Oration 33

I wonder what your disposition is, and what you expect or wish when you seek that such men as I should discourse to you. Do you think them sweet-voiced and that they utter more pleasantly than the rest, and then desire to hear them as you would hear birds singing to you? Or that they have another power, in words and thoughts, of a sharper persuasion, and truly formidable, which you call rhetoric, lording it in the marketplaces and about the platform? Or do you think you will hear some praise of yourselves and a public hymn of the city — about Perseus and Heracles and Apollo's trident and the oracles that were given, and how you are Greeks and Argives and even better, and have for your founders heroes and demigods, or rather Titans?

And further, I think, about the country and the mountains in it and this Cydnus, how it is the most kindly of all rivers and the fairest, and that those who drink from it are wealthy and blessed according to Homer. For these things are true, and you continually hear them from the poets in verse and from other men who have made this their very work, to eulogize; but it requires great preparation and power.

What, then, do you hope we shall say? Or what especially are you eager to hear from men neither witty nor knowing how to converse for favour nor flattering nor coming to their words out of luxury? For that you do not expect money from us nor any other gift I am quite aware. Come, then, let me tell you my own suspicion.

You seem to me to have often heard divine men who say they know all things and will speak about all, how they are ordered and what nature they have, both about men and demons and about gods, and further about earth and heaven and sea, and about the sun and moon and the other stars, and about the whole universe, and about destruction and generation and countless other things. Then, I think, coming up to you, they inquire what you wish them to speak about and concerning what — according to Pindar, Ismenus or Melia of the golden distaff or Cadmus; and whatever you think fit, taking thence, he will pour out a full and copious discourse, like some abundant stream shut up within him.

Then you, hearing it, think it mean and untimely to examine each point or to disbelieve a wise man, but otherwise you are exalted by the force and speed of the words and rejoice greatly when one strings together so great a crowd of words without taking breath, and you suffer the same as those who watch horses running at full rein; you are not at all benefited, but you marvel nonetheless and call it a blessed possession. And yet even the horses one may see often used not by the masters, but by a mean slave.

Such a hearing, then, being a kind of spectacle and procession, has something like the displays of the so-called physicians, who, seating themselves in the midst, go through the junctures of joints and the compositions and juxtapositions of bones and other such things, channels and breaths and filterings. And the many gape and are charmed more than children. But the true physician is not such, nor does he so discourse to those really in need; how could he? But he prescribes what one must do, and forbids the man who wishes to eat or drink, and taking the knife cuts off some part of the body that has mortified.

As, then, if the sick, having come together, should make a revel-rout against the physician and think fit to carouse, the matter would not turn out for them according to their hope, but perhaps they would be vexed at the reception; the same thing seems to me to befall the many who come together to such a man and bid him speak, being plainly without taste of the words of truth, and then expecting to hear something sweet and pleasant. Come now, by the gods, will you bear it if one does not use very much frankness nor go through all the things that attach to you, but say only one or two things?

Consider, then, lest you suffer the same as those Trojans, who troubled a tragic actor who had come to sojourn, bidding him give a display; but he thought fit to let them be and keep quiet. For by how much, he said, the better I compete, by so much the more unfortunate will you appear. So it is better to let the philosopher keep silent before the many.

Consider what the matter is. For the Athenians, being accustomed to hear ill of themselves, and, by Zeus, coming together for this very thing into the theatre, to be reviled, and having set up a contest and victory for those who do it best — not having themselves found this out, but the god having counselled it — used to hear Aristophanes and Cratinus and Plato, and did these no harm. But when Socrates, without stage or scaffolding, performed the god's command, not dancing the kordax nor twittering, they did not endure it.

For those men, suspecting and fearing the people as a master, flattered them, biting gently and with laughter, as the nurses do to the children, when they must drink something rather unpleasant, they offer it having smeared the cup with honey. Therefore they harmed no less than they benefited, filling the city with insolence and jests and buffoonery. But the philosopher confuted and admonished.

And indeed, how much better it is to revile and to make manifest each man's foolishness and wickedness than to gratify through words and to spoil the hearers with eulogies, you will learn especially from this. For there having been two poets from all time, with whom it is right to compare none of the rest, Homer and Archilochus — of these Homer praised well-nigh everything, both beasts and plants and water and earth and arms and horses, and there is nothing of which he made mention that he passed by without praise and honour, as one might say. The one only of all whom he reviled, Thersites, even him he says was a clear-voiced speaker.

But Archilochus came to the opposite, to blame, seeing, I think, that men needed this more, and first he blames himself. Therefore alone, both after his death and before he was born, he obtained the greatest testimony from the divine. For Apollo, driving out of his temple the man who had slain him, declared that he had slain a servant of the Muses. And a second time, when the man made his defense saying he had killed him in war, again Apollo called Archilochus a servant of the Muses. And to his father, consulting the oracle before his birth, the god foretold that an immortal son would be born to him.

So that he who is competent to revile and to lay hold and to make manifest by his words men's errors is plainly better and preferred to those who praise. But if indeed you take more pleasure in being praised, you must go to others. Whenever, then, you first see a man flattering himself in all he does and gratifying himself in food, in clothing, and going about licentious, think that this man will flatter you too, and expect from him a sweet discourse, which you call praise — a luxurious man from a luxurious one.

But when you see one squalid and contracted and walking alone, examining and reviling himself first, do not seek from such a one any flattery nor deceit, nor that clever and pleasant discourse which especially busies itself about peoples and satraps and tyrants. Not such are the servants of those, but young men, well clad in cloaks and tunics, ever sleek of head and with fair faces. For these come into life like revellers, fluted to and sung to and drunk, thinking they have burst in upon some festival and assembly of prodigals.

But whoever, having seen how many grievous and troublesome things there are, and that all is full of foes and enemies where luxury and deceit hold sway, having mastered himself with unseemly blows, casting a bad rag about his shoulders, like a servant, has entered the wide-wayed city of luxurious men — not for any evil of his neighbours, as Odysseus came thus for the evil of the suitors, but on the contrary seeking whether he can do any good unobserved — why do you stir up such a one, or why do you challenge a harsh and savage popular orator, as he will appear to you? For your ears are not prepared to receive rough and hard words; but like the weak hooves of cattle reared in soft and smooth places, so your delicate ears are reared in flattery and false words.

Why, then, are you eager to hear what you will not endure? But indeed you have suffered such a thing as Aesop said the eyes suffered, when they thought themselves worth most, but saw the mouth enjoying the other things and indeed the honey, being most sweet. So they were vexed and blamed the man. But when he put some of the honey into them, they were bitten and wept and thought it sharp and unpleasant. Do not, then, you too seek to taste the words from philosophy, as the eyes the honey; for then, I think, being bitten too, you will be displeased and will perhaps say that such a thing is in no way philosophy, but reviling and harm.

For you think, men, that you are happy and blessed, since you inhabit a great city and dwell in a good land and see the necessities most abundant and unstinted among you, and this river flows through the middle of your city, and besides Tarsus is the metropolis of those in Cilicia. But Archilochus, who I say pleased Apollo, speaking about a general says thus: I love not a great general nor one straddling wide nor proud of his curls nor close-shaven; but let me have, he says, one bandy-legged, firmly planted, and shaggy on the shins.

Do not, then, think that he loved not a general such as he described, and placed the worth of the general not in size of body and a head of hair, but that he would ever praise a city looking to these things — rivers and baths and fountains and porticoes and a multitude of houses and their size; for these resemble simply a head of hair and curls; but it seems to me he would rather choose before these a small and slight one temperately governed, even upon a rock.

But Archilochus spoke thus; and Homer, how? Was not Odysseus an islander, and not of the moderate-sized islands? — how could he be? — nor of the fruitful ones, but one which, wishing only to praise it, he called goat-pastured. But nonetheless he says that by this man's counsel and judgment even Troy was taken, so great a city and ruling over so many, as much as Lesbos above, the seat of the blessed, encloses within, and Phrygia above and the boundless Hellespont;

which, he says, all called rich in gold, rich in bronze. Did, then, the greatness of their wealth, or the multitude of their subjects or allies, or the plains, or the beauty of Ida, or of the Simois, or of the eddying Xanthus, whom immortal Zeus begot, profit them at all? And yet he says there were certain very fair springs in the suburb, the one warm and of very gentle water, so that even smoke rose from it, the other like crystal in coldness in summer, so that both in summer and winter the fair daughters of the Trojans washed without difficulty.

And they surpassed not only in wealth and in the excellence and extent of the land, but also the fairest of men arose among them, both men and women, and the swiftest horses, and they seemed to be beloved of the gods, and were fenced about with a most strong wall. For their wall was the work of Poseidon and Apollo. And Zeus said that of the cities under the sun he loved that one most. The swiftness of horses was such that they ran upon the tops of the ears of corn. And for beauty Zeus made Ganymede his cup-bearer. And after Alexander there followed from Greece the best of the women there. And Homer says that Cassandra fell not short of Aphrodite in form.

But nonetheless, when luxury and insolence entered into them and they thought they needed nothing of education and temperance, they became by far the most unfortunate of all. Is not the whole earth full of the report of their misfortunes? And nothing profited them, neither the swiftness of horses nor Zeus nor Ganymede, but by a man from so sorry and obscure a city they perished, and the citizen of Ithaca prevailed to overcome all those from Ilium, and to sack and destroy the whole wide-wayed city.

For not even do the gods any longer love the wanton and senseless and licentious and those inclined to insolence and idleness and luxury. So do not take courage in these things, nor accept the discourse that rejoices with you and admires you, nor those clever at eulogizing; for these deceive you and exalt you in vain, as silly children; but rather him who will show you some of your errors and, first of all, if he can, will make you understand that, on account of these things which I have mentioned, you are not happy — not even if the Nile flowed through your city become clearer than Castalia, nor if Pactolus, appearing here, brought you gold not in grains, as they say it did to the Lydians of old, but in a mass like mud, nor if you surpass Egypt or Babylon in the costliness of your buildings.

For if these things can make men blessed — a river or temper of air or place of earth or harbours of the sea or a temple or a wall — it is not possible to say in how many things you are deficient. You hear of those Byzantines who dwell on the very Pontus, a little outside the mouth, fish sometimes falling out upon the land of themselves; but nonetheless no one would say the Byzantines were happy on account of the fish, unless the gulls too, nor the Egyptians on account of the Nile, nor the Babylonians on account of the wall.

Does not the Peneus flow through a desolate Thessaly? Does not the Ladon through an Arcadia laid waste? Is not the Cydnus itself purer above? What then? Will you on this account say those people are better than yourselves? Perhaps you speak truly, if you say it; yet you will not say it. For those without trial of luxury and villainy — these, I say, fare better. And what of Italy itself? Did not Sybaris, by how much most it lived luxuriously, by so much the more quickly perish? And Croton and Thurii and Metapontum and Tarentum, having flourished to so great a height and once had so great power, of what city are they not now more desolate?

It would be much work to go through all who have perished through luxury — the Lydians of old, the Medes, the Assyrians before them, last of all the Macedonians; who, lately stripped of their rags and called shepherds and fighting with the Thracians about the millet-fields, mastered the Greeks, crossed into Asia, ruled as far as the Indians. But when they took the good things of the Persians, the evils too followed upon these.

Therefore at once sceptres and purple robes and the Median table and their race failed; so that now, if one should pass through Pella, he will see no sign of a city at all, except that there is much broken pottery in the place. And yet the sites of the cities I have mentioned remain, and of the nations, such as they were before, and no one has turned the rivers elsewhere, nor if there was any other such thing; but nonetheless, whatever costliness and luxury have laid hold of, for these it is not possible to last a longer time.

For do not think that the rams nor the siege-engines nor the other machines so overturn as luxury, whether one wishes to see a man fallen or a city. It is not a river nor a plain nor a harbour that makes a city happy, nor a multitude of money nor of buildings nor treasures of the gods, to which the divine pays no heed; nor if some transfer the mountains and the rocks into the cities with much toil and labour and countless expense; but temperance and mind are the things that save. These make those who use them blessed, these make them dear to the gods, not frankincense nor myrrh — how could it? — nor roots and tears of trees nor the brushwood of the Indians and Arabs.

But you, if by chance the river changes and flows muddier, are vexed and lay the blame on those who first sojourned among you; but seeing the character of the city changing and becoming worse and ever more disturbed, you take no thought. But you wish water not only to drink pure, but also to look on;

yet a pure and moderate character you do not seek. And yet one may often hear some say: For have we alone changed, and not well-nigh all? But this is as if someone in a plague, because all or most are sick, should wish to take no forethought to be himself in health; or, by Zeus, being storm-tossed at sea, then seeing all in the ship in danger, should neglect his own safety. What? If the whole fleet sink, is what happens on this account less strange?

What, then, do we err in? The rest I leave aside. For it is ridiculous if one should attempt to tell a man who does not know at all how to play the lyre, but strums at random, what he erred in or what note he passed over. But this much only is worth saying, which no one would deny. I say, then, that a marvellous experience has befallen many in this city, which I formerly heard occurred among certain others rather than among you.

But what this is, if I cannot make plain clearly, do you yourselves try to suspect; and do not think I speak any of the unspeakable things, nor what those who do them conceal, even if it seem very marvellous. In the very midst, at least, walking upright, talking, the most are asleep; but if to the most they seem to be awake, this would be nothing. For one of the inexperienced will say the hares are awake, if he see them sleeping. Whence, then, was this known? From certain other things, which are signs of sleeping; since their eyes are open.

What, then, do these do, being asleep? Many other things; for well-nigh all their deeds resemble dreams. For they rejoice in vain and grieve and are bold and afraid, there being nothing, and are eager, and desire impossible things, and think things that are not to be, and do not perceive the things that are. Except that these are perhaps common to us too. But that, I think, is the plainest proof of sleep that they give — they snore. For I cannot, by the gods, say it more decently. And yet of those asleep too few ever suffer this; but of the rest it befalls the drunken and the gorged and those lying ill.

But I say that this deed makes the city shameful and disgraces it publicly, and that those who sleep thus by day outrage their fatherland with the greatest insolence, and that they would justly be banished both from you and from everywhere. For what happens is not moderate nor rarely occurring, but always and everywhere in the city, even if one threaten, even if one jest, even if one laugh. And henceforth it is now habitual even to the very small children, and of the grown men those who seem to be modest are often led on to use it as upon some gift, and even if, checking themselves, they are abashed, they at all events breathed out the like.

If, then, there were such a city that one ever heard people lamenting in it, and no one could go forth even for a little without this ill-omened sound, by Zeus, is there anyone who would gladly sojourn there? And yet lamenting, as one might say, is a sign of misfortune, but such a thing of shamelessness, of the utmost wantonness. Reasonably, then, one would wish to spend time among unfortunate men rather than among licentious. For I, for my part, would not choose to hear even flute-players continually; but if there is such a place, in which there is a continual sound either of flutes or of song or of the lyre, such as they say the crag of the Sirens is, ever sung over, I could not, having gone there, pass my time.

But this savage and grievous sound, what moderate man would endure? But if one, passing a house, hear such a thing, plainly he will say it is a brothel. But what will they call the city, in which everywhere well-nigh one sound prevails, and they make no time nor day nor place exempt, but in the alleys, in the houses, in the marketplaces, beside the theatre, in the gymnasium the thing holds sway? And of anyone playing the flute at dawn I have heard none up to now in the city, but this marvellous melody is set in motion straightway with the day.

And yet it has not escaped me that perhaps some think me trifling in examining such things, and that there is nothing besides this, only that you bring in vegetables by the wagonload and behold many loaves in the midst and there is salt-fish and meat. Yet let them consider the matter thus themselves. If one of them should come to a city in which all, whatever they point at, point with the middle finger, and if one give the right hand, gives it thus, and if one stretch out the hand thus, and if the people vote, and if the jurors cast their ballot, what sort of city will they consider this? And if all walk with their garments tucked up, as in a marsh?

Are you ignorant that these are the things that have given an occasion against you for slander, so that those ill disposed toward you have, against the city publicly, something to say? But why do they cry out the weaving-shuttles at you? And yet they say it ought to make no difference, either to you or to others, about what others say, but about what you yourselves do. Come, if such an affliction should overtake some publicly, that all take the voice of women, and no one, neither young nor old, can say anything in a manly way — will it not seem grievous and, I think, heavier than any plague? For it is not shameful to be feverish nor to die; so that they would send to the god and propitiate the divine much. And yet for women to utter a woman's voice is to utter a human voice, and no one hearing a woman would be displeased.

But such a sound, of whom is it? Is it not of the androgynous? Is it not of those whose privy parts have been cut off? And not even of these always and toward all, but it is peculiar to them as a kind of token. Come, suppose you all walked girt up or beating drums, and this seemed to you nothing grievous? If it befell you to have some lofty height or, by Zeus, an overhanging mountain, as other cities, where one who has gone up cannot hear each clearly, but the whole din, what sort of sound do you think would be borne up to you? Or is it plain that the greater part prevails as in harmony?

But if one must judge about men from the hearing — as Homer says that Odysseus, approaching his own house, did not wait to see the suitors feasting, but straightway said to Eumaeus, as the lyre carried round to him, that he knew many were holding a feast in it;

and again, from the island of the Cyclopes, hearing both the sheep bleating and their voice, as of men, I think, pasturing, that he understood the country was of certain shepherds — come, if one should conjecture about you too from the sound borne afar, what sort of men would he suppose you to be and to be doing what? For you are not competent either to herd cattle or to tend sheep; and which will one say — that you are colonists of the Argives, as you say, or rather of those Aradians? And which — Greeks or the most licentious of the Phoenicians? For I think it rather befits a temperate man in such a city to smear his ears with wax than if he happened to be sailing past the Sirens. For there there was a danger of death, but here of wantonness, of insolence, of the utmost corruption.

And there is no pleasure besides, nor instruction, I suppose. Formerly, then, the exhortation of the better prevailed, but now, as it seems, that of the worse. And one might wonder at the cause of the more here emulating it and its ever becoming more habitual as it advances. As a certain Ionian mode prevailed, and a Dorian and another Phrygian and a Lydian, so now the music of the Aradians prevails, and the strummings of the Phoenicians please you, and you have especially loved this rhythm, as others the spondaic;

or has a race of men appeared musical in the nostrils, as they say the swans are in their wings, and then, in the manner of clear-voiced birds, they delight one another both in the streets and at banquets, needing neither lyre nor flutes — for these are old-fashioned instruments of some still harsh and rustic music — but now another mode flourishes, better and more pleasant than lyres? So then, after a time, we shall set up choruses of boys and maidens under this melody, having carefully taught them.

But that you are vexed hearing this I know clearly, and I foretold that you would receive the words not gladly. But you perhaps thought I would discourse about stars and earth. And some of you are angry and say I outrage the city, but do not blame those who do these things; and some perhaps laugh, if I found nothing better to speak about. But I see that the physicians too sometimes touch what they would not wish, not the fairest parts of the body, and I know that many of those being treated are indignant when one touches the afflicted part. But he often scratches it and cuts while the man cries out. So I will not cease speaking about this until you are greatly bitten. And yet you meet with this discourse as a very weak drug and much less than according to your desert.

Come now, by Heracles and Perseus and Apollo and Athena and the other gods whom you honour, answer me eagerly: if any of you wished to have such a wife — I mean, as a woman is called a lyre-player, and, by Zeus, a flute-player or poetess and the rest likewise from their other pursuits, so one whom one would customarily name from this practice. And be not displeased nor vexed; for the matter itself furnishes these words to one who wishes to speak about it, not I who find them from somewhere. To live with such a woman, then, none of you would wish, not even for five hundred talents, I think; but would one choose to have such a daughter? But, by Zeus, somehow it is not grievous to have such a mother and to support her in old age; for it is plainly august and more befitting elder women.

Well; so in the case of a wife or a daughter you do not even endure to hear of it, but to dwell in such a city and fatherland does not seem dreadful to you? And that too — which is altogether more grievous — not being such from the beginning, but such as you yourselves make it. And yet your city is a metropolis, so that it has both the augustness and the dignity of a mother; but nonetheless you spare neither the name nor the antiquity nor the repute.

What, then, do you think, if, as is likely and as they say, the founder heroes or gods often turn their attention to their own cities, being unseen to the rest, at sacrifices and certain public festivals — then your founder Heracles should be present, whether at a pyre, which you make very fine for him — would he be greatly pleased hearing such a sound? Would he not rather go off to Thrace or Libya and be present with the descendants of Busiris or Diomedes when they sacrifice? And what? Does not Perseus seem really to fly over the city? And what need to mention gods?

But Athenodorus, who was lately among you, whom Augustus respected — do you think, if he had known the city to be such, he would have preferred his sojourn here to that with him? Formerly, then, your city was renowned for good order and temperance and produced such men; but now I fear lest it take the opposite rank, so that it be named along with these and those. And yet many of the things still remaining somehow display the temperance and the austerity of the upbringing of that time, among which is the matter concerning the dress of the women, their being arranged in this manner and walking so that no one may see any one part of them, neither of the face nor of the rest of the body, nor that they themselves see anything off the road.

And yet what can they see such as they hear? Therefore, beginning the corruption from the ears, the most have perished. For wantonness creeps in from every side, both through ears and through eyes. So that they walk with their faces covered, but with the soul uncovered and very wide open. Therefore they see more keenly with one of their eyes, like the geometers.

And this matter of the nostrils is conspicuous. But the rest too must follow such a rhythm. For do not think that, as on others some local disease often falls upon certain parts, hands or feet or face, so among you too a local disease has fallen upon the nostrils, nor, as they say Aphrodite in anger corrupted the armpits of the Lemnian women, here too suppose that the nostrils of the most have been corrupted by divine wrath, and then they utter such a voice; how could that be? But it is a sign of the utmost insolence and madness and of despising all noble things and considering nothing shameful.

I say, then, that they converse like these and walk and look. But if they cannot make anything so conspicuous through their glances as to turn all heads, or have not yet advanced the art so far, in nothing else are they more decent. Then you are vexed with the Aegeans and the Adanians when they revile you, but do you not banish from the city those of your own citizens who bear witness to those people that they speak truly?

Do you not know that to do any of the unspeakable and unnatural things has in most cases only suspicion, and no one has seen any of the many, but somewhere in the dark and secretly the wretches commit impiety undetected; but such tokens of incontinence betray the character and the disposition — the voice, the look, the bearing, and indeed these things that seem small and of no account, the haircut, the gait, the rolling of the eyes, the inclining of the neck, the conversing with the hands upturned? For do not think that flute-tunes and strummings and melodies, some show the manly, others the womanish, but that movements and actions make no difference nor are any proof in these. But I wish to tell you a story which perhaps you have heard at another time too.

They say that one of the clever men here came to a certain city having made this his very work, so as to know at once each man's character and to describe his attributes, and to fail in nothing at all; but, as we know animals by seeing, that this is a sheep, if it so be, and this a dog, and this a horse or ox, so that man knew men by seeing and could say that this one is brave, this one cowardly, this one a braggart, this one insolent or lewd or an adulterer.

As, then, he was marvellous in his displays and nowhere failed, they bring to him a man hard of body and with brows knit, squalid and meanly disposed and having calluses on his hands, wrapped in some grey and rough garment, hairy down to the ankles and meanly shorn; and they thought fit for him to say who he was. And he, as he looked a long time, at last, hesitating, it seems to me, to say what occurred to him, said he did not understand, and bade him walk. And as he was now departing, he sneezes; and that man straightway cried out that he was lewd.

Then in the case of a man the sneeze convicted his character and prevailed against all else not to escape notice; but shall not one such thing slander a city and fill it with bad repute, and that too where it needs no clever one to understand of what it is a sign? But I, for my part, would gladly inquire of the experienced what this resembles or what it means to show. For it is neither a clucking nor a clicking nor a whistling; or of what work is it proper and when especially does it occur; for they do not pasture thus nor plough nor hunt, nor is it the voice of sailors.

Is it, then, of those greeting one another or calling or being friendly? But, as the wedding-song is some peculiar ancient melody for those marrying, so this new rhythm has been invented of some other festival. But you will depart vexed and saying I have trifled, if I have arranged so many words in vain and toward none of the useful things. For no harm comes from this, you say, nor is the city worse governed.

But among the Greeks formerly it seemed a dreadful thing to change the music, and all cried out against those who introduced another rhythm and made the melodies more elaborate, as though Greece were being corrupted in the theatres. So very much did they guard their ears and thought the hearing had so great a power as to make the mind effeminate and to wrong temperance, if the matter of harmony yielded a little. Therefore they say that the Lacedaemonians, when Timotheus came to them, being now brilliant and dominant in music, both took away his lyre and cut out the superfluous of the strings. And you too, men of Tarsus, imitate the Lacedaemonians, cut out the superfluous sound.

The old myth says that Circe changed men with her drugs, so that swine and wolves came to be from men; and these things we disbelieve when Homer says them: They had the heads of swine and the voice and bristles and shape. But of those he says the mind remained steadfast, but of these the mind has first perished and been corrupted.

And indeed it is not so dreadful if men in the midst should take the voice of sheep or of cattle, nor if they neigh nor if they bark, as the poets say of Hecuba, that at last, after all the dreadful things, the Erinyes made her a fierce-eyed dog, and uttering bronze sounds from her grey jaws there harkened Ida and sea-girt Tenedos and the Thracian wind-loving fields.

I say this is not so dreadful a portent nor so abominable as when a man, being a man and having the same character and his own voice, and being unable to abolish the signs of his nature, not even if he do everything in concealing them, like a thief his stolen goods, being struck by certain Erinyes and twisted and broken in every way, wishes to do everything, and nothing as it is by nature; and then, in the manner of some Proteus, changing and altering himself, finds a way to utter a voice neither of a man nor of a woman nor of any other animal, imitating a foul and androgynous creature, nor like a harlot who does this very thing harlotting, but as though uttering the very sound of the most shameful work and the most licentious act, and that too by day, when the sun is conspicuous, with many present. It was not so dreadful that the hides of the cattle crept nor that the meat bellowed.

What Homer, then, or what Archilochus is strong enough to sing away these evils? For to me, by Heracles, the matter of men seems to need some noble and tragic poet, who will be able to check and beat back so great a rush;

since now what happens resembles a shameful and unseemly madness, and this disease of unseemliness and shamelessness, going round in a circle, leads you henceforth to everything, both deeds and voices and bearings, and lays hold of and reaches every part — feet, hands, eyes, tongue. So there is no use in us nor in this slack and weak exhortation, but rather there is need of some Stentor uttering a bronze or iron voice, who will shout louder and clearer than I. For you see whither it advances.

The trimming of the beard was first found, and this seemed moderate, the not letting it down too much, nor too long, but gently amending nature. So such a man seemed to many clever. Then they shaved as far as the cheeks; not even this yet dreadful; but nonetheless the comic poet bade even this man be burned upon sixteen fig-wood phalluses. Except that they had comely faces and boyish beyond their age, freed from this down; then, what was still left, the legs and the breast, that we may in the rest too be like boys. Then as far as the arms; then passing to the privy parts, where puberty too seems superfluous, the art of nature is mocked and laughed at by the wise and the young, as being something old-fashioned and very silly, having added useless and superfluous things to the body.

For what need had you of nails, what of hair? But neither perhaps of hands nor feet. You needed only to make privy parts and bellies and to set food beside them and the other things which one can enjoy. Therefore we ourselves clip ourselves, and take away the beard and the puberty, which are peculiar to men; but if it were possible to add the other things from the women, plainly we should then be altogether happy, not, as now, being deficient, but whole and androgynous according to nature.