Imaginary Conversations and Poems Part 26

_Ternissa._ Epicurus, you are in the right to bring it away from Athens, from under the eye of Pallas: she might be angry.

_Epicurus._ You approve of its removal then, my lovely friend?

_Ternissa._ Mightily. [_Aside._] I wish it may break in pieces on the road.

_Epicurus._ What did you say?

_Ternissa._ I wish it were now on the road, that I might try whether it would hold me--I mean with my clothes on.

_Epicurus._ It would hold you, and one a span longer. I have another in the house; but it is not decorated with fauns and satyrs and foliage, like this.

_Leontion._ I remember putting my hand upon the frightful satyr's head, to leap in: it seems made for the purpose. But the sculptor needed not to place the naiad quite so near--he must have been a very impudent man; it is impossible to look for a moment at such a piece of workmanship.

_Ternissa._ For shame! Leontion!--why, what was it? I do not desire to know.

_Epicurus._ I don't remember it.

_Leontion._ Nor I neither; only the head.

_Epicurus._ I shall place the satyr toward the rock, that you may never see him, Ternissa.

_Ternissa._ Very right; he cannot turn round.

_Leontion._ The poor naiad had done it, in vain.

_Ternissa._ All these labourers will soon finish the plantation, if you superintend them, and are not appointed to some magistrature.

_Epicurus._ Those who govern us are pleased at seeing a philosopher out of the city, and more still at finding in a season of scarcity forty poor citizens, who might become seditious, made happy and quiet by such employment.

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of erudition: never to be listened to, and to be listened to always. Aware of these, I devote a large portion of my time and labours to the cultivation of such minds as flourish best in cities, where my garden at the gate, although smaller than this, we find sufficiently capacious. There I secure my listeners; here my thoughts and imaginations have their free natural current, and tarry or wander as the will invites: may it ever be among those dearest to me!--those whose hearts possess the rarest and divinest faculty, of retaining or forgetting at option what ought to be forgotten or retained.

_Leontion._ The whole ground then will be covered with trees and shrubs?

_Epicurus._ There are some protuberances in various parts of the eminence, which you do not perceive till you are upon them or above them. They are almost level at the top, and overgrown with fine gra.s.s; for they catch the better soil brought down in small quant.i.ties by the rains. These are to be left unplanted: so is the platform under the pinasters, whence there is a prospect of the city, the harbour, the isle of Salamis, and the territory of Megara. 'What then!' cried Sosimenes, 'you would hide from your view my young olives, and the whole length of the new wall I have been building at my own expense between us! and, when you might see at once the whole of Attica, you will hardly see more of it than I could buy.'

_Leontion._ I do not perceive the new wall, for which Sosimenes, no doubt, thinks himself another Pericles.

_Epicurus._ Those old junipers quite conceal it.

_Ternissa._ They look warm and sheltering; but I like the rose-laurels much better: and what a thicket of them here is!

_Epicurus._ Leaving all the larger, I shall remove many thousands of them; enough to border the greater part of the walk, intermixed with roses.

There is an infinity of other plants and flowers, or weeds as Sosimenes calls them, of which he has cleared his oliveyard, and which I shall adopt. Twenty of his slaves came in yesterday, laden with hyacinths and narcissi, anemones and jonquils. 'The curses of our vineyards,' cried he, 'and good neither for man nor beast. I have another estate infested with lilies of the valley: I should not wonder if you accepted these too.'

'And with thanks,' answered I.

The whole of his remark I could not collect: he turned aside, and (I believe) prayed. I only heard 'Pallas'--'Father'--'sound mind'--'inoffensive man'--'good neighbour'. As we walked together I perceived him looking grave, and I could not resist my inclination to smile as I turned my eyes toward him. He observed it, at first with unconcern, but by degrees some doubts arose within him, and he said, 'Epicurus, you have been throwing away no less than half a talent on this sorry piece of mountain, and I fear you are about to waste as much in labour: for nothing was ever so terrible as the price we are obliged to pay the workman, since the conquest of Persia and the increase of luxury in our city. Under three obols none will do his day's work. But what, in the name of all the deities, could induce you to plant those roots, which other people dig up and throw away?'

'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 compet.i.tors, 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 G.o.ds, 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.