to Hellas!
The guests had assembled at the house of Alcibiades, who on his arrival had immediately gone off, with the laudable object of procuring flute-players. Since the evening was warm, supper was served in the Aula, or inner court, which was surrounded by Corinthian colonnades, and lighted by many lamps which hung between the pillars.
After they had taken a light meal, ivy wreaths were distributed and cups were set before the guests.
Aspasia, the only woman present, had the place of honour next to Pericles. She had come at the beginning, accompanied by her slaves, and was waiting impatiently for the verbal contests to begin. But Pericles was depressed and tired. Socrates lay on his back, silent, and looked up at the stars, Euripides chewed a wood-splinter and was morose; Phidias kneaded balls of bread, which in his hand took the shapes of animals; Protagoras whispered to Plato, who, with becoming youthful modesty, kept in the background.
Quite at the bottom of the table sat the skeleton, with a wreath of roses round its white forehead. In order to counteract the uncanny feeling likely to be aroused by this unbidden guest, Alcibiades had placed an onion between its front teeth, and in one of its hands an asphodel lily, which the skeleton appeared to smell at.
When the silence at last became oppressive, Pericles roused himself from his lethargy, and opened the conversation.
I should like, he said, without raising any bitterness or strife, to suggest as a subject for discussion the often-raised question of Euripides supposed misogyny. What do you say, Protagoras?
Our friend Euripides has been married three times, and each time has had children. He can therefore not be a woman-hater. Is it not so, Socrates?
Euripides, answered Socrates, loves Aspasia, as we all do, and can therefore not be a woman-hater. He loves, with Pericles consent, the beauty of Aspasias mind, and is therefore no misogynist. Not much that is complimentary can be said about Aspasias person, and we have nothing to do with it. Is Aspasia beautiful, Phidias?
Aspasia is not beautiful, but her soul is beautiful and good. Is it not, Pericles?
Aspasia is my friend, and the mother of our child; Aspasia is a wise woman, for she possesses modesty and conscientiousness, self-knowledge and foresight; Aspasia is prudent, for she is silent when wise men speak. But Aspasia can also cause wise men to speak wisely by listening to them; for she helps them to produce thoughts, not like Socrates midwife, who only brings corporeal births to pass, but she incarnates their souls.
Protagoras continued: Aspasia is like the Mother Cybele of us all; she bears us in her bosom.
Aspasia is the scale of the zither, without whom our strings would not sound.
Aspasia is the mother of us all, recommenced Socrates, but she is also the midwife who washes our new-born thoughts and wraps them in beautiful swaddling-clothes. Aspasia receives our children dirty, and gives them back to us purified. She gives nothing of herself, but by receiving gives the giver the opportunity to give.
Euripides resumed the topic which they had dropped: I was accused, and am acquittedam I not, Aspasia?
If you can acquit yourself of the accusation, you are acquitted, Euripides.
Accuse me, dear Accuser; I will answer.
I will bring the accusation in your own words. Hippolytus says in one passage in your tragedy of that name: O Zeus, why, in the name of heaven, didst thou place in the light of the sun that specious evil to menwomen? For if thou didst will to propagate the race of mortals, there was no necessity for this to be done by women, but men might, having placed an equivalent in thy temples, either in brass or iron, or weighty gold, buy a race of children each according to the value paid, and thus might dwell in unmolested houses, without females.
But now first of all, when we prepare to bring this evil to our homes, we squander away the wealth of our houses.
How evil woman is, is evident from this also, that the father who begat her and brought her up, having given her a dowry, sends her away in order to be rid of her.
Now defend yourself, Euripides.
If I were a Sophist like Protagoras, I should answer, It was Hippolytus who said that; not I. But I am a poet, and speak through my characters. Very well; I said it, I meant it when I wrote it, and I mean it still. And yet I almost always love any given woman, though I hate her sex. I cannot explain it, for I was never perverse like Alcibiades. Can you explain it, Socrates?
Yes, a man can hate and love a woman simultaneously. Everything is produced by its oppositelove by hate, and hate by love. In my wife I love the good motherly element, but I hate the original sin in her; therefore I can hate and love her at the same time. Is it not so, Protagoras?
Now it is Socrates who is the Sophist. Black cannot be white.
Now it is Protagoras who is simple. This salt in the salt-cellar is white, but put out the lamps, and it is black. The salt therefore is not absolutely white, but its whiteness depends on the light. I should be inclined rather to believe that salt is absolutely black, for darkness is merely the absence of light, and is nothing in itself, communicates no quality of its own to the salt, which in the darkness is something independent, consequently its real nature is black.
But in the light a thing can be both black and white. This sea-sole, for instance, is black above, but white below. In the same way something can be good and bad at the same time. Therefore Euripides is right when he says that he loves and hates woman simultaneously. The misogynist is he who only hates woman, but Euripides loves her also. Therefore he is not a misogynist. What do you think, Aspasia?
Wise Socrates! You confess that Euripides hates women, therefore he is a woman-hater.
No, my dear child, I admitted that Euripides both loves and hates women,both, mark you. I love Alcibiades, but I abhor and hate his want of character; now I ask the friends here, am I a hater of Alcibiades?
No, certainly not, they answered simultaneously. But Aspasia was roused, and wished to rouse him. Wise Socrates, how do matters stand between you and your wife?
The wise man does not willingly speak of his wife, Protagoras struck in: nor of his weakness.
You have said it. One sacrifices to the earth, but unwillingly; one binds oneself, but without pleasure; one endures, but loves not; one does ones duty to the State, but with difficulty. There is only one Aspasia, and she belongs to Periclesthe greatest woman to the greatest man. Pericles is the greatest in the State, as Euripides is the greatest on the stage.
This was an opportunity for Protagoras, without his needing to seek it. Is Euripides greater than Aeschylus and Sophocles? he asked.
Certainly, Protagoras! He is nearer to us; he speaks our thoughts, not those of our fathers; he does not cringe before the gods and fate; he fights with them; he loves men, knows them, and laments them; his art is more elaborate, his feelings warmer, his pictures more life-like than those of the ancients. But now I should like to speak of Pericles.
Stop, Socrates! In the Pnyx or the Agora, but not here! Though I should be glad of a word of encouragement since false accusations rain on me. We have come here to forget and not to remember ourselves, and Socrates delights us most when he speaks of the highest things, among which I do not count the State of Athens. Here comes Alcibiades with his following. Kindle more lights, boys, and put more ice in the wine.
There was a noise at the entrance; the dog barked, the doorkeeper shouted, and Alcibiades entered with his companions. These consisted of girls and of two strangers whom he had found in a wine-house.
Papaia! he cried. Here is the host! And here is Aristophanes, a future dramatist. Here is the Roman Lucillus, formerly a Decemvir, who has been banished. There is one of the many Laises who have sat to Phidias. Aspasia must not take it ill. And here are flute-players from Piraeus. Whether they have the pestilence, I know not! What can they do to me? I am twenty years old, and yet have done nothing? Why, then, should I live? Now Lais will dance. Papaia!