Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
'I have been doing,' said I, 'the same thing my whole life through,
Sosimenes!'
'How!' cried he; 'I never knew that.'
'Those very doctrines,' added I, 'which others hate and extirpate, I
inculcate and cherish. They bring no riches, and therefore are thought
to bring no advantage; to me, they appear the more advantageous for
that reason. They give us immediately what we solicit through the
means of wealth. We toil for the wealth first; and then it remains to
be proved whether we can purchase with it what we look for. Now, to
carry our money to the market, and not to find in the market our
money's worth, is great vexation; yet much greater has already
preceded, in running up and down for it among so many competitors, and
through so many thieves.'
After a while he rejoined, 'You really, then, have not overreached
me?'
'In what, my friend?' said I.
'These roots,' he answered, 'may perhaps be good and saleable for some
purpose. Shall you send them into Persia? or whither?'
'Sosimenes, I shall make love-potions of the flowers.'
_Leontion._ O Epicurus! should it ever be known in Athens that they
are good for this, you will not have, with all your fences of prunes
and pomegranates, and precipices with brier upon them, a single root
left under ground after the month of Elaphebolion.[8]
_Epicurus._ It is not every one that knows the preparation.
_Leontion._ Everybody will try it.
_Epicurus._ And you, too, Ternissa?
_Ternissa._ Will you teach me?
_Epicurus._ This, and anything else I know. We must walk together when
they are in flower.
_Ternissa._ And can you teach me, then?
_Epicurus._ I teach by degrees.
_Leontion._ By very slow ones, Epicurus! I have no patience with you;
tell us directly.
_Epicurus._ It is very material what kind of recipient you bring with
you. Enchantresses use a brazen one; silver and gold are employed in
other arts.
_Leontion._ I will bring any.
_Ternissa._ My mother has a fine golden one. She will lend it me; she
allows me everything.
_Epicurus._ Leontion and Ternissa, those eyes of yours brighten at
inquiry, as if they carried a light within them for a guidance.
_Leontion._ No flattery!
_Ternissa._ No flattery! Come, teach us!
_Epicurus._ Will you hear me through in silence?
_Leontion._ We promise.
_Epicurus._ Sweet girls! the calm pleasures, such as I hope you will
ever find in your walks among these gardens, will improve your beauty,
animate your discourse, and correct the little that may hereafter rise
up for correction in your dispositions. The smiling ideas left in our
bosoms from our infancy, that many plants are the favourites of the
gods, and that others were even the objects of their love--having once
been invested with the human form, beautiful and lively and happy as
yourselves--give them an interest beyond the vision; yes, and a
station--let me say it--on the vestibule of our affections. Resign
your ingenuous hearts to simple pleasures; and there is none in man,
where men are Attic, that will not follow and outstrip their
movements.
_Ternissa._ O Epicurus!
_Epicurus._ What said Ternissa?
_Leontion._ Some of those anemones, I do think, must be still in
blossom. Ternissa's golden cup is at home; but she has brought with
her a little vase for the filter--and has filled it to the brim. Do
not hide your head behind my shoulder, Ternissa; no, nor in my lap.
_Epicurus._ Yes, there let it lie--the lovelier for that tendril of
sunny brown hair upon it. How it falls and rises! Which is the hair?
which the shadow?
_Leontion._ Let the hair rest.
_Epicurus._ I must not, perhaps, clasp the shadow!
_Leontion._ You philosophers are fond of such unsubstantial things.
Oh, you have taken my volume! This is deceit.
You live so little in public, and entertain such a contempt for
opinion, as to be both indifferent and ignorant what it is that people
blame you for.
_Epicurus._ I know what it is I should blame myself for, if I attended
to them. Prove them to be wiser and more disinterested in their wisdom
than I am, and I will then go down to them and listen to them. When I
have well considered a thing, I deliver it--regardless of what those
think who neither take the time nor possess the faculty of considering
anything well, and who have always lived far remote from the scope of
our speculations.
_Leontion._ In the volume you snatched away from me so slyly, I have
defended a position of yours which many philosophers turn into
ridicule--namely, that politeness is among the virtues. I wish you
yourself had spoken more at large upon the subject.
_Epicurus._ It is one upon which a lady is likely to display more
ingenuity and discernment. If philosophers have ridiculed my
sentiment, the reason is, it is among those virtues which in general
they find most difficult to assume or counterfeit.
_Leontion._ Surely life runs on the smoother for this equability and
polish; and the gratification it affords is more extensive than is
afforded even by the highest virtue. Courage, on nearly all occasions,
inflicts as much of evil as it imparts of good. It may be exerted in
defence of our country, in defence of those who love us, in defence of
the harmless and the helpless; but those against whom it is thus
exerted may possess an equal share of it. If they succeed, then
manifestly the ill it produces is greater than the benefit; if they
succumb, it is nearly as great. For many of their adversaries are
first killed and maimed, and many of their own kindred are left to
lament the consequences of the aggression.
_Epicurus._ You have spoken first of courage, as that virtue which
attracts your sex principally.
_Ternissa._ Not me; I am always afraid of it. I love those best who
can tell me the most things I never knew before, and who have patience
with me, and look kindly while they teach me, and almost as if they
were waiting for fresh questions. Now let me hear directly what you
were about to say to Leontion.
_Epicurus._ I was proceeding to remark that temperance comes next; and
temperance has then its highest merit when it is the support of
civility and politeness. So that I think I am right and equitable in
attributing to politeness a distinguished rank, not among the
ornaments of life, but among the virtues. And you, Leontion and
Ternissa, will have leaned the more propensely toward this opinion, if
you considered, as I am sure you did, that the peace and concord of
families, friends, and cities are preserved by it; in other terms, the
harmony of the world.
_Ternissa._ Leontion spoke of courage, you of temperance; the next
great virtue, in the division made by the philosophers, is justice.
_Epicurus._ Temperance includes it; for temperance is imperfect if it
is only an abstinence from too much food, too much wine, too much
conviviality or other luxury. It indicates every kind of forbearance.
Justice is forbearance from what belongs to another. Giving to this
one rightly what that one would hold wrongfully in magistrature not in
the abstract, and is only a part of its office. The perfectly
temperate man is also the perfectly just man; but the perfectly just
man (as philosophers now define him) may not be the perfectly
temperate one. I include the less in the greater.
_Leontion._ We hear of judges, and upright ones too, being immoderate
eaters and drinkers.
_Epicurus._ The Lacedemonians are temperate in food and courageous in
battle; but men like these, if they existed in sufficient numbers,
would devastate the universe. We alone, we Athenians, with less
military skill perhaps, and certainly less rigid abstinence from
voluptuousness and luxury, have set before it the only grand example
of social government and of polished life. From us the seed is
scattered; from us flow the streams that irrigate it; and ours are the
hands, O Leontion, that collect it, cleanse it, deposit it, and convey
and distribute it sound and weighty through every race and age.
Exhausted as we are by war, we can do nothing better than lie down and
doze while the weather is fine overhead, and dream (if we can) that we
are affluent and free.
O sweet sea air! how bland art thou and refreshing! Breathe upon
Leontion! breathe upon Ternissa! bring them health and spirits and
serenity, many springs and many summers, and when the vine-leaves have
reddened and rustle under their feet!
These, my beloved girls, are the children of Eternity: they played
around Theseus and the beauteous Amazon; they gave to Pallas the bloom
of Venus, and to Venus the animation of Pallas. Is it not better to
enjoy by the hour their soft, salubrious influence, than to catch by
fits the rancid breath of demagogues; than to swell and move under it
without or against our will; than to acquire the semblance of
eloquence by the bitterness of passion, the tone of philosophy by
disappointment, or the credit of prudence by distrust? Can fortune,
can industry, can desert itself, bestow on us anything we have not
here?
_Leontion._ And when shall those three meet? The gods have never
united them, knowing that men would put them asunder at the first
appearance.
_Epicurus._ I am glad to leave the city as often as possible, full as
it is of high and glorious reminiscences, and am inclined much rather
to indulge in quieter scenes, whither the Graces and Friendship lead
me. I would not contend even with men able to contend with me. You,
Leontion, I see, think differently, and have composed at last your
long-meditated work against the philosophy of Theophrastus.
_Leontion._ Why not? he has been praised above his merits.
_Epicurus._ My Leontion! you have inadvertently given me the reason
and origin of all controversial writings. They flow not from a love of
truth or a regard for science, but from envy and ill-will. Setting
aside the evil of malignity--always hurtful to ourselves, not always
to others--there is weakness in the argument you have adduced. When a
writer is praised above his merits in his own times, he is certain of
being estimated below them in the times succeeding. Paradox is dear to
most people: it bears the appearance of originality, but is usually
the talent of the superficial, the perverse, and the obstinate.
Nothing is more gratifying than the attention you are bestowing on me,
which you always apportion to the seriousness of my observations.
_Leontion._ I dislike Theophrastus for his affected contempt of your
doctrines.
_Epicurus._ Unreasonably, for the contempt of them; reasonably, if
affected. Good men may differ widely from me, and wiser ones
misunderstand me; for, their wisdom having raised up to them schools
of their own, they have not found leisure to converse with me; and
from others they have received a partial and inexact report. My
opinion is, that certain things are indifferent and unworthy of
pursuit or attention, as lying beyond our research and almost our
conjecture; which things the generality of philosophers (for the
generality are speculative) deem of the first importance. Questions
relating to them I answer evasively, or altogether decline. Again,
there are modes of living which are suitable to some and unsuitable to
others. What I myself follow and embrace, what I recommend to the
studious, to the irritable, to the weak in health, would ill agree
with the commonality of citizens. Yet my adversaries cry out: 'Such is
the opinion and practice of Epicurus!' For instance, I have never
taken a wife, and never will take one; but he from among the mass, who
should avow his imitation of my example, would act as wisely and more
religiously in saying that he chose celibacy because Pallas had done
the same.
_Leontion._ If Pallas had many such votaries she would soon have few
citizens to supply them.