Book 2

1. THE SINGING MAIDENS.

2. An Aphrodite of ivory, among soft myrtle-groves, is hymned by soft maidens. A teacher leads them, wise and not past her prime, for a certain bloom rests even upon a first wrinkle, drawing the stateliness of age yet mingling with it what is preserved of youthful vigour. The posture of the statue of Aphrodite is naked and graceful, and its material is a composition of close-grained ivory. But the goddess does not wish to seem to be painted; rather she stands out as if one might take hold of her. Will you have us pour a little speech as a libation upon the altar? For it has frankincense enough, and cassia and myrrh, and it seems to me to breathe also something of Sappho. The wisdom of the painting, then, must be praised: first, that in setting round the beloved stones he imitated them not from the colours but from the light, putting into them their transparency as a sharp point for the eye; next, that he allows us to hear the hymn too — for the maidens are singing, are singing, and the teacher glances askance at the one who sings out of tune, clapping her hands and bringing her sufficiently into the melody. As for their dress, it is simple and gives them no trouble if they should play — whether the girdle close to the skin, or the tunic at the arm, or how they delight in going barefoot, standing on the soft grass and drawing refreshment from the dew — and the meadow about their garments, and the colours in them, and how one suits one and another suits another, all this has been wonderfully imitated. For those who do not paint the accompanying details do not tell the truth in their paintings. As for the forms of the maidens, if we should entrust them to Paris or any other judge, he would, I think, be at a loss how to vote, so closely do they contend, rosy-armed and bright-eyed and fair-cheeked and honey-voiced — this last "the sweet address of Sappho." Love plays an accompaniment to them, having tilted back the curved arm of the bow, and the string sings full harmony and says it has all that the lyre has; and the eyes of the god are quick, conceiving, I think, some rhythm. What, then, do they sing? For something of the song too is painted. They say that Aphrodite was given forth from the sea by the effluence of Uranus, and at which of the islands she put in they do not yet say, but they will say Paphos, I think; and her birth they sing sufficiently. For by looking upward they show that she is from heaven, and by gently moving their upturned hands they make clear that she is from the sea, and their smile is a riddle of calm.

3. THE EDUCATION OF ACHILLES.

4. Fawns and a hare — these are the game of the present Achilles; but the Achilles at Ilium will capture cities and horses and ranks of men, and the rivers will fight against him as he forbids them to flow; and for those deeds he will carry off as wages Briseis and the seven women from Lesbos, and gold and tripods, and the dependence of the Achaeans upon him; but these things here at Chiron's seem worth apples and honeycombs. And you are content, Achilles, with small gifts, you who will then disdain cities and the kinship of Agamemnon. The Achilles upon the trench, and he who routed the Trojans by his shout alone, and he who slays right and left and reddens the water of the Scamander, the immortal horses and the dragging of Hector and the man roaring over the breast of Patroclus — these Homer has painted; but he paints him also singing and praying and under one roof with Priam. This Achilles, however, does not yet understand valour, but is still a child; and Chiron, having nourished him on milk and marrow and honey, has given him to be painted soft and high-spirited and already nimble; for the boy's shin is straight, and his hands reach to his knee, since these are good escorts of running, and his hair is sweet and not unmoving, for Zephyr seems to play with it and rearrange it, so that, as it shifts this way and that, the boy seems now one, now another. There is already a frown and a spirited haughtiness upon the boy, but he softens it with a guileless eye and a most gracious cheek that casts a touch of tender laughter. The cloak he wears is, I think, his mother's, for it is beautiful and sea-purple and fire-bright, varying from being dark blue. Chiron coaxes him, as it were, to snatch up hares and to fly along with the fawns; at any rate, having just caught a fawn, he comes to Chiron and demands his prize, and Chiron rejoices to be asked, and crouching on his forefeet sets himself level with the boy, holding out to him from his bosom apples beautiful and fragrant — for the very fragrance of them seems painted in — and offers in his hand a honeycomb dripping a drop, by reason of the good order of the bees. For when, lighting on good pasture, they conceive, their combs grow full and their houses well over with honey. Chiron is painted in all respects a Centaur; but to join a horse to a man is no marvel, whereas to blend them and unite them, and, by Zeus, to make both leave off and begin together and elude the eyes should they try to detect where the human part ends, is the work, I think, of a good painter. And as for the gentleness that appears in Chiron's eye, it is wrought both by justice and by the prudence that comes from justice, but also by the lyre, by which he has been made musical; and now, too, there is something coaxing upon him, since Chiron knows that this soothes children and nourishes them more than milk does. These things are about the door of the cave; but the boy in the plain, playing horseman-fashion on the Centaur, is the same boy still. Chiron teaches Achilles to ride and to use him as one uses a horse, and measures out the gallop to what is bearable for the child; and when the boy laughs aloud from delight, he smiles back at him, turning round, and all but says: "See, I paw the ground for you, unwhipped; see, I urge you on too; the horse is swift, then, and takes away your fear. For having ridden me well, divine boy, and fit for such a horse, you shall one day be carried even by Xanthus and Balius, and you shall take many cities and slay many men, who, like you, will be like a god as they try in vain to flee." These things Chiron prophesies to the boy, beautiful and of good omen, and not such as Xanthus prophesied.

5. THE FEMALE CENTAURS.

6. You thought the herd of Centaurs sprang from oaks and rocks, or, by Zeus, from horses only, those upon which the son of Ixion is said to have begotten, from whom the Centaurs came into being mingled; but it seems they had mothers too of their own kind, and wives already, and foals in the shape of infants, and a most pleasant home. For I do not think you are vexed at Pelion and the life upon it, and the ash-tree, wind-nourished, which gives both straightness and the strength not to break at the spear-point, and the caves most beautiful, and the springs, and the female Centaurs beside them — like Naiads if we forget the horses, but, if we reckon them along with the horses, like Amazons; for the daintiness of the female form is given strength when the horse is seen joined to it. And these Centaur-infants — some lie in swaddling-clothes, some slip out of their swaddling-clothes, some seem to be crying, some thrive and smile as the breast flows well, some frolic beneath their mothers, some embrace them as they crouch, and one throws a stone at his mother, growing wanton already. The form of the babes is not yet clear, the milk so flooding them, but those already frisking show something of roughness too, and they have a mane just coming, and hooves still soft. How beautiful are the female Centaurs, even in the horse part! For some are grafted on white mares, some are joined to tawny ones, some are dappled, but they gleam like horses well groomed. And a white she-Centaur has sprung even from a black mare, and the most opposite of colours agree to the composition of beauty.

7. HIPPOLYTUS.

8. The beast is the curse of Theseus, and it has fallen upon the horses of Hippolytus in the form of a grey-green bull, like the dolphins, and it comes from the sea against the youth with no justice at all; for his stepmother Phaedra, framing a charge against him that was not true — that he was, forsooth, loved by Hippolytus, whereas she herself loved the youth — Theseus is deceived by the tale and curses his son, and these are the things you see. The horses, you observe, having dishonoured the yoke, raise their manes free, nor do they paw the ground like the splendid and sensible ones, but are lifted up with fear and panic, and, sprinkling the plain with foam, one has turned toward the beast in flight, one has reared up against it, one looks askance, while for one the rush is toward the sea, as if he had forgotten both himself and the land, and with nostrils erect they neigh shrilly — unless you misread the painting. As for the wheels of the chariot, one has had its spokes wrenched off by the chariot's leaning against it, while the other, having left the axle, is carried along by itself, the whirl still spinning it. The horses of the attendants too are panic-stricken, and some they throw off, others, already strangling them, they drag along. But you, youth, in love with chastity, suffered unjust things at the hands of your stepmother, and more unjust at the hands of your father, so that the painting too has lamented, composing a kind of poetic dirge over you. For these crags, on which you hunted with Artemis, tear their cheeks in the form of women; the meadows in the bloom of youths, which you used to call inviolate, wither their flowers over you; and the Nymphs, your nurses, rising up from these springs, rend their hair and pour out water from their breasts. Neither did your manliness avail you anything, nor your arm; rather, some of your limbs are torn, others crushed, and your hair is fouled, and your breast is still breathing, as if it would not let go the soul, while the eye gazes round upon the wounds. Alas for your beauty, how it had escaped notice as being invulnerable! For not even now does it abandon the youth, but something of it shines even upon the wounds.

9. RHODOGUNE.

10. The blood, upon the bronze and the scarlet cloaks, casts a certain bloom upon the army; and there is grace in the painting — the horses fallen in different attitudes, and others disordered in their terror, and the river-water spoiled and corrupted, beside which all this is, and the captives, and the trophy raised over them. Rhodogune and the Persians defeat the Armenians, who had broken the truce; whereupon Rhodogune is said to have won the battle without allowing herself even so much delay as to gather up the right side of her hair. Is she not lifted up and proud of the victory, and aware that she will be sung of for the deed, both on the lyre and on the pipe and wherever there are Greeks? Beside her too is painted a Nisaean mare, black upon white legs, with white breast and breath from a white nostril and a forehead in a perfect circle. Now of stones and necklaces and all soft adornment Rhodogune has yielded to the mare, that she may glory and daintily champ her bit; but Rhodogune herself shines forth in all things, except in her own beauty, with a scarlet-dyed robe, in a pretty girdle that measures the robe to the knee, and pretty trousers showing patterns from the loom. From shoulder to elbow brooches join the tunic where it parts, the forearm showing through at the intervals where the fastening is; and the shoulder is set, and the posture is not yet that of an Amazon. One must admire too the shield's moderate size, sufficient for the breast, and examine here the strength of the painting; for the left hand, reaching beyond the handgrip, holds the spear, keeping the shield away from the breast, and, since the rim stands out straight, even the outside of the shield is seen — are not these parts golden, and like living creatures? — while the inside, where the hand is, is sea-purple, and the forearm blooms beside it. You seem to me, my boy, to perceive the beauty in her, and to wish to hear something about this too. Listen, then. She is pouring a libation over the rout of the Armenians, and her thought is that of one praying. And she prays to capture the men whom she has now captured, for she does not seem to me to love being loved. The part of her hair that is bound up is adorned with modesty, which chastens her high spirit, while the loose part fills her with Bacchic frenzy and gives her strength; and the disordered hair is tawny and beyond gold, while the part lying on the other side has something that shifts into a gleam by reason of being arranged. Of her eyebrows it is charming that they begin from the same point and spring up together from the nose, more charming still that they are arched; for they must not only be set out before the eyes but also be set round them. The cheek receives the longing that comes from the eyes, and gives delight by its cheerfulness, for the love of smiles is most of all in the cheek; and the eyes are blended from bright to dark, and give cheerfulness from the occasion, beauty from nature, and pride from command. The mouth is soft and full of erotic fruit, most sweet to kiss but not easy to describe; yet, of what is enough for you to learn, look, my child: lips flowery and even, a mouth well-proportioned and uttering the prayer to the trophy — and if we should wish to overhear it, perhaps it will speak Greek.

11. ARRHICHION.

12. You have come to Olympia itself, and to the most beautiful of the things at Olympia; for this is the men's pancratium, and Arrhichion is crowned for it, having died upon the victory; and this man, a Hellanodikes, crowns him — let him be addressed as "the just," both because he is careful of the truth and because he is painted, as those are. The land provides a stadium in a soft valley running inward just so far; and the stream of the Alpheus issues forth light — and so it alone of rivers runs upon the sea — and wild-olive trees have blossomed beside it, of grey-green hue, beautiful and like the curling of parsley. These, then, we shall examine after the stadium, and many other things; but let us look at the deed of Arrhichion before it has ceased, for he seems to have conquered not only his adversary but the Greek people too. At any rate, they spring up from their seats and shout, and some shake their hands, some their garments, some leap up from the ground, some gladly wrestle with those near them; for things so astounding do not allow the spectators to remain in self-command. Or who is so insensible as not to cry out at the athlete? For, great as it already was for him to have won the Olympic crown twice, greater is this now, when, having won it at the cost of his very soul, he is sent to the place of the blessed with the dust still upon him. And let no one think this a chance, for the wrestling-trick of victory was most wisely contrived. Those who practise the pancratium, my boy, use a perilous kind of wrestling, for they must throw themselves on their backs, which is not safe for a wrestler, and use grips in which one must win by seeming to fall; and they need skill to strangle now in one way, now in another; the same men wrestle with the ankle and twist the hand, with the addition of striking and leaping upon their opponent — for these are the works of the pancratium, except for biting and gouging. The Lacedaemonians, indeed, permit even these, training themselves, I suppose, for battle; but the Eleans and the games exclude them, while they approve of strangling. Whence the adversary, having already caught Arrhichion about the waist, resolved to kill him, and thrust his forearm against his throat, cutting off his breath, and, fitting his legs against the groin and twining the tips of his feet about each of Arrhichion's knees, he got the start of him with the stranglehold, the sleep of the death thereupon already running over his senses. But, having relaxed the pressure of his legs, he failed to anticipate the cunning of Arrhichion; for Arrhichion, kicking away the sole of the foot by which his right side was endangered, the hollow of the knee being already loosened, holds his opponent fast by the groin so that he is no longer an adversary, and, sinking down upon his left side and locking the tip of the foot within the bend of the knee, by a violent outward wrench does not let the ankle-bone stay in its socket; for the soul, as it departs from the body, makes it feeble, yet gives it strength for what it presses upon. Now the man who strangled is painted like a corpse, signalling his surrender with his hand; but Arrhichion is painted as victors are, for the blood is in its bloom and the sweat still fresh, and he smiles, as the living do when they perceive victory.

13. ANTILOCHUS.

14. That Achilles loved Antilochus you have detected, I think, in Homer, seeing that Antilochus is the youngest of the Greeks, and considering the half-talent of gold set for the contest; and he reports to Achilles that Patroclus lies dead, Menelaus having devised a comfort along with the message, in that Achilles turned his eyes upon his beloved; and he mourns for the beloved in his grief, and clasps his hands, lest he kill himself; and Achilles, I think, rejoices both at his touch and at his weeping. These, then, are Homer's paintings; but here is the painter's drama. Memnon, coming from Ethiopia, slays Antilochus as he shields his father, and strikes terror into the Achaeans like a thing of dread, for before Memnon the black men are a fable. But the Achaeans, prevailing over the body, lament Antilochus — the sons of Atreus, and the man from Ithaca, and the son of Tydeus, and the namesakes; and the Ithacan is distinguished by his sternness and wakefulness, Menelaus by his gentleness, Agamemnon by his inspired look, and the son of Tydeus the painter shows by his frankness; you would recognize the son of Telamon too by his grimness, and the Locrian by his readiness. And the army mourns the youth, standing about him in a dirge, and, having fixed their spears in the ground, they cross their feet and lean upon the spears, propping their heads, heavy with grief, most of them. Achilles is to be shown not by his hair, for that is gone from him after Patroclus, but by his form and his stature and the very fact that he no longer wears his hair long. He mourns, lying upon the breast of Antilochus, and promises, I think, a pyre and what is for it, and his armour perhaps, and the head of Memnon; for he will make Memnon pay as much as Hector, that in this too Antilochus may have no less than Patroclus. And Memnon, in the army of the Ethiopians, stands terrible, holding a spear, with a lion-skin fastened about him, and grinning at Achilles. Let us consider Antilochus too: he is coming to manhood, his cheek down-covered, and wears his sun-bleached hair long. Light is his shin, and his body well-proportioned for ease of running, and the blood has bloomed like a colour upon ivory, the spear having entered his breast. The youth lies, not downcast, nor to be likened to a corpse, but bright and smiling; for the joy of having saved his father, carried in his face, Antilochus, I think, kept even as he perished by the spear, and the soul left his face not as he was in pain, but as the joyful part prevailed.

15. MELES.

16. The story of the Enipeus, and how Tyro loved the water, has been told by Homer, who tells also of the deceit by Poseidon and the bloom of the wave, beneath which was the bridal bed; but this story is another, not from Thessaly but Ionian. Cretheis in Ionia loves the Meles, and he is like a young man and is seen by the spectator whole, casting himself out there from where he begins. She drinks though not thirsty, and lays hold of the water, and converses with its murmur as if it were talking, and sheds erotic tears into the water, and the river — for it loves in return — rejoices in their mingling. Charming, then, in the painting, is the Meles himself, lying among crocus and lotus, and rejoicing in the hyacinth for the youthfulness of the flower, and presenting a form dainty and youthful and not unwise — you would say that the eyes of the Meles are pondering something of poetry. And charming too is it in him that he does not give forth his springs in a violent rush, as it is the custom to paint the boorish rivers, but, scratching the earth with the tips of his fingers, he holds his hand to the water as it bubbles up noiselessly; and he appears to us, as he did to Cretheis, to be water, and she sits beside a dream, they say. But these are no dream, Cretheis, nor do you draw this love upon water; for the river loves you, I know well, and contrives for you a bridal chamber, raising a wave beneath which the bed will be. And if you disbelieve, I will tell you the artifice of the chamber too: a slender breeze, running beneath the wave, makes it curved and enclosing and still in bloom, for the reflected light of the sun casts a colour upon the lifted water. Why, then, my boy, do you lay hold of me? Why do you not let me go through the rest of the painting too? If you wish, let us describe Cretheis as well, since you say you rejoice whenever the discourse plays among them. Let it be said, then: her form is dainty and very Ionian, and modesty becomes the form, and this bloom is enough for the cheek; her hair is gathered up beneath the ear, and is adorned besides with a sea-purple veil. The veil, I think, is a gift of a Nereid or a Naiad, for it is likely that the goddesses joined the dance over the Meles, who provides his springs not far from the mouth. She looks so sweet and simple that not even her tears alter her graciousness, and her neck is sweeter still for not being adorned; for necklaces and the gleam of stones and collars are not unpleasingly added to women of moderate beauty, and, by Zeus, lend them something of charm, but they work against the ugly and the over-beautiful, the one being exposed by them, the other led away from. Let us examine her hands: soft are the fingers and well-grown and white as far as the forearm; and you see the forearm too, how it shows whiter through the white garment, and the upright breasts gleam. Why, then, are the Muses here? And why upon the springs of the Meles? When the Athenians were colonizing Ionia, the Muses led the fleet in the form of bees, for they delighted in Ionia because of the Meles, as more potable than Cephisus and Olmeius. You will meet them here once dancing, then; but now the Muses are spinning the birth of Homer, since it pleases the Fates; and the Meles, through the boy, will grant that Peneus be silver-eddying, that Titaresius be light and easy-flowing, that Enipeus be divine and Axius most beautiful, and will grant to Xanthus his descent from Zeus and to Ocean that all are descended from him.

17. PANTHEIA.

18. The fair Pantheia is painted by Xenophon in respect of her character — that she rejected Araspas, and was not overcome by Cyrus, and wished to draw a common grave to Abradatas; but what her hair was like, and how great her eyebrow, and how she looked, and how it was with her mouth, Xenophon has not yet said, clever though he is at chattering about such things. But a man not competent to write history, yet most competent to paint, who never met Pantheia herself but conversed with Xenophon, paints Pantheia such as he inferred her to be in soul. The walls, my boy, and the burning houses and the beautiful Lydian women — let us leave it to the Persians to carry off and capture whatever of these is captureable. And Croesus, on whom the pyre is, does not concern Xenophon himself; for he does not acknowledge it, or else concedes it to Cyrus. But Abradatas, and Pantheia who died over him, since the painting wills it, let us consider — what a drama it is. These two loved each other, and the woman made her own adornment armour for him; and he was fighting for Cyrus against Croesus on a four-poled chariot and eight horses, still young, with soft down on his cheek, at the season when the poets too think the trees pitiable when they are cast out of the earth. The wounds, my boy, are such as from sabre-bearers, for cutting down is suitable to such a battle; and the blood being fresh, part stains the armour, part himself, and there is some that is sprinkled on the crest, while the plume, hyacinthine, rises from the golden helmet, flashing upon the very gold. Beautiful, then, are these arms as a shroud, at least for one who did not disgrace them nor cast them away in battle; and Cyrus brings many Assyrian and Lydian gifts to the brave man, among others golden sand upon a wagon from the idle treasuries of Croesus; but Pantheia does not think the tomb has its fitting things, unless she herself become a shroud for Abradatas. The dagger, indeed, she has already driven through her breast, but so very firmly that she does not even break out into a wail over it. She lies, at any rate, her mouth keeping its own proportion and, by Zeus, its bloom, whose flower is so upon her lips that it shines forth even while she is silent. She has not yet drawn out the dagger, but still drives it in, holding it by the hilt — and the hilt is likened to a golden club with emeralds for its knobs. But sweeter are the fingers — and her form is in no way altered by pain, for she does not even seem to be in pain, but to depart rejoicing, because she sends herself away; and she departs not, like the wife of Protesilaus, crowned with the things in which she had revelled, nor, like the wife of Capaneus, lifted up as if for sacrifice, but, her beauty unadorned and such as it was in the time of Abradatas, she keeps it and carries it away, pouring her hair, not yet black and abundant, about her shoulders and neck, and showing a white throat which she has torn, yet not so as to disfigure it, for the marks of the nails are sweeter than the painting. The redness on the cheek does not desert her even in death, and the providers of it are her bloom and her modesty. See too the nostrils, drawn up in moderation and making a base for the nose, from which, like crescent-shaped shoots, the eyebrows spring up, black beneath the white forehead. But the eyes, my boy, let us not regard for their size, nor because they are dark, but let us consider the intelligence that is in them, and, by Zeus, how much of the soul's good things they drew in — disposed pitiably, yet not divorced from cheerfulness; courageous, yet more within the bounds of reason than of daring; comprehending death, yet not yet departing. And longing, the attendant of love, is so poured over the eyes that it most plainly drips from them. Love too is painted in the history of the deed, and so is Lydia, receiving the blood, and in a golden lap, as you see.

19. CASSANDRA.

20. Those lying here and there about the men's hall, and the blood mingled with the wine, and those breathing their last upon the tables, and this mixing-bowl kicked over by a man who writhes beside it, and the prophesying maiden in her gown, looking at the axe about to fall upon her — Agamemnon, come from Troy, Clytemnestra receives in this fashion; and the rest are slain, some by some, drunk as they are, so that even Aegisthus took courage for the deed. Clytemnestra, having enveloped Agamemnon by the device of a robe with no outlet, brought down upon him this double-edged axe, which fells even great trees; and the daughter of Priam, judged most beautiful, singing for Agamemnon her disbelieved prophecies, she slays with the hot axe. And if we examine these things as a drama, my boy, great matters have been put on the stage in little; but if as a painting, you will see more in them. For look: these lamps are the providers of light, since this is by night; those mixing-bowls are the providers of drink — the golden ones brighter than the fire; and the tables are full of meats, the meats of kings on which the heroes feasted, but none of these is in order, for, as the banqueters die, some are kicked over, some crushed, some lie fallen from them; and cups fall from the hands, most of them full of gore; and there is no defence in the dying, for they are drunk. As for the attitudes of those lying there: one has his throat cut as it drew in food or drink; one has his head cut off as he stooped over the mixing-bowl; one has had the hand struck off that carried a cup; one drags the table with him as he falls from the couch; one lies upon his shoulders and head — a poet would say "head-foremost"; one disbelieves the death; one has not the strength to flee, as if drunkenness were a fetter cast upon him; and none of those lying there is pale, since the bloom does not at once desert those who die in wine. But the most sovereign part of the scene Agamemnon holds, lying not in the Trojan plains, nor on any shores of the Scamander, but among youths and women, an ox at the manger — for this is what comes after toils and at the banquet. More sovereign in pity, however, is the part of Cassandra: how Clytemnestra stands over her with the axe, looking madly and with hair flung wild and a savage forearm, while Cassandra herself, in a daintily and inspired state, has set herself to fall upon Agamemnon, casting from her the fillets and as it were embracing him by her art; but, the axe being already raised, she turns her eyes there, and cries out so pitiably that even Agamemnon, with the remnant of his soul, pities her as he hears this — for he will remember it even in Hades, before Odysseus, in the assembly of the souls.

21. PAN.

22. The Nymphs say that Pan dances badly and leaps beyond what is fitting, lifting himself up and springing aloft like the wanton goats, and that they would teach him another dance, sweeter in manner; but he pays no heed to them, and as he tries them and lays hold of their bosoms they set upon him at midday, when Pan is said to sleep, having quit the hunt. Now formerly he used to sleep relaxed and gentle of nose, soothing its irascibility with sleep; but today he is over-wrathful, for the Nymphs, having fallen upon him, have already pulled his hands behind him, and he fears for his legs, since they wish to seize them. As for his beard, of which he makes most account, it has been shaved off, knives having been set to it; and they say they will persuade Echo too to despise him and to utter no sound to him any more. These things the Nymphs do all together; but do you look at them by their several tribes. For the forms of the Naiads sprinkle drops from their hair; the dryness about the cowherd-Nymphs is no worse than dew; and those that are in flower have hair growing like hyacinthine flowers.

23. PINDAR.

24. I suppose it is a marvel to you that the bees are painted so minutely, with proboscis plainly visible, and feet and wings and the colour of their dress, no disorder in them, the painting picking them out variously to match nature. Why, then, are the wise creatures not in their hives? And why in the city? They are revelling at the doors of Daiphantus — for Pindar has now been born, as you see — to mould him from infancy, that he may be tuneful and musical; and they do these things. For the babe is laid in laurel and sprays of myrtle, the father reckoning that the boy will prove sacred from the signs by which cymbals resounded through the house when he was born, and drums were heard from Rhea, and the Nymphs were said to have danced for him and Pan to have leapt up; and they say that, when Pindar came to composing, Pan neglected his leaping and sang the songs of Pindar. Rhea is wrought as a statue and is set up at his very doors, and the statue, I think, seems even to be of stone, the painting here being made hard and — what else? — carved. He brings the Nymphs too, dewy and such as come from springs, while Pan dances out a certain rhythm, his look bright and nothing wrathful in his nose. And the bees within busy themselves about the babe, putting honey upon him and drawing up their stings for fear of stinging him. Perhaps they come from Hymettus, and from the rich and far-famed places, for this too, I think, they instilled into Pindar.

25. THE GYRAEAN ROCKS.

26. The rocks rising from the deep, and the sea boiling about them, and the hero looking terrible upon the rocks and having a certain pride against the sea — this is the Locrian Ajax, whose own ship has been struck; and, leaping from it as it caught fire, he has come to grips with the waves, breaking through some, drawing others after him, baling some off with his breast; and having met the Gyrae — the Gyrae are rocks rising up out of the Aegean gulf — he utters overweening words against the gods, boasting; whereupon Poseidon himself sets out against the Gyrae, terrible, my boy, and full of storm and with his locks lifted up. And yet once he fought as ally to the Locrian at Ilium, when he was sober and sparing of the gods, and gave him strength with his sceptre; but now, since he sees him insolent, he brings the trident against him, and the neck of the rock that holds up Ajax shall be struck, so that he may shake him off, insolence and all. This, then, is the story of the painting; but the vividness: the sea is white with waves, the rocks are sea-washed from being for ever sprayed, fire darts up from the middle of the ship, into which the wind, blowing, makes the ship still sail, as if using the fire for a sail; and Ajax, like one recovering from drunkenness, gazes round upon the deep, seeing neither ship nor land, and does not even fear Poseidon as he approaches, but seems still to be straining, for strength has not yet left his arms, and his neck stands up as against Hector and the Trojans. Poseidon, then, driving in his trident, shall break off the fragment of the rock together with Ajax, while the remaining Gyrae shall stay, as long as there is sea, and shall stand inviolate for Poseidon.

27. THESSALY.

28. The look of the painting plays the Egyptian, but its story is not Egyptian but, I think, Thessalian; for the Egyptians have their land from the Nile, but the Peneus of old did not allow the Thessalians to have land, mountains being thrown round the plains and the stream flooding them, since it had no outlet. Poseidon, then, will break the mountains with his trident and make gates for the river. For he stands now at this labour, contending with it and uncovering the plains, and his hand is lifted to break them through, while the mountains, before being struck, part to the measure sufficient for the river. And, as the art contends for vividness, the right side of Poseidon is at once drawn back and advanced, and threatens the blow not from the hand but from the whole body. He is painted not dark blue, nor of the sea, but a man of the mainland; and so he welcomes the plains, seeing them smooth and broad like the seas. The river too rejoices, as if boasting, and, keeping his arm bent — for it is not usual for a river to stand upright — he dedicates the Titaresius as light and more potable, and agrees with Poseidon to flow out of the plains, using the road made for him. Thessaly too rises up, the water now subsiding, crowned with olive and ear of grain, and laying hold of a foal that rises with her. For she shall have a horse too from Poseidon, when the earth shall receive the effluence of the sleeping god into a horse.

29. GLAUCUS OF THE SEA.

30. The Argo, having sailed out through the Bosporus and the Symplegades, now cleaves the midmost surge of the Pontus, and Orpheus charms the sea with his song, and it listens, and the Pontus lies beneath the song. The freight of the ship is the Dioscuri and Heracles and the sons of Aeacus and the sons of Boreas, and all that flowered of the demigod company; and the keel fitted to the ship is an ancient tree, which Zeus at Dodona used for his oracles. The purpose of the voyage is this: a golden fleece of an ancient ram lies stored among the Colchians, the ram which is said to have ferried Helle along with Phrixus through the sky; this Jason, my boy, is set the labour of taking — for a guardian dragon is coiled about it, looking terrible and disdaining sleep — and from this the ship begins, since the cause of the voyage looks toward it. And Tiphys, my boy, is the steersman, and he is said to have been the first of men to dare the disbelieved art; and Lynceus, son of Aphareus, is set at the prow, being able to see from far off and to look deep into the depths, and to be the first to perceive sunken reefs, the first to greet land appearing. But now the eye even of Lynceus seems to me to be astounded by the apparition that meets it, by which the fifty, having checked their rowing — Heracles indeed remains unmoved by the wonder, having met with many like it, but the rest, I think, say some such word of wonder; for there appears to them Glaucus of the Sea, who is said once to have dwelt in ancient Anthedon, and to have tasted a certain sea-grass, and, a wave running over him, to have been carried off into the haunts of the fishes. He prophesies, then, something great, as is likely, for he has a surplus of the art; and as for his form, the curls of his beard are wet, and white to look upon, like fountains; heavy are the locks of his hair, and they channel down over his shoulders all the sea they have drawn in; his eyebrows are shaggy, and joined to one another like a single one. Ah, his arm, how exercised against the sea, ever falling upon the waves and smoothing them for his swimming! Ah, his breast, how down is sown over it, flourishing with sea-mosses and seaweed, while the belly lies beneath, shifting and now passing away! That Glaucus is a fish in his remaining part is shown by the tail-fins lifted up and curving toward the loins, and their crescent shape has a kind of sea-purple bloom. And halcyons fly round about him, at once singing of the men out of whom both they and Glaucus were transformed, and at once showing Orpheus their own song, through which not even the sea is without music.

31. PALAEMON.

32. The people sacrificing at the Isthmus, who would be those from Corinth; and this king of the people — let us suppose him Sisyphus; and this precinct of Poseidon, faintly resounding to the sea, for the foliage of the pines sings this — these signify some such thing, my boy. Ino, falling from the land, will use the one part, her own self, to be Leucothea and of the circle of the Nereids, the other, that of her child, the land will use to be Palaemon the babe. And already she puts in toward it upon a docile dolphin, and the dolphin, spreading his back beneath, carries the sleeping child, gliding noiselessly through the calm, lest he fall out of his sleep; and as he approaches, a sanctuary breaks open along the Isthmus, the land having parted asunder by Poseidon's act, who, it seems to me, foretold to this Sisyphus the inward voyage of the child and that he must sacrifice to him. And he sacrifices this black bull, having dragged it, I think, from the herd of Poseidon. Now the rite of the sacrifice, and the dress of those sacrificing, and the offerings to the dead, my boy, and the slaying, let these be laid up for the mysteries of Palaemon, for the matter is solemn and quite secret, as Sisyphus the wise made him a god; for the intentness of his look shows him already wise. As for the form of Poseidon, if he had been about to break the Gyraean rocks or the Thessalian mountains, he would somewhere have been painted terrible and as if striking; but, making Melicertes his guest, that he may have him in the land, he smiles as the child puts in to harbour, and bids the Isthmus open out its breast and become a home for Melicertes. And the Isthmus, my boy, is painted in the form of a spirit, reclining himself upon the land, and is ordained by nature to lie midway between the Aegean and the Adriatic, as if bridged across upon the seas. He has a youth on his right, Lechaeum, I think, and maidens on his left, Cenchreae perhaps. These are beautiful seas, and calm enough, and they sit beside the land that shows forth the Isthmus.

33. THE ISLANDS.

34. Will you, my boy, that we converse about these islands as if from a ship, sailing round them in spring, when Zephyr makes the sea cheerful, breathing of his own breeze? But see that you willingly forget the land, and this will seem to you a sea neither lifted up and tossing its mane, nor flat and calm, but navigable and as it were breathing. See, we have embarked — for you consent, I suppose.

The sea, as you see, is wide, and there are islands in it, by Zeus, not Lesbos, nor Imbros or Lemnos, but herding and small, like villages or stations or, by Zeus, farmsteads of the sea. The first of them is strong and steep and walled by nature, lifting up a peak to all-seeing Poseidon, full of streams and moist, and feeding bees with mountain flowers, which the Nereids too are likely to gather when they play upon the sea. The next island, which is flat and earthy, fishermen inhabit together with farmers, and they hold a market with each other, some of their crops, some of what they have caught; and they have set up this Poseidon as a farmer, on plough and yoke, to reckon for him the produce of the earth; and, that Poseidon might not appear too much a man of the mainland, a ship's prow is set upon the plough, and he breaks the earth as if sailing. The two islands next to these were once both one, but, broken by the sea, were carried apart by the breadth of a river between them; and this you can know even from the painting, my boy, for you see the sundered parts of the island similar and proportioned to each other, and as it were hollows fitting projections. This too Europe once suffered about Thessalian Tempe; for earthquakes, breaking open there too the harmony of the mountains, left their mark upon the severed parts, and the lairs of the rocks are still plainly similar to the rocks fitted out of them, and the wood, such as was likely to follow when the mountains split, is not yet undiscoverable, for there still remain the beds of the trees. Such, then, let us suppose to be the experience of the island; and a bridge is thrown across the strait, so that it appears one by it, and part of the bridge is sailed under, part driven over with wagons; for you see, I suppose, those passing across it, that they are both travellers and sailors. But the island near at hand, my boy, let us hold a marvel, for fire smoulders all beneath it, having crept into the caverns and recesses of the island, through which, as through pipes, the flame breaks out and makes terrible torrents, from which fall rivers of fire, great and surging upon the sea. And to one who wishes to philosophize about such things, the island, providing a mixture of asphalt and sulphur, when it is eaten away by the brine, is set ablaze by many winds, drawing up from the sea the things that excite the fuel; but the painting, praising the poets, inscribes a myth upon the island too — that a giant was once cast down there, and, as he was struggling against death, the island was set upon him for a bond, but that he has not yet yielded, but fights on from beneath the earth, and breathes out this fire with a threat. This, they say, Typho too desires in Sicily, and Enceladus in this part of Italy, whom continents and islands press down, not yet dead but ever dying. And you may, my boy, suppose that you have not been left out of the battle, by looking up at the summit of the mountain; for the things appearing on it are Zeus hurling thunderbolts at the giant, who already gives up, yet still trusts the earth, while the earth too is worn out, since Poseidon will not let her stand. He has thrown a mist about them, that they may appear as having become so rather than as becoming. As for the hill round which we sail, a dragon dwells on it, the guardian, I think, of some treasure that lies beneath the earth. For this beast is said to be friendly to gold, and whatever it sees that is golden it loves and cherishes; the fleece in Colchis and the apples of the Hesperides, since they appeared golden, two sleepless dragons kept and made their own; and the dragon of Athena, who still even now dwells on the Acropolis, seems to me to have welcomed the Athenian people for the gold which they made into grasshoppers for their hair. And here the dragon himself is golden, for he thrusts his head out over the lair, in fear, I think, for the wealth below. And this island, roofed over with ivy and bryony and vines, says it is dedicated to Dionysus, but that Dionysus is away now and revelling somewhere on the mainland, having entrusted to Silenus the secret things here. The secret things are these cymbals lying face-up, and golden mixing-bowls overturned, and pipes still warm, and the drums lying soundless; and Zephyr as it were lifts the fawn-skins from the earth, and of the serpents some are twined among the thyrsi, others, relaxed by the wine, sleep and let the Bacchae gird themselves with them. As for the clusters, some swell with juice, some darken, some are unripe, some seem mere blossom, Dionysus having contrived the seasons of the vines so that he may always be harvesting. And the clusters are so abundant that they even hang from the rocks and droop over the sea, and birds of the sea and of the mainland fly up to gather the fruit; for Dionysus offers the vine common to all save the owl, which alone among the eaters of clusters he rejects, since it slanders wine to men; for if an infant child, still wineless, should eat the eggs of the owl, it hates wine all its life, and would not drink, and fears the drunken. But you, my boy, are so bold as not even to fear this Silenus, the guardian of the island, drunk and laying hold of the Bacchant. But she does not deign to look at him; rather, in love with Dionysus, she fashions him in her mind and figures him forth and sees him though he is not present; for the character of the eyes in the Bacchant is aloft, yet not outside erotic thoughts. These mountains nature has joined together and made an island, shaggy and full of wood, of tall cypress and pine and fir and oak and cedar; for the trees too are painted each in its own manner. The game-haunted parts of the island boar-hunters track out, and deer-shooters, lifting their lances against the beasts, and some with bows; and they carry knives too, my boy, and clubs, those who fight at close quarters and are bold; and these nets are stretched through the wood, some to enfold a beast, some to bind it, some to check its run; and some of the beasts are taken, some fight, some have caught the one who threw, and every young man's arm is busy, and the dogs raise a cry along with the men, so that even the echo, they say, joins the hunting's revel. The great trees the woodcutters cut up with broad strokes, and one lifts the axe, one has driven it in, one whets it, having taken it blunted by striking, one examines the fir for a mast, judging the tree by reference to the ship, one cuts the young and straight trees for oars. The sheer rock, and the tribe of sea-gulls, and the bird in their midst are painted from such a reason as this. Men attack the sea-gulls, by Zeus, not for the sake of the flesh, for black and unwholesome and not pleasant even to the hungry is the flesh of them, but they provide for the sons of physicians a stomach such as to make those who taste of it good eaters and light, since they are sleepy and easily inflamed, for at night a light flashes within them. So they win over the cormorant-bird, on a share of the catch, to be a steward and to keep watch before them. The cormorant is a sea-bird, but a good bird and free of trouble, and feeble at catching anything, but strong for sleep, and sleeps little; and so it hires out its eyes to those gulls. Whenever, then, they fly off to their feast, the cormorant keeps house about the rock, and they come back at evening, bringing him a tithe of what they have caught, and they sleep now around him who does not sleep, nor would ever be overcome by sleep, unless they themselves wish it. And if it perceives some treachery approaching, the cormorant cries out clear and shrill, and they, lifted up at the signal, flee, holding up their steward, in case he should fail in flight. But here he stands and watches over the gulls. And the part of him that stands in the midst of the birds is the Proteus among the seals, while his not sleeping is beyond Proteus. And here, my boy, we too have come to harbour; and what the name of the island is I do not know, but it should, for my part, be named the Golden Isle, unless the poets have devised such a title in vain for all things beautiful and marvellous. It is inhabited, so far as a small palace can be received, for no one will plough here, nor tend vines, but it abounds in springs, of which some it gives forth pure and cold, some, after heating them, so abundant that they even flood upon the sea; for this surge is heaved up by the springs, boiling and as it were leaping and springing up as from a cauldron, around which this island is set. As to the marvel of the issuing of the springs, whether one should think it belongs to the land or assign it to the sea, this Proteus will decide, for he has come to give judgment on it; but let us look at the inhabited parts of the island; for there is settled in it the image of a beautiful and splendid city, as much as a single house, and a royal child is reared within, and the city is his plaything. For there are theatres, as many as can hold him and these his playmates; and a hippodrome is built, sufficient for the Maltese puppies to run round, for he makes these his horses and harnesses them to yoke and chariot, to be driven by these monkeys, whom the child counts his servants; and this hare, lodged here yesterday, I think, is held by a scarlet leash, like a dog, but does not deign to be bound and wishes to slip its bonds, trusting in its forefeet; and a parrot and a jay, in a wickerwork cage, sing in the island like Sirens, and the one sings what it knows, the other what it learns.

18. THE CYCLOPS.

19. Those reaping the corn and harvesting the vines neither ploughed, my boy, nor planted these things, but the earth sends them up to them of itself; for they are Cyclopes, for whom, I know not why, the poets will have the earth to bear of its own accord what it bears; and they are made shepherds too, the earth pasturing their flocks, whose milk they reckon both drink and meat. They know neither market nor council-house, nor house, but inhabit the clefts of the mountain. Now let the rest be; but Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, the most savage of them, dwells here, stretching a single eyebrow over his one eye, and treading upon his lip with his broad nose, and feeding on men, like the savage among lions. But now he abstains from such food, that he may not appear gluttonous and unpleasing, for he is in love with Galatea as she plays upon this sea, watching her from the mountain; and his pipe is still under his arm and at rest, but he has a shepherd's song, how she is white and skittish and sweeter than the unripe grape, and how he rears fawns and bear-cubs for Galatea. He sings these things beneath an oak, not knowing where his flocks pasture, nor how many they are, nor where the land is. And he is painted still mountainous and terrible, shaking his hair erect and abundant like a pine, and showing jagged teeth from his ravening jaw, and shaggy in breast and belly and down to the nails on his feet; and he says he looks gentle, since he is in love, but he looks savage and still crouching, like beasts overcome by necessity. But she plays on the soft sea, yoking a team of four dolphins that work together and breathe in unison, and maiden handmaids of Triton, attendants of Galatea, drive them, curbing them if they do anything wanton and contrary to the rein. And over her head she lifts a sea-purple scarf against the Zephyr, to be a shade for herself and a sail for the chariot, from which a certain gleam comes upon her forehead and her head, yet not sweeter than the bloom of her cheek. Her hair is not loosed to the Zephyr, for it is wet and too strong for the wind. And lo, her right elbow stands out, bending the white forearm and resting the fingers on her soft shoulder, and her arms swell gently, and her breast rises up, nor does beauty desert even the part above the knee. The foot, my boy, and the grace that ends with it upon the sea, is painted, and grazes the sea as if steering the chariot. A marvel are her eyes, for they look at something beyond the horizon, passing away with the length of the deep.

20. PHORBAS.

21. The river, my boy, is the Cephisus of Boeotia, and not of the unmusical kind; and beside it the Phlegyans, barbarians, are encamped, not yet a city. As for those boxing — you see, I think, Apollo, while the other is Phorbas, whom the Phlegyans set up as king, since he was great beyond all and the most savage of the nation. Apollo boxes against him for the passes; for, having seized the road straight to Phocis and Delphi, no one any longer sacrifices at Pytho, nor brings paeans to the god, and oracles and prophecies and the utterances of the tripod have all failed. He plays the brigand, having cut himself off from the other Phlegyans; for this oak, my boy, he has made his house, and the Phlegyans come to him to be judged, no doubt, in this his palace. And those going to the temple he seizes — the old and the children he sends to the common stock of the Phlegyans to be plundered and ransomed, but with the stronger he strips for the contest, and some he throws in wrestling, some he outruns, some he takes in the pancratium and by his great casts of the discus; and, cutting off their heads, he hangs them on the oak and lives beneath this gore, and they hang from the boughs, rotting; and some you see dry, some fresh, and some have shrunk to skulls, and they grin and seem to wail as the wind blows into them. While he is high-minded over these Olympic contests of his, Apollo comes, having likened himself to a boxer-youth; and as for the form of the god, he is painted unshorn, my boy, with his locks bound up, that he may box with head well-girt, and rays rise up from his forehead, and his cheek sends forth a smile blended with anger, and the glances of his eyes are well-aimed and lift themselves up along with his hands; and his hands are bound with the thongs, sweeter than if there were crowns about them. He has already boxed him, for the right hand, planted in its blow, still shows the hand active and not yet relaxing the figure by which it conquered; and Phorbas lies, and how much of the ground he covers a poet will tell, and the wound has gone to his temple, and the blood is given forth as from a spring. And he is painted savage and swinish in form, such as to feast on strangers rather than to kill them. And the fire from heaven, a thunderbolt, is borne upon the oak to burn the tree together, yet not to take away the memory upon it; for the place in which these things are, my boy, is still "the Oak-Heads."

22. ATLAS.

23. Even with Atlas Heracles contended, without Eurystheus' command, thinking that he would carry the sky better than Atlas; for he saw him bowed and pressed down and sunk upon one knee, with little left him of standing, while he himself could even lift up the sky and set it firm, taking it upon himself for a long time. This ambition, however, he nowhere shows, but says that he grieves with Atlas for what he toils at, and that he would share the burden with him. And Atlas has so gladly laid hold of Heracles as to supplicate him to endure these things. And the one is painted exhausted, so that one may infer from the sweat how much drips from him, and may understand that his arm is trembling, while the other is in love with the labour. This is shown both by the eagerness of his face and by the club thrown down and the hands demanding the labour. As for the shadows, those of Heracles are not yet worth marvelling at, if they are strong — for the figures of those lying down, and the upright ones too, are easily shadowed, and to be exact about these is not yet wise — but the shadows of Atlas approach wisdom, for, as he is thus crouched together, they fall together with one another and do not at all darken the projecting parts, but make light about the hollows and the recesses. The belly, too, of Atlas, even as he stoops forward, one can see, and can understand it as panting, and the things in the heaven that he carries are painted in such an aether as stands about them, and one can make out the bull — the bull that is in the heaven — and the bears, such as are seen there, and the winds. For some are painted with one another, some out of one another, and some have friendship toward one another, while some seem to preserve the strife that is in heaven. Now, then, you will lay these down, Heracles, but not long after you will live with them in heaven, drinking and embracing the form of Hebe; for you shall wed the youngest and oldest of the gods, since through her even those gods are young.

24. ANTAEUS.

25. Such dust as there is in wrestling, that, by a spring of oil, and of two athletes one binding his ear, the other loosing the lion-skin from his shoulder, and convenient hills and pillars and hollow letters — this is Libya and Antaeus, whom the earth sent up to harm strangers, by a brigand's wrestling, I think. While he is busy with this and burying those he destroyed about this very wrestling-ground, as you see, the painting brings Heracles, having now taken these golden apples and being sung of for those of the Hesperides — for it was no marvel of Heracles to take them, but the dragon — and, without so much as bending his knee, they say, he strips for Antaeus in the panting of his journey, straining his eyes to some thought and as it were a consideration of the wrestling, and he has put a rein on his spirit not to carry him outside of reason. But Antaeus, disdainful, is lifted up, "children of wretches," or some such thing, he seems to say to Heracles, strengthening himself with insolence. And if Heracles had cared for wrestling too, he was made by nature no otherwise than as he is painted; and he is painted strong, such a one too as is full of art by reason of the good harmony of his body, and he would be both huge and beyond human in form. There is in him too a bloom of blood, and the veins are as in the throes of some spirit that still lies sunk within them. But Antaeus, my boy, you fear, I think, for he resembles some beast, falling little short of being equal in length and breadth, and the neck is set upon the shoulders, the most of which comes to the neck; and the arm is fashioned as the shoulders are; the breast and belly are these hammered things, and the unstraightness of the shin, but its ignoble strength, knows Antaeus to be strong indeed, yet compact and outside of art. Moreover Antaeus is black, the sun having gone to his dyeing. These, then, are the things of both for the wrestling. But you see them wrestling too, or rather having wrestled, and Heracles in the act of mastering. He throws him above the earth, because the earth wrestled along with Antaeus, arching herself and heaving him up whenever he lay down. So Heracles, at a loss what to do with the earth, has caught Antaeus about the middle, above the flank, where the ribs are, and, setting him upright upon his thigh, and joining his hands, has put his forearm beneath the slack and panting belly and squeezes out the breath and slays Antaeus with the sharp ribs turned toward the liver. And you see, I suppose, the one wailing and looking to the earth that no longer avails him, and Heracles strong and smiling at the deed. The summit of the mountain do not look at idly, but suppose that there, upon it, gods have a watch-place over the contest; for a golden cloud too is painted, beneath which, I think, they are encamped, and this Hermes comes to Heracles to crown him, because he plays the wrestling well for him.

26. HERACLES AMONG THE PYGMIES.

27. As Heracles sleeps in Libya after Antaeus, the Pygmies set upon him, claiming to avenge Antaeus, for they are brothers, forsooth, of Antaeus — a brave sort, not athletes, nor equal to the contest, but earth-born and otherwise strong; and as they come up out of the earth the sand swells gently. For the Pygmies inhabit the earth like ants, and store up a market, and feed not on what is another's but on their own and self-grown, for they sow and reap and stand over a Pygmy team, and they are said to use an axe upon the corn-ear, thinking it to be trees. But, ah, their boldness — against Heracles these go, and they say they will kill him sleeping, though they would fear him not even awake. He sleeps on the soft sand, weariness having stolen over him in the wrestling, and with his whole breast he draws his breath, filling himself greedily with sleep, and Sleep himself stands over him in bodily form, making much, I think, of his own share in the fall of Heracles. Antaeus too lies there, but the art paints Heracles breathing and warm, and Antaeus dead and dry, and leaves him to the earth. The army, the Pygmies, having encompassed Heracles — this one phalanx assails the left hand, while these two companies march against the right as the stronger, and bowmen and a crowd of slingers besiege the two feet, astounded at the shin, how great it is; and those who fight against the head are stationed here — the king, since this seems to them the strongest part — and they bring up against it, as against a citadel, their engines: fire upon the hair, a mattock upon the eyes, certain doors upon the mouth and, I think, the gates of the nose, that Heracles may not breathe when the head is taken. These things are about the sleeper; but see, too, how he rises up and laughs at the danger, and, gathering all the foe together, puts them into the lion-skin and carries them, I think, to Eurystheus.

28. HERACLES MAD.

29. Fight, my brave ones, against Heracles, and go forward! But let him spare the remaining child, two already lying dead and his hand taking aim — how beautiful for Heracles! Great is your contest, and in no way less than what he himself accomplished before his madness. But fear nothing: he is away from you, gazing at Argos and thinking that he slays the sons of Eurystheus; and I heard him in Euripides, leading chariots and bringing the goad to the horses and threatening to sack the house of Eurystheus — for madness is a deceitful thing and dreadful at leading one from things present to things not present. For these, then, this is enough; but for you it is time to attend to the painting. The chamber, on which he has rushed, holds Megara and a child still living; and baskets and lustral water and barley-grains and split wood and a mixing-bowl, the things of the household altar, are all kicked over; and the bull stands ready, and the victims of the breeds are flung beside the altar and the lion-skin. And one child has been struck in the throat, and the arrow has run out through the soft windpipe; another has been pierced to the very breast, and the barbs of the shaft have broken through the middle of the vertebrae, so that it is clear it was thrown into the side. Their cheeks are wet — and do not wonder if they shed a tear or two, for children's tears are golden, perhaps both small and great. As Heracles rages, all the household of his servants stands round, like cowherds about a maddened bull — one plotting to bind, one making a contest of holding him fast, another shouting, one hangs from his hands, one trips his heel, others leap upon him; but he has no perception of them, and he flings off those who come near and tramples them, spitting out much foam, and smiling grim and strange and fixing his eyes upon what he is doing, but carrying the intent of his gaze to the things he has been deceived into. His throat roars, and his neck fills, and the veins about it swell, through which all the supply of the disease flows up to the vital parts of the head. The Fury, who had power to do these things, you have often seen upon the stage, but here you could not see her, for she has lodged within Heracles himself, and dances through the midst of his breast, leaping within him and clouding his reason. Thus far the painting; but the poets carry the drunken revel further and bind Heracles, and that too though they say that Prometheus was loosed by him.

30. THIODAMAS.

31. This man is rough, and, by Zeus, in a rough land, for this is the island of Rhodes, whose roughest part is the Lindians' — a land good to give raisins and figs, but not happy for ploughing and impossible for wagons. The harsh fellow, a farmer in raw old age, conceive to be Thiodamas the Lindian, if you have anywhere heard of him. But, ah, his boldness — Thiodamas is angry with Heracles, because, coming upon him as he ploughed, he slaughtered one of the two oxen and feasts, being thoroughly accustomed to such food. For you have somewhere met Heracles in Pindar, when, coming to the house of Coronus, he eats a whole ox, so as not to count even the bones superfluous. And, coming upon Thiodamas about the time of unyoking, and bringing fire — for stones too are good to kindle — he roasts the ox, trying the flesh whether it is now soft, and all but rebukes the fire as slow. The painting is such as not to have overlooked even the look of the land, for, where the earth has given over a little of itself to be ploughed, it seems, if I understand it, not even to be poor. Heracles keeps the strong part of his mind on the ox, but gives the idle part to the curses of Thiodamas, just enough to let his cheek relax; and the farmer attacks Heracles with stones. And the fashion of his dress is Dorian, and there is dryness about his hair and grime about his forehead, and a knee and an arm such as his dearest land brings her athletes to. This is the deed of Heracles, and this Thiodamas is venerated among the Lindians; whence a plough-ox is sacrificed to Heracles, and they begin the rite with curses, such as, I think, the farmer then used; and Heracles rejoices and grants good things to the Lindians as they curse.

32. THE BURIAL OF ABDERUS.

33. Let us not, my boy, count the mares of Diomedes the labour of Heracles, since he has already taken them and crushed them with his club, and one of them lies, one gasps, one you will say is rearing up, one is falling — barbarous in their manes and shaggy to the hoof and otherwise beasts; and the mangers are full of human limbs and bones, which Diomedes used for this horse-rearing; and the horse-rearer himself is more savage to look upon than the mares beside which he has fallen. But this labour we must think the harder, both because Love, beyond the many things, imposed it on Heracles, and because there was no small toil over it; for Heracles carries Abderus half-eaten, having torn him from the mares; and they feasted on him while he was still soft and younger than Iphitus, and this one may infer from the remains too, for they still lie beautiful in the lion-skin. The tears over them, and if he embraced any of them or said anything in lament, and the heaviness of his face in mourning — let these be granted to another lover too; let a pillar also have some honour, standing over the tomb of a beautiful one; but he does not what the many do, but raises a city for Abderus, which we call after him, and a contest shall be ordained for Abderus, and there shall be contested over him boxing and pancratium and wrestling and all the games except those of horses.

34. STILL LIFE.

35. The hare in the little house is the catch of a net, and it sits on its haunches, moving its forefeet a little and lifting its ear, but it also looks with the whole of its gaze, and wishes to see behind it too, out of suspicion and its constant cowering; while the other, hung from the dry oak, its belly burst and slipped down through its feet, accuses the swiftness of the dog, who sits beneath the oak resting himself and showing that he alone made the catch. The ducks near the hare — count them ten — and the geese, as many as the ducks, you must not feel for fatness, for the part about the breast is all plucked, the fat there having the advantage in floating birds. And if you delight in leavened loaves or eight-piece loaves, those are near at hand in a deep basket; and if you want some relish, you have them themselves, for they share in fennel and parsley and besides in poppy, which is the seasoning of sleep. But if you long for a cooked dish, put that off to the cooks; do you eat the uncooked things. Why, then, do you not snatch the tree-ripened fruits, of which on each basket is this heap? Do you not know that a little later you will not meet such as these, but stripped already of their dew? And do not overlook the dessert, if you care at all for medlar and for chestnuts, which a most smooth plant rears in a sharp husk, strange to look at. Away with honey too, when this dried fig-cake is present, and, whatever you may call it, so sweet a confection. And native leaves wrap it round, giving the cake its bloom. I think the painting is bringing these gifts to the master of the farm, and he is bathing, perhaps, with an eye to Pramnian or Thasian wines, since it is possible to drink the sweet new must at the table, that, going down to town, he may smell of the wine-press and of freedom from cares, and may belch in the face of the town-loafers.

36. THE BIRTH OF ATHENA.

37. The gods and goddesses are astounded — it having been said before that not even the Nymphs are absent from heaven, but are present to them with the rivers of which they are born — and they shudder at Athena, just now burst forth in armour from the head of Zeus by the contrivances of Hephaestus, as the axe shows. As for the material of the panoply, one could not infer it, for as many as are the colours of the rainbow shifting into now one, now another light, so many are those of the arms too; and Hephaestus seems at a loss by what means he may win the goddess, for his bait has been used up beforehand in that the arms sprang forth together with her. Zeus pants with pleasure, like those who have toiled out a great contest for great fruit, and beholds his daughter, proud of the birth; nor is there anything terrible of Hera here, but she rejoices, as if Athena had been born of her too. And already two peoples sacrifice to Athena upon two acropolises, the Athenians and the Rhodians, land and sea, the one with offerings without fire and unfinished, while the people at Athens have fire there, and the savour of victims, and the smoke is painted as it were fragrant and flowing up with the savour, whence the goddess came to them as to the wiser and those who sacrificed well; but to the Rhodians, it is said, gold flowed from heaven and filled their houses and their lanes, Zeus having broken a cloud upon them, because they too understood Athena. And upon the acropolis stands the spirit Wealth, painted winged, as from the clouds, and golden from the material in which he appeared. He is painted also seeing, for he came to them of forethought.

38. THE LOOMS.

39. Since you sing of the web of Penelope, having met with a good painting, and it seems to you to have all the marks of a loom — the warp is sufficiently stretched, and flowers lie beneath the threads, and the shuttle all but utters a sound, and Penelope herself weeps with such tears as those with which Homer melts the snow — and she unweaves what she has woven, look too at the spider weaving close by, whether the painter has not woven in alongside both Penelope and the Seres still, whose threads are over-fine and scarcely visible. These are the gates of a house not faring well, and you will say it is widowed of masters, and within an empty court shows through, and not even the columns any longer prop it up, by reason of their sinking and falling, but it is inhabited by spiders alone, for the creature loves to weave in quiet. Look too at the spinnings: they spit out this thread and let it down to the floor, and the painter shows them coming down by it and climbing up again, "aloft in the air," as Hesiod says, and practising to fly; and they weave additional houses at the corners, some broad, some hollow — of these the broad ones are good for the summer, while those they weave hollow are good in winter. Beautiful, then, are these too of the painter; for to work out a spider so minutely, and to dapple it according to nature, and to paint its wool somewhat wretched and wild, belongs to a good and clever craftsman of the truth; and he has woven for us even its delicate parts. For lo: this square thread is set about the corners, like a cable of the web, and to the thread is tied a delicate web with many circles rounded off, and stretched meshes are woven from the first circle to the smallest, leaving between one another as much as the circles do. And the spinners walk through them, drawing tight the slackened threads. But they also win a wage for their weaving and feed on the flies whenever they are entangled in the webs; whence the painter has not passed over even their hunting, for one is held by the foot, one by the tip of the wing, one is eaten at the head, and they gasp, trying to escape; yet they do not disturb or break up the web.

40. ANTIGONE.

41. Those about Tydeus and Capaneus, and if there be any Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus here, the Athenians will bury, having undertaken the contest over the bodies; but Polyneices son of Oedipus, Antigone his sister buries by night, having gone forth from the wall, although it was proclaimed concerning him that he should not be buried, nor united to the earth which he was enslaving. In the plain, then, are corpses upon corpses, and horses as they fell, and the arms, as they slipped from the men, and this is the mire of gore, in which they say Enyo delights; and beneath the wall the bodies of the other captains are great and beyond the measure of men, while Capaneus is likened to a giant, for, besides his size, he has been struck by Zeus and is still smouldering. But Polyneices, great and like them, Antigone has lifted up, and will bury him beside the monument of Eteocles, thinking to reconcile the brothers, as much as is left. What shall we say, my boy, of the wisdom of the painting? For the moon casts a light not yet to be trusted by the eyes, and the maiden, full of amazement, has set herself to lament, embracing her brother with strong arms, yet she masters the lament, fearing, no doubt, the ears of the guards; and, wishing to gaze round at all about her, she nonetheless looks at her brother, bending her knee to the ground. The shoot of the pomegranate is self-grown, my boy, for the Furies are said to have planted it as a garden upon the tomb, and if you pluck of the fruit, blood is given forth even now. A marvel too is the fire upon the offerings to the dead, for it does not unite with itself, nor mingle its flame, but turns thence now one way, now another, and shows the unmingled nature of the tomb.

42. EVADNE.

43. The pyre, and the things slaughtered into it, and the corpse laid upon the pyre, greater than one would think a man, and the woman lifting herself for so violent a leap into the fire — these things, my boy, are painted for the following reason. The kinsmen of Capaneus bury him at Argos; but he died at Thebes by the act of Zeus, having already mounted the wall. For you have somewhere heard from the poets that, having boasted somewhat against Zeus, he was struck with a thunderbolt and died before he fell to the ground, when the other captains too fell beneath the Cadmean wall. The Athenians having conquered, it is granted that they be buried; and Capaneus is laid out, having all else like Tydeus and Hippomedon and the rest, but this beyond all captains and kings: for Evadne his wife has set herself to die over him, neither drawing a sword to her throat nor hanging herself by any noose, such as women have chosen over their husbands, but she casts herself into the very fire, thinking she does not yet have her husband unless she have him too. Such, then, is the shroud of Capaneus; and the woman, like those who deck themselves with crowns and gold for the temples, that the offering may be made bright and to the favour of the gods, having so adorned herself and not looking pitiable, leaps into the fire, calling, I think, on her husband, for she seems to cry out, and she seems to me as if she would hold her head too beneath the thunderbolt on behalf of Capaneus. But the Loves, making these things their own, kindle the pyre from their little torches, and say the fire does not defile, but that they will use a sweeter and purer one, having buried with it those who used love well.

44. THEMISTOCLES.

45. A Greek among barbarians, a man among those who are not men, in very Attic fashion as to his cloak, declaims something wise, I think, transforming them and shifting them from their effeminacy. These are the Medes, and Babylon in the midst, and the royal sign, the golden eagle upon the shield, and the king upon the golden throne, dappled like a peacock. The painter does not deserve praise if he has well imitated a tiara and a calasiris or a kandys, or the monstrous shapes of beasts with which the barbarians embroider; but let him be praised for painting on the gold a man fine-spun and preserving what he has been forced to, and, by Zeus, for the appearance of the eunuchs; and let the court be golden, for it seems not to be painted but built, and we perceive the frankincense and myrrh, for the barbarians thus corrupt the freedom of the air; and let one spear-bearer converse with another about the Greek, astounded at him for a certain understanding of his great deeds. For you hear, I think, of Themistocles son of Neocles, that he came from Athens to Babylon after the divine victory of Salamis, at a loss where in Greece he should be safe, and conversed with the king about the things from which Xerxes had profited while he himself was general. Nothing of the Median scene astounds him, but he has taken courage, as one fixed upon the stone, and his voice is not in our native manner, Themistocles speaking Median, for he toiled this out there. And if you disbelieve, look at the listeners, how intelligently they signify with their eyes; look too at Themistocles, how the posture of his face is like those who speak, but the intent of his eyes has wandered through the use of speaking, since he learned anew.

46. PALAESTRA.

47. The place is the most beautiful of Arcadia, and that in which Zeus most delights — we call it Olympia — but there is not yet a prize of wrestling, nor a love of wrestling, but there will be. For Palaestra, daughter of Hermes, having now come of age in Arcadia, has invented wrestling, and the earth somehow rejoices in the invention, since the warlike iron will be laid up at truce among men, and stadiums will seem sweeter than camps, and they will contend naked. The wrestling-matches are children, for these high-spirited ones frolic about Palaestra, one over another, twisting themselves into her; and they would be earth-born, for the maiden says that, out of manliness, she would neither willingly marry anyone nor bear a child. And the wrestling-matches are kept apart from one another, for the grip joined with boxing is the strongest. As for the form of Palaestra, if it should be likened to a youth, she will be a maiden; but if it be taken as a maiden, she will seem a youth; for her hair is such as not even to be plaited, and her eye is of both characters, and her eyebrow such as to despise both lovers and wrestlers, for she says she is strong against both nations; and no one could touch her breasts even in wrestling, so much does she surpass in art. And the breasts themselves show a little of the impulse, as in a soft youth; and she praises nothing feminine, whence she does not even wish to be white-armed, nor does she seem to praise the Dryads, because they whiten themselves in the shade, but she asks colour of the Sun, since she dwells in hollow Arcadia, and he brings upon her, as it were, a kind of bloom and reddens the maiden with a moderate pomegranate-tint. To make the maiden sit, my boy, is something quite wise of the painter, for the shadows are most numerous for those sitting, and the sitting is sufficiently graceful for her; this is done too by the olive-shoot in her bare lap. And Palaestra, no doubt, welcomes this plant, since it aids wrestling and men greatly delight in it.

48. DODONA.

49. The golden dove still upon the oak, the wise one among oracles, and the prophecies which she utters from Zeus; and there lies this axe, which Hellus the woodcutter let fall, from whom the Helli at Dodona are named; and fillets are hung upon the oak, since, like the tripod at Pytho, it brings forth oracles. And one comes to ask it something, another to sacrifice, and this chorus from Thebes stands round the oak, making the wisdom of the tree their own; and the golden bird too, I think, was lured there. And the interpreters of Zeus, whom Homer knew as "with unwashed feet and sleeping on the ground," are men untaught and not yet furnished for living, and they say they would not even furnish themselves, for Zeus rejoices in them since they welcome the natural state; for these are priests, and one has charge of the roofing, one of the prayer, another must arrange the cakes, another the barley-grains and baskets, one sacrifices something, one will not let another flay the victim. And here are the Dodonian priestesses, of harsh and holy aspect, for they seem to breathe of incense and libations. And the place itself, my boy, is painted full of fragrance and full of prophetic utterance, and a bronze Echo is honoured in it, whom, I think, you see putting her hand to her mouth, since a bronze vessel was dedicated to Zeus at Dodona, sounding for much of the day and until someone took hold of it, not silent.

50. THE HOURS.

51. That the gates of heaven are in the keeping of the Hours, let us leave to Homer to know and hold, for it is likely that he conversed with the Hours when he was allotted the aether; but this, which the painting is intent upon, is easy for another too to make out. For the Hours, coming to the earth in their own forms and joining hands, wind round the year, I think, and the earth, being wise, bears for them in abundance all the things of the year. "Do not tread on the hyacinth or the rose," I will not say to the spring Hours, for by being trodden it appears sweeter and breathes something of the Hours themselves. "Do not step on the soft ploughlands," I will not say to the winter Hours among them, for to have them trodden by the Hours will make the corn-ear. These tawny ones tread upon the hair of the corn-ears, yet not so as to break or bend them, but they are so light that they do not even bow down the crop. "It is charming of you, vines, to wish to lay hold of the autumn Hours," for you love them, no doubt, because they make you beautiful and sweet-wined. These, then, are as it were the husbandry of the painting; but the Hours themselves are most delightful and of divine art. For what is their singing like, and what is the whirl of the circle, and that none of them appears behind us, because they all as it were come on — and the arm is up, and there is the freedom of unbound hair, and the cheek is warm from the running, and the eyes join the dance. Perhaps they grant something to be told in myth about the painter; for it seems to me that, meeting the Hours dancing, he was shaken by them into his art, the gods perhaps hinting that one must paint with beauty.