The Fables of Phaedrus Part 7

THE POET, ON BELIEVING, AND NOT BELIEVING.

It is dangerous alike to believe or to disbelieve. Of either fact, I will briefly lay before you an instance.

Hippolytus met his death,[25] because his step-mother was believed: because Ca.s.sandra was not believed, Troy fell. Therefore, we ought to examine strictly into the truth of a matter, rather than {suffer} an erroneous impression to pervert our judgment. But, that I may not weaken {this truth} by referring to fabulous antiquity, I will relate to you a thing that happened within my own memory.

A certain married Man, who was very fond of his Wife, having now provided the white toga[26] for his Son, was privately taken aside by his Freedman, who hoped that he should be subst.i.tuted as his next heir, {and} who, after telling many lies about the youth, and still more about the misconduct of the chaste Wife, added, what he knew would especially grieve one so fond, that a gallant was in the habit of paying her visits, and that the honor of his house was stained with base adultery.

Enraged at the supposed guilt of his Wife, the husband pretended a journey to his country-house, and privately stayed behind in town; then at night he suddenly entered at the door, making straight to his Wife's apartment, in which the mother had ordered her son to sleep, keeping a strict eye over his ripening years. While they are seeking for a light, while the servants are hurrying to and fro, unable to restrain the violence of his raging pa.s.sion, he approaches the bed, and feels a head in the dark. When he finds the hair cut close,[27] he plunges his sword into {the sleeper's} breast, caring for nothing, so he but avenge his injury. A light being brought, at the same instant he beholds his son, and his chaste wife sleeping in her apartment; who, fast locked in her first sleep, had heard nothing: on the spot he inflicted punishment on himself for his guilt, and fell upon the sword which a too easy belief had unsheathed. The accusers indicted the woman, and dragged her to Rome, before the Centumviri.[28] Innocent as she was, dark suspicion weighed heavily against her, because she had become possessor of his property: her patrons stand[29] and boldly plead the cause of the guiltless woman. The judges then besought the Emperor Augustus that he would aid them in the discharge of their oath, as the intricacy of the case had embarra.s.sed them. After he had dispelled the clouds raised by calumny, and had discovered a sure source of truth[30]: "Let the Freedman," said he, "the cause of the mischief, suffer punishment; but as for her, at the same instant bereft of a son, and deprived of a husband, I deem her to be pitied rather than condemned. If the father of the family had thoroughly enquired into the charge preferred, and had shrewdly sifted the lying accusations, he would not, by a dismal crime, have ruined his house from the very foundation."

Let the ear despise nothing, nor yet let it accord implicit belief at once: since not only do those err whom you would be far from suspecting, but those who do not err are {sometimes} falsely and maliciously accused.

This also may be a warning to the simple, not to form a judgment on anything according to the opinion of another; for the different aims of mortals either follow the bias of their goodwill or their prejudice. He {alone} will be correctly estimated {by you}, whom you judge of by personal experience.

These points I have enlarged upon, as by too great brevity I have offended some.

[Footnote III.25: _Met his death_)--Ver. 3. The story of Hippolytus, who met his death in consequence of the treachery of his step-mother Phaedra, is related at length in the Play of Euripides of that name, and in the Fifteenth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The fate of Ca.s.sandra, the daughter of Priam, who in vain prophesied the fall of Troy, is related in the Second Book of the aeneid, l. 246, _et seq._]

[Footnote III.26: _The white toga_)--Ver. 10. The "toga praetexta," or Consular robe, was worn by the male children of the Romans till their sixteenth year; when they a.s.sumed the ordinary "toga," which was called "pura," because it had no purple border, and was entirely white.]

[Footnote III.27: _The hair cut close_)--Ver. 27. This is appropriately introduced, as the hair of youths was allowed to grow long until they had reached the age of manhood, on which it was cut close, and consecrated to the G.o.ds.]

[Footnote III.28: _The Centumviri_)--Ver. 35. The "Centumviri"

were a body of 105 officers, whose duty it was to a.s.sist the praetor in litigated questions. They were sometimes called "judices selecti," or "commissioned judges."]

[Footnote III.29: _The patrons stand_)--Ver. 37. The patrons stood while pleading the causes of their clients, while the judges sat, as with us.]

[Footnote III.30: _Sure source of truth_)--Ver. 43. It is suggested that the source of information here alluded to was the evidence of the slaves, who had heard their master mention in his last moments the treachery of his freedman. It is not probable that the freedman voluntarily came forward, and declared the truth to Augustus. In l. 39, Augustus is called "Divus," as having been deified after his death. Domitian was the first who was so called during his lifetime.]

FABLE XI.

THE EUNUCH TO THE ABUSIVE MAN.

A Eunuch had a dispute with a scurrilous fellow, who, in addition to obscene remarks and insolent abuse, reproached him with the misfortune of his mutilated person. "Look you," said {the Eunuch}, "this is the only point as to which I am effectually staggered, forasmuch as I want the evidences of integrity. But why, simpleton, do you charge me with the faults of fortune? That {alone} is really disgraceful to a man, which he has deserved to suffer."[31]

[Footnote III.31: _Deserved to suffer_)--Ver. 7. Though this moral may apply to all misfortunes in general, it is supposed by some of the Commentators that by the insulter some individual notorious for his adulteries was intended to be represented; who consequently merited by law to be reduced to the same situation as the innocent Eunuch.]

FABLE XII.

THE c.o.c.k AND THE PEARL.

A young c.o.c.k, while seeking for food on a dunghill, found a Pearl, and exclaimed: "What a fine thing are you to be lying in {so} unseemly a place. If any one sensible of your value had espied you here, you would long ago have returned to your former brilliancy. And it is I who have found you, I to whom food is far preferable! I can be of no use to you or you to me."

This I relate for those who have no relish for me.[32]

[Footnote III.32: _Have no relish for me_)--Ver. 8. From this pa.s.sage we may infer either that Phaedrus himself had many censurers at Rome, or that the people in general were not admirers of Fables.]

FABLE XIII.

THE BEES AND THE DRONES, THE WASP SITTING AS JUDGE.

Some Bees had made their combs in a lofty oak. Some lazy Drones a.s.serted that these belonged to them. The cause was brought into court, the Wasp {sitting as} judge; who, being perfectly acquainted with either race, proposed to the two parties these terms: "Your shape is not unlike, and your colour is similar; so that the affair clearly and fairly becomes a matter of doubt. But that my sacred duty may not be at fault through insufficiency of knowledge, {each of you} take hives, and pour your productions into the waxen cells; that from the flavour of the honey and the shape of the comb, the maker of them, about which the present dispute exists, may be evident." The Drones decline; the proposal pleases the Bees. Upon this, the Wasp p.r.o.nounces sentence to the following effect: "It is evident who cannot, and who did, make {them}; wherefore, to the Bees I restore the fruits of their labours."

This Fable I should have pa.s.sed by in silence, if the Drones had not refused the proposed stipulation.[33]

FABLE XIV.

aeSOP AT PLAY.

An Athenian seeing aesop in a crowd of boys at play with nuts,[34]

stopped and laughed at him for a madman. As soon as the Sage,--a laugher at others rather than one to be laughed at,--perceived this, he placed an unstrung bow in the middle of the road: "Hark you, wise man," said he, "unriddle what I have done." The people gather round. The man torments his invention a long time, but cannot make out the reason of the proposed question. At last he gives up. Upon this, the victorious Philosopher says: "You will soon break the bow, if you always keep it bent; but if you loosen it, it will be fit for use when you want it."

Thus ought recreation sometimes to be given to the mind, that it may return to you better fitted for thought.

[Footnote III.33: _The proposed stipulation_)--Ver. 17. It has been suggested that Phaedrus here alludes to some who had laid claim to the authorship of his Fables, and had refused a challenge given by him, such as that here given to the Drones, to test the correctness of their a.s.sertions.]

[Footnote III.34: _At play with nuts_)--Ver. 2. It is thought by Schwabe that Phaedrus wrote this Fable in defence of his early patron Augustus, against those who censured him for the levity of his conduct in his old age, as we learn from Suetonius that he amused himself with fishing, playing with dice, pebbles, or nuts with boys. --For some account of Roman games with nuts, see "The Walnut-tree," a fragment of Ovid, in vol. iii. p. 491, of Bohn's Translation of that author.]

FABLE XV.

THE DOG TO THE LAMB.

A Dog said to a Lamb[35] bleating among some She-Goats: "Simpleton, you are mistaken; your mother is not here;" and pointed out some Sheep at a distance, in a flock by themselves. "I am not looking for her," {said the Lamb}, "who, when she thinks fit, conceives, then carries her unknown burden for a certain number of months, and at last empties out the fallen bundle; but for her who, presenting her udder, nourishes me, and deprives her young ones of milk that I may not go without." "Still,"

said the Dog, "she ought to be preferred who brought you forth." "Not at all: how was she to know whether I should be born black or white?[36]

However, suppose she did know; seeing I was born a male, truly she conferred a great obligation on me in giving me birth, that I might expect the butcher every hour. Why should she, who had no power in engendering me, be preferred to her who took pity on me as I lay, and of her own accord shewed me a welcome affection? It is kindliness makes parents, not the ordinary course {of Nature}."

By these lines the author meant to show that men are averse to fixed rules, but are won by kind services.

[Footnote III.35: _To a Lamb_)--Ver. 1. Burmann suggests that this Fable is levelled against the cruelty of parents, who were much in the habit of exposing their children, who were consequently far from indebted to them. Schwabe conjectures that the system of employing wet-nurses is intended here to be censured.]

[Footnote III.36: _Black or white_)--Ver. 10. This, though disregarded by the mother, would be of importance to him, as the black lambs were first selected for sacrifice.]

FABLE XVI.

THE GRa.s.sHOPPER AND THE OWL.

He who does not conform to courtesy, mostly pays the penalty of his superciliousness.

A Gra.s.shopper was making a chirping that was disagreeable to an Owl, who was wont to seek her living in the dark, and in the day-time to take her rest in a hollow tree. She was asked to cease her noise, but she began much more loudly to send forth her note; entreaties urged again only set her on still more. The Owl, when she saw she had no remedy, and that her words were slighted, attacked the chatterer with this stratagem: "As your song, which one might take for the tones of Apollo's lyre, will not allow me to go to sleep, I have a mind to drink some nectar which Pallas lately gave me;[37] if you do not object, come, let us drink together."

The other, who was parched with thirst, as soon as she found her voice complimented, eagerly flew up. The Owl, coming forth from her hollow, seized the trembling thing, and put her to death.

Thus what she had refused when alive, she gave when dead.

[Footnote III.37: _Pallas lately gave me_)--Ver. 13. The Owl was sacred to Pallas.]