Orationes 50
Orationes 50 Imperial Aelius Aristides GreekThey are charming, indeed, these men of their own good things in the matter of speeches—to begin auspiciously—who blame their hearers and say that it is for this reason that they depart from rhythm and correctness, namely, that they may be able to please as many as possible. And yet, if it is by way of asking pardon that they abuse this excuse,
how can they think themselves worthy of praise? For praise and pardon are distinct things; and when they do not even praise themselves, they would hardly, with reason, be praised by others. But if, on the other hand, there is nothing disagreeable in their manner, but it is correct, why need they blame the multitude and take refuge in this apology, instead of showing that their manner is correct? But, I think, they are clever fellows and strike a double note, so that, if they win, they may have prevailed by this, and if anyone detects them, they may have a retreat and may say that they themselves were not ignorant of the better course, but erred for the sake of others. And this is the first and greatest vote, which they cast against themselves through excess of cleverness. For I, for my part, should pray most of all to be of good repute among all others too; but at any rate the beginning should be from the hearth for me, and I should persuade myself first, and not suffer the fate of the dog in the fable, nor, while I gather the reputation from outside, destroy that which it became me to hold concerning myself; nor get in first the conviction of being base against myself, before I had confirmed that of being earnest in the eyes of others. And so far do they seem to me to fall short of a defence, when they say these things, that they make two charges against themselves instead of one: one, if they thus behave wantonly toward speeches; the other, if they do so for this reason, intending by this to be judged better. And indeed, when they seek to lead us astray, as though we should at once trust what they fabricate and should not understand the truth, they display yet a third ignorance, this one, if they do not think they are detected. But the matter, I think, is of this sort. No one willingly lets go the best. But Plato and Pindar, wise in many other ways too, are so not least in regard to this argument—the one saying thus: "No one willingly took evil"; and again,
setting out from the words about Eriphyle: "Alas," he says, "how the thought of creatures of a day is deceived, not knowing"; and the other indeed defines up and down and shows that errors are involuntary, and that no one is base willingly. Let us not, then, be persuaded by these men, that, having something better in themselves, they then willingly let it go and take the worse in exchange. They would surely not, having gold, exchange lead for it, not even if all men were going to applaud; nor millet instead of wheat, nor lees instead of wine—and rotten lees at that; nor, I think, a rush-mat instead of a fine robe, nor, again, smell of leather when myrrh is at hand. But these are the words of men who soften down their own baseness and ill fortune, who, I think, are unwilling to say the just and true thing—that they neither know the straight road nor are able to travel it—but say that they do these things to gratify their hearers; just as if those of the actors who break down and are unable to carry the drama through according to nature should declare that they do this to gratify the spectators. And one might say that they are hissed and clucked at by those very spectators in return for this "gratification." So too are you, then, by your hearers.
But no more of this for now. Yet what prevents the beggars too, who are wrapped in rags, from saying that at home they have other garments, very fine ones, but put on this show before those outside? And so the same poet, whom I mentioned a little before, said that the good turn their fine things outward. So that if they discourse of their speeches as of more beautiful things, why should one blame the multitude, if they love these? But if they admit that they have erred, they do the opposite of what is fitting. For it were far more reasonable for them to consider how they shall say something better, for the sake of those who will hear and understand, than, making away with the good things at hand, to display the worse—and that too procuring them on purpose. We do not, at any rate, walk in processions with the worst things we have; rather, even
if a man has none of his own at home, we borrow, so that we may appear having our garments, our furniture, our horses—everything the procession requires—in the finest condition. So that when they say that these things are imported into themselves and procured, and that they depart willingly from the ancient form, one must ask whether from a worse form or a better. For if from a better, how are they not crazed, if, letting go their own and more valuable form, they pursue the meaner and at the same time the alien one? But indeed, if they shall say from a worse, it is not possible to say that they willingly give up the better, which they neither acquired nor ever saw. For this is not a defence of the things in which they offend, but an admission that they would have said even worse than these, had they been prevented from these. And I should gladly learn from them whether, if they were also maimed—either, by Zeus, in their eyes, or in their hands, or in any other part of the body—their hearers gladly looking on, they would readily render this service; or whether they would give up no part of the body for the pleasure of others, yet, destroying the best part in the soul, count it no loss. For my part, then, when I hear these men saying these things, I have not given up the expectation that even the lame will dare to say that they have come to this state of fortune not unwillingly, but willingly gave up their legs, that they might appear most pleasing to the onlookers. But who is so perversely in love I do not know; let us grant, if you wish, that all are. Yet who is so unfortunate as willingly to choose to be unfortunate? Or who, for another's pleasure, does himself injury? For where we see even the doing of good pursued for this reason, that from it one may expect to be well treated in return, surely everyone would altogether shrink from disposing of his own affairs ill for the sake of gratifying someone. Or it would be great unreason to consider those of one's friends who are unwilling to do good in return base, but oneself to go to such an excess as first to use oneself in the worst way, before doing any good
to those one deals with, and before it is plain what favour one will receive for one's zeal—oneself to strip oneself of the best of one's possessions. For we should surely not cite the example of Zopyrus and the Cephallenian, of whom the one, having mutilated his own nose and ears, entered Babylon, and the other, having maltreated himself with blows, sank down into "the wide-wayed city of the Trojans"—the one eager to take Babylon, the other Troy. For, first, the prizes are surely not equal—to overcome enemies, and to tickle the ears of certain people. And next, the very opposite comes out of the examples. For if those men knew how to endure so very firmly that they did not even spare their own bodies, but underwent the uttermost pains and toils so as to abandon nothing of what had been resolved from the beginning, while these men, when it is possible without trouble or hardship to preserve their own theme, choose to play the weakling—how would they not justly suffer anything whatever? For what those men did to themselves, this I think these men might reasonably suffer at the hands of others, on account of their prostitution and outrage toward speeches. Or else they would utterly imitate those men in not deserting their post, who now do everything—not to say suffer everything—to desert it. Furthermore, Odysseus and Zopyrus, when perhaps there was no other capture of the enemy for them, undertook these things in this way; but what will these men say? That it is not possible to lead and persuade men with the best and most correct speeches? But the argument is shameful, not merely false. Or, when it is possible to lead in that way, do they rather choose this way? Then they add superfluous shame.
But let us take it up again. There is no other way to lead men than this—let us grant it for the sake of argument, if it seems good. Then, if the better is one thing, and the leading another,
why must one give up the better, if, even though we do not lead, we at least do this better thing? But if the leading and the better are together, then, if the former is better, to lead is in that way; but if it happens that one leads only thus, then this is better. Why then do they divide, and set the better apart on one side, and on the other the things they erred in for the sake of others? For to me they seem outright to be drunk about speeches when they take refuge in these arguments. And indeed, that they speak neither the truth nor things like the truth, but that, for one who is going both to persuade men and altogether to hold them in subjection, the best and most vigorous and wholly uncorrupted and blameless course, of the possible ones, must be taken and preferred—this requires both a long argument and a very brief one: a brief one, I say, because it is so very clear; a longer one, because one could show it by countless proofs and examples. First, if you wish, let us consider the contestants of wars: in which way would they better both save themselves and rout and master their opponents—using sound and whole and close-fitting arms, or carrying a sword of tin, with a breastplate made of bark, and a spear of fig-wood, and, to judge by these, a helmet and a shield of the like? For I, for my part, think that exactness in these matters, and being from the beginning equipped out of the best materials and in the best manner, and holding out through the battle, makes for safety and at the same time glory and victory and all that one might place in this category, to those who possess and use them. But when they break or are shattered, or are crushed in some other way, or are even from the outset slack and rotten, the bodies inherit the fortune of war, and not even the very brave can find any use for them. To this Homer too bears witness. For with him, of the heroes,
those whose spear-point is broken off are unwilling to stand, and far more so when they have wholly shattered their spears; rather, they go off, leaving the battle, to fetch sturdier ones. Again, if you wish, the battle itself—in which way do they wage it better: keeping their ranks and standing together, and respecting one another as much as possible, and abiding by the commands; or, despising all these things, and overcome by what seems sweet for the moment, throwing away their shields at the first trumpet-blast, and judging law and order and discipline to be some idle babble and nonsense? For Homer does not allow those who attend to battle rightly even to say anything shameful. At which I marvel: that in war it is a shame to say what is not honourable, but it is no worse to say things which it is a shame to say.
Come, let us consider too the men of the crown-bearing contests—such as Dorieus the Rhodian, and Glaucus the Carystian, and Milo too, and Polydamas, and all those whose statues are of bronze: did those who arranged the contest for Olympian Zeus crown men who were soft and given to wantonness and twisting themselves like dancing-girls, or men who displayed a marvellous endurance and a vigour at once of soul and body, which procures the greatest and most secure pleasures both to those who possess them and to those who share the knowledge of them? In the name of Zeus, the best and most marvellous horses, and those most after the spectators' liking—are they not those which run as vigorously and enduringly as possible, and reach the goal without straying outside the course, everywhere preserving their proper excellence? And it is the same thing in nature, both best and most pleasing in its own use. Since indeed the beauties of bodies too are of this kind: whether you name Ganymede, or Pelops, or whomever you will, together with the allotment of fortune they draw on the onlookers too; and very reasonably. For there must,
I think, be grace in beauty, and from grace love must be suspended. For whatever one delights in, this one must of necessity desire. Wherefore they say there is no love of base things, but of fair things the poets say there is love even among the gods. So too, then, the beauty of speeches, along with its whole nature, possesses this too—to enchant its hearers. So that one must not speak the worse for the sake of persuading, but must try to speak as finely as possible, that we may lead as many as possible. For just as the strongest of charms are by nature most apt to lead, so the strongest of speeches are by nature most apt to persuade. But to think that there is anything wholesome or gratifying in these corruptions is much the same as if, in the case of bodies too, we should declare those wasting with consumption, and the dropsical, and those mottled with white spots or leprosy, to be furnished most pleasingly and to have many admirers—men whom not a single person would consent even to meet face to face—while we should be persuaded that those honoured at once with the good of health and the height of beauty are inferior to these. Truly the springs of rivers would flow backward, were it so. Not, then, to speak of bodies, but in figures and statues, what sort most master those who encounter them? Is it not the most beautiful and most magnificent, and reaching the height of exactness in these matters? The Olympian Zeus, the Athena at Athens—I mean, on the one hand the ivory one, and on the other, if you wish, the bronze one, and, by Zeus, if you wish, the Lemnian one—all these have an excess of excellence for the craftsman, and of pleasure for the spectators. And the same you would say, I think, about the paintings of Apelles too; and if you wish to admire any other, it is the line, preserved, that has saved the whole. So be it. And of ships again, what sort and which do we most rejoice and are amazed to behold, and which do we leave
as the most unpleasant of all? Is it not those that are greatest and most stately and at the same time reach the height of proportion? And what ship is desirable and gives its passengers the most good cheer and pleasure? Is it the corrupted and broken one, sinking down under the bilge-water, or, far the contrary, the one that is as exact and water-tight as possible and has long been trained to run upon the waves? Then, in all other cases, each thing thus preserving its own principle leads and persuades the most; but in the case of speeches themselves, how, in the name of the gods, shall we say it is?
And indeed, if speech had been invented for the sake of something else, not of persuading, perhaps there might be some dispute; but since it is plain that the whole habit of the rational power is bent upon this one thing, of necessity one of two things follows: either that the speech is not correct nor adequate, or else that it is at once the best and masters the hearers. So that there is no need to corrupt it for the sake of mastering, but, just as engines are by nature apt to take a city, even though none of the enemy knows out of what and how they were put together, so a speech well put together does its work, even though it meet with the most inexperienced. And I marvel if, in the case of wine and grain and oil and honey and meat and sweetmeats and milk and goods and water and timber and stones, no one would say that the corrupted are more pleasant than the uncorrupted, but in the case of speeches, that those which are as pure and unmixed as possible are more unpleasant than the corrupted ones. No one would say this; and that this is so—not said for paradox's sake, but because it cannot be otherwise—the facts themselves proclaim. Who is the best poet of epic? Homer. And who pleases the most men, and in what they most delight? Or did he himself foresee this on his own behalf? For, discoursing with the Delian maidens and concluding the proem: "If anyone should ask you," he says, "O maidens, who is the sweetest of singers
that frequents this place, and in whom you most delight, do you all answer well and auspiciously: a blind man, and he dwells in rugged Chios." Again, in tragedy, who are the most renowned and, one may say, victorious among all the judges? I think, the best: Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides. Not that any one of these is the most—but that these are above all the others. And of the orators down to our time, who is the most famous and most admired and has the greatest name among the many? He who most excelled in the beauty that belongs to speeches. All those whose names are greatest are witnesses to me, in place of testimony, for their own causes. "By Zeus," someone might say, "but the many followed the opinion of the few who cast their votes exactly from the beginning." I do not dispute it. But at any rate this is plain: that both among the few and among the many the better must be of good repute, and the more so the more perfect it is. And further, if the power of the most exact is so great that it makes others too of good repute, and these are the ones who furnish the grounds on which men judge, how is the exact not strong on every side? Or why should one court the most exact, but, letting go the many, seek to please those who belong to the most exact, not to themselves? For in that way we shall be judged and admired by both; but in this way by neither, almost, if indeed nothing of the many is strong. But what do I say? That the many both follow the best, and of themselves at once, by some divine portion, admire the strongest. For it would be utterly absurd if, through others who are exact, they know the exact, but themselves are ignorant of them; and if they judge those who judge for them to be better than themselves, but will not admire those who from the beginning display the strongest things—who, along with the knowledge, possess also the power of persuading. There is no one who will not say that this is so. And yet, even if it were not possible to lead both together, the part of the best, I think, is more to be chosen by those who claim to be ranked among the better;
but since it is possible from the beginning to master both these and those, or through the latter to take the former too, in every way the best things win.
And of these things too we have the poets as witnesses, who say that the best and safest of the orators are most envied and counted blessed among the multitudes. And why need one catalogue the ancients, whether poets or orators? But of these of ours—may a god kindly conduct the speech—who ever stirred greater uproars in assemblies? Or who more, be it said with the gods' leave (for let this be reckoned by me beyond all frank speech), laid hold of both nations—I mean both the cultivated and those whom we call the many—who, even with no law compelling them, cast their vote under solemn oath? I pass over other things. But what you yourselves now utter over these matters, you surely see. Is there, then, anything we ever said to gratify our hearers? Not a grunt of it. And yet many and various were the things. For alone of all who have ever touched speeches, we make it our prayer—to put it most modestly—to display with surpassing power all the things that are and are reckoned good in regard to speeches, gathered into a single faculty. So I. And I would say that I gratify in no respect whatever, and that there is nothing in which I do not gratify; in return for which I reasonably gratify in the fitting measure. Then shall I, who have observed in the affairs and in my own speeches that to speak the best is not without its reward, concede to these triflers that they slander the many, on the ground that it is for their sake that they play the fool? Not so long as I remain knowing my own self. But if certain men, claiming in turn to have chosen better than these, do not win the many, but are quenched before anyone sees the flame, this is nothing against the more stately speeches, or the wholly stronger ones. For they suffer this through lack of the greatest things, having furnished neither sufficient judgment nor order in their speeches. But if they were perfect in music, which is said to have belonged to Orpheus—
- had this belonged to these men too, they would have led all. But as it is, the myth, by way of exaggeration, attributes to him the leading even of trees and stones, whereas these men are themselves in the place of trees and stones, by their failure to move anything. But we did not set ourselves to consider this—how many kinds of stumbling there are about speeches, nor whether certain others too are unfortunate, but that no vice has ever yet set up a trophy over virtue. And we should not be ashamed to say this from a single instance; since indeed I once nicely detected one of these men who roll among the crowds doing the opposite of what he was eager for. For he sang, inclining for the sake of the graces, and uttered a final cadence over each of the little clauses, the same, as in a song. And the hearers and lovers were so very struck and held by the tune that, when they came to the phrase, they themselves would burst out laughing and supply it—not giving back the sound like an echo, but even anticipating it. And indeed the leader was a pleasant sight, going behind the chorus. And they added something else too of the cordax, so that the concert of the sophist and his companions, over whom he was all aflutter, was a pitiable thing.
Such are the prizes that those who honour the better win from the gods of eloquence, and such are those of the men who do despite to speeches. Then they do much the same as if some hermaphrodite or eunuch should blame neither the weakness of his body nor his fortune, but should say that he became such by deliberate choice. But you speak neither the truth, my good man, nor are you at all in your right mind, if you say you honoured these things willingly. And now I run the risk of being more humane toward these men in these arguments than they themselves are toward their own selves. For I declare that they are unwilling and suffer this by some misfortune, whereas they say that they embroider it on purpose. But the laws bid those who offend voluntarily
pay double the penalty of those who do harm unwillingly. And to begin with, I do not think I can even make out what on earth it is they say. For they seem to me to say both that they do not yield unwillingly, and again that they yield not willingly, but unwillingly. For when they refer it to the hearers and say that the cause lies with these, they seem to me to say that they err unwillingly; but when they say that they know that there is nothing wholesome in what they say, yet choose to say it for the sake of beguiling, they seem to me to admit that they err willingly—just like those in the tragedies who say that they know what they are going to do against themselves, but cannot master themselves. Such are the riddles of these men. And yet Cratinus says, surely, that he who gratifies his friends in shameful things is himself base. But these men, if they treat them as friends, are in like case with them; so that if they delight in the same things, they gratify themselves no less than them; and if, on the other hand, they do not consider them friends, in return for what do they gratify them? For whether as lovers or as beloved, the shame is inescapable. And here too they speak in riddles. For they say that the many love them, but they themselves appear to love these, if indeed they behave licentiously in order to please them. And indeed, if they care nothing for them, what has come over them that they will say they gratify them? But if they do care, would they be better men by educating them and showing the true road of speeches, or by themselves inheriting the depravity of these? Just as if some man, claiming to be a physician, and bound to advise the sick what is best, should himself serve their wishes and define his art by gratification. Then you will destroy them, and you yourself will be destroyed in the eyes of judges of good sense; since nature too has so ordained that the general should lead the soldiers, not follow
the soldiers; the chorus-leader likewise the chorus; the pilot the sailors; the charioteer the team; the physician those who need him. Then, when it is possible both to be better yourselves and to make those who are with you become better, you both become worse yourselves and choose to make those men still meaner than they are. And indeed, to accomplish, by speaking, what one is by nature and has chosen, this is truly to lead; but to depart from one's form for the sake of seeming to lead is rather to be led than to lead. So that if you have nothing better than these things, you are doubly unfortunate, both in what you say and in what you cannot say; but if, when it is possible to lead in that way, you accept this way, how are you not out of your mind? Or what is the beauty of your speeches, you who have thus deliberated about speeches themselves? For this too, I think, is not in the same way fitting for the orator and the philosopher, and indeed for all those engaged in liberal education, to delight the crowds, and for those slavish dancers, mimes, and conjurers. But to these there is much pardon for doing and saying anything whatever; but for us, if we should imitate the evils of these, how will it be becoming? For where not even the same things seem to befit a free woman and a courtesan, nor any longer the same things men and women, surely we shall not say that the very same things befit men as befit courtesans. You, then, when you rank yourselves among harp-girls and defile the rites of the Muses in public, can you justly lay claim to the prize of honour, or should you be buried alive in the Persian fashion?
Let us consider this too, that not even the peoples love or welcome with all their heart these spectacles, by which one might most say they are overcome. For who is there who does not deem himself better than any dancer? Or who would concede to the mime to utter a sound outside? But for the moment they are tickled; yet going off
they straightway laugh at it—or rather even during the very spectacle they so rejoice as men at play. But nothing ridiculous, I think, is more honoured than serious things; so far is it from being possible that the laughable should ever be set before the serious. And indeed, where we make even good repute itself a matter of great concern for the sake of remembrance hereafter, where would one place these men, whose repute is dead for the day and on the instant? "By Zeus," someone says, "but Heracles too danced among the Lydians." But these same men also tell that tale about Heracles—that he killed his own wife and his sons, disposed in a way not lawful to mention; which what man of sound mind would believe? But you, then, if you most especially believe it, answer me by Heracles himself, whether you too, for this man's sake, would gladly destroy your own affairs. But you will not say so. And I, whether Heracles danced among the Lydians, cannot say; but if so, then at least on a single day, and for the sake of sport, and perhaps at the same time mocking the Lydians; and a fourth thing I would say—that he became no worse in the things in which he danced, but was who he was. And I know some Laconian dances too, and certain other tragic ones, called, I think, "emmeleiai"—for dancing is not shameful, but the shameful is to be shunned everywhere—but you, not among the Lydians, nor once for all, nor in mockery, nor sound within, but among all men, all the days, dance out things which it was possible to praise not in Heracles, no, nor even in Omphale. And to whom does the character belong? Is it to those concerned with political and forensic speeches? They would suffer the opposite of Caeneus the Thessalian, becoming women out of men. But to those concerned with dialectic? Charming, then, you would be, you rascal, summoning men to temperance and courage and endurance in this tune, while you yourself cannot endure to remain in the rank of speeches—just as Sardanapalus, pushing the woof with the shuttle, sang the songs that summon men to battle. But does the manner befit leaders? Or kings?
Or, in general, rulers? No, nor any one of all the ages. For is it for the younger? But they will seem to play the harlot, if they welcome these things. Or for grown men? But they will seem not to confirm the name. Or for the older? But there is great unseasonableness in the shame. There remains, then, women—and those the most wanton—against whom these men deserve to be judged. And yet they emulate them, but fall short by a good deal. And I marvel if, while for those who debase the coinage, as Demosthenes said, death is laid down as the penalty, to those who turn out speeches counterfeit and falsely stamped we shall grant freedom of speech—or rather grant this first to say: and if a man stumble in a word, he is at once ignorant, but if he corrupt by his whole purpose the established order, then he shall not stand far from all the festivals. And indeed the deliberation is not only about speeches, but about all decorum and good order, and whether one must abide by the laws, or do whatever one wishes for the sake of the pleasure of the day. For when the things I speak of prevail, law and order prevail, by which not only cities, but the whole earth and heaven itself are held together and preserved; but the things these men counterfeit are at enmity with all things divine and human.