Cyropaedia: The Education of Cyrus Part 15

C1.4, med. An Eastern picture. She is one of the Bible women, as Gadatas and Gobryas are brothers of Barzillai; she is sister of Ruth or Susanna or Judith or Bathsheba. Perhaps she is n.o.bler than any of them. She is also the sister of the Greek tragedy women, Antigone, Alcestis; especially Euripidean is she: no doubt she is sister to the great women of all lands.

C1.10 ff. Xenophon, Moralist. Cf. _Memorabilia_ for a similar philosophical difficulty about the will and knowledge. And for this raising of ethical problems in an artistic setting of narrative, cf.

Lyly. I see a certain resemblance between the times and the writers'

minds. _Vide_ J. A. Symonds on the predecessors of Shakespeare.

Araspas' point is that these scamps have only themselves to blame, being {akrateis}, and then they turn round and accuse love. (We are thrown back on the origin of {akrasia}: _vide Memorabilia_ [e.g. I. ii. v.; IV.

v.] for such answer as we can get to that question.) Whereas the {kaloi kagathoi} desire strongly but can curb their desires.

C1.13. Shows a confidence in the healthy action of the will. When Araspas himself is caught later on he develops the theory of a double self, a higher and a lower (so hgd., and so, I think, Xenophon and Socrates. _Vide Memorabilia_).

C1.16, fin. Cyrus || Socrates, his prototype here.

C1.18. Very natural and beautiful. Xenophon sympathetic with such a beautiful humanity. The woman's nature brought out by these touches.

Xenophon, Dramatist: the moral problem is subordinate, that is to say, is made to grow out of the dramatic action and characterisation.

C1.20. Notice the absolutely fair and warrantable diplomatic advantage given to the archic man: each step he takes opens up new avenues of progress. Herein is fulfilled "to him who hath shall be given," but Cyrus plays his part also, he has the wisdom of serpents with the gentleness of doves.

C1.21. This is the true rhetoric, the right road to persuasiveness, to be absolutely frank.

C1.24. The desire to be ruled by the archic man, which the archomenoi--i.e. all men--feel, is thus manifest. Notice again how the Mede's own character is maintained: he speaks as he felt then.

C2.8. The bridegroom will be found to be Hystaspas; but we have no suspicion as yet, without looking on.

C2.9. In this interview Cyrus' character still further developed. _Ex ore Cyri._, Xenophon propounds his theory of the latent virtue in man, which only needs an opportunity to burst forth, but, this lacking, remains unrevealed. Now it is a great G.o.dsend to get such a chance. It is thoroughly h.e.l.lenic, or Xenophon-Socratic, this feeling, "Give me a chance to show my virtue." (But has Cyrus a touch of superhuman conscious rect.i.tude?)

C2.12. The same thought again: it is full of delicacy and spiritual discernment: the more one ponders it the more one feels that.

C2.12, fin. For h.e.l.lenic or Xenophontine or old-world theory of the misfortunes which befall the virtuous, _vide_ Homer, _vide_ Book of Job (Satan), _vide_ Tragedians.

C2.15. Cf. the _Economist_ for praise of rural simplicity. It is Xenophon _ipsissimus_.

C2.17. Whose bad manners is Xenophon thinking of? Thebans'?

C2.20, fin. A very n.o.ble sentence. The man who utters it and the people whose heart and mind it emanates from must be of a high order; and in the _Memorabilia_ Socrates has this highest praise, that he studied to make himself and _all others also_ as good as possible.

C2.21. Notice the practical answer of Cyrus to this panegyric (cf. J.

P.).

C2.32. Prolix, Xenophontic.

C3.6 ff. Here also I feel the mind of Xenophon shimmering under various lights. The _Cyropaedia_ is shot with Orientalism. Homeric Epicism--antique h.e.l.lenism and modern h.e.l.lenism are both there. Spartan simplicity and Eastern quaintness both say their say. In this pa.s.sage the biblical element seems almost audible.

C3.7. This is in the grand style, Oriental, dilatory, ponderous, savouring of times when battles were affairs of private arrangement between monarchs and hedged about by all the punctilios of an affair of honour.

C3.12. N.B.--The archic man shows a very ready wit and inventiveness in the great art of "grab" in war, though as he said to his father he was "a late learner" in such matters. Cf. in modern times the duties of a detective or some such disagreeable office. G. O. Trevelyan as Irish secretary. Interesting for _war ethics_ in the abstract, and for Xenophon's view, which is probably h.e.l.lenic. Cyrus now has the opportunity of carrying out the selfish decalogue, the topsy-turvy morality set forth in I. C.6, C.26 ff.

C3.13. Cf. Old Testament for the sort of subterfuges and preparations, e.g. the Gibeonites.

C3.15. The archic man has no time. Cyrus {ou skholazei}. Cf. J. P. It comes from energy combined with high gifts of organisation, economic, architectonic.

C3.19. Nice, I think, this contrasting of spiritual and natural productiveness.

C3.32. Here is the rule of conduct clearly expressed, nor do I see how a military age could frame for itself any other. Christianity only emerged _sub pace Romana_, which for fraternal brotherhood was the fullness of time; and even in the commercial age the nations tumble back practically into the old system.

C3.36 ff. An army on forced march: are there any novelties here?

C3.53. These minute details probably not boring at the time, but interesting rather, perhaps useful.

C4.13. Cyrus resembles Fawcett in his unselfish self-estimate. Gadatas is like the British public, or hgd.

C4.16. Here we feel that the a.s.syrian is not a mere weakling: he can play his part well enough if he gets a good chance. It needs an Archic and Strategic Man to overpower him.

C4.17. ANCIENT and MODERN parallelism in treatment of wounded.

C4.24. h.e.l.lenic war ethics: non-combatant tillers of the soil to be let alone. Is this a novelty? If not, what is the prototype? Did the modern rights of non-combatants so originate?

C4.27, fin. A touch which gives the impression of real history: that is the art of it.

C4.34. Almost autobiographical: the advantage of having a country seat in the neighbourhood of a big town. Here we feel the MODERNISM of XENOPHON. The pa.s.sage which Stevenson chose for the motto to his _Silverado Squatters_ would suit Xenophon very well (Cicero, De Off. I.

xx.). Xenophon || Alfred Tennyson. [Mr. Dakyns used the geometric sign || to indicate parallelism of any sort. The pa.s.sage from Cicero might be translated thus: "Some have lived in the country, content with the happiness of home. These men have enjoyed all that kings could claim, needing nothing, under the dominion of no man, untrammelled and in freedom; for the free man lives as he chooses."]

C4.36. The wicked man as conceived in h.e.l.lenico-Xenophontine fashion, charged with the spirit of meanness, envy, and hatred, which cannot brook the existence of another better than itself.

C4.38. A nice touch: we learn to know Gadatas and Xenophon also, and the h.e.l.lenic mind.

C5.10. Pathos well drawn: _vide_ Richard II. and Bolingbroke. Euripidean quality.

C5.12. The archic man has got so far he can play the part of intercessor between Cyaxares and his Medes. The discussion involves the whole difficulty of suppression ("he must increase, but I must decrease" is one solution, not touched here).

C5.34. Perhaps this is the very point which Xenophon, Philosopher, wishes to bring out, the pseudo-archic man and the archic man contrasted, but Xenophon, lover of man and artist, draws the situation admirably and truthfully without any doctrinal purpose. It is {anthropinon} human essentially, this jealousy and humiliation of spirit.

C5.35. Cyrus' tone of voice and manner must have some compelling charm in them: the dialectic debate is not pursued, but by a word and look the archic man wins his way.

C5.36. Oriental and antique h.e.l.lenic, also _modern_, formalities. I can imagine some of those crowned heads, emperors of Germany and Austria, going through similar ceremonies, walking arm-in-arm, kissing on both cheeks fraternally, etc.

C5.39-40. This reveals the incorrigible weakness of Cyaxares. He can never hold his own against the archic man. As a matter of philosophic "historising," probably Xenophon conceives the Median element as the corrupting and sapping one in the Persian empire (_vide_ Epilogue), only he to some extent justifies and excuses Cyrus in his imitations of it.

That is a difficulty.

C5.41. The archic man shows self-command again: his energy somewhat relieves ign.o.bler actors of responsibility and so far saps their wills.

His up-and-doingness a foil to their indolence.

BOOK VI

[C.1] So the day ended, and they supped and went to rest. But early the next morning all the allies flocked to Cyaxares' gates, and while Cyaxares dressed and adorned himself, hearing that a great mult.i.tude were waiting, Cyrus gave audience to the suitors his own friends had brought. First came the Cadousians, imploring him to stay, and then the Hyrcanians, and after them the Sakians, and then some one presented Gobryas, and Hystaspas brought in Gadatas the eunuch, whose entreaty was still the same. [2] At that Cyrus, who knew already that for many a day Gadatas had been half-dead with fear lest the army should be disbanded, laughed outright and said, "Ah, Gadatas, you cannot conceal it: you have been bribed by my friend Hystaspas to take this view."

[3] But Gadatas lifted up his hands to heaven and swore most solemnly that Hystaspas had not influenced him.