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CXLI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

To-day there came to visit us a writer who is not yet an author: his name is Thucydides. We understand that he has been these several years engaged in preparation for a history. Pericles invited him to meet Herodotus, when that wonderful man had returned to our country, and about to sail from Athens. Until then, it was believed by the intimate friends of Thucydides that he would devote his life to poetry, and such is his vigour both of thought and of expression, that he would have been the rival of Pindar. Even now he is fonder of talking on poetry than any other subject, and blushed when history was mentioned. By degrees however he warmed, and listened with deep interest to the discourse of Pericles on the duties of a historian.

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'May our first Athenian historian not be the greatest!" said he "as the first of our dramatists has been, in the opinion of many. Eschylus was the creator of Tragedy, nor did she ever shine with such splendour, ever move with such stateliness and magnificence, as at her first apparition on the horizon. The verses of Sophocles are more elaborate, the language purer, the sentences fuller and more harmonious; but in loftiness of soul, and in the awfulness with which he invests his characters, Eschylus remains unrivalled and unapproached.

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CXLII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

Polynices, a fishmonger, has been introduced upon the stage. He had grown rich by his honesty and good-nature; and latterly, in this hot season, had distributed among the poorer families the fish he could not sell in the day-time at a reasonable price. Others of the same trade cried out against his unfairness, and he was insulted and beaten in the market-place. So favourable an incident could not escape the sagacious scent of our comic writers. He was represented on the stage as aiming at supreme power, riding upon a dolphin through a stormy sea, with a lyre in one hand, a dogfish in the other, and singing,

I, whom you see so high on

A dolphin's back, am not Arion, But (should the favouring breezes blow me faster) Cecropians! by the Gods!.. your master! The people were indignant at this, and demanded with loud cries the closing of the theatre, and the abolition of comedies for ever.

What the abuse of the wisest and most powerful men in the community could not effect, the abuse of a fishmonger has brought about.

The writers and actors of comedy came in a body to Pericles, telling him they had seen the madness of the people, and had heard with wonder and consternation that it was supported by some of the archons.

"We are growing too loquacious, both on the stage and off. We make disquisitions which render us only more and more dim-sighted, and excursions that only consume our stores. If some among us who have acquired celebrity by their compositions, calm, candid, contemplative men, were to undertake the history of Athens from the invasion of Xerxes, I should expect a fair and full criticism on the orations of Antiphon, and experience no disappointment at their forgetting the battle of Salamis. History, when she has lost her Muse, will lose her dignity, her occupation, her character, her name. She will wander about the Agora; she will start, she will stop, she will look wild, she will look stupid, she will take languidly to her bosom doubts, queries, essays, dissertations, some of which ought to go before her, some to follow, and all to stand apart. The field of His tory should not merely be well tilled, but well peopled. None is delightful to me, or interesting, in which I find not as many illustrious names as have a right to enter it. We might as well in a drama place the actors behind the scenes, and listen to the dialogue there, as in a history push valiant men back, and protrude ourselves with husky disputations. Show me rather how great projects were executed, great advantages gained, and great calamities averted. Show me the generals and the statesmen who stood foremost, that I may bend to them in reverence; tell me their names, that I may repeat them to my children. Teach me whence laws were introduced, upon "We have nothing left for it," said Hipponax, what foundation laid, by what custody guarded," but to fall on our knees among the scales, fins, in what inner keep preserved. Let the books of and bladders at the fish-stall."

He answered, that he was sorry to see Comedy with a countenance so altered as to make him tremble for her approaching dissolution; her descent into the regions of Tragedy. He wondered how the Archons should deem it expedient to correct those, whose office and employment it had hitherto been to correct them; and regretted his inability to interpose between two conflicting authorities; he must leave it entirely to the people, who would soon grow calmer, and renew their gratitude to their protectors and patrons.

In the midst of these regrets the theatre for comedy was closed. The poets and actors, as they departed, made various observations.

"Dogs sweat and despots laugh inwardly," said Hegesias. "Did you note his malice? the Sisyphus !"

"Better," said Aristophanes, "make up to Religion, and look whether the haughty chieftain has no vulnerable place in his heel for an arrow from that quarter."

"He has broken your bow," said Pherecydes: "take heed that the people do not snatch at the string they have shown that they can pull hard, and may pull where we would not have them."

CXLIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

Thucydides has just left us. He has been reading to me a portion of history. At every pause I nodded to Pericles, who, it seems to me, avoided to remark it purposely, but who in reality was so attentive and thoughtful that it was long before he noticed me. When the reading was over, I said to him,

"So, you two sly personages have laid your sober heads together in order to deceive me; as if I am so silly, so ignorant of peculiarity in style, as not to discover in an instant the fraud you would impose on me. Thucydides !" said I "you have read it well; only one could have read it better.. the author himself". . shaking my head at Pericles.

"O Aspasia!" said our guest, "I confess to you I was always a little too fond of praise, although I have lived in retirement to avoid it until due, wishing to receive the whole sum at once, however long I might wait for it. But never did I expect so much as this: it overturns the scale by its weight."

"O Thucydides!" said Pericles "I am jealous of Aspasia. No one before ever flattered her so in my presence."

I entreated him to continue to write, and to bring down his history to the present times.

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My reverence for Herodotus," said he, "makes me stand out of his way and look at him from a distance: I was obliged to take another model of style. I hope to continue my work beyond the present day, and to conclude it with some event which shall have exalted our glory and have established our supremacy in Greece."

"Go on," said I; "fear no rivals. Others are writing who fear not even Herodotus, nor greatly indeed respect him. They will be less courteous with you perhaps, whose crown is yet in the garden. The creatures run about and kick and neigh in all directions, with a gadfly on them ever since they left the race-course at Olympia. At one moment they lay the muzzle softly and languidly and lovingly upon each other's neck; at another they rear and bite like Python." "I ought to experience no enmity from them," said he, "before my time comes, theirs will be

over."

CXLIV. PERICLES TO ASPASIA.

I am pleased with your little note, and hope you may live to write a commentary on the same author. You speak with your usual judgment, in commending our historian for his discretion

in metaphors. Not indeed that his language is without them, but they are rare, impressive, and distinct. History wants them occasionally; in oratory they are nearly as requisite as in poetry; they come opportunely wherever the object is persuasion or intimidation, and no less where delight stands foremost. In writing a letter I would neither seek nor reject one: but I think, if more than one came forward, I might decline its serIvices. If however it had come in unawares, I would take no trouble to send it away. But we should accustom ourselves to think always with propriety, in little things as in great, and neither be too solicitous of our dress in the house, nor negligent because we are at home. I think it as improper and indecorous to write a stupid or a silly note to you, as one in a bad hand or on coarse paper. Familiarity ought to have another and worse name, when it relaxes in its attentiveness to please.

We began with metaphors, I will end with one. Do not look back over the letter to see whether I have not already used my privilege of nomination, whether my one is not there. Take then a simile instead. It is a pity that they are often lamps which light nothing, and show only the nakedness of the walls they are nailed against.

CXLV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

Sophocles left me about an hour ago.

Hearing that he was with Pericles on business, I sent to request he would favour me with a visit when he was disengaged. After he had taken a seat, I entreated him to pardon me, expressing a regret that we hardly ever saw him, knowing as I did that no person could so ill withstand the regrets of the ladies. I added a hope that, as much for my sake as for the sake of Pericles, he would now and then steal an hour from the Muses in our behalf.

"Lady!" said he, "it would only be changing the place of assignation."

"I shall begin with you," said I, "just as if I had a right to be familiar, and desire of you to explain the meaning of a chorus in King Edipus, which, although I have read the tragedy many times, and have never failed to be present at the representation, I do not quite comprehend." I took up a volume from the table. .

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"No," said I, "this is Electra: give me the other." We unrolled it together. "Here it is what is the meaning of these words about the Laws?"

He looked over them, first without opening his lips; then he read them in a low voice to himself; and then, placing the palm of his left hand against his forehead,

"Well! I certainly did think I understood it at the time I wrote it."

Cleone! if you could see him you would fall in love with him. Fifteen olympiads have not quite run away with all his youth. What a noble presence! what an open countenance! what a

brow! what a mouth! what a rich harmonious it be there, and there only, that the just man voice! what a heart, full of passion and of suffers, and that murmurs are heard against the poetry! dispensations of the Gods.

CXLVI. REPLY OF PERICLES TO THE ACCUSATION

OF CLEON.

There is a race of men, (and they appear to have led colonies into many lands,) whose courage is always in an inverse ratio to their danger. There is also a race who deem that a benefit done to another is an injury done to them. Would you affront them, speak well of their friends; would you deprive them of repose, labour and watch incessantly for their country.

Cleon! in all your experience, in all the territories you have visited, in all the cities and islands you have conquered for us, have you never met with any such people? And yet, O generous Cleon! I have heard it hinted that the observation is owing to you.

Were my life a private one, were my services done toward my friends alone, had my youth been exempt as yours hath been from difficulty and peril, I might never have displeased you; I might never have been cited to defend my character against the foulest of imputations. O Athenians! let me recall your attention to every word that Cleon has uttered. I know how difficult is the task, where so much dust is blown about by so much wind. The valorous Cleon has made your ears tingle and ring with Harmodius and Aristogiton. I am ignorant which of the two he would take for imitation, the handsomer or the braver. He stalks along with great bustle and magnificence, but he shows the dagger too plainly: he neglects to carry it in myrtle.

In your astonishment at this sudden procedure, there are doubtless many of you who are unable to comprehend the title of the denunciation. Let me tell you what it is.

"Pericles, son of Xanthippus". . (may all Greece hear it! may every herald in every city proclaim it at every gate!) "Pericles, son of Xanthippus, is accused of embezzling the public money, collected, reserved, and set apart, for the building and decoration of the Parthenon. The accuser is Cleon, son of Cleæretus."

But I am forgetting the accusation. Will Cleon do me the favour to inform you in what place I have deposited, or in what manner I have spent, the money thus embezzled? Will Cleon tell you that I alone had the custody of it; or that I had anything at all to do in the making up of the accounts? Will Cleon prove to you that I am now richer than I was thirty years ago, excepting in a portion of the spoil, won bravely by the armies you decreed. I should command; such a portion as the laws allow, and the soldiers carry to their general with triumphant acclamations. Cleon has yet to learn all this; certainly his wealth is derived from no such sources; far other acclamations does Cleon court; those of the idle, the dissolute, the malignant, the cowardly, and the false. But if he seeks them in Athens, and not beyond, his party is small indeed, and your indignation will drown their voices. What need have I of pilfer and peculation? Am I avaricious? am I prodigal? Does the indigent citizen, does the wounded soldier, come to my door and return unsatisfied? Point at me, Cleon! and tell your friends to mark that. Let them mark it; but for imitation, not for calumny. Let them hear, for they are idle enough, whence I possess the means of relieving the unfortunate, raising the dejected, and placing men of worth and genius (too often in that number!) where all their fellow-citizens may distinguish them. My father died in my childhood; careful guardians superintended it, managing my affairs with honesty and diligence. The earliest of my ancestors, of whom anything remarkable is recorded, was Cleisthenes, whom your forefathers named general with Solon, order. ing them to conquer Cirrha. He devoted his portion of the spoils to the building of a portico. I never have heard that he came by night and robbed the labourers he had paid by day: perhaps Cleon has. He won afterward at the Olympian games: I never have ascertained that he bribed his adversaries. These actions are not in history nor in tradition: but Cleon no doubt has authorities that outvalue tradition and history. Some years afterward, Cleisthenes proclaimed his determination to give in marriage his daughter Agarista to the worthiest man he could find, whether at home or abroad. It is pity that Cleon was not living in those days. Agarista and her father, in default of him, could hear of none worthier than Megacles, son of Alemæon. Their riches all descended to me, and some perhaps of their better possessions. These at least, with Cleon's leave, I would retain; and as much of the other as may be serviceable to my friends, without being dangerous to the commonwealth.

The scribe has designated the father of our friend by this name, in letters very legible, otherwise I should have suspected it was the son of Cligenes, the parasite of the wealthy, the oppressor of the poor, the assailer of the virtuous, and the ridicule of all. Charges more substantial might surely be brought against me, and indeed were threatened. But never shall I repent of having, by my advice, a little decreased the revenues of the commonwealth, in lowering the price of admission to the theatres, and in offering to the more industrious citizens, out of the public treasury, the trifle requisite for this enjoyment. In the theatre let them see before them the crimes and the calamities of Power, the vicissitudes of Fortune, and the sophistries of the Passions. Let most instructive is, how the braver pushed back

CXLVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

Surely of all our pursuits and speculations, the

SAPPHO TO HESPERUS.

their sufferings, how the weaker bowed their looking for any pleasure in taking them to pieces, heads and asked for sympathy, how the soldier I venture to hope you will be of my opinion, that smote his breast at the fallacies of glory, and how these others are of equal authenticity. Neither the philosopher paused and trembled at the depths do I remember them in the copy you possessed of his discoveries. But the acquirement of such when we were together. instruction presses us down to the earth. We see the basest and most inert of mankind the tormentors and consumers of the loftiest: the worm at last devours what the lion and tiger paused at and fled from. But Pericles for the present is safe and secure; and I am too happy for other thoughts or reflections. Anaxagoras also is only doubted he may disbelieve in some mysteries, but he is surely too wise a man to divulge it.

CXLVIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA.

Now we are quiet and at peace again, I wish you would look into your library for more pieces of poetry. To give you some provocation, I will transcribe a few lines on the old subject, which, like old fountains, is inexhaustible, while those of later discovery are in danger of being cut off at the first turn of the plough.

ERINNA TO LOVE.

Who breathes to thee the holiest prayer,
O Love! is ever least thy care.

Alas! I may not ask thee why 'tis so..
Because a fiery scroll I see

Hung at the throne of Destiny,
Reason with Love and register with Woe.

Few question thee, for thou art strong, And, laughing loud at right and wrong, Seizest, and dashest down, the rich, the poor; Thy sceptre's iron studs alike

The meaner and the prouder strike, And wise and simple fear thee and adore.

CXLIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

Among the poems of Sappho I find the follow-
ing, but written in a different hand from the rest.
It pleases me at least as much as any of them; if
it is worse, I wish you would tell me in what it is
so. How many thoughts might she have turned
over and tossed away for it! Odious is the econo-
my in preserving all the scraps of the intellect,
and troublesome the idleness of tacking them
together. Sappho is fond of seizing, as she runs
on, the most prominent and inviting flowers: she
never stops to cut and trim them: she throws
twenty aside for one that she fixes in her bosom ;
and what is more singular, her pleasure at their
beauty seems never to arise from another's admi-
ration of it. See it or not see it, there it is.
Sweet girls! upon whose breast that God descends
Whom first ye pray to come and next to spare,
O tell me whither now his course he bends,

Tell me what hymn shall thither waft my prayer!
Alas! my voice and lyre alike he flies,
And only in my dreams, nor kindly then, replies.

I have beheld thee in the morning hour
A solitary star, with thankless eyes,
Ungrateful as I am! who bade thee rise
When sleep all night had wandered from my bower.

Can it be true that thou art he

Who shinest now above the sea
Amid a thousand, but more bright?

Ah yes, the very same art thou

That heard me then, and hearest now..
Thou seemest, star of love! to throb with light.

Sappho is not the only poetess who has poured forth her melodies to Hesperus, or who had reason to thank him. I much prefer these of hers to what appear to have been written by some confident man, and (no doubt) on a feigned occasion. Hesperus, hail! thy winking light

Best befriends the lover,
Whom the sadder Moon for spite
Gladly would discover.

Thou art fairer far than she,

Fairer far, and chaster:
She may guess who smiled on me,
I know who embraced her.
Pan of Arcady. . 'twas Pan,
In the tamarisk bushes..
Bid her tell thee, if she can,

Where were then her blushes.
And, were I inclined to tattle,
I could name a second,
Whom asleep with sleeping cattle
To her cave she beckon'd.

Hesperus, hail! thy friendly ray
Watches o'er the lover,
Lest the nodding leaves betray,
Lest the Moon discover.

Phryne heard my kisses given
Acte's rival bosom

'Twas the buds, I swore by heaven,
Bursting into blossom.

What she heard, and half espied

By the gleam, she doubted,
And with arms uplifted, cried

How they must have sprouted!

Hesperus, hail again! thy light
Best befriends the lover,
Whom the sadder Moon for spite
Gladly would discover.

The old poets are contented with narrow couches: but these couches are not stuffed with chaff which lasts only for one season. They do not talk to us from them when they are halfasleep; but think it more amusing to entertain us in our short visit with lively thoughts and fancies, than to enrich us with a paternal prolixity of studied and stored-up meditations.

CL. CLEONE TO ASPASIA.

Instead of expatiating on the merits of the verses you last sent me, or, on the other hand, of

CLI. PERICLES TO ALCIBIADES.

My Alcibiades, if I did not know your good temper from a whole life's experience, I should be

is unobjectionable. To avoid it by circumlocution, or by any other word less expressive and direct, would be the most contemptible and ludicrous of pedantry: and, were it anywhere reduced to practice in the conversation of ordinary life, it would manifestly designate a coarse-grained unpolishable people. There is nothing in poetry, or indeed in society, so unpleasant as affectation. In poetry it arises from a deficiency of power and a restlessness of pretension; in conversation, from insensibility to the Graces, from an intercourse with bad company, and a misinterpretation of better.

CLIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

afraid of displeasing you by repeating what I have | Writing of war and contention, such an expression heard. This is, that you pronounce in public as well as in private a few words somewhat differently from our custom. You can not be aware how much hostility you may excite against you by such a practice. Remember, we are Athenians; and do not let us believe that we have finer organs, quicker perceptions, or more discrimination, than our neighbours in the city. Every time we pronounce a word differently from another, we show our disapprobation of his manner, and accuse him of rusticity. In all common things we must do as others do. It is more barbarous to undermine the stability of a language than of an edifice that hath stood as long. This is done by the introduction of changes. Write as others do, but only as the best of others: and if one eloquent man, forty or fifty years ago, spoke and wrote differently from the generality of the present, follow him, though alone, rather than the many. But in pronunciation we are not indulged in this latitude of choice; we must pronounce as those do who favour us with their audience. Never hazard a new expression in public: I know not any liberty we can take, even with our nearest friends, more liable to the censure of vanity. Whatever we do we must do from authority or from analogy. A young man, however studious and intelligent, can know, intrinsically and profoundly, but little of the writers who constitute authority. For my part, in this our country, where letters are far more advanced than in any other, I can name no one whatever who has followed up to their origin the derivation of words, or studied with much success their analogy. I do not, I confess, use all the words that others do, but I never use one that others do not. Remember, one great writer may have employed a word which a greater has avoided, or, not having avoided it, may have employed in a somewhat different signification. It would be needless to offer you these remarks, if our language were subject to the capriciousness of courts, the humiliation of sycophants, and the defilement of slaves. Another may suffer but little detriment by the admission of barbarism to its franchises; but ours is attic, and the words, like the citizens we employ, should at once be popular and select.

CLII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA.

The poetical merits of the unhappy Lesbian are sufficiently well known. Thanks, and more than thanks, if indeed there is anything more on earth, are due for even one scrap from her. But allow me, what is no great delicacy or delight to me, a reprehension, a censure. An admirer can make room for it only when it comes from an admirer. Sappho, in the most celebrated of her Odes, tells us that she sweats profusely. Now surely no female, however low-born and ill-bred, in short however Eolian, could without indecorousness speak of sweating and spitting, or any such things. We never ought to utter, in relation to ourselves, what we should be ashamed of being seen in.

You desire to know what portion of history it is the intention of Thucydides to undertake. He began with the earlier settlers of Greece, but he has now resolved to employ this section as merely the portico to his edifice. The Peloponesian war appears to him worthier of the historian than any other. He is of opinion that it must continue for many years and comprehend many important events, for Pericles is resolved to wear out the energy of the Spartans by protracting it. At present it has been carried on but few months, with little advantage to either side, and much distress to both. What our historian has read to us does not contain any part of these transactions, | which however he carefully notes down as they occur. We were much amused by a speech he selected for recitation, as one delivered by an orator of the Corinthians to the Ephors of Lacedæmon, urging the justice and necessity of hostilities. Never was the Athenian character painted in such true and lively colours. In composition his characteristic is brevity, yet the first sentence | of the volume runs into superfluity. The words, to the best of my recollection, are these:

"Thucydides of Athens has composed a history of the war between the Peloponesians and Athenians."

This is enough; yet he adds,

"As conducted by each of the belligerents.” Of course : it could not be conducted by one only. I observed that in the fourth sentence he went from the third person to the first.

By what I could collect, he thinks the Pelopo nesian war more momentous than the Persian: yet had Xerxes prevailed against us, not a vestige would be existing of liberty or civilisation in the world. If Sparta should, there will be little enough; and a road will be thrown open to the barbarians of the north, Macedonians and others with strange names. We have no great reason to fear it; although the policy of Thebes, on whom much depends, is ungenerous and unwise.

He said moreover that "transactions of an earlier time are known imperfectly, and were of small importance either in the wars or anything else."

Yet without these wars, or some other of these! transactions, our Miletus and Athens, our Pericles

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