DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16243#0275
CASTE AND RELIGION 241
better. I saw some very queer things, though, monstrous
queer. Many is the time I have stopped taking oil on purpose,
and tried to go out. But then he used to bring me close up.
It was enough to give any lamp a bad character.
Rhad.—Enough of verbal evidence. Now, just divest your-
self of that purple, and we will see what you have in the way
°f brands. Goodness gracious, the man's a positive network!
Black and blue with them ! Now, what punishment can we
give him? A bath in Pyriphlegethon? The tender mercies
°f Cerberus, perhaps ?
Cy.—No, no. Allow me,—I have a novel idea; something
that will just suit him.
Rhad.—Yes ? I shall be obliged to you for a suggestion.
Cy.— I fancy it is usual for departed spirits to take a draught
01 the water of Lethe?
Rhad.—Just so.
Cy.—Let him be the sole exception.
Rhad.—What is the idea in that?
Cy.—His earthly pomp and power for ever in his mind;
his fingers ever busy * on the tale of blissful items;—'tis a
heavy sentence!
Rhad.—True. Be this the tyrant's doom. Place him in
fetters at Tantalus' side,—never to forget the things of earth." f
One is tempted to wonder whether Lucian, himself an
Asiatic and a singularly detached observer of the religious ideas
01 his day, can have realized the dilemma which his dialogue
suggests, that immortality marred by old memories would be
at best but a sorry boon, while, if purged of its memories, it
Would not be immortality at all. Achilles, as we see him in
the Odyssey striding across the mead of asphodel, is haunted
by heroic discontent; had he drunk the waters of Lethe, he
would have purchased harmony with his surroundings at the
Price of his unique personality. Arguing from the experiences
duly recorded by Homer and other classical authorities, it
Would seem that in order to find even Elysium a tolerable
abode, the shade of a departed hero ought to be furnished with
a discreetly eclectic memory, which would reject all things
disagreeable, and would recall only the pleasant incidents of
the vista of the past. Failing this alternative, which would
have savoured too frankly of the miraculous to commend itself
* aya-KeiXTvaCo/xeyos, " Counting over to himself on his fingers."
t The Works of the Lucian of Samosata. ' Translated by H. W. and F. G. Fowler.
Clarendon Press, 1906. Vol. i., pp. 244-46.
R, PI 16
better. I saw some very queer things, though, monstrous
queer. Many is the time I have stopped taking oil on purpose,
and tried to go out. But then he used to bring me close up.
It was enough to give any lamp a bad character.
Rhad.—Enough of verbal evidence. Now, just divest your-
self of that purple, and we will see what you have in the way
°f brands. Goodness gracious, the man's a positive network!
Black and blue with them ! Now, what punishment can we
give him? A bath in Pyriphlegethon? The tender mercies
°f Cerberus, perhaps ?
Cy.—No, no. Allow me,—I have a novel idea; something
that will just suit him.
Rhad.—Yes ? I shall be obliged to you for a suggestion.
Cy.— I fancy it is usual for departed spirits to take a draught
01 the water of Lethe?
Rhad.—Just so.
Cy.—Let him be the sole exception.
Rhad.—What is the idea in that?
Cy.—His earthly pomp and power for ever in his mind;
his fingers ever busy * on the tale of blissful items;—'tis a
heavy sentence!
Rhad.—True. Be this the tyrant's doom. Place him in
fetters at Tantalus' side,—never to forget the things of earth." f
One is tempted to wonder whether Lucian, himself an
Asiatic and a singularly detached observer of the religious ideas
01 his day, can have realized the dilemma which his dialogue
suggests, that immortality marred by old memories would be
at best but a sorry boon, while, if purged of its memories, it
Would not be immortality at all. Achilles, as we see him in
the Odyssey striding across the mead of asphodel, is haunted
by heroic discontent; had he drunk the waters of Lethe, he
would have purchased harmony with his surroundings at the
Price of his unique personality. Arguing from the experiences
duly recorded by Homer and other classical authorities, it
Would seem that in order to find even Elysium a tolerable
abode, the shade of a departed hero ought to be furnished with
a discreetly eclectic memory, which would reject all things
disagreeable, and would recall only the pleasant incidents of
the vista of the past. Failing this alternative, which would
have savoured too frankly of the miraculous to commend itself
* aya-KeiXTvaCo/xeyos, " Counting over to himself on his fingers."
t The Works of the Lucian of Samosata. ' Translated by H. W. and F. G. Fowler.
Clarendon Press, 1906. Vol. i., pp. 244-46.
R, PI 16