Ludus Septem Sapientum

AUSONIUS THE CONSUL TO DREPANIUS THE PROCONSUL, greeting. Whether you think these things should be pardoned or examined, read them through, Drepanius, with attentive judgement. I shall be content with you as judge, whether you think the verses I have given should be read or covered up; for the first thing is to have earned your favour, Pacatus: the next will be the care of a vindicated modesty. I can bear the censure of a severe reader, and I can please myself with a modest praise. The horse knows how to love the sound of his patted neck; he knows too, undismayed, how to endure the slow blows of the whip. What discipline did the censor Aristarchus and the standard of Zenodotus seek for Maeonian Homer! Set down your obeli, then, the marks against the first poets: I shall think them palms, not faults of mine; and I shall call them corrected rather than condemned, the touches which the file of a learned man will apply to me. Meanwhile, about to undergo the weight of so great a judgement, I shall wish that I may please; if not, that I may lie hidden.

Prologue. The Seven Sages, to whom an earlier age gave that name, and a following age did not take it away, come forth today onto the stage in their Greek cloaks. Why do you blush, you toga-clad Roman, that men so famous will enter the stage? For us this is something to be ashamed of, but not for the Athenians too, for whom the theatre serves in place of the senate-house. To our affairs their own places have been allotted: the field of Mars for the assemblies, as the senate-house for the enrolled senators; the forum and the rostra the law of the citizens keeps apart. At Athens, and in all Greece, there is one seat of a public place for taking counsel, which in our city luxury established late. Of old the aedile gave a planked stage, raised on a sudden with no mass of stone. So did Murena and Gallius — I tell what is known. Afterward the powerful, not fearing expense, believed they would gain an everlasting name, if once a mass, built on a foundation of stone, should establish a place for the games for all time: this wedge-banked vastness of the theatre grew up. Pompey gave it, and Balbus, and Caesar Octavian, vying in expenses. But why do I tell these things? I came forth hither not for this cause, to set forth who built the theatres, who the forum, who the several parts of the walls: but that I might go before, and open up, men to be revered and praised by the gods, and what they wish for themselves. They are wont to pronounce their own sayings, which each of the wise men has already brought forth. You surely know what they are; but if memory halts at old matters, the player will come, the expounder of those which I hold less well.

THE PLAYER. The story is that Solon the Athenian wrote at Delphi γνῶθι σεαυτόν, which in Latin is: "Know yourself." Many think this belongs to Chilon the Laconian. Spartan Chilon, whether it be yours or not, they dispute, that which is reported next, ὅρα τέλος μακροῦ βίου, you who bid us look to the end of a long life. Many judge that Solon said this to Croesus. And fame says that Pittacus the Lesbian said γίγνωσκε καιρόν: he bids you know the time. But that καιρός is the timely time. Bias of Priene said οἱ πλεῖστοι κακοί, which in Latin is: "the greater part of men are bad"; but know that he called bad the unskilled. μελέτη τὸ πᾶν, that is Periander's of Corinth, who thinks that practice can do everything. Cleobulus of Lindus says ἄριστον μέτρον is best: that is, "measure is best for all things." But Thales brought forth ἐγγύα, πάρα δ' ἄτα, who forbids us to stand surety, because the bondsman is harm. This warning of ours does not please those who lend at interest. I have spoken; I shall withdraw. Solon the lawgiver comes.

SOLON. By Greek custom I, Solon, come forth onto the stage, to whom fame gave the palm of the Seven Sages. But fame has not the severity of judgement; for I think myself not the first, but one of them, since equality knows not how to endure rank. Rightly once the Delphic god counselled the foolish man who asked which of the sages should be first, that he set the garland of names in a smooth circle, lest any be first, or any be last. From the middle of their ring I, Solon, come forth, that what I am thought to have said to King Croesus, every sect of men may think said for itself. In Greek it has been compressed: ὅρα τέλος μακροῦ βίου, which becomes longer if you say it in Latin: I bid all men look to the end of life. Therefore avoid calling men wretched or blessed, because they are ever in a doubtful state. So it is, indeed. If I can, I will tell it in few words. Croesus, king or tyrant of Lydia, was among these blessed ones, rich beyond madness, who gave the gods temples with golden walls. He summoned me. I come, obedient to his word, that the Lydians might use a better king. He asks that I declare a blessed man, if I know any. I name Tellus, a citizen not ignoble: he, fighting for his homeland, had given up his life. He scorned this, seeks another. I found Aglaus: he had never gone beyond the bounds of his own little field. But he, laughing: "In what place do you then put me, who alone am called blessed in the whole world?" I say the end of life must first be looked to; then it must be judged, if the happiness remains. Croesus took the saying ill: I leave the king; he prepares war against the Persians. Setting out, conquered, bound, given over to the king, he stands, awaiting now the likeness of his own funeral, where the flame gave itself through the whole compass, rolling on high its swelling globes in the heat. And almost too late Croesus, with a mighty sound, "O truly a prophet," he says, "O Solon, Solon" — and with a great cry thrice he calls Solon by name. Moved by this voice, Cyrus bids the burning pyre be extinguished throughout its whole ring and destroyed: and just in time a shower poured from the clouds checked the fire. Croesus is straightway led to the king through a chosen band of soldiers: he is asked what Solon he meant, and what cause he had for crying out the name. He sets forth all to the king, through the whole sequence. The king pities him, and, seeing the force of fortune, praises Solon; thereafter holds Croesus among his friends, and bids him pass the whole of what was left of his life with him, bound with golden fetters. I, by the testimony of two kings, was praised and approved by both. And what was said to one, let each think said for himself. I have now finished the cause for which I came forth hither. Lo, Chilon comes. Farewell, you all, and applaud.

CHILON. My loins ache from sitting, my eyes from watching, while I wait for Solon, until he should take himself off. Ah, how few words, you gods, the Attic men speak! He has at last finished one saying in three hundred verses, and, looking back at me, departs. I am the Spartan Chilon, who now come forth. With the well-known brevity which we Laconians use, I commend our γνῶθι σεαυτόν, "Know yourself," which is now held on the Delphic column. That troublesome labour is of the best fruit: to discern what you can bear and what you cannot; by night and by day, what you do and what you have done, to examine right to the likeness of the finest point. All duties — modesty, honour, steadfastness — are in this; and any glory has been scorned by us. I have spoken. Farewell, and remember; I do not wait for applause.

CLEOBULUS. I am Cleobulus, citizen of a small island, but the author of a great saying, by which I am renowned: ἄριστον μέτρον, which they think I said. Interpret it, you who sit nearest the orchestra, on the neighbouring steps, among the fourteen rows: whether ἄριστον μέτρον is "measure is best," tell! You have nodded? I am grateful; I will follow it through in order. He has already said from that place — your African poet (Terence) — ut ne quid nimis ("that nothing be in excess"); and a certain one of ours, μηδὲν ἄγαν ("nothing too much"). Both senses bear on this, whether Italian or Dorian. Of speaking, of being silent, of sleep, of waking, this is the measure; of benefits, of thanks, of injury, of zeal, of labours: whatever there is in all of life requires that measure of the best moderation. I have spoken; I shall withdraw — let there be a measure. Thales comes.

THALES. I am Thales of Miletus, who said that water is the first principle for the creating of things, as the prophet Pindar did; and to whom once, by Apollo's command, the fishermen gave a golden tripod, drawn up from the sea; for they, at the bidding of the Delian god, had chosen me, because he had sent this gift to the wise. I, refusing, did not accept it, but gave it back to be borne to others, whom I believed my betters. Then, sent and sent back through all the seven sages, again they bring it to me. I, having received it, consecrated it to Apollo; for if Phoebus bids a wise man be chosen, it is fitting that no man be believed wise, but a god. That, then, is who I am. But there was a cause for my coming onto the stage, the same as for the two before me, that I might become the defender of my saying. It will displease — not, however, the prudent, whom use has taught and made skilled. Lo, ἐγγύα, πάρα δ' ἄτα, we say in Greek: in Latin it is, "Stand surety, but harm is at hand for you." Through a thousand examples I could run, to prove that bondsmen and sureties are defendants of repentance. But I will name no one by name: let each of you say it to himself and think within himself to how great a loss and ill standing surety has been to him. Yet let this office remain welcome to both parties. Applaud, then, you one part; you the other, offended, hiss.

BIAS. Because I, Bias of Priene, said οἱ πλεῖστοι κακοί, I suspect it is rendered in Latin as: "the greater part are bad." I would not have said it; truth begets hatred. But I called bad the unskilled and the barbarous, who neglect law and equity and sacred ways. For this people, by which the theatre is girt, is wholly of the good. The land of our enemies holds those whom you believe I called the greater part bad. But let no one be so bad a judge as not now to couple himself to the parties of the good, whether he is truly good or eager to be called so. Now that hated name of "bad" has fled. I go. Farewell, and applaud, you greater part who are good.

PITTACUS. Sprung of Mytilene, I am Pittacus the Lesbian, who taught the saying γίνωσκε καιρόν. But that καιρός warns you to know the time, and that there is a καιρός which they call the timely. So too there is a Roman saying: "Come in good time." Your comic poet Terence too declares that of all things the time is first, when the slave Dromo had come to Antiphila, finding her hindered by nothing, watching the turn of the time. Reflect, all of you, how often offence occurs to one for whom the opportunity has not been watched for. The time warns me not to be tiresome. Applaud.

PERIANDER. Born of Ephyra (Corinth), I, Periander, come forth hither, who said μελέτη τὸ πᾶν, and I now approve the saying — that it belongs to practice, what you do rightly. For he alone is effective in managing an affair who first reflects on the whole business. The comic poet Terence declares that the adverse or the favourable in affairs must be reflected on by all. Whoever wishes to place his abode, to wage war or to lay it down, to manage great or moderate things, even small ones too, it ever befits him to reflect; for all are too sluggish in new undertakings if reflection on the affair to be managed has been wanting. There is nothing that demands a fuller care than to consider what is to be done. Thereafter chance, not counsel, rules the unreflecting. But I now betake myself to my exit. Applaud, and, by reflecting, may you care for your commonwealth.