Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
has given a warmer hue below the knee; a long streak of yellow light
in the horizon is on the level of her bosom, some of her hair is
almost lost in it; above her head on every side is the pure azure of
the heavens.
Oh! and you would not have shown me this? You, among whose primary
studies is the most perfect satisfaction of your guests!
_Lucullus._ In the next apartment are seven or eight other pictures
from our history.
There are no more: what do you look for?
_Caesar._ I find not among the rest any descriptive of your own
exploits. Ah, Lucullus! there is no surer way of making them
remembered.
This, I presume by the harps in the two corners, is the music-room.
_Lucullus._ No, indeed; nor can I be said to have one here; for I love
best the music of a single instrument, and listen to it willingly at
all times, but most willingly while I am reading. At such seasons a
voice or even a whisper disturbs me; but music refreshes my brain when
I have read long, and strengthen it from the beginning. I find also
that if I write anything in poetry (a youthful propensity still
remaining), it gives rapidity and variety and brightness to my ideas.
On ceasing, I command a fresh measure and instrument, or another
voice; which is to the mind like a change of posture, or of air to the
body. My heal this benefited by the gentle play thus opened to the
most delicate of the fibres.
_Caesar._ Let me augur that a disorder so tractable may be soon
removed. What is it thought to be?
_Lucullus._ I am inclined to think, and my physician did not long
attempt to persuade me of the contrary, that the ancient realms of
Aeaetes have supplied me with some other plants than the cherry, and
such as I should be sorry to see domesticated here in Italy.
_Caesar._ The gods forbid! Anticipate better things! The reason of
Lucullus is stronger than the medicaments of Mithridates; but why not
use them too? Let nothing be neglected. You may reasonably hope for
many years of life: your mother still enjoys it.
_Lucullus._ To stand upon one's guard against Death exasperates her
malice and protracts our sufferings.
_Caesar._ Rightly and gravely said: but your country at this time
cannot do well without you.
_Lucullus._ The bowl of milk, which to-day is presented to me, will
shortly be presented to my Manes.
_Caesar._ Do you suspect the hand?
_Lucullus._ I will not suspect a Roman: let us converse no more about
it.
_Caesar._ It is the only subject on which I am resolved never to
think, as relates to myself. Life may concern us, death not; for in
death we neither can act nor reason, we neither can persuade nor
command; and our statues are worth more than we are, let them be but
wax.
* * * * *
_Lucullus._ From being for ever in action, for ever in contention, and
from excelling in them all other mortals, what advantage derive we? I
would not ask what satisfaction, what glory? The insects have more
activity than ourselves, the beasts more strength, even inert matter
more firmness and stability; the gods alone more goodness. To the
exercise of this every country lies open; and neither I eastward nor
you westward have found any exhausted by contests for it.
Must we give men blows because they will not look at us? or chain them
to make them hold the balance evener?
Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what
you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the
bier. There was a time when the most ardent friend to Alexander of
Macedon would have embraced the partisan for his enthusiasm, who
should have compared him with Alexander of Pherae. It must have been
at a splendid feast, and late at it, when Scipio should have been
raised to an equality with Romulus, or Cato with Curius. It has been
whispered in my ear, after a speech of Cicero, 'If he goes on so, he
will tread down the sandal of Marcus Antonius in the long run, and
perhaps leave Hortensius behind.' Officers of mine, speaking about
you, have exclaimed with admiration: 'He fights like Cinna.' Think,
Caius Julius (for you have been instructed to think both as a poet and
as a philosopher), that among the hundred hands of Ambition, to whom
we may attribute them more properly than to Briareus, there is not one
which holds anything firmly. In the precipitancy of her course, what
appears great is small, and what appears small is great. Our estimate
of men is apt to be as inaccurate and inexact as that of things, or
more. Wishing to have all on our side, we often leave those we should
keep by us, run after those we should avoid, and call importunately on
others who sit quiet and will not come. We cannot at once catch the
applause of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise. What
are parties? Do men really great ever enter into them? Are they not
ball-courts, where ragged adventurers strip and strive, and where
dissolute youths abuse one another, and challenge and game and wager?
If you and I cannot quite divest ourselves of infirmities and
passions, let us think, however, that there is enough in us to be
divided into two portions, and let us keep the upper undisturbed and
pure. A part of Olympus itself lies in dreariness and in clouds,
variable and stormy; but it is not the highest: there the gods govern.
Your soul is large enough to embrace your country: all other affection
is for less objects, and less men are capable of it. Abandon, O
Caesar! such thoughts and wishes as now agitate and propel you: leave
them to mere men of the marsh, to fat hearts and miry intellects.
Fortunate may we call ourselves to have been born in an age so
productive of eloquence, so rich in erudition. Neither of us would be
excluded, or hooted at, on canvassing for these honours. He who can
think dispassionately and deeply as I do, is great as I am; none
other. But his opinions are at freedom to diverge from mine, as mine
are from his; and indeed, on recollection, I never loved those most
who thought with me, but those rather who deemed my sentiments worth
discussion, and who corrected me with frankness and affability.
_Caesar._ Lucullus, you perhaps have taken the wiser and better part,
certainly the pleasanter. I cannot argue with you: I would gladly hear
one who could, but you again more gladly. I should think unworthily of
you if I thought you capable of yielding or receding. I do not even
ask you to keep our conversation long a secret, so greatly does it
preponderate in your favour; so much more of gentleness, of eloquence,
and of argument. I came hither with one soldier, avoiding the cities,
and sleeping at the villa of a confidential friend. To-night I sleep
in yours, and, if your dinner does not disturb me, shall sleep
soundly. You go early to rest I know.
_Lucullus._ Not, however, by daylight. Be assured, Caius Julius, that
greatly as your discourse afflicts me, no part of it shall escape my
lips. If you approach the city with arms, with arms I meet you; then
your denouncer and enemy, at present your host and confidant.
_Caesar._ I shall conquer you.
_Lucullus._ That smile would cease upon it: you sigh already.
_Caesar._ Yes, Lucullus, if I am oppressed I shall overcome my
oppressor: I know my army and myself. A sigh escaped me, and many more
will follow; but one transport will rise amid them, when, vanquisher
of my enemies and avenger of my dignity, I press again the hand of
Lucullus, mindful of this day.
EPICURUS, LEONTION, AND TERNISSA
* * * * *
_Ternissa._ The broad and billowy summits of yon monstrous trees, one
would imagine, were made for the storms to rest upon when they are
tired of raving. And what bark! It occurs to me, Epicurus, that I have
rarely seen climbing plants attach themselves to these trees, as they
do to the oak, the maple, the beech, and others.
_Leontion._ If your remark be true, perhaps the resinous are not
embraced by them so frequently because they dislike the odour of the
resin, or some other property of the juices; for they, too, have their
affections and antipathies no less than countries and their climes.
_Ternissa._ For shame! what would you with me?
_Epicurus._ I would not interrupt you while you were speaking, nor
while Leontion was replying; this is against my rules and practice.
Having now ended, kiss me, Ternissa!
_Ternissa._ Impudent man! in the name of Pallas, why should I kiss
you?
_Epicurus._ Because you expressed hatred.
_Ternissa._ Do we kiss when we hate?
_Epicurus._ There is no better end of hating. The sentiment should not
exist one moment; and if the hater gives a kiss on being ordered to do
it, even to a tree or a stone, that tree or stone becomes the monument
of a fault extinct.
_Ternissa._ I promise you I never will hate a tree again.
_Epicurus._ I told you so.
_Leontion._ Nevertheless, I suspect, my Ternissa, you will often be
surprised into it. I was very near saying, 'I hate these rude square
stones!' Why did you leave them here, Epicurus?
_Epicurus._ It is true, they are the greater part square, and seem to
have been cut out in ancient times for plinths and columns; they are
also rude. Removing the smaller, that I might plant violets and
cyclamens and convolvuluses and strawberries, and such other herbs as
grow willingly in dry places, I left a few of these for seats, a few
for tables and for couches.
_Leontion._ Delectable couches!
_Epicurus._ Laugh as you may, they will become so when they are
covered with moss and ivy, and those other two sweet plants whose
names I do not remember to have found in any ancient treatise, but
which I fancy I have heard Theophrastus call 'Leontion' and
'Ternissa'.
_Ternissa._ The bold, insidious, false creature!
_Epicurus._ What is that volume, may I venture to ask, Leontion? Why
do you blush?
_Leontion._ I do not blush about it.
_Epicurus._ You are offended, then, my dear girl.
_Leontion._ No, nor offended. I will tell you presently what it
contains. Account to me first for your choice of so strange a place to
walk in: a broad ridge, the summit and one side barren, the other a
wood of rose-laurels impossible to penetrate. The worst of all is, we
can see nothing of the city or the Parthenon, unless from the very
top.
_Epicurus._ The place commands, in my opinion, a most perfect view.
_Leontion._ Of what, pray?
_Epicurus._ Of itself; seeming to indicate that we, Leontion, who
philosophize, should do the same.
_Leontion._ Go on, go on! say what you please: I will not hate
anything yet. Why have you torn up by the root all these little
mountain ash-trees? This is the season of their beauty: come,
Ternissa, let us make ourselves necklaces and armlets, such as may
captivate old Sylvanus and Pan; you shall have your choice. But why
have you torn them up?
_Epicurus._ On the contrary, they were brought hither this morning.
Sosimenes is spending large sums of money on an olive-ground, and has
uprooted some hundreds of them, of all ages and sizes. I shall cover
the rougher part of the hill with them, setting the clematis and vine
and honeysuckle against them, to unite them.
_Ternissa._ Oh, what a pleasant thing it is to walk in the green light
of the vine trees, and to breathe the sweet odour of their invisible
flowers!
_Epicurus._ The scent of them is so delicate that it requires a sigh
to inhale it; and this, being accompanied and followed by enjoyment,
renders the fragrance so exquisite. Ternissa, it is this, my sweet
friend, that made you remember the green light of the foliage, and
think of the invisible flowers as you would of some blessing from
heaven.
_Ternissa._ I see feathers flying at certain distances just above the
middle of the promontory: what can they mean?