Book 1

Preface.

Whoever does not embrace painting wrongs the truth, and wrongs as well all the wisdom that has gone into the poets — for both have an equal impulse toward the forms and deeds of heroes — and he fails to praise proportion, by means of which the art also lays hold of reason. To one who wishes to be subtle about it, the invention belongs to the gods, both because of the forms on earth which the seasons paint upon the meadows and because of the appearances in the heavens; but to one who probes the origin of the art, imitation is the most ancient invention and most akin to nature, and wise men discovered it, calling the one branch painting and the other modelling. There are many kinds of modelling — the very act of fashioning, and imitation in bronze, and those who carve marble or Parian stone, and ivory-work, and, by Zeus, engraving is a kind of modelling too. Painting, on the other hand, is composed of colours, yet it does not stop at that; it contrives more from this one resource than the other art does from its many, for it shows shadow and recognizes the look of a man, one expression for the madman, another for the man in pain or the man rejoicing, and the gleam of the eyes such as it really is — things which a sculptor can hardly accomplish; but the bright eye, the grey eye, and the dark eye are all within the power of painting, and it knows tawny hair and red hair and sun-bleached hair, and the colour of clothing and of armour, chambers and houses and groves and mountains and springs and the very air in which all these things are. Now as to those who attained mastery in this knowledge, and how many cities and how many kings were moved by love of it, others have written, and so has Aristodemus of Caria, whom I myself, for the sake of painting, made my host for four years; he painted in the manner of Eumelus, bringing to it much grace. But my discourse is not about painters now, nor a history of them; rather we are setting forth kinds of painting, composing them as conversations for the young, from which they may both interpret what they see and care for what is approved. The occasions of these discourses of mine came about thus. There was the festival at Naples — the city is settled in Italy by people of Greek race and cultivated habits, and so they are Greek in their pursuit of letters — and since I did not wish to deliver my declamations in public, the youths who kept coming to my host's house gave me no peace. I was lodging outside the wall in a suburb facing the sea, where a portico had been built facing the west wind, raised on four — or perhaps five — storeys, and looking out over the Tyrrhenian Sea. It glittered indeed with all the stones that luxury admires, but most of all it was in flower with paintings, panels set into it which someone, it seemed to me, had collected with no want of learning, for the skill of many painters was displayed in them. I myself thought I ought, of my own accord, to praise the paintings, but there happened to be a son of my host, quite young, in his tenth year, already eager to listen and delighting in learning, who watched me as I went up to them and begged me to interpret them. So that he might not think me ungracious, "It shall be done," I said, "and we shall make a public demonstration of them when the youths arrive." And when they had come, "Let the boy stand before us," I said, "and let the effort of the discourse be devoted to him; but you, follow along, not merely agreeing, but also asking, if I should say anything unclearly."

1. SCAMANDER.

2. Have you recognized, my boy, that these things are from Homer, or have you never recognized it at all, marvelling no doubt at how on earth fire could live in water? Let us, then, consider what it means; and look closely at the painting itself, only so far as to see those things from which the painting is drawn. You know, I suppose, the theme of the Iliad, in which Homer rouses Achilles over Patroclus, and the gods are moved to make war upon one another. Of all this that concerns the gods the painting knows nothing else, but it says that Hephaestus fell upon the Scamander in great and unmixed force. Look again: everything is from that source. This is the lofty city, and these the battlements of Ilium; this is a great plain, large enough to set Asia in array against Europe; this fire pours in flood across the plain, much of it creeping about the banks of the river, so that there are no longer any trees there. And the fire about Hephaestus streams over the water, and the river is in anguish and itself supplicates Hephaestus. Yet the river is not painted with hair, since it has been scorched all round, nor is Hephaestus lame, because he is running. And the bloom of the fire is not tawny, nor of the customary appearance, but gold-coloured and sun-coloured. These last things are no longer Homer's.

3. COMUS.

4. The spirit Comus, from whom comes men's revelry, stands at the doors of a bridal chamber — golden doors, I think, though they are slow to grasp because the scene is set as in night. Night is painted not from his body but from the occasion; and the porch shows that newly-wed and most prosperous people lie within the marriage-bed. And Comus has come, a young man among the young, soft and not yet a youth, flushed with wine and sleeping upright through drunkenness. He sleeps with his face thrown down upon his breast, showing nothing of his neck, and with his left hand resting on a hunting-spear; the hand, which seems to have held it, is relaxing and growing careless — the usual thing at the onset of sleep, when, as slumber coaxes us, reason passes into forgetfulness of the things it had been holding together; and so the little torch in his right hand seems to be slipping from his grasp, since sleep makes him heedless of it. Fearing the fire as it nears his leg, Comus swings his left shin over to the right and the torch over to the left, that he may turn aside the heat of the fire, drawing his hand away with the knee thrust out before it. Now faces are owed by painters to those in their prime, and without them paintings are blind; but for Comus little of his face is needed, since he bends down and draws over it the shadow from his head. He commands, I think, that those of his own age should not revel with faces uncovered. But the rest of the body is rendered in full detail, the little torch lighting it all round and bringing it into the light. The wreath of roses, let it be praised — yet not for its likeness, for to imitate the appearance of flowers with tawny and dark-blue colours, if it should so happen, is no great achievement — but one must praise the looseness of the wreath and its softness. I praise too the dewiness of the roses, and I say they have been painted together with their fragrance. What remains of Comus? What else than the revellers themselves? Do not the castanets strike upon you, and the resounding din, and the disordered song? Little torches gleam forth here and there, by which the revellers can both see what is at their feet and remain themselves unseen by us. Much laughter is roused as well, and the women rush along with the men, and put on sandals and gird themselves contrary to their nature; for revelry allows a woman to play the man and a man to slip on a woman's robe and walk like a woman. And the wreaths are no longer in bloom, but their gaiety has been taken from them by being fitted to the heads, because of the disorder of the running; for the freedom of the flowers refuses the hand, as one that withers them before their time. The painting imitates a certain clapping too, which revelry most requires, and the right hand, with its fingers curled in, strikes the hollow of the left held beneath it, so that the hands may sound in unison when struck, in the manner of cymbals.

5. FABLES.

6. The fables resort to Aesop, loving him because he cares for them. For Homer too cared for fable, and Hesiod, and even Archilochus in his attack on Lycambes; but in Aesop all the affairs of men are made into fable, and he has given speech to the beasts for the sake of a moral. He checks greed and drives out insolence and deceit, and in this a lion plays a part for him, and a fox, and a horse, by Zeus, and not even the tortoise is voiceless — through whom children become learners of the business of life. The fables, then, in good repute thanks to Aesop, resort to the sage's doors to bind him with fillets and to crown him with a wreath of olive shoots. And he, I think, is weaving some fable. The smile on his face and his eyes fixed upon the ground show this; for the painter knows that the framing of fables requires a relaxed mind. The painting plays the philosopher too with the bodies of the fables, for, by bringing beasts together with men, it sets a chorus about Aesop, composed of the actors of his stage; and the fox is painted as leader of the chorus, since Aesop uses it as the minister of most of his plots, just as comedy uses Davus.

7. MENOECEUS.

8. This is the siege of Thebes, for the wall is seven-gated; the army is that of Polyneices son of Oedipus, for the companies are seven. Amphiaraus draws near them, downcast in look and understanding what they will suffer; and the other captains are afraid — and so they raise their hands to heaven — but Capaneus eyes the walls, scorning the battlements as captureable by a ladder. He is not yet, however, struck from the battlements, since the Thebans hesitate, I suppose, to begin the battle. Charming is the painter's device: enclosing the walls with armed men, he shows some of them whole, others indistinct as to their legs, others half-seen, the breasts only of some and the heads only, and helmets only, then spear-points. This is perspective, my boy. For the eyes must be deceived as they recede along with the proper foreshortenings. Nor is Thebes without its oracle, for Teiresias utters a certain prophecy bearing on Menoeceus, son of Creon — that if he should die where the dragon's lair was, the city would by this be set free. And he dies, unknown to his father, pitiable for his youth but blessed in his courage. For look at what the painter has done: he paints a youth not pale, nor bred in luxury, but spirited and breathing of the wrestling-ground, like the bloom of those honey-coloured boys whom the son of Ariston praises; and he frames him with a well-tinted breast and sides, and a well-proportioned haunch and thigh. He is strong, too, with the promise of his shoulders and a firm, unbending neck, and he has hair, only not too long. He stands over the dragon's lair, drawing out the sword that is already sunk in his side; and let us, my boy, receive his blood, holding out a fold of our garment for it, for it is pouring out, and his soul is already departing — and a little later you shall hear it cry out as it goes. For souls too have a love of beautiful bodies, and therefore they take leave of them unwillingly. As the blood drains slowly from him, he sinks down and welcomes death with a beautiful and tender eye, like one drawing on sleep.

9. THE CUBITS.

10. About the Nile the Cubits sport, children matched to the name; and the Nile rejoices in them above measure, both for other reasons and because they proclaim how great he has flooded forth for the Egyptians. They are brought to him, and as it were they come to him out of the water, soft and smiling infants, and they have, I think, something of the talkative in them too; some sit on his shoulders, some hang from his locks, some sleep in the crook of his arm, some revel upon his breast. And he gives them up flowers, some from his bosom, some from his arm, that they may both weave wreaths from them and sleep, holy and fragrant, upon the flowers; and the children climb one upon another, with rattles too, for these are native to that water. Now the crocodiles and the river-horses, which some add to the Nile in their pictures, lie hidden in the deep eddy, lest fear should fall upon the children. And tokens of farming and of seafaring reveal the Nile by the following reasoning, my boy: the Nile, having made Egypt navigable, then gives it, drunk dry by the plains, the use of fruitful soil. In Ethiopia, where he begins, a spirit who is his steward stands over him, by whom he is sent forth in season, measured to the times. He is painted as tall enough to be conceived as reaching to the sky, and he holds his foot upon the springs, inclining toward them, like Poseidon himself. To this spirit the river looks, and asks that his infants may be many.

11. THE LOVES.

12. The Loves, see, are gathering apples; and if their number is great, do not be amazed — for they become children of nymphs and govern all that is mortal, many for the many things that men desire; but the heavenly Love, they say, attends in heaven to things divine. Have you perhaps caught some of the fragrance about the garden, or are you slow to it? Listen eagerly, for along with the discourse the very apples will strike upon you. These are rows of trees set upright in order, with freedom to walk down the middle of them. A soft grass covers the paths, soft enough to be a couch for one who lies down. From the tips of the boughs apples golden and ruddy and sun-coloured invite the whole swarm of the Loves to harvest them. Now here are quivers, gold-studded and golden, and the arrows within them; but the whole flock is stripped of these, and they fly about light, having hung their arrows on the apple-trees. Their embroidered cloaks lie on the grass, and the flowers on them are countless. Nor are their heads wreathed, since their own hair suffices them. Their wings — dark-blue and crimson and golden in some — all but strike the very air with a musical harmony. Ah, the baskets into which they put the apples — how much sard is about them, how much emerald, how genuine the pearl! Their making must be conceived as Hephaestus' own. Nor do they need ladders to the trees from him, for high up, even to the apples themselves, they fly. And — not to speak of those who dance, or run to and fro, or sleep, or how they rejoice when they have eaten of the apples — let us see what these four here are about. For the most beautiful of the Loves, see, four of them, have withdrawn from the rest: two of them are tossing an apple back and forth to each other, and of the second pair one shoots at the other and the other shoots back, and there is no threat upon their faces; rather, they offer their breasts to each other, that the arrows may lodge there. The riddle is beautiful: consider, then, whether I understand anything of the painter. This is friendship, my boy, and longing for each other; for the pair playing with the apple are beginning desire, whence the one lets it fly after kissing it, and the other receives it with upturned hands, plainly to kiss it in return if he catches it, and to send it back again; while the pair of archers confirm a love that is already established. And I say that the one pair are playing at the beginning of loving, the others shooting that their longing may not cease. But those others, round whom the throng of spectators stand, have fallen together in anger, and a kind of wrestling holds them. Let me describe the wrestling too, since you press for it: the one has caught his opponent, flying down upon his back, and grips him in a stranglehold and binds him fast with his legs; the other neither gives up, but rises upright and breaks the hand by which he is being throttled, by twisting one of its fingers, after which the rest no longer have hold nor are clenched tight; and the one being twisted is in pain and bites the wrestler's ear. So the watching Loves are vexed with him as a wrongdoer who fouls in wrestling, and pelt him with apples. And let not that hare there escape us; let us hunt it down along with the Loves. This animal, crouching beneath the apple-trees and feeding on the apples that fall to the ground, leaving many half-eaten, these Loves hunt and harry — one with a clapping of hands, one shouting, one shaking his cloak; and some fly over the creature crying out, others pursue it on foot upon the track, one has rushed as if to fling himself upon it and the creature has turned another way, one plots against the hare's leg, and another it has slipped from after he had caught it. So they laugh and have fallen down, one on his side, one face-forward, others on their backs, all in the postures of failure. But no one shoots; rather they try to take it alive, as a most welcome offering to Aphrodite. For you know, I suppose, what is said about the hare, that much of Aphrodite belongs to it; it is said indeed to suckle the young it has borne and to give birth again upon the same milk, and to conceive afresh, and no time is empty for it of bringing forth; and the male begets, as is the nature of males, and also conceives, contrary to its nature. But absurd lovers have found in it even a kind of erotic persuasion, hunting their beloved by forcible craft. Let us, then, leave such things to unjust men, unworthy of being loved in return; but do you look at Aphrodite for me. Where, then, and at what part of the orchard is she? Do you see the overhanging rock, from beneath which there runs out a stream most dark-blue, fresh and fit to drink, which is also channelled off to be drink for the apple-trees? There conceive Aphrodite for me, the nymphs, I think, having set her up because she made them mothers of the Loves and therefore blessed in children. And the silver mirror, and that gilded sandal, and the golden brooches — all these hang there not idly; they declare that they are Aphrodite's, and this is written there, and they are said to be gifts of the nymphs; and the Loves offer first-fruits of the apples and stand round praying that the orchard may be beautiful for them.

13. MEMNON.

14. This is the army of Memnon; their arms are laid aside, and they lay out the greatest of their number for lamentation — struck, it seems to me, in the breast by the ash-spear. For finding a broad plain, and tents, and a wall within a camp, and a city fenced about with walls, I cannot see how these are not Ethiopians and this not Troy; and Memnon, son of the Dawn, is being mourned. Him, when he came to defend Troy, the son of Peleus slew, they say — though he came great and in no way smaller than Achilles. For consider how great he lies upon the ground, and how great the harvest of his curls, which, I think, the Nile nourished; for the Egyptians have the mouths of the Nile, but the Ethiopians its springs. Look at his form, how strong it is even though his eyes are lost; look at the down on his cheek, how it matches in age his slayer. Nor would you call Memnon black, for the unmixed black in him shows a kind of bloom. The spirits aloft — Dawn, mourning over her child, makes the Sun downcast and begs Night to come before the time and to hold back the camp, that it may be granted her to steal away her son, Zeus, I suppose, having so nodded his assent. And see, he has been stolen away and is at the very edge of the painting. Nowhere is there a tomb of Memnon; but Memnon is in Ethiopia, transformed into black stone, and the figure is that of one seated, though the form, I think, is his own; and the ray of the Sun strikes upon the statue, for the Sun seems, like a plectrum falling on the mouth, to call forth a voice from Memnon and by this clever device to console the Day with words.

15. AMYMONE.

16. You have met Poseidon, I think, in Homer, walking over the sea, when he sets out from Aegae against the Achaeans, and the sea keeps calm, escorting him with his very horses and his very sea-monsters, for those too follow and fawn on Poseidon, as here. There, then, you are aware of mainland horses, since the poet thinks fit that they be bronze-footed and swift-flying and struck by the whip; but here the chariot is drawn by hippocamps, web-footed and swimming and grey-eyed, and, by Zeus, like dolphins. And there Poseidon seems vexed and indignant with Zeus for inclining the balance toward the Greeks and judging in their favour from the worse cause; but here he is painted bright, and looks cheerful, and is in a great erotic flutter. For Amymone, daughter of Danaus, frequenting the water of Inachus, has overcome the god, and he sets out to hunt her, though she does not yet understand that she is loved. The terror of the maiden, indeed, and her trembling, and the golden pitcher slipping from her hands, show that Amymone is struck with amazement and at a loss as to what Poseidon means by abandoning the sea altogether; and upon her, white as she is by nature, the gold sheds a gleam, mingling its brightness with the water. Let us give way, my boy, to the nymph, for already a wave is curving toward the marriage; the wave is still grey and of the bright colour, but Poseidon will paint it purple.

17. THE MARSH.

18. The land is sodden with rain, and bears reeds and rushes, which the natural richness of marshes gives unsown and unploughed; and tamarisk too is painted, and galingale, for these also belong to the marshes. Mountains tall enough to reach the sky are set round about, of no single nature: those that put forth the pine declare the soil thin, those that flourish with cypress speak of clayey ground, while those firs — what else than that the mountain is wintry and rugged? For they do not welcome the clod, nor do they love to be warmed; and so for that very reason they dwell apart from the plains, since they grow more easily on the mountains. Springs gush from the mountains, which, flowing down and pooling their water, make the plain a marsh — not, however, a disorderly one, nor as it were a tangle: its stream has been led through it by the painting, just as nature, the wisest of all, would have led it, and it winds in many meanders, abounding in parsley, good for the water-birds to sail upon. For you see, no doubt, the ducks, how, web-footed, they glide along, blowing up little jets, as it were pipes, of water. And what of the tribe of geese? They too are painted according to their nature, floating on the surface and swimming. And those on tall legs, with their over-long beaks, you perceive, I think, to be foreign, and dainty, each in a different plumage; and their attitudes too are various. For one rests its two feet upon a rock, one by one; another cools its wing; another preens; another has caught something out of the water; another has bent down to the land to take in some food from there. That the swans should be driven by the Loves is no wonder, for the gods are wanton and clever at sporting with birds; so let us not pass over their charioteering idly, nor the very water in which all this is. For this water is the most beautiful part of the marsh, the land providing it from its own depths, and it gathers into a beautiful swimming-pool. For through the middle of the water unfading plants lean, some this way, some that, sweet ears of grain pelting the water with their bloom. About these the Loves drive their birds, holy and golden-bridled — one giving the bird full rein, one checking it, one turning it about, one driving it round the turning-post — and you may suppose them to be heard urging on the swans, and threatening one another and jeering, for this is upon their faces; and one throws down his neighbour, one has thrown another down, one is content to fall from his bird, that he may bathe in the race-course. And round about, on the banks, stand the more musical of the swans, singing, I think, the high-pitched strain, as befits the competitors. Do you see the winged boy? This is the wind Zephyr, giving the song to the swans. He is painted soft and graceful, as a riddle of the breeze, and the swans have spread their wings to be struck by the wind. See, a river too steals out of the marsh, broad and gently swelling; and goatherds and shepherds cross it on a bridge. Now if you should praise the painter for the goats, that he has painted them frisking and high-spirited, or the sheep, that their gait is leisurely and their fleeces like a burden, or if we should go through the pipes, or those who use them, how they pipe with lips drawn in, we shall praise but a little of the painting, and only so far as imitation goes; but we shall not praise its wisdom, nor its timeliness, which are thought the best things of the art. What, then, is the wisdom? He has thrown a bridge of palm-trees across the river, and a most pleasant tale along with it. For knowing what is said about palms, that one of them is male, the other female, and having heard about their marriage, that they wed the females by enfolding them with their branches and straining themselves toward them, one of each kind set on either bank, he has painted it; and so the male is in love and leans over and arches across the river, but, since the female still stands apart and he cannot reach her, he lies down and is enslaved, having bridged the water, and is safe for those who cross by reason of the roughness of his bark.

19. AMPHION.

20. The device of the lyre Hermes is said to have first fixed together out of two horns and a crossbar and a tortoise-shell, and to have given the gift, after Apollo and the Muses, to Amphion the Theban; and he, dwelling at Thebes when it was not yet walled, sent forth strains upon the stones, and the stones, hearing, ran together. For these are the things in the painting. First, then, study the lyre, whether it is painted true to itself. The horn is from a leaping goat, the poets say; the musician uses it for the lyre, the archer for his own purposes. You see the horns are black and notched, and dreadful to gore with; and the wood, of all that the lyre needs, is all of boxwood, hard and smooth in its grain. There is no ivory anywhere in the lyre, since men did not yet know either the beast itself or what use they would make of its horns. The tortoise-shell is black, but rendered accurate to nature, and is encircled with hollow rings, joined one to another, with tawny bosses; the strings, on the part toward the bridge, lie exposed and meet the bosses, while toward the crossbar they appear hollow. This posture of theirs is most proportionate, that they should recline upright on the lyre. And what does Amphion say? What else than that he plays and bends his mind to the harp and shows a little of his teeth, as much as is enough for a singer? He sings, I think, of the Earth, that, being the begetter and mother of all things, she now gives walls of her own accord. His hair is sweet even of itself, straying over his forehead, descending with the down beside his ear, and showing a touch of gold — sweeter still with the headband, which the poets of secret matters say the Graces made, a most pleasant ornament and most suited to the lyre. I fancy that Hermes, caught by love, gave both gifts to Amphion. And the cloak he wears, that too is perhaps from Hermes; for it does not stay one colour, but shifts and varies its bloom like the rainbow. He sits on a mound, beating time with his foot, and with his right hand striking the strings he plays, while the other hand is held with the fingers straight outstretched — which I had thought only modelling could boldly do. Well then, how is it with the stones? They all run together toward the song and listen and become a wall; and part of it is built up, part is rising, part they have just reached. The stones are eager and glad and serve their apprenticeship to music; and the wall is seven-gated, as many as are the notes of the lyre.

21. PHAETHON.

22. Golden are the tears of the Heliades; the story is that they flow for Phaethon. For he, having been born a son of Helios, dared his father's chariot in his desire for charioteering, and, not keeping hold of the reins, was thrown and fell into the Eridanus. To the wise these things seem to be a kind of excess of the fiery element, but to poets and painters they are horses and a chariot, and the heavens are thrown into confusion. For look: Night drives the Day from the meridian, and the disc of the sun, streaming earthward, draws the stars after it. The Hours, abandoning the gates, flee into the gloom that meets them, and the horses, having fallen out of the yoke, are carried away in frenzy; the Earth refuses and lifts her hands aloft, as the raging fire comes upon her. And the youth falls and is carried downward, for his hair is set ablaze and his breast smoulders, and he is about to fall into the river Eridanus and to furnish a kind of legend to the water; for swans, blowing up sweet notes thereafter, will make a song of the youth, and flocks of them, raised over the Caÿster and the Ister, will sing these things, and nothing will be unaware of such a story; and they will use Zephyr, light and a fellow-traveller, for the song, for he is said to have agreed to join the swans in their dirge. These things, too, are present to the birds, so that it is time for them to make music like instruments. And the women on the bank, who are not yet trees — they say the Heliades, over their brother, were transformed and ended as trees, and that they let fall tears. The painting knows this too: for these, casting roots from their ankles, are trees as far as the navel, and the boughs already overtake their hands. Ah, their hair, how it has all become poplar! Ah, their tears, how golden! And the tear that floods in the socket of the eyes shines upon the bright pupils and draws, as it were, a ray; the one that meets the cheeks glistens around its ruddiness; while those dripping down the breast are gold already. The river too mourns, raising himself out of his eddy, and holds out a fold to Phaethon, for he has received the colour; and he will soon farm the Heliades, for with the breezes and frosts that he sends up he will work them into stone and will receive them when they fall, and through his bright water will carry off to the barbarians on the Ocean the splinters of the poplars.

23. THE BOSPORUS.

24. . . . they cry out, and they seem to encourage the horses too not to throw the children, nor to spit out the bit, but to take and trample down the beasts; and the horses, I think, hear and do these things. When they have hunted and taken their feast, a ship ferries them from Europe to Asia, about four stades — for this is the distance between the two continents — and they sail as their own rowers. See, they cast their mooring-line, and there receives them a most pleasant house, showing chambers and men's halls and the traces of windows; and a wall is thrown round it and has battlements. Its most beautiful feature is a semicircular portico, tawny-coloured from the stone in it. The stone has its origin from springs, for a hot stream, flowing out beneath the mountains of lower Phrygia and led into the quarries, makes some of the rocks soaked with rain and gives a watery growth to the stones, whence their many colours: where it stagnates it gives a muddy and tawny tinge, where it is clear, there it gives a crystalline one, and it dapples the rocks, soaking through their many openings. The shore is high and bears tokens of such a tale as this: a girl and a boy, both beautiful, frequenting the same teacher, were inflamed with love for each other, and, since there was no liberty to embrace, set out to die from this very rock, and from here were borne into the sea in their last and their first embraces; and Love, upon the rock, stretches out his hand toward the sea, the painter hinting at the tale. The next house: a widowed woman lives there, having left the city because of the throng of young men, for they said they would carry her off and reveled without restraint and tried her with gifts; and she, I think, having some neat way with them, teases the youths and, having slipped away here, dwells in this fortified house. For consider how it is fortified: a cliff stands over the sea, undermined at the parts washed by the waves, while at the top it juts out and supports this seaside house, by reason of which the sea too appears more dark-blue, when the eyes are cast down into it; and the land furnishes everything that a ship has, except motion. Even when she has come to this stronghold her lovers have not for all that abandoned her, but one in a dark-prowed, one in a gilt-prowed, another in some other of the gay little boats, sails up; and the revel itself is of handsome men, garlanded, and one pipes, one says he is clapping, one sings, I think, and they toss up wreaths and kisses, and they do not even row but hold their oars and lie at anchor under the cliff. And the woman from the house, as from a watch-tower, sees all this and laughs at the revel, growing wanton toward her lovers, as one who forces them not only to sail but even to swim. And as you go on you will meet with flocks, and will hear lowing cattle, and the sound of pipes will ring about you, and you will meet with huntsmen and farmers and rivers and lakes and springs — for the painting has imprinted both the things that are and the things that come to be, and how some things might come to be, not playing false with the truth on account of their multitude, but accomplishing what is proper to each, as if it were painting one thing only — until we come to Hieron. And there, I think, you see the temple, and the pillars set round it, and the beacon at the mouth, which is hung up for the fire-signalling of the ships that sail out of the Pontus.

Why, then, do you not lead me on to something else? For I have considered the Bosporus enough. What will you say? The matter of the fishermen has escaped me, which I promised at the beginning. So, that we may not go through small things but those worth speaking of, let us leave out of the account those who hunt with the rod, or contrive with the weel, or whoever hauls up a net or drives in a trident — for you will hear little about them, and they will seem to you rather seasonings of the painting — and let us look at those who attack the tunny, for these are worth speaking of for the greatness of the catch. The tunny resort to the outer sea, having had their birth and their pastures in the Pontus, some of fishes, some of mud and other juices which the Ister and the Maeotis bring into it, by which the Pontus is sweeter and more potable than the rest of the sea. They swim like a phalanx of soldiers, eight deep and sixteen and twice as many, and they swell beneath one another, swimming each over the other to such a depth as is their breadth. Now the ways by which they are caught are countless, for it is possible to whet iron against them and to scatter drugs, and a small net has sufficed for one who is content with a small part of the shoal; but the best is this kind of hunting. Someone keeps watch from a high pole, quick at reckoning and keen of sight, for his eyes must be fixed on the sea and reach as far as possible, and if he sees the fish entering, he needs a very loud shout to those in the boats, and he tells the number and the myriads of them; and the others, fencing them off with a deep, closing net, take a splendid catch, by which the leader of the hunt is ready to grow rich. Look at the painting now, for you will see these very things being done. The watcher looks at the sea, sending his eyes out to grasp the number; and in the grey bloom of the sea the colours of the fish appear — those above seem black, those next less so, those after them already deceive the sight, then are shadowy, then watery to guess at; for the sight, as it descends into the water, is blunted in making out what is in it. And the company of fishermen are merry and tawny in colour from the heat, and one binds his oar, one rows with arm well swollen, one urges on his neighbour, one strikes the man who is not rowing, and a shout has gone up among the fishermen, for the fish have now fallen into the net, and some they have taken, some they are taking. And, at a loss what to do with the multitude, they even open part of the net and allow some to escape and slip through, so far do they luxuriate in the hunting.

13. SEMELE.

14. Thunder in a hard form, and Lightning shooting flame from her eyes, and raging fire from heaven that has laid hold of a tyrant's house, touch upon a story such as this, if you are not ignorant of it. A cloud of fire, encompassing Thebes, breaks upon the roof of Cadmus when Zeus came in revel to Semele; and Semele, as it seems to us, is destroyed, while Dionysus is born, I think, by Zeus, beside the fire. And the form of Semele appears dimly through, as she goes up to heaven, and the Muses there will sing her praises; but Dionysus leaps from his mother as her womb is rent, and himself makes the murky fire bright, like a star, flashing. The flame, parting asunder, sketches out for Dionysus a cave more pleasant than any in Assyria or Lydia; for tendrils have blossomed about it, and clusters of ivy, and already vines too, and trees of the thyrsus springing up from the willing earth, so that some of them are even in the fire. Nor need we wonder if Earth crowns the fire with a garland in honour of Dionysus, she who will revel with him in the Bacchic rite and will give him wine to draw from springs and milk to draw as from breasts, the one from the clod, the other from the rock. Hear Pan, how he seems to sing of Dionysus on the peaks of Cithaeron, leaping in his evoe. But Cithaeron laments, in the form of a man, the woes soon to be in him, and bears a wreath of ivy slanting from his head, for he is crowned with it much against his will; and Megaera plants a fir beside him and brings up a spring of water over the blood, I think, of Actaeon and Pentheus.

15. ARIADNE.

16. That Theseus, dealing unjustly — though some say it was not unjustly, but at the bidding of Dionysus — left Ariadne sleeping on the island of Dia, you have perhaps heard even from your nurse, for they are wise in such matters and weep over them whenever they please. I need not say, then, that Theseus is the one in the ship and Dionysus the one on the land, nor, treating you as ignorant, would I turn you to the figure on the rocks, how she lies in soft sleep; nor is it enough to praise the painter for the things by which another too might be praised, for it is easy for anyone to paint Ariadne beautiful and Theseus beautiful, and there are countless figures of Dionysus for those who wish to paint or model — even a small touch of which captures the god; for the clusters of ivy that are his wreath are a mark of Dionysus, even if the workmanship be poor, and a horn growing out from the temples reveals Dionysus, and a leopard appearing somewhere is again a symbol of the god. But this Dionysus is painted from love alone; for his flowered gear and thyrsi and fawn-skins are flung aside as out of season, and the Bacchae are not using cymbals now, nor are the Satyrs piping; rather even Pan checks his leaping, that he may not break the maiden's sleep; and clothing himself in a sea-purple robe and crowning his head with roses, Dionysus comes to Ariadne, "drunk with love," as the Teian poet says. And Theseus is indeed in love, but with the smoke of Athens, and Ariadne he no longer knows, nor ever knew; I say he has forgotten even the Labyrinth, and could not say for what he ever sailed to Crete, so wholly does he look at the things before his prow. But look at Ariadne, or rather at her sleep: her breast is bare to the navel, her neck is thrown back and her throat is soft, the right armpit is wholly visible, but the other hand rests on her cloak, lest the wind put her to any shame. What, Dionysus, and how sweet is her breathing! Whether it smells of apples or of grapes, you will tell when you have kissed her.

17. PASIPHAE.

18. Pasiphae is in love with the bull and begs Daedalus to contrive some means of winning the beast; and he fashions a hollow cow resembling a cow of the herd to which the bull is accustomed. And what their union was, the form of the Minotaur shows, monstrously brought to completion against nature. But it is not the union that is painted now; rather this is made the workshop of Daedalus, and statues stand round him, some in their finished shape, some in the making, already striding and on the promise of walking; for the art of sculpture before Daedalus had not yet conceived this. Daedalus himself plays the Athenian both in his look, gazing as one over-wise and full of thought, and in his very attire, for he is wrapped in a grey cloak, with the bare feet that the painter has added to him — by which most of all the Athenians are adorned. He sits at the framing of the cow and makes the Loves his fellow-workers in the contrivance, as if there were something of Aphrodite owed to it. Vivid among the Loves are those, my boy, who turn the drill, and, by Zeus, those who smooth with the adze the parts of the cow not yet finished, and those who plumb the proportion on which the workmanship advances; but those at the saw have surpassed all conception and all skill, such as belongs both to the hand and to colours. For look: a saw is set into the wood and already driven through it, and these Loves are working it back and forth, the one from the ground, the other from a raised platform, both straightening up and bending forward. Let us take this as alternating, for the one has bent forward as about to rise, the other has risen as about to bend; and the one from the ground sends his breath up to his breast, while the one above fills his belly too, pressing both hands down. But Pasiphae outside, among the cattle, gazes about at the bull, thinking to draw him to her by her beauty and her robe, which shines with something divine, beyond any rainbow; and she looks helpless, for she knows what creature she loves, and has set herself to embrace the beast, but he understands nothing of her and looks at his own cow. And the bull is painted high-spirited and the leader of the herd, fine-horned and white and firm-set and deep in the throat and thick in the neck, and looking cheerfully at the cow; while she, of the herd and unconfined, is white all over upon a black head, and disdains the bull, for she shows the frisking of a maiden, as it were, fleeing the violence of a lover.

19. HIPPODAMEIA.

20. This is the amazement at Oenomaus the Arcadian, and these are they who cry out over it — for you hear it, I think — and there is Arcadia and so much of the Peloponnese as belongs to it. The chariot has fallen, shattered by the craft of Myrtilus; it is drawn by four horses, for this was not yet ventured for war, but the games knew it and honoured it; and the Lydians, being most fond of horses, already had four-horse chariots and charioteers in the time of Pelops, and afterward laid hold of the four-poled car and are said to have been the first to have the team of eight. Look, boy, at the horses of Oenomaus, how terrible and violent they are at the charge, and full of frenzy and foam — and this you would find chiefly among the Arcadians — and how black they are, since they were yoked for absurd and ill-omened ends; but the horses of Pelops, how white they are and obedient to the rein, companions of persuasion and neighing something gentle and intelligent of the victory; and Oenomaus, how, like Diomedes the Thracian, he lies a barbarian and savage in form. And I think you will not disbelieve about Pelops, that Poseidon once admired him for his bloom as he poured wine for the gods on Sipylus, and, admiring him, set him up with this very chariot when he was already a youth. The chariot crosses the sea as if it were land, and not a drop leaps from it to the axle, but it lies steady beneath the horses, like the land. Now the race Pelops and Hippodameia win, both standing on the chariot and yoked together there; and they are so overcome by each other that they are on the point of embracing. And he is arrayed in the Lydian and luxurious manner, in the age and bloom you saw a little before, when he asked the horses of Poseidon; she is arrayed in the bridal manner, just now uncovering her cheek, since she has been won over to come to a husband. Alpheus too leaps up from his eddy, lifting out a wreath of wild olive for Pelops as he drives up to the bank. And the monuments in the race-course — there the suitors were buried, whom Oenomaus, slaying them, put off the marriage of his daughter, to thirteen young men already. But the earth now puts forth flowers about the monuments, that those too may have some share in seeming to be crowned at the punishment of Oenomaus.

21. THE BACCHAE.

22. Painted here, my boy, are the things on Cithaeron too — choruses of Bacchae, and rocks streaming wine, and nectar from the grape-clusters, and how the earth makes the clod rich with milk; and see, ivy creeps, and serpents stand erect, and thyrsi, and trees, I think, dripping honey. And here is the fir, fallen to the ground, the work of women under Dionysus, a great thing — fallen, having shaken off Pentheus to the Bacchae in the form of a lion; and they tear the quarry, his mother there and his mother's sisters, some rending off his arms, one dragging her son by the hair. You would say that they are even shrieking, so full of evoe is their breathing. Dionysus himself stands in a place overlooking all this, having filled his cheek with anger, and has driven the women on to madness with frenzy; and so they do not even see what is being done, and however much Pentheus supplicates, they say they hear a lion roaring. These are the things on the mountain; but those near at hand are these — Thebes already, and the roof of Cadmus, and a dirge over the prey; and the kindred fit the corpse together, in case it might somehow be saved for the tomb. There lies the head of Pentheus too, no longer doubtful but such as for Dionysus himself to pity, very young and soft of cheek and ruddy of hair — hair which no ivy roofed, nor any tendril of bryony or vine, nor did any pipe set it tossing, nor frenzy. By these things he had been made strong, and he made them strong; but his madness was precisely this, not to be mad along with Dionysus. Pitiable too let us hold the case of the women, for what things they did not know on Cithaeron, what things here they recognize. Not only their madness has left them, but also the strength by which they raged. For on Cithaeron you see how, full of the contest, they are borne along, raising the echo of the mountain; but here they grow calm and come to a sense of their Bacchic deeds, sinking to the earth, the head of one weighing down upon her knees, of another upon her shoulder; and Agave has set herself to embrace her son, but shrinks from touching him. There clings to her the boy's blood, some on her hands, some on her cheek, some on the bare part of her breast. And Harmonia and Cadmus are there, but not such as they were, for they are already becoming serpents from the thighs, and scales already cover them; their feet are gone, their haunches gone, and the change of form creeps upward. And they are struck with horror and embrace each other, as if holding fast the remaining parts of their bodies, that those at least might not slip from them.

23. THE TYRRHENIANS.

24. A sacred ship and a pirate ship. The one Dionysus steers; the other Tyrrhenian pirates of the surrounding sea have boarded. The sacred ship is in Bacchic frenzy, for Dionysus revels in it and the Bacchae raise their cry, and harmony, such as belongs to the rites, sounds across the sea, and the sea offers her own back to Dionysus, like the land of the Lydians; but in the other ship they are raving and forget their rowing, and the hands of many of them are already lost. What is the painting? The Tyrrhenians, my boy, lie in wait for Dionysus, a report having come to them that he was womanish, and a wandering beggar, and his ship golden with the wealth in it; that Lydian women attended him, and Satyrs and pipers, and an old man carrying the fennel-rod, and Maronean wine and Maron himself; and hearing that Pans sailed with him in the form of goats, they thought to carry off the Bacchae and to leave to those Pans the goats that the land of the Tyrrhenians pastures. Now the pirate ship sails in warlike fashion, for it is fitted with cat-heads and a ram, and there are iron grappling-hands upon it, and spear-points and sickles upon poles; and that it may strike terror into those it meets and may appear to them some monster, it is painted with grey-green colours, and it looks, as it were, with grim eyes upon the prow, while the stern is slender and crescent-shaped, like the tails of fishes. But the ship of Dionysus seems in other respects likened to a rock, and is seen scaled toward the stern, with cymbals fitted alternately upon it, so that, even if the Satyrs should ever sleep from the wine, Dionysus might not sail without sound; and the prow is likened to a golden leopard and is wrought into its shape. Dionysus has a friendship with this animal, since it is the hottest of animals and leaps lightly, like a votary of the rite. You see, indeed, the very beast sailing with Dionysus and leaping at the Tyrrhenians though he has not yet given the command. And here a thyrsus has sprung up from the middle of the ship, doing the work of the mast, and sails have been raised, sea-purple, glistening in the breeze, and golden Bacchae are woven into them, with the scenes of Dionysus in Tmolus and in Lydia. That the ship should appear roofed over with vine and ivy, and clusters hanging above it, is a marvel, but more marvellous is the spring of wine, as though the hollow ship gave it forth. . . . They run upon the Tyrrhenians, shapes of dolphins not yet tame, nor native to that sea; and one has dark-blue sides, another slippery breast, in another a crest grows along the back, another sends out tail-fins, and one has the head already gone, another still has it, in one the hand is webbed, and one cries out over his feet as they depart. But Dionysus, from the prow, laughs at all this and bids the Tyrrhenians take from men the forms of fishes, but from base men the characters of good ones. At any rate, a little later Palaemon will ride upon a dolphin, and he not even awake, but lying on his back asleep upon it; and Arion at Taenarum proves that dolphins are companions to men, and friends of song, and such as to array themselves against pirates on behalf of men and of music.

25. THE SATYRS.

26. The place is dark, so far as the springs and the cave; and Marsyas is out of the way, either pasturing his flocks or after the contest. Do not praise the water; for though it is painted potable and calm, you will meet with a more potable one in Olympus. He sleeps after the piping, delicate among delicate flowers, mingling his sweat with the dew of the meadow; and Zephyr calls him forth, breathing upon his hair, while he breathes back against the wind, drawing the breath up from his breast. And piping reeds lie now beside Olympus, and the little iron tools too with which the pipes are bored. A herd of Satyrs, in love with him, gaze upon the youth, flushed and grinning, one begging to touch his breast, one to cling to his neck, one longing to snatch a kiss; and they scatter flowers upon him and worship him as a statue; and the cleverest of them, drawing out the tongue of one of the still-warm pipes, eats it, and so thinks he kisses Olympus, and says he has also tasted his breath.

27. OLYMPUS.

28. For whom do you pipe, Olympus? And what work has music in a solitude? No shepherd is by you, no goatherd, nor do you pipe for the nymphs, who would dance prettily to the pipe; but having learned I know not what delight, you take pleasure in the water on the rock and look into it. What share have you in it? For it neither murmurs to your pipe nor measures out the day for us — we who should wish you to draw out your piping even into the night. And if you are examining your beauty, never mind the water, for we are more competent to tell all that is in you. Your eye is bright, and many are its incitements to the pipe; an eyebrow is set about it, marking the meaning of the strains; the cheek seems to throb and, as it were, to dance to the melody; the breath lifts nothing of the face, since it is engaged in the pipe; and your hair is neither idle nor lies, as on a city youth, sleek with oil, but is roused by the dryness, yet shows nothing parched, amid the sharp and green pine. For the wreath is beautiful and able to lend grace to those in their prime, but let flowers spring for maidens and work their blush upon women. I say that your breast too is full not of breath only but of musical thought and consideration of the strains. Thus far the water paints you, stooping into it from the rock; but had it painted you standing, it would not have shown the parts beneath the breast comely, for the reflections in water are shallow, since lengths shrink together in them. And that your reflection too should be washed about, let it be both from the pipe blowing down upon the spring, and from Zephyr — all these things — through whom you also are in the piping, and the pipe in the breathing, and the spring in being piped to.

29. MIDAS.

30. The Satyr sleeps; let us speak about him with lowered voice, lest he wake and break up the scene. Midas has hunted him with wine in Phrygia, about these very mountains, as you see, having mixed wine into the spring in which he lies, slavering out the wine in his sleep. Now of Satyrs the violence is delightful when they dance, and delightful the buffoonery when they smile, and the noble ones are amorous and win over the Lydian women, coaxing them with craft. And this too is theirs: they are painted hard and full-blooded, with excessive ears and hollow at the haunch, high-spirited in everything and horses as to their tails. The Satyr that is the prey of Midas is painted with all these features, but sleeps under the wine, drawing his breath as in drunkenness; and the spring has been drunk by him more easily than another a cup, while the Nymphs dance, mocking the Satyr for sleeping. How dainty is Midas, how indolent — he cares for his headband and his curl and carries a thyrsus and wears a gold-bordered robe! And see, large ears too, by which his eyes, seeming pleasant, appear drowsy and draw the pleasure off into sluggishness — the painting hinting earnestly that these things have already been let slip and spread abroad among men in the reed, since the earth did not keep what it heard.

31. NARCISSUS.

32. The spring paints Narcissus, and the painting the spring and all that belongs to Narcissus. A youth just returned from the hunt stands over a spring, drawing out of himself a kind of longing and in love with his own beauty; and he flashes, as you see, into the water. Now the cave is of Achelous and the Nymphs, and it is painted as is fitting, for the statues are of a rude art and of the local stone, and some are worn away by time, while others children of cowherds or shepherds have chipped, being still infants and insensible of the god. Nor is the spring unvisited by Dionysus, since he has revealed it, as it were, to the women of the wine-press; at any rate, it is roofed over with vine and ivy and beautiful tendrils, and shares in clusters of grapes, whence the thyrsi come, and clever birds revel over it, each according to its own harmony, and white flowers grow beside the spring, not yet in being but springing up over the youth. The painting, honouring the truth, sheds even a kind of dew from the flowers, on which a bee too has settled — I do not know whether deceived by the painting, or whether we ought to be deceived into thinking it real. But let that be. As for you, however, youth, no painting deceived you, nor are you glued fast to colours or wax; you do not know that the water has moulded you just as you saw it, nor do you detect the spring's trick, though you need only nod and shift your shape, and move your hand a little, and not stand in the same place — but you, as if you had met a comrade, wait for what is to come from there. Will the spring, then, hold converse with you in a fable? But this youth hears nothing of us, and has fallen upon the water with ears and eyes alike; we ourselves, however, as the figure is painted, let us speak. The youth stands upright at rest, with his feet crossed, and supports himself with the spear fixed in his left hand, while his right hand is drawn back to his hip both to hold him up and to make a figure, the buttocks jutting out by reason of the leftward inclination of the body. The hand shows air at the part where the elbow is bent, a wrinkle at the part where the wrist is twisted, and casts a shadow that gathers into the palm; and the rays of the shadow are slanting because of the inward turn of the fingers. The breathing in the breast I cannot tell whether it is still that of the hunt, or already that of love; the eye, however, is sufficiently that of a lover, for its brightness and fierceness by nature are softened by a longing that settles upon it; and he seems perhaps to be loved in return, since the reflection looks at him as he is looked at by it. Much might be said about the hair too, had we met him at the hunt, for its movements in the running are countless, and more so when it has caught the breath of some wind; but it might find mention even now: for, since it is abundant and as it were golden, part of it the neck-tendons draw down, part is distinguished beneath the ears, part tosses upon the forehead, part flows down to the chin. And both Narcissi are alike in form, showing the same look as each other, save that the one stands out of the air, while the other has sunk beneath the spring. For the youth stands over a still water, or rather over one gazing fixedly at him and, as it were, thirsting for his beauty.

33. HYACINTHUS.

34. Read the hyacinth, for it is written there, and it says that it sprang up from the earth in honour of a beautiful youth, and it laments him along with the spring, having received its birth, I think, from him when he died; and let not the meadow put you off this, for it has grown here too, just as it sprang from the earth there. The painting says also that the youth's hair was hyacinthine, and that his blood, living in the earth and being drunk by it, dyed the flower its own colour. It flows from the head itself, where the discus has fallen upon it. Dreadful is the mischance, and not even credible to be told against Apollo; but since we have not come as sophists of the myths, nor are ready to disbelieve, but are only spectators of what is painted, let us examine the painting, and first the starting-line of the discus. A small mound has been heaped up, enough for one to stand on, which, raising the hinder and right leg, sets the foreparts inclining forward, and lightens one of the two legs, which must spring up together and move forward with the right hand. As for the figure of one casting the discus, he must turn his head to the right and bend so far as to look askance at his sides, and hurl it, as it were drawing it up and putting his whole right side into the throw. And Apollo cast the discus somewhat thus, for he could not otherwise have let it fly; but the discus, falling upon the youth, he lies beneath the very discus — a Laconian youth, straight of shin and not unpractised in running, the arm already lifting and the bloom of the bones just showing through — while Apollo, still standing at the starting-line, has turned away and looks at the ground. You will say he is rooted there, so much amazement has fallen on him. Ill-bred indeed is Zephyr, who, being indignant with him, sent the discus against the youth; and the wind thinks all this a joke and jeers from his watch-tower. You see him, I think, with winged temples and dainty form, and he carries a wreath of all flowers, and a little later he will twine the hyacinth among them.

35. THE ANDRIANS.

36. The stream of wine in the island of Andros, and the Andrians drunk from the river, are the theme of the painting. For to the Andrians, by the gift of Dionysus, the land bursts open wine-laden and gives forth a river to them — small, if you should think of it as water, but, if as wine, a great and divine river. For one who has drawn from it may well despise the Nile and the Ister, and may even say of them that they too would seem better if, though few, they flowed of such a kind. And they sing these things, I think, women and children together, garlanded with ivy and bryony; and some dance on either bank, others lie at their ease. And it is likely that these too are part of the song: that Achelous bears reeds, and Tempe the Peneus, and Pactolus flowers besides, but that this river makes men wealthy and powerful in the marketplace and careful of their friends, and beautiful and four cubits tall out of small — for one who is sated with it may gather these gifts together and bring them into his fancy. They sing too, no doubt, that this alone of rivers is passable neither to herds nor to horses, but is poured out as wine by Dionysus, and is drunk pure, flowing for men alone. These things imagine yourself to hear, with some even singing them, their voices stammering with the wine. As for what is seen in the painting: the river lies on a couch of grape-clusters, pouring forth his stream, unmixed and swelling in his look, and thyrsi grow beside him, as reeds beside waters; and to one who passes over the land and these revels upon it, Tritons already, meeting them about the mouths, draw up the wine in shells, and some of it they drink, some they blow forth, and there are Tritons too who are drunk and dance. Dionysus also sails to the revel of Andros, and his ship is already moored, and he brings Satyrs mingled with women of the wine-press, and Silenus; and he leads Laughter and Comus, two most cheerful and convivial spirits, that the river may be most pleasantly gathered for him.

37. THE BIRTH OF HERMES.

38. The infant still in swaddling-clothes, who drives the cattle into the cleft of the earth — and that other who steals the arrows of Apollo — this is Hermes. Most delightful are the god's thefts; for they say that Hermes, when he was born to Maia, fell in love with stealing and knew how to do it, the god doing this in no way out of poverty, but giving rein to merriment and playing. If you wish to view him step by step, look at the things in the painting. He is born on the peaks of Olympus, at the very topmost seat of the gods; and there Homer says that one feels neither rains nor hears winds, nor is the place ever struck by snow because of its height, but that it is simply divine and free of all the sufferings of which the mountains of men partake. There the Hours tend Hermes at his birth. He has painted them too, as each is in her season, and they wrap him in swaddling-clothes, scattering the most beautiful of flowers, that his swaddling-clothes may not lack distinction; and some of them turn to the mother of Hermes lying in childbed, while he, slipping out of his swaddling-clothes, already walks and comes down from Olympus. And the mountain rejoices for him, for its smile is like that of a man. Conceive, then, that Olympus is glad because Hermes was born there. What, then, is the theft? Cattle grazing at the foot of Olympus — those, of course, with golden horns and whiter than snow, for they are dedicated to Apollo — he drives, twisting them, into a chasm of the earth, not that they should perish, but that they should be made to vanish for a single day, until it should sting Apollo; and, as if no part of what had happened were his, he slips back into his swaddling-clothes. Apollo too has come to Maia, demanding back the cattle; but she disbelieves and thinks the god is talking nonsense. Do you wish to learn what he says? For it seems to me that he shows on his face not voice only but something of speech as well, as one about to say this to Maia: "Your son wrongs me — the son you bore yesterday — for the cattle in which I delighted he has cast into the earth, I know not where in the earth; and he shall perish and be cast lower down, below the cattle." But she wonders and does not accept the speech. While they are still disputing with each other, Hermes stands behind Apollo and, leaping lightly upon his back, noiselessly undoes the bow and quiver, and in stealing escaped notice — yet was not unknown to have stolen. Here is the wisdom of the painter: for he melts Apollo and makes him rejoice. And the laughter is measured, such as settles upon the face when pleasure overcomes anger.

39. AMPHIARAUS.

40. The chariot of two horses — for the four-horse car was not yet in the hands of the heroes, unless it were bold Hector's — carries Amphiaraus returning from Thebes, when the earth is said to have opened for him, that he might prophesy in Attica and tell true, wise among the all-wise. Of the seven who won the rule for Polyneices the Theban, none came home except Adrastus and Amphiaraus, but the Cadmean land held the rest. And the others perished by spears and stones and axes, but Capaneus is said to have been struck by the thunderbolt, having first, I think, in his boasting, struck at Zeus. These, however, belong to another tale; and the painting bids us look at Amphiaraus alone, fleeing into the earth with his very fillets and his very laurel. The horses are white, and the whirl of the wheels is full of haste, and the breath of the horses comes from the whole nostril; the ground is sprinkled with foam and the mane is blown sideways, and over them, drenched with sweat, lies a fine dust, making the horses less beautiful but more true. As for Amphiaraus, he is armed in all else, but neglects his helmet alone, baring his head to Apollo, and looks holy and oracular. The painter paints Oropus too as a youth among grey-eyed women, the sea-coast, that is; and he paints the place of meditation of Amphiaraus, a holy and sulphurous cleft. There too is Truth clad in white, there too the gate of dreams, for those who prophesy there have need of sleep; and Dream himself is painted in a relaxed form and wears white raiment over black — meaning, I think, his work by night and by day. And he holds a horn in his hands, as one bringing up dreams through the gate of truth.

41. THE BOAR-HUNTERS.

42. Do not run past us, huntsmen, nor urge on your horses, before we have tracked out from you what you wish and what you are hunting. For you say you are rushing upon a wild boar, and I see the work of the beast: he has rooted up the olives and cut down the vines and has not left fig-tree or apple-tree or quince, but has torn everything out of the earth, some by digging, some by charging, some by rubbing against; and I see the beast himself bristling his mane and gazing fire, and his tusks rattle at you, my noble friends, for such beasts are dreadful in that they can be heard from very far through the din. I, however, think that, while you are hunting the bloom of that youth, you have been hunted by him, and are willing to face the danger first. For why are you so close? Why are you grazing him? Why have you turned toward him? Why do you crowd him with your horses? See what has happened to me: I have been carried away by the painting into thinking they are not painted, but are real and move and are in love; at any rate I jeer at them as if they could hear, and fancy I shall hear something in return — but you uttered nothing even to turn aside the madman, overcome like myself and unable to be checked from the deception and the sleep within it. Let us, then, consider what is painted, for we are standing before a painting. About the youth are gathered young men, handsome and of handsome pursuits, and as it were well-born; and one shows something of the wrestling-ground in his face, one of grace, one of wit, and one you would say had just lifted his head from a book. Horses carry them, alike yet no one like another — one white, one tawny, one black, one bay, silver-bridled and dappled and golden in their cheek-pieces. These colours, they say, the barbarians on the Ocean pour upon the bronze when it is red-hot, and they set and harden into stone and preserve what was painted. Nor do they agree in their clothing or attire, for one rides light-girt and nimble, a good javelin-thrower, I think, while another has fenced his breast, threatening some wrestling-match with the beast, and his legs are fenced too. But the youth rides on a white horse, whose head, as you see, is black, and a white circle is rounded off on the forehead, at the very fullness of the moon; and the horse has golden cheek-pieces and a bridle of Median scarlet, for this colour flashes upon the gold, like fiery stones. The youth's attire is a cloak with something of wind and billow in it. Its colour is from the Phoenician sea-purple, which the Phoenicians prize, and let it be loved most of sea-purples, for, though it seems to frown, it draws a certain bloom from the sun and is sprinkled as with the flower of the pomegranate. And out of modesty at being stripped before those present he is dressed in a sleeved scarlet tunic, and the tunic is measured to the half of the thigh and likewise of the elbow; and he smiles and looks bright-eyed and wears his hair long, only not so as to overshadow his eyes when the hair shall be disordered by the wind. Perhaps someone will praise his cheek too, and the proportions of his nose, and one by one the features in his face; but I admire him for his spirit, for he is strong as a huntsman, and is lifted up by his horse, and understands that he is loved. Mules and muleteers carry their gear for them — foot-traps and nets and hunting-spears and javelins and lances, on which are the barbs — and dog-leaders march with them, and watchers; and the breeds of the dogs are not only those good of nose or the swift among them, but also the brave, for there is need of strength too against the beast. He paints Locrian, Laconian, Indian, Cretan hounds, some high-spirited and baying, some thoughtful, which follow on and grin along the track; and as they go on they will sing to the Huntress, for there is a temple of hers there, and a statue smoothed by time, and heads of boars and of bears; and beasts let loose graze about her, fawns and wolves and hares, all tame and not fearing men. After the prayer they keep to the hunt. And the beast does not endure to lie hidden, but leaps out of the thicket, then falls upon the horsemen and at the first onset throws them into confusion, but is overcome by those who strike him — not having met a mortal blow, both because he fences against the strokes and because he is not struck by men full of courage, but, weakened by a superficial wound on the thigh, he flees through the wood, and a deep marsh receives him, and a lake by the marsh. So they pursue with shouting, the rest as far as the marsh, but the youth charges into the lake along with the beast, and these four hounds; and the beast rushes to wound the horse, but the youth, swerving aside from the horse and inclining to the right, throws with all his hand and strikes the boar just at the part that joins the shoulder-blade to the neck. Thereupon the dogs drag the boar to the land, while the lovers shout from the bank, as if vying with one another which shall out-shout his neighbour; and one has fallen from his horse, not having held on but having startled the horse, while another weaves a wreath for the youth from the meadow in the marsh. The youth is still in the lake, still in the posture in which he hurled the dart, while the others are struck with amazement and gaze at him, as if he had been painted.

43. PERSEUS.

44. But this is not the Red Sea, nor are these Indians; rather they are Ethiopians, and a Greek man in Ethiopia. And as for the labour of the man, which he willingly endured out of love — you, my boy, I think, are not unacquainted with Perseus, who, they say, slew the Atlantic sea-monster in Ethiopia as it walked over the herds and the men of the land. This, then, the painter has praised, pitying Andromeda, that she was given up to the monster; the labour is already accomplished, and the monster is flung before the shore, flooded with springs of blood, by which the sea is red; but Love frees Andromeda from her bonds. He is painted winged, as is usual, but a youth, contrary to usage, and is painted panting and not far from having toiled. For Perseus, before the deed, offered up a prayer to Love that he should be present and fly down with him against the beast; and he came and heard the Greek. The maiden is pleasing, because she is white in Ethiopia, but more pleasing is her very form; she would surpass a dainty Lydian woman and a stately Attic and a sturdy Spartan. She has been beautified by the occasion, for she seems to disbelieve, and she rejoices amid her amazement and looks at Perseus, now sending him a kind of smile. He, not far from the maiden, lies on a sweet, frankincense-scented grass, dripping sweat into the earth and keeping the terror of the Gorgon hidden away, lest the people meeting it should turn to stone. Many cowherds are there, offering milk and wine to drink. The Ethiopians are pleasing in the strangeness of their colour, smiling grimly and not concealing their joy, and most of them are alike. Perseus welcomes these things too, but, propping himself upon his left elbow, he raises his chest, breathing hard with panting, looking at the maiden, and gives his cloak to the wind — a scarlet cloak, sprinkled with drops of blood which the beast breathed upon him in the contest. Let the descendants of Pelops be hale beside the shoulder of Perseus, for, beautiful and blood-flushed as it is, something of the toil has blossomed upon it, and the veins are swollen, which befalls them when the panting gets the upper hand. And much, too, he wins from the maiden.

45. PELOPS.

46. A soft robe, a fashion from Lydia, and a youth with the first down on his cheek, and Poseidon smiling on the youth and glorifying him with horses — these show that this is Pelops the Lydian, come to the sea to pray to Poseidon against Oenomaus, because Oenomaus will take no son-in-law, but, slaying the suitors of Hippodameia, prides himself on their spoils, hanging up their heads like those who have taken game. And to Pelops as he prays there comes a golden chariot out of the sea, and the horses are of the mainland and able to run across the Aegean with dry axle and light hoof. The labour, then, will run well for Pelops; but let us examine the labour of the painter. For it is no small contest, I think, to compose four horses and not to confuse the several legs of each, and to put spirit into them along with the bit, and to set one of them at rest in the very unwillingness to stand still, another in the wish to paw the ground, another in obedience; and one delights in the bloom of Pelops, and his nostrils are wide, as of one neighing. And this too is of the painter's wisdom: Poseidon is in love with the youth and brings him up to the cauldron and to Clotho, when Pelops seemed to flash from his shoulder; and from marrying he does not lead him away, since the youth has set his heart on it, but, content even to touch his hand, he has grown fast to the right hand of Pelops, suggesting to him the means for the race; while Pelops, now high-minded, breathes Alpheus too, and his brow is at one with the horses. He looks pleasant and lofty by reason of the high tiara nodding over him, from beneath which the youth's hair, like golden drippings, falls upon his forehead and matches it, and blooms together with the down on his cheek, and, shifting this way and that, stays in its fitting place. Of his haunch and breast, and whatever might be said of Pelops bare, the robe covers all to the very shin. For the Lydians and the other barbarians, shutting up their beauty in robes such as these, take their splendour from the weavings, when they might take their splendour from nature; and all the rest is hidden and within, but the part of the robe where the left shoulder is has been left undone by art, that its gleam might not be hidden, for night reigns and the youth gleams at the shoulder, as much as night gleams at the evening star.

47. STILL LIFE.

48. It is good to gather figs too, and not to pass even these by in silence. Black figs dripping with juice are heaped on vine-leaves, and they are painted with the cracks in their skin, and some are gaping open, spitting out their honey, and some, by reason of their ripeness, are as it were split. Near them a branch is flung — not, by Zeus, bare or empty of fruit — and it shadows figs, some unripe and still green, some wrinkled and overripe, some half-split, showing the bloom of their juice, while on the tip of the branch a sparrow has pecked a hole in those which seem the sweetest of figs. The whole ground is strewn with nuts, of which some have rolled out of their husk, some lie in it, fast closed, some show the cleft between. But look too at pears upon pears, and apples upon apples, heaps and tens of them, all fragrant and gold-tinged. The redness in them you will not say is laid on, but has bloomed from within. And there are the gifts of the cherry, fruit such as this in clusters in a basket; and the basket is woven, not of foreign withes, but of the plant itself. And if you look at the binding of the vine-shoots, and the grape-clusters hanging from them, and how the grapes are one by one, you will sing, I know, of Dionysus, and "O lady, giver of clusters," you will say of the vine. You would say too that the grapes in the painting are good to eat and full of wine. And this too is most delightful: on fig-leaves green honey, already sunk into its comb, and ripe to overflow if one should press it, and a fresh cheese on another leaf, quivering, and bowls of milk not white only but glistening — for it seems to glisten by reason of the cream floating upon it.