 Section 18 of Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. Section 18. Selections from Varia Historia by Elianus Claudius. Elianus Claudius, 2nd century AD. According to his Varia Historia, Elianus Claudius was a native of Prenesti and a citizen of Rome at the time of the Emperor Hadrian. He taught Greek rhetoric at Rome and hence was known as the Sophist. He spoke and wrote Greek with the fluency and ease of a native Athenian and gained thereby the epithet of the honey-tongued. He lived to be sixty years of age and never married because he would not incur the responsibility of children. The Varia Historia is the most noteworthy of his works. It is a curious and interesting collection of short narratives, anecdotes and other historical, biographical and antiquarian matter selected from the Greek authors whom he said he loved to study. And it is valuable because it preserves scraps of works now lost. The extracts are either in the words of the original or give the compiler's version, for as he says he liked to have his own way and to follow his own taste. They are grouped without method, but in this very lack of order which shows that browsing instinct which Charles Lamb declared to be essential to a right feeling for literature, the charm of the book lies. This habit of straying and his lack of style proved Alianus more of a vagabond in the domain of letters than a rhetorician. His other important book, De animallium natura, on the nature of animals, is a medley of his own observations both in Italy and during his travels as far as Egypt. For several hundred years it was a popular and standard book on zoology, and even as late as the fourteenth century, Manuel Phyllis, a Byzantine poet, founded upon it a poem on animals. Like the Varria Historia it is scrappy and gossiping. He leaps from subject to subject, from elephants to dragons, from the liver of mice to the uses of oxen. There was however method in this disorder, for as he says he sought thereby to give variety and hold his reader's attention. The book is interesting moreover as giving us a personal glimpse of the man and of his methods of work. For in a concluding chapter he states general principle on which he composed, that he has spent great labor, thought, and care in writing it, that he has preferred the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of wealth, that for his part he found more pleasure in observing the habits of the lion, the panther, and the fox, in listening to the song of the nightingale and in studying the migrations of cranes, than in mere heaping up of riches and finding himself numbered among the great, and that throughout his work he has sought to adhere to the truth. Elianus was more of a moralizer than an artist in words. His style has no distinctive literary qualities, and in both of his chief works is the evident intention to set forth religious and moral principles. He wrote moreover some treatises expressly on religious and philosophic subjects, and some letters on husbandry. The Varria Historia has been twice translated into English by Abraham Fleming in 1576, and by Thomas Stanley, son of the poet and philosopher Stanley, in 1665. Fleming was a poet and scholar of the English Renaissance who translated from the ancients and made a digest of Hollinshed's History of England. His version of Elianus loses nothing by its quaint wording, as will be seen from the subjoined stories. The full title of the book is, A Register of Histories containing martial exploits of worthy warriors, politic practices, and civil magistrates, wise sentences of famous philosophers and other matters manifold and memorable, written in Greek by Elianus Claudius and delivered in English by Abraham Fleming, 1576. All the selections following are from a register of histories of certain notable men that made themselves playfellas with children, Hercules, as some say, assuaged the tediousness of his labours which he sustained in open and common games with playing. This Hercules, I say, being an incomparable warrior and the son of Jupiter and Latona, made himself a playfella with boys. Euripides the poet introduced and bringeth in the self-same God speaking in his own person and saying, I play because choice and change of labours is delectable and sweet unto me, which words he utters holding a boy by the hand. Socrates also was a spy of Elcibiades upon time, playing with Ramplicles, who was in manner but a child. I guess a laus riding upon a rude or cock-horse as they term it, playing with his son being but a boy, and when a certain man passing by saw him so due and laughed therewithal, I guess a laus said thus, Now hold thy peace and say nothing, but when thou art a father, I doubt not thou wilt do as fathers should do with their children. Architas Tarantinas, being both an authority in the commonwealth, that is to say a magistrate and also a philosopher, not of the obscurest sort, but a precise lover of wisdom. At that time he was a husband, a housekeeper, and maintained many servants. He was greatly delighted with their younglings, to play often times with his servant's children, and was want, when he was a dinner and supper, to rejoice in the sight and presence of them. It was Tarantinas, as all men know, a man of famous memory and of noble name, of a certain Sicilian, whose eyesight was wonderful sharp and quick. There was in Sicilia a certain man, imdued with such sharpness, quickness, and clearness of sight, if report may challenge credit, that he could see from Lilibeis to Carthage, with such perfection and constancy that his eyes could not be deceived, and that he took true and just account of all ships and vessels, which went under sail from Carthage, over skipping not so much as one in the universal number. Something strange it is, that is recorded of Argus, a man that had no less than a hundred eyes unto whose custody Juno committed Io, the daughter of Anacus, being transformed into a young heifer, while Argus, his luck being such, was slain sleeping. But the goddess Juno so provided that all his eyes, whatsoever became of his carcass, should be placed on the peacock's tail, whereupon, so thence it came to pass, the peacock is called Avis Junonia, or Lady Juno-bird. This historic is notable, but yet the former, in my opinion, is more memorable. The Law of the Lackedemonians Against Covetousness A certain young man of Lackedemonia, having bought a plot of land for a small and easy price, and as they say, dog cheap, was arrested to appear before the magistrates, and after the trial of his matter he was charged with a penalty. The reason why he was judged worthy this punishment was because he, being but a young man, gaped so greedily after gain and yawned after filthy covetousness. For it was a most commendable thing among the Lackedemonians not only to fight against the enemy in battle manfully, but also to wrestle and struggle with covetousness, that mischievous monster, valiantly. That sleep is the brother of death, and of Gorgias straying to his end. Gorgias lay in tennis, looking towards the end of his life, and being wasted with the weakness and wearisomeness of drooping old age, falling into sharp and sore sickness upon a time, slumbered and slept upon his soft pillow a little season. Under whose chamber a familiar friend of his, resorting to visit him in his sickness, demanded how he felt himself affected in body. To whom Gorgias lay in tennis made this pithy and plausible answer. Now sleep beginneth to deliver me up into the jurisdiction of his brother Jermaine, death. Of the voluntary and willing death of Calanis. The end of Calanis deserveeth no less commendation than it procureth admiration. It is no less praiseworthy than it was worthy wonder. The manner therefore was thus. The within named Calanis, being a Sophister of India, when he had taken his long leave and last farewell of Alexander King of Macedonia, and of his life in like manner, being willing, desirous, and earnest to set himself at liberty from the clogs, chains, bars, bolts, and fetters of the prison of the body, piled up a bonfire in the suburbs of Babylon of dry wood and chosen sticks, provided of purpose to give a sweet savor and an odoriferous smell in burning. The kinds of wood which he used to serve his turn in this case were these, cedar, rosemary, cypress, myrtle, and laurel. These things duly ordered. He buckled himself to his accustomed exercise, namely, running and leaping into the middest of the wood stack. He stood bolt upright, having about his head a garland made of the green leaves of reeds, the sun shining full in his face, as he stood in the pile of sticks, whose glorious majesty, glittering with bright beams of amiable beauty, he adored and worshipped. Furthermore, he gave a token and signed to the Macedonians to kindle the fire, which, when they had done accordingly, he, being compassed round about with flickering flames, stood stoutly and valiantly in one and the self-same place, and did not shrink one foot until he gave up the ghost. Where at Alexander unveiling, as at a strange sight and world's wonder, said, as the voice goes, these words, Calanus hath subdued, overcome, and vanquished stronger enemies than I. For Alexander made war against porous, texilus, and Darius, but Calanus did denounce and did battle to labor and fought fiercely and manfully with death. Of delicate dinners, sumptuous suppers, and prodigal banqueting. Timothy, the son of Conan, captain of the Athenians, leaving his sumptuous fare and royal banqueting, being desired and entertained of Plato to a feast philosophical, seasoned with contentation and music. At his returning home from that supper of Plato, he said unto his familiar friends, they which supp with Plato this night are not sick or out of temper the next day following. And presently upon the annunciation of that speech, Timothy took occasion to find fault with great dinners, suppers, feasts, and banquets, furnished with excessive fare, immoderate consuming of meats, delicates, dainties, toothsome junkets, and such like, which abridged the next day's joy, gladness, delight, mirth, and pleasantness. Yea, that sentence is consonant and agreeable to the former and imported the same sense notwithstanding in words that hath a little difference. That the within named Timothy, meeting the next day after with Plato, said to him, You philosophers, friend Plato, supp better the day following than the night present. Of bestowing time, and how walking up and down was not allowable among the Lachodemonians. The Lachodemonians were of this judgment, that measurable spending of time was greatly to be esteemed, and therefore did they conform by themselves to any kind of labour most earnestly and painful. Not withdrawing their hands from works of much bodily moving, not permitting any particular person being a citizen to spend the time in idleness, to waste it in unthrifty gaming, to consume it in trifling, in vain toys and lewd loitering, all which are at variance and enmity with virtue. Of this latter, among many testimonies, take this for one. When it was reported to the magistrates that the Lachodemonians called Ephori, in manner of complaint, that the inhabitants of Desolea used afternoon's walkings, they sent unto them messengers with their commandments, saying, Go not up and down like loiterers, nor walk not abroad at your pleasure, pampering the wantonness of your natures rather than accustoming yourselves to exercises of activity. For it becomeeth the Lachodemonians to regard their health and to maintain their safety, not with walking to and fro, how Socrates suppressed the pride and haughtiness of Elcibiades. Socrates, seeing Elcibiades puffed up with pride and broiling in ambitious behavior, because possessor of such great wealth and lord of so large lands, brought him to a place where the table did hang containing a description of the world universal. Then did Socrates will Elcibiades to seek out the situation of Athens, which when he found, Socrates proceeded further and willed him to point out that plot of ground where his lands and lordships lay. Elcibiades, having sought a long time and yet never the nearer, said to Socrates that his livings were not set forth in that table, nor any description of his possession therein made evident. When Socrates rebuked with this secret quip, an art thou so arrogant, saith he, and so haughty in heart, for that which is no parcel of the world, of certain waste goods and sprend thrifts. Prodigal lavishing of substance, unthrifty and wasteful spending, voluptuousness of life and palpable sensuality brought Pericles, Caleus, the son of Hipponicus, and Nicias not only to necessity, but to poverty and beggary. Who, after their money-wax scant and turn to a very low ebb, day three drinking a poisoned potion one to another, which was the last cup that they kissed with their lips, passed out of this life as it were from a banquet to the powers infernal. End of Section 18 Section 19 of Library of the World's Best Literature Ancient and Modern Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Martin Giesen Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern Volume 1 Section 19 Selections from Oration Against Ctesiphon by Iskinés Iskinés 1889-314 BC The life and oratory of Iskinés fall fittingly into that period of Greek history when the free spirit of the people which had created the arts of Pindar and Sophocles, Pericles, Pidias and Plato was becoming the spirit of slaves and of savants who sought to forget the freedom of their fathers in learning, luxury and the formalism of deducers of rules. To this slavery Iskinés himself contributed both in action with Philip of Macedon and in speech. Philip had entered upon a career of conquest, a policy legitimate in itself and beneficial as judged by its larger fruits but ruinous to the advanced civilisation existing in the Greek city-states below, whose high culture was practically confiscated to spread out over a waste of semi-barbarism and mix with alien cultures. Among his Greek sympathisers Iskinés was perhaps his chief support in the conquest of the Greek world that lay to the south within his reach. Iskinés was born in 389 BC, six years before his lifelong rival Dimosthenes. If we may trust that rival's elaborate details of his early life, his father taught a primary school and his mother was overseer of modern initiatory rights to both of which occupations Iskinés gave his youthful hand and assistance. He became in time a third-rate actor and the duties of Clarke or scribe presently made him familiar with the executive and legislative affairs of Athens. Both vocations served as an apprenticeship to the public speaking towards which his ambition was turning. We hear of his serving as a heavy-armed soldier in various Athenian expeditions and of his being privileged to carry to Athens in 349 BC the first news of the victory of Taminai in New Boya in reward for the bravery he had shown in the battle. Two years afterward he was sent as an envoy into the Peloponnesus with the object of forming a union of the Greeks against Philip for the defense of their liberties. But his mission was unsuccessful. Toward the end of the same year he served as one of the ten ambassadors sent to Philip to discuss terms of peace. The harangs of the Athenians at this meeting were followed in turn by a speech of Philip whose openness of manner pertinent arguments and pretended desire for a settlement led to a second embassy empowered to receive from him the oath of allegiance and peace. It was during this second embassy that Demosthenes said he discovered the filipizing spirit and foul play of Ayskines. Upon their return to Athens, Ayskines rose before the assembly to assure the people that Philip had come to Thermopylae as the friend and ally of Athens. We, your envoys have satisfied him said Ayskines. You will hear a benefit still more direct which we have determined Philip to confer upon you but which it would not be prudent as yet to specify. But the alarm of the Athenians at the presence of Philip within the gates was not allayed. The king, however, anxious to temporize with them until he could receive his army supplies by sea, suborned Ayskines who assured his countrymen of Philip's peaceful intentions. On another occasion by an inflammatory speech at Delphi he so played upon the susceptibilities of the rude Anfictiones that they rushed forth uprooted their neighbour's harvest fields and began a devastating war of Greek against Greek. Internal dissensions promised the shrewd Macedonian the conquest he sought. At length in August 338 came Philip's victory at Hyronia and the complete prostration of Greek power. Ayskines who had hitherto disclaimed all connection with Philip now boasted of his intimacy with the king. As Philip's friend while yet an Athenian offered himself as ambassador to entreat leniency from the victor toward the unhappy citizens. The memorable defense of Demosthenes against the attack of Ayskines was delivered in 330 BC. Seven years before this, Ctesiphon had proposed to the Senate that the patriotic devotion and labours of Demosthenes should be acknowledged by the gift of a golden crown. A recognition willingly accorded. But as this decision to be legal must be confirmed by the assembly Ayskines gave notice that he would proceed against Ctesiphon for proposing an unconstitutional measure. He managed to postpone action on the notice for six years. At last he seized a moment when the victories of Philip's son and successor Alexander were swaying popular feeling to deliver a bitter harangue against the whole life and policy of his political opponent. Demosthenes answered in that magnificent oration called by the Latin writers de corona. Ayskines was not upheld by the people's vote. He retired to Asia and it is said opened a school of rhetoric at Rhodes. There is a legend that after he had one day delivered in his school the masterpiece of his enemy, his students broke into applause. What he exclaimed, if you had heard the wild beast under it out himself. Ayskines was what we call nowadays a self-made man. The great faults of his life, his filipizing policy and his confessed corruption arose doubtless from the results of useful poverty. A covetousness growing out of want and a lack of principles of conduct which a broader education would have instilled. As an orator he was second only to Demosthenes and while he may at times be compared to his rival in intellectual force and persuasiveness his moral defects which it must be remembered that he himself acknowledged make a comparison of character impossible. His chief works remaining to us are the speeches against T. Marcus on the embassy against Ctesiphon and letters which are included in the edition of G. E. Benzler 1855 to 60. In his history of Greece Groot discusses at length of course adversely the influence of Ayskines especially controverting Mitford's favorable view and his denunciation of Demosthenes and the patriotic party. The trend of recent writing is towards Mitford's estimate of Philip's policy and therefore less blame for the Greek statesman who supported it though without Mitford's virulence towards its opponents. Mahafi, Greek life and thought holds the whole contest over the crown to be mere academic threshing of old straw the fundamental issues being made obsolete by the rise of a new world under Alexander. A defence and an attack from the oration against Ctesiphon in regard to the calamities with which I am attacked. I wish to say a word or two before Demosthenes speaks. He will allege I am told that the state has received distinguished services from him while from me it has suffered injury on many occasions and that the deeds of Philip and Alexander and the crimes to which they gave rise are to be imputed to me. Demosthenes is so clever in the art of speaking that he does not bring accusation against me, against any point in my conduct of affairs or any councils I may have brought to our public meetings. But he rather casts reflections upon my private life and charges me with the criminal silence. Moreover, in order that no circumstance may escape his calamity he attacks my habits of life when I was in school with my young companions. And even in the introduction of his speech he will say that I have begun this prosecution not for the benefit of the state but because I want to make a show of myself to Alexander and gratify Alexander's resentment against him. He purposes, as I learn, to ask why I blame his administration as a whole and yet never hindered or indicted any one separate act. Why, after a considerable interval of attention to public affairs, I now return to prosecute this action. But what I am now about to notice a matter which I hear Demosthenes will speak of about this by the Olympian deities I cannot but feel a righteous indignation. He will liken my speech to the siren thus it seems and the legend to nint their art is that those who listen to them are not charmed and destroyed wherefore the music of the sirens is not in good repute. Even so, he will aver that knowledge of my words and myself is a source of injury to those who listen to me. I, for my part, think it becomes no one to urge such allegations against me for it is a shame if one who makes charges cannot point to facts as full evidence. And if such charges must be made the making surely does not become Demosthenes but rather some military man, some man of action who has done good work for the state and who in his untried speech vies with the skill of protagonists because he is conscious that he can tell no one of his deeds and because he sees his accusers able to show his audience that he had done what in fact he never had done. But when a man made up entirely of words of sharp words and overraught sentences when he takes refuge in simplicity and plain facts who then can endure it whose tongue is like a flute in as much as if you take it away the rest is nothing. This man thinks himself worthy of a crown that his honour should be proclaimed but should you not rather send into exile this common pest of the Greeks or will you not seize upon him as a thief and avenge yourself upon him whose mouthings have enabled him to bear full sale through our commonwealth. Remember the season in which you cast your vote. In a few days the Pythian games will come round and the convention of the Hellenic states will hold its sessions. Our state has been concerned on account of the measures of Demosthenes regarding present crises. You will appear if you crown him accessory to those who broke the general peace but if on the other hand you refuse the crown you will free the state from blame. Do not take counsel as if it were for an alien as if it concerned as it does the private interest of your city and do not dispense your honours carelessly but with judgement and let your public gifts be the distinctive possession of men most worthy. Not only here but also look around you and consider who are the men who support Demosthenes are they his fellow hunters or his associates in old athletic sports know by Olympian Zeus he was never engaged in hunting the wild boar nor in care for the well-being of his body but he was toiling at the art of those who keep up possessions take into consideration also his art of juggling when he says that by his embassy he rested by Zantium from the hands of Philip and that his eloquence led the Achananians to revolt and struck dumb the Thebans he thinks for sooth that you have fallen to such a degree of weakness that he can persuade you that you have been entertaining persuasion herself in your city and not a vile slanderer and when at the conclusion of his argument he calls upon his partners in bribe taking then fancy that you see upon these steps from which I now address you the benefactors of your state arrayed against the insolence of those men so long who adorned our commonwealth with most noble laws a man who loved wisdom a worthy legislator asking you in dignified and sober manner as became his character not to follow the pleading of dimostinies rather than your oaths and laws Aristides seemed to the Greeks their tributes to whose daughters after he had died the people gave portions imagine Aristides complaining bitterly at the insult to public justice and asking if you are not ashamed that when your fathers banished Arthorias the zelion who brought gold from the Medes although while he was the city and a guest of the people of Athens they were scarce restrained from killing him and by proclamation forbade him the city and any dominion the Athenians had power over nevertheless that you are going to crown dimostinies who did not indeed bring gold from the Medes but who received bribes from still in his possession and Themistocles and those who died at Marathon and at Plataea and the very graves of your ancestors will they not cry out if you venture to grant a crown to one who confesses that he united with the barbarians against the Greeks and now Arth and son virtue and intelligence and thou o genius of the humanities who teaches us to judge between the noble and the ignoble I have come to your sucker and I have done if I have made my pleading with dignity and worthily as I looked to the flagrant wrong which it called forth I have spoken as I wished if I have done ill it was as I was able do you way well my words and all that is left unsaid and vote in accordance with justice and the interests of the city end of section 19 recording by Martin Geesen in Hazelmere Surrey section 20 of the library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Linda Dodge library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 20 essay on Escalus by John Williams White Escalus BC 525 to 456 by John Williams White the mightiest of Greek tragic poets was the son of Euphorion an Athenian noble and was born BC 525 BC 525 when he was a lad of 11 the tyrant Hipparchus fell in a public street of Athens under the daggers of Harmonius and Aristogiton later Escalus saw the family of tyrants which for 50 years had ruled Attica with varying fortunes from the land with a boy's eager interest he followed the establishment of the Athenian democracy by Kleisthenes he grew to manhood in stirring times the new state was engaged in war with the powerful neighboring island of Agina on the eastern horizon was gathering the cloud that was to burst in storm at Marathon Escalus was trained in that early school of Athenian greatness whose masters were multiades Aristides and Themistocles during the struggle with Persia fought out on Greek soil the poet was at the height of his physical powers and we may feel confidence in the tradition that he fought not only at Marathon but also at Salamis two of his extant tragedies breathe the very spirit of war and show a soldier's experience and the epitaph upon his tomb which was said to have been written by himself recorded how he had been one of those who met the barbarians in the first shock of the great struggle and had helped to save his country how brave in battle was Euphorian son the long haired mead can tell who fell at Marathon before Escalus Attic tragedy had been essentially lyrical it arose from the Dithyramic chorus that was sung at the festivals of Dionysus Thespus had introduced the first actor who in the pauses of the choral song related in monologue the adventures of the God or engage in dialogue with the leader of the chorus to Escalus is due the invention of the second actor this essentially changed the character of the performance the dialogue could now be carried on by the two actors who were thus able to enact a complete story the functions of the chorus became less important and the lyrical element was subordinated to the action the word drama signifies action the number of actors was subsequently increased to three and Escalus in his later plays used this number this restriction imposed upon the Greek playwright does not mean that he was limited to two or three characters in his play but that only two or at most three of these might take part in the action at once the same actor might assume different parts the introduction of the second actor was so capital and innovation that it rightly regarded as the creator of the drama for in his hands tragedy first became essentially dramatic this is his great distinction but his powerful genius wrought other changes he perfected if he did not discover the practice of introducing three plays upon a connected theme technically named a trilogy with an after piece of lighter character he invented the tragic dress and buskin and perfected the tragic mask he improved the tragic dance and by his use of scenic decoration and stage machinery secured effects that were unknown before him his chief claim to superior excellence however lies after all in his poetry splendid addiction vivid in the portraiture of character and powerful in the expression of passion he is regarded by many competent critics as the greatest tragic poet of all time the Greek lexicographer Suidas reports that Escalus wrote to 90 plays the titles of 72 of these have been handed down in an ancient register he brought out the first of these at age of 25 and as he died at the age of 69 he wrote on an average two plays each year throughout his lifetime such fertility would be incredible were not similar facts authentically recorded of the older tragic poets of Greece the Greek drama moreover made unusual demands on the creative powers of the poet it was lyrical and the lyrics were accompanied by the dance all these elements poetry song and dance the poet contributed and we gain a new sense of the force of the word poet it means creator when we contemplate his triple function moreover he often staged the play himself and sometimes he acted in it Escalus was singularly successful in an age that produced many great poets he took the first prize at least 13 times and as he brought out four plays at each contest more than half his plays were adjudged by his contemporaries to be of the highest quality after the poet's death plays which he had written but which had not been acted in his lifetime were brought out by his sons and nephews it is on record that his son Euphoria took the first prize four times with the plays of his father so the poet's art lived after him and suffered no eclipse only seven complete plays of Escalus are still extant the best source of the text of these is a manuscript preserved in the Laurentian library at Florence in Italy written in the 10th or 11th century after Christ the number of plays still extant is small but fortunately among them is the only complete Greek trilogy that we possess and luckily also the other four served to mark successive stages in the poet's artistic development the trilogy of the Orrestia is certainly his masterpiece in some of the other plays it is clearly seen to be still bound by the limitations which hampered the earlier writers of Greek tragedy in the following analysis the seven plays will be presented in their probable chronological order the Greeks signally defeated Xerxes in the great sea fight in the Bay of Salamis BC 480 the poet made this victory for his Persians this is the only historical Greek tragedy which we now possess the subjects of all the rest are drawn from mythology but Escalus had a model for his historical play in the Phoenician women of his predecessor, Frenicius which dealt with the same thing Escalus indeed is said to have imitated it closely in the Persians plagiarism was thought to be thought by the ancients just as in the Homeric times piracy was not considered a disgrace the scene of the play is not Athens as one might expect but Sousa it opens without set prologue the chorus consists of Persian elders to whom the government of the country has been committed in the absence of the king these venerable men gather the leader opens the play with expressions of apprehension no news has come from the host absent in Greece the chorus at first expresses full confidence in the resistless might of the great army but remembering that the gods are jealous of vast power and success in men yield to gloomy for boatings these grow stronger when the aged mother of Xerxes appears from the palace and relates the evil dreams which she has had on the previous night and the omen that followed the chorus besieges her to make prayer to the gods to offer libations to the dead and especially to invoke the spirit of Darius to avert the evil which threatens his ancient kingdom too late a messenger arrives and announces that all is lost by one fell stroke the might of Persia has been laid low at Salamis at Atosas request the messenger interrupted at first by the limitations of the chorus recounts which has befallen his description of the battle in the straits is a passage of signal power and is justly celebrated the queen retires and the chorus sing a song full of gloomy reflections the queen reappears and the ghost of Darius is invoked from the lower world he hears from Atosas what has happened sees in this the fulfillment of certain ancient prophecies foretells the disaster still to come and warns the chorus against further attempts upon Greece as he departs to the underworld the chorus sing in praise of the wisdom of his reign Atosas has withdrawn Xerxes now appears with his attendance laments with the chorus the disaster that has overtaken him and finally enters the palace the economy of the play is simple only two actors are required the first played the parts of Atosas and Xerxes the second that of the messenger and the ghost of Darius the play well illustrates the conditions which Escalus at this period wrote the chorus was still a first importance the ratio of the choral parts in the play to the dialogue is about one to two the exact date of the supplicants cannot be determined but the simplicity of its plot the lack of a prologue the paucity of its characters and the provenance of the chorus show that it is an early play the scene is Argos the chorus consists of the daughters of Deneas and there are only three characters Deneas, a herald and Pulascus king of Argos Deneas and Egyptis brothers and descendants of Io and Epiphas had settled near Canopus at the mouth of the Nile Egyptis sought to unite his fifty sons in marriage with the fifty daughters of the brother the daughters fled with their father to Argos here his play opens the chorus appeal for protection to the country once the home of Io and to its gods and heroes Pulascus with the consent of the Argyve people grants them refuge and the end of the play repels the attempt to seize them made by the herald sons of Egyptis a part of one of the choruses is of singular beauty and it is doubtless to them that the preservation of the play is due the play hardly seems to be a tragedy for it ends without bloodshed further it lacks dramatic interest for the action almost stands still it is a cantata rather than a tragedy both considerations however are sufficiently explained by the fact that this was the first play of a trilogy the remaining plays must have furnished in the death of the forty-nine sons of Egyptis both action and tragedy in sufficient measure to satisfy the most exacting demands the seven against Thebes deals with the gloomy myth of the house of Laeius the tetrology to which it belonged consisted of the Laeius Oedipus seven against Thebes and Sphinx the themes of Greek tragedy were drawn from the national mythology but the myths were treated with a free hand in his portrayal of the fortunes of this doomed race Escalus departed in important particulars with gain in dramatic effect from the story as it is read in Homer Oedipus had pronounced an awful curse upon his sons Etaicles and Polynesus for their unfilial neglect they should one day divide their land by steel they thereupon agreed to reign in turn each for a year but Etaicles the elder refused at the end of the first year to give up the throne Polynesus appealed to a drastus king of Argos for help and the seven chiefs appeared before the walls of Thebes to enforce his claim and beleaguered the town here the play opens with an appeal addressed by Etaicles to the citizens of Thebes to prove themselves stout defenders of their state in its hour of peril a messenger enters and describes the sacrifice of the seven chiefs the chorus of Theban maidens enters in confusion and sing the first Oed the hostile army is hurrying from its camp against the town the chorus hear the shouts and the rattling din of their arms and are overcome by terror Etaicles reproves them for their fears and bids them sing a peon that shall hearten the people the messenger in a noteworthy description describes the appearance of each hostile chief the seventh and the last is Polynesus Etaicles although conscious of his father's curse nevertheless declares with groomy resoluteness that he will meet his brother in single combat and resisting the entreaties of the chorus goes forth to his doom the attack on the town is repelled but the brothers fall and thus is the curse fulfilled presently their bodies are wheeled in their sisters Antigone and Ismini follow and sing a lament over the dead a herald announces that the Theban senate forbid the burial of Polynesus his body shall be cast forth as the prey of dogs Antigone declares her resolution to brave their mandate and perform the last sad rites for her brother dread tie the common womb from which we sprang of wretched mother born and hapless sire the chorus divides the first semi-chorus sides with Antigone the second declares its resolution to follow to its last resting place the body of Etaicles and thus the play ends the theme is here sketch just at the close of the play in outline that Sophocles has developed with such pathetic effect in his Antigone the Prometheus transports the reader to another world the characters are gods the time is the remote past the place a desolate waste in Scythia on the confines of the northern ocean Prometheus had sinned against the authority of Zeus Zeus wished to destroy the old race of mankind but Prometheus gave them fire taught them arts and handicrafts developed in them thought in consciousness and so assured both their existence and their happiness the play deals with his punishment Prometheus is born upon the scene by force and strength and is nailed to a lofty cliff by Hephaestus his appeal to nature when his tormentors depart and he is left alone is particularly pathetic the daughters of Oceanus constituting the chorus who have heard the sound of hammer in their ocean cave are now born in a loft on a winged car and bewail the fate of the outraged god Oceanus appears on a winged steed and offers his meditation scornfully rejected the resolution of Prometheus to resist Zeus to the last is strengthened by the coming of Io she too as it seems is a victim of the ruler of the universe driven by the jealous wrath of Hera she roams from land to land she tells the tale of her sad wandering and finally rushes from the scene in a frenzy crazed by the sting of the gadfly that Hera has sent to torment her Prometheus knows a secret full of menace to Zeus relying on this he prophesies his overthrow and defies him to do his worst Hermes is sent to demand with threats its revelation but fails to accomplish his purpose Prometheus insults and taunts him Hermes warns the chorus to leave for Zeus is about to display his wrath first they refuse but then fly afrighted the cliff is rinding and sinking the elements are in wild tumult as he sinks about to be engulfed in the bowels of the earth Prometheus cries earth is rocking in space and the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar and the eddying lightning flash fire in my face and the whirlwinds are whirling in the dust round and round in the blast of the winds universal leap free and blow each upon each with a passion of sound and ether goes mingling in storm with the sea the play is titanic it's huge shapes it's weird effects it's mighty passions it's wild display of the forces of earth and air these impress us chiefly at first but it's ethical interest is far greater is apparently represented in it as relentless cruel and unjust a lawless ruler who knows only his own will whereas in all the other plays of escalus he is just and righteous although sometimes severe escalus we know was a religious man it seems incredible that he should have two contradictory conceptions of the character of Zeus the solution of this problem is to be found in the fact that this Prometheus was the first play of the trilogy in the second play the Prometheus unbound of which we have only fragments these apparent contradictions must have been reconciled long ages are supposed to elapse between the plays Prometheus yields he reveals the secret and is freed from his bonds what before seemed to be relentless wanton cruelty is now seen to have been only the harsh but necessary severity of a ruler newly established on his throne by the reconciliation of this stern ruler with the wise Titan the giver of good gifts to men order is restored to the universe Prometheus acknowledges his guilt and the course of Zeus is vindicated the loss of the second play of the trilogy leaves much in doubt and an extraordinary number of solutions of the problem have been proposed the reader must not look for one of these however in the Prometheus unbound of Shelley who deliberately rejected the supposition of a reconciliation the three remaining plays are founded on the woeful myth of the house of Atreus son of Pelops much treated by the Greek tragic poets they constitute the only existing Greek trilogy and are the last and greatest work of the poet they were brought out at Athens BC 458 two years after the author's death the Agamemnon sets forth the crime the murder by his wife of the great king upon his return from from Troy the quarry the vengeance taken on the guilty wife by her own son the amenities the atonement made by that son in expiation of his mother's murder Agamemnon on departing for Troy left behind him in his palace a son and a daughter Orestes at Electra Orestes was exiled from home by his mother Clytemnestra who in Agamemnon's absence lived in guilty union with a justus own cousin of the king who could no longer endure to look upon the face of her son the scene of the Agamemnon is the royal palace in Argos the time is night a watchman is discovered on the flat roof of the palace for a year he has kept weary vigil there waiting for the beacon fire that sped from mountaintop shall announce the fall of Troy the signal comes at last and joyously he proclaims the welcome news the sacrificial fires which have been made ready in anticipation of the event are sent alight throughout the city the play naturally falls into three divisions the first introduces the chorus of the Argyve elders Clytemnestra and a herald who tells of the hardships and of the calamitous return and ends with the triumphal entrance of Agamemnon with Cassandra and his welcome by the queen the second comprehends the prophecy of the frenzied Cassandra of the doom about to fall upon the house and the murder of the king the third the conflict between the chorus still faithful to the murdered king and Clytemnestra beside whom stands her the power more Aegisthas interest centers in Clytemnestra crafty unscrupulous resolute remorseless she veils her deadly hatred for her lord and welcomes him home in tender speech so now dear lord I bid thee welcome home true as the faithful watchdog of the fold day of the laboring bark stately as column fond as only child dear as the land to shipwrecked mariner bright as fair sunshine after winter storms sweet as fresh fount to thirsty wanderer all this and more that art dear love to me Agamemnon passes within the palace she slays him in his bath enmeshed in a net and then reappearing a bloody deed I smote him and he bellowed and again I smote and with a groan his knees gave way and as he fell before me with a third and last libation from the deadly mace I pledged the crowning draft to Hades do that subterranean saviour of the dead at which he spouted up the ghost in such a flood of purple as bespattered with did I rejoice then the green ear rejoices in the largesse of the skies that fleeting iris follows as it flies Escalus departs from the Homeric account which was followed by other poets in making the action of the next play the co-eforie follow closer upon that of the Agamemnon Orestes has heard in focus of his father's murder and returns in secret with his friend Philades to exact vengeance the scene is still Argos but Agamemnon's tomb is now seen in front of the palace the chorus consists of captive women who aid in a bet the attempt the play sets forth the recognition of Orestes by Electra the plot by which Orestes gains admission to the palace the deceit of the old nurse a homely but capital character by whom Agistus is induced to come to the palace without armed attendants the death of Agistus and Clytemestra the appearance of the avenging Furies and the flight of Orestes the last play of the trilogy the Humanities has many singular features the chorus of Furies seemed even to the ancients to be a weird and terrible invention the scene of the play shifts from Delphi to Athens the poet introduces into the play a trial scene and he had in it a distinct political purpose whose development occupies one half of the drama Orestes pursued by the avenging Furies Gorgon-like vested in sable stoles their locks entwined with clustering snakes has fled to Delphi to invoke the aid of Apollo he clasped the naval stone and in his exhaustion falls asleep around him sleep the Furies the play opens with a prayer made by the Pythian priestess at an altar in front of the temple the interior of the sanctuary is then laid bare Orestes is awake but the Furies sleep on Apollo standing beside Orestes promises to protect him but Bids him make all haste to Athens and their clasp as a supplicant the image of Athena Orestes flies the ghost of Clytemnester rises from the underworld and calls upon the chorus to pursue overcome by their toil they moan in their sleep but finally start to their feet Apollo Bids them quit the temple the scene changes to the ancient temple Athena on the Acropolis at Athens where Orestes is seen clasping the image of the goddess the chorus enter in pursuit of their victim and sing an ode descriptive of their powers Athena appears and learns from the chorus and from Orestes the reasons for their presence she declares the issue to be too grave even for her to decide and determines to choose judges of the murder who shall become a solemn tribunal for all future time these are to be the best of the citizens of Athens after an ode by the chorus she returns the court is established and the trial proceeds in new form Apollo appears for the defense of Orestes when the arguments have been presented Athena proclaims before the vote has been taken the establishment of the court as a permanent tribunal for the trial of cases of bloodshed its seat shall be the aropagus the votes are cast and Orestes is acquitted he departs for Argos the furies break forth in anger and threaten woes to the land but are appeased by Athena who establishes their worship forever in Attica here to fore they have been the arenas or furies henceforth they shall be the amenities or gracious goddesses the amenities are escorted from the scene in solemn procession any analysis of the plays so brief as the preceding is necessarily inadequate the English reader is referred to the histories of Greek literature by K. O. Mueller K. P. McAfee to the striking chapter on Escalus in J. A. Simmons Greek poets and for the trilogy two Moulton's ancient classical drama if he knows French he should add Corsay history de la literature greek and should by all means read M. Patton's volume on Escalus in the études by J. Griggs there are translations in English of the poets complete works by Potter by Plumtre by Blackie and by Miss Swanwick Flaxman illustrated the plays ancient illustrations are easily accessible in Blaumeister's Dinkmaller under the names of the different characters in the plays there is a translation by Mrs. Browning and of the supplicants by Morsehead who has also translated the Atridian trilogy under the title of the House of Atreus Goldwyn Smith has translated portions of six of the plays in his specimens of Greek tragedy many translations of the Agamemnon have been made among others by Millman by Simmons by Carnivon and by Fitzgerald Robert Browning also translated the play with appalling literalness end of section 20 recording by Linda Dodge section 21 of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information here please visit LibriVox.org recording by Aria Lipshaw library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 21 selected scenes by Aeschylus the complaint of Prometheus from E.B. Browning's translation of Prometheus Prometheus alone O holy aether and swift winged winds and river wells and laughter and cavernous of yon sea waves earth mother of us all and all viewing cyclic sun I cry on you behold me a god what I endure from gods behold with throw on throw how wasted by this woe I wrestle down the myriad years of time behold how fast around me the new king of the happy ones sublime has flung the chain he forged has shamed and bound me woe woe today's woe and the coming morrows I cover with one groan and where is found me a limit to these sorrows and yet what word do I say I have foreknown clearly all things that should be nothing done comes sudden to my soul and I must bear what is ordained with patience being aware necessity doth front the universe with an invincible gesture yet this curse which strikes me now I find it hard to brave in silence or in speech because I gave honor to mortals I have yoked my soul to this compelling fate because I stole the secret fount of fire whose bubbles went over the feral's brim and manward scent arts mighty means and perfect rudiment that sin I expiate in this agony hung here in fetters neath the blanching sky ah ah me what a sound what a fragrance sweeps up from opinion unseen of a god or a mortal or nature between sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound to have sight of my pangs or some girden obtain lo a god in the anguish a god in the chain the god Zeus hadith soar and his gods hate again as many as tread on his glorified floor because I loved mortals too much evermore alas me what a murmur and motion I hear as of birds flying near and the air under sings the light stroke of their wings and all life that approaches I wait for in fear a prayer to Artemis from Ms. Swanwick's translation of The Suppliance Strophe 4 though Zeus planned all things right yet is his heart's desire Natlas in every place brightly it gleameth in in darkest night fraught with black fate to men's speech gifted race antistrophe 4 steadfast, near thrown in fight the deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought for wrapped in shadowy night tangled unscanned by mortal sight extend the pathways of his secret thought Strophe 5 in hopes mortals he hurleth prone to utter doom but for their fall no force arrayeth he for all that gods devise is without effort wrought a mindful spirit aloft unholy thrown by inborn energy achieves his thought antistrophe 5 but let him mortal insolence behold how with proud contumacy rife wantons the stem in lusty life my marriage craving frenzy over bold spur ever pricking goads them on to fate by ruin taught their folly all too late strophe 6 thus I complain in piteous strain grief laden, tear evoking shrill, ah woe is me woe, woe dirge like it sounds my own death trill I pour yet breathing vital air hear hill crowned apia hear my prayer full well, O land my voice barbaric thou canst understand, while oft with rendings I assail my busy investor and sedonian veil antistrophe 6 my nuptial rite in heaven's pure sight pollution were death laden rude, ah woe is me woe, woe alas for sorrows murky brood, where will this billow hurl me where, here hill crowned apia hear my prayer full well, O land my voice barbaric thou canst understand, while oft with rendings I assail my busy investor and sedonian veil antistrophe 7 the oar indeed and home with sails flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, staunch to the wave, from spearstorm have to this shore escorted me nor so far blame I destiny but may the all-seeing father send in fitting time propitious end so our dread mother's mighty brood the lordly couch may escape, ah me unwedded, unsubdued antistrophe 7 meeting my will with will divine daughter of Zeus who here dost hold steadfast thy sacred shrine me are to miss unstained behold, do thou who sovereign might dost wield virgin thyself of virgin shield so our dread mother's mighty brood the lordly couch may escape, ah me unwedded, unsubdued the defiance of Ateocles from Miss Swanwick's translation of The Seven Against Thebes messenger now at the seventh gate the seventh chief thy proper mother's son I will announce what fortune for this city for himself with curses he invoked on the walls ascending heralded as king to stand with peons for their capture then with thee to fight and either slaying near thee die or thee who wronged him chasing forth alive were quite in kind his proper banishment such words he shouts and calls upon the gods who guide and fatherland with gracious eye to look upon his prayers a well wrought buckler newly forged he bears with twofold blaze and riveted thereon for there a woman leads with sober mean a mailed warrior in chaston gold justice her style and thus the legend speaks this man I will restore and he shall hold the city and his father's palace homes such the devices of the hostile chiefs tis for thyself to choose whom thou wilt send but never shalt thou blame my herald words to guide the rudder of the state be thine Etaocles O heaven-demented race of edipus my race tear-fraught detested of the gods alas our father's curses now bear fruit but it besiems not to lament or weep lest lamentations sad or still be born I am too truly palaniches named what his device will work we soon shall know whether his braggart words with madness gold blazoned on his shield shall lead him back hath justice communed with or claimed him hers, guided his deeds and thoughts this might have been but neither when he fled the dark some womb or in his childhood or in youth's fair prime or when the hair thick gathered on his chin hath justice communed or claimed him hers nor in this outrage on his fatherland deem I she now beside him deigns to stand for justice would ensuth belie her name did she with this all-daring man consort in these regards confiding will I go myself will meet him who with better right brother to brother chieftain against chief foam into foe I'll stand quick bring my spear my grieves and armor bulwark against stones the vision of Cassandra from Edward Fitzgerald's version of the Agamemnon Cassandra Phoebus Apollo Chorus Hark the lips at last unlocking Cassandra Phoebus Phoebus Chorus well what of Phoebus maiden though a named his but disparagement to call upon in misery Cassandra Apollo Apollo again oh the burning arrow through the brain Phoebus Apollo Apollo Chorus seemingly possessed indeed weather by Cassandra Phoebus Phoebus through trampled ashes blood and fiery rain over water seething and behind the breathing warhorse in the darkness till you rose again took the helm took the rain Chorus as one that half asleep at dawn recalls a night of horror Cassandra hither wither Phoebus and with whom leading me lighting me Chorus I can answer that Cassandra down to what slaughterhouse foe the smell of carnage through the door scares me from it drags me toward it Phoebus Apollo Chorus one of the dismal profit packets that hunt the trail of blood but here at fault this is no den of slaughter but the house of Agamemnon Cassandra down upon the towers phantoms of two mangled children hover and a famished man at an empty table glaring seizes and devours Chorus Thaestes and his children strange enough for any maiden from abroad to know or knowing Cassandra in the chamber below the terrible woman listening, watching under a mask preparing the blow in the fold of her robe Chorus nay but again at fault for in the tragic story of this house unless indeed the fatal Helen no woman Cassandra no woman to Siphony daughter of Tartarus love grinning woman above dragantailed under glittering meshes of slaughter she wedles entices him into the poisonous fold of the serpent Chorus peace mad woman peace whose stony lips once open vomit out such uncouth horrors Cassandra I tell you the lioness slaughters the lion asleep and lifting her blood dripping fangs buried deep in his mane glaring about her insatiable bellowing bounds hither Apollo wither have you led me under night alive with fire through the trampled ashes of the city of my sire from my slaughtered kinsmen fallen throne insulted shrine slave like to be butchered the daughter of a royal line the lament of the old nurse from Plumptrius translation of the libation porers nurse Our mistress bids me with all speed I wish this to the strangers that he come and hear more clearly as a man from man this newly brought report before her slaves under set eyes of melancholy cast she hid her inner chuckle at the events that have been brought to pass too well for her but for this house in hearth most miserably as in the tale the strangers clearly told he when he hears and learns the story's gist will joy I trow in heart how those old troubles of all sorts made up most hard to bear in atreus's palace halls have made my heart full heavy in my breast but never have I known a woe like this for other ills I bore full patiently but as for dear arrestees my sweet charge whom from his mother I received and nursed and then the shrill cries rousing me in nights and many and unprofitable toils for me who bore them for one must needs rear the heedless infant like an animal how can it else be as his humor serve for while a child is yet in swaddling clothes it speaketh not if either hunger comes or passing thirst or lower calls of need and children's stomach works its own content and I though I foresaw this call to mind how I was cheated washing swaddling clothes and nurse and laundress did the self same work I then with these my double handicrafts up arrestees for his father dear and now woes me I learned that he is dead and go to fetch the man that marged this house and gladly will he hear these words of mine the decree of Athena from miss swanwick's translation of the humanities here ye my statute men of attica ye who have bloodshed judge this primal cause yay and in future age shall Aegeus's host revere this court of jurors this the hill of Ares seat of amazons their tent what time against theseus breathing hate they came waging fierce battle and their towers up reared a counter fortress to acropolis to Ares they did sacrifice and hence this rock is titled areopagus here then shall sacred awe to fear allied by day and night my leeches hold from wrong save if themselves do innovate my laws if thou with mud or influx base bedim the sparkling water not thou find to drink nor anarchy nor tyrants lawless rule command I to my people's reverence nor let them banish from their city fear for whom among men uncurbed by fear is just thus holding awe in seemly reverence a bulwark for your state shall ye possess a safeguard to protect your city walls such as no mortals otherware can boast neither in Scythia nor in Pelops's realm behold this court august untouched by bribes sharp to avenge wakeful for those who sleep establish I a bulwark to this land this charge extending to all future time I give my leeches meet it as ye rise assume the pebbles and decide the cause your oath revering all hath now been said end of section 21 Recording by Aria Lipshaw in New York City Section 22 of Library of the World's Best Literature Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Patti Cunningham Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern Volume 1 Section 22 Selected Fables by Aisop Aisop, 7th Century BC by Harry Thurston Peck Like Homer the greatest of the world's epic poets Aisop, Aisopis the most famous of the world's fabulous has been regarded by certain scholars as a wholly mythical personage. The probable stories that are told about him gain some credence for this theory which is set forth in detail by the Italian scholar Vico who says, Aisop, regarded philosophically will be found not to have been an actually existing man but rather an abstraction representing a class. In other words, merely a convenient invention of the later Greeks who ascribed to him all the fables of which they could find no certain origin. The only narrative upon which the ancient writers are in the main agreed represents Aisop as living in the 7th Century BC. As with Homer, so with Aisop, several cities of Asia Minor claimed the honour of having been his birthplace. Born a slave and hideously ugly, his keen wit led his admiring master to set him free, after which he travelled visiting Athens where he is said to be his fable of King Log and King Stark to the citizens who were complaining of the rule of Pisistratus. Still later, having won the favour of King Crocius of Lydia, he was sent by him to Delphi with a gift of money for the citizens of that place, but in the course of a dispute as to its distribution he was slain by the Delphians who threw him over a precipice. The fables that bore his name seem not to have been committed by him to writing, but for a long time were handed down from generation to generation by oral tradition, so that the same fables are sometimes found quoted in slightly different forms, and we hear of men learning them in conversation rather than from books. They were, however, universally popular. Socrates, while in prison, amused himself by turning some of them into verse. Aristophanes cites them in his and he tells how certain suitors once tried to win favour of a judge by repeating to him some of the amusing stories of Asip. The Athenians even erected a statue in his honour. At a later period the fables were gathered together and published by the Athenian statesmen and orator Demetrius Valaris in BC320, and were verified by Babrius of uncertain date whose collection is the only one in Greek of which any substantial portion still survives. They were often translated by the Romans, and the Latin version by Phaedrus, the freed man of Augustus Caesar, is still preserved and still used as a schoolbook. Forty-two of them are likewise found in a Latin work by one of Aeneas dating from the fifth century after Christ. During the Middle Ages, when much of the classical literature had been lost or forgotten, Asip, who was called by the medieval Isopet, was still read in various forms, and in modern times he has served as a model for a great number of imitations of which the most successful are those in French by La Fontaine, and those in English by John Gay. Whether or not such a person as Asip ever lived and whether or not he actually narrated the fables that are ascribed to him, certain that he did not himself invent them, but merely gave them currency in Greece, for they can be shown to have existed long before his time, and in fact to annotate even the beginnings of Hellenic civilization. With some changes of form they are found in the oldest literature of the Chinese. Similar stories are preserved on the inscribed Babylonian bricks, and an Egyptian papyrus of about the year 1200 B.C. gives the fable of the lion and the mouse in its finished form. Other Isopic epilogues are essentially identical with the Jakatas, or Buddhist stories of India, and occur also in the great Sanskrit story book, the Panchatantra, which is the very oldest monument of Hindu literature. The so-called Isopic fables are in fact only a part of the primitive folklore that springs up in prehistoric times and passes from country to country and from race to race by the process of popular storytelling. They reached Greece undoubtedly through Egypt and Persia, and even in their present form they still retain certain oriental, or at any rate non-Hellenic, elements such as the introduction of eastern animals, the panther, the peacock, and the ape. They represent the beginnings of conscious literary effort, when man first tried to enforce some of practical wisdom, and to teach some useful truth through the fascinating medium of a story. The fable embodies a half unconscious desire to give concrete form to an abstract principle, and a childish love for the picturesque and striking, which endows rocks and stones and trees with life, and gives the power of speech to animals. That beast with the attributes of human beings should figure in these tales involves from the standpoint of a primeval man only a very slight divergence from probability. In nothing, perhaps, has civilization so changed us as in our mental attitude toward animals. It has fixed a great gulf between us and them, a gulf far greater than that which divided them from our first ancestors. In the early ages of the world, when men lived by the chase and nod the raw flesh of their prey and slept in lairs amid the jungle, the nearly animal virtues were the only ones they knew and exercised. They adored courage and strength and swiftness and endurance. They respected keenness of scent and vision and admired cunning. The possession of these qualities was the very condition of existence, and they valued them accordingly. But in each one of them they found their equals, and in fact their superiors among the brutes. A lion was stronger than the strongest man. The hare was swifter. The eagle was more keen-sighted. The fox was more cunning. Hence, so far from looking down upon the animals from the remotely superior height that a hundred centuries of civilization have erected for us, the primitive savage looked up to the beast, studied his ways, copied him, and went to school to him. The man, then, was not in those days the Lord of Creation and the beast was not his servant. But they were almost brothers in the subtle sympathy between them. Like that which united Mowgli, the wolf-nurse Shikari, and his hairy brethren in that most weirdly wonderful of all Mr. Kipling's inventions, the one that carries us back, not as his other stories do, to the India of the cities and the bazaars of the supercilious tourist and the sleek babu, but to the older India of unbroken jungle, darkling that noonday through its green mist of tangled leaves, and haunted by memories of the world's long infancy when man and brute crouched close together on the earthly breast of the great mother. The esopic fables, then, are the oldest representative that we have of the literary art of primitive man. The charm that they have always possessed springs in part from their utter simplicity, their naivete, and their directness, and in part from the fact that their teachings are the teachings of universal experience, and therefore appeal irresistibly to the consciousness of everyone who hears them, whether he be savage or scholar, child or sage. They are the literary antipodes of the last great effort of genius and art working upon the same material, and found in Mr. Kipling's jungle books. The fables show only the first stirrings of the literary instinct. The jungle stories bring to bear the full development of the fictive art, creative imagination, psychological insight, brilliantly picturesque description, and the touch of one who is a daring master of vivid language, so that no better theme can be given to a student of literary history than the critical comparison of these two allied forms of composition representing as they do the two extremes of actual development. The best general account in English of the origin of the Greek fable is that of Rutherford in the introduction to his Babrus, London, 1883. An excellent special study of the history of the esopic fables is that by Joseph Jacobs in the first volume of his ASAP, London, 1889. The various ancient accounts of ASAP's life are collected by Simrock in ASAP's Leibn, 1864. The best scientific edition of the 210 fables is that of Holm, Leipzig, 1887. Good disquisitions on their history during the Middle Ages are those of Dumarall in French, Paris, 1854, and Bruno in German, Bamberg, 1892. See also the articles in the present work under the titles Babrius, Bidpie, John Gay, Lafontaine, Lochman, Panchatantra, Fadris, Reynard the Fox, The Fox and the Lion. The first time the fox saw the lion he fell down at his feet and was ready to die of fear. The second time he took courage and can even bear to look upon him. The third time he had the impudence to come up to him, to salute him, to enter into familiar conversation with him. The ass in the lion's skin. An ass finding the skin of a lion put it on and going into the woods and pastures through all the flocks and herds into a terrible consternation. At last meeting his owner he would have frightened him also but the good man seeing his long ears stick out presently knew him and with a good cudgel made him sensible notwithstanding his being dressed in a lion's skin he was really no more than an ass. The ass eating thistles. An ass was loaded with good provisions of several sorts which in time of harvest he was carrying into the field for his master and the reapers to dine upon. On the way he met with a fine large thistle and being very hungry began to mumble it which while he was doing he entered into this reflection. How many greedy epicures would think themselves happy amid such a variety of delicate veins as I now carry but to me this bitter prickly thistle is more savoury and relishing than the most exquisite and sumptuous banquet. The wolf in sheep's clothing. A wolf clothing himself in the skin of a sheep and getting in among the flock by this means took the opportunity of them. At last the shepherd discovered him and cunningly fastening a rope about his neck tied him up to a tree which stood hard by. Some other shepherds happening to pass that way and observing what he was about drew near and expressed their admiration at it. What? says one of them. Brother, do you make a hanging of a sheep? No replied the other but I make a hanging of a wolf whenever I catch him and have it in garb of a sheep. Then he showed them their mistake and they applauded the justice of the execution. The countryman and the snake. A villager in a frosty snowy winter found a snake under a hedge almost dead with cold. He could not help having a compassion for the poor creature so brought it home and laid it upon the hearth near the fire but it had not lain there long before being revived with the heat it began to erect itself and fly at his wife and children filling the whole cottage with dreadful hisings. The countryman heard an outcry and perceiving what the matter was catched up a medic and soon dispatched him up braiding him at the same time in these words Is this vile wretch the reward you make to him that saved your life? Die as you deserve but a single death is too good for you. The belly and the members. In former days when the belly and the other parts of the body enjoyed the faculty of speech and had separate views and designs of their own each part it seems in particular for himself and in the name of the whole took exception to the conduct of the belly and were resolved to grant him supplies no longer. They said they thought it very hard that he should lead an idle good-for-nothing life spending and squandering away upon his own ungodly guts all the fruits of their labour and that in short they were resolved for the future to strike off his allowance and let him shift for himself as well as he could. The hands protested they would not lift up a finger to keep him from starving and the mouth wished he might never speak again if he took in the least bit of nourishment for him as long as he lived and said the teeth may we be rotten if ever we chew a morsel for him for the future. This solemn league in Covenant was kept as long as anything of that kind can be kept which was until each of the rebel members pined away to skin and bone and could hold out no longer. Then they found there was no doing without the belly and that idle and insignificant as he seemed he contributed as much to the maintenance and welfare of all the other parts as they did to his. The sadder and the traveller of sadder as he was ranging the forest in an exceeding cold snowy season met with a traveller half starved with the extremity of the weather he took compassion on him and kindly invited him home to a warm comfortable cave he had in a hollow of a rock. As soon as they had entered and sat down notwithstanding there was a good fire in the place the chilly traveller could not for bear blowing his fingers ends. Upon the sadder's asking why he did so he answered that he did it to warm his hands. The honest sylvan, having seen little of the world, admired a man who was master of so valuable equality as that of blowing heat and therefore was resolved to entertain him in the best manner he could. He spread the table before him with dried fruits of several sorts and produced a remnant of cold wine which as the rigor of the season he mulled with some warm spices infused over the fire and presented to his shivering guest. But this the traveller thought fit to blow likewise and upon the sadder's demanding a reason why he blowed again he replied to cool his dish. This second answer provoked the sadder's indignation as much as the first had kindled his surprise so taking the man by the shoulder he thrust him out of doors saying he would have nothing to do with a wretch who had so vile equality as to blow hot and cold with the same mouth. The lion and the other beasts The lion and several other beasts entered into an alliance offensive and defensive and were to live very sociably together in the forest. One day having made a sort of an excursion by way of hunting they took a very fine, large fat deer which was divided into four parts they're happening to be then present his majesty the lion and only three others. After the division was made and the parts were set out his majesty advancing forward some steps and pointing to one of the shares was pleased to declare himself after the following manner. This I seize and take possession as of my right which devolves to me as I am described by a true lineal hereditary succession of the loyal family of lion. That, pointing to the second I claim by I think no unreasonable demand considering that all the engagements you have with the enemy turn chiefly upon my courage and conduct and you very well know that wars are too expensive to be carried on without proper supplies. Then, nodding his head toward the third that I shall take by virtue of my prerogative to which I make no question loyal a people will pay all the deference and regard that I can desire. Now as for the remaining part the necessity of our present affairs is so very urgent our stock so low and our credit so impaired and weakened that I must insist upon your granting that without any hesitation or demur and hereof fail not at your peril. The ass and the little dog the ass observing how great a favorite the little dog was with his master how much caressed and fondled and fed with good bits at every meal and for no other reason as he could perceive but for skipping and frisking about wagging his tail and leaping up into his master's lap he was resolved to imitate the same and see whether such a behavior would not procure him the same favors. Accordingly the master was no sooner come home from walking about his fields and gardens and was seated in his easy chair but the ass who observed him came gambling and braying towards him in a very awkward manner. The master could not help laughing aloud at the odd sight but his jest was soon turned into earnest when he felt the rough salute of the ass's forefeet who raising himself up on his hinder legs pawed against his breast with a most loving air and would feign have jumped into his lap. The good man terrified at this outrageous behavior and unable to endure such heavy a beast cried out Bonwich, one of his servants running in with a good stick and laying on heartily upon the bones of the poor ass, soon convinced him that everyone who desires it is not qualified to be a favorite. The Country Mouse and the City Mouse An honest, plain, sensible Country Mouse is said to have entertained at his hole one day a fine mouse of the town. Having formerly been playfellows together they were old acquaintances which served as an apology for the visit. However as master of the house he thought himself obliged to do the honors of it in all respects and to make as great a stranger of his guest as he possibly could. In order to do this he set before him a reserve of delicate gray peas and bacon, a dish of fine oatmeal, some pairings of new cheese and to crown all with a dessert a remnant of a charming mellow apple. In good manners he forebore to eat any himself less the stranger should not have enough but that he might seem to bear the other company sat and nibbled a piece of a wheat and straw very busily. At last said the spark of the town, old crony give me leave to be a little free with you. How can you bear to live in this nasty dirty melancholy hole here with nothing but woods and meadows and mountains that's about you? Do not you prefer the conversation of the world to the chirping of birds and the splendor of a court to the rude aspect of an uncultivated desert? Come, take my word for it. You will find it a change for the better. Never stand considering but away this moment. Remember we are not immortal and therefore have no time to lose. Make sure of today and spend it as agreeably as you can. You know not what may happen tomorrow. In short, these and such like arguments prevailed, and his country acquaintance was resolved to go to town that night. So they both sat out upon their journey together proposing to sneak in after the close of the evening. They did so. And about midnight made their entry into a certain great house where there had been an extraordinary entertainment the day before in which some of the servants had perloined were hid under the seat of a window. The country guest was immediately placed in the midst of a rich Persian carpet and now it was the courtier's turn to entertain, who, indeed, acquitted himself in that capacity with the utmost readiness and address, changing the courses as elegantly and tasting everything first as judiciously as any clerk of the kitchen. The other sat and enjoyed himself like a delighted epicure, tickled to the last degree with this new turn of his affairs, when on a sudden a noise of somebody opening the door made them start from their seats and scuttle in confusion about the dining-room. Our country friend, in particular, was ready to die with fear at the barking of a huge mastiff or two which opened their throats just about the same time and made the whole house echo. At last recovering himself, well, says he, if this be your town life, much good may you do with it. Give me my poor quiet hole again with my homely but comfortable gray peas. The Dog and the Wolf A lean, hungry, half-starved wolf happened one moonshiny night to meet with a jolly plump, well-fed mastiff. And after the first compliments were passed, says the wolf, you look extremely well. I protest I think I never saw a more graceful, comely person. But how comes it about, I beseech you, that you should live so much better than I? I may say without vanity that I venture fifty times more than you do, and yet I am almost ready to perish with hunger. The Dog answered very bluntly, why you may live as well if you will do the same for it that I do. Indeed, what is that, says he? Why, says the Dog, only to guard the house the nights, and keep it from thieves. With all my heart replies the wolf, for at present I have but a sorry time of it, and I think to change my hard lodging in the woods where I endure rain, frost, and snow, for a warm roof over my head and a belly full of good vitals, which will be no bad bargain. True, says the Dog, therefore you have nothing more to do but sleep. Now as they were jogging on together the wolf spied a crease in the Dog's neck, and having a strange curiosity could not forebear asking him what it meant. Poo, nothing, says the Dog. Nay, but pray, says the Wolf. Why, says the Dog, if you must know, I am tied up in the daytime because I am a little fierce, for fear I should bite people, and am only let loose at nights. But this is done with design to make rapid days more than anything else, and that I may watch the better in the nighttime, for as soon as ever the twilight appears out I am turned and may go where I please. Then my master brings me plates of bones from the table with his own hands, and whatever scraps are left by any of the family all fall to my share. For you must know I am a favourite with everybody, so you see how you are to live. Come, come along. What is the matter with you? You replied the Wolf, I beg your pardon. Keep your happiness all to yourself. Liberty is the word with me, and I would not be a king upon the terms you mention. End of section 22 Recording by Patti Cunningham