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 PR 4872.P44 1894 
 
 Pericles and Aspasia. 
 
 3 1924 013 495 670 
 
B Cornell University 
 M Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013495670 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. By Walter Savage 
 
 Landor. One vol. i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. 
 
 "An American critic (Professor Lowell) has well described Landor'a 
 •Pericles and Aspasia' — 
 
 "As a book that we are frequently forced to drop, and surrender ourselves 
 to the musings and memories, soft or sad, which its words awaken, or cause to 
 pass before the mind. Its pages take you to the theatre where 'Prometheus' 
 is played : to the house where Socrates and Aristophanes meet ; to the promise of 
 the youth Thucydides ; and to the statesman who dies ' remembering in the fulness 
 of my heart that Athens confided her glory and Aspasia her happiness to me.* " — 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
 LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. 5 
 
 vols. Square i2mo. Each, jfa.oo. First Series. Classical Dialogues, 
 Greek and Roman. — Second Series. Dialogues of Sovereigns and 
 Statesmen. — Third Series, Dialogues of Literary Men. — Fourth 
 Series. Dialogues of Literary Men (continued), Dialogues of Famous 
 Women, and Miscellaneous Dialogues. — Fifth Series. Miscellaneous 
 Dialogues (continued), and Index to the five volumes. 
 
 "They are an encyclopaedia, a. panoramic museum, a perpetual drama, a 
 changeful world of fancy, character, and action. Their learning covers languages, 
 histories, inventions ; their thought discerns and analyses literature, art, poetry, 
 philosophy, manners, life, government, religion — every thing to which human 
 faculties have applied themselves. Their personages are as noble as those of 
 Sophocles, as famous as those of Plutarch, as varied as those of Shakespeare, 
 and through them all, breathing the spirit of Landor, and above them waves 
 his compelling wand.'' 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 Boston. 
 
Pericles and Aspasia. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1894. 
 
 [394. 
 
University Press : John Wilson & Son, 
 Cambridge. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 I. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Cleone ! I write from Athens. I hasten to meet your 
 reproaches, and to stifle them in my embrace. It was 
 wrong to have left Miletus at all : it was wrong to have 
 parted from you without intrusting you with my secret. 
 No, no, neither was wrong. I have withstood many 
 tears, my sweet Cleone, but never yours ; you could al- 
 ways do what you would with me ; and I should have 
 been wind-bound by you on the Mseander, as surely and 
 inexorably as the fleet at Aulis by Diana. 
 
 Ionia is far more beautiful than Attica, Miletus than 
 Athens ; for about Athens there is no verdure, no spa- 
 cious and full and flowing river, few gardens, many olive- 
 trees, so many, indeed, that we seem to be in an eternal 
 cloud of dust. However, when the sea-breezes blow, this 
 tree itself looks beautiful ; it looks, in its pliable and un- 
 dulating branches, irresolute as Ariadne when she was 
 urged to fly, and pale as Orithyia when she was borne 
 
 11. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Come out, Aspasia, from among those olives. You 
 would never have said a word about any such things, at 
 such a time, unless you had met with an adventure. 
 When you want to hide somewhat, you always run into 
 the thickets of poetry. Pray leave Ariadne with Bac- 
 chus, she cannot be safer ; and Orithyia with Boreas, if 
 you have any reverence for the mysteries of the gods. 
 Now I have almost a mind to say, tell me nothing at uK 
 
 (5) 
 
6 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 of what has happened to you since you left us. This 
 would punish you as you deserve, for you know that you 
 are dying to tell it. The venerable and good-natured old 
 widow, Epimedea, will have trouble enough, I foresee, 
 with her visitor from Asia. The Milesian kid will over- 
 leap her garden-wall, and browse and butt everywhere. 
 I take it as a matter of certainty that you are with her, 
 for I never heard you mention any other relative in Ath- 
 ens, and she was, I remember, the guest of your house. 
 How she loved you, dear good woman ! She would have 
 given your father Axiochus all her wealth for you. But 
 when you were seven years old you were worth seven 
 times over what you are now. I loved you then myself. 
 Well, I am resolved to relieve you of your secret. 
 
 Prodigal scatterer of precious hopes, and of smiles that 
 seem to rise from the interest you feel, and not from the 
 interest you excite, what victim have you crowned with 
 flowers, and selected to fall at your altar ? 
 
 III. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Spirit of divination ! how dared you find me out ? And 
 how dared you accuse me of poetizing? You who poetize 
 more extravagantly yourself. Mine, I do insist upon it, 
 is no worse than we girls in general are apt to write ; 
 " and no better," you will reply, " than we now and then 
 are condemned to listen to, or disposed to read." 
 
 Poetry is the weightless integument that our butterflies 
 always shed in our path, ere they wing their way toward 
 us. It is precisely of the same form, color, and sub- 
 stance, for the whole generation. Are all mine well ? and 
 all yours? I shall be very angry to hear that mine are. 
 If they do not weep, and look wan, and sicken, why then 
 I must, out of very spite. But may the gods in their 
 wisdom keep not only their hearts, but their persons too, 
 just where they are ! I intend to be in love here at 
 Athens. It is true, I do assure you, when I have time, 
 and idleness, and courage for it. 
 
 Ay, ay, now your eyes are running over all the rest of 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 7 
 
 the letter. Well, what have you found? where is the 
 place? I will keep you in suspense no longer. 
 
 As soon as there was any light at all, we discovered, on 
 the hill above the city, crowds of people and busy prepar- 
 ations. You are come to it. 
 
 IV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I was determined to close my letter when your curi- 
 osity was at the highest, that you might flutter and fall 
 from the clouds like Icarus. I wanted two things : first, 
 that you should bite your lip, an attitude in which you 
 alone look pretty ; and secondly, that you should say 
 half-angrily, " This now is exactly like Aspasia." I will 
 be remembered ; and I will make you look just as I would 
 have you. 
 
 How fortunate ! to have arrived at Athens at dawn on 
 the twelfth of Elaphebolion. On this day begin the fes- 
 tivals of Bacchus, and the theatre is thrown open at 
 sunrise. 
 
 What a theatre ! what an elevation ! what a prospect 
 of city and port, of land and water, of porticos and 
 temples, of men and heroes, of demi-gods and gods ! 
 
 It was indeed my wish and intention, when I left 
 Ionia, to be present at the first of the Dyonysiacs ; but 
 how rarely are wishes and intentions so accomplished, 
 even when winds and waters do not interfere ! 
 
 I wiU now tell you all. No time was to be lost : so I 
 hastened on shore in the dress of an Athenian boy who 
 came over with his mother from Lemnos. In the giddi- 
 ness of youth he forgot to tell me that, not being yet 
 eighteen years old, he could not be admitted ; and he 
 left me on the steps. My heart sank within me ; so 
 many young men stared and whispered ; yet never was 
 stranger treated with more civility. Crowded as the 
 theatre was (for the tragedy had begun) every one made 
 room for me. When they were seated, and I too, I 
 looked toward the stage ; and behold there lay before 
 me, but afar off, bound upon a rock, a more majestic 
 
8 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 form, and bearing a countenance more heroic, I should 
 rather say more divine, than ever my imagination had 
 conceived ! I know not how long it was before I discov- 
 ered that as many eyes were directed toward me as 
 toward the competitor of the gods. I was neither flat- 
 tered by it nor abashed. Every wish, hope, sigh, sen- 
 sation, was successively with the champion of the human 
 race, with his antagonist Zeus, and his creator .^schylus. 
 How often, O Cleone, have we throbbed with his in- 
 juries ! how often hath his vulture torn our breasts ! 
 how often have we thrown our arms around each other's 
 neck, and half renounced the religion of our fathers ! 
 Even your image, inseparable at other times, came not 
 across me then ; Prometheus stood between us. He had 
 resisted in silence and disdain the cruellest tortures that 
 Almightiness could inflict ; and now arose the Nymphs 
 of ocean, which heaved its vast waves before us ; and 
 now they descended with open arms and sweet benign 
 countenances, and spake with pity ; and the insurgent 
 heart was mollified and quelled. 
 I sobbed ; I dropt. 
 
 V. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Is this telling me all ? you faithless creature ! There 
 is much to be told when Aspasia faints in a theatre : and 
 Aspasia in disguise ! 
 
 My sweet and dear Aspasia ! with all your beauty, of 
 which you cannot but be conscious, how is it possible you 
 could have hoped to be ucdetected ? Certainly there never 
 was any woman, or even any man, so little vain as you 
 are. Formerly you were rather so about your poetry ; but 
 now you really write it well, you have overcome this 
 weakness ; nay, you doubt whether your best verses are 
 tolerable. You have told me this several times ; and you 
 always say what you think, unless when any one might 
 be hurt or displeased. I am glad the observation comes 
 across me, for I must warn you upon it. 
 
 Take care then, Aspasia ! do not leave oflf entirely all 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 9 
 
 dissimulation. It is as feminine a virtue, and a3 neces- 
 sary to a woman, as religion. If you are without it, you 
 will have a grace the less, and (what you could worse 
 spare) a sigh the more. 
 
 VI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I was not quite well when I wrote to you. When I 
 am not quite well I must always write to you ; I am bet- 
 ter after it. 
 
 Where did I leave off ? 
 
 Ah Cleone ! Cleone ! I have learnt your lesson ; I am 
 dissembling ; it must not be with you. My tears are 
 falling. I acted unworthily. And are these tears indeed 
 for my fault against you ? I cannot tell ; if I could, I 
 would candidly. Everything that has happened, every- 
 thing that shall happen hereafter, I will lay upon your 
 knees. Counsel me ; direct me. Even were I as sen- 
 sible as you are, I should not be able to discover my own 
 faults. The clearest eyes do not see the cheeks below, 
 nor the brow above them. 
 
 To proceed, then, in my narrative. Everything ap- 
 peared to me an illusion but the tragedy. What was 
 divine seemed human, and what was human seemed divine. 
 
 An apparition of resplendent and unearthly beauty 
 threw aside, with his slender arms, the youths, philos- 
 ophers, magistrates, and generals, that surrounded me, 
 with a countenance as confident, a motion as rapid, and 
 a command as unresisted as a god. 
 
 " Stranger ! " said he, *' I come from Pericles, to offer 
 you my assistance." 
 
 I looked in his face ; it was a child's. 
 
 " We have attendants here who shall conduct you from 
 the crowd," said he. 
 
 " Venus and Cupid ! " cried one. 
 
 " We are dogs ! " growled another. 
 
 " Worse ! " rejoined a third, " we are slaves." 
 
 " Happy man ! happy man ! if thou art theirs," whis« 
 pered the next in his ear, and followed us close behind. 
 
10 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 I have since been informed that Pericles, who sate be- 
 low us on the first seat, was the only man who did not 
 rise. No matter ; why should he ? why did the rest ? 
 But it was very kind in him to send his cousin ; I mean 
 it was very kind for so proud a man. 
 
 Epimedea wept over me when I entered her house, and 
 burnt incense before the gods, and led me into my cham- 
 ber. 
 
 " I have a great deal to say to you, my dear Aspasia ; 
 but you must go to sleep : your bath shall be ready at 
 noon ; but be sure you sleep till then," said she. 
 
 I did indeed sleep, and (will you believe it ?) instantly 
 and soundly. Never was bath more refreshing, never 
 was reproof more gentle, than Epimedea's. 
 
 I found her at my pillow when I awoke, and she led 
 me to the marble conch. 
 
 " Dear child ! " said she, when I had stept in, " you do 
 not know our customs. You should have come at once 
 to my house ; you never should have worn men's clothes : 
 indeed you should not have gone to the theatre at all ; 
 but, being there, and moreover in men's habiliments, you 
 should have taken care not to have fainted, as they say 
 you did. My husband Thessalus would never hear of 
 faintmg ; he used to tell me it was a bad example. But 
 he fainted at last, poor man ! and . . I minded his ad- 
 monition. "Why ! what a lovely child you are grown, my 
 little Aspasia ! is the bath too hot? Aspasia ! can it be? 
 why, you are no child at all ! " 
 
 1 really do believe that this idle discourse of Epimedea, 
 which will tire you, perhaps, was the only one that would 
 not have wearied out my spirits. It neither made me 
 think nor answer. What a privilege ! what a blessing ! 
 how seldom to be enjoyed in our conferences with the 
 silly ! Ah ! do not let me wrong the kind Epimedea ! 
 Those are not silly who have found the way to our 
 hearts ; and far other names do they deserve who open 
 to us theirs. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. H 
 
 Vn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 The boy about whom I wrote to you in my letter of 
 yesterday, is called Alcibiades.* He lisps and blushes 
 at it. His cousin Pericles, you may have heard, enjoys 
 the greatest power and reputation, both as an orator and 
 a general, of any man in Athens. Early this morning 
 the beautiful child came to visit me, and told me that, 
 when his cousin had finished his studies, which he usually 
 had done about three hours after sunrise, he would desire 
 him to come also. 
 
 I replied, " By no means do it, my beautiful and brave 
 protector ! Surely, on considering the matter, you will 
 think you are taking too great a liberty with a person so 
 distinguished." 
 
 " I take no liberties with any other," said he. 
 
 When I expressed in my countenaoce a little surprise 
 at his impetuosity, he came forward and kissed my brow. 
 Then said he, more submissively, " Pardon my rudeness. 
 I like very well to be told what to do by those who are 
 fond of me ; but never to be told what not to do ; and the 
 more fond they are of me the less I like it. Because 
 when they tell me what to do, they give me an opportu- 
 nity of pleasing them ; but when they tell me what not to 
 do, it is a sign that I have displeased, or am likely to 
 displease them. Beside . . I believe there are some other 
 reasons, but they have quite escaped me. 
 
 " It is time I should return," said he, " or I shall for- 
 get all about tlie hour of his studies (I mean Pericles) 
 and mine too." 
 
 I would not let him go, however, but inquired who were 
 his teachers, and repeated to him many things from Sap- 
 
 * He had no right to be at the theatre ; but he might have ta- 
 ken the liberty, for there was nobody in Athens whom he feared, 
 even in his childhood. Thucydides calls him a youth in the 
 twelfth year of the Peloponnesian war. He was, on the moth- 
 er's side, grandson of Megacles, whose granddaugliter Isodoce 
 married Cimon : her father Euryptolemus was coiisin-german 
 to Pericles. 
 
12 PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 pho and Alcaeus and Pindar and Simonides. He was 
 amazed, and told me he preferred them to Fate and 
 Necessity, Pytho and Pythonissa. 
 
 I would now have kissed him in my turn, but he drew 
 back, thinking (no doubt) that I was treating him like a 
 child ; that a kiss is never given but as the price of par- 
 don ; and that I had pardoned him before for his cap- 
 tiousness. 
 
 VIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Aspasia ! I foresee that henceforward you will admire 
 the tragedy of Prometheus more than ever. But do not 
 tell any one, excepting so fond a friend as Cleone, that 
 you prefer the author to Homer. I agree with you that 
 the conception of such a drama is in itself a stupendous 
 eiFort of genius ; that the execution is equal to the con- 
 ception ; that the character of Prometheus is more heroic 
 than any in heroic poetry ; and that no production of the 
 same extent is so magnificent and so exalted. But the 
 Iliad is not a region : it is a continent ; and you might as 
 well compare this prodigy to it as the cataract of the Nile 
 to the Ocean. In the one we are overpowered by the 
 compression and burst of the element ; in the other we 
 are carried over an immensity of space, bounding the 
 earth, not bounded by her, and having nothing above but 
 the heavens. 
 
 Let us enjoy, whenever we have an opportimity, the 
 delight of admiration, and perform the duties of rever- 
 ence. May others hate what is admirable ! We will hate 
 likewise, O my Aspasia ! when we can do no better. I 
 am unable to foretell the time when this shall happen ; it 
 lies, I think, beyond the calculations of Meton. 
 
 I am happy to understand that the Athenians have such 
 a philosopher among them. Hitherto we have been in- 
 clined to suppose that philosophy, at Athens, is partly an 
 intricate tissue of subtile questions and illusory theories, 
 knotted with syllogisms, and partly an indigested mass of 
 unexamined assertions and conflicting dogmas. The loni- 
 ans are more silent, contemplative, and recluse. Know- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 13 
 
 ing that Nature will not deliver her oracles in the crowd 
 nor by sound of trumpet, they open their breasts to her in 
 eolitude with the simplicity of children, and look earnestly 
 in her face for a reply. Meton and Democritus and An- 
 axagoras may perhaps lay their hands upon the leapings 
 of your tettinxes, and moderate their chirping, but I ap- 
 prehend that the genius of the people will always repose 
 upon the wind-skins of the sophists. Comedy might be 
 their corrector ; but Comedy seems to think she has two 
 offices to perform ; from one side of the stage to explode 
 absurdity, and from the other to introduce indecency. 
 She might, under wise regulations (and these she should 
 impose upon herself) , render more service to a state than 
 Philosophy could, in whatsover other character. And I 
 wonder that Aristophanes, strong in the poetical faculty, 
 and unrivalled in critical acuteness, should not perceive 
 that a dominion is within his reach which is within the 
 reach of no mortal beside ; a dominion whereby he may 
 reform the manners, dictate the pursuits, and regulate 
 the affections of his countrymen. Perhaps he never 
 could have done it so effectually, had he been better and 
 begun otherwise ; but having, however unworthy might 
 have been the means and methods, seized upon their 
 humors, they now are as pliable to him as waxen 
 images to Thessalian witches. He keeps them before the 
 fire he has kindled, and he has only to sing the right song. 
 
 Beware, my dear Aspasia, never to offend him ; for 
 he holds more terrors at his command than .^schylus. 
 The tragic poet rolls the thunder that frightens, the 
 comic wields the lightning that kills. Aristophanes has I 
 the power of tossing you among the populace of a thou- ( 
 sand cities for a thousand years. 
 
 A great poet is more powerful than Sesostris, and a 
 wicked one more formidable than Phalaris. 
 
 IX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Epimedea has been with me in my chamber. She 
 asked me whether the women of Ionia had left oflf wear- 
 
14 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 ing ear-rings. I answered that I believe thcv always had 
 worn them, and tliat they were introduced by I lie Per- 
 sians, who rc'cived them from nations more remote. 
 
 "And do you think yourself too young," said she, 
 "for such an ornament?" producing at the same instant 
 a massy pair, inlaid with the largest emeralds. " Alas ! 
 alas ! " said she, " your mother neglected you strangely. 
 There is no hole in the ear, right or left ! We can mend 
 that, however ; I know a woman who will bring us the 
 prettiest little pan of charcoal, with the prettiest little 
 steel rod in it; and, before you can cry out, one ear lets 
 light through. These are yours," said she, " and so 
 shall everything be when I am gone . . house, garden, 
 quails, leveret." 
 
 " Generous Epimedea ! " said I, " do not say things 
 that pain me. I will accept a part of the present ; I 
 will wear these beautiful emeralds on one arm. Think- 
 ing of nailing them in my ears, you resolve to make me 
 steady ; but I am unwilling they should become depen- 
 dencies of Attica." 
 
 " All our young women wear them ; the goddesses 
 too." 
 , "The goddesses are in the right," said I; "their 
 ears are marble ; but I do not believe any one of them 
 would tell us that women were made to be the settings of 
 pearls and emeralds." 
 
 I had taken one, and was about to kiss her, when she 
 said, " Do not leave me an odd ear-ring ; put the other 
 in the hair." 
 
 " Epimedea," said I, " I have made a vow never to 
 wear on the head anything but one single flower, a 
 single wheat-ear, green or yellow, and ivy or vine leaves : 
 the number of these are not mentioned in the vow." 
 
 " Rash child ! " said Epimedea, shaking her head ; 
 f " I never made but two vows ; one was when I took a 
 husband." 
 
 "And the other? Epimedea!" 
 
 " No matter," said she, " it might be, for what I 
 know, never to do the like again." 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. ]5 
 
 X. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Pericles has visited me. After many grave and gentle 
 inquiries, often suspended, all relating to my health ; and 
 after praises of Miletus, and pity for my ft-iends left be- 
 hind, he told me that, when he was quite assured of my 
 recovery from the fatigues of the voyage, he hoped I 
 would allow him to collect from me, at my leisure hours, 
 the information he wanted on the literature of Ionia. 
 Simple-hearted man ! in praising the authors of our 
 country, he showed me that he knew them perfectly, 
 from first to last. And now indeed his energy was dis- 
 played : I thought he had none at all. "With how sono- 
 rous and modulated a voice did he repeat the more 
 poetical passages of our elder historians ! and how his 
 whole soul did lean upon Herodotus ! Happily for me, 
 he observed not my enthusiasm. And now he brought 
 me into the presence of Homer. " We claim him," 
 said he, " but he is yours. Observe with what par- 
 tiality he always dwells on Asia. How infinitely more 
 civilized are Glaucus and Sarpedon than any of the Gre- 
 cians he was called upon to celebrate ! Priam, Paris, 
 Hector, what polished men ! Civilization has never 
 made a step in advance, and never will, on those coun- 
 tries ; she had gone so far in the days of Homer. He 
 keeps Helen pretty rigorously out of sight, but he opens 
 his heart to the virtues of Andromache. What a barba- 
 rian is the son of a goddess ! Pallas must seize him by 
 the hair to avert the murder of his leader ; but at the 
 eloquence of the Phrygian king the storm of the intract- 
 able homicide bursts in tears." 
 
 "And ^schylus," said I, but could not continue: 
 blushes rose into my cheek, and pained me at the recol- 
 lection of my weakness. 
 
 " He has left us," said Pericles, who pretended not to 
 have perceived it ; "I am grieved that my prayers were in- 
 adequate to detain him. But what prayers or what expostu- 
 lations can influence the lofty mind, laboring and heaving 
 under injustice and indignity ? .^schylus knew he merited, 
 
16 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 by his genius and his services, the gratithde and admi- 
 ration of the Athenians. He saw others preferred before 
 him, and hoisted sail. At the rumor of his departure 
 such was the consternation as if the shield of Pallas in 
 the Parthenon had dropt from her breast upon the pave- 
 ment. That glory shines now upon the crown of Hiero, 
 which has sunk for Athens." 
 
 " You have stiU great treasures left," said I ; for he 
 was moved. 
 
 " True," replied he, " but will not every one remark, 
 who hears the observation, that we know not how to keep 
 them, and have never weighed them ? " 
 
 I sate silent ; he resumed his serenity. 
 
 " We ought to change places," said he, " at the feet of 
 the poets, ^schylus, I see, is yours ; Homer is mine. 
 Aspasia should be a Pallas to Achilles ; and Pericles a 
 subordinate power, comforting and consoling the afflicted 
 demi-god. Impetuosity, impatience, resentment, revenge 
 itself, are pardonable sins in the very softest of your sex ; 
 on brave endurance rises our admiration." 
 
 " I love those better who endure with constancy," said I. 
 
 " Happy ! " replied he, " thrice happy ! O Aspasia, 
 the constancy thus tried and thus rewarded ! " 
 
 He spoke with tenderness ; he rose with majesty ; 
 bowed to Epimedea : touched gently, scarcely at all, the 
 hand I presented to him, bent over it, and departed. 
 
 XI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I told you I would love, O Cleone ! but I am so near it 
 that I dare not. 
 
 Tell me what I am to do ; I can do anything but write 
 and think. 
 
 Pericles has not returned. 
 
 I am nothing here in Athens. 
 
 Five days are over ; six almost. 
 
 O what long days are these of Elaphebolion ! 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 17 
 
 XII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Take heed, Aspasia ! All orators are deceivers ; and 
 Pericles is the greatest of orators. 
 
 I will write nothing more, lest you should attend in 
 preference to any other part of my letter. 
 
 Yes ; I must repeat my admonition : I must speak out 
 plainly ; I must try other words . . stronger . . more I 
 frightful. Love of supremacy, miscalled political glory, I 
 finds most, and leaves all, dishonest. 
 
 The gods and goddesses watch over and preserve you, 
 and send you safe home again ! 
 
 XIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Fear not for me, Cleone ! Pericles has attained the 
 summit of glory ; and the wisdom and virtue that ac- 
 quired it for him are my sureties. 
 
 A great man knows the value of greatness : he dares 
 not hazard it, he will not squander it. Imagine you that 
 the confidence and affection of a people, so acute, so vig- 
 ilant, so jealous, as the Athenians, would have rested 
 firmly and constantly on one inconstant and infirm. 
 
 If he loves me the merit is not mine ; the fault wiU be 
 if he ceases. 
 
 XIV. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I must and wiU fear for you, and the more because I 
 perceive you are attracted as the bees are, by an empty 
 sound, the fame of your admirer. You love Pericles for 
 that very quality which ought to have set you on your 
 guard against him. In contentions for power, the phil-l 
 osophy and the poetry of life are dropt and trodden down. 
 Domestic affections can no more bloom and flourish in the I 
 hardened race-course of politics, than flowers can find 
 nourishment in the pavement of the streets. In the poll- 
 
 3 
 
18 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 tician the whole creature is factitious ; if ever he speaks 
 as before, he speaks either from memory or inveution. 
 
 But such is your beauty, such your genius, it may alter 
 the nature of things. Endowed with the power of Circe, 
 you will exert it oppositely, and restore to the most selfish 
 and most voracious of animals the uprightness and dig- 
 nity of man. 
 
 XV. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 It is not wisdom in itself, O Aspasia ! it is the manner 
 of imparting it that affects the soul, and alone deserves 
 the name of eloquence. \ I have never been moved by any 
 but yours. 
 
 Is it the beauty that shines over it, is it the voice that 
 ripens it, giving it those lovely colors, that delicious fresh- 
 ness ; is it the modesty and diffidence with which you pre- 
 sent it to us, looking for nothing but support ? Sufficient 
 were any one of them singly ; but all united have come 
 forward to subdue me, and have deprived me of my cour- 
 age, my self-possession, and my repose. 
 
 I dare not hope to be beloved, Aspasia ! I did hope it 
 once in my life, and have been disappointed. Where I 
 sought for happiness none is offered to me : I have neither 
 the sunshine nor the shade. 
 
 So unfortunate in earlier days, ought I, ten years later, 
 to believe that she, to whom the earth, with whatever is 
 beautiful and graceful in it, bows prostrate, will listen to 
 me as her lover? I dare not ; too much have I dared al- 
 ready. But if, O Aspasia ! I should sometimes seem 
 heavy and dull in conversation, when happier men sur- 
 round you, pardon my infirmity. 
 
 I have only one wish ; I may not utter it : I have only 
 one fear ; this at least is not irrational, and I will own it ; 
 the fear that Aspasia could never be sufficiently happy 
 with me. 
 
PERiCLES AND ASPASIA. ]£ 
 
 XVI. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 Do you doubt, O Pericles, that I shall be sufficiently 
 happy with you ? This doubt of yours assures me that I 
 shall be. 
 
 I throw aside my pen to crown the gods. And I wor- 
 ship thee first, O Pallas ! who protectest the life, enlight- 
 enest the mind, establishest the power, and exaltest the 
 glory, of Pericles. 
 
 XVII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I tremble both for you and your lover. The people of 
 Athens may applaud at first the homage paid to beauty 
 and genius ; nevertheless there are many whose joy will 
 spring from malignity, and who will exult at what they 
 tliiuk (I know not whether quite unjustly) a weakness in 
 Pericles. 
 
 1 shall always be restless about you. Let me confess 
 to you, I do not like your sheer democracies. What are 
 they good for? Wh}-, yes, they have indeed their use ; 
 the filth and ferment of the compost are necessary for 
 raising rare plants. 
 
 how I wish we were again together in that island ou 
 our river which we call the Fortunate I It was almost an 
 island when your father cut across the isthmus of about 
 ten paces, to preserve the swan-nest. 
 
 Xeniades has left Miletus. We know not whither he 
 is gone, but we presume to his mines in Lemnos. It was 
 always with difficulty he could be persuaded to look after 
 his affairs. He is too rich, too young, too thoughtless. 
 But since you left Miletus, we have nothing here to de- 
 tain him. 
 
 1 wish I could trifle with you about your Pericles. 
 Any wager, he is the only lover who never wrote verses 
 upon you. 
 
 In a politician a verse is an ostracism. 
 
20 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 XVIII. ASPASIA TO CLEOKE. 
 
 My Pericles (mine, mine he is) has written verses upon 
 me ; not many, nor worth his prose, even the shortest sen- 
 tence of it. But you will read them with pleasure for 
 their praises of Miletus. 
 
 No longer ago than yesterday an ugly young philos- 
 opher declared his passion for me, as you shall see. I did 
 not write anything back to Pericles : I did to the other. 
 I will not run the risk of having half my letter left un- 
 read by you, in your hurry to come into the poetry. 
 
 Here it aU is : 
 
 PERICLES TO ABPA8IA. 
 
 Flower of Ionia's fertile plains, 
 
 Where Pleasure leagued with Virtue reigns. 
 
 Where the Pierian Maids of old, 
 
 Yea, long ere Ilion's tale was told, 
 
 Too pure, too sacred for our sight, 
 
 Descended with the silent night 
 
 To young Arctinus, and Maeander 
 
 Delay'd his course for Melesander I 
 
 If there be city on the earth 
 
 Proud in the children of her birth. 
 
 Wealth, science, beauty, story, song, 
 
 These to Miletus all belong. 
 
 To fix the diadem on his brow 
 
 Por ever, one was wanting . . thou. 
 
 I could not be cruel to such a suitor, even if he asked 
 me for pity. ( Love makes one-half of every man foolish, 
 and the other half cunning.^ Pericles touched me on the 
 side of MOetus, and Socrates came up to me straight- 
 forward from Prometheus : 
 
 SOCBATES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 He who stole fire from heaven. 
 Long heav'd his bold and patient breast ; 'twas riven 
 By the Caucasian bird and bolts of Jove. 
 Stolen that fire have I, 
 And am eni;hain'd to die 
 By every jealous Power that frowns above. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 21 
 
 I call not upon thee again 
 
 To hear my vows and calm my pain, 
 
 Who sittest high enthron'd 
 Where Venus rolls her gladsome star, 
 
 Propitious Love ! But thou disown'd 
 By sire and mother, whosoe'er they are, 
 Unblest in form and name. Despair ! 
 Why dost thou follow that bright demon? why 
 His purest altar art thou always nigh? 
 
 I was sorry that Socrates should suflfer so much for me. 
 
 Pardon the fib, Cleone ! let it pass : I was sorry just 
 as we all are upon such occasions, and wrote him this 
 consolation : 
 
 O thou who sittest with the wise, 
 
 And searchest higher lore. 
 And openest regions to their eyes 
 
 Unvisited before I 
 I'd run to loose thee if I could, 
 Nor let the vulture taste thy blood. 
 But, pity ! pity ! Attic bee ! 
 'Tis happiness forbidden me. 
 
 Despair is not for good or wise, 
 
 And should not be for love ; 
 We all must bear our destinies 
 
 And bend to those above. 
 Birds flying o'er the stormy seas 
 Alight upon their proper trees, 
 Yet wisest men not always know 
 Where they should stop or whither go. 
 
 XIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I am quite ashamed of Alcibiades, quite angry with 
 him. What do you imagine he has been doing? He 
 listened to my conversation with Pericles, on the declara- 
 tion of love from the Philosopher Bound, and afterward 
 to the verses I repeated in answer to his, which pleased 
 my Pericles extremely, not perhaps for themselves, but 
 because I had followed his advice in writing them, and 
 had returned to him with the copy so speedily. 
 
 Alcibiades said he did not like them at all, and could 
 
22 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 ^TJte better himself. We smiled at this, and his cousin 
 said, " Do then, my boy ! " 
 
 Would you believe it ? he not only wrote, but I fear 
 (for he declares he did) actually sent these : 
 
 O Satyr-son of Sophroniscus 1 
 Would Alcon cut me a hibiscus, 
 I'd wield it as the goatherds do, 
 And swing thee a sound stroke or two, 
 Bewilder, if thou canst, us boys. 
 Us, or the sophists, with thy toys — 
 Thy kalokagathons . . beware ! 
 Keep to the good, and leave the fair. 
 
 Could he really be the composer ? what think you ? or 
 did he get any of his wicked friends to help him ? The 
 verses are very bold, very scandalous, very shocking. I 
 am vext and sorry ; but what can be done ? We must 
 seem to know nothing about the matter. 
 
 The audacious little creature . . not very little, he is 
 within four fingers of my height . . is half in love with 
 me. He flames up at the mention of Socrates : can he be 
 jealous ? 
 
 Pericles tells me that the philosophers here are as sus- 
 ceptible of malice as of love. It may be so, for the plants 
 which are sweet in some places are acrid in others. 
 
 He said to me, smiling, " I shall be represented in their 
 schools as a sophist, because Aspasia and Alcibiades were 
 unruly. O that boy ! who knows but his mischievous 
 verses will be a reason sufficient, in another year, why I 
 am unable to command an army or harangue an assem- 
 bly of the people ? " 
 
 XX. XENIADES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Aspasia ! Aspasia ! have you forgotten me ? have you 
 forgotten us ? Our childhood was one, our earliest youth 
 was undivided. Why should you not see me ? Did you 
 fear that you would have to reproach me for any fault I 
 have committed? This would have pained you formerly ; 
 ah, how lately ! 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 23 
 
 Your absence . . not absence . . flight . . has 
 broken my health, and left me fever and frenzy. Eu- 
 medes is certain I can only recover my health by compo- 
 sure. Foolish man ! as if composure were more easy to 
 recover than health. Was there ever such a madman as 
 to say, " You will never have the use of your limbs again 
 unless you walk and run ! " 
 
 I am weary of advice, of remonstrance, of pity, of 
 everything ; above all, of life. 
 
 Was it anger (how dared I be angry with you?) that 
 withheld me from imploring the sight of you ? Was it 
 pride ? Alas ! what pride iS left me ? I am preferred no 
 longer ; I am rejected, scorned, loathed. Was it always 
 so ? Well may I ask the question ; for everything seems 
 uncertain to me but my misery. At times I know not 
 whether I am mad or dreaming. No, no, Aspasia ! the 
 past was a dream, the present is a reality. The mad 
 and the dreaming do not shed tears as I do. And yet in 
 these bitter tears are my happiest moments ; and some 
 angry demon knows it, and presses my temples that there 
 shall fall but few. 
 
 You refused to admit me. I asked too little, and de- 
 served the refusal. Come to me. This you will not re- 
 fuse, unless you are bowed to slavery. Go, tell your 
 despot this, with my curses and defiance. 
 
 I am calmer, but insist. Spare yourself, Aspasia, one 
 tear, and not by an effort, but by a duty. 
 
 XXI. ASPASIA TO CLEOKE. 
 
 Of all men living, what man do you imagine has come 
 to Athens? Insensate ! now you know. What other, so 
 beloved, would ever have left Miletus ! I wish I could be 
 convinced that your coldness or indifference had urged 
 him to this extravagance. I can only promise you we 
 will not detain him. Athens is not a refuge for the per- 
 fidious or the flighty. But if he is unfortunate ; what 
 shall we do with him? Do? I will tell him to return.- 
 Expect him hourly. 
 
24 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 XXII. ASPASIA TO XENIADES. 
 
 I am pained to my innermost heart that you are ill. 
 
 Pericles is not the person you imagine him. Behold 
 his billet ! And can not you think of me with equal gen- 
 erosity ? 
 
 True, we saw much of each other in our childhood, 
 and many childish things we did together. This is the 
 reason why I went out of your way as much as I could 
 afterward. There is another, too. I hoped you would 
 love more the friend that I love most. How much hap- 
 pier would she make you than the flighty Aspasia ! We 
 resemble each other too much, Xeniades 1 we should never 
 have been happy, so ill-mated. Nature hates these alli- 
 ances : they are like those of brother and sister. I never 
 loved any one but Pericles ; none else attracts the admira- 
 tion of the world. I stand, O Xeniades ! not only above 
 slavery, but above splendor, in that serene light which 
 Homer describes as encompassing the Happy on Olympus. 
 I will come to visit you within the hour ; be calm, be con- 
 tented ! love me, but not too much, Xeniades I 
 
 XXiri. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 Xeniades, whom I loved a little in my childhood, and 
 (do not look serious now, my dearest Pericles I) a very 
 little afterward, is sadly ill. He was always, I know not 
 how, extravagant in his wishes, although not so extrava- 
 gant as many others ; and what do you imagine he wishes 
 now? He wishes . . but he is very ill, so ill he cannot 
 rise from his bed . . that I would go and visit him. 
 I wonder whether it would be quite considerate : I am 
 half inclined to go, if you approve of it. 
 
 Poor youth ! he grieves me bitterly. 
 
 I shall not weep before him ; I have wept so much here. 
 Indeed, indeed, I wept, my Pericles, only because I had 
 written too unkindly. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 25 
 
 XXIV. PEEICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Do what your heart tells you : yes, Aspasia, do all it 
 tells you. Remember how august it is : it contains the 
 temple, not only of Love, but of Conscience ; and a whis- 
 per is heard from the extremity of the one to the extrem- 
 ity of the other. 
 
 Bend in pensiveness, even in sorrow, on the flowery 
 bank of youth, whereunder runs the stream that passes 
 irreversibly ! let the garland drop into it, let the hand be 
 refreshed by it ; but may the beautiful feet of Aspasia 
 stand firm ! 
 
 XXV. XENIADES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Tou promised you would return. I thought you only 
 broke hearts, not promises. 
 
 It is now broad daylight ; I see it clearly, although the 
 blinds are closed. A long sharp ray cuts off one corner 
 of the room, and we shall hear the crash presently. 
 
 Come ; but without that pale silent girl : I hate her. 
 Place her on the other side of you, not on mine. 
 
 And this plane-tree gives no shade whatever. We will 
 sit in some other place. 
 
 No, no ; I will not have you call her to us. Let her 
 play where she is . . the notes are low . . she plays sweetly. 
 
 XXVI. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 See what incoherency ! He did not write it ; not one 
 word. The slave who brought it, told me that he was de- 
 sired by the guest to write his orders, whenever he found 
 his mind composed enough to give any. 
 
 About four hours after my departure, he called him 
 mildly, and said, " I am quite recovered." 
 
 He gave no orders, however, and spake nothing more 
 for some time. At last he raised himself up, and rested 
 on his elbow, and began (said the slave) like one in* 
 
26 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 spired. The slave added, that finding he was indeed 
 quite well again, both in body and mind, and capable of 
 making as fine poetry as any man in Athens, he had writ> 
 ten down every word with the greatest punctuality ; and 
 that, looking at him for more, he found he had fallen into 
 as sound a slumber as a reaper's. 
 
 " Upon this I ran ofi" with the verses," said he , 
 
 XXVII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Comfort him. But you must love him, if you do. 
 Well ! comfort him. Forgive my inconsiderateness. 
 You will not love him now. You would not receive him 
 when your bosom was without an occupant. And yet 
 you saw him daily. Others, all others, pine away before 
 him. I wish I could solace my soul with poetry, as you 
 have the power of doing. In all the volumes I turn over, I 
 find none exactly suitable to my condition ; part expresses 
 my feelings, part flies off from them to something more 
 light and vague. I do not believe the best writers of 
 lovG-poetry ever loved. How could they write if they 
 did? where could they recollect the thoughts, the words, 
 the courage ? Alas ! alas ! men can find all these, Aspasia, 
 and leave us after they have found them. But in Xenia- 
 des there is no fault whatever : he never loved me ; he 
 never said he did ; he fled only from my immodesty in lov- 
 ing him. Dissembler as I was, he detected it. Do pity 
 him and help him ; but pity me too, who am beyond 
 your help. 
 
 XXVni. PEKICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Tears, O Aspasia, do not dwell long upon the cheeks of 
 youth. Rain drops easily from the bud, rests on the 
 bosom of the maturer flower, and breaks down that ona 
 only which hath lived its day. 
 
 Weep, and perform the offices of friendship. The sea- 
 son of life, leading you by the hand, will not permit you 
 to linger at the tomb of the departed ; and Xeniade.s, 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 27 
 
 when your first tear fell upon it, entered into the number 
 of the blessed. 
 
 XXIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 What shall I say to you, tender and sweet Cleone ! 
 The wanderer is in the haven of happiness ; the restless 
 has found rest. 
 
 Weep not ; I have shed all your tears . . not all . . 
 they burst from me again. 
 
 XXX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA 
 
 Oh ! he was too beautiful to live ! Is there anything 
 that shoots through the world so swiftly as a sunbeam ! 
 Epialtes has told me everything. He sailed back without 
 waiting at the islands ; by your orders, he says. 
 
 W^hat hopes could I, with any prudence, entertain? 
 The chaplet you threw away would have cooled and 
 adorned my temples ; but how could he ever love another 
 who had once loved you? I am casting my broken 
 thoughts before my Aspasia ; the little shells upon the 
 shore, that the storm has scattered there, and that heed- 
 less feet have trampled on. 
 
 I have prayed to Venus ; but I never prayed her to 
 turn toward me the fondness that was yours. I fan- 
 cied, I even hoped, you might accept it ; and my prayer 
 was, " Grant I may never love ! Afar from me, O god- 
 dess ! be the malignant warmth that dries up the dews of 
 friendship." 
 
 XXXI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Pericles has insisted on it that I should change the 
 air, and has recommended to me an excursion to the 
 borders of the state. 
 
 " If you pass them a little way," said he, " you will 
 come to Tanagra, and that will inflame you with ambi' 
 tion." 
 
28 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 The hoQor in which I hold the name of Corinna in- 
 duced me to undertake a journey to her native place. 
 Never have I found a people so hospitable as the inhabit- 
 ants. Living at a distance from the sea, they are not 
 traders, nor adventurers, nor speculators, nor usurers, 
 but cultivate a range of pleasant hUls, covered with 
 vines. Hermes is the principal god they w^orship ; yet I 
 doubt whether a single prayer was ever offered up to him 
 by a Tanagrian for success in thievery. 
 
 The beauty of Corinna is no less celebrated than her 
 poetry. I remarked that the women speak of it with 
 great exultation, while the men applaud her genius ; and 
 I asked my venerable host Agesilaus how he could 
 account for it. 
 
 " I can account for nothing that you ladies do," said 
 he, " although I have lived among you seventy -five years ; 
 I only know that it was exactly the contrary while she 
 was living. We youths were rebuked by you when we 
 talked about her beauty ; and the rebuke was only soft- 
 ened by the candid confession, that she was clever . . in 
 her way." 
 
 " Come back with me to Athens, O Agesilaus ! " said 
 I, " and we will send Aristophanes to Tanagra." 
 
 XXXn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 T have been reading all the poetry of Corinna that I 
 could collect. Certainly it is better than Hesiod's, or 
 even than Myrtis's, who taught her and Pindar, not the 
 rudiments of the art, for this is the only art in which the 
 rudiments are incommunicable, but what was good, what 
 was bad, in her verses ; why it was so, and how she 
 might correct the worse and improve the better. 
 
 Hesiod, who is also a Boeotian, is admirable for the 
 purity of his life and soundness of his precepts, but there 
 is hardly a trace of poetry in his ploughed field. 
 
 I find in all his writings but one verse worth transcrib- 
 ing, and that only for the melody : 
 
 " In a soft meadow and on vernal flowers." 
 
PERIOLES AND ASPASIA. 29 
 
 I do not wonder he was opposed to Homer. What an 
 advantage to the enemies of greatness (that is, to man- 
 kind) to be able to match one so low against one so 
 lofty ! 
 
 The Greek army before Troy would have been curious 
 to listen to a dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles, 
 but would have been transported with ecstasy to have 
 been present at one between the king of men and Ther- 
 sites. 
 
 There are few who possess all the poetry of any volu- 
 minous author. I doubt whether there are ten families in 
 Athens in which all the plays of ^schylus are preserved. 
 Many keep what pleases them most ; few consider that 
 every page of a really great poet has something in it 
 which distinguishes him from an inferior order ; some- 
 thing which, if insubstantial as the aliment, serves at least 
 as a solvent to the aliment, of strong and active minds. 
 
 I asked my Pericles what he thought of Hesiod. 
 
 " I think myself more sagacious," said he. " Hesiod f 
 found out that half was more than all ; I have found out I 
 that one is." 
 
 XXXin. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 A slave brought to me, this morning, an enormous 
 load of papers, as many as he could carry under both 
 arms. They are treatises by the most celebrated philos- 
 ophers. Some hours afterward, when the sun was de- 
 clining, Pericles came in, and asked me if I had examined 
 or looked over any portion of them. I told him I had 
 opened those only which bore the superscription of famous 
 names, but that, unless he would assist me, I was hope- 
 less of reconciling one part with another in the same 
 writers. 
 
 "The first thing requisite," said I, "is, that as many 
 as are now at Athens should meet together, and agree 
 upon a nomenclature of terms. From definitions we may 
 go on to propositions ; but we cannot make a step unless 
 the foot rests somewhere." 
 
 He smiled at me. " Ah my Aspasia ! " said he, " Phil- 
 
30 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 osophy does not bring her sons together ; she portions 
 them off early, gives them a scanty stock of worm-eaten 
 furniture, a chair or two on which it is dangerous to sit 
 down, and at least as many arms as utensils ; then leaves 
 them : they seldom meet afterward." 
 
 "But could not they be brought together by some 
 friend of the mother?" said I, laughing. 
 
 "Aspasia!" answered he, "you have lived but few 
 years in the world, and with only one philosopher . . 
 yourself." 
 
 " I will not be contented with a compliment," said I, 
 "and least of all from you. Explain to me the opinions 
 of those about you." 
 
 He traced before me the divergencies of every sect, 
 from our countryman Thales to those now living. Epi- 
 medea sat with her eyes wide open, listening attentively. 
 When he went away, I asked her what she thought of his 
 discourse. She half closed her eyes, not from weariness, 
 but (as many do) on bringing out of obscurity into light 
 a notable discovery ; and, laying her forefinger on my 
 arm, "You have turned his head," said she. "He will 
 do no longer ; he used to be plain and coherent ; and now 
 . . did ever mortal talk so widely ? I could not under- 
 stand one word in twenty, and what I could understand 
 was sheer nonsense." 
 
 "Sweet Epimedea!" said I, "this is what I should 
 fancy to be no such easy matter." 
 
 "Ah! you are growing like him already," said she; 
 " I should not be surprised to find, some morning, a 
 cupola at the top of this pretty head." 
 
 Pericles, I think I never told you, has a little elevation 
 on the croivn of his ; I should rather say his head has a 
 crown, others have none. 
 
 XXXIV. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Do, my dear Aspasia, continue to write to me about 
 the poets ; and if you think there is anything of Myrtis 
 or Coriuna, which is wanting to us at Miletus, copy it 
 
PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 31 
 
 out. I do not always approve of the Trilogies. Nothing 
 can be more tiresome, hardly anything more wicked, than 
 a few of them. It may be well occasionally to give 
 something of the historical form to the dramatic, as it is 
 occasionally to give something of the dramatic to the his- 
 torical ; but never to turn into ridicule and buffoonery the 
 virtuous, the unfortunate, or the brave. Whatever the 
 Athenians may boast of their exquisite judgment, their 
 delicate perceptions, this is a perversion of intellect in its 
 highest place, unworthy of a Thracian. There are many 
 bad tragedies both of ^schylus and Sophocles, but none 
 without beauties, few without excellences : I tremble, 
 then, at your doubt. In another century it may be im- 
 possible to find a collection of the whole, unless some 
 learned and rich man, like Pericles, or some protecting 
 king, like Hiero, should preserve them in his library. 
 
 XXXT. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Prudently have you considered how to preserve all 
 valuable authors. The cedar doors of a royal library fly 
 open to receive them ; ay, there they will be safe . . and 
 untouched. 
 
 Hiero is, however, no barbarian : he deserves a higher 
 station than a throne ; and he is raised to it. The pro- 
 tected have placed the protector where neither the malice 
 of men nor the power of gods can reach him . . beyond 
 Time . . above Fate. ' 
 
 XXXVI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 From the shortness of your last, I am quite certain 
 that you are busy for me in looking out pieces of verse. 
 If you cannot find any of Myrtis or Corinna, you may do 
 what is better ; you may compose a panegyric on all of 
 our sex who have excelled in poetry. This wUl earn for 
 you the same good ofiice, when the world shall produce 
 another Aspasia. 
 
32 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Having been in Boeotia, you must also know a great 
 deal more of Pindar than we do. Write about any of 
 them ; they all interest me, and my mind has need of 
 exercise. It is still too fond of throwing itself down on 
 one place. 
 
 XXXVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 And so, Cleone, you wish me to write a eulogy on 
 Myrtis and Corinna, and all the other poetesses that ever 
 lived ; and this for the honor of our sex ! Ah Cleone ! 
 no studied eulogy does honor to any one. It is always 
 considered, and always ought to be, as a piece of plead- 
 ing, in which the pleader says everything the most in favor 
 of his client, in the most graceful and impressive manner 
 he can. There is a city of Greece, I hear, in which re- 
 ciprocal flattery is so necessary, that, whenever a member 
 of the assembly dies, his successor is bound to praise him 
 before he takes the seat. 
 
 I do not speak this from my own knowledge ; indeed 1 
 could hardly believe in such frivolity, until I asked Peri- 
 cles if it were true ; or rather, if there were any founda- 
 tion at all for the report. 
 
 "Perfectly true," said he, "but the citizens of this city 
 are now become our allies ; therefore do not curl your 
 lip, or I must uncurl it, being an archon." 
 
 Myrtis and Corinna have no need of me. To read and 
 recommend their works, to point out their beauties and 
 defects, is praise enough. 
 
 " How ! " methinks you exclaim. " To point out de- 
 fects ! is that praising ? " 
 
 Yes, Cleone ; if with equal good faith and accuracy 
 you point out their beauties too. It is only thus a fair 
 estimate can be made ; and it is only by such fair esti- 
 mate that a viT-iter can be exalted to his proper station. 
 If you toss up the scale too high, it descends again 
 rapidly below its equipoise ; what it contains drops out, 
 and people catch at it, scatter it, and lose it. 
 
 We not only are inclined to indulge in rather more 
 than a temperate heat (of what we would persuade our- 
 
PEllICLES AND ASPASIA. 33 
 
 ;eh'es is wholesome severity) toward the living, but even 
 o peer sometimes into the tomb, with a wolfish appetite 
 or an unpleasant odor. 
 
 We must patronize, we must puU down ; in fact we 
 nust be in mischief, men or women. 
 
 If we are capable of showing what is good in another, 
 md neglect to do it, we omit a duty ; we omit to give 
 •ational pleasure, and to conciliate right good-will ; nay 
 nore, we are abettors, if not aiders, in the vilest fraud, 
 he fraud of purloining from respect. We are intrusted 
 vith letters of great interest ; what a baseness not to 
 leliver them ! 
 
 XXXVIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 It is remarkable that Athens, so fertile in men of 
 ;enius, should have produced no women of distinction, 
 vhile Boeotia, by no means celebrated for brightness of 
 ntellect in either sex, presented to the admiration of the 
 i\'orld her Myrtis and Corinna. At the feet of Myrtis it 
 ivas, that Pindar gathered into his throbbing breast the 
 scattered seeds of poetry ; and it was under the smile of 
 ;he beautiful Corinna that he drew his inspiration and 
 ivove his immortal crown. 
 
 He never quite overcame his grandiloquence. The 
 mimals we call half-asses, by a word of the sweetest 
 sound, although not the most seducing import, he calls 
 
 " The daughters of the tempest-footed steeds 1 " 
 
 O Fortune ! that the children of so illustrious a line 
 should carry sucking-pigs into the market-place, and 
 3abbage-stalks out of it ! 
 
 XXXIX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Will you always leave oif, Aspasia, at the very moment 
 p^ou have raised our expectations to the highest? A wit- 
 icisui, and a sudden spring from your seat, lest we should 
 
34 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 see you smile at it, these are your ways ; shame upon 
 you ! Are you determined to continue all your life in 
 making every one wish something? 
 
 Pindar should not be treated liie ordinary men. 
 
 XL. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I have not treated Pindar like an ordinary man ; I eon- 
 ducted him into the library of Cleone, and left him there. 
 However, I would have my smUe out, behind the door. 
 The verse I quoted, you may be sure, is much admired 
 by the learned, and no less by the brave and worthy men 
 whom he celebrates for charioteership, and other such 
 dexterities ; but we of old Miletus have been always 
 taught that words should be subordinate to ideas, and we 
 never place the pedestal on the head of the statue. 
 
 Now do not tell anybody that I have spoken a single 
 word in dispraise of Pindar. Men are not too apt to 
 admire what is admirable in their superiors, but, on 
 the contrary, are apt to detract from them, and to seize on 
 iinything which may tend to lower them. Pindar would 
 not have written so exquisitely if no fault had ever been 
 found with him. He would have wandered on among 
 such inquiries as those he began in : 
 
 " Shall I sing the wide-spreading and noble Ismenus? 
 or the beautiful and white-ankled Melie ? or the glorious 
 Cadmus ? or the mighty Hercules ? or the blooming Bac- 
 chus?" 
 
 Now a poet ought to know what he is about before he 
 opens his lips ; he ought not to ask, like a poor fellow in 
 the street, "Good people! what song will you have?" 
 This, however, was not the fault for which he was blamed 
 by Corinna. In our censures we are less apt to consider 
 the benefit we may confer than the ingenuity we can dis- 
 play. 
 
 She said, " Pindar ! you have brought a sack of corn 
 to sow a perch of laud ; and, instead of sprinkling it 
 about, you have emptied the sack at the first step." 
 
 Enough : this reproof formed his character ; it directed 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 35 
 
 IS beat, it singled his aim, it concentrated his forces. It 
 as not by the precepts of" Corinna, it was not by her 
 cample, it was by one witticism of a wise and lovely 
 Oman, that he far excels all other poets in disdain of 
 iviality and choice of topics. He is sometimes very 
 idious to us in his long stories of families, but we may 
 3 sure he was not equally so to those who were con- 
 srned in the genealogy. We are amused at his clever- 
 Bss in saving the shoulder of Pelops from the devouring 
 a,w of a hungry god. No doubt he mends the matter ; 
 Bvertheless he tires us. 
 
 Many prefer his Dithyrambics to his Olympian, Isth- 
 dan, Pythian, and Nemean Odes. I do not ; nor is it 
 kely that he did himself. We may well suppose that he 
 serted the most power on the composition, and the most 
 lought on the correction, of the poems he was to recite 
 efore kings and nations, in honor of the victors at those 
 jlemn games. Here the choruses and bands of music 
 'ere composed of the first singers and players in the 
 'orld ; in the others there were no performers but such 
 s happened to assemble on ordinary festivals, or at best 
 t a festival of Bacchus. In the Odes performed at the 
 ames, although there is not always perfect regularity of 
 orresponding verse, there is always enough of it to satisfy 
 le most fastidious ear. In the Dithyrambics there is no 
 rder whatsoever, but verses and half verses of every 
 ind, cemented by vigorous and sounding prose. 
 
 I do not love dances upon stilts ; they may excite the 
 pplauses and acclamations of the vulgar, but we, Cleone, 
 xact the observance of established rules, and never 
 ut on slippers, however richly embroidered, unless they 
 
 XLI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 We hear that between Athens and Syracuse there has 
 Iways been much communication. Let me learn what 
 ou have been able to collect about the lives of Pindar 
 nd ^schylus in Sicily. 
 
 Is it not strange thst the two most high-minded of poets 
 
36 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 should have gone to reside in a foreign land, under the 
 dominion of a king? 
 
 • I am ashamed of my question abeady. Such men are 
 under no dominion. It is not in their nature to offend 
 against the laws, or to think about what they are, or who 
 administers them ; and they may receive a part of their 
 sustenance from kings, as well as from cows and bees. 
 We will reproach them for emigration, when we reproach 
 a man for lying down in his neighbor's field becau.sp 
 the grass is softer in it than in his own. 
 
 XLII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Not an atom have I been able to collect in regard to 
 the two poets, since they went to the court of Hiero ; but 
 I can give you as correct and as full information, as if I 
 had been seated between them all the while. 
 
 Hiero was proud of his acquisition ; the courtiers 
 despised them, vexed them whenever they could, and en- 
 treated them to command their services and rely upon 
 their devotion. What more? They esteemed each other ; 
 but poets are very soon too old for mutual love. 
 
 He who can add one syllable to this, shall have the 
 hand of Cleone. 
 
 XLIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Torturing girl ! And you, Aspasia, may justly say un- 
 grateful girl I to me. You did not give me what I asked 
 for, but you gave me what is better, a glimpse of you. 
 This is the manner in which you used to trifle with me, 
 making the heaviest things light, the thorniest tractable, 
 and throwing your own beautiful brightness wherever it 
 was most wanted. 
 
 But do not slip from me again. JEschylus, we know, 
 is dead ; we hear that Pindar is. Did they die abroad ? 
 
 Ah poor Xeniades ! how miserable to be buried by the 
 stranger ! 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 37 
 
 XXIV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 ^schylus, at the close of his seventieth year, died in 
 icilj. I know not whether Hiero received him with all 
 iB distinction he merited, or rewarded him with the 
 ime generosity as Pindar ; nor indeed have I been able 
 I learn, what would very much gratify me, that Pindar, 
 ho survived him four years and died lately, paid those 
 jnors to the greatest man of the most glorious age since 
 irth rose out of chaos, which he usually paid with lav- 
 fa hand to the prosperous and powerful. I hope he did ; 
 It the words wealth and gold occur too often in the 
 jetry of Pindar. 
 
 Perhaps I may wrong him, for a hope is akin to a 
 jubt ; it may be that I am mistaken, since we have not 
 1 his poems even here in Athens. Several of these, too, 
 irticularly the Dithyrambics, ape in danger of perishing, 
 he Odes on the victors at the games will be preserved 
 Y the vanity of the families they celebrate ; and, beiog 
 ms safe enough for many years, their own merit will 
 istain them afterward. It is owing to a stout nurse 
 lat many have lived to an extreme old age. 
 
 Some of the Odes themselves are of little value in 
 igard to poetry, but he exercises in all of them as much 
 3xterity as the worthies he applauds had displayed in 
 leir exploits. 
 
 To compensate the disappointmentr you complained of, 
 will now transcribe for you an ode of Corinna to her 
 ative town, being quite sure it is not in your collection, 
 et me first inform you that the exterior of the best 
 auses in Tanagra is painted with historical scenes, ad- 
 sntures of gods, allegories, and other things ; and under 
 le walls of the city flows the rivulet Thermodon. This 
 
 is requisite to tell you of so small and so distant a 
 lace. 
 
38 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CORINNA TO TANAGRA. 
 
 From Athens. 
 
 Tanagra I think not I forget 
 
 Thy beautifully storied streets ; 
 Be sure my memory bathes yet 
 
 In clear Thermoden, and yet greets 
 The blithe and liberal shepherd boy, 
 Whose sunny bosom swells with joy 
 When we accept his matted rushes 
 Upheav'd with sylvan fruit ; away he bounds, and blushes. 
 
 A gift I promise ; one I see 
 
 Which thou with transport wilt receive, 
 
 The only proper gift for thee, 
 
 Of which no mortal shall bereave 
 
 In later times thy mouldering walls. 
 
 Until the last old turret falls ; 
 
 A crown, a crown from Athens won, 
 A crown no god can wear, beside Latona's son. 
 
 There may be cities who refuse 
 
 To their own child the honors due, 
 And look ungently on the Muse ; 
 But ever shall those cities rue 
 The dry, unyielding, niggard breast. 
 Offering no nourishment, no rest, 
 To that young head which soon shall rise 
 Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies. 
 
 Sweetly where cavern'd Dirce flows 
 Do white-armed maidens chant my lay, 
 
 Flapping the while with laurel rose 
 The honey-gathering tribes away ; 
 
 And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues 
 
 Lisp your Corinna's early songs ; 
 
 To her with feet more graceful come 
 The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home. 
 
 O let thy children lean aslant 
 Against the tender mother's knee. 
 
 And gaze into her face, and want 
 To know what magic there can be 
 
 In words that urge some eyes to dance, 
 
 While others as in holy trance 
 
 Look up to heaven ; be such my praise ! 
 Why linger ? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 39 
 
 XLV. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Epimedea, it appears, has not corrupted very grossly 
 your purity and simplicity in dress. Yet, remembering 
 your observation on armlets, I cannot but commend your 
 kindness and sufferance in wearing her emeralds. Your 
 opinion was formerly, that we should be careful not to 
 subdivide our persons. The arm is composed of three 
 parts ; no one of them is too long. Now the armlet 
 intersects that portion of it which must be considered as 
 the most beautiful. In my idea of the matter, the sandal 
 alone is susceptible of gems, after the zone has received 
 the richest. The zone is necessary to our vesture, and 
 encompasses the person, in every quarter of the human- 
 ized world, in one invariable manner. The hair, too, is 
 divided by nature in the middle of the head. There is a 
 cousinship between the hair and the flowers ; and from 
 this relation the poets have called by the same name the 
 leaves and it. They appear on the head as if they had 
 been seeking one another. Our national dress, very 
 different from the dresses of barbarous nations, is not 
 the inventaon of the ignorant or the slave ; but the 
 sculptor, the painter, and the poet, have studied how best 
 to adorn the most beautiful object of tjieir fancies and 
 contemplations. The Indians, who believe that human 
 pains and sufferings are pleasing to the deity, make in- 
 cisions in their bodies, and insert into them imperishable 
 colors. They also adorn the ears and noses and fore- 
 heads of their gods. These were the ancestors of the 
 Egyptian ; we chose handsomer and better-tempered ones 
 for our worship, but retained the same decorations in our 
 sculpture, and to a degree which the sobriety of the 
 Egyptian had reduced and chastened. Hence we retain 
 the only mark of barbarism which dishonors our national 
 dress, the use of ear-rings. If our statues should all be 
 broken by some convulsion of the earth, would it be 
 believed by future ages that, in the country and age of 
 Sophocles, the women tore holes in their ears to let rings 
 
40 PERICLES AND ASVASIA. 
 
 into, as the more brutal of peasants do with the snouts of 
 sows ! 
 
 XLYI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Cleone, I do not know whether I ought to write out 
 for you anything of Mimnermus. What is amatory 
 poetry without its tenderness? and what was ever less 
 tender than his? Take, however, the verses, such as they 
 are. Whether they make you smile or look grave, with- 
 out any grace of their own they must bring one forward. 
 Certainly they are his best, which cannot be said of every 
 author out of whose rarer works I have added something 
 to your collection. 
 
 I wish not Tliasos rich in mines, 
 
 Nor Naxos girt around with vines, 
 
 Nor Crete nor Samos, the abodes 
 
 Of those wlio govern men and gods. 
 
 Nor wider Lydia, where the sound 
 
 Of tymbrels shakes the thymy ground, 
 
 And with wliite feet and with hoofs cloven 
 
 The dedal dance is spun and woven : 
 
 Meanwhile each prying younger thing 
 
 Is sent for water to the spring, 
 
 Under where red Priapus rears 
 
 His club amid the junipers. 
 
 In this whole world enough for me 
 
 Is any spot the gods decree ; 
 
 Albeit the pious and the wise 
 
 Would tarry where, like mulberries, 
 
 In the first hour of ripeness fall 
 
 The tender creatures one and all. 
 
 To take what falls with even mind 
 
 Jove wills, and we must be resign'd. 
 
 XLVII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 There is less eflfrontery in those verses of Mimnermus 
 than in most he has written. He is among the many 
 poets who never make us laugh or weep ; among the 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 41 
 
 tLany whom we take into the hand like pretty insects, j 
 turn them over, look at them for a moment, and toss them 
 into the grass again. The earth swarms with these ; they 
 live their season, and others similar come into life the 
 next. 
 
 I have been reading works widely diiferent from theirs ; 
 the odes of the lovely Lesbian. I think she has injured 
 the phaleucian verse, by transposing one foot, and throw- 
 ing it backward. How greatly more noble and more so- 
 norous are those hendecasyllabies commencing the Scolion 
 on Harmodius and Aristogiton, than the very best of 
 hers, which, to my ear, labor and shuffle in their move- 
 ment. Her genius was wonderful, was prodigious. I 
 am neither blind to her beauties nor indifferent to her 
 sufferings. We love forever those whom we have wept 
 for when we were children ; we love them more than 
 even those who have wept for us. Now I have grieved 
 for Sappho, and so have you, Aspasia J we shall not, 
 therefore, be hard judges of her sentiments or her poetry. 
 
 Frequently have we listened to the most absurd and 
 extravagant praises of the answer she gave Alcjeus, when 
 he told her he wished to say something, but shamB pre- 
 vented him. This answer of hers is a proof that she was 
 deficient in delicacy and in tenderness. Could Sappho be 
 ignorant ho whnfantinely inarticulate is early love ? Could 
 she be ignorant that shame and fear seize it unrelentingly 
 by the throat, while hard-hearted impudence stands at 
 ease, prompt at opportunity, and profuse in declarations ! 
 
 There is a gloom in deep love, as in deep water ; there 
 is a silence in it which suspends the foot, and the folded 
 arms and the dejected head are the images it reflects. 
 No voice shakes its surface ; the Muses themselves ap- 
 proach it with a tardy and a timid step, and with a low 
 and tremulous and melancholy song. 
 
 The best Ode of Sappho, the Ode to Anactoria, 
 
 " Happy as any god is he," etc., 
 
 phows the intemperance and disorder of passion. The 
 description of her malady may be quite correct, but I 
 
42 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 confess my pleasure ends at the first strophe, where it be. 
 gins with the generality of readers. I do not desire to 
 know the efiects of the distemper on her body, and I 
 run out of the house into the open air, although the 
 symptoms have less in them of contagion than of un- 
 seemliness. Both Sophocles and Euripedes excite our 
 sympathies more powerfully and more poetically. 
 
 I will not interfere any farther with your reflections ; 
 and indeed when I began, I intended to remark only the 
 injustice of Sappho's reproof to Alcaeus in the first in- 
 stance, and the justice of it in the second, when he re- 
 newed his suit to her after he had fled from battle. We 
 find it in the only epigram attributed to her : 
 
 He who from battle runs away 
 May pray and sing, and sing and pray ; 
 Nathless, Alcaeus, howsoe'er 
 Dulcet his song and warm his prayer 
 And true Jiis vows of love may be, 
 He ne'er shall run away with me. 
 
 In my opinion no lover should be dismissed with con- 
 tumely, or without the expression of commiseration, un- 
 less he has committed some bad action. O Aspasia ! it 
 is hard to love and not to be loved again. I felt it early ; 
 I still feel it. There is a barb beyond the reach of dit- 
 tany ; but years, as they roU by us, benumb in some 
 degree our sense of suflFering. Season comes after sea- 
 son, and covers as it were with soil and herbage, the flints 
 that have cut us so cruelly in our course. 
 
 XLTIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Alcaeus, often admirable in his poetry, was a vain- 
 glorious and altogether worthless man. I must defend 
 Sappho. She probably knew his character at the begin- 
 ning, and sported a witticism (not worth much) at hia 
 expense. He made a pomp and parade of his generosity 
 and courage, with which in truth he was scantily supplied, 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 43 
 
 and all his love lay commodiously at the point of his pen, 
 among the rest his first. 
 
 He was unfit for public life, he was unfit for private. 
 Perverse, insolent, selfish, he hated tyranny because he 
 could not be a tyrant. Sufficiently weU-born, he was jeal- 
 ous and intolerant of those who were nothing less so, and 
 he wished they were aU poets that he might expose a weak- 
 ness the more in them. For rarely has there been one, 
 however virtuous, without some vanity and some invid- 
 iousness ; despiser of the humble, detractor of the high, 
 iconoclast of the near, and idolater of the distant. 
 
 Return we to Alcasus. Factitious in tenderness, facti- 
 tious in heroism, addicted to falsehood, and unabashed at 
 bis fondness for it, he attacked and overcame every rival 
 in that quarter. He picked up all the arrows that were 
 shot against him, recocted aU the venom of every point, 
 and was almost an ArchUochus in satire. 
 
 I do not agree with you in your censure of Sappho. 
 There is softness by the side of power, discrimination by 
 the side of passion. In this, however, I do agree with 
 you, that her finest ode is not to be compared to many 
 choruses in the tragedians. We know that Sappho felt 
 acutely ; yet Sappho is never pathetic. Euripides and 
 Sophocles are not remarkable for their purity, the inten- 
 sity, or the fidelity of their loves, yet they touch, they 
 transfix, the heart. Her imagination, her whole soul, ia 
 absorbed in her own breast : she is the prey of the pas- 
 sions : they are the lords and masters. 
 
 Sappho has been dead so long, and we live so far from 
 Lesbos, that we have the fewer means of ascertaining 
 the truth or falsehood of stories told about her. Some 
 relate that she was beautiful, some that she was deformed. 
 Lust, it is said, is frequently the inhabitant of deformity ; 
 and coldness is experienced in the highest beauty. I be- 
 lieve the former case is more general than the latter ;(^but 
 where there is great regularity of features I have often 
 remarked a correspondent regularity iu the afiections and 
 the conduct. \ 
 
44 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 XLIX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 ' Do you remember the lively Hegemon, whose curls 
 you pressed down with your forefinger to see them spring 
 up again ? Do you remember his biting it for the liberty 
 you had taken ; and his kissing it to make it well ; and 
 his telling you that he was not quite sure whether some 
 other kisses, here and there, might not be requisite to pre- 
 vent the spreading of the venom ? And do you remember 
 how you turned pale ? and how you laughed with me, as 
 we went away, at his thinking you turned pale because 
 you were afraid of it ? The boy of fifteen, as he was then, 
 hath lost all his liveliness, all his assurance, all his wit ; 
 and his radiant beauty has taken another character. Plis 
 cousin Praxinoe, whom he was not aware of loving until 
 she was betrothed to Callias, a merchant of Samos, was 
 married a few months ago. There are no verses I read 
 oftener than the loose dithyrambics of poor Hegemon. 
 Do people love anywhere else as we love here at Miletus? 
 But perhaps the fondness of Hegemon may abate after a 
 time ; for Hegemon is not a woman. How long and 
 how assiduous are we in spinning that thread, the softest 
 and finest in the web of life, which Destiny snaps asunder 
 in one moment ! 
 
 HEGEMON TO PBAXINOE. 
 
 Is there any season, O my soul, 
 When the sources of bitter tears dry up. 
 And the uprooted flowers take their places again 
 Along the torrent-bed ? 
 
 Could I wish it to live, it would be for that season, 
 To repose my limbs and press my temples there. 
 But should I not speedily start away 
 
 In the hope to trace and follow thy steps I 
 
 Thou art gone, thou art gone, Praxinoe ! 
 And hast taken far from me thy lovely youth, 
 Leaving me naught that was desirable in mine. 
 Alas ' alas ! what hast thou left me ? 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 4.'} 
 
 The helplessness of childhood, the solitude of age, 
 The huigliter of the happy, the pity of the scorner, 
 A colorless and broken shadow am I, 
 Seen glancing in troubled waters. 
 
 My thoughts too are scattered ; thou hast cast them off; 
 They beat against thee, they would cling to thee, 
 But they are viler than the loose dark weeds, 
 Without a place to root or rest in. 
 
 I would throw them across my lyre ; they drop from it; 
 My lyre will sound only two measures ; 
 That Pity will never, never come. 
 
 Or come to the sleep that awakeneth not unto her. 
 
 L. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Tell Hegemon that his verses have made a deeper im- 
 pression than his bite, and that the Athenians, men and 
 women, are pleased with them, f He has shown that he is 
 a poet, by not attempting to show that he is overmuch of 
 one.) Forbear to intorm him that we Athenians disap- 
 prove of irregularity in versification ; we are little pleased 
 to be rebounded from the end of a line to the beginning, 
 as it often happens, and to be obliged to turn back and 
 make inquiries in regard to what we have been about. 
 There have latterly been many compositions in which it 
 is often requisite to read twice over the verses which have 
 already occupied more than a due portion of our time in 
 reading once. The hop-skip-and-jump is by no means a 
 pleasant or a graceful exercise, but it is quite intolerable 
 when we invert it to a jump-skip-and-hop. I take some 
 liberty in these strange novel compounds, but no greater 
 than our friend Aristophanes has taken, and not only 
 without reproof or censure, but with great commendation 
 for it. However, I have done it- for the first and last 
 time, and before the only friend with whom they can be 
 pardonable. Henceforward, I promise you, Cleone, I will 
 always be Attic, or, what is gracefuller and better, Ionian. 
 'You shall forever hear my voice in my letters, and you 
 shall know it to be mine, and mine only. ") Already I hare 
 
46 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 had imitators in the style of my conversations, but they 
 have imitated others too, and this hath saved me. In 
 mercy and pure beneficence to me, the gods have marred 
 the resemblance. Nobody can recognize me in my me- 
 tempsychosis. Those who had hoped and heard better of 
 me, will never ask themselves, "Was Aspasia so wordy, 
 so inelegant, affected, and perverse?" Inconsiderate 
 friends have hurt me worse than enemies could do ; they 
 have hinted that the orations of Pericles have been re- 
 touched by my pen. Cleone ! the gods themselves could 
 not correct his language. Human ingenuity, with all the 
 malice and impudence that usually accompany it, will 
 never be able to remodel a single sentence, or to substi- 
 tute a single word, in his speeches to the people. What 
 wealth of wisdom has he not thrown away lest it en- 
 cumber him in the Agora ! how much more than ever 
 was carried into it by the most popular of his opponents ! 
 Some of my expressions may have escaped from him in 
 crowded places ; some of his cling to me in retii-ement ; 
 we cannot love without imitating); and we are as proud 
 in the loss of our originality as of our freedom. I am 
 sorry that poor Hegemon has not had an opportunity of 
 experiencing all this. Persuade his friends never to pity 
 him, truly or feignedly, for^pity keeps the wound open j) 
 persuade them rather to flatter him on his poetry, for 
 never was there poet to whom the love of praise was not 
 the first and most constant of passions. His friends will 
 be the gainers by it : he will divide among them all the 
 affection he fancies he has reserved for Praxinoe. With 
 most men, nothing seems to have happened so long ago as 
 an affair of love. Let nobody hint this to him at present. 
 It is among the many truths that ought to be held back ; 
 it is among the many that excite a violent opposition at 
 one time, and obtain at another (not much later) a very 
 ductile acquiescence ; he wUl receive it hereafter (take 
 my word for him) with only one slight remonstrance . . 
 you are too hard upon us lovers ; then follows a shake of 
 the head, not of abnegation, but of sanction, like Jupiter's. 
 Pnixinoe, it seems, is married to a merchant, poor 
 girl ! I do not like these merchants. Let them have 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 47 
 
 TOalth in the highest, but not beauty in the highest ; cun- 
 ling and calculation i;«,n hardly merit both. At last they 
 nay aspire, if any civilized country could tolerate it, to 
 lonors and distinctions. These, too, let them have, but 
 bt Tyre and Carthage. 
 
 LI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 / How many things in poetry, as in other matters, are 
 ikely to be lost because they are small ! / Cleobuline of 
 Liindos wrote no long poem. Her lover was Cycnus of 
 I!olophon. There is not a single verse of hers in all 
 hat city ; proof enough that he took no particular care 
 )f them. At Miletus she was quite unknown, not indeed 
 )y name, but in her works, until the present month, when 
 I copy of them was offered to me lor sale. The first 
 hat caught my eyes was this : 
 
 Where is the swan of breast so white 
 It made my bubbling life run bright 
 
 On that one spot, and that alone, 
 On which he rested ; and I stood 
 Gazing : now swells the turbid flood ; 
 Summer and he for other climes are flown ! 
 
 I will not ask you at present to say anything in praise 
 )f Cleobuline, but do be grateful to Myrtis and Corinna ! 
 
 LII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Grateful I am, and shall forever be, to Myrtis and 
 Dorinna. But what odor of bud or incense can they wish 
 be lavished on the empty sepulchre, what praises of 
 he thousand who praise in ignorance, or of the learned 
 vho praise from tradition, when they remember that 
 hey subdued and regulated the proud unruly Pindar and 
 igitated with all their passion the calm, pure breast of 
 Dleone ! 
 
 Send me the whole volume of Cleobuline ; transcribe 
 
48 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 uothing more. To compensate you as well as I can, and 
 indeed I think the compensation is not altogetter an un- 
 fair one, here are two little pieces from Myrtis, auto- 
 graphs, from the library of Pericles. 
 
 Artemia, while Arion sighs, 
 Raising her white and taper finger, 
 Pretends to loose, yet makes to linger. 
 
 The ivy that o'ershades her eyes. 
 
 " Wait, or you shall not have the kiss," 
 Bays she ; but he, on wing to pleasure, 
 " Are there not other hours for leisure? 
 
 Por love is any hour like this ? " 
 
 Artemia I faintly thou respondest, 
 As falsely deems that fiery youth ; 
 A god there is who knows the truth, 
 
 A god who tells me which is fondest. 
 
 Here is another, in the same hand, a clear and elegant 
 one. Men may be negligent in their hand-writing, for 
 men may be in a hurry about the business of life ; but I 
 never knew either a sensible woman or an estimable one 
 whose writing was disorderly. 
 
 Well, the verses are prettier than my reflection, and 
 equally true. 
 
 J I will not love ! i 
 
 \ . . . These sounds have often 
 
 ( Burst from a troubled breast; 
 
 ) Rarely from one no sighs could soften, / 
 
 ! Rarely from one at rest. ) 
 
 Mjrrtis and Corinna, like Anacreon and Sappho who 
 preceded them, were temperate in the luxuries of poetry. 
 They had enough to do with one feeling ; they were oc- 
 cupied enough with one reflection. They culled but few 
 grapes from the bunch, and never dragged it across the 
 teeth, stripping oflF ripe and unripe. 
 
 LIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 The verses of Myrtis, which you sent me last, are some- 
 what less pleasing to me than those others of hers which I 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA, 49 
 
 send you in return. A few loose ideas on the subject 
 (I know not whether worth writing) occur to me at this 
 moment. Formerly we were contented with schools of 
 philosophy ; we now begin to talk about schools of 
 poetry. Is not that absurd ? There is only one school, 
 the universe ; only one school-mistress, Nature. Those 
 who are reported to be of such or such a school, are of 
 none ; they have played the truant. Some are more 
 careful, some more negligent, some bring many dishes, 
 some fewer, some little seasoned, some highly. Ground, 
 however, there is for the fanciful appellation. The young 
 poets at Miletus are beginning to throw off their alle- 
 giance to the established and acknowledged laws of 
 Athens, and are weary of following in the train of the 
 graver who have been crowned. The various schools, as 
 they call them, have assumed distinct titles ; but the 
 largest and most flourishing of all would be discontented, 
 I am afraid, with the properest I could inscribe it with, 
 the queer. We really have at present in our city more 
 good poets than we ever had ; and the queer might be 
 among the best if they pleased. But whenever an obvi- 
 ous and natural thought presents itself, they either reject 
 it for coming without imagination, or they phrygianize it 
 with such biting and hot curling-irons, that it rolls itself 
 up impenetrably. They declare to us that pure and simple 
 imagination is the absolute perfection of poetry ; and if 
 ever they admit a sentence or reflection, it must be one 
 which requires a whole day to unravel and wind it 
 smoothly on the distaff. 
 
 To me it appears that poetry ought neither to be all 
 body nor all soul. Beautiful features, limbs compact, 
 sweetness of voice, and easiness of transition, belong to 
 the deity who inspires and represents it. We may loiter 
 by the stream and allay our thirst as it runs, but we 
 should not be forbidden the larger draught from the 
 deeper well. 
 
 FROM MYRTIS. 
 
 Friends, whom she looked at blandly from her couch 
 And her white wrist above it, gem-bedewed, 
 Were arguing with Pentheusa ; she had heard 
 4 
 
lyO PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Report of Creon's death, whom years before 
 
 She listened to, well-pleas'd ; and sighs arose; 
 
 For sighs full often fondle with reproofs 
 
 And will be fondled by them. When I came 
 
 After the rest to visit her, she said, 
 
 "Myrtis! how kind I Who better knows than t'/iou 
 
 The pangs of love ? and ray first love was he 1 " 
 
 Tell me (if ever, Eros ! are reveal'd 
 
 Thy secrets to the earth) have they been true 
 
 To any love who speak about the first? 
 
 What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling stars 
 
 In the few hours assign'd them, change their place, 
 
 And, when comes ampler splendor, disappear? 
 
 Idler I am, and pardon, not reply, 
 
 Implore from thee, thus questioned ; well I know 
 
 Thou strikest, like Olympian Jove, but once. 
 
 LIV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Lysicles, a young Athenian, fond of travelling, has just 
 returned to us from a voyage in Thrace. A love of ob- 
 servation, in other words curiosity, could have been his 
 , only motive, for he never was addicted to commerce, nor 
 disciplined in philosophy ; and indeed were he so, Thrace 
 is hardly the country he would have chosen. I believe 
 he is the first that ever travelled with no other intentioa 
 than to see the cities and know the manners of barbae 
 rians. He represents the soil as extremely fertile in its 
 nature, and equally well cultivated, and the inhabitants as 
 warlike, hospitable, and courteous. All this is credible 
 enough, and perhaps as generally known as might be ex- 
 pected of regions so remote and perilous. But Lysicles 
 will appear to you to have assumed a little more than the 
 fair privileges of a traveller, in relating that the people 
 liave so imperfect a sense of religion as to bury the dead 
 in the temples of the gods, and the priests are so avari- 
 cious and shameless as to claim money for the permission 
 of this impiety. He told us furthermore that he had seen 
 a magnificent temple, built on somewhat of a Grecian 
 model, in the interior of which there are many flat mar- 
 bles fastened with iron cramps against the walls, and serv- 
 ing for monuments. Continuing his discourse, he assured 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 51 
 
 US thai ihese monuments, although none are ancient, are 
 of all forms and dimensions, as if the Thracians were 
 resolved to waste and abolish the symmetry they had 
 adopted ; and that they are inscribed in an obsolete lan- 
 guage, so that the people whom they might animate and 
 instruct, by recording brave and virtuous actions, pass 
 them carelessly by, breaking off now and then a nose 
 from a conqueror, and a wing from an agathodemon. 
 
 Thrace is governed by many princes. One of them, 
 Teres, an Odrysan,* has gained great advantages in war. 
 No doubt this is uninteresting to you, but it is necessary 
 to the course of my narration. WiU you believe it ? yet 
 Lysicles is both intelligent and trustworthy. . will you be- 
 lieve that, at the return of the Thracian prince to enjoy 
 the fruits of his victory, he ordered an architect to build 
 an arch for himself and his army to pass under, on their 
 road into the city ? As if a road, on such an occasion, 
 ought not rather to be widened than narrowed ? If you 
 wiU not credit this of a barbarian, who is reported to be 
 an intelligent and prudent man in other things, you will 
 exclaim, I fear, against the exaggeration of Lysicles and 
 my credulity, when I relate to you on his authority that, 
 to the same conqueror, by his command, there has been 
 erected a column sixty cubits high, supporting his effigy 
 in marble ! 
 
 Imagine the general of an army standing upon a col- 
 umn of sixty cubits to show himself ! A crane might do 
 it after a victory over a pigmy ; or it might aptly repre- 
 sent the virtues of a rope-dancer, exhibiting how little 
 he was subject to dizziness. 
 
 I will write no more about it, for really I am begin- 
 ning to think that some pretty Thracian has given poor 
 Lysicles a love-potion, and that it has affected his brain. 
 
 * Teres not only governed the larger part of Thrace, but in- 
 fluenced many of the free and independent states in that country, 
 and led into the field the Getes, the Agrianians, the Leseans, and 
 the Pceonians. Sitalces, son of Teres, ravaged all Macedonia in 
 the leign of Perdiccas. 
 
52 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 LV. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Never will I believe that a people, however otherwise 
 ignorant and barbarous, yet capable of turning a regular 
 arch and of erecting a lofty column, can be so stupid and 
 absurd as you have represented. What ! bury dead 
 bodies in the temples ! cast them out of their own houses 
 into the houses of the gods ! Depend upon it, Aspasia, 
 they were the bones of victims ; and the strange uncouth 
 inscriptions commemorate votive offerings, in the lan- 
 guage of the priests, whatever it may be. So far is 
 clear. Regarding the arch, Lysicles saw them removing 
 it, and fancied they were building it. This mistake is 
 really ludicrous. The column, you must have perceived 
 at once, was erected, not to display the victor, but to ex- 
 pose the vanquished. A blunder very easy for au idle 
 traveller to commit. Few of the Thracians, I conceive, 
 even in the interior, are so utterly ignorant of Gre- 
 cian arts, as to raise a statue at such a height above the 
 ground that the vision shall not comprehend all the fea^ 
 tures easily, and the spectator see and contemplate the 
 object of his admiration, as nearly and in the same posi- 
 tion as he was used to do in the Agora. 
 
 The monument of the greatest man should be only a 
 bust and a name. If the name alone is insufficient to 
 illustrate the bust, let them both perish. 
 
 Enough about Thracians ; enough about tombs and 
 monuments. Two pretty Milesians, Agapentha and 
 Peristera, who are in love with you for loving me, 
 are quite resolved to Isjss your hand. You must not 
 detain them long with you : Miletus is not to send all 
 her beauty to be kept at Athens ; we have • no such 
 treaty. 
 
 LTI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 There is such a concourse of philosophers, all anxious 
 to "show Alcibiades the road to Virtue, that I am afraid 
 they will completely block it up before him. Among the 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 53 
 
 rest is my old friend Socrates, who seems resolved to 
 traasfer to him all the philosophy he designed for nie, 
 with very little of that which I presented to him in 
 return. 
 
 And Alcibiades, who began with ridiculing him, noV 
 attends to him with as much fondness as Hyacinthus did 
 to Apollo. The graver and uglier philosophers, how- 
 ever they differ on other points, agree in these : that 
 beauty does not reside in the body, but in the mind ; that 
 philosophers are the only true heroes ; and that heroes 
 alone are entitled to the privilege of being implicitly 
 obeyed by the beautiful. 
 
 Doubtless there may be very fine pearls in very unin- 
 viting shells ; but our philosophers^never wade knee-deep 
 into the beds, attracted rather to what is bright externally. 
 
 LVn. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Alcibiades ought not to have captious or inquisitive 
 men about him. I know not what the sophists are good 
 for ; I ooly know they are the very worst instructors. 
 Logic, however unperverted, is not for boys ; argumen- 
 tation is among the most dangerous of early practices, 
 and sends away both fancy and modesty. The young 
 mind should be nourished with simple and grateful food, 
 and not too copious. It should be little exercised until 
 its nerves and muscles show themselves, and even then 
 rather for air than anything else. Study is the bane of 
 boyhood, the aliment of youth, the indulgence of man- 
 hood, and the restorative of age. 
 
 I am confident that persons like you and Pericles see 
 little of these sharpers who play tricks upon words. It 
 is amusing to observe how they do it, once or twice. As 
 there are some flowers which you should smell but 
 slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them, and which, 
 if you do otherwise, emit what is unpleasant or noxious, 
 so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is 
 quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable ; a more 
 intimate one would be unsatisfactory and unsafe. 
 
54 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 LVin. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Pericles rarely says he likes anything ; but whenever ha 
 is pleased, he expresses it by his countenance, although 
 when he is displeased he never shows it, even by the 
 faintest sign. It was long before I ventured to make the 
 observation to him ; he replied : 
 
 " It would be ungrateful and ungentle not to return 
 my thanks for any pleasure imparted to me, when a 
 smile has the power of conveying them. I never say 
 that a thing pleases me while it is yet undone or absent, 
 lest I should give somebody the trouble of performing or 
 producing it. As for what is displeasing, I really am 
 insensible in general to matters of this nature ; and 
 when I am not so, I experience more of satisfaction in 
 subduing my feeling than I ever felt of displeasure at the 
 occurrence which excited it. Politeness is in itself a 
 power, and takes away the weight and galling from 
 every other we may exercise. I foresee," he added, 
 ■'that Alcibiades will be an elegant man, but I appre- 
 hend he will never be a polite one. There is a differ- 
 ence, and a greater than we are apt to perceive or 
 imagine. Alcibiades would win without conciliating : 
 he would seize and hold, but would not acquire. The 
 man who is determined to keep others fast and firm, 
 must have one end of the bond about his own breast, 
 sleeping and waking." 
 
 MX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Agapenthc and Peristera, the bearers of your letter, 
 came hither in safety and health, late as the season is for 
 navigation. They complain of our cold climate in Ath- 
 ens, and shudder at the sight of snow upon the moun- 
 tainsin the horizon. 
 
 Hardly had they been seen with me, before the house- 
 wives and sages were indignant at their effrontery. In 
 fact, they gazed in wonder at the ugliness of our sex in 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 55 
 
 Attica, and at the gravity of philosophers, of whom 
 stories so ludicrous are related. I do not think I shall 
 be able to find them lovers here. Peristera hath lost a 
 little of her dove-like faculty (if ever she had much) at 
 the report which has been raised about her cousin and 
 herself. Dracontides was smitten at first sight by Aga- 
 penthe ; she however was not at all by him, which is 
 usually the case when young men would warm us at 
 their fire before ours is kindled. For, honestly to confess 
 the truth, the best of us are more capricious than sensi- 
 tive, and more sensitive than grateful. Dracontides is 
 not indeed a man to excite so delightful a feeling. He is 
 confident that Peristera must be the cause of Agapenthe's 
 disinclination to him ; for how is it possible that a young 
 girl of unperverted mind could be indifferent to Dracon- 
 tides ? Unable to discover that any sorceress was em- 
 ployed against him, he turned his anger toward Peristera, 
 and declared in her presence that her malignity alone 
 could influence so abusively the generous mind of Aga- 
 penthe. At my request the playful girl consented to 
 receive him. Seated upon an amphora in the aviary, 
 she was stroking the neck of a noble peacock, while the 
 bird pecked at the berries on a branch of arbutus in her 
 bosom. Dracontides entered, conducted by Peristera, 
 who desired her cousin to declare at once whether it was 
 by any malignity of hers that he had hitherto failed to 
 conciliate her regard. 
 
 " O the ill-tempered frightful man ! " cried Agapenthe ; 
 "does anybody that is not malicious ever talk of ma- 
 lignity?" 
 
 Dracontides went away, calling upon the gods for 
 justice. 
 
 The next morning a rumor ran through Athens, how 
 he had broken off his intended nuptials, on the discovery 
 that Aspasia had destined the two lonians to the pleas- 
 ures of Pericles. Moreover, he had discovered that one 
 of them, he would not say which, had certainly threads 
 of several colors in her thread-case, not to mention a 
 lock of hair, whether of a dead man, or no, might by 
 some be doubted; and that the other was about to be 
 
56 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 consigned to Pyrilampes, in exchange for a peacock and 
 sundry smaller birds. 
 
 No question could be entertained of the fact, for the 
 girls were actually in the house, and the birds in the 
 aviary. 
 
 Agapenthe declares she waits only for the spring, and 
 will then leave Athens for her dear Miletus, where she 
 never heard such an expression as malignity. 
 
 " O what rude people the Athenians are !" said she. 
 
 LX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Eather than open my letter again, I write another. 
 
 Agapenthe's heart is won by Mnasylos ; I never sus- 
 pected it. 
 
 On his return out of Thessaly (whither I fancy he 
 went on purpose) he brought a cage of nightingales. 
 There are few of them in Attica ; and none being kept 
 tame, none remain with us through the winter. Of the 
 four brought by Mnasylos, one sings even in this season 
 of the year. Agapenthe and Peristea were awakened in 
 the morning by the song of a bird like a nightingale in 
 the aviary. They went down together ; and over the 
 door they found these verses : 
 
 Maiden or youth, who standest here, 
 Think not, if haply we should fear 
 A stranger's voice or stranger's face, 
 (Such is the nature of our race) 
 "That we would gladly fly again 
 To gloomy wood or windy plain. 
 Certain we are we ne'er should find 
 A care so provident, so kind, 
 Altlio' by flight we repossest 
 The tenderest mother's warmest nest. 
 O may you prove, as well as we, 
 That even in Athens there may be 
 A sweeter thing than liberty. 
 
 " This is surely the hand-writing of Mnasylos," said 
 Agapenthe. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 57 
 
 " How do you know his hand-writing ? " cried Peristera. 
 
 A blush and a kiss, and one gentle push, were the 
 answer. 
 
 Mnasylos, on hearing the sound of footsteps, had 
 retreated behind a thicket of laurustine and pyracanthus, 
 in which the aviary is situated, fearful of bringing 
 the gardener into reproof for admitting him. How- 
 ever, his passion was uncontrollable ; and Peristera de- 
 clares, although Agapenthe denies it, that he caught a 
 kiss upon each of his cheeks by the interruption. Cer- 
 tain it is, for they agree in it, that he threw his arms 
 around them both as they were embracing, and implored 
 them to conceal the fault of poor old Alcon, "who 
 showed me," said he, "more pity than Agapenthe will 
 ever show me." 
 
 "Why did you bring these birds hither?" said she, 
 trying to frown. 
 
 "Because you asked," replied he, "the other day, 
 whether we had any in Attica, and told me you had 
 many at home." 
 
 She turned away abruptly, and, running up to my 
 chamber, would have informed me why. 
 
 Superfluous confidence ! Her tears wetted my cheek. 
 
 "Agapenthe!" said I, smiling, "are you sure you 
 have cried for the last time, ' O what rude people the 
 Athenians are ! ' " 
 
 LXI. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 I apprehend, Pericles, not only that I may become 
 an object of jealousy and hatred to the Athenians, by the 
 notice you have taken of me, but that you yourself, 
 which aflfects me greatly more, may cease to retain the 
 whole of their respect and veneration. 
 
 Whether to acquire a great authority over the people, 
 some things are not necessary to be done on which Vir- 
 tue and Wisdom are at variance, it becomes not me to 
 argue or consider ; but let me suggest the inquiry to you, 
 
58 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 ■whether he who is desirous of supremacy should devote 
 the larger portion of his time to one person. 
 
 Three affections of the soul predominate : Love, Reli- 
 gion, and Power. The first two are often united ; the 
 other stands widely apart from them, and neither is 
 adinitted nor seeks admittance to their society. I won- 
 der then how you can love so truly and tenderly. Ought 
 I not rather to say I did wonder ! Was Pisistratus affec- 
 tionate ? Do not be angry. It is certainly the first time 
 a friend has ever ventured to discover a resemblance, 
 although you are habituated to it from your opponents. 
 In these you forgive it ; do you in me ? 
 
 LXII. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Pisistratus was affectionate : the rest of his character 
 you. know as well as I do. You know that he was elo- 
 quent, that he was humane, that he was contemplative, 
 that he was learned ; that he not only was profuse to 
 men of genius, but cordial, and that it was only with 
 such men he was familiar and intimate. You know that 
 he was the greatest, the wisest, the most virtuous, ex- 
 cepting Solon and Lycurgus, that ever ruled any por- 
 tion of the human race. Is it not happy and glorious 
 for mortals, when, instead of being led by the ears under 
 the clumsy and violent hand of vulgar and clamorous 
 adventurers, a Pisistratus leaves the volumes of Homer, 
 and the conversation of Solon, for them ! 
 
 We may be introduced to Power by Humanity, and at 
 first may love her less for her own sake than for Hu- 
 manity's, but by degrees we become so accustomed to her 
 as to be quite uneasy without her. 
 
 Religion and Power, like the Cariatides in sculpture, 
 never face one another ; they sometimes look the same 
 way, but oftener stand back to back. 
 
 We will argue about them one at a time, and about the 
 other in the triad too ; let me have the choice. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 59 
 
 LXm. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 • We must talk over again the subject of your letter ; no, 
 not talk, but write about it. 
 
 I think, Pericles, you who are so sincere with me, are 
 never quite sincere with others. You have contracted 
 this bad habitude from your custom of addressing the 
 people. But among friends and philosophers, would it 
 not be better to speak exactly as we think, whether in- 
 geniously or not? Ingenious things, 1 am afraid, are 
 never perfectly true ; however, I would not exclude them, 
 the difierence being wide between perfect truth and vio- 
 lated truth ; I would not even leave them in a minority ; 
 I would hear and say as many as may be, letting them 
 pass current for what they are worth. Anaxagoras rightly 
 remarked that Love always makes us better, Religion 
 sometimes, Power never. 
 
 LXrV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Pericles was delighted with your letter on education. 
 I wish he were as pious as you are ; occasionally he ap- 
 pears so. I attacked him on his simulation, but it pro- 
 duced a sudden and powerful effect on Alcibiades. You 
 will collect the whole from a summary of our conver- 
 sation. 
 
 "So true," said he, "is the remark of Anaxagoras, 
 that it was worth my while to controvert it. Did you not 
 observe the attention paid to it by young and old ? I was 
 unwilling that the graver part of the company should 
 argue to-morrow with Alcibiades on the nature of love, 
 as they are apt to do, and should persuade him that he 
 would be the better for it. 
 
 " On this consideration I said, while you were occu- 
 pied, ' O Anaxagoras ! if we of this household knew not 
 how religious a man you are, your discourse would in 
 some degree lead us to countenance the suspicion of your 
 enemies. Keligion is never too little for us ; it satisfies 
 
60 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 all the desires of the soul. Love is but an atom of it, 
 consuming and consumed by the stubble on which it falls. 
 But when it rests upon the gods, it partakes of their na- 
 ture, in its essence pure and eternal. Like the ocean, 
 Love embraces the earth ; and by love, as by the ocean, 
 whatever is sordid and unsound is borne away.' 
 
 " ' Love indeed works great marvels,' said Anaxa- 
 goras, ' but I doubt whether the ocean, in such removals, 
 may not peradventure be the more active of the two.' 
 
 '" Acknowledge, at least,' said I, 'that the flame of 
 Love purifies the temple it burns in.' 
 
 " 'Only when first lighted,' said Anaxagoras. 'Gen- 
 erally the heat is either spent or stifling soon afterward ; 
 and the torch, when it is extinguished, leaves an odor 
 very different from myrrh and frankincense.' 
 
 " I think, Aspasia, you entered while he was speaking 
 these words." 
 
 He had turned the stream. Pericles then proceeded. 
 
 " Something of power," said he, " hath been consigned 
 to me by the favor and indulgence of the Athenians. I 
 do not dissemble that I was anxious to obtain it ; I do 
 not dissemble that my vovi's and supplications for the pros- 
 perity of the country were unremitted. It pleased the 
 gods to turn toward me the eyes of my fellow-citizens, but 
 had they not blessed me with religion they never would 
 have blessed me with power, better and more truly called 
 an influence on their hearts and their reason, a high and 
 secure place in the acropolis of their affections. Yes, 
 Anaxagoras ! yes, Meton ! I do say, had they not blessed 
 me with it ; for, in order to obtain it, I was obliged to 
 place a daily and a nightly watch over my thoughts and 
 actions. In proportion as authority was consigned to me, 
 I found it both expedient and easy to grow better, time 
 not being left me for sedentary occupations or frivolous 
 pursuits, and every desire being drawn on and absorbed 
 in that mighty and interminable, that rushing, renovating, 
 and purifying one, wliich comprehends our country. If 
 any young man would win to himself the hearts of the 
 wise and brave, and is ambitious of being the guide and 
 leader of them, let him be assured that his virtue will 
 
PKEICLES AND ASPASIA. 61 
 
 give him power, and power will consolidate and maintain 
 his virtue. Let him never, then, squander away the ines- 
 timable hours of youth in tangled and trifling disquisi- 
 tions, with such as perhaps have an interest in perverting 
 or unsettling his opinions, and who speculate into his 
 sleeping thoughts and dandle his nascent passions. But 
 let him start from them with alacrity, and walk forth with 
 firmness ; let him early take an interest in the business 
 and concerns of men ; and let him, as he goes along, look 
 steadfastly at the images of those who have benefited his 
 country, and make with himself a solemn compact to 
 stand hereafter among them." 
 
 I had heard the greater part of this already, all but the 
 commencement. At the conclusion Alcibiades left the 
 room ; I feared he was conscious that something in it was 
 too closely applicable to him. How I rejoiced when I 
 saw him enter again, with a helmet like Pallas's on his 
 head, a spear in his hand, crying, " To Sparta, boys ! to 
 Sparta ! " 
 
 Pericles whispered to me, but in a voice audible to 
 those who sate further off, "Alcibiades, I trust, is des- 
 tined to abolish the influence and subvert the power of 
 that restless and troublesome rival." 
 
 LXV. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 I disbelieve, O Pericles, that it is good for us, that it is 
 good for men, women, or nations, to be without a rival. 
 
 Acquit me now of any desire that, in your generosity, 
 you should resolve on presenting me with such a treasure, 
 for I am without the ability of returning it. But have 
 you never observed how many graces of person and de- 
 meanor we women are anxious to display, in order to 
 humble a rival, which we were unconscious of possessing 
 until opposite charms provoked them ? 
 
 Sparta can only be humbled by the prosperity and lib- 
 erality of Athens. She was ever jealous and selfish ; 
 Athens has been too often so. It is only by forbearance 
 toward dependent states, and by kindness toward the 
 
62 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 weaker, that her power can long preponderate. Strong 
 attachments are strong allies. This truth is so clear as 
 to be colorless, and I should fear that you would censure 
 me for writing what almost a child might have spoken, 
 were I ignorant that its importance hath made little im- 
 pression on the breasts of statesmen. 
 
 I admire your wisdom in resolving to increase no farther 
 the domains of Attica ; to surround her with the outworks 
 of islands, and more closely with small independent com- 
 munities. It is only from such as these that Virtue can 
 come forward neither hurt nor heated ; the crowd is too 
 dense for her in larger. But what is mostly our consid- 
 eration, it is only such as these that are sensible of ben- 
 efits. They cling to you afflictedly in your danger ; the 
 greater look on with folded arms, nod knowingly, cry sad 
 workl when you are worsted, and turn their backs on you 
 when you are fallen. 
 
 LXVI. PEKICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 There are things, Aspasia, beyond the art of Phi- 
 dias. He may represent Love leaning upon his bow 
 and listening to Philosophy ; but not for hours together : 
 he may represent Love, while he is giving her a kiss for 
 her lesson, tying her arms behind her ; loosing them again 
 must be upon another marble. 
 
 LXVn. ASPASIA TO CLEOlfE. 
 
 The philosophers are less talkative in our conversa- 
 tions, now Aleibiades hath given up his mind to mathe- 
 matics and strategy, and seldom comes among them. 
 
 Pericles told me they will not pour out the rose-water 
 for their beards, unless into a Corinthian or golden vase. 
 
 "But take care," added he, "to offend no philosopher 
 of any sect whatever. Indeed to offend any person is the 
 next foolish thing to being offended- I never do ft, nn- 
 less when it is requisite to discredit somebody who might 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 63 
 
 Otherwise have the influence to diminish my estimation. 
 Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom ; but the want 
 of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly 
 and imprudence are the same. I have scarcely had time 
 to think of any blessings that entered my house with you, 
 beyond those which encompass myself ; yet it cannot but 
 be obvious that Alcibiades hath now an opportunity of 
 improving his manners, such as even the society of scho- 
 lastic men will never countervail. This is a high ad- 
 vantage on aU occasions, particularly in embassies. 
 Well-bred men require it, and let it pass ; the ill-bred 
 catch at it greedily ; as fishes are attracted from the mud, 
 and netted, by the shine of flowers and shells." 
 
 LXVm. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 At last I have heard him speak in public. 
 
 Apollo may shake the rocks of Delphi, and may turn 
 the pious pale ; my Pericles rises with serenity ; his voice 
 hath at once left his lips and entered the heart of Athens. 
 The violent and desperate tremble in every hostile city ; 
 a thunderbolt seems to have split in the centre, and to have 
 scattered its sacred fire unto the whole circumference of 
 Greece. 
 
 The greatest of prodigies are the prodigies of a mortal ; 
 they are indeed the only ones : with the gods there are 
 none. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! the eloquence and the wisdom, the courage 
 and the constancy of my Pericles, must have their end ; 
 and the glorious shrine, wherein they stand preeminent, 
 must one day drop into the deformity of death ! 
 
 O Aspasia I of the tears thou art shedding, tears of 
 pride, tears of fondness, are there none (in those many) 
 for thyself? Yes ; whatever was attributed to thee of 
 grace or beauty, so valuable for his sake whose partiality 
 assigned them to thee, must go first, and all that he loses' 
 is a loss to thee I Weep then on. 
 
64 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 LXIX. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Do you love me ? do you love me ? Stay, reason upon 
 it, sweet Aspasia I doubt, hesitate, question, drop it, take 
 it up again, provide, raise obstacles, reply indirectly. Or- 
 acles are sacred, and there is a pride in being a diviner. 
 
 LXX. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 I will do none of those things you tell me to do ; but I 
 will say something you forgot to say, about the insuffi- 
 ciency of Phidias. 
 
 He may represent a hero with unbent brows, a sage 
 with the lyre of Poetry in his hand. Ambition with her 
 face half-averted from the City, but he cannot represent, 
 in the same sculpture, at the same distance, Aphrodite 
 higher than Pallas. He would be derided if he did ; and 
 a great man can never do that for which a little man may 
 deride him. 
 
 I shall love you even more than I do, if you will love 
 yourself more than me. Did ever lover talk so? Pray 
 tell me, for I have forgotten all they ever talked about. 
 But, Pericles ! Pericles ! be careful to lose nothing of 
 your glory, or you lose all that can be lost of me ; my 
 pride, my happiness, my content ; everything but my poor 
 weak love. Keep glory, then, for my sake ! 
 
 LXXI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I am not quite certain that you are correct in your de- 
 cision, on the propriety of sculpturing the statues of our 
 deities from one sole material. Those, however, of mor- 
 tals and nymphs and genii should be marble, and marble 
 only. But you will pardon a doubt, a long doubt, a 
 doubt for the chin to rest upon in the palm of the hand, 
 when Cleone thinks one thing aud Phidias another. I 
 debated with Pericles on the subject. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 65 
 
 " In my opinion," said he, " no material for statuary 
 is so beautiful as marble ; and, far from allowing that two 
 or more materials should compose one statue, I would not 
 willingly see an interruption made in the figure of, a god 
 or goddess, even by the folds of drapery. I would ven- 
 ture to take the cestus from Venus, distinguishing her 
 merely by her own peculiar beauty. But in the represen- 
 tations of the more awful Powers, who are to be vener- 
 ated and worshipped as the patrons and protectors of 
 cities, we must take into account the notions of the peo- 
 ple. In their estimate, gold and ivory give splendor and 
 dignity to the gods themselves, and our wealth displays 
 their power ! Beside . . but bring your ear closer . . 
 when they wiU not indulge us with their favor, we may 
 borrow their cloaks and ornaments, and restore them 
 when they have recovered their temper." 
 
 LXXn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 After I had written to you, we renewed our conversa- 
 tion on the same subject. I inquired of Pericles whether 
 he thought the appellation of golden was applied to Venus 
 for her precious gifts, or for some other reason. His 
 answer was : 
 
 " Small statues of Venus are more numerous than of 
 any other deity ; and the first that were gilt in Greece, I 
 believe, were hers. She is worshipped, you know, not 
 only as the goddess of beauty, but likewise as the goddess 
 of fortune. In the former capacity we are her rapturous 
 adorers for five years, perhaps ; in the latter, we perse- 
 vere for life. Many carry her image with them on their 
 journeys, and there is scarcely a house in any part of 
 Greece wherein it is not a principal ornament." 
 
 I remarked to him that Apollo, from the color of his 
 hair and the radiance of his countenance, would be more 
 appropriately represented in gold, and yet that the poets 
 were unmindful to call him the golden. 
 
 "They never found him so," said he; "but Venus 
 often smiles upon them in one department. Little images 
 6 
 
66 PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 of her are often of solid gold, and are placed on the 
 breast or under the piUow. Other deities are seldom of 
 such diminutive size or such precious materials. It ia 
 only of late that they have even borne the semblance of 
 theiQ. The Egyptians, the inventors of all durable col- 
 ors, and, indeed, of everything else that is durable in the 
 arts, devised the means of investing other metals with 
 dissolved gold ; the Phoenicians, barbarous and indiffer- 
 ent to elegance and refinement, could only cover them 
 with lamular incrustations. By improving the inventions 
 of Egypt, bronze, odious in its own proper color for the 
 human figure, and more odious for divinities, assumes a 
 splendor and majesty which almost compensate for mar- 
 ble itself." 
 
 " Metal," said I, " has the advantage in durability." 
 "Surely not," answered he ; " and it is more exposed 
 to invasion and avarice. But either of them, imder cov- 
 er, may endure many thousand years, I apprehend, and 
 without corrosion. The temples of Egypt, which have 
 remained two thousand, are fresh at this hour as when 
 they were first erected ; and all the violence of Cambyses 
 and his army, bent on effacing the images, has done little 
 more harm, if you look at them from a short distance, 
 than a single fly would do, in a summer day, on a statue 
 of Pentelican marble. The Egyptians have labored more 
 to commemorate the weaknesses of man than the Grecians 
 to attest his energies. This, however, must be conceded 
 to the Egyptians ; that they are the only people on earth 
 to whom destruction has not been the first love and prin- 
 cipal occupation. The works of their hands will outlive 
 the works of their intellect : here, at least, I glory in the 
 sure hope that we shall differ from them. Judgment and 
 perception of the true and beautiful will never allow our 
 statuaries to represent the human countenance, as they 
 have done, in granite, and porphyry, and basalt. Their 
 statuos have resisted Time and War ; ours will vanquish 
 Envy and Malice. 
 
 " Sculpture has made great advances in my time ; Paint- 
 ing still greater ; for until the last forty years it was inel- 
 egant and rude. Sculpture can go no farther ; Painting 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 67 
 
 can : she may add scenery and climate to her forms. She 
 may give to Philoctetes, not only the wing of the sea-bird 
 wherewith he cools the throbbing of his wound ; not only 
 the bow and the quiver at his feet, but likewise the 
 gloomy rocks, the Vulcanian vaults, and the distant fires 
 of Lemnos, the fierce inhabitants subdued by pity, the 
 remorseless betrayer, and the various emotions of his re- 
 tiring friends. Her reign is boundless, but the fairer and 
 the richer part of her dominions lies within the Odyssea. 
 Painting by degrees will perceive her advantages over 
 Sculpture ; but if there are paces between Sculpture and 
 Painting, there are parasangs between Painting and 
 Poetry. The difference is that of a lake confined by 
 mountains, and a river running on through all the varie- 
 ties of scenery, perpetual and unimpeded. Sculpture and 
 Painting are moments of life ; Poetry is life itself, and 
 everything around it and above it. 
 
 " But let us turn back again to the position we set out 
 from, and offer due reverence to the truest diviners of the 
 gods. Phidias, in ten days, is capable of producing 
 what would outlive ten thousand years, if man were not 
 resolved to be the subverter of man's glory. The gods 
 themselves will vanish away before their images." 
 
 O Cleone ! this is painful to hear. I wish Pericles, 
 and I, too, were somewhat more religious : it is so sweet 
 and graceful. 
 
 LXXIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 She, O Aspasia, who wishes to be more religious, hath 
 much religion, although the volatility of her imagination 
 and the velocity of her pursuits do not permit her to settle 
 fixedly on the object of it. How could I have ever loved 
 you so, if I believed the gods would disapprove of my 
 attachment, as they certainly would if you underrated 
 their power and goodness ! They take especial care both 
 to punish the unbeliever, and to strike with awe the wit- 
 nes-ses of unbelief. I accompanied my father, not long 
 since, to the temple of Apollo ; and when we had per- 
 
68 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 formed the usual rites of our devotion, tliero came up to 
 us a young niiiu of Moiu(^\vliiit plciising iispu(:t, willi whose 
 family oura was anciently on Iitmis oi intimacy. Af'icr 
 my father had made ihe custDmary inqniricH, he coiiver.si'd 
 with lis about his travels. lie had jirnt left JOphcsus, and 
 said he had spent the morning in a eomparison between 
 Diana's temple and Ajiullo's. lie told us that they are 
 similar in design ; but I hut the 10|)hesian goddess is an 
 ugly lump of dark-CDJoi-ed .stone ; while our Apollo is of 
 sueh transcendent beauty that, on lirst beholding liim, ho 
 wondered any other god had a worshipper. My father 
 was transported with joy at such n declaration. 
 
 " Give up the others," said he; "worship here, and 
 rely on prosperity." 
 
 " Were 1 myself to select," answered he, " any deity 
 in preference to the rest, it should not be an irascible, or 
 vindictive, or unjust one." 
 
 " Surely not," cried my father . . " it should be Apollo ; 
 and our Apollo ! What has Dianu done for any man, ()r 
 any woman I I speak submissively . . with all reverence 
 . . I do not question." 
 
 The young man answeicd, " I will forbear to say a 
 word about Diana, having been educated in great fear of 
 her : but surely the treatmeut of Marsyas by Apollo was 
 bordering on severity." 
 
 " Not a whit," cried my father, " if understood rightly." 
 
 " Ills assent to the request of Phiieton," continued the 
 young man, " knowing (as ho did) the coiisi quencef), 
 seems a little deficient in that foresight which belongs 
 peculiarly to the God of prophecy." 
 
 My father left mo abruptly, lan to I he font, and sprin- 
 kled first himself, thcu me, lastly the guest, with lustral 
 water. 
 
 " We mortals," continued he gravely, " should not pre- 
 sume to aigne on the gods alter our own inferior nature 
 and limited capacilies. What ap|)ear8 to have been cruel 
 might have been most kindly provident." 
 
 " The reasoning is (•onelusiv<:," said the youth; "you 
 have caught by the hand a benighted and wandering 
 dreamer, and led him from the l^ink of a precipice. I 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. C9 
 
 see nothing left now on the road-side but the skin of Mar- 
 syas, and it would be folly to start or flinch at it." 
 
 My father had a slight suspicion of his sincerity, and 
 did not invite him to the house He has attempted to 
 come, more than once, evidently with an earnest desire 
 to explore the truth. Several days together he has been 
 seen on the very spot where ho made the confession to 
 my father, in deep thought, and, as we hope, under the 
 influence of the Deity. 
 
 I forgot to tell you that this young person is Thraseab, 
 son of Phormio, the Coan. 
 
 LXXrV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 If ever there was a youth whose devotion was ardent, 
 and whose face (I venture to say, although I never saw 
 it) was prefigured for the offices of adoration, I suspect 
 it must be Thraseas, son of Phormio, the Coan. 
 
 Happy the man who, when every thought else is dis- 
 missed, comes last and alone into the warm and secret 
 foldings of a letter ! 
 
 LXXV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Alcibiades entered the library one day when I was 
 writing out some verses. He discovered what I was about 
 by my hurry in attempting to conceal them. 
 
 " Alcibiades ! " said I, " we do not like to be detected 
 in anything so wicked as poetry. Some day or other I 
 shall, perhaps, have my revenge, and catch you commit- 
 ting the same sin with more pertinacity." 
 
 " Do you fancy," said he, " that I cannot write averse 
 or two, if I set my heart upon it?" 
 
 "No," replied I, "but I doubt whether your heart, in 
 its lightness and volubility, would not roll off so slippery 
 a plinth. We remember your poetical talents, displayed 
 in all their brightness, on poor Socrates." 
 
 " Do not laugh at Socrates," said he. " The man ia 
 
70 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 by no means such a quibbler and impostor as some of his 
 disciples would represent him, making him drag along no 
 easy mule-load, by Hercules ! no summer robe, no every- 
 day vesture, no nurse of an after-dinner nap, but a trail- 
 ing, troublesome, intricate piece of sophistry, interwoven 
 with flowers and sphynxes, stolen from an Egyptian tem- 
 ple, with dust enough in it to blind all the crocodiles as 
 far as to the cataracts, and to dry up the Nile at its highest 
 overflow. He is rather fond of strangling an unwary in- 
 terloper with a string of questions, of which it is difficult 
 to see the length or the knots, until the two ends are about 
 the throat ; but he lets him off easily when he has fairly 
 set his mark on him. Anaxagoras tells me that there is 
 not a school in Athens where the scholars are so jealous 
 and malicious, while he himself is totally exempt from 
 those worst and most unphilosophical of passions ; that 
 the parasitical weed grew up together with their very 
 root, and soon overtopped the plant, but that it only 
 haogs to his railing. Now Anaxagoras envies nobody, 
 and only perplexes us by the admiration of his gener- 
 osity, modesty, and wisdom. 
 
 " I did not come hither to disturb you, Aspasia ! and 
 will retire when I have given you satisfaction, or revenge ; 
 this, I think, is the word. Not only have I written verses, 
 and, as you may well suppose, long after those upon the 
 son of Sophroniscos, but verses upon love." 
 
 " Are we none of us in the secret? " said I. 
 
 " You shall be," said he ; " attend and pity." 
 
 I must have turned pale, I think, for I shuddered. He 
 repeated these, and relieved me : 
 
 I love to look on lovely eyes, 
 
 And do not shun the sound of sighs. 
 
 If they are level with the ear ; 
 But if they rise just o'er my chin, 
 O Venus ! how I hate their din 1 
 
 My own I am too weak to bear. 
 
 LXXVI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 D ) you remember little Artemidora, the mild and bash- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 71 
 
 fill girl, whom you compared to a white blossom on the 
 river, surrounded by innumerable slender reeds, and seen 
 only at intervals as they waved about her, making way to 
 the breeze, and quivering and bending ? Not having seen 
 her for some time, and meeting Deiphobos, who is inti- 
 mate with her family, I ventured to ask him whether he 
 had been lately at the house. He turned pale. Impru- 
 dent and indelicate as I am, I accused him instantly, witli 
 much gayety, of love for her. Accused ! O Aspasia, how 
 glorious is it in one to feel more sensibly than all others 
 the beauty that lies far beyond what they ever can dis- 
 cern ! From their earthly station they behold the Sun's 
 bright disk : he enters the palace of the god. Externally 
 there is fire only ; pure, inextinguishable aether fills the 
 whole space within, and increases the beauty it displays. 
 
 " Cleoue ! " said he, " you are distressed at the appre- 
 hension of having pained me. Believe me, you have not 
 touched the part where pain lies. Were it possible that 
 a creature so perfect could love me, I would reprove her 
 indiscretion ; I would recall to her attention what surely 
 her eyes might indicate at a glance, the disparity of our 
 ages ; and I would teach her, what is better taught by 
 friendship than by experience, that youth alone is the fair 
 price of youth. However, since there is on either side 
 nothing but pure amity, there is no necessity for any such 
 discourse. My soul could hardly be more troubled if 
 there were. Her health is declining while her beauty 
 is scarcely yet at its meridian. I will not delay you, O 
 Cleone ! nor will you delay me. Rarely do I enter the 
 temples ; but I must enter here before I sleep. Artemis 
 and Aphrodite may perhaps hear me ; but I entreat you, 
 do you also, who are more pious than I am, pray and im- 
 plore of their divine goodness, that my few years may be 
 added to hers ; the few to them any, the sorrowful (not 
 'then so) to the joyous." 
 
 He clasped my hand ; I withdrew it, for it burnt me. 
 Inconsiderate and indelicate before, call me now (what 
 you must ever think me) barbarous and inhuman. 
 
72 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 LXXVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 The largest heart, O Cleone, is that which only one caa 
 rest upon or impress ; the purest is that which dares to 
 call itself impure ; the kindest is that which shrinks 
 rather at its own inhumanity than at another's. Cleone 
 barbarous ! Cleone inhuman ! Silly girl ! you are fit only 
 to be an instructress to the sillier Aspasia. In some 
 things (in this for instance) I am wiser than you. I 
 have truly a great mind to make you blush again, and so 
 make you accuse 30urself a second time of indiscretion. 
 After a pause, I am resolved on it. Now then, Artemi- 
 dora is the very girl who preferred you to me both for 
 manners and beauty. Many have done the same, no 
 doubt, but she alone to my face. ( When we were sitting, 
 one evening in autumn, with our feet in the Maeander, her 
 nurse conducted her toward us. We invited her to sit 
 down between us, which at first she was afraid of doing, 
 because the herbage had recovered from the drought of 
 summer and had become succulent as in spring, so that it 
 might stain her short white dress. But when we showed 
 her how this danger might be quite avoided, she blushed, 
 and, after some hesitation, was seated. /Before long I 
 inquired of her who was her little friend, and whether 
 he was handsome, and whether he was sensible, and 
 whether he was courageous, and whether he was ardent. 
 She answered all these questions in the affirmative, ex- 
 cepting the last, which she really did not understand. At 
 length came the twilight of thought and showed her 
 blushes. I ceased to persecute her, and only asked her 
 which of us she liked the best and thought the most beau- 
 tiful. " I like Cleone the best," said she, " and think her 
 the most beautiful, because she took my hand and pitied 
 my confusion when such very strange questions were put 
 to me." However, she kissed me when she saw I was 
 concerned at my impropriety ; maybe a part of the kiss 
 was given as a compensation for the severity of her 
 sentence. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 73 
 
 LXXVin. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 We are but pebbles in a gravel walk, 
 
 Some blacker and some whiter, pebbles still, 
 
 Fit only to be trodden on. 
 
 These words were introduced into a comedy lately 
 written by Polus, a remarkably fat person, and who ap- 
 pears to have enjoyed life and liberty as much as any 
 citizen in Athens. I happen to have rendered some ser- 
 vices to Philonides the actor, to whom the speech is 
 addressed. He brought me the piece before its repre- 
 sentation, telling me that Polus and his friends had re- 
 solved to applaud the passage, and to turn their faces 
 toward Pericles. I made him a little present, on condi- 
 tion that, in the representation, he should repeat the fol- 
 lowing verses in reply, instead of the poet's : 
 
 Fair Polus 1 
 
 Can such fierce winds blow over such smooth seas? 
 
 I never saw a pebble in my life 
 
 So richly set as thou art : now, by Jove, 
 
 He who would tread upon thee can be none 
 
 Except the proudest of the elephants, 
 
 The tallest and the surest-footed beast 
 
 In all the stables of the kings of Ind. 
 
 The comedy was interrupted by roars of laughter ; the 
 fi:iends of Polus slunk away, and he himself made many 
 a violent effort to' do the same ; but Amphicydes, who 
 stood next, threw his arms round his neck, crying : 
 
 " Behold another Codrus ! devoting himself for his 
 country. The infernal Powers require no black bull for 
 sacrifice ; they are quite satisfied. Eternal peace with 
 Boeotia ! eternal praise to her ! what a present ! where 
 was he fatted ? " 
 
 We had invited Polus to dine with us, and now con- 
 doled with him on his loss of appetite. The people of 
 Athens were quite out of favor with him. 
 
 " I told them what they were fit for," cried he, " and 
 
74 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 they proved it. Amphicydes . . I do not say he has been 
 at Sparta . . I myself saw him, no long time ago, on the 
 mad that leads to Megara . . that city rebelled soon after. 
 His wife died strangely ; she had not been married two 
 years, and had grown ugly and thia ; he might have used 
 her for a broom if she had hair enough . . perhaps he 
 did ; odd noises have been heard in the house. I have no 
 suspicion or spite against any man living . . and, praise 
 to the gods ! I can live without being an informer." 
 
 We listened with deep interest, but could not under- 
 stand the allusion, as he perceived by our looks. 
 
 " You will hear to-morrow," said he, " how unworthily 
 I have been treated. Wit draws down Folly on us, and 
 she must have her fling. It does not hit ; it does not hit." 
 
 Slaves brought in a ewer of water, with several nap- 
 kins. They were not lost upon Polus, and he declared 
 that those two boys had more sagacity and intuition than 
 all the people in the theatre. 
 
 " In your house and your administration, O Pericles, 
 everything is timed well and done well, without our know- 
 ing how. Dust will rise," said he, " dust will rise ; if 
 we would not raise it we must never stir. They have 
 begun with those who would reform their manners ; they 
 will presently carry their violence against those who 
 maintain and execute the laws." 
 
 Supper was served. 
 
 " A quaU, O best Polus !" * 
 
 " A quail, O wonderful ! may hurt me ; but being 
 recommended . . " 
 
 It disappeared. 
 
 " The breast of that capon . . '' 
 
 " Capons, being melancholic, breed melancholy within." 
 
 " Coriander-seed might correct it, together with a few 
 of those white, plump pine-seeds." 
 
 " The very desideration ! " 
 
 * best ! O wonderful ! O lady ! etc. 
 O PeKriiTTe ; O daujuarce : CI Seanotva, 
 
 Conversation was never carried on without these terms, even 
 among philosophers, as we see in Plato, etc. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 75 
 
 It was corrected. 
 
 "Tunny under oil, with marjoram and figs, pickled 
 locusts and pistachioes . . Your stomach seems delicate." 
 
 " Alas ! indeed it is declining. Tunny ! tunny 1 I 
 dare not, O festoon of the Graces ! I dare not verily. 
 Chian wine alone can appease its seditions." 
 
 They were appeased. 
 
 Some livers were offered him, whether of fish or fowl, 
 I know not, for I can hardly bear to look at that dish. 
 He waved them away, but turned suddenly round, and 
 said, " Youth ! I think I smell fennel." 
 
 "There is fennel, O mighty one ! " replied the slave, 
 " and not fennel only, but parsley and honey, pepper and 
 rosemary, garlick from Salamis, and . . " 
 
 " Say no more, say no more ; fennel is enough for 
 moderate men and brave ones. It reminds me of the field 
 of Marathon." 
 
 The field was won ; nothing was left upon it. 
 
 Another slave came forward, announcing loudly and 
 pompously, " Gosling from Brauron ! Sauce . . prunes, 
 mustard-seed, capers, fenu-greek, sesamum, and squills." 
 
 " Squills ! " exclaimed Polus, " they soothe the chest. 
 It is not every cook that is deep in the secrets of nature. 
 Brauron ! an ancient city ; I have friends in Brauron ; I 
 will taste, were it only for remembrance of them." 
 
 He made several essays, several pauses. 
 
 " But when shall we come to the squills ? " said he, 
 turning to the slave ; " the qualities of the others are 
 negative." 
 
 The whole dish was, presently. 
 
 "Our pastry," said t, " O illustrious Polus ! is the only 
 thing I can venture to recommend at table ; the other 
 dishes are merely on sufferance, but really our pastry is 
 good ; I usually dine entirely upon it." 
 
 " Entirely ! " cried he, in amaze. 
 
 " With a glass of water," added I, " and some grapes, 
 fresh, or dry." 
 
 "To accompany you, O divine Aspasia! though in 
 
76 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 good truth this sad pastry is but a sandy sort of road ; 
 no great way can be made in it." 
 
 The diffident Polus was not a bad engineer, however, 
 and he soon had an opportunity of admiring the work- 
 manship at the bottom of the salver. 
 
 Two dishes of roast meat were carried to him. I know 
 not what one was, nor could Polus easily make up his 
 mind upoQ it ; experiment foUowiug experiment. Kid, 
 however, was an old acquaintance. 
 
 "Those who kill kids," said he, "deserve well of 
 their country, for they grow up mischievous : the gods, 
 aware of this, make them very eatable. They require 
 some management, some skill, some reflection : mint, 
 shalot, dandelion, vinegar : strong coercion upon them. 
 Chian wine, boy ! " 
 
 "What does Pericles eat?" 
 
 "Do not mind Pericles ! He has eaten of the quails, 
 and some roast fish, besprinkled with bay-leaves for sauce." 
 
 "Fish! ay, that makes him so vigilant. Cats . ." 
 
 Here he stopped, not however without a diversion in 
 his favor from me, observing that he usually dined on 
 vegetables, fish, and some bird : that his earlier meal 
 was his longest, confectionery, honey, and white bread, 
 composing it. 
 
 "And Chian or Lesbian?" 
 
 " He enjoys a little wine after dinner, preferring the 
 lighter and subacid." 
 
 "Wonderful man!" cried he; "and all from such 
 fare as that ! " 
 
 When he rose from table he seemed by his counte- 
 nance to be quiet again at heart ; nevertheless he said in 
 my ear with a sigh, " Did I possess the power of Peri- 
 cles, or the persuasion of Aspasia, by the Immortals ! I 
 would enrich the galleys with a grand dotation. Every 
 soul of them should . . I, yes, every soul of them . . 
 monsters of ingratitude, hypocrites, traitors, they should 
 for Egypt, for Carthage, Mauritania, Numidia. He will 
 find out before long what dogs he has been skimming the 
 kettle for." 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 77 
 
 It required an effort to be perfectly composed, at a 
 simile which I imagine has never been used in the Greek 
 language since the days of Medea ; but I cast down my 
 eyes, and said consolatorily, " It is difficult to do justice 
 to such men as Pericles and Polus." 
 
 He would now have let me into the secret, but others 
 saved me. 
 
 Our farmers, in the number of their superstitions, en- 
 tertain a firm belief that any soil is rendered more fertile 
 by burying an ass's head in it. On this idea is founded 
 the epigram I send you : it raised a laugh at dinner. 
 
 Leave me thy head when thou art dead, 
 
 Speusippus ! Prudent farmers say 
 An ass's skull makes plentiful 
 
 The poorest soil ; and ours is clay. 
 
 LXXIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONB. 
 
 Anaxagoras is the true, firm, constant friend of Peri- 
 cles ; the golden lamp that shines perpetually on the image 
 I adore. Yet sometimes he speaks severely. On one of 
 these occasions, Pericles took him by the hand, saying : 
 
 " O Anaxagoras ! sincere and ardent lover of Truth ! 
 why do not you love her in such a manner as never to 
 let her see you out of humor ? " 
 
 "Because," said Anaxagoras, "you divide my affec- 
 tions with her, much to my shame." 
 
 Pericles was called away on business ; I then said : 
 " O Anaxagoras I is not Pericles a truly great man ?" 
 He answered, "If Pericles were a truly great man, 
 he would not wish to appear different from what he is ; 
 he would know himself, and make others know him ; he 
 seems to guard against both. Much is wanting to con- 
 stitute his greatness. He possesses, it is true, more 
 comprehensiveness and concentration than any living ; 
 perhaps more than any since Solon ; but he thinks that 
 power over others is better than power over himself ; as 
 if a mob were worth a man, and an acclamation were 
 worth a Pericles." 
 
78 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 "But," said I, " he has absolute command over him- 
 self; and it is cliicfly by exerting it tliat he Las obtained 
 an ascendancy over the minds of others." 
 
 "Has he rendered them wiser and more virtuous?" 
 said he. 
 
 "You know best," replied I, "having lived much 
 longer among them." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Anaxagoras, "I may wrong him; 
 perhaps he has saved them from worse disasters." 
 
 "You think him, then, ambitious?" said I, with soma 
 sadness. 
 
 "Ambitious!" cried he; " how so ! He might have 
 been a philosopher, and he is content to be a ruler." 
 
 I was ill at case. 
 
 "Come," said I, "Anaxagoras! come into the gar- 
 den with me. It is rather too warm indeed out of doors, 
 but we have many evergreens, high and shady, and those 
 who, like you aod me, never drink wine, have little to 
 dread from the heat." 
 
 Whether the ilexes and bays and oleanders struck his 
 imagination, and presented the simile, I cannot tell, but 
 he thus continued in illustration of his discourse : 
 
 "There are no indeciduous plants, Aspasia ! the 
 greater part lose their leaves in winter, the rest in 
 summer. It is thus with men. The generality yield 
 and are stripped under the first chilly blasts that shake 
 them. They who have weathered these, drop leaf after 
 leaf in the sunshine. The virtues by which they arose 
 to popularity, take another garb, another aspect, another 
 form, and totally disappear. Be not uneasy ; the heart 
 of Pericles will never dry up, so many streams run 
 into it." 
 
 He retired to his studies ; I spoke but little that even- 
 ing, and slept late. 
 
 LXXX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 How can I ever hope to show you, in all its brightness, 
 the character of my friend ? 1 will tell you how ; by 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 79 
 
 following Love and Truth. Like most others who have 
 no genius, I do not feel the want of it, at least not here. 
 
 A shallow water may reflect the sun as perfectly as a 
 deeper. 
 
 The words of Anaxagoras stuck to me like thistles. I 
 resolved to speak in playfulness with the object of our 
 conversation. First I began to hint at enemies. He 
 smiled. 
 
 "The children in my orchard," said he, " are not yet 
 grown tall enough to reach the fruit ; they may throw at 
 it, but can bring none down." 
 
 "Do tell me, O Pericles!" said I, "now we are 
 inseparable forever, how many struggles with yourself 
 (to say nothing of others) you must have had, before 
 you attained the position you have taken." 
 
 "It is pleasanter," answered he, "to think of our 
 glory than of the means by which we acquired it." 
 
 " When we see the horses that have won at the 
 Olympian games, do we ask what oats they have eaten 
 to give them such velocity and strength? Do those who 
 swim admirably, ever trouble their minds about the 
 bladders they swam upon in learning, or inquire what 
 beasts supplied them? When the winds are filling our 
 sails, do we lower them and delay our voyage, in order 
 to philosophize on the particles of air composing them, 
 or to speculate what region produced them, or what 
 becomes of them afterward ? " 
 
 LXXXI. CLEONE TO ASFASIA. 
 
 At last, Aspasia, you love indeed. The perfections of 
 /our beloved interest you less than the imperfections, 
 which you no sooner take up for reprehension, than 
 you admire, embrace, and defend. Happy, happy, As- 
 pasia ! but are you wise and good and equable, aod foud 
 of sincerity, as formerly? Nay, do not answer me. 
 The gods forbid that I should force you to be ingeniouSi 
 and love you for it. How much must you have lost be- 
 fore you are praised for that ! 
 
80 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Archelaus, of all our philosophers the most quiet man, 
 and the most patient investigator, will bring you this. 
 He desires to be the hearer of Anaxagoras. 
 
 LXXXn. ASPASIA. TO CLEONE. 
 
 I received our countryman with great pleasure. He 
 was obliged to be my hearer for several hours : I hope 
 his patience will never be so much tried by Anaxagoras. 
 I placed them together at table ; but Anaxagoras would 
 not break through his custom ; nothing of philosophy. 
 C>ur repast would have been even less talkative than 
 usual, had not Anaxagoras asked our guest whether the 
 earlier Milesian authors, poets, or historians, had men* 
 tioned Homer. 
 
 "I find not a word about him in any one of them," 
 replied he, "although we have the works of Cadmus 
 and Phocylides, the former no admirable historian, the 
 latter an indifferent poet, but not the less likely to men- 
 tion him ; and they are supposed to have lived within 
 three centuries of his age. Permit my first question to 
 you, in my search after truth, to be this : whether his 
 age were not much earlier?" 
 
 "This is not the only question," said Anaxagoras, 
 " on which you will hear from me the confession of my 
 utter ignorance. I am interested in everything that 
 relates to the operations of the human mind ; and Per- 
 icles has in his possession every author whose works 
 have been transcribed. The number will appear quite 
 incredible to you : there cannot be fewer than two hun- 
 dred. I find poetry to which is attributed an earlier 
 date than to Homer's ; but stupidity and barbarism are 
 no convincing proofs. I find Cretan, Ionian, Laconian, 
 and Boeotian, written certainly more than three centuries 
 ago ; the language is not copious, is not fluent, is not 
 refined. Pericles says it is all of it inharmonious : of 
 this I cannot judge ; he can. Dropides and Mimner- 
 mus wrote no better verses than the servant-girls sing 
 upon our staircases. Archilochus and Alcman, who 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 81 
 
 lived a century earlier, composed much grander ; but 
 where there is at once ferocity and immodesty, either the 
 age must have been barbarous or the poet must have 
 been left behind it. Sappho was in reality the reviver 
 of poetry, teaching it to humanize and delight ; Simon- 
 ides brought it to perfection. The muse of Lesbos, as 
 she is called, and Alcaeus, invented each a novel species 
 of strophe. Aspasia prefers the poetry of Sappho and 
 the metre of Alcaeus, which, however, I think she informs 
 us, is less adapted to her subjects than her own is." 
 
 " It appears to me," said I, " that every one who 
 felt strong in poetry was ambitious of being an inventor 
 in its measures. Archilochus, the last of any note, 
 invented the iambic." 
 
 " True, O Aspasia ! " said Pericles, "but not exactly 
 in the sense usually received. He did not invent, as 
 many suppose, the seuarian iambic, which is coeval 
 almost with the language itself, and many of which creep 
 into the closest prose composition ; bnt he was the first 
 who subjoined a shorter to it, the barb to the dart, so 
 fatal to Cleobule and Lycambes." 
 
 " His first," said I, " is like the trot of a mastiff, his 
 second like the spring at the throat. 
 
 "Homer alone has enriched the language with sen- 
 tences full of harmony. How long his verse was created, 
 how long his gods had lived, before him, how long he 
 himself before us, is yet uncertain, although Herodotus * 
 is of opinion that he is nearer to us than Pericles and 
 Anaxagoras admit. But these two philosophers place 
 sun, moon, and stars beyond all reasonable limits, I 
 know not how far off." 
 
 " "We none of us know," said Pericles ; " but Anaxa- 
 goras hopes that, in a future age, human knowledge will 
 be more extensive and more correct ; and Meton has en- 
 couraged us in our speculations. The lieavenly bodies 
 may keep their secrets two or three thousand years yet ; but 
 one or other will betray them to some wakefjul favorite, 
 
 * The Life of Homer, appended to the works of Herodotus, 
 is spurious. 
 6 
 
82 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 some Endymion beyond Latmos, perhaps in repou8 un- 
 discovered, certainly in uncalculated times. Men will 
 know more of them than they will ever know of Homer. 
 Our knowledge on this miracle of our species is unlikely 
 to increase." 
 
 LXXXIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Pericles, who is acknowledged to have a finer ear thau 
 any of our poets or rhetoricians, is of opinion that the 
 versification in all the books, of both Iliad and Odyssea, 
 was modulated by the same master-key. Sophocles, too, 
 certainly less jolted than you would suppose, by the deep 
 ruts, angular turns, and incessant jerks of the iambic, 
 tells me that he finds no other heroic verses at all resem- 
 bling it in the rhythm, and that, to his apprehension, it is 
 not dissimilar in the two poems. 
 
 But I must continue, while I remember them perfectly, 
 the words of Pericles : 
 
 " The Ulysses of the Iliad and Odyssea is not the 
 same, but the Homer is. Might not the poet have col- 
 lected, in his earlier voyages, many wonderful tales about 
 the chieftain of Ithaca ; about his wanderings and return ; 
 about his wife and her suitors ? Might not afterward the 
 son or grandson have solicited his guest and friend to 
 place the sagacious, the courageous, the enduring man, 
 among the others whom he was celebrating in detached 
 poems, as leaders against Troy? He describes with pre- 
 cision everything in Ithaca ; it is evident he must have 
 been upon the spot. Of all other countries, of Sicily, of 
 Italy, of Phrygia, he quite as evidently writes from tra- 
 dition and representation. Phrygia was subject to the 
 Assyrian kings at the time when he commences his sice. 
 The Greeks, according to him, had been ravaging the 
 country many years, and had swept away many cities. 
 AVhat were the Assyrian kings doing? Did the Grecians 
 lose no men by war, by climate, by disease, by time, in 
 the whole ten years? Their horses must have been 
 strong and long-lived : an excellent breed ! to keep their 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 83 
 
 teeth and mettle for five-and-twenty. I should have 
 imagined tliat some of them must have got lamed, some 
 few, perhaj,is, foundered ; surely here aud there a chariot 
 can have had but one remaining, and he, in all probabil- 
 ity, not in the very best condition. I cannot but think 
 that Homer took from Sesostris the shield that he has 
 given to Achilles. The Greeks never worked gold so skil- 
 fully as in this shield, until our own Phidias taught them ; 
 and even he possesses not the art of giving all the various 
 colors to the metal, which are represented as designating 
 the fruitage, and other things included in this stupendous 
 work, and which the Egyptians in his time, and long 
 earlier, understood. How happened it that the Trojans 
 had Greek names, and the leader of the Greeks an Egyp- 
 tian one ? When I was at Byzantion, I had the curiosity 
 to visit the imaginary scene of their battles. I saw many 
 sepulchral monuments, of the most durable kind, conical 
 elevations of earth, on which there were sheep and goats 
 at pasture. There were ruins beyond, but neither of a 
 great city nor of an ancient one. The only ancient walls 
 I saw were on the European coast, those of Byzantion, 
 which Aspasia claims as the structure of Miletus, and 
 which the people of Megara tell us were founded by their 
 forefathers less than two centuries ago. But neither 
 Miletus nor Megara was built when these walls were 
 entire. They belong to the unknown world, and are 
 sometimes called Pelasgian, sometimes Cyclopean ; ap- 
 pellations without meaning ; signs that signify nothing ; 
 inscriptions that point out the road to places where there 
 is neither place nor road. Walls of this massive structure 
 surround the ruins of Phocoea, destroyed by Cyrus ; they 
 are also found in Tyrrhenia. Our acropolis was sur- 
 mounted by such, until the administration of Themisto- 
 cles, who removed the stones to serve as foundations to 
 the works in the harbor ; the occasion being urgent, and 
 the magnitude of the blocks being admirably proper for 
 that solid structure." 
 
 Cleone ! are you tired ? rest then. 
 
84 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 LXXXIV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Several times had Pericles been silent, expecting and 
 inviting our guests to assist him in the investigation. 
 
 " I have no paradox to maintain, no partiality to de- 
 fend," said he. "Some tell us that there were twenty 
 Homers, some deny that there was ever one. It were 
 idle and foolish to shake the coiitents of a vase in order 
 to let them settle at last. We are perpetually laboring to 
 destroy our delight, our composure, our devotion to supe- 
 rior power. Of all the animals upon earth we least know 
 what is good for us. My opinion is, that what is best for 
 us is our admiration of good. No man living venerates 
 Homer more than I do. He was the only author I read 
 when I was a boy, for our teachers are usually of opinion 
 that wisdom and poetry are like fruit for children, un- 
 wholesome if too fresh. Simonides had indeed grown 
 somewhat sound ; Pindar was heating ; ^schylus . . 
 ay, but .^schylus was almost at the next door. Homer 
 then nourished my fancy, animated my dreams, awoke 
 me in the morning, marched with me, sailed with me, 
 taught me morals, taught me language, taught me music 
 and philosophy and war. 
 
 " Ah, were he present at this hour among us ! that I 
 might ask him how his deities entered Troy. In Phrygia 
 there was but one goddess, the mother of aU the gods, 
 Cybele. Unlike our mortal mothers, she was displeased 
 if you noticed her children ; indeed, she disowned them. 
 Her dignity, her gravity, her high antiquity, induced the 
 natives of the islands, and afterward the other Greeks, to 
 place their little gods under her protection, and to call 
 her their mother. Jupiter had his Ida, but not the Phryg- 
 ian ; and Pallas was worshipped in her citadels, but not 
 above the streams of Simois and Scamander. Our holy 
 religion has not yet found its way far beyond us ; like the 
 myrtle and olive, it loves the sea air, and flourishes but 
 upon few mountains in the interior. The Cabiri still hold 
 Samothrace ; and we may almost hear the cries of human 
 victims in the north. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 85 
 
 " If there were any true history of the times we are 
 exploring, perhaps we might find in it that many excur» 
 sions, combined and simultaneous, had utterly failed ; 
 and that the disasters of many chiefs engaged in them 
 were partly concealed from the nations they governed by 
 the sacred veil of poetry. Of those who are reputed to 
 have sailed against Troy, none returned prosperous, none 
 with the men he had led out ; most were forbidden to 
 land again upon their native shores, and some who 
 attempted it were slain. Such is usually the fate of the 
 unsuccessful. It is more probable that the second great 
 naval expedition of the Greeks went out to avenge the 
 disasters of the first, the Argonautic ; and the result was 
 nearly the same. Of the Argonauts few returned. Sparta 
 lost her Castor and Pollux ; Thessaly her Jason ; and I 
 am more disposed to believe that the head of Orpheus 
 rolled down the Phasis than down the Hebrus. 
 
 "The poets gave successes which the gods denied. 
 But these things concern us little ; the poet is what we 
 seek. Needless is it to remark that the Iliad is a work 
 of much reflection and various knowledge ; the Odyssea 
 is the marvellous result of a vivid and wild imagination. 
 Aspasia prefers it. Homer, in nearly the thirty years 
 which I conceive to have intervened between the fanciful 
 work and the graver, had totally lost his pleasantries. 
 Polyphemus could amuse him no longer ; Circe lighted up 
 in vain her fires of cedar-wood ; Calypso had lost her 
 charms ; her maidens were mute around her ; the Lestri- 
 gons lay asleep ; the Syrens sang 
 
 ' Come hither, O passer by 1 come hither, 
 O glory of the Achaians 1 ' 
 
 and the smooth waves quivered with the sound, but the , 
 harp of the old man had no chord that vibrated. 
 
 In the Odyssea he invokes the Muse ; in the Iliad he 
 invokes her as a goddess he had invoked before. He 
 begins the Odyssea as the tale of a family, to which he 
 womd listen as she rehearsed it ; the Iliad as a song of 
 
86 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 warriors and divinities, worthy of the goddess herself to 
 sing before the world. 
 
 " Demonstrate that metaphors are discoverable, drawn 
 from things believed to have been uninvented in the 
 Homeric age ; what does it prove ? Merely that Homer, 
 who lived among the islands, and among those who had 
 travelled into all the known regions of the world, had 
 collected more knowledge than the shepherds and boar- 
 hunters on the continent. 
 
 " Demonstrate that some books in the compilation re- 
 tain slight traces of a language not exactly the same as 
 the others. What then? Might they not have been 
 composed while he visited countries in which that dialect 
 was indigenous ? or might they not have been found there 
 at the first collection of the songs, having undergone some 
 modification from the singers, adapted to the usages and 
 phraseology of the people ? 
 
 " Who doubts that what was illegible or obscure in the 
 1 ime of Lycurgus was rendered clearer by the learned Spar- 
 tan ? that some Cretan words, not the Dorian of Sparla, had 
 crept in ; that others were substituted ; that Solon, Pisis- 
 tratus, and llipparchus, had also to correct a few of these 
 corrections, and many things more ? Tliey found a series 
 of songs ; never was there a series of such length without 
 an oversight or gap. 
 
 " Shall the salpinx be sounded in my ear? Homer 
 may have introduced it by way of allusion in one poem, 
 not wanting it in the other. The Grecians of his time 
 never used it in battle ; eastern nations did ; and, per- 
 haps, had he known the Phrygians better, its blasts would 
 have sounded on the plains of Troy. He would have dis- 
 covered that trumpets had been used among them for 
 many ages. We possess no knowledge of any nation 
 who cultivated the science of music so early, or employed 
 so great a variety of wind instruments, unless it be the 
 Sidonian. Little did he know of Phrygia, and as little 
 do we know of him. His beautiful creation lies displayed 
 before us ; the creator is hidden in his own splendor. I 
 can more easily believe that his hand constructed the 
 whole, than that twenty men could be found, at nearly 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 87 
 
 the same time, each of genius sufficient for the twentieth 
 part : because in many centuries there arose not a single 
 one capable of such a production as that portion. 
 
 " Archilochus and Simonides are excellent only in their 
 shorter poems ; they could not have whistled so well 
 throughout a long march. Difficulties are to be over- 
 come on both sides. We have no grammarians worthy 
 of the appellation ; none in any district of Greece has 
 studied the origin and etymology of his language. We 
 sing like the birds, equally ignorant whence our voice 
 arises. What is worse, we are fonder of theories than 
 of truth, and believe that we have not room enough to 
 build up anything, until we subvert what we find before 
 us. Be it so ; but let it be only what is obnoxious, what 
 opposes our reason, what disturbs our tranquillity of mind ; 
 not what shows us the extent of the oue, the potency 
 of the other, and, consoling us for being mortal, assures us 
 that our structures may be as durable as those of the gods 
 themselves. The name of Homer will be venerated as 
 long as the holiest of theirs ; I dare not say longer ; I 
 dare not say by wiser men. I hope I am guilty of no 
 impiety ; I should aggravate it by lowering Homer, the 
 loftiest of their works." 
 
 IXXXV. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 We are losing, day by day, one friend or other. Arte- 
 midora of Ephesus was betrothed to Elpenor, and their 
 nuptials, it was believed, were at hand. How gladly 
 would Artemidora have survived Elpenor. I pitied her 
 almost as much as if she had. I must ever love true 
 lovers on the eve of separation. These indeed were little 
 known to me until a short time before. We became 
 friends when our fates had made us relatives. On these 
 occasions there are always many verses, but not always 
 so true in feeling and in fact as those which I shall now 
 transcribe for you : 
 
 " Artemidora 1 Gods invisible, 
 While tliou art lying faint along the couch, 
 Have tied the sandal to thy veined feet, 
 
88 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 And stand beside thee, ready to convey 
 
 Thy weary steps where other rivers flow. 
 
 Refreshing shades will waft thy weariness 
 
 Away, and voices like thine own come nigh, 
 
 Soliciting, nor vainly, thy embrace." 
 
 Artemidora sigh'd, and would have press'd 
 
 The hand now pressing hers, but was too weak. 
 
 Fate's shears were over her dark hair unseen 
 
 While thus Elpenor spake : he look'd into 
 
 Eyes that had given light and life erewhile 
 
 To those above them, those now dim with tears 
 
 And watchfulness. Again he spake of joy 
 
 Eternal. At that word, that sad word, joy, 
 
 Faithful and fond her bosom heav'd once more, 
 
 Her head fell back : one sob, one loud deep sob 
 
 Swell'd through the darkeii'd chamber ; 'twas not hers : 
 
 With her that old boat incorruptible, 
 
 Unwearied, undiverted in its course. 
 
 Had plashed the water up the farther strand. 
 
 LXXXVI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Aristophanes often dines with us ; nevertheless he ia 
 secretly an enemy of Pericles, and, fearing to offend hiin 
 personally, is satirical on most of our friends. Melon, 
 whose character you know already, great in a.^tronomy, 
 great in geometry, great in architecture, was consulted 
 by Pericles on beautifying the streets of the city, which 
 are close and crooked. No sooner had Aristophanes 
 heard this, than he began to compose a comedy, entitled 
 The Birds. He has here represented our quiet contem- 
 plative Meton, with a rule and compass in liis hands, 
 uttering the most ludicrous absurdities. Meton is a 
 plain, unassuming, inoffensive man, and never speaks 
 inconsiderately. Tlie character is clumsily drawn ; but 
 that fault was easily corrected, by representing poor 
 Meton under the chastisement of the cudgel. There is 
 so much wit in this, I doubt whether any audience can 
 resist it. There is magic in every stroke, aud what was 
 amiss is mended and made whole again ere the hammer 
 falls. How easy a way of setting aU things to riglits, 
 with only one dissentient voice ! 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. gg 
 
 In the same comedy is ridiculed the project of Pericles, 
 on a conformity of weights and measures in Attica and 
 her dependencies. More wit ! another beating ! 
 
 When Aristophanes made us the next visit, Pericles, 
 after greeting him with much good-nature, and after 
 various conversations with him, seemed suddenly to re- 
 collect something, and, with more familiarity than usual, 
 took him gently by the elbow, led him a little aside, and 
 said with a smile, and in a low voice : 
 
 " My dear friend Aristophanes ! I find you are by no 
 means willing to receive the same measure as you give ; 
 but remember, the people have ordered the adjustment, 
 the surest preservative against fraud, particularly that by 
 which the poorer are mostly the sufl'erers. Take care 
 they do not impeach you, knowing as you do how ineffi- 
 cient is my protection. It is chiefly on such an occasion 
 I should be sorry to be in a minority." 
 
 Aristophanes blushed, aud looked alarmed. Pericles 
 took him by the hand, whispering in his ear, " Do not 
 let us enter into a conspiracy against Equity, by attack- 
 ing the uniformity of weights and measures ; nor against 
 Comedy, by giving the magistrates a pretext to forbid its 
 representation." 
 
 Aristophanes turned toward Pentarces, who stood near 
 him, and said : 
 
 "i can write a comedy as well as most ; Pericles can 
 act one better than any." 
 
 Aristophanes, in my opinion, might have easily been 
 the first lyric poet now living, except Sophocles and 
 Euripides ; he chose rather to be the bitterest satirist. 
 How many, adorned with all the rarities of intellect, 
 have stumbled on the entrance into life, and have made 
 a wrong choice on the very thing which was to determine 
 their course forever ! This is among the reasons, and 
 perhaps is the principal one, why the wise and the happy 
 are two distinct classes of men. 
 
 LXXXVn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I had retired before Aristophanes went home. On my 
 
&0 PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 return, it was evident that some one present had in- 
 veighed against the poet's effrontery, for I was in time to 
 catch these words of Pericles : 
 
 " Why should I be angiy with the writers of comedy? 
 Is it because they tell me of the faults I find in myself ? 
 Surely not ; for he who finds them in himself may be 
 quite certain that others have found them in him long 
 before, and have shown much forbearance in the delay. 
 
 " Is it because I am told of those I have not discovered 
 in me ? Foolish indeed were this. I am to be angry, it 
 seems, because a man forewarns me that I have enemies 
 in my chamber, who will stab me when they find me 
 asleep, and because he helps me to catch them and dis- 
 arm them. 
 
 " But it is such an indignity to be ridiculed ! I in- 
 curred a greater when I threw myself into the way of 
 ridicule : a greater stiU should I suffer if I tried whether 
 it could be remedied by resentment. 
 
 " Ridicule often parries resentment, but resentment 
 never yet parried ridicule." 
 
 LXXXVin. ASPASIA TO HEEODOTDS. 
 
 Herodotus ! if there is any one who admires your 
 writings more than another, it is I. No residence in 
 Attica will ever make me prefer the dialect to ours ; no 
 writer will charm my ear as you have done ; and yet you 
 cannot bring me to believe that the sun is driven out of 
 his course by storms ; nor any of the consequences you 
 deduce from it, occasioning the overflow of the Nile. 
 The opinion you consider as unfounded, namely, that it 
 arises from the melting of the snows, and from the pe- 
 riodical rains on the mountains of Ethiopia, is, however, 
 that of Pericles and Anaxagoras, \\ho attribute it also to 
 Thales, in their estimation the soundest and shrewdest 
 of philosopliers. They appear to have very strange no- 
 tions about the sun, about his magnitude, his position, 
 and distance ; and I doubt whether you could persuade 
 them that the three stoutest winds are able to move him 
 
PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 91 
 
 one furlong. I am a great doubter, you see ; but they, 
 I do assure you, are greater. Pericles is of opinion that 
 natural pliilosophy has made but little progress ; and yet 
 that many more discoveries have burst open before the 
 strenuous inquirer than have been manifested to the 
 World ; that some have been suppressed by a fear of the 
 public, and some by a contempt for it. 
 
 "In the intellectual," said he, "as in the physical, 
 men grasp you firmly and tenaciously by the hand, creep- 
 ing close at your side, step for step, while you lead them 
 into darkness ; but when you conduct them into sudden 
 light, they start and quit you." 
 
 O Herodotus ! may your life and departure be happy ! 
 But how can it be expected ! No other deities have ever 
 received such honors as you have conferred upon the 
 Muses ; and alas, how inefficient are they to reward or 
 protect their votaries ! 
 
 LXXXIX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 The tragedy of Phrynicus, on the devastation of our 
 city by the Persians, will outlast all the cities now flour- 
 ishing on earth.* Heavy was the mulct to which the 
 poet was condemned by the Athenians for the tears he 
 drew from them in the theatre. 
 
 Is it not remarkable that we have never found any 
 Milesian poem on the same subject? Surely there must 
 have been several. Within how short a period have they 
 perished ! Lately, in searching the houses of such inhab- 
 itants as were suspected of partiality to the interests of 
 Lacedaemon, these verses were discovered. They bear 
 the signature of Aletheia, daughter of Charidemus and 
 Astyage. 
 
 We have often heard her story. Often have we sat 
 upon the mound of ruins under which she lies buried ; 
 
 * This tragedy, which proiluced a. more powerful effect than 
 any other on record, has failed, however, to fulfil the prophecy 
 yt Cleone : the Ode of Aletlieia, on which she placis so small 
 a value, has outlived it. 
 
92 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 often have we plucked from it the white cyclamen, sweet- 
 est of all sweet odors, and played with its stiff reverted 
 little horns, pouring forth a parsimonious fragrance, won 
 only when we applied to them tenderly and closely. 
 
 Whether poor Aletheia gave for life more than life's 
 value, it were worse than curiosity to inquire. She loved 
 her deliverer ; and, at the instigation of many less gentle, 
 she was slain for loving him. When the city was again 
 in possession of the citizens, she was stoned to death for 
 favoring the invader ; and her mother rushed forward 
 and shared it. These are things you know ; her poem, 
 her only one extant, you do not. You will find in it 
 little of poetry, but much of what is better and rarer, 
 true affection. 
 
 ALETHEIA TO FBKAOBTES. 
 
 Phraortes ! where art thou ? 
 The flames were panting after us, their darts 
 
 Had pierced to many hearts 
 Before the gods, who heard nor prayer nor vow ; 
 
 Temples had sunk to earth, and other smoke 
 
 O'er riven altars broke 
 
 Than curled from myrrh and nard, 
 
 When like a god among 
 
 Arm'd hosts and unarm'd throng 
 Thee I discern'd, implored, and caught one brief regard. 
 
 Thou passest : from thy side 
 Sudden two bowmen ride 
 And hurry me away. 
 Thou and all hope were gone . . 
 They loos'd me . . and alone 
 In a closed tent 'mid gory arms I lay. 
 
 How did my tears then burn 
 When, dreading thy return, 
 Behold thee reappear ! 
 Nor helm nor sword nor spear . . 
 
 In violet gold-hemm'd vest 
 Thou earnest forth ; too soon ! 
 Fallen at thy feet, claspt to thy breast, 
 I struggle, sob, and swoon. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 93 
 
 " O send me to ray mother I bid her come. 
 
 And take my last farewell ! 
 One blow ! . . enough for both . . one tomb . • 
 
 'Tis there our happy dwell." 
 
 Thou orderest : call'd and gone 
 At once they are who breathe for thy commands 
 Thou stoodest nigh me, soothing every moan, 
 And pressing in both thine my hand. 
 
 Then, and then only, when it tore 
 
 My hair to hide my face ; 
 And gently did thy own bend o'er 
 The abject head war-doomed to dire disgrace. 
 
 Ionian was thy tongue, 
 And when thou bailest me to raise 
 That head, nor fear in aught thy gaze, 
 
 I dared look up . . but dared not long. 
 
 " Wait, maiden, wait ! if none are here 
 Bearing a charm to charm a tear. 
 There may (who knows ?) be found at last 
 Some solace for the sorrow past." 
 
 My mother, ere the sounds had ceas'd, 
 
 Burst in, and drew me down : 
 Her joy o'erpowered us both, her breast 
 
 Covered lost friends and ruin'd town. 
 
 Sweet thought I but yielding now 
 To many harsher ! By what blow 
 Art thou dissevered from me ? War, 
 
 That hath career'd too far, 
 Closcth his pinions. " Come, Phraortes, come 
 
 To thy fond friends at home ! " 
 
 Thus beckons Love. Away then, wishes wild! 
 O may thy mother be as blest 
 As one whose eyes will sink to rest 
 Blessing thee for her rescued child I 
 
 Ungenerous still ray heart raust be : 
 Throughout the young and festive train 
 Which thou i evjsitest again 
 Hay none be hapi ier (this I fear") than she I 
 
94 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 XC. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Perhaps I like the Ode of Aletheia more than you do, 
 because you sent it me ; and you perhaps would havb 
 liked it more than I, had I sent it you. There are writ^ 
 ings which must lie long upon the straw before they 
 mellow to the taste ; and there are summer fruits which 
 cannot abide the keeping. 
 
 My heart assures me that Aletheia, had she lived, might 
 have excelled in poetry ; and the loss of a lover is a help 
 to it. We must defer our attempts to ascertain her sta- 
 tion in the world of poetry ; for we never see the just 
 dimensions of what is close before our eyes. Faults are 
 best discovered near, and beauties at some distance. 
 
 Aletheia, who found favor with Cleone, is surely not 
 unworthy to take her seat in the library of Pericles. 
 
 I will look for a cyclamen to place witliin the scroll ; 
 I must find it, and gather it, and place it there myself. 
 Sweet, hapless Aletheia ! 
 
 XCI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Nothing is pleasant er to me than exploring in a library. 
 What a delight in being a discoverer ! Among a loose 
 accumulation of poetry, the greater part excessively bad, 
 the verses I am about to transcribe are perhaps the 
 least so. ' 
 
 Life passes not as some men say, 
 If you will only urge his stay, 
 
 And treat him kindly all the while. 
 He flies the dizzy strife of towns, 
 Cowers before thunder-bearing frowns, 
 But freshens up again at song and smile. 
 
 Ardalia ! we will place him here, 
 And promise that nor sigh nor tear 
 
 Shall ever trouble his repose. 
 What precious seal will you impress 
 To ratify his happiness ? 
 That rose thro' which you breathe ? Come, bring that rose. 
 
PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 95 
 
 XCII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Knowing how desirous I have always been to learn 
 the history of Athens for these last fifty years, and 
 chiefly that part of it in which my Pericles has partaken 
 so largely ; and to reward my forbearance in abstaining 
 from every close and importunate inquiry, he placed a 
 scrap of paper in my hands this morning. 
 
 " Read that," said he. 
 
 It was no easy matter ; few sentences would have 
 been legible without my interpreter ; indeed there were 
 not many unerased. 
 
 " This speech," replied he, " occupied me one whole 
 night, and somewhat of the next morning ; I had so 
 very much not to say." 
 
 Aware that the party of Cimon would interest the peo- 
 ple in his behalf, so that a leader from among his rela- 
 tives or friends might be proposed and brought forward, 
 Pericles was resolved to anticipate these exertions. See 
 his few words : 
 
 " We have lost, O Athenians ! not a town, nor a bat- 
 tle ; these you would soon regain ; but we have lost a 
 great man, a true lover of his country, Cimon, son of 
 Miltiades. 
 
 " I well remember the grief you manifested at the neces- 
 sity of removing him for a time, from among the insidious 
 men who would have worked upon his generous temper, 
 ductile as gold. Never could I have believed I had suf- 
 ficient interest with some I see before me, firm almost 
 unto hardness, whose patriotism and probity had been the 
 most alarmed ; but they listened to me with patience, 
 and revoked the sentence of banishment. Cimon re- 
 turned from Sparta, took the command of your armies, 
 vanquished the Persians, and imposed on them such con- 
 ditions as will humble their pride forever. 
 
 '' Our fathers were ungenerous to his ; we will, as be- 
 comes us, pay their debts, and remove the dust from their 
 memory. Miltiades was always great, and only once un- 
 Buccessful ; Cimon was greater, and never unfortunate but 
 
90 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 in the temporary privation of your affections. History 
 offers us no example of so consummate a commander. 
 
 " I propose that a statue be erected to Cimon, son of 
 Miltiades, vanquisher of the Persians." 
 
 XCIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONB. 
 
 There are secrets which not even love should try to 
 penetrate. I am afraid of knowing who caused the ban- 
 ishment of Cimon ; certainly he was impeached by Peri- 
 cles, who nevertheless praised him highly whenever his 
 name was mentioned. He has allowed me to transcribe 
 his speech after the sentence of the judges, and with it 
 his letter of recall. 
 
 TO THE ATHENIANS, 
 On the Banishment of Cimon. 
 
 In your wisdom, O Athenians, you have decreed that 
 Cimon, son of Miltiades, be exiled from our city. 
 
 Whatever may have been the errors or the crimes of 
 Cimon, much of them should, in justice to yourselves, 
 and in humanity to the prosecuted, be ascribed to the 
 perversity of that faction, which never ceases or relaxes 
 in its attempts to thwart your determinations, and to de- 
 prive you of authority at home, of respect in the sight 
 o£ Greece. 
 
 But I adjure you to remember the services both of 
 Cimon and of Miltiades ; and to aflfbrd the banished man 
 no reason or plea to call in question your liberality. 
 Permit the rents of his many farms in Attica to be car- 
 ried to him in Sparta ; and let it never be said that a 
 citizen of Athens was obliged to the most illiberal and 
 penurious of people for a sustenance. Not indeed that 
 there is any danger of Sparta entertaining him too 
 honorably. She may pay for services ; but rather for 
 those which are to be performed than for those which 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 97 
 
 have been ; and to the man, rather who may do her harm, 
 than to him who can do it no longer. 
 
 Let us hope that at some future day Cimon may be 
 aware of his mistake, and regard with more veneration 
 the image of his father than the throne of his father's 
 enemy. 
 
 XCIV. PERICLES TO CIMON. 
 
 There are few cities, O Cimon, that have men for their 
 inhabitants. Whatever is out of Greece, and not Gre- 
 cian, is nearer the animal world than the intellectual ; 
 some even in Greece are but midway. Leave them be- 
 hind you ; return to your country and conquer her 
 assailants. Wholesome is the wisdom that we have 
 gathered from misfortune, and sweet the repose that 
 dwells upou renown. 
 
 XCV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Generally we are little apt to exaggerate merit. In 
 our maladies of the mind the cold fit usually is longer 
 and more intense than the hot, and our dreams are rarely 
 of water in the desert. We must have been among the 
 departed before we experience this sensation. In our 
 road through life, we may happen to meet with a man 
 casting a stone reverentially to enlarge the cairn of an- 
 other, which stone he had carried in his bosom to sling 
 against that very other's head. Seriously, my Cleone, I 
 am inclined to think that even in these dark days (as 
 they are called) of literature we may occasionally catch 
 a glimpse of poetry. We should be laughed at if we 
 ventured to compare the living with the dead, who 
 always are preferable, but there are choruses in Sophocles 
 and Euripides as pathetical as those tender words of 
 Sappho in her invocation to Hesperos : " Thou bringest 
 the wine, thou bringest the kid, thou bringest the maiden 
 to her mother." Certainly these words are very unsophisti- 
 cal, and they who have seen others weep at them, weep also. 
 
 7 
 
•jti PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 But pardon me, if looking attentively, you find no letter 
 in the sentence obliterated by a tear of mine. Some- 
 times I fancy that the facility and pliancy of our lan- 
 guage is the reason why many of the most applauded 
 verses are written with more intenseness of feeling and 
 less expenditure of thought. What is graceful must be 
 easy ; but many things are very easy which are not very 
 graceful. There is a great deal even of Attic poetry in 
 which a slight covering of wax is drawn over a bundle of 
 the commonest tow and tatters ; we must not bring it too 
 near the lamp . . But it is something to abstain from 
 an indulgence in grossness, prolixity, and exaggeration, 
 which are never the signs of fertility, but frequently the 
 reverse. This abstinence is truly Attic, but Attic not 
 exclusively : for Pindar has given manifold examples of 
 it, and is heavy and tedious then only when he wipes 
 away the foam off his bit with old stories and dry gene- 
 alogies. 
 
 SPEECH OF PEEICLES, 
 On the Defection of Eubcea and Megara. 
 
 Euboea has rejected our authority and alliance, Megara 
 our friendship. Under what pretext? That we have 
 employed in the decoration of our city the sums of money 
 they stipulated to contribute annually ; a subsidy to re- 
 sist the Persians. What ! must we continue a war of 
 extermination with Persia, when she no longer has the 
 power to molest us ? when peace has been sworn and 
 proclaimed? Do we violate the compact with our con- 
 federates? No; men of Athens ! our fleets are in har- 
 bor, every ship in good condition ; our arsenals are well 
 stored ; and we are as prompt and as able now to repel 
 aggression as we ever were. 
 
 Are our dues then to be withholden from us, because 
 we have anticipated our engagements ? because our navy 
 and our army are in readiness before they are wanted ? 
 because, while our ungrateful allies were plotting ov.i 
 luin, we were watching over their interests and provid- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 99 
 
 ing for their security? States, like private men, are 
 subject to the distemper of ingratitude, erasing from their 
 memory the impression of past benefits ; but it appears 
 to be peculiar to the Megarians to recompense them with 
 hatred and animosity. Not only have we protected them 
 from aggression, by building for them the very walls 
 from which they now defy us ; but, when MarJonius 
 sent against them, at Mount Cithseron, the whole force 
 of the Median cavalry, under the command of Magestios, 
 and when they called aloud to every near battalion of 
 the Grecian army, and when Pausanias in vain repeated 
 the exhortation, three hundred Athenians, led by Olym- 
 piodoros, son of Lampon, threw themselves forward from 
 Erythrai, and, after losing many brave comrades, rescued 
 from imminent death the fathers of those degenerate men 
 who are now in the vanguard of conspirators against us. 
 Ingratitude may be left to the chastisement of the gods, 
 but the sword must consolidate broken treaties. No 
 state can be respected if fragment after fragment may be 
 detached from it with impunity ; if traitors are permitted 
 to delude and discompose the contented, and to seduce the 
 ignorant from their allegiauce ; if loyalty is proclaimed 
 a weakness, sedition a duty, conspiracy wisdom, and re- 
 bellion heroism. It is a crime, then, for us to embellish our 
 city ! it is a reproach to enlarge and fortify our harbors ! 
 In vain have we represented to the clamorous and refrac- 
 tory, that their annual contributions are partly due to us 
 for past exertions, and partly the price of our protection, 
 at this time and in future ; and not against Persia only, 
 but against pirates. Our enemies have persuaded them 
 that rebellion and war are better things ; our enemies, 
 who were lately theirs, and who, by this perfidious insti- 
 gation, are about to become so more cruelly than ever. 
 Are Athenians avaricious? are Athenians oppressive? 
 Even the slaves in our city have easier access to the com- 
 forts and delights of life than the citizens of almost any 
 other. Until of late the Megarians were proud of our 
 consanguinity, and refused to be called the descendants 
 of Apollo, in hopes to be acknowledged as the children of 
 Pandipn. Although in later times they became the allies 
 
100 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 of Sparta, they cannot but remember that we have always 
 been their friends, often their deliverers ; and it is only 
 for their dishonesty and perfidy that we now are resolved 
 at last to prohibit them from the advantages of onr ports 
 Sparta and Corinth have instigated them ; Corinth, 
 whose pride and injustice have driven Corcyra, with her 
 fleets, to seek deliverance in the Pirieus. What have we 
 to fear from so strange a union as that of Corinth and 
 Sparta ? Are any two nations so unlike ? so little formed 
 for mutual succor or for mutual esteem ? Hitherto we 
 have shared both our wealth and our dangers with Euboea. 
 At the conclusion of a successful war, at the signature 
 of a most honorable and advantageous peace, we are de- 
 rided and reproached. What is it they discover to despise 
 in us ? I will tell you what it is. It is the timid step of 
 blind men ; this they saw in us while they were tamper 
 ing with Sparta. Not ashamed of their seduction, they 
 now walk hand in hand, witli open front, and call others 
 to join in their infamy. They have renounced our amity, 
 they have spurned our expostulations, they have torn our 
 treaties, and they have defied our arms. At the peril of 
 being called a bad citizen, I lament your blindness, O 
 Megara and Euboea ! 
 
 XCVI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I find, among the few records in my hands, that Peri- 
 cles went in person, and conquered the faithless Megara 
 and the refractory Euboea. Before he sailed to attack the 
 island, he warned the Athenians against an inconsiderate 
 parsimony, which usually terminates in fruitless expendi- 
 ture. He told them plainly that Euboea was capable of 
 a protracted and obstinate resistance ; and he admonished 
 them that, whatever reverses the arms of Athens might 
 experience, they should continue the war, and consider 
 the dominion of the island a thing necessary to their ex- 
 istence as a nation ; that whoever should devise or coun- 
 sel the separation of Euboea from Athens, be declared 
 guilty of treason, and punished with death. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 101 
 
 " If Thebes, in a future war," said he, " should take 
 possession of this productive country, and shut up, as she 
 easily might, the passage of the Euripus, she would gain 
 an ascendancy over us, from which we never could re- 
 cover. Losses, defeats, inadequate supplies, may tempt 
 her ; she would always have Sparta for an ally on such 
 an occasion. Indeed, it is wonderful that the BcEotians, 
 as brave a race of men as any in Greece, and stronger 
 in body, should not have been her masters. Perhaps it 
 is the fertility of her own territory that kept her content 
 with her possessions, and indisposed the cultivators of so 
 rich a soil from enterprise and hazard. Euboea is no 
 less fertile than Boeotia, from which she is separated by 
 the distance of a stone's throw. Give me fifty galleys, 
 and five thousand men, and Euboea shall fall ere Sparta 
 can come to her assistance." 
 
 XCVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Perpetual as have been the wars of Attica, she is over- 
 peopled. A colony hoisted sail for the Chersonese ; an- 
 other to repeople the ruined walls of Sybaris. Happy 
 the families whose fathers give them lands to cultivate, 
 instead of keeping them in idleness at home ; such are 
 the founders of colonies. The language of this city is 
 spoken in Italy, in Sicily, in Asia, in Africa, and even 
 on the coast of Gaul, among the yelpings and yells of 
 Kimbers and Sicambers. 
 
 Surely the more beneficent of the gods must look down 
 with delight on these fruit-trees planted in the forest. 
 May the healthfullest dews of heaven descend on them ! 
 
 We are now busied in the Propylsea ; they, although 
 unfinished, are truly magnificent. Which will remain 
 the longest, the traces of the walls or of the colonies? 
 Of the future we know nothing, of the past little, of the \ 
 present less ; the mirror is too close to our eyes, and our 
 own breath dims it. 
 
102 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 XCVIII. CLEOKE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I have only time to send you a few perfumes and a 
 few verses. These I transcribe out of a little volume of 
 Erinna ; the perfumes came to me from Syria. 
 
 Blessed be the man whose beneficent providence gave 
 the flowers another life ! We seem to retain their love 
 when their beauty has departed. 
 
 EKINNA TO LEUCONOE. 
 
 If comfort is unwelcome, can I think 
 
 Reproof aught less will be ? 
 The cup I bring to cool thee, wilt thou drink, 
 
 Ferer'd Leuconoe? 
 
 Rather with Grief than Friendship wouldst thou dwell, 
 
 Because Love smiles no more ! 
 Bent down by culling bitter herbs, to swell 
 
 A cauldron that boils o'er. 
 
 XCIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Thanks for the verses ! I hope Leuconoe was as grate- 
 ful as I am, and as sensible to their power of soothing. 
 
 Thanks, too, for the perfumes ! Pericles is ashamed of 
 acknowledging he is fond of them ; but I am resolved to 
 betray one secret of his : I have caught him several 
 times trying them, as he called it. 
 
 How many things are there that people pretend to dis- 
 like, without any reason, as far as we know, for the dis- 
 like or the pretence ! 
 
 I love sweet odors. Surely my Cleone herself must 
 have breathed her very soul into these ! Let me smell 
 them again : let me inhale them into the sanctuary of my 
 breast, lighted up by her love for their reception. 
 
 But, ah Cleone ! what an importunate and exacting 
 creature is Aspasia ! Have you no willows fresh peeled ? 
 none lying upon the bank for baskets, white, rounded, 
 and delicate, as your fingers ! How fragrant they were 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 103 
 
 formerly ! I have seen none lately. Do you remember 
 the cross old Hermesionax? how he ran to beat us for 
 breaking his twigs ? and how, after looking in our faces, 
 he seated himself down again, finished his basket, dis- 
 bursed from a goat^skin a corroded clod of rancid cheese, 
 put it in, pushed it to us, forced it under my arm, told us 
 to carry it home with the gods I and lifted up both hands 
 and blest us ? 
 
 I do not wish that one exactly ; cheese is the cruellest 
 ot deaths to me ; and Pericles abhors it. 
 
 I am running over trifling occurrences which you must 
 have forgotten. You are upon the spot, and have no oc- 
 casion to recall to memory how the munificent old basket- 
 maker looked after us, not seeing his dog at our heels ; 
 how we coaxed the lean, shaggy, suspicious animal ; how 
 many devices we contrived to throw down, or let slip, so 
 that the good man might not observe it, the pestilence 
 you insisted on carrying ; how many names we called 
 the dog by, ere we fou»id the true one, Cyrus; how, 
 when we had drawn him behind the lentisk, we rewarded 
 him for his assiduities, holding each an ear nevertheless, 
 that he might not carry back the gift to his master ; and 
 how we laughed at our feara, when a single jerk of the 
 head served at once to engulf the treasure and to disen- 
 gage him. 
 
 I shall always love the smell of the peeled willow. 
 Have you none for me? Is there no young poplar, then, 
 with a tear in his eye on bursting into bud ? I am not 
 speaking by metaphor and Asiatieally. I want the 
 poplars, the willows, the water-lilies, and the soft green 
 herbage. How we enjoyed it on the Mseander ! what 
 liberties we took with it ! robbing it of the flowers it had 
 educated, of those it was rearing, of those that came 
 confidently out to meet us, and of those that hid them- 
 selves. None escaped us. For these remembrances, 
 green is the color I love best. It brings me to the For- 
 tunate Island and my Cleone ; it brings me back to Child- 
 hood, the proud little nurse of Youth, brighter of eye 
 and lighter of heart than Youth herself. 
 
104 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 These are not regrets, Cleone ; they are respirations, 
 necessary to existence. You may call them half-wishes 
 if you will. We are poor indeed when we have no 
 half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close 
 the shutters the instant they are gone. 
 
 Do not chide me then for coming to you after the blos- 
 soms and buds and herbage : do not keep to yourself all 
 the grass on the Mteander. We used to share it ; we 
 will now. I love it wherever I can get a glimpse of it. 
 It is the home of the eyes, ever ready to receive them, 
 and spreading its cool couch for their repose. 
 
 C. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Demophile, poor honest faithful creature ! has yielded 
 to her infirmities. I have spent almost as many hours 
 with her in these last autumnal months, as I did in the 
 earliest of my existence. She could not carry me in her 
 arms again, but she was happy when mine were about 
 her neck, and said they made her stronger. Do you 
 remember how often she dropt my hand to take yours, 
 because you never cried ? saying : 
 
 " People never weep nor work, themselves, who can 
 make others weep and work for them. That little one 
 will have weeper and worker too about her presently. 
 Look at her, Cleone ! Cannot you look like that? Have 
 not you two lips and two eyes ? Aspasia has not three. 
 Try now ! Mind how I do it ! " 
 
 Good, simple heart ! 
 
 When she was near her end, she said to me : 
 
 "Do you ever go and read those names and bits of 
 verses on the stones yonder? You and Aspasia used 
 formerly. Some of them tell us to be sad and sorry for 
 folks who died a hundred years ago ; others to imitate 
 men and women we never should have had a chance of 
 seeing, had they been living yet. All we can learn from 
 them is this : that our city never had any bad people in it, 
 but has been filled with weeping and wailing from its 
 foundation upward." 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 105 
 
 These things puzzled Demophile ; she was somewhat 
 vext that she could not well comprehend them, but praised 
 the gods that our house was safe, when mauy others must 
 have been rent asunder : such a power of lamentation ! 
 
 "My name." said she, "•'I believe, is a ditfioult and 
 troublesome one to pinfold in a tombstone : nobody has 
 ever tried how it would sound in verse ; but if you and 
 Aspasia think me worth remembering, I am sure you 
 could do more with it than others could ; and you would 
 lead your litle ones, when the gods have given you any, 
 to come and see it, and tell them many things of old 
 Demophile." 
 
 I assured her that, if I outlived her, I would prove, 
 in the manner she wished, that my memory and love out- 
 lived her likewise. 
 
 She died two days afterward. 
 
 Nothing is difficult, not even an epitaph, if we prefer 
 the thoughts that come without calling, and receive the 
 first as the best and truest. I would not close my eyes 
 to sleep until I had performed my promise. 
 
 Demophile rests here : we will not sar 
 That slie was aged, lest ye turn away; 
 Xor that she long luiJ saliered : early woes 
 Alone can touch you ; go. and pity those I 
 
 CI. ASPASIA TO CLEOSE. 
 
 Ah poor Demophile I she remembered me then ! How 
 sorry I am I cannot tell her I remember her ! 
 
 Cleone ! there are little things that leave no little re- 
 grets. I might have saiJ kind words, and perhaps have 
 done kind actions, to many who now are beyond the 
 reach of them. Oue look on the unfortunate might have 
 given a day's happiness ; one sigh over the pillow of 
 sickness might have insured a night's repose ; one whis- 
 per might have driven from their victim the furies of 
 despair. 
 
 We think too much upon tchat the gods have given ns, 
 and too little wAy. 
 
106 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 We both are young ; and yet we have seen several who 
 loved us pass away ; and we never can live over again as 
 we lived before. A portion of our lives is consumed by 
 the torch we follow at their funerals. We enter into 
 another state of existence, resembling, indeed, and par- 
 taking of the former, but another ! it contains the sub- 
 stance of the same sorrows, the shadow of the same joys. 
 Alas ! how true are the words of the old poet : 
 
 We lose a life in every friend we lose, 
 And every death is painful but the last. 
 
 I often think of my beautiful nurse, Myrtale, now mar- 
 ried very happily in Clazomenai. My first verses were 
 upon her. These are the verses I thought so good, that 
 I wrote a long dissertation on the trochaic metre, to prove 
 it the most magnificent of metres ; and I mentioned in it 
 all the poets that ever wrote, from epigrammatic to epic, 
 praising some and censuring others, a judge without ap- 
 peal upon all. 
 
 How you laughed at me ! Do you remember the lines ? 
 I wonder they are not worse than they are. 
 
 Myrtale ! may heaven reward thee 
 
 For thy tenderness and care ! 
 Dressing me in all thy virtues, 
 
 Docile, duteous, gentle, fair. 
 
 One alone thou never heededst, 
 
 I can boast that one alone ; 
 Grateful beats the heart thy nurseling, 
 
 Myrtale ! 'tis all thy own. 
 
 Cn. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Receive old Lycoris, and treat her affably. She has 
 much influence in her tribe. The elderly of your sex 
 possess no small authority in our city, and I suspect that 
 in others, too, they have their sway. She made me 
 tremble once. Philotas asked her how she liked my 
 speech, I forget upon what occasion ; she answered : 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 107 
 
 " His words are current words, and ring well ; but 
 unless he gives us more of them for the trouble of our 
 attendance, he shall not be archon, I promise him." 
 
 Now I know not how long I could protract a speech, 
 nor how long I could keep my head under water ; these 
 are accomplishments I have never studied. Lycoris and 
 I are still friends, however. In my favor she has waived 
 her promise, and lets me be an archon.* 
 
 cm. ASPASIA TO CXEONE. 
 
 It is diflBcult and unsafe to pick up a pearl dropped by 
 Alcman. Usually it is moist with the salt of its habita- 
 tion ; and something not quite cleanly may be found ad- 
 hering to it. Here, however, is one which even my 
 chaste Cleone may look down on with complacency. 
 
 " So pure my love is, I could light 
 The torch on Aglae's wedding-night, 
 
 Nor bend its flame with sighs, 
 See, from beneatli, her chamber-door 
 Unclose, and bridemaids trip before, 
 
 With undejected eyes." 
 
 Cupid stood near and heard this said. 
 And full of malice shook his head, 
 Then cried, " I'll trust him when he swears 
 He cannot mount the first three stairs ; 
 Even then I'll take one look below 
 And see with my own eyes 'tis so." 
 
 And even Mimnermus, who bears but an indifferent 
 character with the chaste, is irreproachable in those 
 verses, which he appears to have written in the decline 
 of life. 
 
 Crv. PEKICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Send me a note whenever you are idle and thinking of 
 me, dear Aspasia ! Send it always by some old slave, 
 
 ■* Plutarch says he never was archon; he means, perhaps, j!rf< 
 archon. 
 
108 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 ill-dressed. The people will think it a petitiou, or some* 
 thing as good, and they will be sure to observe the pleas- 
 ure it throws into my countenance. Two winds at once 
 will blow into my sails, each helping me onward. 
 
 If I am tired, your letter will refresh me ; if occupied, 
 it will give me activity. Beside, what a deal of time we 
 lose in business ! 
 
 CV. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 Would to heaven, O Pericles ! you had no business at 
 all, but the conversation of your friends. You must 
 always be the greatest man in the city, whoever may be 
 the most popular. I wish we could spend the whole day 
 together ; must it never be ? Are you not already in 
 possession of all you ever contended for? 
 
 It is time, methinks, that you should leave off speaking 
 in public, for you begin to be negligent and incorrect. I 
 am to write you a note whenever I am idle and thinking 
 of you ! 
 
 Pericles ! Pericles ! how far is it from idleness to think 
 of you ! We come to rest before we come to idleness. 
 
 CVI. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 In our republic it is no easy thing to obtain an act of 
 divorce from power. It usually is delivered to us by the 
 messager of Death, or presented in due form by our 
 judges where the oyster keeps open houseJ 
 
 Now, oysters are quite out of season in the summer 
 of life ; and life, just about this time, I do assure you, is 
 often worth keeping. I thought so even before I knew 
 you, when I thought but little about the matter. It is a 
 casket not precious in itself, but valuable in proportion to 
 what Fortune, or Industry, or Virtue, has placed within 
 it. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 109 
 
 CVn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 When Pericles is too grave and silent, I usually take 
 up ray harp and sing to it ; for music is often acceptable 
 to the car when it would avoid or repose from discourse. 
 lie tolls me that it not only excites the imagination, but 
 invigorates eloquence and refreshes memory ; that play- 
 ing on my harp to him is like Kesprinkling a tessellated 
 pa\emeut with odoriferous water, which brings out the 
 images, cools the apartment, and gratifies the senses by 
 its fragrance. 
 
 " That instrument," said he, " is the rod of Hermes , 
 it calls up the spirits from below, or conducts them back 
 again to Elysium. "With what ecstasy do I throb and 
 quiver under those refreshing showers of sound 1 " 
 
 Come sprinkle me soft music o'er the breast, 
 
 Bring me the varied colors into light 
 That now obscurely on its tablet rest, 
 
 Show me its flowers and figures fresh and bright. 
 
 Waked at thy voice and touch, again the chords 
 Restore what restless years had moved away, 
 
 Restore the glowing cheeks, the tender words, 
 Youth's short-lived spring and Pleasure's summer-day. 
 
 I believe he composed these verses while I was play- 
 ing, although he disowns them, asking me whether I am 
 willing to imagine that my execution is become so power- 
 less. 
 
 You remember my old song ; it was this I had been 
 playing : 
 
 The reeds were green the other day, 
 Among the reeds we loved to play. 
 
 We loved to play while they were green. 
 The reeds are hard and yellow now, 
 No more their tufted heads they bow 
 To beckon us behind the scene. 
 
 " What is it like? " my mother said, 
 And laid her hand upon my head ; 
 "Mother! I cannot tell indeed. 
 I've thouglit of all hard things I know, 
 I've thought of all the yellow too , 
 It only can be like the reed." 
 
110 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CVIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Panenos is our best painter ; he was educated by Phei- 
 iias, who excels all the painters in correctness of design. 
 Panenos has travelled into Egypt, in which country, he 
 tells us, the colors are as fresh upon the walls of the 
 temples as when they were painted, two thousand years 
 ago. Pericles wishes to have a representation of me in 
 the beginning of every Olympiad. Alas ! what an im- 
 prudence ! The most youthful lover never committed 
 one greater. 
 
 I will not send a stranger to you, Cleone ! I will send 
 the fugitive of Miletus when EpimedL'a was giving her 
 the lecture in the bath. Be quiet now ; say nothing ; 
 even the bath itself is quite imaginary. 
 
 Panenos plays upon the harp. I praised him for the 
 simplicity and melody of the tune, and for his execution. 
 Ha was but little pleased. 
 
 " Lady," said he to me, " a painter can be two things : 
 he can be painter and statuary, which is much the easier ; 
 make him a third, and you reduce him to nothing." 
 
 "Yet Pericles," said I, " plays rather well." 
 
 ^^ Bather well, I can believe," said he, "because I know 
 that his master was Damon, who was very skilful and 
 very diligent. Damon, like every clever composer I 
 have met with, or indeed ever heard of, was a child in 
 levity and dissipation. His life was half feast, half 
 coQCort." 
 
 " But, Panenos," said I, " surely we may be fond of 
 music, and yet stand a little on this side of idiocy." 
 
 " Aspasia !" he replied, "he who loves not music is a 
 beast of one species ; he who overloves it is a bea^t of 
 another, whose brain is smaller than a nightingale's, and 
 his heart than a lizard's. Record me one memorable 
 saying, one witticism, one just remark, of any great 
 musician, and I consent to undergo the punishment of 
 Marsyas. Some among them are innocent and worthy 
 men ; not many, nor the first. Dissipation, and, what is 
 strange, selfishness, and disregard to punctuality in en- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. HI 
 
 gagements, are common and nearly general in the more 
 distinguished of them. 
 
 '> O Music ! how it grieves me, that imprudence, in- 
 temperance, gluttony, should open their channels into thy 
 sacred stream ! " 
 
 Panenos said this : let us never believe a word of it. 
 He himself plays admirably, although no composer. 
 
 CrX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 O Aspasia ! have you heard (you surely must) that the 
 people of Samos have declared war against us? It is 
 hardly sixty years since our beautiful city was captured 
 and destroyed by the Persians. In vain hath she risen 
 from her ashes with fresh splendor ! Another Phrynicus 
 will have, perhaps, to write another tragedy upon us. 
 
 Is it an offence to be flourishing and happy ? 
 
 The unfortunate meet and embrace ; the fortunate meet 
 and tear each other to pieces. What wonder that the 
 righteous gods allow to prosperity so brief a space ! 
 
 ex. ASPAt.',k TO CLEONE. 
 
 Be composed and tranquil : read the speech of Pericles 
 to the Athenians. 
 
 SPEECH OP PERICLES. 
 
 The Milesians, it appears, have sent embassadors to 
 you, O men of Athens ! not entreating the cooperation 
 of your arms, but the interposition of your wisdom and 
 integrity. They have not spoken, nor indeed can they 
 deem it necessary to speak, of dangers recently under- 
 gone together with you, of ancient, faithful, indissoluble 
 alliances, or the glory of descending from the same fore- 
 fathers. On this plea Miletus might have claimed as a 
 right what she solicits as a favor. 
 
 Samos, O Athenians, has dared to declare war against 
 
112 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 the people of Miletus. She envies us our commerce, and, 
 unable to find a plea for assailing us, strikes our friend 
 in our sight, and looks impudently in our faces to see 
 ■whether we will resent it. 
 
 No, Athenians, we wiU not resent it, until we have sent 
 embassadors, to ask her why she has taken up arms 
 against the peaceful and unoffending ? It were well were 
 it permitted us to abstain. Yes, I feel I am hazarding 
 your favor by recommending delay and procrastination ; 
 but I do not apprehend that we are losing much time. 
 We have weapons, we have ships, we have the same sol- 
 diers who quelled braver enemies. The vanquished 
 seem again to be filling up the ranks we have thinned. 
 They murmur, they threaten, they conspire, they prepare 
 (and preparation denounces it) hostility. Let them come 
 forth against us. Wealth rises up to our succor in that 
 harbor ; Glory stands firm, and bids them defiance on 
 those walls. 
 
 Wait, wait ! twenty days only. Ten. Not ten ? 
 
 Little becomes it me, O Athenians ! to oppose your 
 wishes or to abate your ardor. 
 
 Depart, then, heralds ! and carry with you war. 
 
 CXI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 1 have asked Pericles to let me see all his speeches. 
 He declared to me that he has kept no copies, but prom- 
 ised that he would attempt to recover some of them from 
 his friends. I was disappointed and grieved, and told 
 him I was angry with him. He answered thus, taking 
 me by the hand : 
 
 " So, you really are angry that I have been negligent 
 in the preservation of my speeches, after all my labor in 
 modelling and correcting them. You are anxious that I 
 should be praised as a writer, by writers who direct the 
 public in these matters. Aspasia ! I know their value. 
 Understand me correctly and comprehensively. I mean 
 partly the intrinsic worth of their commendations, and 
 partly (as we pay in the price of our utensils) the fashion. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 113 
 
 I have been accused of squandering away both the pub- 
 lic money and my own ; nobody shall ever accuse me of 
 paying three obols for the most grandly embossed and 
 most sonorous panegyric. 1 would excite the pleasure (it 
 were too much to say the admiration) of judicious and 
 thoughtful men ; but I would neither soothe nor irritate 
 these busybodies. I have neither honey nor lime for ants. 
 Wc know that good writers are often gratified by the 
 commendation of bad ones ; and that even when the 
 learned and intelligent have brought the materials to 
 crown their merits, they have looked toward the door at 
 some petulant, smirking page, for the thread that was to 
 bind the chaplet. Little do I wish to hear what I am, 
 much less what I am not. Enough for me to feel the 
 consciousness and effect of health and strength ; surely 
 it is better than to be told by those who salute me, that 
 T am looking very well. 
 
 "You may reply that the question turns not upon com- 
 pliments, but upon censure. 
 
 " Keally I know not what my censurers may write, 
 never having had the advantage of reading their lucubra- 
 tions ; all I know is this : if I am not their Pericles, 1 
 am at least the Pericles of Aspasia and the Athenians." 
 
 CXII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 We were conversing on oratory and orators, when An- 
 axagoras said, looking at Pericles, and smiling : 
 
 " They are described by Hesiod in two verses, which 
 he applies to himself and the poets : 
 
 ' Lies very like the truth we tell, 
 And, when we wish it, truth as well.'" 
 
 Meton relaxed from his usual seriousness, but had no 
 suspicion of the application, saying : 
 
 "Cleverly applied, indeed ! " 
 
 Pericles enjoyed equally the simplicity of Meton and 
 the slyness of Anaxagoras, and said : 
 
 " Meton ! our friend Anaxagoras is so modest a man, 
 
 8 
 
114 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 that the least we can do for him is to acknowledge his 
 claims as heir-general to Hesiod : see them registered." 
 
 I have never observed the temper of Pericles either 
 above or below the enjoyment of a joke ; he invites and 
 retaliates, but never begins, lest he should appear to take 
 a liberty. 
 
 There are proud men of so much delicacy that it al- 
 most conceals their pride, and perfectly excuses it. 
 
 Meton never talks, but answers questions with great 
 politeness, although with less clearness and precision 
 than you would expect. I remarked to him, one even- 
 ing, that mathematicians had great advantages over 
 others in disputation, from the habitude they had ac- 
 quired of exactness in solving their problems. 
 
 " We mathematicians," answered he, " lay claim to this 
 precision. I need not mention to you, A.^pasia, that of 
 all the people who assemble at your house, I am the only 
 one that ever wants a thought or word. We are exact 
 in our own proper workmanship. Give us time, and we 
 can discover what is false in logic ; but I never was ac- 
 quainted with a mathematician who was ready at correct- 
 ing in himself a flaw of ratiocination, or who produced 
 the fitting thing in any moderate time. Composition is 
 quite beyond our sphere. I am not envious of others ; 
 but I often regret in myself that, while they are deliver- 
 ing their opinions freely and easily, I uin arranging mine ; 
 and that, in common with all the mathematicians of my 
 acquaintance, I am no prompt debater, no acute logician 
 no clear expositor, but begin in hesitation and finish in 
 confusion." 
 
 I assure you, Cleone, I have been obliged to give order 
 and regularity to these few words of the vvise contempla- 
 tive Meton, and to remove from among them many that 
 were superfluous and repeated. When he had paused, I 
 told him I sometimes wished he would exercise his pow- 
 erful mind iu conversation. 
 
 "1 have hardly time," said he, " for study, much less 
 for disputation. Rurely have I known a disputant who, 
 however dexterous, did not either drive by Truth or over 
 her, or who stopped to salute her, unless he had some- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 115 
 
 thing fine or novel to display. He would stumble over 
 my cubes and spheres, and I should leave my leg in his 
 noose." 
 
 " And yet Anaxagoras and you agree well together," 
 said I. 
 
 "Anaxagoras," replied he, "usually asks me short 
 questions, and helps me himself to explain them. He 
 comes to me when I am alone, and would find no pleasure 
 in showing to others my perplexity. Seldom do I let him 
 go again, until he has given me some help or some incite- 
 ment in my studies. He suggests many things." 
 
 " Silence, good Melon ! " cried Anaxagoras, " or I may 
 begin to talk of a luminary whose light has not yet reached 
 the earth." 
 
 The three men smiled : they have some meaning un- 
 communicated to me. Perhaps it is a remark of Pericles, 
 in encouragement of Anaxagoras, that, while others pass 
 before us like a half-obol tow-link across a dark alley, and 
 dazzle and disappear, his loftier light has not yet come 
 down to the intellects of his fellow-citizens ; or perhaps 
 it may really have a reference to some discovery in as- 
 tronomy. 
 
 Pericles goes in person to command the expedition 
 against Samos. He promises me it will soon be ready 
 to sail, and tells me to expect him back again within a 
 few months. Artemon is preparing machines of great 
 magnitude for the attack of the city. He teaches me 
 that the Samians are brave and wealthy, and that no city 
 is capable of such a resistance. Certainly ne^'er were 
 such preparations. I hope, at least, that the report of 
 them will detain your enemies at home, and at all events 
 that, before they land, you will leave Miletus and come 
 to me. The war is very popular at Athens ; I dare say 
 it is equally so at Samos, equally so at Miletus. Nothing 
 pleases men like renewing their ancient alliance with the 
 brutes, and breaking oif the more recent one with their 
 fellow-creatures. 
 
 War, is it, O grave heads ! that ye 
 With stern and stately pomp decree? 
 Inviting all the gods from far 
 To join you in the game of war ! 
 
116 PERICLES A.ND ASPASIA. 
 
 Have ye then lived so many years 
 To find no purer joy than tears? 
 And seek ye now the highest good 
 In strife, in anguish, and in blood? 
 Your wisdom may be more than ours, 
 But you have spent your golden hours, 
 And have, methinks, but little right 
 To make the happier fret and fight. 
 Ah ! when will come the calmer day 
 When these dark clouds shall pass away ? 
 When (should two cities disagree) 
 The young, the beauteous, and the free, 
 Eushing with all their force, shall meet 
 And struggle with embraces sweet, 
 Till they who may have suflfer'd most 
 Give in, and own the battle lost. 
 
 Philosophy does not always play fair with us. She often 
 eludes us when she has invited us, and leaves us when she 
 has led us the farthest way from home. Perhaps it is be- 
 cause we have jumped up from our seats at the first lesson 
 she would give us, and the easiest, and the best. There 
 are few words in the precept — 
 
 Give pleasure : receive it : 
 
 Avoid giving pain ; avoid receiving. 
 
 For the duller scholar, who may find it difficult to learn 
 the whole, she cuts each line in the middle, and tells him 
 kindly that it will serve the purpose, if he will but keep 
 it in his memory. 
 
 CXni. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Will you never be serious even upon the most serious 
 occasions ? There are so many Grecian states, on both con- 
 tinents and in the islands, that surely some could always 
 be found both willing and proper to arbitrate on any dis- 
 sension. If litigations are decided by arbiters wheu two 
 men contend (as they often are), surely it would be an 
 easier matter with cities and communities ; for they are 
 not liable to the irritation arising from violent words, nor 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 117 
 
 to the hatred that springs up afresh between two men who 
 striro for property, every time they come wilhin sight. I 
 believe the Greeks are the happiest people upon earth, or 
 that ever are likely to exist upon it ; and chiefly from 
 their separation into small communities, independent 
 governments, and laws made by the people for the peo- 
 ple ! But unless they come to the determination that no 
 war whatever shaU be undertaken until the causes of 
 quarrel are examined, and the conditions of accommoda- 
 tion are proposed by others, from whom impartiality is 
 most reasonably to be expected, they will exist without 
 enjoying the greatest advantage that the gods have offered 
 them. Religious men, I foresee, will be sorry to dis- 
 please the God of battles. Let him have all the kingdoms 
 of the world to himself, but I wish he would resign to the 
 quieter deities our little Greece. 
 
 Preparations are going on here for resistance to the 
 Samians, and we hear that Athenian ships are cruising 
 off their island. 
 
 In case of necessity, everything is ready for my depar- 
 ture to the sources of the Maeander. I will prove to you 
 that I am not hurried nor frightened ; I have leisure to 
 write out what, perhaps, may be the last verses written 
 in Miletus, unless we are relieved. 
 
 LITTLE AGLAE, 
 
 To her Father, on her Statue being called like her. 
 
 Father ! the little girl we see 
 
 Is not, I fancy, so like me ; 
 
 You never hold her on your knee. 
 
 When she came home the other day 
 You kiss'd her ; but I cannot say 
 She kiss'd you first and ran away. 
 
 CXTV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Herodotus, on returning from his victory at the Olym- 
 pian games, was the guest of Pericles. You saw him 
 
118 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 afterward ; and he might have told you that Pericles 
 was urgent with him to remain at Athens. True, as a 
 stranger, he would have been without influence here in 
 political affairs. It is evident that he desires no such 
 thing, but prefers, as literary men should always do, 
 tranquillity and retirement. These he may enjoy in per- 
 fection where he is, and write the truth intrepidly. Peri- 
 cles has more than once heard from him. Life passes in 
 no part of the world so easily and placidly as among 
 the Grecian colonies in Italy. They rarely quarrel ; 
 they have room enough, men enough, wealth enough, 
 and not too much. One petty tyrant has sprung up 
 among them lately, and has imprisoned, exiled, and 
 murdered, the best citizens. 
 
 Pericles was asked his advice what should be done 
 with him. He answered : 
 
 " I never interfere in the affairs of others. It appears 
 to me that, where you have nothing but a weasel to 
 hunt, you should not bring many dogs into the field, nor 
 great ones ; but in fact the rat-catcher is the best 
 counsellor on these occasions : he neither makes waste 
 nor noise." 
 
 The tyrant, we hear, is sickening, and many epitaphs 
 are already composed for him ; the shortest is — 
 
 The pigmy despot Mutinas lies here ; 
 
 He was not godless ; no ; his god was Fear. 
 
 Herodotus tells us, that throughout the lower Italy 
 poverty is unknown ; every town well governed, every 
 field well ploughed, every meadow well irrigated, every 
 vineyard pruned scientifically. The people choose their 
 higher magistrates from the most intelligent, provided 
 they are not needy. The only offices that are salaried 
 are the lower, which all the citizens have an equal chance 
 of attaining ; some by lot, some by suffrage This is 
 the secret why the governments are peaceful and dur- 
 able. No rich man can become the richer for them ; 
 every poor man may, but honestly and carefully. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 119 
 
 CXV. CLEONB TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Corinna was honored iu her native place as greatly as 
 abroad. This is the privilege of our sex. Pindar and 
 .^schylus left their country, not because the lower orders 
 were indiflPerent or unjust to them, but because those who 
 were born their equals could not endure to see them rise 
 their superiors. 
 
 What a war against the gods is this ! 
 
 It seems as if it were decreed by a public edict, that 
 no one shall receive from them any gift above a certain 
 value ; and that, if they do receive it, they shall be per- 
 mitted to return the gods no thanks for it in their native 
 city. 
 
 So then ! republics must produce genius, and kings re- 
 ward it ! 
 
 So then ! Hiero and Archelaus must be elevated to the 
 rank of Cimon and Pericles ! O shame ! O ignominy ! 
 
 What afflicts me deeply is the intelligence we receive 
 that Herodotus has left Ionia. He was crowned at the 
 Olympian games ; he was invited to a public festival in 
 every city he visited throughout the whole extent of 
 Greece ; even his own was pleased with him : yet he too 
 has departed ; not to Archelaus or to Hiero, but to the 
 retirement and tranquillity of Italy. 
 
 I do believe, Aspasia, that studious men, who look so 
 quiet, are the most restless men in existence. 
 
 OKATION OP PEBICLES TO THE SOLDIEKS BOUND SAMOS. 
 
 Little time is now left us, O Athenians, between the 
 consideration and the accomplishment of our duties. 
 The justice of the cause, when it was first submitted to 
 your decision in the Agora, was acknowledged with 
 acclamations : the success of it you have insured by your 
 irresistible energy. The port of Samos is in our posses- 
 sion, and we have occupied all the eminences round her 
 walls. Patience is now as requisite to us as to the 
 
120 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 enemy ; for, although every city which can be surrounded 
 can be captured, yet in some, where courage and num- 
 bers have been insufficient to drive off the besieger. Na- 
 ture and Art may have thrown up obstacles to impede 
 his progress. Such is Samos ; the strongest fortress in 
 Europe, excepting only Byzantion. But Byzantion fell 
 before our fathers ; and unless she become less deaf to 
 the reclamations of honor, less indifferent to the sancti- 
 tude of treaties, unless she prefer her fellow-soldiers to 
 her common enemy, freedom to aristocracy, friends to 
 strangers, Greeks to Asiatics, she shall abase her Thra- 
 cian fierceness before us. However, we will neither 
 ijpurn the suppliant nor punish the repentant ; our arms 
 we will turn forever, as we turu them now, against the 
 malicious rival, the alienated relative, the apostate con- 
 federate, and the proud oppressor. Where a sense of 
 dignity is faint and feeble, and where reason hath lain 
 unexercised and inert, many nations have occasionally 
 been happy, and even flourishing, under kings : but oli- 
 garchy halh ever been a curse to all, from its commence- 
 ment to its close. To remove it eternally from the 
 vicinity of Milelus, and from the well-disposed of that 
 very city by which hostilities are denounced against her, 
 is at once our interest and our duty. For oligarchs in 
 every part of the world are necessarily our enemies, 
 since we have always shown our fixed determination to 
 aid and support with all our strength the defenders of 
 civility and freedom. It is not in our power (for against 
 our institutions and consciences we Athenians can do 
 nothing), it is not in our power, I repeat it, to sit idly 
 by, while those who were our fellow-combatants against 
 the Persian, and who suffered from his aggression even 
 more than we did, are assailed by degenerate lonians, 
 whose usurpation rests on Persia. We have enemies 
 wherever there is injustice done to Greeks ; and we will 
 abolish that injustice, and we will quell those enemies. 
 Wherever there are equal laws we have friends ; and 
 those friends we will succor, and those laws we will 
 maintain. On which side do the considerate and relig- 
 ious look forward to the countenance of the gods ? Often 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 121 
 
 have they deferred, indeed, their righteous judgments, but 
 never have they deserted the long-suiFering and the 
 brave. Upon tlie ground whei-e we were standing when 
 you last heard my appeal to you, were not Xerxes and 
 his myriads encamped? What drove them from it? 
 The wisdom, force, and fortitude breathed into your 
 hearts by the immortal gods. Preserve them with equal 
 constancy ; and your return, I promise you, shall not 
 have been more glorious from Salamis than from Samos. 
 
 CXVI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I must always send you poetry when I find it, whether 
 in a greater quantity or a smaller : not indeed all I hap- 
 pen to find ; for certainly the most part even of careful 
 collections is mere trash. If there is a word too much 
 in sense or sentiment, it is no poem ; just as, if tliere is 
 a syllable in a verse too much, it is no metre. I speak 
 only of these shorter ; not of those which are long 
 enough to stretch ourselves on and sleep in. But there 
 are poetical cooks so skilful in dividing the tendons of 
 their cub-fed animals, that they contrive to fill a capacious 
 dish with a few couples of the most meagre and totter- 
 ing. From Athens you shall have nothing that is not 
 Attic. I wish I could always give you the names of the 
 authors. 
 
 Look at that fountain ! Gods around 
 
 Sit and enjoy its liquid sound. 
 
 Come, come : why should not we draw near? 
 
 Let them look on : they cannot hear. 
 
 But if they envy what we do, 
 
 Say, have not gods been happy too ? 
 
 The following were composed on a picture in which 
 Cupid is represented tearing a rose-bud : 
 
 Ah Cupid ! Cupid ! let alone 
 That bud above the rest : 
 The Graces wear it in their zone, 
 Thy mother on her breast. 
 
122 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Does it not grieve thee to destroy 
 
 So beautiful a flower? 
 
 If thou must do it, cruel boy, 
 
 Far distant be the hour ! 
 
 If the sweet bloom (so tinged with flro 
 
 From thy own torch) must die. 
 
 Let it, O generous Love ! expire 
 
 Beneath a lover's sigh. 
 
 The next is A Faun to Eriopis, a wood nymph, who 
 had permitted a kiss, and was sorry for it. 
 
 Tell me, Eriopis, why 
 Lies in shade that languid eye ? 
 Hast thou caught the hunter's shout 
 Far from Dian, and without 
 Any sister nymph to say 
 Whither leads the downward way? 
 Trust me : never be afraid 
 Of thy Faun, my little maid ! 
 He will never call thee Dear, 
 Press thy finger, pinch thy ear, 
 To admire it overspread 
 Swiftly with pellucid red. 
 Nor shall broad and slender feet 
 Under fruit-laid table meet. 
 Doth not he already know 
 All thy wandering, all thy woe? 
 Come ! to weep is now in vain, 
 I will lead thee back again. 
 Slight and harmless was the slip 
 That but soil'd the sadden'd lip. 
 Now the place is shown to me 
 Peace and safety shall there be. 
 
 CXVn. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Samos has fallen. Pericles will have given you this 
 information long before my letter can reach you, and 
 perhaps the joy of the light-hearted Athenians will be 
 over ere tlien. So soon dies away the satisfaction of 
 great exploits, even of such as have swept a generation 
 from before us, have changed the fortunes of a thousand 
 more, and indeed have shaken the last link in the re- 
 motest. We hear, but perhaps the estimate is exagger- 
 
PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 123 
 
 ated, that the walls of Miletus, of Ephesus, of Priene, 
 are in comparison to Samos as the fences of a farm-yard 
 are to them. Certain it is that the vanquished fleet was 
 more formidable than the united navies of Corinth and 
 of Carthage, which are rated as next in force to the 
 Athenian. 
 
 By this conquest we are delivered from imminent dan- 
 ger ; yet, I am ashamed to say it, our citizens are un- 
 grateful already. It is by the exertions of the Athenians 
 that they are not slaves ; and they reason as basely as if 
 they were. They pretend to say that it was jealousy of 
 Samos, and the 'sudden and vast increase of her mari- 
 time power, but by no means any aflTection for Miletus, 
 which induced them to take up arms ! Athens had just 
 reason for hostility ; why should she urge, in preference, 
 unjust ones ? Alas ! if equity is supported by violence, 
 little can be the wonder if power be preceded by false- 
 hood. Such a reflection may be womanish ; but are not 
 all peculiarly so which are quiet, compassionate, and 
 consistent? The manly mind, in its contiuual course of 
 impediments and cataracts, receives and gives few true 
 images ; our stagnant life in this respect has greatly the 
 advantage. 
 
 Xanthus, the friend (you remember) of poor Xeni- 
 ades, fought as a volunteer in the Athenian army, and 
 was intrusted with the despatches to our government. 
 
 '•Xanthus ! " said the general, "your countrymen will 
 hereafter read your name, although it is not written 
 here ; for we conquerors of Samos are no little jealous 
 one of another. Go and congratulate the Milesians : 
 they will understand us both." 
 
 I asked him many questions. He replied with much 
 simplicity, "I was always too much in it to know any 
 thing about it. The principal thing I remember is, that 
 Pericles (I was told) smiled at me for a moment in the 
 heat of battle, and went on to another detachment." 
 
124 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CXVni. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 The wind, I understand, has delayed my last letter in 
 harbor, and continues adverse. Every day we receive 
 some fresh vessel from Samos, and some new intelli- 
 giince. True is it, we discover, that the prevailinj; party 
 had been supported at once by the Peloponnesians and 
 the Persians. The chastisement of the delinquents is rep- 
 resented as much too mild. "They would have made us 
 slaves, let us make them so." Such, with scourges and 
 tortures, were the denunciations of the people and the sol- 
 diery ; and more vehemently in Samos than in Miletus. 
 The leaders of the oligarchy (now supprest forever) were 
 two men of low extraction, Lysimachus and Elpenor. 
 We daily hear some story, well known in Samos only, of 
 these incendiaries. Lysimachus was enriched by the col- 
 location of his wife with an old dotard, worn out by glut- 
 tony and disordered in intellect. By his last testament, 
 made when he had lost his senses, he bequeathed her 
 fifty talents. The heirs refused to pay them ; and Lysim- 
 achus would have pleaded her cause before the people, had 
 they not driven him a-way with shouts and stones. Nev- 
 ertheless, he was thought a worthy champion of the fac- 
 tion, and the rather as his hatred of his fellow-citizens 
 and former companions must be sincere and inextinguish- 
 able. Elpenor is far advanced in age. His elder son 
 was wounded by accident, and died within the walls. 
 Avarice and parsimony had always been his character- 
 istics, under the veil, however, of morality and religion. 
 The speech he made at the funeral is thus reported : 
 
 " It hath been, O men of Samos ! the decree of the 
 immortal gods, whose names be ever blessed ! . . 
 
 "Hold hard there ! Cannot you see that there are nc 
 more sparks in the pyre? . . the wine smells sadly . . 
 throw no more on them . . take it home to the cellar . . 
 
 " To remove from my aged eyes, from my frail em- 
 braces, the delight of my life, the staff of my declining 
 years, all spent in the service of my beloved country. It 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 125 
 
 is true I have anotlier son, rising out of his adolescence . . 
 here beside me. . . 
 
 "O my child! Molismogis ! Molismogis ! on such a 
 melancholy occasion dost thou, alas ! tie indissolubly and 
 wastefuUy that beautiful piece of packthread ? Thy poor, 
 bereaved mother may want it ; and it will fail her in the 
 hour of need." 
 
 Two torches were borne before the funeral. One of 
 them presently gave signs rather prematurely emblem- 
 atical of our mortal state, and could be restored to its 
 functions by no exertion of the bearer, first waving it 
 gently toward his companion, then shaking it with all 
 his might, horizontally, vertically, diagonally, then hold- 
 ing it down despondingly to the earth. Elpenor beckoned 
 to him, and asked him, in his ear, how much he had paid 
 for it. 
 
 " Half a drachma." 
 
 "Fraud ! " cried Elpenor ; " fraud, even at the tomb ! 
 before the dead, and before the gods of the dead ! From 
 whom did you make the purchase?" 
 
 "From Gylippides, son of Agoracles." 
 
 "Tell Gylippides, son of Agoracles," calmly said El- 
 penor, "that in my love of equity, in my duty to the 
 state, in my piety to the gods, in my pure desire to pre- 
 serve the tranquillity of his conscience, I cite him before 
 the tribunal unless he refund an obol." Then aloud, " It 
 was not in this manner, O Athenians ! that our forefathers 
 reverenced the dead." 
 
 He gave way under his grief, and was carried back 
 with little commiseration. Elpenor is among the richest 
 men in Greece, unless the conquerors have curtailed his 
 treasures. It is but reasonable that everything such men 
 possess should compensate the people for years of rapine, 
 disunion, and turbulence ; for the evil laws they enacted, 
 and for the better they misadministered and perverted. 
 
 CXIX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Worse verses, it may be, than any of those which you 
 lately sent to me, affect me more. There is no giddiness 
 
126 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 in looking down the precipices of yonth ; it is the rapidity 
 and heat of its course that brings the giddiness. When 
 we are near its termination, a chilly thrill comes over us 
 whether we look before or behind. Yet there is some- 
 thing like enchantment in the very sound of the word 
 youth, and the calmest heart, at every season of life, beats 
 in double time to it. Never expect a compensatiou for 
 what you send me, whether prose or poetry ; but expect 
 a pleasure, because it has given me one. Now here are 
 the worse verses for the better, the Milesian for the 
 Attic : 
 
 We mind not how the sun in the mid-sky 
 Is hastening on; but when the golden orb 
 Strilces the extreme of earth, and when the gulfa 
 Of air and ocean open to receive him. 
 Dampness and gloom invade us; then we think, 
 Ah! thus it is with Youth. Too fast his feet 
 Run on for sight ; hour follows hour ; fair maid 
 Succeeds fair maid; bright eyes bestar his couch; 
 The cheerful horn awakens him ; the feast, 
 The revel, the entangling dance, allure, 
 And voices mellower than the Muse's own 
 Heave up his buoyant bosom on their wave. 
 A little while, and then . . Ah Youth! dear Youth 1 
 Listen not to my words . . but stay with me ! 
 When thou art gone, Life may go too ; the sigh 
 That follows is for thee, and not for Life. 
 
 CXX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Enough, enough is it for me to see my Pericles safe at 
 home again. Not a word has he spoken, not a question 
 have I asked him, about the odious war of Samos. He 
 made in Samos, I hear, a most impressive oration, to cel- 
 ebrate the obsequies of these brave soldiers who fell. In 
 Athens, where all is exultation, he has rendered the slain 
 the most glorious and triumphant, and the fatherless the 
 proudest, of the living. But at last how little worth is 
 the praise of eloquence ! Elpenor and Lysimachus lead 
 councils and nations ! Great gods ! surely ye must pity 
 us when we worship you ; we, who obey, and appear to 
 
PEEICLES 4ND ASPASIA. 127 
 
 reverence, the vilest of our species ! I recover my step ; 
 I will not again slip into this oifal. Come, and away to 
 Xanthus. Ay, ay, Cleone ! Simplicity, bravery, well- 
 merited and well-borne distinction ! Take him, take him : 
 we must not all be cruel . . to ourselves. 
 
 CXXI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Aspasia ! you mistake. Grant me the presence of 
 friendship and the memory of love ! It is only in this 
 condition that a woman can be secure from fears and 
 other weaknesses. I may admire Xanthus ; and there is 
 pleasure in admiration. .If I thought I could love him, 
 I should begin to distrust and despise myself. I would 
 not desecrate my heart, even were it in ruins ; but I am 
 happy, very happy ; not indeed altogether as I was in 
 early youth ; perhaps it was youth itself that occasioned 
 it. Let me think so ! Indulge me in the silence and sol- 
 itude of this one fancy. If there was anything else, how 
 sacred should it ever be to me ! Ah yes, there was ! and 
 sacred it is, and shall be. 
 
 Laodamia saw with gladness, not with passion, a god, 
 conductor of her sole beloved. The shade of Xeniades 
 follows the steps of Xanthus. 
 
 CXXII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Parties of pleasure are setting sail, every day, almost, 
 for Samos. We begin to be very brave ; we women, I 
 mean. I suspect that no few of us take an unworthy de- 
 light in the humiliation and misery of the fair Samians. 
 Not having seen, nor intending to see them myself, I can 
 only tell you what I have heard of their calamities. 
 
 Loud outcries were raised by the popular orators 
 against such of them as were suspected of favoring the 
 Persian faction, and it was demanded of the judges that 
 they should be deported and exposed for slaves. This 
 menace, you may weU imagine, caused great anxiety and 
 
128 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 alarm, even among those who appeared to be quite re- 
 signed to such a destiny while the gallant young Athe- 
 nians were around the walls. But, to be sold ! and the 
 gods alone know to whom ! old morose men, perhaps, and 
 jealous women ! Some suspect it was at the instigation 
 of Pericles that a much severer chastisement has befallen 
 them. They have been condemned to wear the habili- 
 ments of Persians. Surely no refinement of cruelty can 
 surpass the decree, by which a Greek woman is divested 
 of that beautiful dress which alone can be called an orna- 
 ment to the female form. This decree has been carried 
 into execution ; and you would pity even the betrayers of 
 their country. Whether in ignorance of what the Per- 
 sian habit is, or from spite and malice, the Samian ladies 
 are obliged to wear sleeves of suiBcieut amplitude to con- 
 ceal a traitor in each ; and chains intersecting the fore- 
 head with their links and ornaments ; and hair not divided 
 along the whole summit of the head, but turned back 
 about the centre, to make them resemble the heads of 
 some poisonous snakes. Furthermore, the dresses are 
 stripped ignominiously off the shoulders, as for some 
 barely conceivable punishment, and fastened round the 
 arms in such a manner that, when they attempt to reach 
 anything, or even to move, they are constrained to shrug 
 and writhe, like the uncleanliest persons. Beside, they 
 are quite at the mercy of any wicked idler in the street, 
 who, by one slight touch, or by treading on the hem, 
 might expose them far more undisguisedly to the gazes of 
 the multitude. This barbarian garb has already had such 
 an effect, that two have cast themselves into the sea ; and 
 others have entreated that they may, as was first threat- 
 ened, rather be sold for slaves. 
 
 CXXIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Odious as undoubtedly was the conduct of the Samian 
 oligarchy and priesthood, and liable as are all excesses to 
 a still farther exaggeration in the statement of them, you 
 will hardly believe the effrontery of the successful dema- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 129 
 
 gogues. Not contented with undeniable proofs, in regard 
 to the enormous and mismanaged weakh torn away from 
 the priests of Bacchus, they have invented the most im- 
 probable falsehood that the malevolence of faction ever 
 cast agaiQst the insolence of power. They pretend that 
 certain men, some of ancient family, more of recent, had 
 conspired to transmit the reins of government to their 
 elder sons. Possession for life is not long enough I They 
 are not only to pass laws, but (whenever it so pleases) to 
 impede them ! They decree that the first-born male is to 
 be the wisest and best of the family, and shall legislate 
 for all Samos ! Democracy has just to go one step 
 farther, and to persuade the people (ready at such times 
 to believe anything) that the oligarchy had resolved to 
 rendev their power hereditary, not only for one genera- 
 tion, but for seven. The nation, so long abused in its 
 understanding, would listen to and believe the report, ig- 
 norant that arbitrary power has never been carried to 
 such extravagance even in Persia itself, although it is 
 reported that in India the lower orders of people were 
 hereditarily subject to the domination of a privileged 
 class. But this may be false ; and indeed it must be, if 
 what is likewise told us concerning them be true, which 
 is, that they have letters among them. 
 
 CXXrV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 You have given me in your two last a great deal of 
 curious information, about the discoveries that the dem- 
 agogues made, or pretended to have made, in Samos. It 
 is credible enough that the oligarchs were desirous of 
 transmitting their authority to their children ; but that 
 they believed so implicitly in the infatuation of the cit- 
 izens, or the immutability of human events, as to expect 
 a continuation of power in the same families for seven 
 generations, is too gross and absurd, even to mislead an 
 insurgent and infuriated populace. lie indeed must be 
 composed of mud from the Nile, who can endure with 
 patience this rancorous fabrication. In Egypt, we are 
 9 
 
130 PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 told by Herodotus in his Erato, that " the son of a her- 
 ald is of course a herald ; and, if any man hath a louder 
 voice than he, it goes for nothing." 
 
 Hereditary heralds are the proper officers of hereditary 
 lawgivers ; and both are well vp^orthy of dignity where 
 the deities are cats. 
 
 Strange oversight ! that no provision should ever have 
 been devised, to insure in these tutelar and truly house- 
 hold gods an equal security for lineal succession ! 
 
 CXXV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Abuses of many kinds, and of great enormity, have 
 been detected by the Samians in their overthrown gov- 
 ernment. What exasperates the people most, and indeed 
 the most justly, is the discovery that the ruling families 
 have grossly abused the temples, to the high displeasure 
 of the gods. Sacrilege has been carried to such a 
 pitch, that some among them have appointed a relative 
 or dependent to the service of more than one sanctuary. 
 You remember that anciently all the worship of this 
 island was confined to Juno. She displeased the people, 
 I know not upon what occasion, and they suffered the 
 greater part of her fanes to fall in ruins, and transferred 
 the richest of the remainder to the priests of Bacchus. 
 Several of those who had bent the knee before Juno, 
 took up the thyrsus with the same devotion. The people 
 did indeed hope that the poor and needy, and particularly 
 such as had lost their limbs in war, or their parents or 
 their children by shipwreck, would be succored out of 
 the wealth arising from the domains of the priesthood ; 
 and the rather as these domains were bequeathed by relig- 
 ious men, whose whole soul rested upon Juno, and whose 
 bequest was now utterly frustrated, by taking them from 
 the sister of Jupiter and giving them exclusively to his 
 son. Beside, it was recollected by the elderly, that out 
 of these vast possessions aid was afforded^ to the state 
 when the state required it ; and that, wherever there 
 stood one of these temples, hunger and sickness, sorrow 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 131 
 
 and despair, were comforted and assuaged. The people, 
 it appears, derived no advantages from the change, and 
 only gi-ew more dissatisfied and violent ; for, if those who 
 had officiated in the temples of Juno were a little more 
 licentious than became the ministers of a goddess, they 
 did not run into the streets, and through the country 
 places, drunk and armed ; nor did they seize upon the 
 grapes because they belonged to Bacchus ; nor upon the 
 corn because it is unwholesome to drink wine without 
 bread ; nor upon the cattle because man cannot live on 
 bread alone. These arguments you may suspect of in- 
 suf&ciency ; what then will you think when you hear 
 another reason of theirs, which is, that the nation has no 
 right to take from them what belongs to the goddess? 
 The people cry, "How then can it belong to you?" 
 Pushed upon this side, they argue that they should not 
 be deprived of their salaries, because they are from land. 
 "What ! " reply the citizens, " are not gold and silver the 
 products of land also?" But long possession . . "We 
 vvill remedy that too, as well as we can." The soldiers 
 and sailors have the most reason to complain, when they 
 see twelve priests in the enjoyment of more salary than 
 seven thousand of the bravest combatants. The military 
 are disbanded and deprived of pay at the instant when 
 their services are no longer necessary ; yet no part, it 
 appears, of a superfluous and idle priesthood is to be re- 
 duced or regulated ; on the contrary, it is rapacious and 
 irreligious to take away three temples from a venerable 
 occupant of four. Was ever soldier so impudent as to 
 complain that rations were not allowed him in four de- 
 tachments of his army ? The downfall of the whole fac- 
 tion will be of little benefit to Samos, while these insults 
 and iniquities press upon the people. Unless those who 
 are now intrusted with power resolve to abolish the 
 gross abuses of the priesthood, the wealth of which is 
 greater and worse applied in Samos than it is even in 
 those countries where the priests are sovrans, and vener- 
 ated as deities, little imports it by whom they are gov- 
 erned, or what gods they venerate. It is better to be 
 ruled by the kings of Lacedaemon, and wiser to salute in 
 
132 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 worship the sun of Persia. Never surely will the island 
 be pacifiod, until what was taken from Juno shall also be 
 taken from Bacchus, aud until the richest priest be re- 
 duced in his emoluments far below the level of a pole- 
 march. 
 
 CXXVI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Those of your letters, my Cleone, which relate to the 
 affairs of Samos, and especially to the priests of Juno 
 and Bacchus, have led me into many reflections. The 
 people of Athens are the most religious of any upon 
 earth ; but I doubt whether they are the most just, the 
 most generous, the most kindly. There is not a friend, 
 whatever benefit they may have received from him, 
 whom they would not abandon or denounce, on a suspi- 
 cion of irreverence to Pallas ; and those in general are 
 the most fanatical and furious whom, as goddess of wis- 
 dom, she has least favored. Your neighbors the Samians 
 are more judicious in their worship of Juno. They 
 know that, as long as Jupiter hath a morsel of ambrosia, 
 she will share it, although he may now aud then indulge 
 in a draught of nectar to which her lips have no access. 
 The Samians have discovered that wealth is not a requi- 
 site of worship, and that a temple needs not a thousand 
 parasangs of land for its enclosure. If we believed that 
 gods could be jealous, we might fear that there would be 
 much ill blood between Juno and Bacchus. It is more 
 probable that they will look on calmly, and let their 
 priests fight it out. The Persians in these matters are 
 not quite so silly as we are. Herodotus tells us that, 
 instead of altars and temples, the verdure of the earth is 
 chosen for their sacrifice ; and music and garlands, pray- 
 ers and thanksgivings, are thought as decent and accept- 
 able as comminatious and blood. It does not appear 
 that they are less moral or less religious than those who 
 have twenty gods, and twenty temples for each. The 
 wiser men in Athens tell us that the vulgar have their 
 prejudices. Where indeed is the person who never has 
 repeated this observation ? Yet believe me, Cleone, it is 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 133 
 
 utterly untrue. The vulgar have not their prejudices : 
 they have the prejudices of those who ought to remove 
 them if they had any. Interested men give them, not their 
 religion, but clubs and daggers for enforcing it ; taking 
 from them, in return, their time, their labor, their benev- 
 olence, their understanding, and their wealth. And are 
 such persons to be invested with the authority of law- 
 givers and the splendor of satraps ? The Samians have 
 decided that question. Priests of Bacchus, let them dif- 
 fuse tlie liberality and joyousness, and curtail a little 
 from Ihe swaggering stateliness of him whom the poet 
 calls, in his dithyrambic, 
 
 " The tiger-borne and mortal-mothered god." 
 
 CXXVn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Hephsestion, whom I never have mentioned to you, 
 and whom indeed I hardly know by name, is going to 
 Italy, and has written this poem on the eve of his depart- 
 ure. It is said that his verses are deficient in tenderness 
 and amenity. Certain it is that he by no means indulges 
 in the display of them, whatever they may be. When 
 Pericles had read the following, I asked him what he 
 thought of the author. " I think," replied Pericles, " that 
 he will never attempt to deprive me of my popularity." 
 
 I am afraid he is an ill-tempered man : yet I hear he 
 has suffered on many occasions, and particularly in re- 
 gard to his fortune, very great injustice, with equally 
 great unconcern. He is never seen in the Agora, nor in 
 the theatre, nor in the temples, nor in any assemblage of 
 the people, nor in any society of the learned ; nor has he 
 taken the trouble to enter into a confederacy or strike a 
 bargain, as warier men do, with any praiser ; no, not 
 even for the loan of a pair of palms in the Keramicos. 
 
 I have now said all I believe you will think it requisite 
 for me to say, on a citizen so obscure, and so indifferent 
 a poet. Yet even he, poor man ! imagines that his ef- 
 fusions must endure. This is the most poetical thought 
 
134 PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 I can find in him ; but perhaps he may have written what 
 is better than my specimen. 
 
 THE IAMBICS OF HEPH^STION. 
 
 Speak not too ill of me, Athenian friends ! 
 
 Nor ye, Athenian sages, speak too ill 1 
 
 From others of all tribes am I secure. 
 
 1 leave your confines : none whom you caress, 
 
 Finding me hungry and athirst, shall dip 
 
 Into Cephisus the gray bowl to quench 
 
 My thirst, or break the horny bread, and scoop 
 
 Stiffly around the scanty vase, wherewith 
 
 To gather the hard honey at the sides. 
 
 And give it me for having heard me sing. 
 
 Sages and friends ! a better cause remains 
 
 For wishing no black sail upon my mast. 
 
 'Tis, friends and sages ! lest, when other men 
 
 Say words a little gentler, ye repent, 
 
 Tet be forbidden by stern pride to share 
 
 The golden cup of kindness, pushing back 
 
 Your seats, and gasping for a draught of scorn. 
 
 Alas ! shall this too, never lack'd before. 
 
 Be, when you most would crave it, out of reach I 
 
 Thus on the plank, now Neptune is invoked, 
 
 I warn you of your peril : I must live. 
 
 And ye, O friends ! howe'er unwilling, may. 
 
 CXXVm. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Aspasia ! I have many things to say in reply to your 
 last letter. 
 
 Believe me, I can take little interest in any ill-tempered 
 man. Hephaestion is this, you tell me, and there is noth- 
 ing in his Iambics to make me doubt it. Neither do they 
 contain, you justly remark, anything so characteristic of 
 a poet as the confidence he expresses that he shall live. 
 All poets, good and bad, are possessed by this confidence ; 
 because the minds of them all, however feeble, however 
 incapacious, are carried to the uttermost pitch of enthu- 
 siasm. In this dream, they fancy they stand upon the 
 same eminence, or neaily so, and look unto the same dis- 
 tance. But no poet or other writer, supposing him in his 
 senses, could ever think seriously that his works will be 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 135 
 
 eternal ; for whatever had a beginning must also have an 
 end ; and in this predicameot are languages. Like the 
 fowls of the air, they are driven from the plains and take 
 refuge in the mountains, until at last they disappear, 
 leaving some few traces, some sounds imperfectly caught 
 up. Highly poetical works, or those in which eloquence 
 is invested with the richest attributes of poetry, are the 
 only ones that can prolong the existence of a dialect. 
 Egypt and Phoenicia and Chaldtea, beyond doubt, con- 
 tain many treatises on the arts and sciences, although un- 
 published, and preserved only by the priesthood, or by 
 the descendants of the authors and discoverers. These 
 are certainly to pass away before inventions and improve- 
 ments more important. But if there is anything of genius 
 in their hymns, fables, or histories, it will remain among 
 them, even when their languages shall have undergone 
 many variations ; and afterward, when they are spoken 
 no longer, it will be incorporated with others, and finally 
 be claimed as original and indigenous, by nations the 
 most remote and dissimilar. Many streams, whose foun- 
 tains are now utterly dried up, have flowed from afar to 
 be lost in the ocean of Homer. Our early companions, 
 the animals of good old .ZEsop, have spoken successively 
 in every learned tongue. And now a few words on that 
 gentlest and most fatherly of masters. Before we teach 
 his fables to children, we should study them attentively 
 ourselves. They were written for the wisest and the 
 most powerful, whose wisdom they might increase, and 
 whose power they might direct. There are many men, 
 of influence and authority, apt enough to take kindly a 
 somewhat sharp bite from a dog or monkey, and to be 
 indignant at the slightest touch on the shoulder from a 
 fellow-creature. It is improbable that a fable will do 
 many of them much good, but it may do a little to one 
 in twenty, and the amount is by no means unimportant 
 in that number of generations. The only use of .^sop 
 to children, after the delight he gives them, is the pro- 
 motion of familiarity and friendship with animals, in 
 proportion as they appear to deserve it : and a great use 
 indeed it is. If I were not afraid that one or other of 
 
136 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 these vigilant creatures might snap at me, I would now 
 begin lo quarrel a little with you. And yet I think I 
 should have on my side some of the more sagacious, 
 were I to reprehend you for letting an ill-tempered man 
 render you supercilious and unjust. How do you know, 
 pray, that HephEestioa may not live ? and quite as long as 
 he fancies he shall ; a century, or two, or three. Even in 
 the Iambics there is a compression and energy of thought, 
 which the best poets sometimes want ; and there is in them 
 as much poetry as was necessary on the occasion. The 
 poet has given us, at one stroke, the true impression of a 
 feature in his character ; which few have done, and few 
 can do, excepting those features only which are nearly 
 alike in the whole fraternity. 
 
 Doubtless we are pleased to take our daily walk by 
 streams that reflect the verdure and the flowers ; but the 
 waters of a gloomy cavern may be as pellucid and pure, 
 and more congenial to our graver thoughts and bolder 
 imaginations. 
 
 For any high or any wide operation, a poet must be 
 endued, not with passion indeed, but with power and 
 mastery over it ; with imagination, with reflection, with 
 observation, and with discernment. There are, however, 
 some things in poetry which admit few of these qualities. 
 Comedy, for instance, would evaporate under too fervid a 
 fancy ; and the sounds of the Ode would be dulled and 
 deadened by being too closely overarched with the fruit- 
 age of reflection. Homer in himself is subject to none 
 of the passions ; but he sends them all forth on his 
 errands, with as much precision and velocity as Apollo 
 his golden arrows. The hostile gods, the very Fates 
 themselves, must have wept with Priam in the tent before 
 Achilles : Homer stands unmoved. 
 
 Aspasia ! there is every reason why a good-natured 
 person should make us good-natured, but none whatever 
 why an ill-natured one should make us ill-natured : neither 
 of them ought to make us unjust. You do not know 
 Hephasstion, and you speak ill of him on the report of 
 others, who perhaps know him as little as you do. You 
 would shudder if I ventured to show you the position y u 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 137 
 
 La\e taken. Ill-tempered you cannot be ; you would not 
 be unfair : what if, in the opinion of your friends, you 
 should be a more shocking thing than either ! what, in 
 the name of the immortal gods ! if I should have found 
 you, on this one occasion, a somnambulist on the verge of 
 vulgarity ! Take courage : nobody has seen it but my- 
 self. If there are bad people in the world, and maybe 
 there are plenty, we ought never to let it be thought that 
 we are near enough to be aware of it. Again to Heph- 
 aestion. It is better to be austere than ambitious ; better 
 to live out of society than to court the worst. How 
 many of the powerful, even within the confines of their 
 own household, will be remembered less affectionately 
 and lastingly than tame sparrows and talking daws ! and, 
 among the number of those who are destined to be known 
 hereafter, of how many will the memory be laden with 
 contempt or with execration ! To the wealthy, proud, 
 and arrogant, the gods have allotted no longer an exist- 
 ence, than to the utensils in their kitchens or the vermin 
 in their sewers ; while, to those whom such perishables 
 would depress and villify, the same eternal beings have 
 decreed and ratified their own calm consciousness of plas- 
 tic power, of immovable superiority, with a portion (im- 
 measurably great) of their wisdom, their authority, and 
 their duration. 
 
 CXXIX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 We have kept your birthday, Aspasia ! On these oc- 
 casions I am reluctant to write anything. Politeness, I 
 think, and humanity, should always check the precip- 
 itancy of congratulation. Nobody is felicitated on losing. 
 Even the loss of a bracelet or tiara is deemed no subject 
 for merriment and alertness in our friends and followers. 
 Surely then the marked and registered loss of an irrepar- 
 able year, the loss of a limb of life, ought to excite far 
 other sensations. So long is it, O Aspasia ! since we 
 have read any poetry together, I am quite uncertain 
 whether you know the Ode to Asteroessa. 
 
138 PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Asteroessa 1 many bring 
 
 The vows of verse and blooms of spring 
 
 To crown thy natal day. 
 Lo, my vow too amid the rest I 
 " Ne'er mayst thou sigh from that white breast," 
 
 take them all away ! 
 
 For there are cares and there are wrongs, 
 And withering eyes and venom'd tdngues ; 
 
 They now are far behind ; 
 But come they must : and every year 
 Some flowers decay, some thorns appear, 
 
 Whereof these gifts remind. 
 
 Cease, raven, cease ! nor scare the dove 
 With croak around and swoop above ; 
 
 Be peace, be joy, within ! 
 Of all that hail this happy tide 
 My verse alone be cast aside ! 
 
 Lyre, cymbal, dance, begin 1 
 
 Although there must be some myriads of odes written 
 on the same occasion, yet, among the number on which I 
 can lay my hand, none conveys my own sentiment so 
 completely. 
 
 Sweetest Aspasia, live on ! live on ! but rather, live 
 back the past ! 
 
 CXXX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 The Hecatompedon, which many of the citizens begin 
 to call the Parthenon, is now completed, and waits but 
 for the goddess. A small temple, raised by Cimon in 
 honor of Theseus, is the model. This until lately was 
 the only beautiful edifice in the Athenian dominions. 
 Pericles is resolved that Athens shall not only be the 
 mistress, but the admiration of the world, and that her 
 architecture shall, if possible, keep pace with her military 
 and intellectual renown. Our countrymen, who have 
 hitherto been better architects than the people of Attica, 
 think it indecorous and degrading, that lonians, as the 
 Athenians are, should follow the fashion of the Dorians, 
 so inferior a race of mortals. Many grand designs were 
 offered by Ictinos to the approbation and choice of the 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 139 
 
 public. Those which he calls Ionian, are the gracefuUer. 
 Crateros, a young architect, perhaps to ridicule the finery 
 and extravagance of the Corinthians, exposed to view a 
 gorgeous design of slender columns and top-heavy capi- 
 tals, such as, if ever carried into execution, vi^ould be in- 
 capable of resisting the humidity of the sea-breezes, or 
 even the action of the open air, uninfluenced by them. 
 These, however, would not be misplaced as indoor orna- 
 ments, particularly in bronze or ivory ; and indeed small 
 pillars of such a character would be suitable enough to 
 highly-ornamented apartments. I have conversed on the 
 subject with Ictinos, who remarked to me that what we 
 call the Doric column 13 in fact Egyptian, modified to the 
 position and the worship ; and that our noblest specimens 
 are but reduced and petty imitations of those ancient and 
 indestructible supporters, to the temples of Thebes, of 
 Memphis and of Tentyra. He smiled at the ridicule cast 
 on the Corinthians by the name designating those florid 
 capitals, but agreed with me that, on a smaller scale, in 
 gold or silver, they would serve admirably for the recep- 
 tacles of wax-lights on solemn festivals. He praised the 
 designs of our Ionian architects, and acknowledged that 
 their pillars alone deserve the appellation of Grecian, but 
 added that, in places liable to earthquakes, inundations, 
 or accumulations of sand, the solider column was in its 
 proper situation. The architraves of the Parthenon are 
 chiselled by the scholars of Pheidias, who sometimes gave 
 a portion of the design. It is reported that two of the 
 figures bear the marks of the master's own hand ; he 
 leaves it to the conjecture of future ages which they are. 
 Some of the young architects, Ionian and Athenian, who 
 were standing with me, disputed not only on the relative 
 merits of their architecture, but of their dialect. One of 
 them, Psamiades of Ephesus, ill enduring the taunt of 
 Brachys the Athenian, that the Ionian, from its open 
 vowels, resembles a pretty pulpy hand which could not 
 close itself, made an attack on the letter T usurping the 
 place of S, and against the augments. 
 
 "Is it not enough," said he, "that you lisp, but you 
 must also stammer ? " 
 
140 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Let us have patience if any speak against us, Cleoae ! 
 when a censure is cast on the architecture of Ictinos and 
 on the dialect of Athens. 
 
 CXXXI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 When the weather is serene and bright, I think of the 
 young Aspasia ; of her liveliness, her playfulness, her in- 
 vitations to sit down on the grass ; and her challenges to 
 run, to leap, to dance, and if nobody was near, to gam- 
 bol. The weather at this season is neither bright nor 
 serene, and I think the more of my Aspasia, because I 
 want her more. Fie upon me ! And yet on the whole — 
 
 Happy to me has been the day, 
 
 The shortest of the year, 
 Though some, alas ! are far away 
 
 Who made the longest yet more brief appear. 
 
 I never was formed for poetry ; I hate whatever I have 
 written, five minutes afterward. A weakly kid likes the 
 warm milk, and likes the drawing of it from its sources ; 
 but place the same before her, cold, in a pail, and she 
 smells at it and turns away. 
 
 Among the Tales lately come out here, many contain 
 occasional poetry. In the preface to one, the scene of 
 which lies mostly in Athens, the author says : 
 
 " My reader will do well to draw his pen across the 
 verses ; they are not good for him. The olive, especially 
 the Attic, is pleasing to few the first time it is tasted." 
 
 This hath raised an outcry against him ; so that of the 
 whole fraternity he is the most unpopular. 
 
 " The gods confound him with his Atticisms ! " exclaim 
 the sober-minded. " Is not the man contented to be a 
 true and hearty Carian ? Have we not roses and violets, 
 lilies and amaranths, crocuses and sowthistles ? Have we 
 not pretty girls and loving ones ; have we not desperate 
 girls and cruel ones, as abundantly as elsewhere ? Do not 
 folks grieve and die to his heart's content? We possess 
 the staple : and by Castor and Pollux ! we can bleach it 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 141 
 
 and comb it and twist it, as cleverly as the sharpest of 
 your light-fingered locust-eaters." 
 
 You will soon see his works, among others more volu- 
 minous. In the meanwhile, I cannot end my letter in a 
 pleasanter way than with a copy of these verses, which 
 are nearer to the shortest than to the best : 
 
 Perilla ! to thy fates resign'd, 
 
 Think not what years are gone : 
 While Atalanta lools't behind 
 
 The golden fruit roU'd on. 
 
 Albeit a mother may have lost 
 
 The plaything at her breast, 
 Albeit the one she cherish't most, 
 
 It but endears the rest. 
 
 Youth, my Perilla, clings on Hope, 
 
 And looks into the skies 
 For brighter day ; she fears to cope 
 
 With grief, she shrinks at sighs. 
 
 Why should the memory of the past 
 
 Make you and me complain? 
 Come, as we could not hold it fast, 
 
 We'll play it o'er again. 
 
 CXXXn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 There are odes in AIcebus which the pen would stop 
 at, trip at, or leap over. Several in our collection are 
 wanting in yours ; this among them : 
 
 Wormwood and rue be on his tongue. 
 
 And ashes on his head, 
 Who chills the feast and checks the song 
 
 With emblems of the dead ! 
 
 By young and jovial, wise and brave, 
 
 Such mummers are derided. 
 His sacred rites shall Bacchus have, 
 
 Unspared and undivided. 
 
 Couch't by my friends, I fear no mask 
 
 Impending from above, 
 I only fear the later flask 
 
 That holds me from my love. 
 
142 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Show these to any priest of Bacchus, especially to any 
 at Siimos, and he will shake his head at you, telling you 
 that Bacchus will never do without his masks and mys- 
 teries, which it is holier to fear than the later flask. On 
 this subject, he would prove to you, all fears are empty 
 ones. 
 
 CXXXin. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 In ancient nations there are grand repositories of wis- 
 dom, although it may happen that little of it is doled 
 out to the exigencies of the people. There is more in the 
 fables of ^sop than in the schools of our Athenian 
 philosophers ; there is more in the laws and usages of 
 Persia, than in the greater part of those communities 
 which are loud in denouncing them for barbarism. And 
 yet there are some that shock me. We are told by Herod- 
 otus, who tells us whatever we know with certainty a 
 step beyond our thresholds, that a boy in Persia is kept 
 in the apartments of the women, and prohibited from 
 seeing his father, until the fifth year. The reason is, 
 he informs us, that if he dies before this age, his loss 
 may give the parent no uneasiness. And such a custom 
 he thinks commendable. Herodotus has no child, Cleone ! 
 If he had, far other would be his feelings and his judg- 
 ment. Before that age how many seeds are sown, which 
 future years, and distant ones, mature successively ! How 
 much fondness, how much generosity, what hosts of other 
 virtues, courage, constancy, patriotism, spring into the 
 father's heart from the cradle of his child ! And does 
 never the fear come over him, that what is most precious 
 to him upon earth is left in careless or perfidious, in un- 
 safe or unworthy hands ? Does it never occur to him 
 that he loses a son in everv one of these five years: 
 What is there so affecting to the brave and virtuous man 
 as that \\ hich perpetually wants his help and cannot cal, 
 for it ! What is so different as the speakiog and the 
 mute ! And hardly less so are inarticulate sounds, and 
 sounds which he receives half-formed, and which he de- 
 lights to modulate, and which he lays with infinite care 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 143 
 
 and patience, not only on the tender attentive ear, but on 
 the half-open lips, and on the eyes, and on the cheeks ; 
 as if they all were listeners. In every child there are 
 many children ; but coming forth year after year, each 
 somewhat like and somewhat varying. When they are 
 grown much older, the leaves (as it were) lose their pel- 
 lucid green, the branches their graceful pliancy. 
 
 Is there any man so rich in happiness that he can 
 afford to throw aside these first five years ? is there any 
 man who can hope for another five so exuberant in un- 
 gating joy? 
 
 O my sweet infant ! I would teach thee to kneel be- 
 fore the gods, were it only to thank 'em for being Athe- 
 nian and not Persian. 
 
 CXXXrV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Our good Anaxagoras said to me this morning, "You 
 do well, Aspasia, to read history in preference to philos- 
 ophy, not only on the recommendation, but according to 
 the practice of Pericles. A good historian will also be 
 a good philosopher, but will take especial care that he be 
 never caught in the attitude of disquisition or declama- 
 tion. The golden vein must run through his field, but 
 we must not see rising out of it the shaft and the ma- 
 chinery. We should moderate or repress our curiosity 
 and fastidiousness. Perhaps at no time will there be 
 written, by the most accurate and faithful historian, so 
 much of truth as untruth. But actions enow will come 
 out with sulficient prominence before the great tribunal 
 of mankind, to exercise their judgment and regulate their 
 proceedings. If statesmen looked attentively at every- 
 thing past, they would find infallible guides in all emer- 
 gencies. But leaders are apt to shudder at the idea of 
 being led, and little know what difierent things arc ex- 
 periment and experience. The sagacity of a Pericles 
 himself is neither rule nor authority to those impetu- 
 ous men, who would rather have rich masters than 
 frugal friends. 
 
144 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 " The young folks from the school of your suitor 
 Socrates, who begin to talk already of travelling in 
 Egypt when the plague is over, are likely to return with 
 a distemper as incurable, breaking bulk with demons and 
 dreams. They carry stem and stern too high out of the 
 water, and are more attentive to the bustling and belly- 
 ing of the streamers, than to the soundness of the mast, 
 the compactness of the deck, or the capacity and cleanli- 
 ness of the hold." 
 
 CXXXV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Anaxagoras told me yesterday that he had been con- 
 versing with some literary men, philosophers and poets, 
 who agreed in one thing only, which is, that we are 
 growing worse day after day, both in morality and intel- 
 lect. Hints were thrown out that philosophy had mis- 
 taken her road, and that it was wonderful how^ she could 
 be at once so dull and so mischievous. The philos- 
 ophers themselves made this complaint : the poets were as 
 severe on poetry, and were amazed that we were reduced 
 so low as to be the hearers of Sophocles and Euripides, 
 and three or four more, who, however, were quite good 
 enough for such admirers. 
 
 "It is strange," said Anaxagoras, " that we are un- 
 willing to receive the higher pleasures, when they come 
 to us and solicit us, and when we are sure they will do 
 us great and lasting good ; and that we gape and pant 
 after the lower, when we are equally sure they will do 
 us great and lasting evil. I am incapable," continued 
 he, "of enjoying so much pleasure from the works of 
 imagination as these poets are, who would rather hate 
 Euripides and Sophocles than be delighted by them, yet 
 who follow the shade of Orpheus with as ardent an inten- 
 sity of love as Orpheus followed the shade of Eurydice. 
 Ignorant as I am of poetry, I dared not hazard the 
 opinion that our two contemporaries were really deserv- 
 inc of more commendation on the score of verse, inferior 
 as they might in origmality be to Marsyas and Tha- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 145 
 
 myris and the Centaur Chiron ; and to the philosophers 
 I could only say, My dear friends ! let us keep our tem- 
 per firmly and our tenets laxly ; and let any man correct 
 both who will take the trouble. I come to you, Aspasia, 
 to console me for the derision I bring home with me." 
 
 I kissed his brow, which was never serener, and 
 assured him that he possessed more comfort than any 
 mortal could bestow upon him, and that he was the 
 only one living who never wanted any. 
 
 " I am not insensible," said he, " that every year, at 
 my time of life, we lose some pleasure ; some twig that 
 once blossomed, cankers." 
 
 I never was fond of looking forward ; I have inva- 
 riably checked both hopes and wishes. It is but fair 
 then that I should be allowed to turn away my eyes from 
 the prospect of age : even if I could believe that it 
 would come (o me as placidly as it has come to Anaxa- 
 goras, I would rather lie down to sleep before the knees 
 tremble as they bend. With Anaxagoras I never con- 
 verse in this manner ; for old men more willingly talk of 
 age than hear others talk of it ; and neither fool nor 
 philosopher likes to think of the time when he shall talk 
 no longer. I told my dear old man that, having given a 
 piece of moral to the philosophers, he must not be so un- 
 just as to refuse a like present to the poets. About an 
 hour before I began my letter, he came into the library, 
 and, to my great surprise, brought me these verses, 
 telling me that, if they were satirical, the satire fell 
 entirely upon himself. 
 
 Pleasures ! away ; they please no more. 
 Friends ! are they what they were before ? 
 Loves ! they are very idle things, 
 The best about them are their wings. 
 The dance ! 'tis what the bear can do ; 
 Music ! I hate your music too. 
 
 Whene'er these witnesses that Time 
 Hath snatcht the chaplet from our prime, 
 Are call'd by Nature, as we go 
 With eye more wary, step more slow, 
 And will be heard and noted down, 
 However we may fret or frown, 
 10 
 
146 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Shall we desire to leave the scene 
 Where all our former joys have been? 
 No, 'twere ungrateful and unwise I 
 But when die down our charities 
 For human weal and human woes, 
 Then is the time our eyes should close. 
 
 CXXXVI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 We hear that another state has been rising up gradu- 
 ally to power, in the centre of Italy. It was originally 
 formed of a band of pirates from some distant country, 
 who took possession of two eminences, fortified long be- 
 fore, and overlooking a wide extent of country. Under 
 these eminences, themselves but of little elevation, are 
 five hillocks, on which they enclosed the cattle by night. 
 It is reported that here were the remains of an ancient and 
 extensive city, which served the robbers for hiding-places ; 
 and temples were not wanting in which to deprecate the 
 vengeance of the gods for the violences and murders they 
 committed d;iily. The situation is unhealthy, which 
 perhaps is the reason why the city was abandoned, and 
 is likewise a sufficient one why it was rebuilt by the 
 present occupants. They might perpetrate what depre- 
 dations they pleased, confident that no force could long 
 besiege tliem in a climate bo pestilential. Relying on 
 this advantage, they seized from time to time as many 
 women as were requisite for any fresh accession of vaga-< 
 bonds, rogues, and murderers. 
 
 The Sabines bore the loss tolerably well, until the 
 Romans (so they call themselves) went beyond all 
 bounds, and even took their cattle from the yoke. The 
 Sabines had endured all that it became them to endure ; 
 but the lowing of their oxen from the seven hills reached 
 their hearts and inflamed them with revenge. They are 
 a pastoral, and therefore a patient people, able to un- 
 dergo the exertions, and endure flie privations, of war, 
 but, never having been thieves, the Romans over-matchtd 
 them iu vigilance, activity, and enterprise ; and have 
 several times sin'<e made incursions into their country 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 147 
 
 and forced them to disadvantageous conditions. Em- 
 boldened by success, they ventured to insult and exas- 
 perate the nearest of the Tyrrhenian princes. 
 
 The Tyrrhenians are a very proud and very ancient 
 nation, and, like all nations that are proud and ancient, 
 excel chiefly in enjoying themselves. Demaratos the Cor- 
 inthian dwelt among them several years ; and from the 
 Corinthians they learned to improve their pottery, which, 
 however, it does not appear that they ever have carried to 
 the same perfection as the Corinthian, the best of it being 
 indiflPerently copied, both in the form and in the figures 
 on it. 
 
 Herodotus has written to Pericles all he could collect 
 relating to them ; and Pericles says the account is inter- 
 esting. For my part I could hardly listen to it, although 
 written by Herodotus and read by Pericles. I have quite 
 forgotten the order of events. I thing they are such as 
 neither you nor any one else, excepting those who live 
 near them, will ever care about. But the Tyrrhenians 
 really are an extraordinary people. They have no poets, 
 no historians, no orators, no statuaries, no painters ; they 
 say they once had them ; so much the more disgraceful. 
 The Romans went out against them and dispersed them, 
 although they blew many trumpets bravely, and brought 
 (pretty nearly into action) many stout soothsayers. The 
 enemy, it appears, has treated them with clemency ; they 
 may still feed soothsayers, blow horns, and have wives in 
 common. 
 
 I hope it is near your bedtime ; if it is, you will thank 
 me for my letter. 
 
 CXXXVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Who would have imagined that the grave, sedate Per- 
 icles could take such delight in mischief ! "After reading 
 my dissertation on the Tyrrhenians and Romans, he gave 
 it again into my hands, saying : 
 
 " Pray amuse your friend Cleone with your first attempt 
 ttt history." 
 
148 PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 I sent it off, quite unsuspicious. In the evening he 
 looked at me with a smile of no short continuance, and 
 said, at last : 
 
 " Aspasia ! I perceive you are emulous of our Halicar- 
 nassian ; but pray do not publish that historical Essay 
 either in his name or your own. He does not treat the 
 Romans quite so lightly as you do, and shows rather more 
 justice to the Tyrrhenians. You forgot to mention some 
 important facts recorded by him, and some doubts as 
 weighty. We shall come to them presently. 
 
 "Having heard of the Romans, but nothing distinctly, 
 I wished to receive a clearer and a fuller account of them, 
 and vsTote to Herodotus by the first ship that sailed foi 
 Tarentum. The city where he is residing lies near it, 
 and I gave orders that my letter should be taken thither, 
 and delivered into his hands. Above a year is elapsed, 
 during which time Herodotus tells me he has made all the 
 inquiries which the pursuit of his studies would allow ; 
 that he is continuing to correct the errors, elucidate the 
 doubtful points, and correct the style and arrangement of 
 his history ; and that, when he has completed it to his 
 mind, he shall have time and curiosity to consider with 
 some attention this remarkable tribe of barbarians. 
 
 " At present he has not been able to answer my ques- 
 tions ; for never was writer so sedulous in the pursuit and 
 examination of facts. What he sees, he describes clearly ; 
 what he hears, he relates faithfully ; and he bestows the 
 same care on the composition as he had bestowed on the 
 investigation. 
 
 " The Romans, I imagined, had been subdued by 
 Numa, a Sabine ; for it can hardly be credited that so 
 ferocious a community seat a friendly invitation to be 
 governed and commanded by the prince of a people they 
 had grossly and repeatedly insulted. What services had 
 he rendered them ? or by what means had they become 
 acquainted with his aptitude for government? They had 
 ever been rude and quarrelsome ; he was distinguished 
 for civility and gentleness. They had violated all that 
 is most sacred in public and private life ; virgins were 
 seized by treacher-v» detained by force, and compelled to 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 149 
 
 wipe the blood of their fathers off the sword of their rav- 
 ishfcrs. A fratricide king had recently been murdered by 
 a magistracy of traitors. What man in his senses would 
 change any condition of life to become the ruler of such 
 a nation ? None but he who had conquered and could 
 control them ; none but one who had swords enough for 
 every head among them. Absolute power alone can tame 
 them, and fit them for anything better ; and this power 
 must reside in the hands of a brave and sagacious man, 
 who will not permit it to be shared, or touched, or ques- 
 tioned. Under such a man such a people may become 
 formidable, virtuous, and great. It is too true that, to be 
 martial, a nation must taste of blood in its cradle. Phil- 
 osophers may dispute it ; but time past has written it 
 down, and time to come will confirm it. Of these mat- 
 ters the sophists can know nothing ; he who understands 
 them best will be the least inclined to discourse on them. 
 
 "Another thing I doubted, and wished to know. 
 Numa is called a Sabine. The Sabines are illiterate 
 stiU ; in the time of Numa they were ruder ; they had no 
 commerce, no communication with countries beyond Italy ; 
 and yet there are writers who tell us that he introduced 
 laws, on the whole not dissimilar to ours, and corrected 
 the calendar. Is it credible ? Is it possible ? I am dis- 
 posed to believe that both these services were rendered by 
 the son of Demaratos, and that the calendar might have 
 been made better, were it not requisite on such an occa- 
 sion, more than almost any other, to consult the supersti- 
 tion of the populace. 
 
 " I myself am afraid of touching the calendar here in 
 Athens, many as have been my conferences with'Metou 
 on the subject. Done it shall be ; but it must be either 
 just before a victory or just after. 
 
 " If the Sabine had sent an embassy, or even an indi- 
 vidual, to Athens, in order to collect our laws, the ar- 
 chives of the city would retain a record of so wonderful 
 an event. He certainly could not have picked them up 
 in the pastures or woodlands of his own country. But the 
 Corinthians know them well, and have copied most of 
 them. All nations are fond of pushing the date of their 
 
150 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 civilization as high up as possible, and care not how re- 
 motely they place the benefits they have received. And 
 probably some of the Romans, aware that Numa was 
 their conquerer, helped to abolish the humiliating suspi- 
 cion, by investing him successively with the robes of a 
 priest, of a legislator, and of an astronomer. 
 
 "His two nearest successors were warriors and con- 
 querors. The third was the son of that Demaratos of 
 whom we have spoken, and who, exiled from Corinth, set- 
 tled among the Tyrrhenians, and afterward, being rich 
 and eloquent, won over to his interest the discontented 
 and venal of the Romans ; at all times the great majority. 
 We hear that he constructed of hewn stone a long, a spa- 
 cious, and a lofty channel, to convey the filth of the town 
 into the river ; we hear, at the same time, that the town 
 itself was fabricated of hurdles and mud, upon ruins of 
 massy workmanship ; that the best houses were roofed 
 with rushes, and that the vases of the temples were 
 earthen. Now, kings in general, and mostly those whose 
 authority is recent and insecure, think rather of amusing 
 the people by spectacles, or pampering their appetites by 
 feasts and donatives, or dazzling their imagination by pomp 
 and splendor. Theatres, not common sewers, suited best 
 Ihe Romans. Their first great exploit was performed in 
 a theatre, at the cost of the Sabines. Moreover they 
 were religious, and stole every god and goddess they 
 could lay their hands on. Surely so considerate a person 
 as the son of Demaratos would have adapted his magnifi- 
 cence to the genius of the people, who never cared about 
 filth, but were always most zealous in their devotions. 
 This we might imagine would occur to him as more and 
 more requisite on the capture of every town or village ; 
 for, when the Romans had killed the inhabitants, they 
 transferred the gods very diligently into their city, that 
 they might not miss their worshippers. Now the gods 
 must have wanted room by degrees, and might not have 
 liked their quarters. Five hundred temples could have 
 been erected at less expense than the building of this stu- 
 pendous duct. Did the son of Demaratos build it then? 
 
 "The people are still ignorant, stiU barbarous, still 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. ]5l 
 
 ITU 3I, Still intractable ; but they are acute in the percep- 
 tion of their interests, and have established at last a form 
 of government more resembling the Carthaginian than 
 ours. As their power does not arise from commerce, 
 like the power of Carthage, but strikes its roots into the 
 solid earth, its only sure foundation, it is much less sub- 
 ject to the gusts of fortune, and wiU recover from a shock 
 more speedily. Neither is there any great nation in con- 
 tact with them. When they were much weaker, the 
 Tyrrhenians conquered them, under the command of 
 their prince Porsena ; but thought they could leave them 
 nowhere less inconveniently than in the place they them- 
 selves had abandoned. The Sabines, too, conquered them 
 a second time, and imposed a king over them, but were 
 80 unsuspicious and inconsiderate as not to destroy the 
 city, and parcel out the inhabitants for Greece, Sicily, and 
 Africa. 
 
 " Living as they did on their farms, with no hold upon 
 the Romans but a king, who, residing in the city with 
 few of his own countrymen about him, was rather a host- 
 age than a ruler, his authority was soon subverted. The 
 Sabines at this time are partly won by conquest, and 
 partly domiciliated by consanguinity. The Tyrrhenians 
 are spent and effete. The government of the Romans, 
 from royal, is now become aristocratical ; and the people, 
 deprived of their lawful share in the lands they conquered 
 from so many enemies, swear hatred to kings, and sigh 
 for their return. One flagrant crime consumed the regal 
 authority ; a thousand smouldering ones eat deep into the 
 consular. The military system stands apart, admirable 
 in its formation ; and, unless that, too, falls, the Roman 
 camps will move forward year after year, until the moun- 
 tains and the seas of Italy shall not contain them. They 
 are heirs to the wealth of worn-out nations, and, when 
 they have seized upon their inheritance, they will fight 
 with braver. The Romans will be to Italy what the 
 Macedonians at ,^ome future day will be to Greece. 
 
 "The old muit give way to the young, nations like 
 men, and men like leaves." 
 
152 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CXXXVni. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Buildings of high antiquity have usually been carried 
 by the imagination much higher still. But, by what we 
 hear of the Tyrrhenians, we may believe that in their 
 country there are remains of earlier times than in ours. 
 Everything about them shows a pampered, and dissolute, 
 and decaying people. 
 
 You will hardly think a sewer a subject for curiosity 
 and investigation ; yet nothing in Europe is so vast and 
 so well-constructed as the sewer at Rome, excepting only 
 the harbor walls and propylsea, built recently here at 
 Athens, under the administration of Pericles. I have 
 asked him some further questions on the wonderful work 
 still extant in the city occupied by the Romans, I will 
 now give you his answer : 
 
 " Do not imagine that, unable as I am to ascertain the 
 time when the great sewer of Rome was constructed, I 
 am desirous of establishing one opinion in prejudice of 
 another, or forward in denying that a rich Corinthian 
 might have devised so vast an undertaking. But in Cor- 
 inth herself we find nothing of equal magnitude, nothing 
 at all resembling its architecture ; the Tyrrhenians, who 
 are stated to have been employed in building it, have 
 ceased for many ages to be capable of anything similar ; 
 all their great fabrics may be dated more than a thousand 
 years before the age of Tarquin. I feel no interest in the 
 support of an hypothesis. Take it, or reject it ; I would 
 rather that you rejected it, if you would replace it with 
 another and a better. Many things pass across the mind, 
 which are neither to be detained in it witli the intention 
 of insisting on them as truths, nor are to be dismissed 
 from it as idle and intrusive. Whatever gives exercise 
 to our thoughts, gives them not only activity and strength, 
 but likewise range. We are not obliged to continue on 
 the training-ground ; nor, on the other hand, is it expedi- 
 ent to obstruct it or plough it up. The hunter, in quest 
 of one species of game, often finds another, and always 
 finds wliat is better, freshness, and earnestness, and ani- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 153 
 
 mation. Were I occupied in literature, I should little 
 fear stumbling in my ascent toward its untrodden and 
 abstruser scenery : being a politician, I know that a sin- 
 gle false step is a fall, and a fall is a ruin. We jnay 
 begin wrong, and continue so with impunity ; but we 
 must not deviate from wrong to risrht." 
 
 He said this with one of his grave smiles ; and then 
 to me : 
 
 '' A slender shrub, the ornament of your private walk, 
 may with moderate effort be drawn straight again from 
 any obliquity ; but such an attempt, were it practicable, 
 would crack every fibre in the twisted tree that over- 
 shades the forest." 
 
 CXXXIX. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Who told you, Aspasia, that instead of poetry, of his- 
 tory, of philosophy, our writers at Miletus are beginning 
 to compose a species of tales founded on love or mad- 
 ness, and ending in miserable death or wealthy marriage ; 
 and that at the conclusion of the work a strict account is 
 rendered of all estrays, of all that had once come into it 
 and had disappeared ? Very true, the people at large run 
 after the detail of adventures, and are as anxious to see 
 the termination as they are to reach the bottom of an am- 
 phora ; but I beseech you never to imagine that we are 
 reduced in our literature to such a state of destitution, as 
 to be without the enjoyment of those treasures which our 
 ancestors left behind them. No, Aspasia, we are not yet 
 so famished that a few morsels of more nutritious food 
 would overpower us. I assure you, we do not desire to 
 see a death or a marriage set upon the table every day. We 
 are grateful for all the exercises and all the excursions of 
 intellect, and our thanks are peculiarly due to those by 
 whose genius our pleasure in them is increased or varied. 
 If we have among us any one capable of devising an 
 imaginary tale, wherein all that is interesting in poetry is 
 united with all that is instructive in history, such an 
 
154 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 author will not supersede the poets and historians, but 
 will walk betweea them, and be cordially hailed by both. 
 
 CXL. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 When we are dull we run to music. I am sure you 
 must be dull enough after so much of history and of pol- 
 itics. My Pericles can discover portents in Macedonia 
 and Italy : Anaximander could see mountains in the 
 moon ; I desire to cast my eyes no farther than to 
 Miletus. 
 
 Take your harp. 
 
 ODE TO MILETBS. 
 
 Maiden there was whom Jove 
 lUuded into love, 
 
 Happy and pure was she ; 
 Glorious from her the shore became, 
 And Helle lifted up her name 
 To shine eternal o'er the river-sea. 
 
 And many tears are shed 
 
 Upon thy bridal-bed. 
 Star of the swimmer in the lonely night I 
 
 Who with unbraided hair 
 
 Wipedst a breast so fair, 
 Bounding with toil, more bounding with delight. 
 
 But they whose prow hath past thy straits 
 
 And, ranged before Byzantion's gates, 
 Bring to the god of sea the victim due, 
 
 Even from the altar raise their eyes, 
 
 And drop the chalice with surprise, 
 And at such grandeur have forgotten you. 
 
 At last there swells the hymn of praise, 
 And who inspires those sacred lays? 
 
 "The founder of the walls ye see.'' 
 What human power could elevate 
 Those walls, that citadel, that gate ? 
 
 " Miletus, O my sons 1 was he." 
 
 Hail, then, Miletus I hail beloved town. 
 
 Parent of me and mine I 
 But let not power alone be thy renown, 
 
 Nor chiefs of ancient line, 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 155 
 
 Nor visits of the gods, unless 
 
 They leave their thoughts below, 
 And teach us that we most should bless 
 Those to whom most we owe. 
 
 Kestless is Wealth ; the nerves of Power 
 
 Sink, as a lute's in rain : 
 The gods lend only for an hour 
 
 And then call back again 
 
 All else than Wisdom ; she alone, 
 
 In Truth's or VirHie's form. 
 Descending from the starry throne 
 
 Thro' radiance and thro' storm, 
 
 Bemains as long as godlike men 
 
 Afford her audience meet, 
 Nor Time nor War tread down again 
 
 The traces of her feet. 
 
 Always hast thou, Miletus, been the friend. 
 Protector, guardian, father, of the wise ; 
 
 Therefore shall thy dominion never end 
 Till Fame, despoil'd of voice and pinion, dies. 
 
 With favoring shouts and flowers thrown fast behind, 
 
 Arctinos ran his race, 
 No wanderer he, alone and blind . . 
 
 And Melesander was untorn by Thrace. 
 
 There have been, but not here, 
 Bich men who swept aside the royal feast 
 
 On child's or bondman's breast, 
 Bidding the wise and aged disappear. 
 
 Bevere the aged and the wise, 
 Aspasia ! but thy sandal is not worn 
 
 To trample on these things of scorn ; 
 By his own sting the fire-bound scorpion dies. 
 
 CXLI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 To-day there came to visit us a writer wlio is not yet 
 an author : his name is Thucydides. We understand 
 that he has been these several years engaged in prepara- 
 tion for a history. Pericles invited him to meet Herod- 
 
156 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 otus, ■when that wonderful man had returned to our 
 country, and about to sail from Athens. Until then, it 
 was believed by the intimate friends of Thucydides that 
 he would devote his life to poetry, and such is his vigor 
 both of thought and of expression, that he would have been 
 the rival of Pindar. Even now he is fonder of talking 
 on poetry than any other subject, and blushed when his- 
 tory was mentioned. By degrees, however, he warmed, 
 and listened with deep interest to the discourse of Pericles 
 on the duties of a historian. 
 
 " May our first Athenian historian not be the great- 
 est ! " said he, " as the first of our dramatists has been, 
 in the opinion of many, .^schylus was the creator of 
 Tragedy, nor did she ever shine with such splendor, ever 
 move with such stateliness and magnificence, as at her 
 first apparition on the horizon. The verses of Sophocles 
 are more elaborate, the language purer, the sentences 
 fuller and more harmonious ; but in loftiness of soul, and 
 in the awfulness with which he invests his characters, 
 .^schylus remains unrivalled and unapproached. 
 
 " We are growing too loquacious, both on the stage 
 and off. We make disquisitions which render us only 
 more and more dim-sighted, and excursions that only 
 consume our stores. If some among us who have ac- 
 quired celebrity by their compositions, calm, candid, con- 
 templative men, were to imdertake the history of Athens 
 from the invasion of Xerxes, I should expect a fair and 
 full criticism on the orations of Antiphon, and experi- 
 ence no disappointment at their forgetting the battle of 
 Salamis. History, when she has lost her Muse, will lose 
 her dignity, her occupation, her character, her name. 
 She will wander about the Agora ; she will start, she 
 will stop, she will look wild, she will look stupid, she will 
 take languidly to her bosom doubts, queries, essays, dis- 
 sertations, some of which ought to go before her, some 
 to follow, and all to stand apart. The field of History 
 should not merely be well tilled, but well peopled. None 
 is delightful to me, or interesting, in which I find not as 
 many illustrious names as have a right to enter it. We 
 might as well in a drama place the actors behind the 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 157 
 
 scenes, and listen to the dialogue there, as in a history 
 push valiant men back, and protrude ourselves with 
 husky disputations. Show me rather how great projects 
 were executed, great advantages gained, and great cal- 
 amities averted. Show me the generals and the states- 
 men who stood foremost, that I may bend to them in 
 reverence ; tell me their names, that I may repeat them 
 to my children. Teach me whence laws were intro- 
 duced, upon what foimdation laid, by what custody 
 guarded, in what inner keep preserved. Let the books 
 of the treasury lie closed as religiously as the Sibyl's ; 
 leave weights and measures in the market-place, Com- 
 merce in the harbor, the Arts in the light they love. Phil- 
 osophy in the shade : place History on her rightful 
 throne, and, at the sides of her. Eloquence and War. 
 
 " Aspasia ! try your influence over Thucydides : per- 
 haps he would not refuse you the pleasure of hearing a 
 few sentences of the work he has begun. I may be a 
 plagiary if I am a listener, and yet I would request per- 
 mission to be present." 
 
 Thucydides was pleased at this deference, and has 
 promised to return soon. 
 
 CXLn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Polynices, a fishmonger, has been introduced upon the 
 stage. He had grown rich by his honesty and good na- 
 ture ; and latterly, in this hot season, had distributed 
 among the poorer families the fish he could not sell in the 
 daytime at a reasonable price. Others of the same trade 
 cried out against his unfairness, and he was insulted and 
 beaten in the market-place. So favorable an incident 
 could not escape the sagacious scent of our comic writers. 
 He was represented on the stage as aiming at supreme 
 power, riding upon a dolphin through a stormy sea, with 
 a lyre in one hand, a dog-fish in the other, and singing— 
 
 I, whom you see so high on 
 
 A dolphin's back, am not Arion, 
 
 But (should the favoring breezes blow me faster) 
 
 Cecropians ! by the gods ! . . your master 1 
 
158 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 The people were indignant at this, and demanded with 
 loud cries the closing of the theatre, and the abolition of 
 comedies forever. 
 
 What the abuse of the wisest and most powerful men 
 in the communiiy could not eflfect, the abuse of a fish- 
 monger has brought about. 
 
 The writers and actors of comedy came in a body to 
 Pericles, telling him they had seen the madness of the 
 people, and had heard with wonder and consternation 
 that it was supported by some of the archons. 
 
 He answered, that he was sorry to see Comedy with a 
 countenance so altered as to make him tremble for her 
 approaching dissolution ; her descent into the regions of 
 Tragedy. He wondered how the archons should deem 
 it expedient to correct those, whose office and employ- 
 ment it had hitherto been to correct them ; and regretted 
 his inability to interpose between two conflicting authori- 
 ties ; he must leave it entirely to the people, who would 
 soon grow calmer, and renew their gratitude to their pro- 
 tectors and patrons. 
 
 In the midst of these regrets the theatre for comedy 
 was closed. The poets and actors, as they departed, 
 made various observations. 
 
 " Dogs sweat and despots laugh inwardly," said Hege- 
 sias. " Did you note his malice? the Sisyphus ! " 
 
 " We have nothing left for it," said Hipponax, " but 
 to fall on our knees among the scales, fins, and bladders 
 at the fish-stall." 
 
 "Better," said Aristophanes, "make up to Religion, 
 and look whether the haughty chieftain has no vulner- 
 able place in his heel for an arrow from that quarter." 
 
 "He has broken your bow," said Pherecydes ; "take 
 heed that the people do not snatch at the string ; they 
 have shown that they can pull hard, and may pull where 
 we would not have them." 
 
 CXLIII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Thucydides has just left us. He has been reading to 
 me a portion of history. At every pause I nodded to 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. ]59 
 
 Pericles, who, it seems to me, avoided to remark it pur- 
 posely, but who in reality was so attentive and thought- 
 ful that it was long before he noticed me. When the 
 reading was over, I said to him : 
 
 " So, you two sly personages have laid your sober 
 heads together in order to deceive me ; as if I am so 
 silly, so ignorant of peculiarity in style, as not to dis- 
 cover in an instant the fraud you would impose on me. 
 Thucydides ! " said I, " you have read it well ; only one 
 could have read it better . . the author himself" . . shak- 
 ing my head at Pericles. 
 
 "O Aspasia!" said our guest, "I confess to you I 
 was always a little too fond of praise, although I have 
 lived in retirement to avoid it until due, wishing to re- 
 ceive the whole sum at once, however long I might wait 
 for it. But never did I expect so much as this : it over- 
 turns the scale by its weight." 
 
 " O Thucydides ! " said Pericles, " I am jealous of 
 Aspasia. No one before ever flattered her so in my 
 presence." 
 
 I entreated him to continue to write, and to bring down 
 his history to the present times. 
 
 "My reverence for Herodotus," said he, " makes me 
 stand out of his way and look at him from a distance : 
 I was obliged to take another model of style. I hope to 
 continue my work beyond the present day, and to con- 
 clude it with some event which shall have exalted our 
 glory and have established our supremacy in Greece." 
 
 " Go on," said I ; " fear no rivals. Others are writing 
 who fear not even Herodotus, nor greatly, indeed, respect 
 him. They will be less courteous with you, perhaps, 
 whose crown is yet in the garden. The creatures run 
 about and kick and neigh in all directions, with a gadfly 
 on them ever since they left the race-course at Olympia. 
 At one moment they lay the muzzle softly, and languidly, 
 and lovingly upon each other's neck ; at another they rear 
 and bite like Python." 
 
 " I ought to experience no enmity from them," said he ; 
 " before my time comes, theirs will be over." 
 
160 PEBICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CXLrV. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I am pleased with your little note, and hope you may 
 live to write a commentary on the same author. You 
 speak with your usual judgment, in commending our his- 
 torian for his discretion in metaphors. Not indeed that 
 his language is without them, but they are rare, impres- 
 sive, and distinct. History wants them occasionally ; in 
 oratory they are nearly as requisite as in poetry ; they 
 come opportunely wherever the object is persuasion or in- 
 timidation, and no less where delight stands foremost. 
 In writing a letter I would neither seek nor reject one ; 
 but I thiuk, if more than one came forward, I might de- 
 cline its services. If, however, it had come in unawares, 
 I .would take no trouble to send it away. But we should 
 accustom ourselves to think always with propriety, in 
 little things as in great, and neither be too solicitous of 
 our dress in the house, nor negligent because we are at 
 home. I think it as improper and indecorous to write a 
 stupid or a silly note to you, as one in a bad hand or on 
 coarse paper. Familiarity ought to have another and 
 worse name, when it relaxes in its attentiveness to 
 please. 
 
 We began with metaphors, I will end with one. Do 
 not look back over the letter to see whether I have not 
 already used my privilege of nomination, whether my 
 one is not there. Take, then, a simile instead. It is a 
 pity that they are often lamps which light nothing, and 
 show only the nakedness of the walls they are nailed 
 against. 
 
 CXLV. ASPASIA TO CLEONB. 
 
 Sophocles left me about an hour ago. 
 
 Hearing that he was with Pericles on business, I sent 
 to request he would favor me with a visit when he was 
 disengaged. After he had taken a seat, I entreated him 
 to pardon me, expressing a regret that we hardly ever 
 saw him, knowing, as I did, that no person could so ill 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 161 
 
 withstand the regrets of the ladies. I added a hope that, 
 as much for my sake as for the sake of Pericles, he would 
 now and then steal an hour from the Muses in our behalf. 
 
 "Lady!" said he, "it would only be changing the 
 place of assignation." 
 
 " I shall begin with you," said I, "just as if I had a 
 right to be familiar, and desire of you to explain the 
 meaning of a chorus in King GEdipus, which, although I 
 have read the tragedy many times, and have never failed 
 to be present at the representation, I do not quite com- 
 prehend." 
 
 I took up a volume from the table . . 
 
 "No," said I, "this is Electra ; give me the other." 
 We unrolled it together. 
 
 " Here it is : what is the meaning of these words 
 about the Laws ? " 
 
 He looked over them, first, without opening his lips ; 
 then he read them in a low voice to himself; and then, 
 placing the palm of his left hand against his forehead : 
 
 " Well ! I certainly did think I understood it at the 
 time I wrote it." 
 
 Cleone ! if you could see him you would fall in love 
 with him. Fifteen Olympiads have not quite run away 
 with all his youth. What a noble presence ! what an 
 open countenance ! what a brow ! what a mouth ! what 
 a rich, harmonious voice ! what a heart, full of passion 
 and of poetry ! 
 
 CXLVI. KEPLT OF PEEICLES TO THE ACCUSATION OF 
 CLEON. 
 
 There is a race of men (and they appear to have led 
 colonies into many lands) whose courage is always in an 
 inverse ratio to their danger. There is also a race who 
 deem that a benefit done to another is an injury done to 
 them. Would you afiront them, speak well of their 
 friends ; would you deprive them of repose, labor and 
 watch incessantly for their country. 
 
 Cleon ! in all your experience, in all the territories you 
 
 11 
 
162 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 have visited, in all the cities and islands you have cod« 
 quered for us, have you never met with any such people ? 
 And yet, O generous Cleon ! I have heard it hinted that 
 the observation is owing to you. 
 
 Were my life a private one, were my services done 
 toward my friends alone, had my youth been exempt, as 
 yours hath been, from difficulty and peril, I might never 
 have displeased you ; I might never have been cited to 
 defend my character against the foulest of imputations. 
 O Athenians ! let me recall your attention to every word 
 that Cleon has uttered. I know how difficult is the task, 
 where so much dust is blown about by so much wind. 
 The valorous Cleon has made your ears tingle and ring 
 with Harmodius and Aristogiton. I am ignorant which 
 of the two he would take for imitation, the handsomer or 
 the braver. He stalks along with great bustle and mag- 
 nificence, but he shows the dagger too plainly : he neg- 
 lects to carry it in myrtle. 
 
 In your astonishment at this sudden procedure, there 
 are doubtless many of you who are unable to comprehend 
 the title of the denunciation. Let me tell you what it is. 
 
 " Pericles, son of Xanthippus " . . (may all Greece 
 hear it ! may every herald in every city proclaim it at 
 every gate') "Pericles, son of Xanthippus, is accused 
 of embezzling the public money, collected, reserved, and 
 set apart, for the building and decoration of the Parthe- 
 non. The accuser is Cleon, son of Cleseretus." 
 
 The scribe has designated the father of our friend by 
 this name, in letters very legible, otherwise I should have 
 suspected it was the son of Cligenes, the parasite of the 
 wealthy, the oppressor of the poor, the assailer of the 
 virtuous, and the ridicule of all. Charges more substan- 
 tial might surely be brought against me, and indeed were 
 threatened. But never shall I repent of having, by my 
 advice, a little decreased the revenues of the common- 
 wealth, in lowering the price of admission to the theatres, 
 and in offering to the more industrious citizens, out of the 
 public treasury, the trifle requisite for this enjoyment. 
 In the theatre let them see before them the crimes and 
 the calamities of Power, the vicissitudes of Fortune, and 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 163 
 
 the sophistries of the Passions. Let it be there, and 
 there only, that the just man suffers, and that murmurs 
 are heard against the dispensations of the gods. 
 
 But I am forgetting the accusation. Will Cleon do me 
 the favor to inform you in what place I have deposited, 
 or in what manner I have spent, the money thus em- 
 bezzled? Will Cleon tell you that I alone had the cus- 
 tody of it ; or that I had anything at all to do in the 
 making up of the accounts? Will Cleon prove to you 
 that I am now richer than I was thirty years ago, except- 
 ing in a portion of the spoil won bravely by the armies 
 yon decreed I should command ; such a portion as the 
 laws allow, and the soldiers carry to their general with 
 triumphant acclamations. Cleou has yet to learn all 
 this : certainly his wealth is derived from no such 
 sources ; far other acclamations does Cleon court ; those 
 of the idle, the dissolute, the malignant, the cowardly, 
 and the false. But if he seeks them in Athens, and not 
 beyond, his party is small indeed, and your indignation 
 will drown their voices. What need have I of pilfer and 
 peculation ? Am I avaricious ? am I prodigal ? Does 
 the indigent citizen, does the wounded soldier, come to 
 my door and return unsatisfied ? Point at me, Cleon ! 
 and tell your friends to mark that. Let them mark it ; 
 but for imitation, not for calumny ; let them hear, for 
 they are idle enough, whence I possess the means of 
 relieving the unfortunate, raising the dejected, and placing 
 men of worth and genius (too often in that number !) 
 where all their fellow-citizens may distinguish them. My 
 father died in my childhood ; careful guardians superin- 
 tended it, managing my affairs with honesty and dil- 
 igence. The earliest of my ancestors, of whom anything 
 remarkable is recorded, was Cleisthenes, whom your fore- 
 fathers named general with Solon, ordering them to con- 
 quer Cirrha. He devoted his portion of the spoils to the 
 buUding of a portico. I never have heard that he came 
 by night and robbed the laborers he had paid by day : 
 perhaps Cleon has. He won afterward at the Olympian 
 games : I never have ascertained that he bribed his ad- 
 versaries. These actions are not in history nor in tradi- 
 
164 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 tion ; but Cleon no doubt has authorities tliat outvalue 
 tradition and liistory. Some years afterward, Cleisthenes 
 proclaimed his determination to give in marriage his 
 daughter Agarista to the worthiest man he could find, 
 whether at home or abroad. It is pity that Cleon was 
 not living in those days. Agarista and her father, iu de- 
 fault of him, could hear of none worthier than Megacles, 
 son of Alcmaeon. Their riches all descended to me, and 
 some, perhaps, of their better possessions. These at least, 
 with Cleon's leave, I would retain ; and as much of the 
 other as may be serviceable to my friends, without being 
 dangerous to the commonwealth. 
 
 CXXVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Surely of all our pursuits and speculations, the most 
 instructive is, how the braver pushed back their suffer- 
 ings, how the weaker bowed their heads and asked for 
 sympathy, how the soldier smote his breast at the falla- 
 cies of glory, and how the philosopher paused and 
 trembled at the depths of his discoveries. But the ac- 
 quirement of such instruction presses us down to the 
 earth. We see the basest and most inert of mankind 
 the tormentors and consumers of the loftiest : the worm 
 at last devours what the lion aod tiger paused at and fled 
 from. But Pericles, for the present, is safe and secure ; 
 and I am too happy for other thoughts or reflections. 
 Anaxagoras, also, is only doubted : he inay disbelieve in 
 some mysteries, but he is surely too wise a man to di- 
 vulge it. 
 
 CXLVIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Now we are quiet and at peace again, I wish you 
 would look into your library for more pieces of poetry. 
 To give you some provocation, I will transcribe a few 
 lines ou the old subject, which, like old fountains, is 
 inexhaustible, while those of later discovery are in dan- 
 ger of being cut off at the first turn of the plough. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 165 
 
 EEINNA TO LOVE. 
 
 "Who breathes to thee the holiest prayer, 
 O Love ! is ever least thy care. 
 
 Alas ! I may not ask thee why 'tis so . . 
 Because a fiery scroll I see 
 Hung at the throne of Destiny, 
 
 Season with Love and register with Woe. 
 
 Few question thee, for thou art strong, 
 And, laughing loud at right and wrong, 
 
 Seizest, and dashest down, the rich, the poor; 
 Thy sceptre's iron studs alike 
 The meaner and the prouder strike, 
 
 And wise and simple fear thee and adore. 
 
 CXLIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Among the poems of Sappho I find the following, but 
 written in a different hand from the rest. It pleases me 
 at least as much as any of them ; if it is worse, I 
 wish you would tell me in what it is so. How many 
 thoughts might she have turned over and tossed away for 
 it ! Odious is the economy in preserving all the scraps 
 of the intellect, and troublesome the idleness of tacking 
 them together. Sappho is fond of seizing, as she runs 
 on, the most prominent and inviting flowers : she never 
 stops to cut and trim them ; she throws twenty aside for 
 one that she fixes in her bosom ; and what is more sin- 
 gular, her pleasure at their beauty seems never to arise 
 from another's admiration of it. See it or not see it, 
 there it is. 
 
 Sweet girls I upon whose breast that god descends 
 Whom first ye pray to come and next to spare, 
 
 O tell me whither now his course he bends. 
 Tell me what hymn shall thither waft my prayer I 
 
 Alas ! my voice and lyre alike he flies, 
 
 And only in my dreams, nor kindly then, replies. 
 
 CL. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Instead of expatiating on the merits of the verses you 
 la&l sent me, or, on the other hand, of looking for any 
 
106 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 pleasure in taking them to pieces, I venture to hope you 
 will be of my opinion, that these others are of equal 
 authenticity. Neither do I remember them in the copy 
 you possessed when we were together. 
 
 SAPPHO TO HESPEKTJS. 
 
 I have beheld thee in the morning hour 
 
 A solitary star, with thankless eyes, 
 
 Ungrateful as I am ! who bade thee rise 
 When sleep all night had wandered from my bower. 
 
 Can it be true that thou art he 
 
 Who shinest now above the sea 
 Amid a thousand, but more bright? 
 
 Ah yes, the very same art thou 
 
 That heard me then, and hearest now . . 
 Thou seemest, star of love ! to throb with light. 
 
 Sappho is not the only poetess who has poured forth 
 her melodies to Hesperus, or who had reason to thank 
 him. I much prefer these of hers to what appear to 
 have been written by some confident man, and (no 
 doubt) on a feigned occasion. 
 
 Hesperus, hail ! thy winking light 
 
 Best befriends the lover. 
 Whom the sadder Moon for spite 
 
 Gladly would discover. 
 
 Thou art fairer far than she, 
 
 Fairer far, and chaster : 
 She may guess who smiled on me, 
 
 I know who embraced her. 
 
 Pan of Arcady . . 'twas Fan, 
 
 In the tamarisk bushes . . 
 Bid her tell thee, if she can. 
 
 Where were then her blushes. 
 
 And, were I inclined to tattle, 
 
 I could name a second, 
 Whom asleep with sleeping cattle 
 
 To her cave she beckon'd. 
 
 Hesperus, hail ! thy friendly ray 
 
 Watches o'er the lover, 
 Lest the nodding leaves betray. 
 
 Lest the moon discover. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASTA. 167 
 
 Phryne heard my kisses given 
 
 Acte's rival bosom . . 
 'Twas the buds, I swore by heaven, 
 
 Bursting into blossom. 
 
 What she heard, and half espied 
 
 By the gleam, she doubted. 
 And with arms uplifted, cried. 
 
 How they must have sprouted ! 
 
 Hesperus, hail again ! thy light 
 
 Best befriends the lover. 
 Whom the sadder Moon for spite 
 
 Gladly would discover. 
 
 The old poets are contented with narrow couches ; 
 but these couches are not stuffed with chaff which lasts 
 only for one season. They do not talk to us from them 
 when they are half asleep ; but think it more amusing 
 to entertain us in our short visit with lively thoughts 
 and fancies, than to enrich us with a paternal prolixity 
 of studied and stored-up meditations. 
 
 CLlt PERICLES TO ALCIBIADES. 
 
 My Alcibiades, if I did not know your good temper 
 from a whole life's experience, I should be afraid of dis- 
 pleasing you by repeating what I have heard. This is, 
 that you pronounce in public as well as in private a few 
 words somewhat differently from our custom. You can- 
 not be aware how much hostility you may excite against 
 you by such a practice. Remember, we are Athenians ; 
 and do not let us believe that we have finer organs, 
 quicker perceptions, or more discrimination, than our 
 neighbors in the city. Every time we pronounce a word 
 differently from another, we show our disapprobation of 
 his manner, and accuse him of rusticity. In all common 
 things we must do as others do. It is more barbarous 
 to undermine the stability of a language than of an edi- 
 fice that hath stood as long. This is done by the intro- 
 duction of changes. Write as others do, but only as the 
 best of others ; and if one eloquent man, forty or fifty 
 
168 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 years ago, spoke and wrote differently from the gen- 
 erality of the present, follow him, though alone, rather 
 than the many. But in pronunciation we are not indulged 
 in this latitude of choice ; we must pronounce as those 
 do who favor us with their audience. Never hazard a 
 new expression in public ; I know not any liberty we can 
 take, even with our nearest friends, more liable to the 
 censure of vanity. Whatever we do we must do from 
 authority or from analogy. A young man, however 
 studious and intelligent, can know, intrinsically and pro- 
 foundly, but little of the writers who constitute authority. 
 For my part, in this our country, where letters are far 
 more advanced than in any other, I can name no one 
 whatever who has followed up to their origin the deriva- 
 tion of words, or studied with much success their anal- 
 ogy. I do not, I confess, use all the words that others 
 do, but I never use one that others do not. Remember, 
 one great writer may have employed a word which a 
 greater has avoided, or, not having avoided it, may have 
 employed in a somewhat different signification. It would 
 be needless to offer you these remarks, if our language 
 were subject to the capriciousness of courts, the humilia- 
 tion of sycophaots, and the defilement of slaves. An- 
 other may suffer but little detriment by the admission of 
 barbarism to its franchises ; but ours is Attic, and the 
 words, like the citizens we employ, should at once be 
 popular and select. 
 
 CLII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 The poetical merits of the unhappy Lesbian are suffi- 
 ciently well known. Thanks, and more than thanks, if 
 indeed there is anything more on earth, are due for even 
 one scrap from her. But allow me, what is no great 
 delicacy or delight to me, a reprehension, a censure. An 
 admirer can make room for it only when it comes from 
 an admirer. Sappho, in the most celebrated of her 
 Odes, teUs us that she sweats profusely. Now surely, 
 no female, however low-born and ill-bred, in short, hfiv- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. - 1G9 
 
 ever Eolian, could, without indecorousness, speak of 
 sweating and spitting, or any such things. We never 
 ought to utter, in relation to ourselves, what we should 
 be ashamed of being seen in. Writing of war and con- 
 tention, such an expression is unobjectionable. To avoid 
 it by circumlocution, or by any other word less expres- 
 sive and direct, would be the most contemptible and 
 ludicrous of pedantry ; and, were it anywhere reduced to 
 practice in the conversation of ordinary life, it would 
 manifestly designate a coarse-grained, unpolishable people. 
 There is nothing in poetry, or indeed in society, so un- 
 pleasant as aflPectation. In poetry it arises from a defi- 
 ciency of power and a restlessness of pretension ; in 
 conversation, from insensibility to the Graces, from an 
 intercourse with bad company, and a misinterpretation 
 of better. 
 
 CLin. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 You desire to know what portion of history it is the 
 intention of Thucydides to undertake. He began with 
 the earlier settlers of Greece, but he has now resolved 
 to employ this section as merely the portico to his edi- 
 fice. The Peloponnesian war appears to him worthier of 
 the historian than any other. He is of opinion that it 
 must continue for many years and comprehend many 
 important events, for Pericles is resolved to wear out the 
 energy of the Spartans by protracting it. At present it 
 has been carried on but few months, with little advan- 
 tage to either side, aiid much distress to both. What our 
 historian has read to us does not contain any part of 
 these transactions, which, however, he carefully notes 
 down as they occur. We were much amused by a speech 
 he selected for recitation, as one delivered by an orator 
 of the Corinthians to the ephors of Lacedaemon, urging 
 the justice and necessity of hostilities. Never was the 
 Athenian character painted in such true and lively 
 colors. In composition his characteristic is brevity, 
 yet the first sentence of the volume runs into superfluity. 
 The words, to the be«t of my recollection, are these : 
 
170 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 " Thueydides of Athens has composed a history of the 
 war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians." 
 
 This is enough ; yet he adds : 
 
 "As conducted by each of the belligerents." 
 
 Of course : it could not be conducted by one only. 
 
 1 observed that in the fourth sentence he went from 
 the third person to the first. 
 
 By what I could collect, he thinks the Peloponnesian 
 war more momentous than the Persian ; yet had Xerxes 
 prevailed against us, not a vestige would be existing of 
 liberty or civilization in the world. If Sparta should, 
 there will be little enough ; and a road will be thrown 
 open to the barbarians of the north, Macedonians, and 
 others with strange names. We have no great reason to 
 fear it ; although the policy of Thebes, on whom much 
 depends, is ungenerous and unwise. 
 
 He said, moreover, that " transactions of an earlier 
 time are known imperfectly, and were of small import- 
 ance either in the wars or anything else." 
 
 Yet without these wars, or some other of these trans- 
 actions, our Miletus and Athens, our Pericles and 
 Thueydides, would not be ; so much does one thing de- 
 pend upon another. I am little disposed to overvalue 
 the potency and importance of the eastern monarchies ; 
 but surely there is enough to excite our curiosity, and 
 interest our inquiries, in the fall of Chaldaea, the rise of 
 Babylon, and the mysteries of Egypt . . not indeed her 
 mysteries in theology, which are impostures there as 
 elsewhere, but the mysteries in arts and sciences, which 
 will outlive the gods. Barbarians do not hold steadily 
 before us any moral or political lesson ; but they serve as 
 graven images, protuberantly eminent and gorgeously 
 uncouth, to support the lamp placed on them by His- 
 tory and Philosophy. If we knew only what they said 
 and did, we should turn away with horror and disgust : 
 but we pound their mummies to color our narratives ; 
 and we make them as useful in history as beasts are in 
 fable. 
 
 Thueydides shows evidently, by his preliminary obser- 
 vations, that he considers the Trojan war unimportant. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 171 
 
 let, according to Homer, the Grecian troops amounted 
 to above a hundred thousand. la reality, so large a 
 force hath never been assembled in any naval expedi- 
 tion, nor even one half. How was it provisioned at 
 Aulis? how, on the shores of the Troad? And all these 
 soldiers, with chariots and horses, were embarked for 
 Troy a few years after the first ship of war left the 
 shores of Greece ! yes, a very few years indeed ; for the 
 Argo had among her crew the brothers of Helen, who 
 cannot well be supposed to have been five years older 
 than herself. It is of rare occurrence, even in the cli- 
 mate of Sparta, that a mother bears children after so 
 long an interval ; and we have no reason to believe that 
 such a time had elapsed between the brothers and their 
 sister. Suppose the twins to have been twenty-two 
 years old (for they had become celebrated for horseman- 
 ship and boxing), and Helen seventeen, you will find little 
 space left between the expeditions. 
 
 But away with calculation. We make a bad bargain 
 when we change poetry for truth in the affairs of ancient 
 times, and by no means a good one in any. 
 
 Remarkable men of remote ages are collected together 
 out of different countries within the same period, and 
 perform simultaneously the same action. On an accu- 
 mulation of obscure deeds arises a wild spirit of poetry ; 
 and images and names bv.'st forth and spread themselves, 
 which carry with them something like enchantment, far 
 beyond the infancy of nations. What was vague imag- 
 ination settles at last and is received for history. It is 
 difficult to effect and idle to attempt the separation ; it is 
 like breaking off a beautiful crystallization from the 
 vault of some intricate and twilight cavern, out of mere 
 cm'iosity to see where the accretion terminates and the 
 rock begins. 
 
 CLIT. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 We have lost another poet, and have none left beside 
 the comic. Euripides is gone to the court of Archelaus. 
 A few years ago he gained the prize against all compet- 
 
172 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 iters. He was hailed by the people as a deliverer, for 
 subverting the ascendancy and dominion which Sophocles 
 liad acquired over them. The Athenians do not like to 
 trust any man with power for life. Sophocles is now an 
 old man, sixty years of age at the least, and he had then 
 been absolute in the theatre for above a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. What enthusiasm ! what acclamations ! for over- 
 throwing the despot who had so often made them weep 
 and beat their breasts. He came to visit us on the day 
 of his defeat ; Euripides was with us at the time. 
 
 "Euripides," said he, "we are here alone, excepting 
 our friends Aspasia and Pericles. I must embrace you, 
 now it cannot seem an act of ostentation." 
 He did so, and most cordially. 
 
 "I should be glad to have conquered you," continued 
 he, "it would have been very glorious." 
 
 I never saw Pericles more moved. These are the 
 actions that shake his whole frame, and make his eyes 
 glisten. Euripides was less affected. He writes ten- 
 derly, but is not tender. There are hearts that call for 
 imagination ; there are others that create it. 
 
 I must abstain from all reflections that fall too darkly 
 on the departed. We may see him no more, perhaps ; I 
 am sorry for it. He did not come often to visit us, nor 
 indeed is there anything in his conversation to delight or 
 interest me. He has not the fine manners of Sophocles ; 
 nor the open unreserved air, which Pericles tells me 
 he admired so much in the soldierly and somewhat proud 
 ^schylus ; grave and taciturn, I hear, like himself, 
 unless when something pleased him ; and then giving 
 way to ebullitions and bursts of rapture, and filling every 
 one with it round about. 
 
 The movers and masters of our souls have surely a 
 right to throw out their limbs as carelessly as they please, 
 on the world that belongs to them, and before the crea- 
 tures they have animated. It is only such insects as 
 petty autocrats that feel oppressed by it, and would sting 
 them for it. Pericles is made of the same clay. He 
 cannot quite overcome his stateliness, but he bends the 
 more gracefully for bending slowly. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 173 
 
 "When I think of Euripides, I think how short a time 
 It is since he was hailed as a deliverer, and how odious 
 he is become for breaking in upon our affections at an 
 unseasonable hour, and for carrying our hearts into 
 captivity. All the writers of the day were resolved to 
 humble him, and ran about from magistrate to magis- 
 trate, to raise money enough for the magnificent repre- 
 sentation of his rival . . I have forgotten the man's 
 name. Pericles never thwarts the passions and preju- 
 dices of the citizens. In his adolescence he visited the 
 humble habitation of the venerable ^schylus : through- 
 out life he has been the friend of Sophocles ; he has 
 comforted Euripides in his defeats, telling him that by 
 degrees he would teach the people to be better judges : 
 he rejoiced with him on his first victory, reminding him 
 of his prophecy, and remarking that they two, of all the 
 Athenians, had shown the most patience and had been 
 the best rewarded for it. 
 
 We hope he may return. 
 
 CLV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 The two pieces I am about to transcribe are of styles 
 very difierent. I find them among the collections of 
 Pericles, but am ignorant of the authors. 
 
 Far from the harp's and from the singer's noise, 
 The bird of Pallas lights on ruin'd towers. 
 I knovr a wing that flaps o'er girls and boys 
 
 To harp and song and kiss in myrtle bowers ; 
 
 When age is come, I too will sit apart, 
 
 While age is absent, that shall fan my heart. 
 
 CUPID AND LIGEIA. 
 
 Cupid had played some wicked trick one day 
 On sharp Ligeia ; and I heard her say, 
 " You little rogue ! you ought to be unsext." 
 - He was as spiteful tho' not quite so vext, 
 
 And said (but held half-shut the folding-doors) 
 " Ah then my beard will never grow like yours I " 
 
174 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CLVI. FIEST SPEECH OF PERICLES TO THE ATHENIANS, 
 On the Declarations of Corinth and LacedcEmon. 
 
 The Regency at Laced^mon has resolved to make an 
 irruption into Attica, if we attempt anything adverse to 
 Potidsea, hearing that, on the declaration of hostilities by 
 Corinth, we ordered the Potidaeans, whose infidelity we 
 had detected, to demolish the wall facing Pallene. In 
 reliance on their treason, Perdiccas and the Corinthians 
 had entered into confederacy, and were exciting the 
 defection of our Thracian auxiliaries. Perdiccas pre- 
 failed with the Cbalcidians to dismantle all their towns 
 upon the sea-side, and to congregate in Olynthos. We 
 made a truce, and afterward a treaty, with Perdiccas : 
 he evacuates the territory he had invaded ; we strictly 
 beleaguer the revolted Potidaea. The ephors of Lacedae- 
 mon now summon to appear before them not only their 
 allies, but whosoever has any complaint to prefer against 
 the Athenians. Hereupon the Megara;ans come for- 
 ward, and protest that they have been prohibited from 
 our markets, contrary to treaty ; and what is worse, 
 that we exclude them from the possession of Potidsea, so 
 convenient for extending their power and authority into 
 Thrace. They appear, in their long oration, to have 
 forgotten nothing, uidess that they had murdered our 
 citizens and ambassadors. 
 
 By what right, O Athenians, is Lacedsemon our judge ? 
 Corinth may impel her into war against us ; but Cor- 
 inth can never place her on the judgment-seat of Greece ; 
 nor shall their united voices make us answer to the 
 citation. We will declare, not to her, but to all, our 
 reasons and our rights. The Corcyraeans had erected a 
 trophy at Leucimna, and had spared after the victory 
 their Corinthian captives ; they had laid waste the ter- 
 ritory of Leucas, and they had burnt the arsenal of Cyl- 
 lene. Meanwhile the Corinthians sent ambass^adors to 
 every power in the Peloponnese, and enlisted mariners for 
 their service upon every coast. If valor and skill and 
 constancy could have availed the Corcyraians, they would 
 
PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 175 
 
 have continued to abstain, as they had ever done, from 
 ah alliances. They only sought ours when destruction 
 was imminent ; knowing that, in policy and humanity, 
 we never could allow the extinction of one Grecian 
 state, nor consequently the aggrandizement and prepon- 
 derance of another ; and least so when the insolence of 
 Corinth had threatened our naval ascendancy (by which 
 all Greece was saved), and the rivalry of Lacedfemon 
 our equality on land. By our treaty with the Lacedae- 
 monians it is provided that, if any community be not in 
 alliance with one of the parties, it may confederate with 
 either, at its discretion ; and this compact it was agreed 
 should be binding not only on the principals, but like- 
 wise on the subordinates. In such a predicament stands 
 Corey ra. 
 
 It might behoove us to chastise the inhumanity of a na- 
 tion which, like Corinth, would devour her own offspring ; 
 but it certainly is most just and most expedient, when, 
 instead of reasoning or conferring with us on the pro- 
 priety of our interference, she ruus at once to Sparta, 
 conspiring with her to our . degradation, and, if possible, 
 to our ruin. Satisfactorily to demonstrate our justice 
 and moderation, I advise that we stipulate with Corcyra 
 for mutual defence, never for aggression, and admitting 
 no article which, even by a forced interpretation, may 
 contravene our treaty with Lacedsmon. 
 
 CLVII. SECOND SPEECH OF PERICLES. 
 
 The jealousy that Sparta hath ever entertained against 
 us, was declared most flagrantly, when Leotychides, who 
 commanded the Grecian forces at Mycale, drew away 
 with him all the confederates of the Peloponnese. We 
 continued to assail the barbarians until we drove them 
 from Sestos, their last hold upon the Hellespont. It was 
 then, and then only, that the Athenians brought back 
 again from miserable refuge their wives and children, 
 and began to rebuild their habitations, and walls for 
 their defence. Did the Spartans view this constancy and 
 
176 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 perseverance with admiration and with pity, as the patri- 
 otic, the generous, the humane, would do? Did they 
 send ambassadors to congratulate your fathers on their 
 valor, their endurance, their prosperous return, their 
 ultimate security? Ambassadors they sent, indeed, but 
 insisting that our walls should never rise again from 
 their ruins. A proposal so unjust and arrogant we 
 treated with scorn and indignation, when our numbers 
 were diminished and our wealth exhausted : shall we 
 bend to their decisions and obey their orders now? If 
 their power of injuring us were in proportion to their 
 malice, their valor to their pride, or their judgment to 
 their ferocity, then were they most formidable indeed ; 
 but turn we to the examination of facts. Having occa- 
 sion to reduce to obedience a few revolted Helotes ia the 
 city of Ithome, to whom did they apply? to the Atheni- 
 ans ; for they themselves were utterly ignorant how to 
 attack or even to approach a fortress. Even then they 
 showed their jealousy, rewarding our promptitude to as- 
 sist them by the ignominious dismissal of our troops. 
 What was the consequence? a ten years' siege. And 
 these, O Athenians ! are the men who now threaten the 
 Acropolis and the Pirjeus ! 
 
 I can compare the Lacedjemonians to nothing more fitly 
 than to the heads of spears without the shafts. There 
 would be abundantly the power of doing mischief, were 
 there only the means and method of directing it. Where 
 these are wanting, we have no better cause for apprehen- 
 sion than at the sparks of fire under our horse's hoof, lest 
 they produce a conflagration ; which indeed they might 
 do, if by their nature they were durable and directable. 
 
 Let us see what powerful aid our enemies are expect- 
 ing ; what confederates they are stirring up against us. 
 The Megarjeans, who left their alliance for ours ; the 
 MegarEeans, whom we defended against the Corinthians, 
 and whose walls we constructed at our own expense from 
 Megara to Nisjea. Is it on the constancy or on the gi-at- 
 itude of this people that Lacediemon, in her wisdom, so 
 confidently relies ? No sooner had we landed in Eubjea, 
 than intelligence was brought us that the Peloponuesiaus 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 177 
 
 were about to make an incursion into Attica, and that the 
 Athenian garrison was murdered by the Megaraeans, who 
 already had formed a junction with the Corinthians, Si- 
 cyonians, and Epidaurians. We sailed homeward, and 
 discomfited the Peloponnesians ; returned, and reduced 
 Eubaea. A truce for thirty years was granted to Lace- 
 daemon, restoring to her Nissea, Calchis, Pegai, and Troe- 
 zene. Five years afterward a war broke out between the 
 Samians and Miletus. Justice and our treaties obliged us 
 to rescue that faithful and unfortunate city from the two- 
 fold calamity that impended over her. Many of the Sa- 
 mians were as earnest in imploring our assistance as the 
 Milesians were ; for, whatever might be the event of the 
 war, they were sure of being reduced to subjection ; if 
 conquered, by a wronged and exasperated enemy ; if con- 
 querors, by the king. A rapacious and insolent oligarchy 
 saw no other means of retaining its usurped authority, 
 than by extending it with rigor ; and were conscious that 
 it must fall from under them unless the sceptre propped 
 it. Honest men will never seek such aid, and free men 
 will never endure such. 
 
 There may be nations monarchal and aristocratical, 
 where the public good is little thought of, and often im- 
 peded by restless steps toward personal or family ag- 
 grandizement. But there is no man, oven among these, 
 so barbarous and inhuman, as to be indifferent to the 
 approbation of some one in his city beloved above all the 
 rest, from whom the happy rush forward for admiration, 
 the less fortunate are gratified with a tear ; life, they 
 would tell us, is well lost for either. We Athenians have 
 loftier views, and, I will not say purer, but the same and 
 more ardent aspirations. 
 
 In the late brief war, the greater part of you here 
 present have won immortal glory ; and let us not believe 
 that those who fell from your ranks in battle are yet in- 
 sensible to the admiration and gratitude of their country- 
 men. No one among us, whatever services he may have 
 rendered to Athens, has received such praises, such bene- 
 dictions, such imperishable rewards, as they have. Happy 
 men ! they are beyond the reach of calumny and reverses. 
 12 
 
178 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 There is only one sad reflection resting with them : they 
 can serve their country no more. How high was the 
 value of their lives ! they knew it, and bartered them for 
 renown. We, in this war unjustly waged against us, 
 shall be exposed to fewer dangers, but more privations. 
 In the endurance of these, our manliness will be put se- 
 verely to the proof, and virtues which have not been 
 called forth in fifty years, virtues which our enemies seem 
 to have forgotten that we possess, must again come into 
 action, as if under the eyes of a Themistocles and an 
 Aristides. We have all done much ; but we have all 
 done less than we can do, ought to do, and will do. 
 
 Archidamos, king of Sparta, now about to march 
 against us, is bound to me by by the laws of hospitality. 
 Should he, whether in remembrance of these, or ia the 
 design of rendering me suspected, abstain from inflicting 
 on my possessions the violence he is about to inflict on 
 the rest of Attica, let it be understood that henceforth I 
 have no private property in this land, but, in the presence 
 of the gods, make a free donation of it to the common- 
 wealth. Let all withdraw their cattle, corn, and other 
 effects, from the country, and hold Athens as one great 
 citadel, from which the deity who presides over her hath 
 forbidden us to descend. 
 
 CLVIII. ORATION OF PERICLES, 
 
 On the approach of the Lacedeemonians to Athens. 
 
 Long ago, and lately, and in every age intervening, 
 Athenians ! have you experienced the jealousy and inso- 
 lence of Lacedaemon. She listens now to the complaints 
 of Corinth, because the people of Corcyra wUl endure no 
 longer her vexations, and because their navy, in which 
 the greater part of the mariners have fought and con- 
 quered by the side of ours, seek refuge in the Pirseus. A 
 little while ago she dared to insist that we should admit 
 the ships of Megara to our harbor, her merchandise to 
 our markets, when Megara had broken her faith with us, 
 and gone over to the Spartans. Even this indignity we 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 179 
 
 might perhaps have endured. We told the Lacedsemo- 
 nians that we would admit the MegariEans to that priv- 
 ilege, if the ports of Sparta would admit us and our allies ; 
 although we and our allies were never in such relationship 
 with her, and therefore could never have fallen off from 
 her. She disdained to listen to a proposal so reasonable, 
 to a concession so little to be expected from us. Resolved 
 to prove to her that generosity, and not fear, dictated it, 
 we chastised the perfidious Megara. 
 
 The king of the Lacedaemonians, Archidamos, a wiser 
 and honester man than any of his people, is forced to 
 obey the passions he would control ; and an army of sixty 
 thousand men is marching under his command to ravage 
 Attica. The braver will rather burn their harvests than 
 transfer to a sanguinary and insatiable enemy the means 
 of inflicting evil on their relatives and friends. Few, I 
 trust, are base enough, sacrilegious enough, to treat as 
 guests, those whom you before men and gods denounce 
 as enemies. We will receive within our walls the firm 
 and faithful. And now let the orators who have blamed 
 our expenditure in the fortification of the city, tell us 
 again that it was improvident. They would be flying in 
 dismay had not those bulwarks been raised effectually. 
 Did it require any sagacity to foresee that Athens would 
 be the envy of every state around ? Was there any man 
 so ignorant as not to know that he who has lost all his 
 enemies will soon lose all his energy ? and that men are 
 no more men when they cease to act, than rivers are rivers 
 when they cease to run ? The forces of our assailants 
 must be broken against our walls. Our fleets are our 
 farms henceforward, until the Spartans find thai, if they 
 can subsist on little, they cannot so well subsist on stones 
 and ashes. Their forces are vast ; but vast forces have 
 never much hurt us. Marathon and Plataea were scarcely 
 wide enough for our trophies ; a victorious army, an un- 
 vanquished fleet, Militades himself, retired unsuccessful 
 from the rock of Paros. Shall we tremble, then, before 
 a tumultuous multitude, ignorant how cities are defended 
 or assailed ? Shall we prevent them from coming to their 
 discomfiture and destruction? Firmly do I believe that 
 
180 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 the Protectress of our city leads them against it to avenge 
 her cause. They may ravage the lands ; they cannot cul- 
 tivate, they cannot hold them. Mischief they will do, and 
 great ; much of our time, much of our patience, much of 
 our perseverance, and something of our courage, are re- 
 quired. At present I do not number this event among 
 our happiest. We must owe our glory partly to our- 
 selves and partly to our enemies. They offer us the 
 means of greatness ; let us accept their offer. Brief dan- 
 ger is the price of long security. The countryman, from 
 the mists of the morning, not only foretells the bright- 
 ness of the day, but discerns in them sources of fertility ; 
 and he remembers in his supplications to the immortal 
 gods to thank them alike for both blessings. It is thus, 
 O men of Athens, that you have constantly looked up at 
 calamities. Never have they depressed you ; always have 
 they chastened your hearts, always have they exalted 
 your courage. Impelled by the breath of Xerxes, the 
 locusts of Asia consumed your harvests ; your habita- 
 tions crumbled away as they swarmed along : the tem- 
 ples of the gods lay prostrate ; the gods themselves bowed 
 and fell ; the men of Athens rose higher than ever. They 
 had turned their faces in grief from the scene of devasta- 
 tion and impiety ; but they listened to a provident valor, 
 and the myriads of insects that had plagued them were 
 consumed. 
 
 There is affront in exhortation. I have spoken. 
 
 CLIX. ASPASIA TO CLBONE. 
 
 On the shore overlooking the fountain of Arethusa there 
 is a statue of -^schylus. An Athenian who went to visit 
 it, crowned it with bay and ivy, and wrote these verses 
 at the base : 
 
 Stranger ! Athenian hands adorn 
 
 A bard thou knowcst well. 
 Ah 1 do not ask where he was bom, 
 
 For we must blush to tell. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 181 
 
 Proud nre we, but we place no pride 
 
 On good, or wise, or brave ; 
 Hence wliat Cephisus had denied 
 
 'Twas Arethusa gave. 
 
 You remember the story of a barbarous king, who 
 would have kept the Muses in captivity. His armory fur- 
 nished an enemy of the poet Lysis with these materials 
 for skirmishing : 
 
 A curse upon the king of old 
 
 Who would have kidnapp'd all the Muses ! 
 
 Whether to barter them for gold 
 Or keep them for his proper uses. 
 
 liVsis I aware he meant them ill, 
 
 Birds they became, and flew away . . 
 
 Thy Muse alone continues still 
 A titmouse to this very day. 
 
 E>o not call me aly and perfidious, if, after tickling you 
 with this feather, I have not only permitted a wicked 
 thought to enter my head, but have also devised a place 
 for it, if possible, in yours. The lines below are none 
 of my composition, as you may well imagine from my 
 character : 
 
 There is in empty kisses a delight ; 
 
 A fragrance of the wine 
 Quaft by the happier in the genial night 
 
 Is there ; may these be mine ! 
 
 What said I ? empty kisses ? none are empty. 
 
 Gods! all the just who give 
 That graceful feast from every grief exempt ye ! 
 
 Blest, honor'd, grant they live ! 
 
 And now I have written them fairly out, I am afraid 
 of sending them ; for I remember that if ever I uttered 
 such a word as kiss, you wondered at me. Really and 
 truly it was as far from wonder as anything could be, and 
 so it will be now ; but it was very near a slight displeas* 
 lU'e, which now it must not be. 
 
182 PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CLX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 After an interval of nearly three years, Comedy may 
 reappear on the stage. It is reported that Pericles ob- 
 tained this indulgence from the archons ; and in conse- 
 quence of it he is now represented by the dramatists as a 
 Jupiter, who lightens and thunders, and what not. Be- 
 fore he became a Jupiter, I believe he was represented as 
 the enemy of that god, and most of the others ; and the 
 people having no public amusement, no diversion to carry 
 off their ill-humors, listened gloomily to such discourses. 
 Pericles noted it, and turned them into their fold again, 
 and had them piped to ; but not before the fly entered 
 the fleece. 
 
 CLXI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Twenty days, O Cleone, twenty days are not elapsed, 
 smce Anaxagoras told me that he was about to leavo 
 Attica for the Propontis. I urged him to alter his reso- 
 lution. He affirmed that his presence in the house of 
 Pericles had brought a cloud over it, which would only 
 disappear by his absence. "Of late," said he, "I have 
 received so much kindness from the philosophers, that I 
 begin to suspect a change of fortune, by no means in my 
 favor. I must fly while the weather is temperate, as the 
 swallows do." 
 
 He mixes not with the people, he converses with none 
 of them, and yet he appears to have penetrated into the 
 deepest and darkest recesses of their souls. 
 
 Pericles has lost their favor ; Anaxagoras is banished ; 
 Aspasia . . but what is Aspasia ? Yours ; and therefore 
 you must hear about her. 
 
 We have all been accused of impiety ; Anaxagoras 
 and myself have been brought to trial for the offence. 
 Diopeithes is the name of our accuser. He began with 
 Anaxagoras ; and having proved by three witnesses that 
 he in their hearing had declared his opinion, that light- 
 ning and thunder were the eflfect of some combustion and 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 183 
 
 coueussion in the clouds, and that they often happened 
 when Jupiter was in perfectly good-humor, not thinkiug 
 at all about the Athenians, there was instantly such a 
 rage and consternation in the whole assembly, that the 
 judges were called upon from every quarter to condemn 
 them for impiety ; sentence, death. 
 
 Pericles rose. He for the first time in his life was 
 silenced by the clamorous indignation of the people. All 
 parties, aU classes, men, women, children, priests, sail- 
 ors, tavern-keepers, diviners, slave-merchants, threatened, 
 raved, foamed. 
 
 " Pericles ! you yourself will soon be cited before this 
 august tribunal," said Diopeithes. The clamor now 
 began to subside. Curiosity, wonder, apprehension of 
 consequences, divided the assembly ; and, when Pericles 
 lifted up his arm, the agitation, the murmurs, and the 
 whispers, ceased. 
 
 " O men of Athens ! " said he, calmly, " I wish it had 
 pleased the gods that the vengeance of Diopeithes had 
 taken its first aim against me, whom you have heard so 
 often, known so long, and trusted so implicitly. But 
 Diopeithes hath skulked from his ambush and seized 
 upon the unsuspecting Anaxagoras, in the hope that, few 
 knowing him, few can love him. The calculation of 
 Diopeithes is correct : they who love him are but those 
 few. They, however, who esteem and reverence him, 
 can only be numbered by him who possesses a register 
 of all the wise and all the virtuous men in Greece." 
 
 Anaxagoras stepped forward, saying : 
 
 " You, O Athenians ! want defenders, and will want 
 them more : I look for protection to no mortal arm ; I 
 look for it to that divine power, the existence of which 
 my accuser tells you I deny." 
 
 "He shirks the thunder," said one. 
 
 " He sticks to the blind side of Jupiter," said another. 
 
 Such were the observations of the pious and malicious, 
 who thought to expiate all their sins by throwing them 
 on his shoulders, and driving him out of the city. He 
 was condemned by a majority of voices. Pericles fol- 
 lowed him through the gates, beyond the fury of his per- 
 secutors. 
 
184 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CLXII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Three days after the banishment of Anaxagoras, th« 
 threat of Diopeithes was carried into effect ; not against 
 the person of Pericles, but against your Aspasia. Dio- 
 peithes had himself denounced me, on the same count as 
 Anaxagoras ; and Hermippos, whose entire lite has been 
 (they tell me) one sluggish stream of gross impurities, 
 impeached me as a corruptress of the public morals. 
 
 You will imagine, my Cleone, that something loose and 
 lascivious was brought forward in accusation against me. 
 No such thing. Nothing of the kind is considered as 
 having any concern with public morals here in Athens. 
 My crime was, seducing young men from their parents 
 and friends ; retaining them in conversation at our house ; 
 encouraging them to study the sciences in preference to 
 the machinations of sophists ; to leave the declaimers an 
 empty room for the benefit of their voices, and to adhere 
 more closely to logic before they venture upon rhetoric. 
 
 You will now perceive, that all who have the most in- 
 terest and the most exercise in the various artifices of 
 deception, were my enemies. I feared lest Pericles 
 should run further into the danger of losing his popular- 
 ity by undertaking my defence, and resolved to be my 
 own pleader. The hour had been appointed for opening 
 the trial : I told him it was one hour later. When it 
 was nearly at hand, I went out of the house unobserved, 
 and took my place before the assembly of the people. 
 My words were these ; 
 
 " If any of the accusations brought against me were 
 well founded, they would have been known to Pericles. 
 It would be strange were he indifferent to any offence of 
 mine against the laws, especially such as you accuse me 
 of, unless he is, as the accusation would imply, insensible 
 to honor, propriety, and decency. Is this his character? 
 He never has had an enemy bold and false enough to say 
 it : I wonder at this ; yet he never has." 
 
 The people, who had been silent, now began to favor 
 me, when Diopeithes asked me whether 1 could deny my 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 185 
 
 conversations with Anaxagoras, and my adherence to his 
 tenets. 
 
 Love of truth, pity for Anaxagoras, and pride (it may 
 be) in the strength of mind he had given me, and in the 
 rejection of unworthy notions on the gods, urged me to 
 say: 
 
 " I deny no conversation I ever had with him, no tenet 
 I ever received, no duty I ever learnt from him. He 
 taught me veneration for the gods ; and I pray thom to 
 render me grateful for it." 
 
 Pericles at this moment stood at my side. Indignation 
 that he should have followed Anaxagoras out of the gates, 
 and should have embraced him affectionately at parting, 
 turned many furious faces, furious cries, and furious ges- 
 tures against him. He looked round disdainfully, and 
 said aloud : 
 
 "Respect the laws and the unfortunate, you who revere 
 the gods ! 
 
 " It was not the condemned man I followed out of the 
 city : it was age, wliich would have sunk under blows ; 
 it was rectitude, which feared not death ; it was friend- 
 ship, which, if I cannot make you esteem, I will not im- 
 plore you to pardon. 
 
 " At last, O Athenians ! my enemies and yours have 
 persuaded you to assemble in this place, and to witness the 
 humiliation and affliction of one who never failed to suc- 
 cor the unfortunate, and who has been the solace of my 
 existence many years. Am I, of all in Athens, the man 
 who should mistake crimes for virtues ; the man pointed 
 out from among the rest as the most insensible to his 
 dignity ? How widely, then, have you erred in calling me 
 to your counsels ! how long, how wilfully, how pertina- 
 ciously ! Is it not easier to believe that two or three are 
 mistaken now, than that you all, together with your 
 fathers and best friends, whose natal days, and days of 
 departure from us, you still keep holy, have been al- 
 ways so ? " 
 
 Hermippos and Diopeithes, seeing that many were 
 moved, interrupted him furiously. 
 
 " O Pericles ! " cried Hermippos, " we are aware that 
 
186 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 this woman of Ionia, this Milesian, this Aspasia, enter« 
 tains the same opinions as yourself." 
 
 " Highly criminal ! " answered Pericles, with a smile ; 
 " I hope no other Athenian is cursed with a wife liable 
 to so grievous an accusation." 
 
 " Scoffer ! " cried Diopeithes ; " dare you deny that in 
 the summer of this very year, when you was sailing to 
 lay waste the coasts of the Peloponnese, you attempted to 
 pervert the religion of the sailors ? The sun was sud- 
 denly bedimmed ; darkness came over the sea, as far 
 even as unto our city ! the pilot fell upon his face and 
 prayed : and did not you, O Pericles ! raise him up with 
 one hand, and, throwing your mantle over his eyes with 
 the other, ask whether he found anything dreadful in it? 
 And when he answered, in his piety, ' It is not that' did 
 not you reply : 
 
 " ' The other darkness is no otherwise different than in 
 its greater extent, and produced by somewhat larger than 
 my mantle ' ? " 
 
 "Proceed to interrogate," said Pericles. 
 
 " Answer that first, O sacrilegious man ! " exclaimed 
 Diopeithes. 
 
 "Athenians ! " said Pericles, " many of you here pres- 
 ent were with me in the expedition. Do assure Diopei- 
 thes that it was not my mantle which darkened the sea 
 and sun, that to your certain knowledge both sun and sea 
 were dark before I took it off. So that the gods, if they 
 were angry at all, were angry earlier in the day. And 
 not only did the sun shine out again, bright and serene 
 as ever, but the winds were favorable, the voyage pros- 
 perous, the expedition successful. 
 
 "It appears to me that the gods are the most angry 
 when they permit the malicious and the false to prevail 
 over the generous and simple-hearted ; when they permit 
 the best affections to be violated, and the worst to rise up 
 in disorder to our ruin. Nor do I believe that they are 
 very well pleased at hearing their actions and motives 
 called in question ; or at winks and intimations that they 
 want discernment to find out offenders, and power and 
 justice to punish them." 
 
PERICLES AND ASi*ASIA. ]87 
 
 " In spite of philosophers," cried Diopeithes, " we still 
 have our gods in Athens ! " 
 
 " And our men too," replied he, " or these before me 
 must only be the shadows of those who, but lately under 
 my command, won eternal renown in Samos." 
 
 Tears rose into his eyes : they were for me ; but he 
 said in a low voice, audible, however, in the silence that 
 had succeeded to a loud and almost universal accla- 
 mation : 
 
 " At least for our lost comrades a few tears are not 
 forbidden us." 
 
 The people struck their breasts ; the judges unani- 
 mously acquitted me, surrounded Pericles, and followed 
 us home with enthusiastical congratulations. 
 
 CLXm. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Never did our house receive so many visitors as on my 
 acquittal. Not only our friends and acquaintances, but 
 every one who had fought under Pericles, came forward 
 to offer his felicitations and his services. I was forgot- 
 ten . . the danger, the insult, seemed his. When liiey 
 had all retired to dinner, he, too, left me with my music, 
 and I did not see him again until late the next morning. 
 It was evident he had slept but little. He came up to 
 me, and, pressing my hand, said : 
 
 " Aspasia, I have gained a great victory ; the greatest, 
 the most glorious, and the only one not subject to a 
 reverse." 
 
 I thought his words related to his defence of me : I 
 was mistaken. 
 
 " It was yesterday, for the first time," said he, " that 
 I knew the extent of my power. I could have demol- 
 ished the houses of my adversaries ; I could have exiled 
 them from the city ; I could have been their master : I 
 am more ; I am my own. 
 
 " Great injuries create great power ; no feeble virtues 
 are necessary to its rejection. In polity," continued he, 
 " the humble may rise, but not the fallen. States live 
 
188 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 but once. Had I no Aspasia, no children, I am ignor- 
 ant what support I could have found against the impulses 
 of ambition. Many who seize upon kingly power are 
 the more desirous of possessing it, because they have 
 sons to succeed them. Imprudent men ! they expose 
 those sons to infinite dangers, and create no new advan- 
 tages for them. If they provided for their security, they 
 would abdicate their power, when about to be taken away 
 by death from those over whom they exercised it. If 
 they provided for their glory, they would not subject 
 them to the reproach, always merited, of possessing less 
 activity and sagacity than their father. Do they care 
 about their v^isdom or their virtue? they will not cast 
 them among idlers and sycophants, nor abandon them ou 
 a solitary island, where many sing and none discourse. 
 What life is wretcheder? what state more abject?" 
 
 '' Yours, my dear Pericles ! " said I, " is far happier, 
 but by no means enviable." 
 
 "True!" answered he; "I am subject to threats, 
 curses, denunciations, ostracism, and hemlock ; but I 
 glory in the glory of the state, and I know that I can 
 maintain it." 
 
 I was listening with attention, when he said to me with 
 an air of playfulness : 
 
 " Am I not a boaster ? am I not proud of my com- 
 mand ? am I not over-fond of it, when I am resolved not 
 to transmit it hereditarily to another?" 
 
 "Rightly judged, dear Pericles!" said I; "you 
 always act judiciously and kindly." 
 
 "Political men, like goats," continued he, " usually 
 thrive best among inequalities. I have chosen tiie 
 meadow ; and not, on the whole, imprudently. My life 
 has been employed in making it more pleasurable, more 
 even, more productive. The shepherds have often quar- 
 relled with me ; and but now the sheep, too, in their wis- 
 dom, turned their heads against me." 
 
 AVe went intothe air, and saw Alcibiades walking in 
 the garden. He, not observing us, strode along rapidly, 
 striking with his cane every tree in the alley. When we 
 came up nearer, he was repeating : 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 189 
 
 " The fanatical k'aaves ! I would knock the heads off 
 all their Mercuries. 
 
 " Noisy demagogues ! I would lead them into the 
 midst of the enemy . . I would drag them on by the ears 
 . . not fifty should return. They, iu their audacity, im- 
 peach Aspasia ! they bring tears into the eyes of Pericles ! 
 I will bring more into theirs, by holy Jupiter ! " 
 
 He started at our approach. My husband laid his 
 hands upon the youth's shoulder, and said to him : 
 
 " But, Alcibiades ! if you do not lead fifty back, where 
 will you leave the captives?" 
 
 He sprang to the neck of his guardian, and, turning 
 his face toward me, blushed and whispered : 
 
 " Did she, too, hear me?" 
 
 CLXIT. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 I would not disturb you, my beloved Pericles ! but let 
 not anything else ! Why are you so busy now the dan- 
 ger is over? why do so many come to you, with counte- 
 nances so earnest when they enter, and so different from 
 composed when they go away ? You never break your 
 resolutions, otherwise I should fear they might lead you 
 above the place of fellow-citizen. Then farewell happi- 
 ness, farewell manliness, security, sincerity, affection, 
 honor. 
 
 O Pericles ! descend from the car of Victory on the 
 course itself. la abandoning power and station, what do 
 you abandon but inquietude and ingratitude? 
 
 CLXV. PEEICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 We never alight from a carriage while it is going down 
 a hill, but always at the top or at the bottom. There is 
 less danger in being shaken out than there is in leaping 
 out. 
 
 Were I at this juncture to abdicate my authority, I 
 should appear to the people to confess a fault, and to mj« 
 self to commit one. 
 
190 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 I must defend those who would have defended me. 
 Rely on my firmuess in all things ; on Pericles, one, 
 immutable. 
 
 CLXVI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Alcibiades will one time or other bring us all into peril 
 by his recklessness and precipitation. 
 
 When he heard I was arraigned and Pericles threat- 
 ened, he ran from house to house among the officers of 
 the army, embraced them, knelt before them, adjure<! 
 them to save their general from ignominy, his wife fronv 
 insult, the city from mourning, and themselves from in- 
 activity. He swore that if they would not, he would : 
 that two thousand of the same age, or rather older, would 
 join him and obey him, and that he would throw judges, 
 accusers, applauders, listeners, over the Pirseus. Not a 
 soldier did he pass without a kiss, without a pressure of 
 the hand, without a promise ; not a girl iu Athens that 
 was not his sister, not a matron that was not his mother. 
 
 Within an hour, in every part of the city there were 
 cries : 
 
 "■ The Lacedcemonians have none of these rogues 
 among them." 
 
 " No accusers there ; no judges there." 
 
 " Archidamos is wise ; Pericles is wiser ; shall the one 
 be a king, the other a culprit?" 
 
 "Shall his war-horse," cried a soldier, "carry pan- 
 niers?" 
 
 " Fore-foot and hind-foot say I," cried another, " against 
 these market-place swine, these black-muzzled asses ! " 
 
 " Out upon them ! what have they won for us? " cried 
 another. 
 
 "And what have we not won for them?" roared the 
 next. 
 
 "What was all the stir about?" asked one more 
 quiet. 
 
 "They dared to accuse our general of denying their 
 dues to the gods. Liars ! he gives every man his due." 
 A laugh aiose. "No laughing here! 1 uphold it, we 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 101 
 
 soldiers can take as good care of the gods as they can. 
 Who believes they ever were in danger? Pericles might 
 have cracked them by the dozen : he has left them all 
 standing ; not a head missing. Save him, comrades, 
 from the cowards, the poisoners." 
 
 On all sides of the city the soldiers ran to their officers, 
 and then toward the house of Pericles. It was with diffi- 
 culty he could dissuade them from their resolution to 
 confer upon him the same authority and station as Archi- 
 damos holds among the Spartans. 
 
 "We shall then meet the enemy upon equal terms," 
 said they ; " ay, more than equal ; affability for morose- 
 ness, liberality for parsimony." 
 
 The greater part of the citizens would have followed : 
 the turbulent for change, the peaceable for tranquillity. 
 
 My husband has allayed the tempest : his ambition is 
 higher. Nothing can be taken from the name of Pericles, 
 and what is added to it must be of baser metal. 
 
 CLXTD. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 The poet Hermippos will be remembered for the ma- 
 lignity of his accusation against me, when all the poetry 
 he has ever written, even the worst of it, is forgotten. 
 At what a price would many men purchase the silence 
 of futurity ! Hermippos wiU procure it reasonably, ex- 
 cepting two memorable words, Prosecutor of Aspasia. 
 Such people show me only the more clearly to the world, 
 by throwing their torches at me. Pallas hath whispered 
 in my ear, both dreaming and awake, that distant times 
 shall recognize me, never perhaps alone, but sometimes 
 by the side of Pericles, and sometimes on the bosom of 
 Cleone. 
 
 CLXArrn. acpasia to pericles. 
 
 What but the late outrages, or rather, what but the 
 ascendancy you have obtained in consequence, could have 
 brought 'he aristocratical party to offer you their services, 
 
192 PKBICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 in helping to keep down the ferocity of the populace ? It 
 might indeed be well to unite them, were it possible ; but 
 not being possible, I would rather place the more confi- 
 dence in the less ignorant and turbulent. 
 
 CLXIX. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Aspasia ! as you are cautious not to look earnestly at a 
 handsome man, but rather turn your eyes another way, 
 so must I do in regard to Aristocracy. It is not proper 
 that I should discover any charms in her. 
 
 Among the losses I sustained by the flight of youth, I 
 ought to regret my vanity. I had not enough of it for a 
 robe, but 1 had enough for a vest ; enough to keep me 
 warm and comfortable. Not a remnant have I now. Why 
 be ashamed of our worthy party? Did I espouse it for its 
 virtues? Was it ever in high repute for its fidelity? 
 What is it to me whether a couple or two of housed pards 
 bite one another's tails off or not, excepting that they lie 
 down the quieter for it afterward? They have still heads 
 and necks to be led along by. We have only to walk up 
 to them firmly, to look at them steadily, speak to them 
 boldly, lay the hand upon them confidently as their 
 masters, and grasp them with a tenacity that neither 
 relaxes nor hurts. He who does this, and there are some 
 who can do it, may go forth and <;atch other beasts with 
 them, and feast all his friends in the city. 
 
 CLXX. ASPASIA TO PEKICLES. 
 
 There is irritation in your irony, O Pericles ! your 
 spirit is not at rest. Unworthily, for the first time since 
 I knew you, have you thought and spoken ! Thought ! 
 no, Pericles ! passion is not thought. Contumely has 
 produced this bitterness ; it left you with the words. 
 
PELiCLES AND ASPASIA. 193 
 
 CLXXI. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Aspasia ! you have looked into my heart, and purified 
 it. Your indignities sometimes rise up before me ; and 
 it is only when I am prompted to do wrong by others, 
 that I recover all my firmness. Athens has a right to 
 my solicitude and devotion. I will forget no favor she 
 has ever shown me, and remember no enmity. 
 
 CLXXII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Peace is at all times a blessing ; and war, even the 
 most prosperous, a curse. In war extremely few of men's 
 desires are gratified, and those the most hateful ; in peace 
 many, and those the kindliest. Were it possible to limit 
 the duration of hostiUties, the most adverse nations, in 
 the enjoyment of a long security, would find time enough 
 for the cultivation of the social afiections, and for the 
 interchange of hospitality and other friendly ofiices. As 
 some bodily diseases, if they can only be deferred for a 
 certain time, terminate altogether, so might the worst of 
 social diseases, war. I do not much wonder that no 
 statesman ever upheld this truth ; but I do greatly that it 
 is to be found among the tenets of no philosopher. We 
 women, who are liable to the worst outrages, and are 
 framed by nature to the greatest susceptibility of fears, 
 usually love war the most, until it enters our houses. 
 "We are delighted at the sound and at the spectacle from 
 afar ; and no music is more pleasing to our ears than that 
 which is the prelude to the cries of agony and death. 
 The Spartans are now ravaging all the country round 
 about us. Will they never let me visit their celebrated 
 city? Must I never fancy I am a Helen while I am 
 bathing in the Eurotas or the Tiasa ? I am curious to see 
 their Skeias,* and to compare it with our Hecatompedon 
 
 * " It was of a cirular form, with a roof like an umbrella, and 
 erected about 760 years B. C." — St. John's Ancient Greece. The 
 most learned, the most comprehensive, and the most judicious 
 work ever written about the manners, the institutions, and the 
 localities of that country. 
 
 13 
 
194 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 It would interest me the more, because in this edifice the 
 lyre of our countryman Timotheus is suspended. It was 
 forfeited, you know, for his having added four strings. 
 Woe betide those improvident creatures who add anything 
 to our delights ! But surely poor Timotheus must have 
 fallen among the poets. 
 
 CLXXIII. ASPASIA TO PEKICLES. 
 
 When the war is over, as surely it must be in another 
 year, let us sail among the islands of the ^gsean, and be 
 young as ever. O that it were permitted us to pass 
 together the remainder of our lives in privacy and retire- 
 ment ! This is never to be hoped for in Athens. 
 
 I inherit from my mother a small yet beautiful house 
 in Tenos : I remember it well. Water, clear and cold, 
 ran before the vestibule ; a sycamore shaded the whole 
 building. I think Tenos must be nearer to Athens than 
 to Miletus. Could we not go now for a few days ? How 
 temperate was the air, how serene the sky, how beautiful 
 the country ! the people how quiet, how gentle, how 
 kind-hearted ! 
 
 Is there any station so happy as an uncontested place 
 in a small community, where manners are simple, where 
 wants are few, where respect is the tribute of probity, 
 and love is the guerdon of beneficence ? O Pericles ! let 
 us go ; we can return at any time. 
 
 CLXXIV. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 TTie gratitude and love I owe to Pericles induces me to 
 write the very day I have landed at Lampsacos. You 
 are prudent, Aspasia ! and your prudence is of the best 
 quality ; instinctive delicacy. But I am older than you, 
 or than Pericles, although than Pericles by only six years ; 
 and, having no other pretext to counsel you, will rest 
 upon this. Do not press him to abstain from public 
 business ; for, supposing he is by nature no obstinate 
 
PERICLES ANB ASPASIA. 195 
 
 man, yet the long possession of authority has accustomed 
 him to grasp the tighter what is touched ; as shell-fish 
 contract the claws at an atom. The simile is not an 
 elegant one, but I offer it as the most apposite. He 
 might believe that you fear for him, and that you wish 
 him to fear ; this alone would make him pertinacious. 
 Let everything take its season with him. Perhaps it is 
 necessary that he should control the multitude : if it is, 
 he will know it ; even yoU could not stir him, and would 
 only molest him by the attempt. Age is coming on. 
 This will not loosen his tenacity of power . . it usually 
 has quite the contrary effect . . but it will induce him to 
 give up more of his time to the studies he has always de- 
 lighted in, which, however, were insufficient for the full 
 activity of his mind. Mine is a sluggard ; I have sur- 
 rendered it entirely to philosophy, and it has made little 
 or no progress ; it has dwelt pleased with hardly anything 
 it has embraced, and has often run back again from foud 
 prepossessions to startling doubts : it could not help it. 
 
 But as we sometimes find one thing while we are look- 
 ing for another, so, if truth escaped me, happiness and 
 contentment fell in my way, and have accompanied me 
 even to Lampsacos. 
 
 Be cautious, O Aspasia ! of discoursing on philosophy. 
 Is it not in philosophy as in love ? the more we have of 
 it, and the less we talk about it, the better. Never touch 
 upon religion with anybody. The irreligious are incurable 
 and insensible ; the religious are morbid and irritable ; 
 the former would scorn, the latter would strangle you. 
 It appears to me to be not only a dangerous, but, what 
 is worse, an indelicate thing, to place ourselves where 
 we are likely to see fevers and frenzies, writhings and 
 distortions, debilities and deformities. Religion at Ath- 
 ens is like a fountain near Dodona, which extinguishes a 
 lighted torch, and which gives a flame of its own to an 
 unlighted one held down to it. Keep yours in your 
 chamber ; and let the people run about with theirs ; but 
 remember, it is rather apt to catch the skirts. Believe 
 me, I am happy : I am not deprived of my friends. Imag- 
 ination is little less strong in our later years than in 
 
196 PERICLES AND ASPA.SIA. 
 
 our earlier. True, it alights on fewer objects, but it 
 rests longer on them, and sees them better. Pericles 
 first, and then you, and then Meton, occupy my thoughts. 
 I am with you still ; I study with you, just as before, 
 although nobody talks aloud in the school-room. 
 
 This is the pleasantest part of life. Oblivion throws 
 her light coverlet over our infancy ; and, soon after we 
 are out of the cradle, we forget howr soundly we had been 
 slumbering, and how delightful were our dreams. Toil 
 and pleasure contend for us almost the instant we rise 
 from it ; and weariness follows whichever has carried us 
 away. We stop awhile, look around us, wonder to find 
 we have completed the circle of existence, fold our arms, 
 and fall asleep again. 
 
 CLXXV. ANAXAGOEAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Proxenos, a native of Massilia, is lately come over to 
 visit his relations and correspondents. The Phocaeaus, 
 you know, were the founders of Lampsacos, long before 
 they were driven by the invasion of Cyrus into Italy and 
 Gaul. Like the generality of mercantile men, Proxenos 
 is little attached to any system of philosophy, but appears 
 to hold in some esteem the name aud institutions of Py- 
 thagoras. Formerly we have conversed together with 
 Pericles on this extraordinary man, regretting that so 
 little is known of him in the midst of his celebrity. 
 Hardly a century hath elapsed since he left his native 
 Samos, and settled on the peaceful shores of Italy. His 
 presence, his precepts, his authority, his example, were 
 unavailing to the preservation of that tranquillity, which 
 the beauty of the climate, the fertility of the soil, and 
 the freedom of the institutions, ought to have established 
 aud perpetuated. But it is in the regions of the earth as 
 in the regions of the air ; the warm and genial are ab- 
 sorbed by the cold and void, and tempests and storms en- 
 sue. The happiness of thousands is the happiness of toe 
 many, in the close calculation of some inexpert contriver ; 
 and hii spoils the honey by smoking the hive. No sooner 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 197 
 
 is a nation at ease, than he who should be the first to 
 participate in the blessing, is the most uneasy ; and, 
 when at last he has found a place to his mind, before he 
 lies down he scratches a hole in it, as the dogs do. Such 
 had been the case at Samos, and such was likewise the 
 case at Croton. The difference lay merely in this. Poly- 
 crates was a man of abilities, and capable of holding the 
 government in his single hand : he loved power, he loved 
 pleasure, he contented the populace, and he reconciled the 
 wise : Croton was subject to the discretion of an oligar- 
 chy, incompetent, arrogant, jealous, and unjust. It is 
 untrue that Pythagoras was ever at enmity with him, or 
 was treated by him with disrespect. The one was as 
 fond of authority as the other, and neither was willing 
 to divide it. Whatever could be done to promote the 
 studies of the philosopher was done spontaneously by the 
 chief magistrate, who gave him letters of recommenda- 
 tion to the king of Egypt. By these, and perhaps by 
 these only, could he ever have penetrated into the inner- 
 most recesses of the priesthood. Conversing with them, 
 and observing their power over the people, he lost noth- 
 ing of his inclination to possess the same, and added 
 much to the means of acquiring it. Epimenides the 
 Cretan was perhaps the exemplar he had resolved to fol- 
 low, but with mitigated severity. Solon, with all his 
 wisdom, and never had mortal more, was unable to bring 
 back the Athenians to the simplicity and equity of their 
 forefathers. Knowing well their propensity to supersti- 
 tion, which always acts with its greatest intensity on tbe 
 cruel and the loose, he invited Epimenides to come and 
 overawe them by his sanctity and his sacrifices. We can- 
 not doubt that he left the whole management of their 
 conversion to the discretion of the stranger. An Epi- 
 menides, in all ages of the world, will possess more influ- 
 ence than a Solon. Lustrations and sacrifices followed 
 prodigies and omens ; and among the marvels and mir- 
 acles which the Cretan seer displayed, the last was the 
 greatest in the eyes of Athens. He announced his 
 determination to return home, and refused all the honors 
 and riches the people would have lavished on him. Epi- 
 
198 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 menides wanted nothing : the gods were less moderate ; 
 they required a human victim. Cratinos was too happy 
 in devoting his hlood at the altar ; Ctesibias, on the 
 bosom of his friend. 
 
 Proxenos is come in by appointment, and has broken 
 off an old story which you know as well as I do. I will 
 give you his ; but not without an account from you in 
 return, of what is going on among the craft at Athens. 
 
 CLXXVI. ASPASIA TO ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 Secrecy and mystery drive the uninitiated into suspi- 
 cion and distrust : an honest man never wiU propose, and 
 a prudent man never wiU comply with, the condition. 
 What is equitable and proper lies wide open on the plain, 
 and is accessible to all, without an entrance through lab- 
 yrinth or defile. I do not love Pythagoras nor Epime- 
 nides, nor indeed my friend Socrates so much as perhaps 
 I should, who, however, beside his cleverness, has many 
 good qualities. He, like Pythagoras, is endowed with 
 an extraordinary share of intellect ; but neither of them 
 has attained the fixed and measured scope of true phil- 
 osophy : the one being in perpetual motion to display his 
 surprising tricks of rhetorical ingenuity, which tend only 
 to the confusion of truth and falsehood, and consequently 
 to indifference in the choice of them ; the other was no 
 less active and restless in the acquisition and mainte- 
 nance of power. The business of philosophy is to ex- 
 amine and estimate all those things which come withiu 
 the cognizance of the understanding. Speculations on 
 any that lie beyond, are only pleasant dreams, leaving 
 the mind to the lassitude of disappointment. They are 
 easier than geometry and dialectics ; they are easier than 
 the efforts of a well-regulated imagination in the structure 
 of a poem. These are usually held forth by them as 
 feathers and thistle-down ; yet condescend they neverthe- 
 less to employ them ; numerals as matter and mind ; 
 harmony as flute and fiddle-strings to the dances of the 
 star* In their compositions they adojt the phraseology 
 
PEHICLES AND ASPASIA. 199 
 
 and courtesy to the cadences of poetry. Look nearer ; 
 and what do you see before you ? the limbs of Orpheus, 
 bloodless, broken, swollen, and palpitating on the cold 
 and misty waters of the Hebrus. Such are the rhapsodical 
 scraps in their visionary lucubrations. They would poi- 
 son Homer, the purest and soundest of moralists, the 
 most ancient and venerable of philosophers, not out of 
 any iU-wiU to him, but out of love to the human race. 
 There is often an enchantment in their sentences, by 
 which the ear is captivated, and against which the intel- 
 lectual powers are disinclined to struggle ; and there is 
 sometimes, but very rarely, a simplicity of manner, 
 which wins like truth. But when ambition leads them 
 toward the poetical, tHey fall flat upon thorny ground. 
 No writer of florid prose ever was more than a secondary 
 poet. Poetry, in her high estate, is delighted with ex- 
 uberant abundance, but imposes on her worshipper a sever- 
 ity of selection. She has not only her days of festival, 
 but also her days of abstinence, and, unless upon some 
 that are set apart, prefers the graces of sedateness to the 
 revelry of enthusiam. She rejects, as inharmonious and 
 barbarous, the mimicry of her voice and manner by ob- 
 streperous sophists and argute grammar-'ans, and she 
 scatters to the winds the loose fragments oi the schools. 
 
 Socrates and his disciples run about the streets, pick up 
 every young person they meet with, carry him away 
 with them, and prove to him that everything he ever heard 
 is false, and everything he ever said is foolish. He must 
 love his father and mother in their way, or not at all. 
 The only questions they ask him are those which they 
 know he cannot answer, and the only doctrines they in- 
 culcate are those which it is impossible he should under- 
 stand. He has now fairly reached sublimity, and looks 
 of wonder are interchanged at his progress. Is it sublime 
 to strain our vision into a fog? and must we fancy we see 
 far because we are looking where nobody can see farther ? 
 
200 PEHICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CLXXTII. ANAXAGOKAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 The Massilian is intelligent and communicative. Some 
 matters which he related at our conference you will per- 
 haps remember in Herodotus : others are his own story ; 
 so let him tell the whole in his own manner. 
 
 " The unbroken force of Persia was brought under the 
 walls of Phocaea. Harpagos, equally wise and generous, 
 offered to our citizens the most favorable terms of surren- 
 der. They requested one day for deliberation. Aware 
 of their intentions, he dissembled his knowledge, and 
 allowed them to freight their ships, embark, and sail 
 away. His clemency was, however, no security to his 
 garrison. Within a few days the expatriated citizens 
 landed again, slew every Persian within the walls, then, 
 casting a mass of iron into the sea, swore they would 
 never return a second time until it rose and floated on the 
 surface. Some historians would persuade us that, after 
 this cruel vengeance, this voluntary and unanimous oath, 
 the greater part returned. Such a tale is idle and absurd. 
 The Persians would too surely have inflicted due ven- 
 geance on their perfidy. Some, however, did indeed sep- 
 arate from the main body of the emigration, and came 
 to reside here in Lampsacos, which their ancestors had 
 founded, and where they continued on the most hospitable 
 terms by frequent intermarriages. The bulk of the expe- 
 dition reached Alalia, a colony of theirs, led recently into 
 Corsica. Here they continued to reside but a little time 
 unmolested by the jealousy of the Carthaginians and 
 Tyrrhenians. Undaunted by the coalition against them, 
 and by the loss of many ships in a battle with the united 
 fleet of the confederates, they sailed to the neighborhood 
 of the more ancient Grecian cities, and founded Elea, near 
 Poseidonia. And now probably they first became ac- 
 quainted with the disciples of Pythagoras. He himself, 
 it is said, retired to Metaponton, and died there. When 
 he went from Samos to Croton, he was in the vigor of 
 life ; and not many years elapsed ere he beheld the over- 
 throw of his institutions. He is reported by some Ir 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 201 
 
 have attained an extreme old age, which his tranquillity 
 and temperance render probable. Even without this sup- 
 position, he may, perhaps, have visited the coast of Gaul, 
 before or after the arrival of the Phocaeaps. Collecting, 
 we may imagine, additional forces from the many lonians 
 whom the generals of Cyrus had expelled, they began to 
 build the city of Massilia, not long after the settlement 
 at Elea, which the vicinity of powerful states, and ith 
 incapacity and insecurity for the mooring of a navy, ren- 
 dered ineligible as the seat of government, or as a con- 
 stant station." 
 
 Thus much I had collected from Proxenos, when he 
 began to give me information on anchorages and harbors, 
 imports and exports ; I could not in common civility 
 interrupt him, or ask anything better than what it pleased 
 him to bestow on me. As our acquaintance strengthens, 
 I will draw more unreservedly from his stores. 
 
 CLXXVni. ANAXAGOEAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Proxenos runs into some errors both in regard to facts 
 and motives. It is false that Pythagoras, on returning 
 from his voyage in Egypt, was indignant at finding a 
 tyrant in his native city. Polycrates was in possession 
 of the supreme power when the philosopher left the island, 
 and used it with clemency and discretion. The traveller 
 might have gone and might have returned with discontent, 
 but indignation is averse to favors, and these he was by 
 no means reluctant to accept. Finding he could not be 
 the principal man among his fellow-citizens, he resolved 
 to attain that rank where the supremacy was yet unoc- 
 cupied. He had seen enough of the Egyptian and heard 
 enough of the Indian priesthood, to convince him that, by 
 a system somewhat similar to theirs, absolute power was 
 more attainable and more safe. He took lessons and pre- 
 cautions ; and wherever there was a celebrated and ancient 
 temple, he visited its priests, and explored the origin and 
 conduct of their institutions and authority. In recom- 
 pense for these, he is reported to have raised his tunic to 
 
202 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 the holy ones at Olympia, and to have displayed a golden 
 thigh. Nothing so royal, so godlike, had been seen since 
 the reign of Pelops. A golden thigh is worth an ivory 
 shoulder. Such a miracle, we may be sure, was not 
 altogether lost upon the prophetess at Delphi, the fair 
 Themistocleia, who promulgated to him her secrets in 
 return. 
 
 His doctrines were kept within his own circle, under 
 the safeguard of an oath. This in all countries is and 
 ought to be forbidden, as being the prerogative of the 
 magistracy. Love of supremacy was the motive in all 
 his injunctions and in all his actions. He avoided the 
 trouble of office and the danger of responsibility ; he 
 excluded the commons, and called to him the nobles, who 
 alone were deemed worthy of serving him. Among these 
 he established an equality, which, together with the reg- 
 ularity and frugality of their living, must have tended to 
 conciliate and gratify in some measure the poorer citizens. 
 Certain kinds of animal food were forbidden, as in India, 
 and other countries less remote, but, contrary to what we 
 have often heard asserted, no species of pulse or vege- 
 table. '■'■ Abstain from the bean" signified ^'■abstain from 
 elections to political employments." The teacher was in 
 the place of parent to his disciples, who appear to have 
 renounced all the natural affections that had sprung up 
 before they entered the society. His regimen was mild 
 and generous : its principal merit was, however, the re- 
 pression of loquacity, — common in the ardor of youth 
 after its chase in the fields of knowledge ; commoner, and 
 more unbecoming, in the morose repose of an arrogant 
 philosdphy. The history of Pythagoras, forasmuch as he 
 interests us in being the leader of a sect and of a party, 
 is neither long nor obscure. The commons of Croton 
 soon began to perceive that, under his management, the 
 sons of the aristocracy would be no better inclined than 
 their fathers had been to concede them an equal share in 
 the government ; and the rulers themselves, day after 
 day, lost somewhat of authority in their families. During 
 the whole time that he had resided in Italy, the people of 
 nearly all the Greek cities heaved indignantly under op- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 203 
 
 pressive oligarchies. Sybaris, whose health they were 
 absorbing in more than CircEean luxuries, rose first upon 
 her feet, and expelled the council of five hundred. They 
 retired for refuge to the lords of Croton ; and, when the 
 Sybarites called for justice on them, the demand was voted 
 an affront. And now, indeed, the veil of sanctity and se- 
 clusion was violently rent by the disciples of the Samian. 
 He incited them to maintain peace and good government ; 
 pointed out to them the phantom of Freedom, how it 
 lolasted every region it passed over ; and adjured them to 
 the defence of their rulers by the purity of their religion. 
 They marched, fought a battle, won it, and Sybaris was 
 swept from the earth. 
 
 Discord, I suspect, O Aspasia ! is the readiest of all 
 the deities to appear at our invocation. The oligarchs 
 of Croton, long accustomed to uncontrolled power and 
 irresponsible injustice, refused to the army, now compre- 
 hending all the active citizens, even the smallest portion 
 of the spoils. Again did the Crotoniats cry to arms ; 
 and again, and in a better cause, were conquerors. Pyth- 
 agoras * and his disciples fied before them, and the hall in 
 which they assembled was reduced to ashes. 
 
 It is only a free city that is strong ; for it is only in a 
 free city that the mass of the people can be armed. 
 
 CLXXIX. ASPASIA TO ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 Men of powerful minds, although they never give up 
 Philosophy, yet cease by degrees to make their professions 
 in form, and lay ultimately the presents they have received 
 from her at the feet of History. Thus did Herodotus, 
 thus did HecatJBUs, and thus, let me hope, will Anax- 
 agoras. The deeds of past ages are signally reflected on 
 the advancing clouds of the future : here insurrections 
 and wrecks and conflagrations ; h€re the ascending, there 
 the drooping diadem ; the mighty host, the mightier man 
 before it ; and, in the serener line on the horizon, tha 
 
 •Pythagoras was a Prae-jesuit. 
 
204 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 emersion of cities and citadels over far-off seas. There 
 are those who know in what quarter to look for them ; 
 but it is rarely to their hands the power of promoting the 
 good, or averting the evil, is intrusted. Yet, O Anax- 
 agoras ! all is not hideous in the past, all is not gloomy in 
 the future. There are communities where the best and 
 wisest are not utterly cast aside, and where the robe of 
 Philosophy is no impediment to the steps of men. Idly 
 do our sages cry out against the poets for mistuning the 
 heart and misgoverning the intellect. Meanwhile they 
 themselves are occupied in selfish vanities on the side of 
 the aifections ; and, on the side of the understanding, iu 
 fruitless, frivolous, indefinite, interminable disquisitions. 
 If our thoughts are to be reduced to powder, I would 
 rather it were for an ingredient in a love-potion, to soften 
 with sympathies the human heart, than a charm for 
 raising up spectres to contract and to coerce it. If dust 
 is to be thrown into our eyes, let it be dust from under a 
 bright enlivening sun, and not the effect of frost and wind 
 
 CLXXX. ANAXAGOEAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Philosophy is but dry bread : men will not live upon it, 
 however wholesome ; they require the succulent food and 
 exciting cup of Religion. We differ in bodily strength, 
 in compactness of bone, and elasticity of sinew ; but we 
 all are subject to the same softness, and nearly to the same 
 distemperature, in the nobler animators of the frame, the 
 brain and blood. Thus it is in creeds : the sage and sim- 
 ple, the ardent enthusiast and the patient investigator, fall 
 into and embrace with equal pertinacity the most absurd 
 and revolting tenets. There are as many wise men who 
 have venerated the ibis and cat, as there are who have 
 bent their heads before Zeus and Pallas. No extrav- 
 agance in devotion but is defended by some other tower- 
 ing above it ; no falsehood but whose features are 
 composed to the semblance of truth. By some people 
 those things are adored that eat them ; by others, those 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 205 
 
 that they eat. Men must rest here ; superstition, satiated 
 and gorged, can go no farther. 
 
 The progression of souls is not unreasonable, the 
 transmigration is. That we shall pass hereafter into 
 many states of successive existence is credible enough ; 
 but not upon earth, not with earthly passions. Yet 
 Pythagoras was so resolute and so unguarded, that he 
 asserted to himself a series of lives here among men, by 
 the peculiar and especial favor of the gods, with a per- 
 fect consciousness of every change he had undergone. 
 Others became dogs, wolves, bears, or, peradventure, 
 men again ; but knowing- as little of what had happened. 
 Nevertheless, he pretended that these transmigrations 
 were punishments and rewards. Which is punished ? the 
 dead creature or the living? the criminal man or the 
 guiltless animal? Some believe they can throw their sins 
 into a fox ; others (in Africa for instance) into a priest. 
 Now the priest may have received what he esteems an 
 equivalent ; the fox is at once a creditor and a debtor, 
 with little hope, on either side, of indemnity or balance. 
 It is only when you or Pericles were my audience, that I 
 ever was inclined to press hard against the inconsistencies 
 of philosophers. But we must trace things to their origin 
 where we can. The greater part of those now prevalent 
 are ascribable to the school of Samos. Numerals were 
 considered by the teacher as materials, and not only as 
 the components, but as the elements, of the world. He 
 misunderstood his own theory : the reason is, he made it 
 his own by theft. The young persons who are hearers 
 of the warier Socrates, catch at it in the playground, and 
 the ill-compacted cake crumbles under their hands. 
 
 Unfavorable as my evidence must appear, and is, I am 
 fortunate in being able to lay before you another and 
 comelier representation of a philosopher so enriched by 
 genius. 1 have always, in all companies, and upon all 
 occasions, been sparing of my questions, and have exerted 
 the uttermost ingenuity I am master of, in drawing the 
 truth on, without such an instrument of torture. Prob- 
 ably I have lost by age a part of my dexterity, or presence 
 
206 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 of mind, or determination ; for Proxenos, at the close of 
 our conference, said aloud and sharply : 
 
 "You f*hall n-iver make that out. I think him a very 
 honest man ; and I think nobody an honest man who 
 thinks otherwise." 
 
 "Fair Proxenos!" I replied, "you are now greatly 
 more than a philosopher. Some favorite god alone could 
 have inspired all this enthusiam. In the vigorous ex- 
 pression of that terse apothegm is there not somewhat 
 more of the poet than of the Pythagorean ?" 
 
 "I believe there may be," replied he, "I was always 
 much given to poetry." 
 
 He grew instantly calm upon my compliment, and said, 
 with the most polite complacency : 
 
 " Well ! I am not a match for you Half-Athenians ; 
 but read this little volume by my friend Psyllos of Meta- 
 ponton ; it will open your eyes, I warrant it." 
 
 " Blessings upon it, then ! " said I, bending over and 
 taking it with due reverence ; " many of late have done 
 quite the contrary." 
 
 CLXXXI. PSTLLOS TO PISANDEE OF ELBA, 
 
 On the Lawgiver of the Gauls, forwarded to Cleone. 
 
 " Pisander ! when last we met, I promised you I would 
 make farther inquiries into the subject of our conversa- 
 tion at the house of Euryalos, and that I doubted not of 
 success in attempting to prove the identity of Pythagoras 
 and Samotes. Strange, that the idea should have oc- 
 curred to no one else in the course of many generations. 
 Was it not sufficiently clear for the follower of truth ? or 
 was it not sufficiently dark and intricate for the lover of 
 mystery and paradox? I imagine it stood between both, 
 at an equal distance from the road of each, aud thus it 
 was passed unnoticed. 
 
 " There is nobody then who can explain to me what wat, 
 the religion of the Gauls at the time of the Phocaean emi- 
 gration. Samotes is recorded as their legislator. Leg- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 207 
 
 islation here includes, as it necessarily must in ages of 
 barbarism, not only the civil institutions of the people, 
 but likewise the religious. Yet neither the character nor 
 the tenets, neither the period nor the country, nor indeed 
 the existence of Samotes, have ever been ascertained. 
 Ask the people who he was, and they will tell you that 
 he came to them over the sea, long ago. Computation of 
 time, past and future, never occupies, never occurs to, 
 the barbarian. It was long ago that the old tree, against 
 which his cabin leans, sprang up ; long ago since the 
 cabin was built ; long ago since he was a child. What- 
 ever is not visible to him, or was not, has feeble hold on 
 his memory, and never enters into his calculation. As 
 lawgiver of the Gauls, Samotes is acknowledged to have 
 instructed them both in the ceremony of human oblations 
 and in the creed of the metempsychosis ; for these are 
 mentioned together in the first opening of their history. 
 But it appears to me that the metempsychosis, which is 
 generally held as the basis of druidism, is adventitious. 
 We shall find that this institution is composed of two 
 extremely different and obstinately discordant parts. One, 
 the result of ferocity, varies but little from what exists 
 in the early state of most nations ; which diversity may 
 be accounted for, from their climate, their wants, their 
 habits, and pursuits. The other is ingrafted on its sav- 
 age stock, by the steady but not sufiiciently impressive 
 hand of a gentle and provident philosophy. You ask me 
 when ? by whom ? One word will solve both questions : 
 by Samotes ; by the man of Samos. Do you doubt that 
 he ever was in Gaul ? And do you think it probable 
 that, with his fondness for travelling, his alacrity in in- 
 quiry, he would have resided many years in Italy, and 
 have never once visited a country so near to him, a coun- 
 try so singular in its customs, at least in the combination of 
 them, if such customs then existed, a country on whose shores 
 the most valiant of his own countrymen were landing ? 
 If at this early epoch the tribes of Gaul believed in the 
 metempsychosis, would not sympathy, would not admira^ 
 tion, have impelled him thither? But if, on the contrary, 
 
208 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 the doctrine did not prevail, who introduced it? what 
 author of greater weight? I am curious to learn his 
 name or his country. Perhaps by knowing the one, we 
 may guess the other, since the ideas he impressed and 
 left behind him are stamped with a peculiar mark. It 
 may be argued that, able to inculcate lastingly on the 
 mind of his Gallic proselytes a dogma which seems to 
 have been received but partially, and to have soon disap- 
 peared, where he lived in the full exercise of authority, 
 he still was unable to abolish, as he would wish to do, 
 their sanguinary rites. He was : for it is easier to learn 
 than to unlearn what incessantly works and excites and 
 agitates our passions. The advantages of the metemp- 
 sychosis were perhaps the most striking of any that 
 could be presented to warlike minds ; to which minds, 
 you must have remarked, O Pisander, advantages will 
 present themselves more readily than disadvantages. Be- 
 side, the Druids, whom we cannot well consider at any 
 time a very enlightened order, or likely to see every con- 
 sequence, every contingency, had no direct interest in 
 suppressing such a doctrine. New colonies were endeav- 
 oring to establish themselves in their country ; and col- 
 onies are the unfailing seed of wars. For, if they tlourish, 
 they require an accession of territory ; if they do not 
 flourish, they either turn into vagabonds and robbers, or 
 employ violence to remove the obstacles that impede their 
 industry. Something great, then, and something new 
 was wanting, since the danger that impended was both 
 new and great. Immolations before them on one side, 
 and the sublime view of the metempsychosis on the other, 
 what could either shake the confidence or abate the cour- 
 age of the Gauls? A new body was new armor, 
 beautiful, strong, in which they would elude the rage 
 and laugh at the impotence of War. It was delightfld 
 to try other scenes of existence, to extinguish their burn- 
 ing wounds in the blood of their enemies, and to mount 
 from the shields of their comrades into fresh life and 
 glory. 
 
 " A religion thus compounded is absurd and contradic- 
 
PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 209 
 
 tory, but contradiction and absurdity in religion are not 
 peculiar to barbarians. The sacrifice of a human victim 
 was deemed the most solemn and important duty, and 
 they would rather abandon any other ceremony than 
 this. They were savage ; we are civilized ; they fought, 
 and their adversaries were to share their immortality ; 
 we fight to make others as abject as ourselves. They 
 had leaders of proud spirit who raised them to the 
 heavens ; we have heavy oligarchs who bend us to the 
 earth. 
 
 " Rituals, in even the less ardent and intractable, are 
 not soon, nor easily, nor all at once, resigned. We must 
 cease, then, to marvel that the most impressive, the most 
 avsrful, and perhaps the most universal of devotions, hu- 
 man sacrifice, should not have been overthrown by the 
 declining years of Pythagoras. It is true he retained his 
 faculties to the last ; he retained also the energy of his 
 mind ; but the voluntary exile of Samos was purely a 
 lawgiver in philosophy. His religion was not intolerant 
 nor intrusive, but mainly adapted to the humbler offices 
 of temperance and peace. Beyond this, little is known, 
 and much is feigned of him. It would have been well if 
 historians had related to us more of what he did, and 
 less of what he did not. If, instead of the story of his 
 dying in a bean-field, through horror of its impurity, they 
 had carefully traced and pointed out his travels, they 
 would neither have mentioned his voyage to India* nor 
 have omitted his voyage to Gaul. The priests on 
 the Nile were at all times well acquainted with their 
 brethren on the Indus and Ganges ; and indeed I believe 
 that all the great temples of the world have secret com- 
 munications. Do not lift up your hands, my good Pisan- 
 der ! not underground, not magical, but opened from 
 time to time, in cases of difficulty and danger, through 
 confidential agents .f 
 
 * If Pythagoras had visited India, the learned men who ac- 
 companied Alexander would have inquired after him, and would 
 have given the result. 
 
 t The use of gunpowder, for instance, if not of gnus, was 
 known to the priests in countries the most distant and of the 
 
 14 
 
210 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 " All religions in which there is no craft nor cruelty, are 
 pleasing to the immortal gods ; because all acknowledge 
 their power, invoke their presence, exhibit our dependence, 
 and exhort our gratitude. Therefore, let us never be re- 
 miss in our duty of veneration to those holy men, who 
 not only manifest their good-will toward such as think 
 and worship with them, but also toward the stranger at 
 the steps of other altars. While orators, and poets, and 
 philosophers too, are riotous and quarrelsome, malicious 
 and vindictive. Religion leads to herself, and calls her 
 own, the priests of all persuasions, who extend their 
 hands one to another from a distance, unrestricted by 
 jealousy and undefiled by blood. 
 
 " How great, O my friend, is our consolation in the 
 certainty that our prayers and sacrifices are accepted ! so 
 long as the priests in our country and around us live fra- 
 ternally, let us likewise be of the household. But if any 
 devastating religion should spring up, any which rouses 
 strife and spreads distrust, any which sunders man from 
 man, that religion must be rejected by the gods as 
 wicked, and renounced by their worshippers as ineffec- 
 tual. The claimants of such an imposition shall never 
 have from me white flour or salt. Should you question 
 why the milder creed had little effect in Gaul, — why the 
 golden rules are not valued by the people as the precious 
 relics of a departed master. — I reply, that in such a state 
 of society it was impossible to bring them bodily into 
 use. The priests alone (and it is not every priest who 
 will readily sit down to be instructed) could profit by his 
 knowledge of geometry, or would apply to practice of 
 speculation his theory of numbers. A few of them are 
 not utterly ignorant of either ; and it is hence that the 
 trickling may be traced. Men living in a state of bar- 
 barism and warfare would entertain but small respect 
 for_ injunctions to abstain from any obvious and palatable 
 food. Silence, forbearance, quietude, it cannot be ex- 
 most different religions. The army of the Macedonians was 
 smitten by its lightnings under the walls of the Oxydr.icians ; 
 the Gauls, and afterward the Persians, under the temple of 
 Delphi. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 211 
 
 pected should be the inmates of a camp. Soldiers with- 
 out regular supplies (in which consists the main difficulty 
 and on which depend the main advantages in the science 
 of war) must subsist on whatever they can seize ; and 
 men without regular government (by which I can intend 
 no other than of magistrates chosen by the people) would, 
 if we consider the bean as employed in ballot, be ig- 
 norant of the lax and foreign interpretation. 
 
 " As the fountains of the most celebrated rivers are 
 neither easily discoverable nor large, so it often happens 
 that things of the greatest moment, in the political and 
 moral world, are derived from an obscure, from a remote, 
 and from a slender origin. I have given you my opinion 
 on the cause of the supposition ; but, having heard another, 
 however less probable, I will report it.* 
 
 " In the south of Italy, where Pythagoras resided, are 
 several cities, Tarentum in particular, of Lacedaamonian 
 foundation. One festival of this people, whose ancestors 
 were distinguished for frugality, was, nevertheless, even in 
 the midst of primitive Lacedjemon, even in the bosom of 
 Temperance herself, deformed with foul excess. It was 
 called The Feast of the Nurses. They carried male in- 
 fants to the Temple of Diana, and, after exposing them- 
 selves among the tents where the populace was assembled, 
 fed them with the entrails of swine, which had been sac- 
 rificed, and with figs, vetches, and beans. Their morals, 
 we may believe, were not rendered more austere by the 
 fertility and invitations of a delicious climate. At a dis- 
 tance from Taygetos and Cithsron, they were (allow me 
 the expression) beyond the latitudes of checking breezes 
 from the headlands of bluff morality ; and the voice of 
 the Syrens sounded in ears sealed only to the call of rep- 
 rehension and reproof. The hunter of Laconia would 
 have smiled to hear them imitate his shout, and teU the 
 trembling Sybarite, their neighbor, that such were the 
 shouts of Spartans. He would have wondered that ter- 
 ror should be excited in another by that which excited 
 
 *Query, whether any author now extant, excepting Psyllos, in 
 his epistle, mentions this. 
 
212 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 only ridicule in himself; he would have stared not a little 
 at the start from the couch, and the rustle of roses on the 
 marble floor. 
 
 "Pythagoras could not say, Abstain from the city, ab- 
 stain from the fellowship of the Tarentines ; it would 
 have exasperated them against him ; but he might have 
 heard related to him some instance of sensuality which 
 happened at this festival, and might have said briefly, yet 
 significantly. Abstain from beans. Ordinances have often 
 been observed and commemorated far beyond the intent 
 and expectation of their founder. Certain it is that, for- 
 merly as at present, in the popular states of Italy, the 
 election and rejection of magistrates were signified by 
 beans ; and no less evidently was it the interest of the 
 philosophical stranger to dissuade his auditors from the 
 concerns of state. This, while it procured toleration and 
 conciliated esteem, introduced them to such habitudes of 
 close reflection, as withheld them from being the agitators, 
 and fitted them to become, by just degrees, the leaders of 
 the commonwealth. After all, if they pursued any other 
 line of conduct, he at least would escape uncensured, and 
 might complete without juridical, or, what he would more 
 have deprecated, popular molestation, his scheme of gen- 
 eral reform. 
 
 " 'Abstain from beans' we have considered in a moral 
 and political, but also in a religious point ; it may easily 
 be defended, by high authorities. However, I must ex- 
 press my doubts whether in the lifetime of Pythagoras 
 his followers abstained from this article of food. Is it 
 not probable that those who came after him took the let- 
 ter for the spirit, as we know it to have happened in some 
 other doctrines, and within a century from the founder's 
 death? To abstain with rigor from things indifferent 
 (and from some indeed they did abstain), may not appear 
 consistent with the exercise of reason. Arrogant it may 
 be thought in him who commanded, and infantine in those 
 who obeyed. But, in the religions which have continued 
 the longest, certain foods (it is said) are prohibited ; and 
 the observance of such prohibition is the moral cause of 
 their duration. He who will not obey in what is easy. 
 
PEiaCLES AND ASPASIA. 213 
 
 will not obey in what is difficult ; but the subjects of these 
 theocratieal governments are every day refreshed with 
 the exercise of salutary compliance. At the moment 
 when a sense of duty is liable to be extinguished in others, 
 in them it is sure to be excited : there is piety if they 
 fast ; if they satisfy their hunger there is piety. It ap- 
 pears to me, that the wisest and most provident of ori- 
 ental legislators are in nothing more worthy of our esteem 
 and veneration, than in the ordinance of these prohibi- 
 tions. Can we ascertain what nations have, or what 
 nations have not, been cannibals .'' Why does it revolt 
 more strongly against our senses to eat a man than to kill 
 one ? The crime in itself is surely not so great. Nature 
 has fixed certain barriers, of which many seem fancifully 
 chosen and arranged, against the irruption of our appe- 
 tites. There are animals never brought upon our tables, 
 although the flesh is said to be wholesome and the flavor 
 grateful. It is needless to seek how first it happened 
 that man violated the semblance of himself and of his 
 gods. Was it war, was it fanaticism, or was it famine, 
 that impelled him to the accursed sacrifice ? Pisander ! 
 Pisander ! he had tasted the fatness of the lamb that he 
 carried in his bosom ; he had tempted the fawn by ca- 
 resses from afar ; it had licked his hand, and he had shed 
 its blood ! 
 
 "Cannibals have been found where food was plentiful ; 
 and the savage does not loathe for its ugliness the hugest 
 serpent. There must be something, and it must be in 
 the brute creation, which he shall fear to consume for 
 the impiety of the deed. 
 
 " The sacrifice of a human victim can only be performed 
 with the concurrence of prince or magistracy. Of course 
 Pythagoras could not oppose it, consistently with his 
 profession of abstaining from their concerns. Neverthe- 
 less he was at liberty to introduce a doctrine which, as 
 the day of cultivation advanced, would undermine the 
 pyre and release the victim. The Druids were, and are, 
 and always will be, barbarous. Their order has not ex- 
 isted long, and will soon terminate, the Gauls being not 
 only the most ferocious of mankind, but the most suspi- 
 
214 PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 cious and acute ; they are also the most versatile, the 
 most inconstant, and (what makes sad work with solem- 
 nities), on the detection of halt or blemish, men of irre- 
 pressible mimicry and unquenchable dei'ision. Those in 
 the vicinity of Massilia are free already from the furies 
 of fanaticism. Intercourse with the Tyrrhenians and 
 Ligurians has humanized them greatly, and the softer 
 voice of Ionia has now persuaded them, that the gods 
 can take us when they want us, without wicker-baskets ; 
 and that the harp and dance are as pleasant to them as 
 the cries and agonies of dying men." 
 
 Thus ends the epistle of Psyllos ; and at least in the 
 end of it I think we shall agree. His comfits will 
 sweeten my pomegranate. 
 
 CLXXXII. ASPASIA TO ANAXAGOEAS. 
 
 Whatever may be the partiality of your Massilian to 
 Pythagoras, it is evident enough that the philosopher of 
 Samos, possessing great acquired intelligence, and gifted 
 with extraordinary powers of mind, was an intriguer and 
 an impostor. And truly, O Anaxagoras, it is much to 
 be desired that others now living were exempt from a 
 certain part of such an imputation. Our friend Socrates, 
 I am sorry to say, intimates to his friends in private that 
 he has a kind of Genius always at his ear, who fore- 
 warns him in affairs apparently the most indifferent. If 
 we consider it well, we shall be of opinion that there are 
 few things so indifferent as they seem to us ; few, the 
 consequence of which may not, visibly or invisibly, act 
 with grave importance on the future. But if a Genius, 
 a superhuman power, were to influence the actions of 
 any man, surely it would be those which must necessarily 
 put in motion the levers and regulators of a common- 
 wealth. We are all under the guidance of a deity if we 
 will let him act on us ; but it is as easy to slip from un- 
 der his guidance, as it is difficult to escape from the pen- 
 alties of our error. Already there are some who are 
 jealous of Socrates and his Genius ; and who perhaps 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 215 
 
 may try hereafter whether the Genius will help him to 
 elude the laws. For novelties in religion, as you know, 
 are not held guiltless ; and a Genius that renders a man 
 wiser or better is indeed an innovator. As they cannot 
 catch him, I fear they may lay their hands upon our 
 Socrates. 
 
 CLXXXIII. ANAXAGOBAS TO PEKICLES. 
 
 It is easier to answer the questions than the kindnesses 
 of your letter. I will begin, then. 
 
 We have not two factions ; aristocracy has kept aloof 
 from Lampsacos. The people find themselves so secure 
 and comfortable under the ancient laws, that they would 
 no more hazard any innovation, than they would alter 
 their course at sea when they were sailing with a favor- 
 able wind. They hardly can be brought to believe that 
 any nation hath abrogated two laws in twenty or thirty 
 years, or hath been obliged by prosperity or adversity to 
 enact so many in so brief a space of time. Miletus was 
 always just to her colonies. She has founded more than 
 sixty ; and not a single one has ever had reason to com- 
 plain of her exactions or restrictions. All the great em- 
 pires that have existed in the world, Chaldaea, Babylonia, 
 Media, Persia, all these taken together, have not sent 
 out the hundredth part of what has gone forth from the 
 bosom of Miletus. Surely, of political glory this is the 
 highest : to rear carefully a numerous family, educate it 
 honestly, protect it bravely, and provide for it plenteously 
 and independently. Her citizens have more reason to 
 be proud of this section in their polity, than some others 
 who are much powerfuUer. Would not every mother 
 Avish to see her own features in her daughter ? her own 
 constitutional strength, her own character, her own pros- 
 perity ? What inconsistency then, what folly, what mad- 
 ness, for the metropolis to wish otherwise in regard to 
 her colony ! Is the right arm stronger by rendering the 
 left weaker ? Gain we any vantage-ground against our 
 enemy by standing on the prostrate body of our child ? 
 
216 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 To whom am I writing? to Pericles? yes, to him ; to 
 the man who best knows that the strongest reasons of 
 state proceed from the mouth of Justice. 
 
 And now let me loose again. Seldom have I written, 
 and never have I spoken, so long at a time on such a 
 Mubject. Could you ever draw from me even an opinion 
 on these matters, ia a city where (excepting myself) you 
 alone preserved in them your calmness, equanimity, and 
 composure? Even Aspasia, who unites the wisdom of 
 the heart to the wisdom of the understanding, and has 
 more in both than any one else in either, was sometimes 
 in perturbation at politics, and sometimes in grief. 
 
 A while since I sent her a dozeu or more of such 
 verses as our young people, and others who should know 
 better, are idle enough to compose in the open air. My 
 neighbor, Proxenos the Massilian, has been employed 
 in making a collection from the gardens round about. 
 The greater part, he tells me, are upon love and flowers, 
 dews and suns, stars and moons, evenings and mornings, 
 springs and autumus. He observes that summer is 
 rather out of favor with the poets ; and that where 
 winter is mentioned, he has often found the whole com- 
 position scored across with a nail, or with a piece of tile, 
 or defaced in some other way as nigh at hand. Proxenos 
 is no poet, and therefore it is the more amusing to hear 
 him discourse on poetry. 
 
 " I am sated with flowers," said he. " The Muses 
 ought to keep out of the market ; if tiiey must come into 
 it, let them not come as green-grocers. See, what a large 
 proportion in my collection is upon flowers and foliage, 
 with here and there a solitary turtle-dove, and a nightin- 
 gale deplorably belimed. A few pious men, indeed, have 
 written in reverence of the tutelary god, and have done 
 all they could to repress the licentiousness of the young 
 and thoughtless. The best inscription I have found 
 among them is in the garden of Mnestheus ; and this, per- 
 haps, is worth preservatiou rather for its grave admonition 
 and religious sentiment, than its poetry." 
 
 So far Proxenos. I do not remember what were those 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 217 
 
 verses I sent to Aspasia ; there may be more good sense 
 in these : 
 
 1N8CKIPTION ON A PLINTH IN THE GARDEN OP MNESTHEMUS 
 AT LAMP8ACOS. 
 
 Youngsters I who write false names, and slink behind 
 
 The honest garden-god to hide yourselves, 
 
 Take heed unto your ways ! the worshipful 
 
 Requires from all upright straightforwardness. 
 
 Away, away then subterfuge with him ! 
 
 I would not chide severely ; nor would he, 
 
 Unless ye thwart him ; for alike we know 
 
 Ye are not childisher than elder folk. 
 
 Who piously (in doing ill) believe 
 
 That every god sees every man . . but one. 
 
 CLXXXIT. ASPASIA TO ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 The style of your Psyllos is, I presume, Massiliau. 
 He walks heavily through high-stemmed leafy flowers. 
 Does he not deserve now this little piece of imitation ? 
 
 I'orbear to call it mockery ; for mockery is always rude 
 and inhumane. 
 
 Our friend Socrates has taken a wife. In every danger 
 he has been thought singularly brave ; and, if she is what 
 she is represented, the action proves it. He retains his 
 custom of sitting in the porticos, and beckoning to pass- 
 ers, and conversing on loveliness, and commending equa- 
 nimity, and driving the school-men mad. Yet among the 
 Epithalamions, the cleverest is one which celebrates him 
 for the quality most remote from his character. Thales 
 and Pherecydes and Pythagoras, and some few more, 
 would really have made Philosophy domestic. Our epitha- 
 lamiast, intending nothing satirical, tells Socrates (whom 
 neither celibacy nor marriage have detained at home, and 
 who never could resist an opportunity of wrangling, while 
 a sophist or a straw was betbre him) that he first brought 
 Philosophy from heaven into private houses ! I hope he 
 will find her in his own as often as he wants her ; but if 
 lie is resolved to bring her down into ours, such as we 
 
218 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 have seen her lately, the city will be all in a bustle with 
 the double-bolting of do«rs. 
 Let the archons look to it. 
 
 CLXXXV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I have been exhorting Pericles to leave Attica for a 
 while, and to enjoy with me the pleasures of retirement 
 in the little isle of Tenos. He listened to my entreaty 
 with his usual attention and interest, and soon began to 
 expatiate on the charms, on the benefits, on tlie necessity, 
 of retirement. Without a question I fancied I had per- 
 suaded him to compliance, when, with an air of sadness 
 so attempered with sweetness as it never was in any other 
 man, he said to me : " Aspasia ! you can create in me as 
 many wishes as spring up in the bosom of a child ; and it 
 is partly by planting the slips of your own in mine, and 
 partly by the warmth of your eloquence. What then 
 must be my sense of duty to my country, if, after all 
 these representations, and after all my fatigues and inju- 
 ries, my determination is fixed to remain some time longer 
 in the city. Hereafter we may visit Tenos ; hereafter 1 
 may drink of the limpid brook, before the house, whose 
 cold water has reddened this hand when you were little. 
 We will build our navies on it ; we will follow them along 
 the bank, and applaud them as they clash. Even I foresee 
 a perfidy in Aspasia ; she will pretend to run as fast as 
 she can, and yet let Pericles outrun her. No, no ; that 
 kiss shall not obviate such duplicity. Have I no reason 
 for the suspicion, when you often have let me get the bet- 
 ter of you in argument? Another and easier life may 
 await us there, when this political one is uncoiled from 
 us. But our child must associate with the children of the 
 Athenians ; he must love his father's friends ; he must 
 overcome and pardon his father's adversaries. We ought 
 never to buy happiness with our children's fortunes ; but 
 happiness is not the commodity ; it is desertion, it is eva- 
 sion, it is sloth. However, there is at last a time when 
 we may hang up our armor, and claim the stipend of re* 
 
TERICLES AND ASPASIA. 219 
 
 tirement and repose. Meanwhile let us fix our eyes on 
 Tenos." 
 
 Whether, O Cleone, we regard the moral or the ma- 
 terial world, there is a silent serenity in the highest ele- 
 vation. Pericles appears the greater when seen on his 
 solitary eminence against the sky. Power has rendered 
 him only more gracious and compliant, more calm and 
 taciturn. 
 
 CLXXXVI. AJJAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Pericles tells me that you are less tranquil than you 
 were formerly, and that he apprehends you are affected 
 not a little by the calumnies of your enemies. 
 
 If it is true that there can be no calumny without malice, 
 it is equally so that there can be no malice without some 
 desirable quality to excite it. Make up your mind, As- 
 pasia, to pay the double rate of rank and genius. It is 
 much to be the wife of Pericles ; it is more to be Aspa- 
 sia. Names that lie upon the ground are not easily set 
 on fire by the torch of Envy, but those quickly catch it 
 which are raised up by fame, or wave to the breeze of 
 prosperity. Every one that passes is ready to give tliem 
 a shake and a rip ; for there are few either so busy or so 
 idle as not to lend a hand at undoing. 
 
 You, Pericles, and myself, have a world of our own, 
 into which no Athenian can enter without our permission. 
 Study, philosophize, write poetry. These things I know 
 are difiicult when there is a noise in the brain ; but begin, 
 and the noise ceases. The mind, slow in its ascent at 
 first, accelerates every moment, and is soon above the 
 hearing of frogs and the sight of brambles. 
 
 CLXXXVII. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 A pestilence has broken out in the city, so virulent in 
 its character, so rapid in its progress, so intractable to 
 medicine, that Pericles, in despite of my remonstrances 
 and prayers, insisted on my departure. He told me that, 
 
220 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 if I delayed it a single day, his influence might be insuffi- 
 cient to obtain me a reception in any town, or any ham- 
 let, throughout the whole of Greece. He has promised 
 to write to me daily, but he declared he could not assuro 
 me that his letters would come regularly, although he pur- 
 poses to send them secretly by the shepherds, fumiirated 
 aud dipped in oil before they depart from Athens, lie 
 has several farms in Thessaly, under Mount Ossa, near 
 Sicurion. Here I am, a few stadions from the walls. 
 Never did I breathe so pure an air, so refreshing in the 
 midst of summer. And the lips of my little Pericles are 
 ruddier and softer and sweeter than before. Nothing is 
 wanting, but that he were less like me and more like his 
 father. He would have all my thoughts to himself, were 
 Pericles not absent. 
 
 CLXXXVin. CLEONE TO ASPASIA 
 
 Aspasia ! I will not allow either the little Pericles, or the 
 great one, or both together, to possess all your thoughts. 
 Nay, your letter itself contradicts you. Cleone and the 
 plague must intercept and divide them occasionally. 
 
 Pestilences are maladies that rage with more violence 
 than others, but, like all violent things, soon pass away. 
 The worst effects of them are the seditions, and other sad 
 irregularities, that always burst forth when the banner of 
 Death is unfurled in a populous city. But it is mostly the 
 intemperate that are swept away. 
 
 Alas ! I must not dissemble the magnitude of the dan- 
 ger ; for I know your resolution, I might say rashness. 
 What I have written is true ; but I am most afraid that 
 you will not fear enough. Keep up your courage where 
 you are ; do not exert it anywhere else. 
 
 CLXXXIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Cleone I Cleone ! if you could but see Athens, you 
 would find it a ditch to throw all your dogmas into. Tha 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 221 
 
 pestilence has not only seized the intemperate, but, like 
 that which Chryses imprecated on the Greeks before 
 Troy, smitten nobler heads after the viler. Pericles him- 
 self has not escaped it. He refused to abstain from ap- 
 pearing in the assemblies of the people, and among the 
 consultations to regulate (as far as might be) the burial 
 and burning of the dead. His temperance and courage, 
 the most efficacious preservatives against contagion, failed 
 at length in the eflfect. The fever seized him, and al- 
 though he has risen from his bed free from all symptoms 
 of the distemper, his strength is impaired, and many years 
 (he tells me) seem to have crowded into a few days. 
 
 CXC. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Behold, O Aspasia ! I send you verses. They certainly 
 are less valuable than some in your collection, but, to 
 make up the difference, I enclose a cockle-shell : 
 
 Beauty I thou art a wanderer on the earth, 
 And hast no temple in the fairest isle 
 
 Or city over-sea, where Weahh and Mirth 
 And all the Graces, all the Muses, smile. 
 
 Yet these have always nurst thee, with such fond, 
 Such lasting love, that they have followed up 
 
 Thy steps thro' every land, and placed beyond 
 The reach of thirsty Time thy nectar-cup. 
 
 Thou art a wanderer, Beauty ! like the rays 
 That now upon the platan, now upon 
 
 The sleepy lake, glance quick or idly gaze, 
 And now are manifold and now are none. 
 
 I have call'd, panting, after thee, and thou 
 
 Hast turn'd and look'd and said some pretty word, 
 
 Parting the hair, perhaps, upon my brow, 
 And telling me none ever was preferr'd. 
 
 In more than one bright form hast thou appear'd, 
 In more than one sweet dialect hast spoken : 
 
 Beauty ! thy spells the heart within me heard, 
 Griev'd thatthey bound it, grieves that they areblokea 
 
222 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 All the verbiage which you will find below I found 
 rudely scrawled on a stone-table, in the garden of my 
 next neighbor Parmenio. I perceive it to be of little 
 worth by this ; it has found an imitator, or rather a cor- 
 respondent ; yet, as he writes angrily, it may not be much 
 amiss. 
 
 These are scratched under the preceding : 
 
 I have some merit too, old man ! 
 
 And show rae greater if you can. 
 
 I always took what Beauty gave, 
 
 Nor, when she snatch'd it back, look'd grave. 
 
 Us modest youths it most beseems 
 
 To drink from out the running streams : 
 
 Love on their banks delights to dwell . . 
 
 The bucket of the household well 
 
 He never tugs at, thinking fit 
 
 Only to quench his torch in it. 
 
 Shameless old fellow! do you boast 
 
 Of conquests upon every coast? 
 
 I, O ye gods 1 should be content 
 
 (Yea, after all the sighs I've spent, 
 
 The sighs, and, what is yet more hard, 
 
 The minas, talents, gone in nard!) 
 
 With only one : I would confine 
 
 Meekly this home-sick heart of mine 
 
 'Twixt Lampsacos and Hammon's shrine. 
 
 CXCI. ASPASIA TO ANAXAGORAS. 
 
 It is really odd enough that no temple or altar was ever 
 dedicated to Beauty. Vengeance and other such person 
 ages, whom we, Anaxagoras, venture occasionally to call 
 allegorical, have altars enow, and more than enow of 
 worshippers. 
 
 Whatever, in your satirical mood, you may think about 
 the cockle-shell, I shall always value it, as much nearly 
 as the verses, and I have ordered it to be made into a 
 clasp for them. Taunt me, then, as often as you please : 
 it will be like girls pelting with roses ; if there is any 
 harm done, it is only to the fingers of the pelter. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 223 
 
 CXCn. ASPASIA TO PEEICLES. 
 
 Now the fever is raging, and we are separated, my 
 comfort and delight is in our little Pericles. The letters 
 you send me come less frequently, but I know you write 
 whenever your duties will allow you, and whenever men 
 are found courageous enough to take charge of them. 
 Although you preserved with little care the speeches you 
 delivered formerly, yet you promised me a copy of the 
 latter, and as many of the earlier as you could collect 
 among your friends. Let me have them as soon as pos- 
 sible. Whatever bears the traces of your hand is pre- 
 cious to me : how greatly more precious what is imprest 
 with your genius, what you have meditated and spoken ! 
 I shall see your calm thoughtful face while I am reading, 
 and will be cautious not to read aloud lest I lose the illu- 
 sion of your voice. 
 
 CXCni. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Aspasia ! do you know what you have asked of me ? 
 Would you accept it, if you thought it might make you 
 love me less? Must your affections be thus loosened 
 from me, that the separation, which the pestilence may 
 render an eternal one, may be somewhat mitigated ? I 
 send you the papers. The value will be small to you, 
 and indeed would be small to others, were it possible that 
 they could fall into any hands but yours. Remember 
 the situation in which my birth and breeding and bent of 
 mind have placed me ; remember the powerful rivals I 
 have had to contend with, their celebrity, their popular- 
 ity, their genius, and their perseverance. You know 
 how often I have regretted the necessity of obtaining tho 
 banishment of Cimon, a man more similar to myself 
 than any other. I doubt whether he had quite the same 
 management of his thoughts and words, but he was 
 adorned with every grace, every virtue, and invested by 
 Nature with every high function of the soul. We hap- 
 
224 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 pened to be placed by our fellow-citizens at the head of 
 two adverse factions. Son of the greatest man in our 
 annals, he was courted and promoted by the aristocracy ; 
 I, of a family no less distinguished, was opposed to him 
 by the body of the people. You must have observed, 
 Aspasia, that although one of the populace may in tur- 
 bulent times be the possessor of great power, it rarely 
 has happened that he retained it long, or without many 
 sanguinary struggles. Moroseness is the evening of tur- 
 bulence. Every man after a while begin* to think him- 
 self as capable of governing as one (whoever he may be) 
 taken from his own rank. Amid all the claims and pre- 
 tensions of the ignorant and discontented, the eyes of a 
 few begin to be turned complacently toward the more 
 courteous demeanor of some well-born citizen, who pres- 
 ently has an opportunity of conciliating many more, by 
 affability, liberality, eloquence, commiseration, difHdence, 
 and disinterestedness. Part of these must be real, part 
 may not be. Shortly afterward he gains nearly all the 
 rest of the citizens by deserting his order for theirs : his 
 own party will not be left behind, but adheres to him 
 bravely, to prove they are not ashamed of their choice, 
 and to avoid the imputation of inconsistency. 
 
 Aspasia ! I have done with these cares, with these re- 
 flections. Little of life is remaining, but my happiness 
 will be coetaneous with it, and my renown will survive 
 it ; for there is no example of any who has governed a 
 state so long, without a single act of revenge or malice, 
 of cruelty or severity. In the thirty-seven years of my 
 administration I have caused no citizen to put on mourn- 
 ing. On this rock, O Aspasia ! stand my Propylaea and 
 my Parthenon. 
 
 CXCIV. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 Gratitude to the immortal gods overpowers every other 
 impulse of my breast. You are safe. 
 
 Pericles ! O my Pericles I come into this purer air ! live 
 life over again in the smiles of your child, in the devotion 
 
lERICLES AND ASPASIA. 225 
 
 of your Aspasia I "Why did you fear for me the plague 
 within the city, the Spartans round it? why did you exact 
 the vow at parting, that nothing but your command should 
 recall me again to Athens? Why did I ever make it? 
 Cruel ! to refuse me the full enjoyment of your recovered 
 health ! crueller to keep me in ignorance of its decline ! 
 The happiest of pillows is not that which Love first 
 presses ; it is that which Death has frowned on and passed 
 over. 
 
 CXCV. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Have you never observed, O most observant Aspasia, 
 that there are many things which we can say in writing, 
 and which we cannot so well deliver in speech, even to 
 our nearest friend ? During all the time of my residence 
 with you and Pericles, intimate as was our familiarity 
 from the commencement, never once did either of you 
 express a wish to hear the reason why I left my country- 
 men for strangers. The dislike I always had to relate 
 my concerns, and to present my features for inspection, 
 withheld me from the narrative ; and delicacy withheld 
 you from inquiry. 
 
 Come, I will live over with you now that portion of my 
 life which I did not live with you before. I would not 
 escape for refuge into crowds ; I would not repair my for- 
 tune by hammering on the anvil in the Agora ; I would 
 not (pardon my application of our proverb at Clazome- 
 nai) make my purse of swine's ears. Such is the occu- 
 pation of those who intend to profit by a public auditory. 
 
 Often had I been solicited by the worthier of the cit- 
 izens to appear in public, and to take a part, if not in the 
 administration of affairs, at least in the debates. It ill 
 suited my temper and turn of mind. Ours, like most 
 free cities, was divided into two factions, the aristocrat- 
 ical and democratical. While others were making their 
 way forward to the head of them, I sat quietly at home, 
 and, to relax my mind occasionally from its sustained 
 and fixed position for loftier and purer speculations, med- 
 itated on the advantages and disadvantages of each govern- 
 
 15 
 
226 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 ment. No small quantity had I written at last of remarks 
 and aphorisms ; behold a specimen : "In most cities the 
 majority is composed of the ignorant, the idle, and the prof- 
 ligate. In most cities, after a time, there are enough of 
 bad citizens to subvert good laws. Immoral life in one 
 leader of the people is more pernicious than a whole street- 
 ful of impurities in the lower quarters of the community, 
 seeing that streams, foul or fair, cannot flow upward." 
 
 Be sure, Aspasia, I never promulgated such perilous 
 doctrines. To prove tiiat I was erroneous in the two 
 iirst positions, the citizens would have poisoned or stoned 
 me, and their orators would clearly show my unfitness to 
 give advice, in my attempting to demonstrate no more 
 important or novel a truth than that water cannot run up 
 a mountain. Such is the employment, such the ingenu- 
 ity and sincerity of eloquence. 
 
 I was inclined to the democracy, because I knew that 
 all government ought to be chiefly for the advantage of 
 the many ; but when I considered long and attentively its 
 operations and effects, I began to doubt whether the peo- 
 ple are more likely to know their interests than the aris- 
 tocracy are to promote them. Immovable property is 
 the only sure pledge for political equity, and the holders 
 are not at all times ready to offer it. Merchants are the 
 worst of adventurers and gamesters, because their native 
 land is not their country. Tliey are the sucklings of an 
 alien, and love her best who gives them nutriment. Their 
 preponderance in a state will invariably be its subversion. 
 
 1 intended to speak of myself, hiU you see I cannot 
 keep to my theme ; it soon tires me . . soon escapes me. 
 The scanty streamlet has run but a little way, and is lost 
 among the sands. A few words more, however. Before 
 I left my country, I offered some brief observations on 
 important matters, then in discussion, to persons in au- 
 thority. Do I much over-estimate my solidity of intel- 
 lect, my range of comprehension, or my clearness of 
 discernment, in believing tliat all these qualities in me, 
 however imperfect, are somewhat more than equivalent to 
 theirs? I concealed this truth from them, if truth it be, 
 and told them only what I thought it was their interest, 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 227 
 
 and would surely be their intention, to perform. They 
 rewarded me by suffering me to depart in peace, unan- 
 swered and unnoticed. We might imagine that advice, 
 like manure, is only good and applicable when it has 
 lain a long while by. He reasons ill who reasons with 
 a bad reasoner . . he walks on chaff, and tires himself 
 without progress and without impression. I never ex- 
 postulate with the self-suflScient ; but on this occasion I 
 desired a friend of theirs to inquire of them whether they 
 thought a conflagration in Clazomenai would only warm 
 their baths and cook their dinners. Had I been willing 
 to abuse my faculties, it would have been an easy matter 
 for me to have swept them from their places, and to have 
 assumed the highest ; for the rapacious has no hold upon 
 the people, and vulgar manners in the candidate for office 
 are no recommendation even to vulgar men. 
 Here ended my life in my own country. 
 
 CXCVI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 It has been wisely said that Virtue hath only to be 
 seen to be beloved : but unwisely, that Vice hath only to 
 be seen to be hated. Certain it is that the more habit- 
 uated we are to the contemplation of a pure and placid 
 life, the more do we delight in it. I wish it were equally 
 so that every glance at Vice loosens a feather from her 
 plumage, and that on a nearer approach and more stead- 
 fast observation she grows hideous. Proofs to the con- 
 trary come before us every day. 
 
 Eupolis, and Mnesilochos, and Callias, and Cratinos, 
 like most other authors, are indifferent to any result from 
 their writings but popularity and emolument. And we 
 are informed here at Miletus that several of your philos- 
 ophers are now employing a language, on the powers and 
 provinces of love, far more seductive to the passions of 
 their youthful auditors than the most indecent of theat- 
 rical ribaldry. For surely there is little seductive in a 
 boisterous jocularity, that seizes and holds down the hand 
 from the painfully blushing forehead, and forces the eyes to 
 
228 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 see what they would shun. Ionian manners, I am afraid, 
 are as licentious as the Athenian : but ours are bocomo 
 so by our intercourse with the Persians, the Athcniau by 
 theirs with the Philosophers. It is only of late that such 
 poisonous perfumery has had this influence ou the brain ; 
 it is only since the departure of the sedate, unostentatiou.i 
 AuHxaj.;oras, that syllogists have snapped their fiu;.'crs at 
 experiment. A;jainst such men the arrows of ridic'uJe 
 arc well directed : but these arrows fall harmlessly from 
 flowing robes ; aud, indeed, the purple dye is everywhere 
 a panacea. 
 
 CXCVII. ANAXAGOEA8 TO PEE1CLE8. 
 
 Thanks, O Pericles, for your provident care of me ! 
 Provident do I say ? no, anything but that ; kind, gener- 
 ous, profuse ; but if you really saw tlie extent of my 
 wants, you would only send me notice that you and those 
 about you are well and happy. 
 
 The fever which has broken out in your city will cer- 
 tainly spare you if you reside in the Acropolis ; and yet 
 you tell me that you are resolved on taking no such pre- 
 caution, lest you should appear to claim an exemption 
 from the common peril. 
 
 What pnident men were my enemies in Athens, to send 
 me back hither ! they would not let me live nor die among 
 them ! 
 
 You have little curiosity to know anything about pri- 
 vate men and retired places. Nevertheless, I will tell you 
 and Aspasia what is Lampsacos. 
 
 Shrimps and oysters are the lower order of the inhab- 
 itants ; and these, it is pretended, have reason to com- 
 plain of the aristocracy above them. The aristocracy on 
 their side contend that such complaints are idle and un- 
 founded ; that they are well fed and well clothed, and that 
 the worst that ever happens to them is to be taken out of 
 their beds, and to be banded, marshalled, and embarked, 
 in the service of their country. In few more words, we 
 all are either hshermen or vine-dressers. I myself am a 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 229 
 
 chief proprietor ; my tenement is small, but my vineyard 
 IS us spacious as any about. It is nearly a hundred of 
 my paces broad ; its length I cannot tell you, for in this 
 direction it is too steep for me to walk up it. My neigh- 
 bors have informed me that there is a tine spacious view 
 of the Hellespont and headlands from the summit. I only 
 know that there is a noble god, a century old at the least . . 
 he who protects our gardens and vines. An image of him 
 stands either at the top or the bottom of every avenue in the 
 vicinity. He frowns in many of them ; yet, amid all his 
 threats, there is in his good-humored gravity something 
 like a half-invitation. The boys and girls write verses 
 under him, very derogatory to his power and dignity. 
 They usually write them, I understand, in one another's 
 name ; just as if he could not find them out, and would 
 not punish them in due season. Enough of this : I have 
 somewhat less to say about myself. The people love me, 
 for 1 am no philosopher here, and have scarcely a book 
 in the house. I begin to find that eyes are valuables and 
 books utensils. Sitting at my door, I am amused at the 
 whistle of curlews, and at their conteutions and evolu- 
 tions, for a better possession than a rabble's ear. Some- 
 times I go down, and enjoy a slumber on the soft deep 
 sands ; an unexpected whisper and gentle flap on the face 
 from the passing breeze awakens me, or a startling plash 
 from the cumbersome wave as it approaches nearer. Idle- 
 ness is as dear to me, reflection as intense, and friend- 
 ship as warm as ever. Yes, Pericles ! Friendship may 
 pause, may question, may agonize, but her semblance 
 alone can perish. 
 
 My moon is in the last quarter, and my days ought 
 now to be serene ; they are so. Be yours no less ; yours 
 and Aspasia's ! 
 
 CXCVm. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 One true and solid blessing I owe to my popularity. 
 Seldom is it that popularity has aflforded any man more 
 than a fallacious one. Late wisdom, and dearly bought, 
 
230 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 is mine. Aspasia ! But I am delaying your delight, at 
 one moment by the hurry of my spirits, at another by the 
 intensity of my reflections. Our Perieles is Atlionian iu 
 privileges as in birth. I have obtained a law to revoke 
 a former one enforced by me . . and felt no shame. If I 
 could hope that other statesmen would take example froiri 
 my faults, if I could hope that at any future time they 
 would cease to bo opinionative, imperious, and self-willed, 
 mistaking the eminence of station for the supremacy of 
 wisdom, I would entreat them to urge no measure in 
 which might be traced the faintest sign of malice or re- 
 sentment, whether in regard to parties or private men. 
 liut alas ! the inferior part of man is the stronger ; we 
 cannot cut the centaur in twain ; we must take him as we 
 find him composed, and derive all the advantage we can 
 Loth from his strength and his weakness. 
 
 I am growing the politician again, when I should be 
 the husband and father. 
 
 The odious law, the weight of whicli I drew upon mv 
 own head,* is abrogated. The children of women not 
 Athenian are declared free citizens. Many good men, 
 many good mothers, have mourned the degradation of 
 tiieirs through my severity. 
 
 How dear, above the sweetest of Spring, are the blos- 
 
 * It is stated in every Life of Pericles that he obtained the 
 enactment of it. This is incorrect. The law was an ancient 
 one, and required fresh vigor and vigilant obsfrvance at a time 
 when hostihties were imminent, and when many thousands were 
 residing in the city who would otherwise have claimed a right to 
 vote as citizens, while their connections were to be found among 
 the inveterate enemies or the seceding allies of Athens. Long 
 iinteeedently to the administration of Pericles, it appears that at 
 a certain age the illegitimate were assembled at Cynosarges, in 
 the wrestling-ring dedicated to Hercules, who himself was in tliat 
 jjrfdicament; and these alone entered it. Oo which occasion 
 'J hemistocles, his mother being a Thracian, gave the earliest 
 proof of his astuteness, by inviting some of unmixed blood and 
 aristocratical lineage to wrestle with him. It is far from im- 
 probable that Pericles insisted the rather on the execution of this 
 law in opposition to Cimon, whose father, Miltiades, had married 
 tlie daughter of Oloros, a prince of Thrace, and who himself was 
 descended also from a ruler of that nation. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 231 
 
 Boms that appear in the less genial hours of winter ! how 
 dear, above earth, above all things upon earth (As- 
 pasia will pardon this, whether true or false), is our little 
 Pericles ! Am I dreaming when I imagine I see this beau- 
 tiful boy, with Health and Hope beside him, kneeling on 
 the border of the tomb, and raising up from it a whole 
 family, in long perspective ! We were gone, I thought, 
 we were lost forever. The powerful father merged his 
 whole progeny in utter darkness ; an infant shall re- 
 claim it. 
 
 No longer is there a cloud upon my brow ! no longer 
 is there, I am apt to think, a pestilence in Athens. 
 
 CXCIX. ASPASIA TO PEEICLES. 
 
 Blessings on the generosity of the Athenians ! blessings 
 a thousandfold on the paternal heart of Pericles ! 
 
 O Pericles ! how wrong are all who do not forever fol- 
 low Love, under one form or other ! There is no god but 
 he, the framer, the preserver of the world, the pure Intel- 
 ligence ! All wisdom that is not enlightened and guided 
 by liim is perturbed and perverted. He will shed, O my 
 husband, his brightest tints over our autumnal days. 
 Were we ever happy until now ? Ah yes, we were . . but 
 undeserving. A fresh fountain opens before us, subject 
 to no droughts, no overflowings. How gladly, how grate- 
 fully, do I offer to immortal Love the first libation ! 
 
 Come hither, my sweet child ! come hither to my heart ! 
 thou art man, thou art Athenian, thou art free. We are 
 now beyond the reach, beyond the uttermost scope and 
 vision, of Calamity. 
 
 CC. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Alcibiades is grown up to the highest beauty of ado- 
 lescence. 1 think I should be enamored of him were I a 
 girl, and disengaged. No, Cleone 1 the so easy mention 
 of him proves to me that I never should be. He is pe^ 
 
232 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 ulant, arrogant, impetuous, and inconsistent. Pericles 
 was always desirous that he should study oratory, in order 
 that it might keep him at home, gratify liis vanity the most 
 perfectly and compendiously, and render him master of 
 liis own thoughts and those of others. He plainly told 
 Pericles that he could learn little from him except dis- 
 simulation. 
 
 " Even that," replied Pericles, " is useful and neces- 
 sary ; it proceeds from self-command. Simulation, on the 
 contrary, is falsehood, and easily acquired by the meanest 
 intellect. A powerful man often dissembles ; he stands 
 erect in the course of glory, witli open brow but with 
 breath supprest ; the feebler mind is ready to take refuge 
 in its poverty, under the sordid garb of whining simula- 
 tion." 
 
 He then remarked to Pericles that his oratory was some- 
 what like his economy, wanting in copiousness and display. 
 " Alcibiades ! " said my husband, " it is particularly 
 this part of it which I could wish you to adopt. In ora- 
 tory there are few who can afford to be frugal ; in economy 
 there are few who can afford to act otherwise than fru- 
 gally. I am a public man, and it little becomes me to 
 leave room for suspicion that, by managing ill my own 
 small affairs, I may be negligent in the greater of the 
 commonwealth. There are kingdoms in Thrace and 
 Asia, where the cares of government are consigned to 
 ministers or satraps, and where it shall be thought hon- 
 orable and glorious in one of these functionaries to die in 
 debt, after managing the treasury. But surely there is in 
 this no proof whatever that he managed it discreetly ; 
 there is a fair presumption that, neglecting his household, 
 he left the community in worse disorder. Unquestionably 
 he was a dishonest man, to incur a debt beyond the ex- 
 tent of his estate. Forbearance from accumulation in 
 his own house, is hardly to be deemed a merit by the most 
 inconsiderate, in one who can unlock the treasury to every 
 relative, every friend, every associate, and every dependent. 
 Such persons will generally be found to liave been game- 
 sters and prodigals, and to have intrusted the subordinate 
 branches of public concerns lo servants, as unfaithful and 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 233 
 
 improvident as those menials who administered their own ; 
 and the reigns of the princes who employed them, if re- 
 corded at all, are recorded as prodigies of expenditure, 
 profligacy, and disaster. 
 
 "Aristides died poor; but Aristides never was rich; 
 he threw away nothing but his good example. And was 
 his the fault there ? He was frugal, he was provident ; 
 every action he performed, every word he uttered, will 
 excite, inform, and direct, remotest generations. Thus 
 indeed it cannot properly be said that, however now neg- 
 lected, his example was thrown away. Like the seeds of 
 plants which a beneficent God hath scattered throughout 
 the earth, although many fail to come up soon after the 
 season of their sowing, yet do they not decay and perish, 
 but germinate in the sterilest soils many ages later. Aris- 
 tides will be forefather to many brave and honest men not 
 descended from his lineage nor his country ; he will be 
 founder of more than nations ; he will give body, vitality, 
 and activity, to sound principles. Had he merely been a 
 philosopher, he could effect little of this ; commander as 
 he was, imperial Persia served only for a mirror to reflect 
 his features from Attica on the world." 
 
 Alcibiades, in several parts of this discourse, had given 
 signs of weariness and impatience. Pericles perceived it, 
 and reverted to Aristides. At every word that was now 
 spoken he grew more and more animated ; at the close he 
 sprang up, seized the hand of Pericles, and told him he 
 would listen as long as he went on in that manner. 
 
 " Speak to the purpose, as you have begun to do, and 
 about Aristides, and I shall like you better than Aspasia. 
 I think, after all, I may perhaps let you be my teacher." 
 He said this laughing. 
 
 My husband replied : 
 
 " I will not undertake it, Alcibiades ! Peradventure I 
 may ofler you, from time to time, a little at once, some 
 serviceable observations, some fruits of my experience ; 
 but it is only to grace and beauty that your restless, in- 
 tractable mind is obedient for an hour." 
 
 •' Call me anything, do anything, or nothing," said the 
 youth, " if you will only give me such a smile again." 
 
234 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 " Go and ride into the country," said my husband, as 
 he was rising. " If you retain your high opinion of ine on 
 your return, you will find me at leisure to continue. I 
 leave you, for the present, with Aristides." 
 
 Away he went, without a word more to either of us. 
 When he was out of the apartment, Pericles said, after a 
 thoughtful and serious pause : 
 
 " He is as beautiful, playful, and uncertain, as any half- 
 tamed young tiger, feasted and caressed on the royal car- 
 pets of Persepolis ; not even Aspasia will ever quite 
 subdue him." 
 
 CCI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I shall never more be in fear about you, my Aspasia ! 
 frolicsome and giddy as you once appeared to me, at no 
 time of your life could Alcibiades have interested your 
 affections. You will be angry with me when I declare to 
 you that I do not believe you ever were in love. The re- 
 nown and genius of Pericles won your imagination ; his 
 preference, his fondness, his constancy, hold, and will 
 forever hold, your heart. The very beautiful rarely love 
 at all. Those precious images are placed above the 
 reach of the Passions : Time alone is permitted to ef- 
 face them ; Time, the father of the gods, and even their 
 consumer. 
 
 ecu. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Angry ! yes indeed, very angry am I ; but let me lay 
 all my anger in the right place. I was often jealous of 
 your beauty, and I have told you so a thousand times. 
 Nobody for many years ever called me so beautiful as 
 Cleone ; and when some people did begin to call mc so, 1 
 could not believe them. Few will allow the first to be 
 first ; but the second and third are universal favorites. 
 We are all insurgents against the despotism of excellence. 
 
 Ah Cleone ! if I could divide my happiness with you, 
 I do think I should have much to give you. I would 
 demand a good deal of your sound judgment for it ; but 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 235 
 
 you should have it. We both of us value our beauty, I 
 suspect, less than we used to do, which is certainly 
 wrong ; for whatever we may be told, or may tell our- 
 selves, we have rather a scantier store of it. However, 
 we are not yet come to the last loaf in the citadel. 
 
 I did not see Alcibiades again, that day or the follow- 
 ing. When he came to me, he told me he was ashamed 
 of having said an uncivil thing. 
 
 " Of which are you ashamed?" said I, " O Alcibiades ! 
 for there were several not distinguished for courtesy." 
 
 " As usual, in good humor, which always punishes 
 me," said he. "But I remember I made a rude observa- 
 tion on what lies within your department." 
 
 "Economy?" said I. 
 
 Before he could answer me, Pericles, informed that 
 Alcibiades had inquired for him, entered the apartment. 
 
 "I am glad you are come in," cried he, " for, although 
 I have taken two days to collect my courage and words, 
 I think I shall have more of both, now you are present." 
 
 He then began his apology, which Pericles thus inter- 
 rupted : 
 
 " Be prepared for chastisement ; I shall impose a heavy 
 mulct on your patience ; I shall render an account to you 
 of my administration, and I hope you will permit it to 
 pass. 
 
 " I have a son, as you know, in whose character parsi- 
 mony is not among the more prominent qualities. 1 am 
 unwilling to shock him by it, which is always apt to oc- 
 casion a rebound to the opposite side ; and I am equally 
 unwilling to offer an example or pretext for luxury and 
 expense. My own character will permit neither. I never 
 gave a splendid feast ; I never gave a sparing entertain- 
 ment ; I never closed my dining-room to a man of elegant 
 manners or of sound information. I have not the ample 
 fortune of our cousin Cimon, who always used it magnif- 
 icently ; and glad am I that I have it not ; for it would 
 oblige me to receive many who must disgust me, and who 
 would occupy more hours of my leisure than I can spare. 
 My system of domestic life has produced me contentment 
 
206 PERICLES AND ASPaSIA. 
 
 and happiness. May yours, my dear Alcibiades, whether 
 like it or unlike it, do the same ! " 
 
 " Thank you ! " said he carelessly, and added : " but 
 your manner of speaking, which we first began to talk 
 about, the other day, is proper only for yourself; in any 
 other man it would be ridiculous. Were I to employ it, 
 people would believe I assumed the character of Jupiter 
 or Hermes walking among mortals. Aspasia's is good 
 enough for me. Many think her language as pure and 
 elegant as yours ; and I have never known it enrage and 
 terrify meu as yours does." 
 
 " Study, then, Aspasia in preference," said he. " You 
 possess already some of her advantages. A beautiful 
 mouth is always eloquent ; its defects are taken for tropes 
 and figures. Let us try together which can imitate her 
 best. Neither of us hath ever seen her out of temper, or 
 forgetful what argumeut to urge first and most forcibly. 
 When we have much to say, the chief difficulty is to hold 
 back some favorite thought, which presses to come on be- 
 fore its time, and thereby makes a confusion in the rest. 
 If you are master of your temper, and conscious of your 
 superiority, the words and thoughts will keep their ranks, 
 and will come into action with all their energy, compact- 
 ness, and weight. Never attempt to alter your natural 
 tone of voice ; never raise it above its pitch ; let it at 
 first be somewhat low and slow. This appears like dif- 
 fidence ; and men are obliged to listen the more atten- 
 tively, that they may hear it. Beginning with attention, 
 they will retain it during the whole speech ; but attention 
 is with difliculty caught in the course of one. 
 
 " I am intruding a little on the province of Aspasia. 
 If she approves of my advice, pursue it ; if she disap- 
 proves, be sure I have spoken inconsiderately ; although 
 I fancy I have observed such effects on several occa- 
 sions." 
 
 He ceased : I enforced as well as I could his admoni- 
 tion. But Alcibiades, with grace nearly equal, wants 
 his gravity ; and, if ever he should be his successor in 
 the administration of the republic, he must become so by 
 other methods. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 237 
 
 com. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Proxcnos is sailing back to Massilia. Before he left 
 us, he collected a large cargo of Inscriptions, chiefly 
 poetical. In Massilia these matters are curiosities. The 
 people, who cannot have them fresh, are glad to accept 
 them dry, although, according to Proxenos, they are little 
 acute in relishing or distinguishing them. 
 
 In his last conversation with me, he gave evidence that, 
 should he ever fail as a merchant, he hopes to make his 
 fortune as a critic. Among his remarks was this : 
 
 " I cannot for my life imagine why Zephyr is such a 
 favorite with the poets." 
 
 I answered that we lonians were always shy of him ; 
 but that in other parts, and especially toward Gaul and 
 Italy, he certainly was better behaved. 
 
 "Better behaved !" cried Proxenos. "By the Twins ! 
 he hath split my sail more than once." 
 
 To comfort him, I replied : " He has done that with 
 his best friends, O Proxenos ! " 
 
 " And no longer ago," continued he, " than last Boed- 
 romion, he carried off my nether garment that was dry- 
 ing upon deck." 
 
 "Ah! there," said I, "mischievous as he is, he could 
 not do the same to them without homicide ; few of them 
 have one to spare." 
 
 At the recollection of his superior wealth and dignity, 
 he grew composed again. The gods grant him a pros- 
 perous voyage ! Ere this letter shall reach Athens, he 
 must be almost as far as Cythera. What labors and 
 perils do seafaring men undergo ! What marvels are 
 ships ! They travel in a month farther than the fleetest 
 horse can do ; to such perfection have they been brought, 
 and such confidence is there now in human courage and 
 skill. As there hath been but little or no improvement in 
 them for some centuries, we may suppose that, contrary 
 to all other inventions, the ingenuity of mortals can do 
 nothing more for them. 
 
 I forgot to mention of Proxenos, what maybe it were 
 
238 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 better not to mention at all, that he is reported to have 
 broken otf the extremity of a leaf or two on some curious 
 old viise^, and a particle of a volute* from a small column 
 at the corner of a lane. Nothing can so distinctly prove, 
 say the Jyampsacenes, that Proxenos has a few drops of 
 barbarian blood in him. Genuine Greeks may travel 
 through all the world, and see every vase, every column, 
 every statue, worth seeing in its whole circumference, 
 without a tliought of mutilation. Those people who can- 
 not keep their hands from violating the purest works of 
 ancient days, ought, if there are not too many of them, 
 to be contined in separate cages, among the untamable 
 specimens of zoology. 
 
 The Lampsacenes, you see by this, are not averse to 
 protect the Arts. 
 
 CCIV. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I have found eight verses, of which I send you only 
 the four last. So entirely do they express what I have 
 felt, it seems as if I myself had composed them. 
 
 They who tell us that love and grief are without fancy 
 and invention, never knew invention and fancy, never felt 
 grief and love. 
 
 The thorns that pierce most deep are prest 
 Only the closer to the breast : 
 To dwell on them is now relief, 
 And tears alone are balm to grief! 
 
 * One Eyles Irwin, who was not poor nor quite uneducated, 
 tells us in his Travels that he broke off a volute as a relic from 
 what was called Pompey's Pillar. This happened so lately as 
 the last century. We are, it seems, about to remove from Egypt 
 tlie obelisk named Cleopatra's Needle. Do we believe tliat 
 Egypt is never to come to life again ? It may be some hundreds, 
 it may be some thousands of years : but these are to the glories 
 of Egypt as pounds are to our national debt . . itself so glorious, 
 and of which the formation has constituted our glorious men ! 
 Are we suru that the Genius who created these eternal works 
 derives no portion of his huatitude from the hourly contempla- 
 tion of them, in the country where they were formed and 
 fixed? 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 239 
 
 You perhaps will like these better, Aspasia ! thougli 
 Fery unlike in sentiment and expression. 
 
 Pyrrha I your smiles are gleams of sun 
 That after one another run 
 Incessantly, and think it fun. 
 
 Pyrrha ! your tears are short sweet rain 
 That glimmering on the flower-lit plain 
 Zephyrs kiss back to heaven again. 
 
 Pyrrah ! both anguish me ; do please 
 To shed but (if you wish me ease) 
 Twenty of those, and two of these. 
 
 CCV. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Ships are passing and repassing through the Hellespont 
 all hours of the day ; some of them from the Piraeus, urg- 
 ing the allies of Athens to come forward in her defence ; 
 others from the Peloponnese, inciting them to rise up in 
 arms, and at once to throw off allegiance. 
 
 Would there be half this solicitude in either of the 
 belligerents to be virtuous and happy, supposing it pos- 
 sible to persuade the one or the other that she might be, 
 and without an effort? supposing it, in other words, to 
 be quite as easy and pleasant to receive a truth as an un- 
 truth. Would these mariners and soldiers, and those 
 statesmen who send them out, exert half the anxiety, 
 half the energy and prowess, to extinguish the conflagra- 
 tion of a friend's house in the neighborhood, as they are 
 exerting now to lay in ashes all the habitations that lie 
 beyond it? And such are brave men, such are wise men, 
 such are the rulers of the world ! Well hath it been s-aid 
 by some old poet : 
 
 Men let themselves slide onward by degrees 
 Into the depths of madness ; one bold spring 
 Back from the verge, had saved them; but it seems 
 There dwells rare joy within it ! O thou Sire 
 Of gods and mortals, let the blighting cloud 
 Pass over me ! O grant me wholesome rest 
 And innocent uprisings, although call'd 
 The only madman on thy reeling earth t 
 
240 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CCVI. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 It is well that you are removed from the city, and that 
 the enemies of Athens pay respect either to your birth- 
 place or your wisdom, either to your celebrity or your 
 confidence. I remember that, speaking of the human 
 form and countenance, both as existing in life and repre- 
 sented in the ideal, you remarked that the perfection of 
 beauty is what is farthest from all similitude to the brutes. 
 Surely then, in like manner, the perfection of our moral 
 nature is in our remoteness from all similitude to their 
 propensities. Now the worst propensity of the worst 
 beasts is bloodshed, for which we pursue them as nearly 
 as we can to extermination, but which they never commit 
 with so little urgency, or to so great an extent, as we do. 
 Until we bring ourselves at least to an equality with them, 
 we can hardly be said to have made much progress in 
 wisdom. It will appear wonderful and perhaps incredible 
 to future generations, that what are now considered the 
 two highest gifts of man, oratory and poetry, should be 
 employed, the one chiefly in exciting, the other in embla- 
 zoning, deeds of slaughter and devastation. If we could 
 see, in the nature of things, a child capable of forming a 
 live tiger, and found him exercising his power of doing 
 it, I think we should say to him : 
 
 -' You might employ your time better, child ! " 
 But then, Aspasia, we must not be orators nor poets, 
 nor hope for any estimation in the state. Beware how 
 you divulge this odd opinion ; or you may be accused, as 
 before, of crimes against the purity of morals, against the 
 customs of our forefathers, and against the established 
 and due veneration of the gods. I hardly know what I 
 am treading on, when I make a single step toward phil- 
 osophy. On sand I fear it is ; and, whether the impres- 
 ion be shallow or profound, the eternal tide of human 
 passions will cover and efface it. There are many who 
 ■would be vexed and angry at this, and would say, in the 
 bitterness of their hearts, that they have spent their time 
 in vain. Aspasia ! Aspasia ! they have indeed, if they 
 ai e angry or vext about it. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 241 
 
 CCVn. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Did I tell you, O Aspasia, we were free and remote 
 from the calamities of war? we were. The flute and the 
 timbrel and the harp alone were heard along our streets ; 
 and the pavement was bestrewn with cistus and lavender 
 and myrtle, which grow profusely on the rocks behind us. 
 Melanthos had arrived from the Chersonese to marry 
 Eurycleia ; and his friend Sosigeues of Corinth had deter- 
 mined to be united on the same day with her sister 
 Phanera. 
 
 Those who have seen them, say that they were the 
 prettiest girls in the city : they were also the happiest ; 
 but less happy than tlieir lovers, who, however, owed at 
 present but a part of the happiness to either. They were 
 sworn friends from early youth, and had not met since, 
 but always had corresponded. 
 
 Why cannot men draw a line against war as against 
 plague, and shut up the infected ? Instead of which, they 
 are proud of being like the dogs in the worst feature ; 
 rushing forth into every affray, and taking part in it in- 
 stantly with equal animosity. I wish we had arrived at 
 such a degi'ee of docility, and had advanced so many 
 steps in improvement, that by degrees we might hope to 
 acquire anything better of these good creatures. We 
 have the worst of every beast, and the best of none. 
 
 This is not, O Aspasia ! my usual tone of thinking and 
 discoursing ; nor is what has happened here among the 
 usual occurrences of my life. The generous heart needs 
 little to be reminded what are the embraces of young and 
 ardent friends ; and the withered one could ill represent 
 them. 
 
 Eury Jeia, in the silence of fondness, in the fulness of 
 coatent, was holding the hand of her Melanthos. Love 
 has few moments more sweet. Philosophy none more calm. 
 That moment was interrupted by the entrance of Sos- 
 igenes ; and composure was exchanged for rapture by the 
 friendly scul of Melanthos. Yes, yes, Aspasia ! frieud- 
 16 
 
242 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 ship, even in the young, may be more animated than lovo 
 itself. It was not long, however. 
 
 "Where is Phanera?" 
 
 " I will call her," said Eurycleia, and went out, 
 
 Phanera, foud of ornament, it may be, and ambitious 
 to surpass her sister and enchant her lover, came not 
 speedily, nor indeed did Eurycleia very soon, for it was 
 not at first that she could find her. Conversation had 
 begun in the meanwhile about the war. Melanthos was 
 a little more vehement than the mildness of his nature, 
 it is said, ever allowed him before, and blamed the Cor- 
 inthians for inciting so many states to hostility. Often 
 had Sosigenes been looking toward the door, expecting 
 his Phanera, and now began to grow impatient. The 
 words of Melanthos, who felt the cruelty of war chiefly 
 because it would separate the two sisters and the two 
 friends, touched the pride of Sosigenes. Unable to mod- 
 erate his temper, now excited by the absence of Phanera 
 after the sister had some time returned, he said, fiercely : 
 
 " It is well to blame the citizens of the noblest city 
 upon earth, for not enduring an indignity. It is well ; 
 but in slaves alone, or viler dependents." 
 
 "Sosigenes! Sosigenes!" cried Melanthos, starting up 
 and rushing toward him. At that instant the impetuous 
 Sosigenes, believing violence was about to follow afiront, 
 struck him with his dagger to the heart. 
 
 " 1 could not then calm thy anger with an embrace ! 
 my too unhappy friend ! " while the blood gurgled through 
 the words, sobbed forth Melanthos. 
 
 CCVIII. ALCIBIADES TO PERICLES. 
 
 You commanded me, O Pericles, that I should write to 
 you, whenever I found an opportunity on land. Phormio 
 cast anchor before Naupactos : we command the Gulf of 
 Crissa and check the movements of the Corinthians. 
 The business of blockading is little to my mind. "Writing 
 is almost as insuflTerable : it is the only thing I do not 
 willingly undertake when my friends desire it. Beside, I 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 243 
 
 have nothing in the world to write about. We have done 
 little but sink a few vessels and burn a few villages. It 
 is really a hard matter to find a table to write upon, so 
 quick and so complete is the devastation. I fancied war 
 had something in it more animating and splendid. The 
 people of the Peloponnese are brave, however. They 
 sometimes ask for their children (if very young) but 
 never for their lives. Why cannot we think them as little 
 worth taking as they of giving ? 
 
 I am heartily tired of this warfare ; and Phormio has 
 told me, in plain words, he is heartily tired of me. Upon 
 this, I requested his permission to joia without delay our 
 army before Potidasa. I expected not only an uncivil re- 
 fusal, but a sharp rebuke. 
 
 "The gods have begun to favor us ! " cried Phormio. 
 " This oflfer is better than the luckiest omen. Alcibiades ! 
 thou art the whitest of white birds ; and thy flight, 
 whichever wind it float upon, is worth a victory." 
 
 I would have been angry, but laughter sprang upper- 
 most ; so, throwing my arms round old Phormio's neck. 
 I almost pulled him down with it. 
 
 " How now, stripling ! " cried he, as willing to be angry 
 as I was ; "aU this buffoonery before the commander of 
 the fleet ! " 
 
 CCIX. ALCIBIADES TO PEKICLES. 
 
 Hardly could it have been expected that "the whitest 
 of white birds" should have been so speedily on the wing. 
 The day had not closed when Phormio told me, that, 
 knowing my fickleness, he had given orders for my 
 voyage back. Every voyage is prosperous that brings 
 me within sight of an enemy worth seeing. Brave fellows 
 these Potidffians ! They never lose their appetite, even in 
 the greatest want of air and exercise. You, who hear 
 everything, must know that they eat one another rather 
 than surrender. I have been but three days in the camp, 
 where, to my delight, I found the brave and kindly Soc- 
 rates. Do you disapprove of my renewing my intimacy 
 with Philosophy in the midst of battles ? Let Philosophy 
 
244 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 then stand aside ; and behold in her place the defender of 
 his country and the savior of his friend. 
 
 The morning after my arrival, the Potidoeans burst forth 
 with incredible bravery from their gates, overthrowing 
 all opposition. Now was my time. The heavy-armed 
 in general, being old soldiers, were somewhat slower ; 
 and many of the enemy were assailing me when they 
 came up ; nor indeed was it then in sufficient force. I 
 was wounded and overthrown, and, at the beginning, 
 stunned ; but presently I fancied I heard the sound of a 
 brisk sword on armor over me, and felt something heavy 
 fall on my legs. I was drawn forcibly from under the 
 last of my antagonists. Socrates raised fne up, and de- 
 fended me from the weapons of not a few, unwilling to 
 retire, and irresolute to renew the engagement. 
 
 I write now, because I am so wounded I can do noth 
 ing else. 
 
 CCX. PERICLES TO ALCIBIADES. 
 
 You are courageous, my Alcibiades, to a degree which 
 I hardly ever observed in another. This alone induces 
 me to doubt whether you will become, so soon as we both 
 of us wished it, an accomplished and perfect soldier. To 
 rush against the enemy before your comrades, is not, 
 indeed, quite so unseemly as to lag behind ; yet it may be 
 even more detrimental in an officer. With old troops, who 
 know their duty, it is always so : with younger alone, 
 who want encouragement, it may not be. Socrates de- 
 served the first honors in the action ; his modesty and his 
 affection transferred them to the imprudent and the van- 
 quished, whom he rescued from the shame of rashness 
 and the wretchedness of captivity. With all my fondness 
 for you, I could not have given you my vote ; and, had I 
 commanded against Potidsea, I must have reproved vou 
 in presence of the army. 
 
 Never, O Alcibiades, inflict on me the misery of pass- 
 ing so severe a sentence. I praised you before others 
 did ; I condemn you after them. Your high spirit de- 
 served its reward ; your temerity its rebuke. I, who 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 245 
 
 have been the careful guardian of your fortune, am the 
 more anxious one of your safety and of your fame. In 
 my former letter I gave unobstructed way to the more 
 jileasurable emotions ; and, in every one that I shall have 
 occasion to write to you hereafter, I am confident of the 
 same enjoyment. Reply to me as your friend, your com- 
 rade, the partaker of your pains and pleasm-es, and at 
 most the director of your studies. But here, my Al- 
 cibiades, we must be grave and serious : I must, for once, 
 not guide, but dictate ; no answer is here admissible, 
 excepting the answer of a soldier to his general. 
 
 CCXI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 You know that to Niconoe was awarded by her judge 
 Priapos the prize of beauty in the Kallisteia. In return 
 for this favorable decision, she dedicated to him a golden 
 ewer and a fawn-skin. Under his image a poet, who per- 
 haps was her admirer, and who was grateful to the 
 arbiter, wrote this epigram : 
 
 Niconoe is inclined to deck 
 
 Thy ruddy shoulder and thick neck 
 
 With her own fawn-skin, Lampsacene I 
 Beside, she brings a golden ewer 
 To cool thy hands in, very sure 
 
 Among what herbage they have been. 
 
 Ah I thou hast wicked leering eyes, 
 And any maiden were unwise 
 
 Who should invest thee face to face; 
 Therefore she does it from behind, 
 And blesses thee, so just and kind 
 
 In giving her the prize for grace. 
 
 Here are some others, I believe by Erinna herself, 
 but I find inscribed on them Address to Erinna. 
 
 Ay, shun the dance and shun the grape, 
 Erinna! thou shalt not escape. 
 IdJe the musing maid who thinks 
 To lie unseen by sharp-eyed lynx 
 
246 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Where Bacchus, god of joy and truth, 
 Hunts with him, hunts for bashful youth. 
 So take the thyrsus if you please, 
 And come and join the Mcenades. 
 
 CCXII. ANAXAGORAS TO ASPASIA. 
 
 We are now so near winter that there may not be, 
 after the vessel which is about to sail, any more of them 
 bound for Athens, aU the remainder of the year. And 
 who knows what another may bring or take away ? 
 
 I remain in health, but feeble. Life slips from me 
 softly and imperceptibly. I am unwilling to tire myself 
 by blowing a fire which must soon go out, whether I 
 blow it or not. Had I any species of curiosity to send 
 you, were it pebble, sea^weed, or new book, I would send 
 it ; not (for it is idle to talk so) as a memorial of me. 
 If the friend is likely to be forgotten, can we believe that 
 anything he has about him will repose a longer time on 
 the memory ? 
 
 Thus far had I written, when my strength failed me. 
 Stesicles and. ApoUodoros have told me I must prepare 
 for a voyage. The passage is neither so broad nor so 
 stormy as the Hellespont. 
 
 I was resolved not to go until I had looked in my gar- 
 den for some anemonies, which I recollected to have seen 
 blossoming the other day. It occurred to me that usually 
 they appear in spring ; so does poetry. I will present to 
 you a little of both ; for the first time. They are of 
 equal value ; and are worth about as much as the pebble, 
 or the sea-weed, or the new book. 
 
 Where are the blooms of many dyes 
 That used in every path to rise ? 
 
 Whither are gone the lighter hours ? 
 What leave they ? I can only send 
 My wisest, loveliest, latest friend 
 
 These weather-worn and formless flowers. 
 
 Think me happy that I am away from Athens ; I, who 
 always lose my composure in the presence of crime or 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 247 
 
 calamity. If any one should note to you my singularities, 
 remem'bering me a year hence, as I trust you and Per- 
 icles will do, add to them, but not aloud, a singularity of 
 felicity, " He neither lived nor died with the multitude." 
 There are, however, some Clazomenians who know that 
 Anaxagoras was of Clazomenai. 
 
 CCXin. ALCIBIADES TO PERICLES. 
 
 Pericles ! I did wrong and rashly. The praises of the 
 Athenians are to me as the hum of insects : they linger 
 in my ear, but are senseless and unexciting. I swear to 
 you I will do better ; but I must see you before I go. 
 
 Aspasia, whose letter you have sent me since, is even 
 more severe than you have been ; and she has neither 
 right nor reason. She is the only woman upon earth 
 that ever railed at rashness, the only one that could dis- 
 tinguish it from fortitude. But every man must be rash 
 once : it saves him from as much inconvenience and mis- 
 chief as being oftener rash would incur. 
 
 Do not consider this nonsense as vindication or reply ; 
 and let it not stand in the way of your pardon. 
 
 CCXrV. ASPASIA TO ALCIBIADES. 
 
 Are you not ashamed, young man, to leave the aged 
 behind you, with all their wounds, merely to show how 
 dexterous you are become in the management of your 
 sword ? Unworthy Alcibiades ! Never expect that the 
 Athenians, whatever be their levity and inconsiderate- 
 ness, wUl award to you the honor of superiority in valor. 
 Socrates well deserved it ; not for saving a life which on 
 the next ocasiou will be thrown away, but for giving to 
 every one capable of profiting by it, an example of stead- 
 iness and constancy. Pericles, I hope, will not allow 
 you to disembark, until you have acquired the rudiments 
 of discipline, in the only art in which you ever seemed 
 Lk?,ly to excel. Have you forgotten, too, that the pestilence 
 
248 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 is raging in the city? O rash Alcibiades ! the sight of 
 Pericles himself, to you at least, could hardly have been 
 worth so desperate a hazard. But Pericles will reprove 
 you, confident boy ! Let me hear no more of you until 
 I have heard that he has granted you his forgiveness. 
 
 CCXV. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 Censure not too severely, O my Pericles, your incon- 
 siderate cousin ! In these days, when so many of your 
 adherents are fallen, some by the fever, some by war, we 
 must be parsimonious in the treasury of friendship, at all 
 times far from inexhaustible. 
 
 A hundred men of more wisdom and more virtue than 
 Alcibiades would prevail much less with the multitude, 
 should anything sinister befall you. May the gods avert 
 it ! but I always fear something ; and, what certainly is 
 more foolish, I fancy my presence could avert from you 
 any calamity. I wish I were persuaded that the Immor- 
 tals hear us ; I would then so perpetually pray for you 
 as hardly to give myself time to read your letters ; and 
 you should quarrel with the shortness of mine. But 
 reason, which strengthens our religion, weakens our de- 
 votion. Happy are those who have retained throughout 
 life their infantine simplicity, which nurses a tractable 
 idol in an unsuspicious bosom, is assured it knows and 
 heeds the voice addressing it, and shuts it up again with 
 a throb of joy, and keeps it warm. For this, the mind 
 must be nurtured to the last with the same milky food as 
 in childhood ; the gods must have their tangible images, 
 and must laugh to us out of ivy and flowers. 
 
 Thinking of you, I had forgotten that I began to write 
 in favor of Alcibiades. Lest, by taxing him with im- 
 petuosity and imprudence, you should alienate his fickle 
 mind, I myself have written to him with quite enough 
 severity ; at least I think so : you shall judge for your- 
 self. When you have perused it, let it go to him in- 
 stantly ; for here we are uncertain at what point the 
 troops will land from Potidtea. I shall be grieved if 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 249 
 
 anything happens to him. He has more life in him than 
 is enough to animate a city ; yet the point of an arrow 
 may extinguish it in an instant. With however long ex- 
 perience before us, we yet might wonder that what is so 
 animated should ever cease at all. You men often talk 
 of glorious death, of death met bravely for your country : 
 I too have been warmed by the bright idea in oratory 
 and poetry ; but ah ! my dear Pericles ! I would rather 
 read it on an ancient tomb than on a recent one. 
 
 CCXVI. PEKICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I had already warned Alcibiades of his imprudence 
 and irregularity ; but your letter will insure his correc- 
 tion. The reply he sent me is worthy of a man formed for 
 command. We must watch over him : he will do great 
 good or great evil. Those who are most capable of both, 
 always end miserably ; for, although they may have done 
 many things well, yet the first or second that they do 
 badly is their ruin. They know not whom to choose as 
 their follower up the scaling-ladder, nor when to loosen 
 their grasp of the pinnacle. Intractable as you may 
 think Alcibiades, there is not a youth in Athens so easily 
 led away by a weaker judgment than his own. He 
 wishes to excel in everything, and succeeds : but this 
 wish brings him into contact with too many ; and he 
 cannot at present push them off far enough from him to 
 see plainly and distinctly what they are. He will soon 
 stand above them, and know them better. 
 
 I must leave off : the dying call me forth. Blessings 
 on my Aspasia and her little Athenian ! 
 
 CCXVn. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 The verses I shall presently write out for you, at the 
 bottom of my letter, are composed, as you will perceive, 
 in the broadest Dorian, on the extraordinary death of 
 ^schylus. Probably the unhappy poet was murdered 
 
250 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 by some enemy or some robber. He was found with hia 
 skull fractured, and, maybe, with a tortoise near him. 
 But who in the world can believe that an eagle diopped 
 it from above ? that the quickest in sight of all animals 
 mistook a bald head for a rock ? And did ever man walk 
 in the fields of Sicily with his head uncovered ? If he 
 did, his death might easily be accounted for, without a 
 tortoise or eagle ; a sunbeam is stronger and surer. 
 Whenever I find a book containing this gross absurdity, 
 I instantly throw it aside, as the effusion of an idle and 
 silly writer, and am well assured it must be incapable 
 of instructing or interesting me. 
 
 The petulant author of the verses you will find below, 
 is evidently a disappointed poet. Hiero and Therou 
 could never treat ^schylus with neglect or with indiffer- 
 ence. Little as may be our regard and our respect for 
 royalty, we hardly can suppose any king, who knows 
 Greek, so barbarous and stupid as to fancy in himself a 
 nobility more exalted than in ^schylus, or gifted by the 
 gods with a higher office, than stewardship to the greatest 
 of men among whom he himself is the richest. 
 
 Bard of Eleusis I art thou dead 
 
 So strangely ! can It be 
 An eagle dropt upon thy head 
 
 A tortoise? no, not he. 
 
 They who devised the fable, marr'd 
 
 The moral of their song : 
 They meant the eagle by the bard, 
 
 But placed the creature wrong. 
 
 Quickest in courts those ever move 
 
 Whom nature made most slow : 
 Tortoise wears plumes and springs above 
 
 While eagle moults below. 
 
 I have room enough for another short piece, which 
 carries with it somewhat more than the dialect for a 
 testimonial of its Atticism. They who are ill-trained in 
 the course of poetry, puff and hlow, as the trainers express 
 it, at short distances ; they who are trained better, move 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 251 
 
 mth little diificulty, and no appearance of exertion. 
 Strength does not lie in varicose veins. This is, however, 
 a subject which requires grace only. You like to drink 
 water ; but you like to drink it from a silver cup. 
 
 To Love. 
 
 Where is my heart, perfidious boy ? 
 
 Give it, O give it, back again 1 
 I ask no more for hours of joy ; 
 
 Lift but thy hand and burst my chain. 
 
 Love's Eeplt. 
 
 Fond man 1 the heart we rashly gave 
 She values not, yet won't restore : 
 
 She passes on from slave to slave ; 
 Go, go ; thy heart is thine no more. 
 
 CCXVni. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 The Athenians, my dear Aspasia, are reported to be a 
 religious people ; yet I have often wondered at their free- 
 dom and boldness, in depriving the immortal gods of 
 their power on some occasions, and on others in accost- 
 ing them with familiarity and disrespect. It would have 
 been satisfactory to me if you had related what befell the 
 unhappy man who presumed to call perfidious and boy 
 one of the most powerful. Certainly we are inspired by 
 our holy religion to believe that Love is youthful ; but 
 Anacreon is the only poet who represents him as a chUd. 
 There is an absurdity in making him appear younger 
 than we ourselves are when we begin to be under the in- 
 fluence of the passion. But the graver fault is in calling 
 him (what I tremble to write) perfidious ! You will re- 
 lieve my mind of some anxiety by assuring me that noth- 
 ing sinister has befallen so captious and irreverential a 
 votary. If his fault is recent, and if he is yet living, it 
 would be wise and considerate in him to implore the 
 blessed mother of this almighty deity, that she may be 
 pleased to avert his anger, should he not have forgotten 
 the ofieuce. I say it, because the most experienced and 
 
252 PEEICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 the most pioua are of opinion that he is oftener oblivious. 
 Was not he both wiser and more pious who wrote a 
 poem in a very different spirit, and, whether more or 
 less Attic, fuller of thought, consistency, and reflection. 
 If you have forgotten it, let me bring it back again, and 
 dx it as firmly as may be in your memory : 
 
 Ah I what a blessed privilege it is 
 
 To stand upon this insulated rock 
 
 On the north side of youth ! I see below 
 
 Many at labor, many at a game 
 
 Than labor more laborious, wanting breath 
 
 And crying help! What now ! what vexes them? 
 
 Only a laughing maid and winged boy, 
 
 Obstinate boy indeed, who will not shoot 
 
 His other arrow, having shot the first. 
 
 Where is the harm in this ? yet they meanwhile 
 
 Make all the air about them pant with sobs. 
 
 And with one name weary poor Echo down. 
 
 Aspasia ! I too have suffered ; and Love knows it ; yet 
 I dare not even tell him that he knows it. To remind 
 him would be indelicate ; to complain would be irrelig- 
 ious. And what could all his power do for me now? 
 But this, believe me, is not the reason why I endure in 
 silence, and bend in submission to the arbitrament of the 
 gods. Surely, too surely, whoever has breathed has 
 sighed. When we have lost, O Aspasia ! those we love, 
 whether by impassable distance or any other dispensa- 
 tion of the gods, youth is less happy than age, and age 
 than death. 
 
 CCXIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Youth, like the aloe, blossoms but once, and its flower 
 springs from the midst of thorns ; but see with what 
 strength and to what height the aloe-flower rises over 
 them ; be not surpassed by it. 
 
 On love, on grief, on every human thing, 
 Time sprinkles Lethe's water with his wing. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 253 
 
 If I continue to reason, or to moralize, or to versify, 
 you will begin to doubt my sincerity, or at least the 
 warmth of my affection. I am induced to believe, O 
 Cleone ! that the Deity you venerate so profoundly and 
 solemnly, is far from unfoi-giving. In the verses I now 
 send you, there appears to be a proof of it ; for the writer 
 seems to have treated him not only as a child, but a child 
 much addicted to mischief; yet never was man treated 
 in return with more benignity. I should tremble at the 
 manner in which the Fates are mentioned, if matters 
 were left at their arbitration. But we know the con- 
 trary : we know positively that they can spin only what 
 is on their distaffs, and not a thread can be turned to a 
 new pattern. 
 
 I would be grave, Cleone ! I would indeed ; but really 
 there is no harm in laughing at children and old women, 
 gods or not. We know they have a good deal to do in 
 the affairs of this world, however ; and it is unwise to 
 laugh at those who are as capable of extinguishing our 
 laughter as of exciting it. 
 
 " What art thou doing with those shears? " 
 
 I shouted in an urchin's ears, 
 
 Who notched them and who made them grate, 
 
 While three old women near him sate, 
 
 And scowl'd at every scratch they heard, 
 
 But never said a single word. 
 
 In a dark corner thus all three 
 
 Sate with an elbow on the knee, 
 
 And three blue fingers held their tips 
 
 Imprest on three still bluer lips. 
 
 Although the froward boy I chid 
 
 Did not (boys will not) what was bid, 
 
 His countenance was not malign 
 
 As that was of the elder trine. 
 " Look at those frightful ones ! " he said. 
 
 And each one shook her thin-hair'd head. 
 " Nay, never fear the angry crones " . . 
 
 Said he ; and each replied with groans. 
 " They are all vicious ; for they knew 
 
 That what I did I did for you. 
 
 Contemplating the fairest maid 
 
 That ever with my bow has play'd. 
 
 Crones ! by my help your shears have got 
 
 A set of teeth, which you have not. 
 
254 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Come I come ! Death's bridemaids ! snip as fast 
 As snip ye may, her years shall last 
 In spite of you, her beauty bloom 
 On this side and beyond the tomb : 
 I swear by Styx." 
 
 " And I by thee," 
 Cried I, " that what thou sayst shall be." 
 
 CCXX. ALCIBIADES TO PERICLES. 
 
 Pray why did you tell Phanomachos to station soma 
 confidential one near me, who should be an eternal check 
 on me ? There is little chance that I should do anything 
 extravagant, unless the Potidaeans invite me to dinner 
 and I accept the invitation. I will not allow any man 
 to defend me before I stand in need of defence, and be- 
 fore I have deserved to save my life by proving it worth 
 something. I should quarrel with Socrates himself, 
 much more with another, presuming to take what belongs 
 to me, of danger or of glory. It is not kind in you, nor 
 open, nor prudent. Would you wish any one to say, 
 "Pericles takes care of his own relatives!" This ought 
 only to be said of the vilest men in the worst govern- 
 ments ; and of you, until now, it never could be. You 
 have given no such orders in regard to Xanthippos. He 
 may be as rash and violent as he pleases. Even here he 
 dares to call me Neaniskos and Kouridion and Ta 
 paidika.* By Castor ! if he were not the son of Pericles, 
 his being my cousin should not save from a stroke of the 
 sabre that fierce disdainful visage. I promise you it 
 shall soon be seen which of us is the braver and the bet- 
 ter man. I would not say this to you unless that you 
 might let him know my sentiments. I have no words, 
 written or spoken, for the contumelious : my complaints 
 are for the ear of those only who are kind to me. 
 
 * This expression was usually reproachful; not always, as 
 we see in Plato. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 255 
 
 CCXXI. PEEICLES TO ALCIBIADES. 
 
 Do not think, my Alcibiades, that I recommended you 
 to the guardianship of Phanomachos, in order that he 
 should exercise over you a troublesome vigilance of con- 
 trol, or indulge toward you an un military partiality. 
 But I am more intimate with him than I am with Xeno- 
 phon or Aristoclides or Hestiodoros ; * and having sons, 
 he knows that restraints are often necessary on the 
 impatience of military ardor. 
 
 Your letter is a proof that I judged rightly. My 
 praises of your valor are lost amid those of the army 
 and of the city ; but the delight it has given me is, I am 
 confident, one among the thoughts that have assuaged 
 your wounds. On your return, the citizens will express 
 their sense of your conduct. 
 
 Endeavor to prove, now that you are acknowledged 
 to be the first in bravery, that you are more discreet than 
 Xanthippos. Many in every army are so nearly on an 
 equality in courage, that any attempt of theirs to show a 
 superiority is ineffectual. Unbecoming language can 
 neither prove nor disprove it, but must detract from its 
 worth and merit. Discretion, on the contrary, is the 
 sure sign of that presence of mind without which valor 
 strikes untimely and impotently. Judgment alone makes 
 courage available, and conciliates power with genius. 
 Consider that you never will have attained the scope of 
 your ambition, until you lead and govern those men 
 against whom your passions now exasperate you ; and, 
 unless you do conciliate them, you never can induce them 
 to acknowledge your superiority, much less submit to 
 your governance. It is best the germs of power should 
 spring forth early, that they may have time enough for 
 gaining strength ; therefore I write to you, no longer as 
 a youth in pupilage, but as a candidate for the highest 
 offices of the commonwealth. 
 
 > These three were appointed to commands with Phano- 
 machos. 
 
256 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Try wliether your forbearance may not produce a 
 better effect on Xanthippos than my remonstrances. I 
 v,rite to you rather than to him, because I rely more 
 firmly on your affection. Be worthy of such a secret, 
 O Alcibiades ! and think how highly I must esteem your 
 prudence and manliness, when I delegate to you, who 
 are the younger, the power of correcting in him the faults 
 which I have been unable to eradicate or suppress. Go, 
 and, in the spirit with which I send it, give my love to 
 Xanthippos. He may neglect it, he may despise it, he 
 may cast it away, but I will gather it all up again for 
 him : you must help me. 
 
 CCXXII. ALCIBIADES TO PERICLES. 
 
 Pericles, I was much edified by your letter ; but, par- 
 don me, when I came to the close of it I thought you 
 rather mad. 
 
 "What ! " said I, "beard this panther !" 
 
 However, when I had considered a little more and a 
 little better on it, I went to him and delivered your love. 
 He stared at me, and then desired to see the direction. 
 "Ay," said he, "I remember the handwriting. He 
 oftener writes to me than I to him. I suppose he has 
 less to do and less to think of." 
 
 The few other words he added are hardly worth the 
 trouble of repetition ; in fact, they were not very filial. 
 Dear Pericles ! I would love him, were it only out of 
 perversity. But, beside all other rights over me, you 
 have made me more disposed than ever to obey you, in 
 making me more contented with myself, as you have by 
 this commission. I may do something yet, if we can 
 but fumigate or pray away the plague. Of two thousand 
 four hundred soldiers, who landed but forty days before 
 me from the Bosphorus, under the command of Agnon, 
 son of Nikias, one thousand and fifty are already dead. 
 I shall have nobody to persuade or manage, or even to 
 fight with, if we go on so. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 257 
 
 CCXXni. ALCIBIADES TO PERICLES. 
 
 Potidcea has surrendered. The dead of the city are 
 scarcely more shadows than the living, and yet how 
 bravely they fought to the last ! I should have been sorry 
 for them a few months ago ; but I have now learnt what 
 it is to be a soldier. We must rise superior to pain, and 
 then take another flight, farther afield, and rise superior 
 to pity. Beside, the Potidaeans were traitors ; and next, 
 they were against us ; and furthermore, they were so 
 wicked as to eat one another rather than submit. This 
 shows their malice. Now we have done nothing half so 
 bad toward them ; and I assure you, if others are dis- 
 posed to such cruelty, I will take no part in it ; for who 
 would ever kiss me afterward ? 
 
 CCXXIV. PERICLES TO ALCIBIADES. 
 
 The remembrance of past days that were happy, in- 
 creases the gloominess of those that are not, and inter- 
 cepts the benefits of those that would be. 
 
 In the midst of the plague this reflection strikes me, 
 on the intelligence I have received from Lampsacos. 
 You likewise will be sorry, O Alcibiades ! to hear that 
 Anaxagoras is dying. Although he seldom conversed 
 with you, and seldom commended you in private, believe 
 me, he never omitted an occasion of pointing out to your 
 friends any sign you had manifested of ability or virtue. 
 He declined the character of teacher, yet few have taught 
 so much, wherever his wisdom was accessible. Philos- 
 ophers there have been indeed, at Athens and elsewhere, 
 earnest in the discovery and in the dissemination of 
 truth ; but, excepting Thales and Pherecydes, none among 
 them has been free from ostentation, or from desire of 
 obtaining the absolute and exclusive possession of weak 
 and ductile minds. Now the desire of great influence 
 over others is praiseworthy only where great good to the 
 community may arise from it. To domineer in the arbi- 
 
 17 
 
258 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 trary sway of a dogmatical and grasping, yet loose and 
 empty-handed philosophy, which never bears upon inven- 
 tions and uses, nor elevates nor tranquillizes the mind, and 
 to look upon ourselves with a sweet complacency from 
 so petty an eminence, is worse than boyish ambition. 
 To call idlers and stragglers to us, and to sit among 
 them and regale on their wonder, is the selfishness of an 
 indigent and ill-appointed mind. Anaxagoras was sub- 
 ject to none of these weaknesses, nor to the greater of 
 condescending to reprove, or to argue with, those who 
 are. He made every due allowance for our infirmities 
 of understanding, and variations of temper, the effect 
 of them ; and he was no less friendly toward those who 
 differed widely in opinion from him, than toward those 
 who quite agreed. When a friend of his was admiring 
 and praising him for it, he interrupted him, saying : 
 
 "Why not? Is it not too self-evident for language, 
 that, if I had taken the same road, I should have gone 
 in the same direction ? and would not the same direction 
 have led to the same conclusion ? " 
 
 Yes, Alcibiades ! it is indeed self-evident, and, were it 
 spoken unwarily, it would be reprehended for being so ; 
 and yet scarcely one man in ten millions acts consistently 
 upon it. 
 
 There are humanities, my friend, which require our 
 perpetual recollection, and are needful to compensate, in 
 some measure, for those many others we must resign to 
 the necessities and exactions of war. 
 
 CCXXV. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Serene and beautiful are our autumnal days in Thes- 
 saly. We have many woods about us, and many wood- 
 land sounds among them. In this season of the year I 
 am more inclined to poetry than in any other ; and I 
 want it now more than ever to flow among my thoughts, 
 and to bear up the heavier. 
 
 I hesitate, O Cleone ! to send you what I have been 
 writing. You will say it is a strange fancy of mine, and 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 259 
 
 fitter for me in those earlier hours of life when we were 
 reposing in the IslaBd. 
 
 Nothing, 1 must confess, would be more ill-placed than 
 a Drama or Dialogue in the world below ; at least if the 
 Shades entered into captious disquisitions or frivolous 
 pleasantries. But we believe that our affections outlive 
 us, and that Love is not a stranger in Elysium. Humors, 
 the idioms of life, are lost in the transition, or are gener- 
 alized in the concourse and convergency of innumerable 
 races ; passions, the universal speech, are throughout in- 
 telligible. 
 
 The Genius of Homer is never to be gainsaid by us ; 
 and he shows us how heroes, and women worthy of 
 heroes, felt and reasoned. A long dialogue, a formal 
 drama, would be insupportable ; but perhaps a single 
 scene may win attention and favor from my own Cleone. 
 
 I imagine then Agamemnon to descend from his hor- 
 rible death, and to meet instantly his daughter. By the 
 nature of things, by the suddenness of the event, Iphi- 
 geneia can have heard nothing of her mother's double 
 crime, adultery and murder. 
 
 I suspend my pen. Although I promised you in the 
 morning my short Acherusian scene, I am almost ready 
 to retract my words. Everybody has found out that I 
 am deficient in tenderness. While I was writing I could 
 not but shed tears . . just as priests do libations, you wiU 
 say, to save other people the trouble. 
 
 THE SHADES OF AGAMEMNON AND OF IFBIGENEIA. 
 
 Iphigeneia. Father I I now may lean upon your breast, 
 And you with unreverted eyes will grasp 
 Iphigeneia's hand. 
 
 We are not shades 
 Surely ! for yours throbs yet. 
 
 And did my blood 
 Win Troy for Greece ? 
 
 Ah ! 'twas ill done to shrink, 
 But the sword gleam'd so sharp, and the good priest 
 Trembled, and Pallas frown'd above, severe. 
 Agamemnon. Daughter ! 
 Iphigeneia. Beloved father 1 is the blade 
 Again to pierce my bosom ? 'tis unfit 
 
260 PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 For sacrifice ; no blood is in its veins ; 
 
 No god requires it here ; here are no wrongs 
 
 To vindicate, no realms to overthrow. 
 
 You are standing as at Aulis in the fane, 
 
 Witli face averted, holding (as before) 
 
 My hand ; but yours burns not, as then it burn'd ; 
 
 This alone shows me we are with the Blest, 
 
 Nor subject to the sufferings we have borne. 
 
 I will win back past kindness. 
 
 Tell me then, 
 Tell how my mother fares who loved me so, 
 And griev'd, as 'twere for you, to see me part. 
 Frown not, but pardon me for tarrying 
 Amid too idle words, nor asking how 
 She prais'd us both (which most?) for what we did. 
 
 Agamemnon. Ye gods who govern here ! do human panga 
 Reach the pure soul thus far below? do tears 
 Spring in these meadows ? 
 
 Iphigeneia. No, sweet father, no . . 
 
 I could have answered that ; why ask the gods ? 
 
 Agamemnon. Iphigeneia ! O my child ! the Earth 
 Has gendered crimes unheard-of heretofore. 
 And Nature may have changed in her last depths. 
 Together with the gods and all their laws. 
 
 Iphigeneia. Father! we must not let you here condemn; 
 Not, were the day less joyful : recollect 
 We have no wicked here ; no king to judge. 
 Poseidon, we have heard, with bitter rage 
 Lashes his foaming steeds against the skies, 
 And, laughing with loud yell at winged fire 
 Innoxious to his fields and palaces. 
 Affrights the eagle from the sceptered hand ; 
 While Pluto, gentlest brother of the three 
 And happiest in obedience, views sedate 
 His tranquil realm, nor envies theirs above. 
 No change have we, not even day for night 
 Nor spring for summer. 
 
 All things are serene, 
 Serene too be your spirit 1 None on earth 
 Ever was half so kindly in his house. 
 And so compliant, even to a child. 
 Never was snatch'd your robe away from me, 
 Though going to the council. The blind man 
 Knew his good king was leading him indoors 
 Before he heard the voice that marshall'd Greece. 
 Therefore all prais'd you. 
 
 Proudest men themselves 
 In others praise humility, and most 
 Admire it in the sceptre and the sword. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 261 
 
 Whj,t then can make you speak thus rapidly 
 And briefly? in your step thus hesitate? 
 Are you afraid to meet among the good 
 Incestuous Helen here? 
 
 Agamemnon. O I gods of Hell I 
 
 Iphigeneia. She hath not past the river. 
 
 We may walk 
 With our hands link'd nor feel our house's shame. 
 
 Agamemnon. Never mayst thou, Iphigeneia, feel it I 
 Aulis had no sharp sword, thou wouldst exclaim, 
 Greece no avenger . . I, her chief so late, 
 Through Erebos, through Elysium, writhe beneath it. 
 
 Iphigeneia. Come, I have better diadems than those 
 Of Argos and Mycenai : come away. 
 And I will weave them for you on the bank. 
 You will not look so pale when you have walk'd 
 A little in the grove, and have told all 
 Those sweet fond words the widow sent her child. 
 
 Agamemnon. O Earth ! I suffered less upon thy shores I 
 (^Aside.') The bath that bubbled with my blood, the blows 
 That spilt it (O worse torture !) must she know? 
 Ah ! the first woman coming from Mycenai 
 Will pine to pour this poison in her ear, 
 Taunting sad Charon for his slow advance. 
 Iphigeneia ! 
 
 Iphigeneia. Why thus turn away ? 
 Calling me with such fondness ! I am here, 
 Father ! and where you are, will ever be, 
 
 Agamemnon. Thou art my child ; yes, yes, thou art my child. 
 All was not once what all now is ! Come on. 
 Idol of love and truth ! my child ! my child ! 
 (^Zone.) Fell woman ! ever false ! false was thy last 
 Denunciation, as thy bridal vow : 
 And yet even that found faith with me ! The dirk 
 Which sever'd flesh from flesh, where this hand rests, 
 Severs not, as thou boastedst in thy scoffs, 
 Iphigeneia's love from Agamemnon : 
 The wife's a spark may light, a straw consume, 
 The daughter's not her heart's whole fount hath quench'd, 
 'Tis worthy of the gods, and lives forever. 
 
 Iphigeneia. What spake my father to the gods above ? 
 Unworthy am I then to join in prayer? 
 If, on the last, or any day before. 
 Of my brief course on earth, I did amiss. 
 Say it at once, and let me be unblest ; 
 But, O my faultless father! why should you? 
 And shun so my embraces ? 
 
 Am I wild 
 And wandering in my fondness i 
 
262 PEETCLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 We are shades ! 
 Groan not thus deeply; blight not thus the season 
 Of full-orb'd gladness ! Shades we are indeed, 
 But mingled, let us feel it, with the blest. 
 I knew it, but forgot it suddenly, 
 Altho' I felt it all at your approach. 
 Look on me ; smile with me at my illusion . . 
 You are so like what you have ever been 
 (Except in sorrow !) I might well forget 
 I could not win you as I used to do. 
 It was the first embrace since my descent 
 I ever aim'd at : those who love me live. 
 Save one, who loves me most, and now would chide me. 
 
 Agamemnon. We want not, O Iphigeneia, we 
 Want not embrace, nor kiss that cools the heart 
 With purity, nor words that more and more 
 Teach what we know from those we know, and sink 
 Often most deeply where they fall most light. 
 Time was when for the faintest breath of thine 
 Kingdom and life were little. 
 
 Iphigeneia. Value them 
 
 As little now. 
 
 Agamemnon. Were life and kingdom all ! 
 
 Iphigeneia. Ah ! by our death many are sad who loved us. 
 The little fond Electra, and Orestes 
 So childish and so bold ! O that mad boy ! 
 They will be happy too. 
 
 Cheer ! king of men ! 
 Cheer ! there are voices, songs . . Cheer ! arms advance. 
 
 Agamemnon. Come to me, soul of peace ! These, these 
 alone, 
 These are not false embraces. 
 
 Iphigeneia. Both are happy ! 
 
 Agamemnon. Freshness breathes round me from some 
 breeze above. 
 What are ye, winged ones ! with golden urns ? 
 
 The Hours (descending^. 
 The Hours. To each an urn we bring. 
 
 Earth's purest gold 
 
 Alone can hold 
 The lymph of the Lethfean spring. 
 
 We, son of Atreus ! we divide 
 The dulcet from the bitter tide 
 
 That runs athwart the paths of men. 
 No more our pinions shalt thou see. 
 Take comfort ! We have done with thee, 
 
 And must away to earth again. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 263 
 
 (^Ascending.) 
 
 Where thou art, thou 
 
 Of braided brow, 
 Thou cuU'd too soon from Argive bow'rs, 
 Where thy sweet voice is heard among 
 The shades that thrill with choral song. 
 None can regret the parted Hours. 
 
 Chorus of Ar gives. 
 Maiden I be thou the spirit that breathes 
 
 Triumph and joy into our song! 
 Wear and bestow these amaranth-wreaths, 
 
 Iphigeneia ! they belong 
 To none but thee and her who reigns 
 (Less chaunted) on our bosky plains. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 Iphigeneia ! 'tis to thee 
 Glory we owe and victory. 
 Clash, men of Argos, clash your arms 
 To martial worth and virgin charms. 
 
 Other Semichorus. 
 Ye men of Argos ! it was sweet 
 To roll the fruits of conquest at the feet 
 Whose whispering sound made bravest hearts beat fast. 
 This we have known at home, 
 But hither we are come 
 To crown the king who ruled us first and last. 
 
 Chorus. 
 Father of Argos I king of men ! 
 
 We chaunt the hymn of praise to thee. 
 In serried ranks we stand again, 
 
 Our glory safe, our country free. 
 Clash, clash the arms we bravely bore 
 Against Scamander's God-defended shore. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 
 Blessed art thou who hast repell'd 
 Battle's wild fury. Ocean's whelming foam ; 
 
 Blessed o'er all, to have beheld 
 Wife, children, house avenged, and peaceful homef 
 
 Other Semichorus. 
 We too, thou seest, are now 
 Among the happy, though the aged brow 
 From sorrow for us we could not protect, 
 
264 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 Nor, on the polisht granite of the well 
 Folding our arms, of spoils and perils tell, 
 Nor lift the vase on the lov'd head erect. 
 
 Semichorus. 
 What whirling wheels are those behind? 
 Wliat plumes come flaring through the wind. 
 Nearer and nearer? From his car 
 He who defied the heayen-born Powers of war 
 Pelides springs 1 Dust, dust are we 
 To him, O king, who bends the knee, 
 Proud only to be first in reverent praise of thee. 
 
 Other Semichorus. 
 Clash, clash the arms ! None other race 
 Shall see such heroes face to face. 
 "We too have fought ; and they have seen 
 Nor sea-sand gray nor meadow green 
 Where Dardans stood against their men . . 
 Clash ! lo Psean ! clash again 1 
 Repinings for lost days repress . . 
 The flames of Troy had cheer'd us less. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Hark ! from afar more war-steeds neigh, 
 Thousands o'er thousands rush this way. 
 Ajax is yonder! ay, behold 
 The radiant arms of Lycian gold 1 
 Arms from admiring valor won, 
 Tydeus 1 and worthy of thy son. 
 'Tis Ajax wears them now ; for he 
 Rules over Adria's stormy sea. 
 
 He threw them to the friend who lost 
 (By the dim judgment of the host) 
 Those wet with tears which Thetis gave 
 The youth most beauteous of the brave. 
 In vain ! the insatiate soul would go 
 For comfort to his peers below. 
 Clash ! ere we leave them all the plain, 
 Clash ! lo Psean ! once again 1 
 
 Hide these things away, Cleone ! I dare never show 
 them to any but Pericles. 1 can reach no further than a 
 chorus ; hardly that. Tragedy is quite above me : I 
 want the strength, the pathos, the right language. Fie I 
 when there are so many who would teach me. Concede, 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 2G5 
 
 that the shadjii were not happy at once in Elysium ; and 
 that the Hours are not more shadowy than they, ^schy- 
 lus brings into our world Beings as allegorical ; and where 
 shall we fix a boundary between the allegorical and 
 divine? 
 
 CCXXTI. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Tou build your nest, Aspasia, like the swallow, 
 
 Bringing a little on the bill at once, 
 
 And fixing it attentively and fondly. 
 
 And trying it, and then from your soft breast 
 
 Warming it with the inmost of the plumage. 
 
 Nests there are many, of this very year 
 
 Many the nests are, which the winds shall shake, 
 
 The rains run through, and other birds beat down ; 
 
 Yours, O Aspasia ! rests against the temple 
 
 Of heavenly love, and thence inviolate. 
 
 It shall not fall this winter, nor the next. 
 
 ccxxvn. aspasia to cleone. 
 
 You have encouraged me to proceed in the most diffi- 
 cult tract of poetry. Had I openly protested that the 
 concluding act of Agamemnon, the Electra of our trage- 
 dian, dissatisfies me, he alone of the Athenians would 
 have pardoned my presumption. But Electra was of a 
 character to be softened rather than exasperated by grief. 
 An affectionate daughter is aflfectionate even to an un- 
 worthy mother ; and female resentment (as all resentment 
 should do) throws itself down inert at the entrance of the 
 tomb. Hate with me, if you can hate anything, my 
 Cleone ! the vengeance that rises above piety, above sor- 
 row ; the vengeance that gloats upon its prostrate victim. 
 Compunction and pity should outlive it ; and the child's 
 tears should blind her to the parent's guilt. I have re- 
 stored to my Electra such a heart as Nature had given 
 her ; torn by suffering, but large and alive with tender- 
 ness. In her veneration for the father's memory, with 
 his recent blood before her eyes, she was vehement in 
 urging the punishment of the murderess. The gods had 
 
2f)6 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 commanded it at the hands of their only son. When it 
 was accomplished, he himself was abhorrent of the deed, 
 but defended it as a duty ; she in her agony cast the whole 
 on her own head. If character is redeemed and restored ; 
 if Nature, who always is consistent, is shown so ; if pity 
 and terror are concentrated at the close ; I have merited 
 a small portion of what my too generous Cleone bestowed 
 on me in advance. 
 
 THE DEATH OF CLTTEMNBSTKA. 
 
 Orestes and Electra. 
 
 Electra. Pass on, my brother! she awaits the wretch, 
 Dishonorer, despoiler, murderer . . . 
 None other name shall name him . . . she awaits 
 As would a lover . . 
 
 Heavenly gods ! what poison 
 O'erflows my lips I 
 
 Adultress ! husband-slayer ! 
 Strike her, the tigress ! 
 
 Think upon our father . . 
 Give the sword scope . . think what a man was he, 
 How fond of her ! how kind to all about, 
 That he might gladden and teach us . . how proud 
 Of thee, Orestes ! tossing thee above 
 His joyous head and calling thee his crown. 
 Ah! boys remember not what melts our hearts 
 And marks them evermore ! 
 
 Bite not thy lip, 
 Nor tramp as an unsteady colt the ground, 
 Nor stare against the wall, but think again 
 How better than all fathers was our father. 
 Go . . 
 
 Orestes. Loose me then ! for this white hand, Electra, 
 Hath fastened upon mine with fiercer grasp 
 Than mine can grasp the sword. 
 
 Electra. Go, sweet Orestes ! 
 
 I knew not I was holding thee . . Avenge him ! 
 (^Alone.) How he sprang from me ! 
 
 . . Sure, he now has reacht 
 The room before the bath . . 
 
 The bath-door creaks ! 
 . . It hath creakt thus since he . . since thou, O father I 
 Ever since thou didst loosen its strong valves. 
 Either with all thy dying weight, or strength 
 Agonized with her stabs . . 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 267 
 
 "What plunge was that ? 
 Ah me I 
 
 . . What groans are those? 
 Orestes (returning'). They sound through hell 
 
 Eejoicing the Eumenides.* 
 
 She slew 
 Our father ; she made thee the scorn of slaves ; 
 Me (son of him who ruled this land and more) 
 She made an outcast . . . 
 
 Would I had been so 
 Forever 1 ere such vengeance . . . 
 
 Electra. that Zeus 
 
 Had let thy arm fall sooner at thy side 
 Without those drops 1 list ! they are audible . . 
 For they are many . . from the sword's point falling, 
 And down from the mid blade ! 
 
 Too rash Orestes I 
 Couldst thou then not have spared our wretched mother? 
 Orestes. The gods could not. 
 
 Electra. She was not theirs, Orestes. 
 
 Orestes. And didst not thou . . 
 Electra. 'Twas I, 'twas I, who did it ; 
 
 Of our unhappiest house the most unhappy ! 
 Under this roof, by every god accurst, 
 There is no grief, there is no guilt, but mine. 
 Orestes. Electra! no! 
 
 'Tis now my time to suffer . . 
 Mine be, with all its pangs, the righteous deed. 
 
 CCXXVIII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I will never praise you again until you complete the 
 tragedy. This is the time for it, now all the dramatic 
 poets of your country are dead or silent. Not that I 
 would invite you to have it represented or published : but, 
 
 *An ancient scholiast has recorded that the name of Eumenides 
 was given to these goddesses after the expiation of Orestes. 
 But Catullus (called the learned by his countrymen) represents 
 Ariadne invoking them by this appellation long before the 
 Trojan war. The verses are the most majestic in the Koman 
 language. 
 
 Eumenides ! quarum anguineis redimita capillis 
 Frons expirantes prseportat pectoris iras. 
 Hue, hue adventate ! etc. 
 
208 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 believe me, the exertion of poetical power, in these eleva- 
 tions, throws off many of the mind's diseases. Little or 
 nothing of the sort can be effected by slenderer and more 
 desultory attempts. A bushel of garnets and amethysts 
 and topazes is not worth a single ruby the size of the 
 smallest ; and yet they are pretty things enough, and at- 
 tract as many people. One single act of such a tragedy 
 as you are able to compose, outvalues a thousand pieces 
 of less cohesive and infrangible materials. Let others 
 expatiate on trivial objects, ordinary characters, and un- 
 interesting events ; let them be called poets by themselves 
 and by their households ; but remember, O Aspasia ! that 
 you have Athenians for judges, and that the progeny of 
 heroes and gods is about to plead before them. 
 
 Again, I declare it, I will never praise you until you 
 comply with me ; I will only love you ; and hardly that. 
 
 CCXXIX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 I will never take so many steps up the heights of 
 poetry, as to make any poet doubt whether he can over- 
 take me. There is not enough honey in my cells to at- 
 tract the wasps ; nor shall there be. If you really think 
 I have done better in some parts than the generality, 
 keep the secret ; at least from others ; and if you desire 
 to see the tragedy completed . . finish it yourself. You 
 have often done work for me greatly more difficult. I 
 never could work anything with the needle ; and it was 
 not because I feared its roughening my fingers, as you 
 were pleased to say after you had finished it. I do not 
 like any labor of the hands ; that is the matter of fact ; 
 not even so little as the writing out of a tragedy. I will, 
 however, on this one occasion, give you a little assistance, 
 
 THE MADNESS OF OKESTES. 
 
 Orestes and Electra. 
 
 Orestes. Heavy and murderous dreams, O my Electra, 
 Have dragged me from myself. 
 
PEEICLES AND A8PASIA. 269 
 
 Is this Mycenai? 
 Are we . . . are all who should be ... in our house ? 
 Living? unhurt? our father here? our mother? 
 Why that deep gasp? for 'twas not sigh nor groan. 
 She then . . . 'twas she who fell ! when ? how ? beware I 
 No, no, speak out at once, that my full heart 
 May meet it, and may share with thee in all . . 
 In all . . . but that one thing. 
 
 It was a dream. 
 We may share all. 
 
 They live ? both live ? 
 
 say it ! 
 
 Electra. The gods have placed them from us, and there rolli 
 Between us that dark river . . . 
 
 Orestes. Blood! blood! blood! 
 
 1 see it roll ; I see the hand above it, 
 Imploring ; I see her. 
 
 Hiss me not back, 
 Ye snake-hair'd maids ! I will look on ; I will 
 Hear the words gurgle thro' that cursed stream. 
 And catch that hand . . that hand . . which slew my father I 
 It cannot be ... . how could it slay my father? 
 Death to the slave who spoke it ! . . . slay my father I 
 It tost me up to him to earn a smile ; 
 And was a smile then such a precious boon, 
 And royal state and proud affection nothing? 
 Ay, and thee too, Electra, she once taught 
 To take the sceptre from him at the door . . 
 Not the bath-door, not the bath-door, mind thatl . . 
 And place it in the vestibule, against 
 The spear of Pallas, where it used to stand. 
 Where is it now ? methinks I missed it there. 
 How we have trembled to be seen to move it I 
 Both looking up, lest that stern face should frown 
 Which always gazed on Zeus right opposite. 
 O ! could but one tear more fall from my eyes, 
 It would shake off those horrid visages, 
 And melt them into air. 
 
 I am not yours. 
 Fell goddesses 1 A just and generous Power, 
 A bright-hair'd god, directed me. 
 
 And thus 
 Abased is he whom such a god inspired 1 
 
 {After a pause.") 
 Into whose kingdom went they ? did they go 
 Together? 
 
 Electra. Oil ! they were not long apart. 
 
 Orestes. I know why thou art pale ; I know whose head 
 Thy flower- like bands have garlanded ; I know 
 
270 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 For whom thou hast unbraided all thy love. 
 He well deserves it .... he shall have it all. 
 Glory and love shall crown thee, my brave sister t 
 
 Electra. I am not she of Sparta. Let me live 
 (If live I must, Orestes!) not unnamed, 
 Nor named too often. Speak no more of love, 
 lU-omen'd and opprobrious in this house . . 
 A mother should have had, a father had it, 
 
 may a brother let it dwell with him. 
 Unchangeable, unquestioned, solitary. 
 Strengthened and hallowed in the depths of grief I 
 Gaze not so angrily . . I dare not see thee, 
 
 1 dare not look wliere comfort should bo found. 
 
 Orestes. I dare and do behold them all day long. 
 And, were that face away so like my mother's, 
 I would advance and question and compel them . . 
 They hear me and they know it. 
 
 Electra. Hear me too, 
 
 Ye mighty ones ! to me invisible ! 
 And spare him I spare him ! for without the gods 
 He wrought not what he wrought : And are not ye 
 Partakers of their counsels and their power? 
 
 spare the son of him whom ye and they 
 Sent against Ilion, to perform your will 
 And bid the rulers of the earth be just. 
 
 Orestes. And dare they frighten thee too? frighten theef 
 And bend thee into prayer ? 
 
 Ofl', hateful eyes 1 
 Look upon me, not her. 
 
 Ay, thus ; 'tis well. 
 Cheer, cheer thee, my Electra 1 
 
 I am strong, 
 Stronger than ever . . steel, fire, adamant . . 
 But cannot bear thy brow upon my neck. 
 Cannot bear these wild writhings, these loud sobs. 
 By all the gods ! I think thou art half mad . . . 
 
 1 must awaj' . . follow me not . . stand there 1 
 
 Here is the Prayer of Orestes, in his madnes;^, to 
 Apollo ; and there follows, what is not immediately con- 
 nected with it, the Reply of the Priestess. 
 
 Orestes. O king Apollo ! god Apollo ! god 
 Powerful to smite and powerful to preserve I 
 If there is blood upon me, as there seems. 
 Purify that black stain (thou only canst) 
 With every rill that bubbles from these caves 
 Audibly ; and come willing to the work. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 271 
 
 No; 'tis net they; 'tis blood; 'tis blood again 
 That bubbles in my ear, that shakes the shades 
 Of thy dark groves, and lets in hateful gleams. 
 Bringing me . . what dread sight I what sounds abhorr'd I 
 What screams ! They are my mother's : 'tis her eye 
 That through the snakes of those three furies glares, 
 And makes them hold their peace that she may speak. 
 Has thy voice bidden them all forth? There slink 
 Some that would hide awiiy, but must turn back, 
 And others like blue lightnings bound along 
 From rock to rock ; and many hiss at me 
 As they draw nearer. Earth, fire, water, all 
 Abominate the deed the gods commanded I 
 Alas ! I came to praj', not to complain ; 
 And lo ! my speech is impious as my deed I 
 
 Priestess of Apollo. 
 
 Take refuge here amid our Delphian shades, 
 
 O troubled breast ! 
 Here the most pious of Mycenai's maids 
 
 Shall watch thy rest 
 And wave the cooling laurel o'er thy brow, 
 
 Nor insect swarm 
 Shall ever break thy slumbers, nor shalt thou 
 
 Start at the alarm 
 Of boys infesting (as they do) the street 
 
 With mocking songs, 
 Stopping and importuning all they meet, 
 
 And heaping wrongs 
 Upon thy diartem'd and sacred head. 
 
 Worse than when base 
 CEgisthus (shudder not !) his toils outspread 
 
 Around thy race. 
 Altho' even in this fane the fitful blast 
 
 Thou may'st hear roar. 
 Thy name among our highest rocks shall last 
 
 Eor evermore. 
 
 Orestes. A calm comes over me : life brings it not 
 With any of its tides : my end is near. 
 O Priestess of the purifying god. 
 Receive her I "■ and when she hath closed mine eyes, 
 Do thou (weep not, my father's child!) close hers. 
 
 * Pointing to hja aUter. 
 
272 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CCXXX. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Many are now recovering from the fever, which no 
 longer can be called a pestilence. Pericles, though he 
 tells me he is weak in body and altered in appearance, 
 will soon overcome his fears about me. We shall pres- 
 ently meet again. And so, Cleone, you really have ven- 
 tiired at last to accept the invitation of Euphorbia. If 
 she talked to you of her son she was imprudent and 
 indiscreet ; perhaps in her earlier invitations she was 
 hardly less so. But who can foresee the end of sorrow, 
 or would foresee the end of happiness? It usually is 
 nearer at hand. When we enter a place whence the 
 beloved has been long absent, part of the presence seems 
 to be left behind. Again we draw back from the window 
 as we did before, because then we were told people were 
 coming. Foolish ! foolish !' I am representing my own 
 sensations in times past : girlish sensations, which never 
 were Cleone's, even in girlhood. Ah, Cleone ! the beau- 
 tiful smooth dove's plumage is hard and cold externally ; 
 but what throbbing, what warmth, what ardor, what ten- 
 derness, deep within ! We must neither of us prefix ah I 
 to anything in future ; we must be the happiest of the 
 happy. Here are two pieces of verse for you. That on 
 Dirce was sent to me by Pericles ; to prove that his 
 Athenians can sport with Charon even now. The last 
 quaternion seems the production of an elderly man ; and 
 some of the ladies, on whom it was not written, and to 
 whom it is not applicable, cry shame on him, beyond a 
 a doubt. 
 
 Stand close around, ye Stygian set, 
 With Dirce in one boat convey'd, 
 
 Or Charon, seeinft, may forget 
 
 That he is old, and she a shade. 
 
 Love ran with me, then walkt, then sate, 
 Then said, Come ! come ! it grows too late. 
 And then he would have gone, but . . no . . 
 You caught his eye : he could not go. 
 
PEKICLES AND ASPASIA. 273 
 
 CCXXXI. ASPASIA TO CLEONE. 
 
 Where on earth is there so much society as in a beloved 
 child ? He accompanies me in my walks, gazes into my 
 eyes for what I am gathering from books, tells me more 
 and better things than they do, and asks me often what 
 neither I nor they can answer. When he is absent I am 
 filled with reflections ; when he is present I have room 
 for none beside what I receive from him. The charms 
 of his childhood bring me back to the delights of mine, 
 and I fancy I hear my own words in a sweeter voice. 
 WiU he (O how I tremble at the mute oracle of futurity !), 
 will he ever be as happy as I have been ? Alas ! and 
 must he ever be as subject to fears and apprehensions ? 
 No ; thanks to the gods ! never, never. He carries his 
 father's heart within his breast : I see him already an 
 orator and a leader. I try to teach him daily some of 
 his father's looks and gestures, and I never smile but at 
 his docility and gravity. How his father will love him ! 
 the little thunderer ! the winner of cities ! the vanquisher 
 of Cleone ! 
 
 CCXXXII. CLEONE TO ASPASIA. 
 
 The Lacedaemonions, we hear, have occupied not only 
 all Attica, but are about to enter, if they have not entered 
 already, the territory of their coafederates the Thebaus, 
 and to join their forces. Whither will you go, my As- 
 pasia? Thessaly is almost as perilous as Boeotia. It is 
 worse thao criminal to be so nearly allied to the greatest 
 man on earth, who must always have the greatest ene- 
 mies. There are more who will forgive injury than there 
 are who will forgive station ; and those who assail in 
 vain the power of Pericles, will exert their abilities in 
 diminishing his equanimity and happiness. I fear your 
 fondness will have induced you again to enter the city, 
 that you may assuage and divide those cares which must 
 weigh heavily on his wisdom and patriotism ; and the 
 18 
 
274 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 more, since his health has been underminded by the pes- 
 tilence. I dare not advise you to forego a duty ; but 
 remember he has commanded you to remain away. Your 
 return would afflict him. I am quite incapable of judg- 
 ing for yon. Were I with you, then, perhaps I might 
 know many things which should influence your decision. 
 
 And can two years have passed over since this evil 
 entered your city, without my flying to comfort you? 
 Two years have indeed passed over ; but my house has 
 also had its days of mourning. The prayers of my father 
 were heard : he died contentedly, and even joyfully. He 
 told me he had implored of the gods that they would 
 bestow on me a life as long and happy as his own, and 
 was assured they would. Until we have seen some one 
 grown old, our existence seems stationary. When we feel 
 certain of having seen it (which is not early) the earth 
 begins a little to loosen from us. Nothing now can detain 
 me at Miletus, although when I have visited you I shall 
 return. You must return with me, which you can do 
 from any region but Attica. Pericles will not refuse, for 
 you have already conciliated me his favor. In the mean- 
 while, do not think yourself bound by the offices of 
 humanity to bestow those cares on others which are all 
 required for your own family. Do not be so imprudent 
 as to let the most intimate of your friends persuade you 
 to visit them. You have a child, you have a husband, 
 and, without your presence, you possess the means of 
 procuring every human aid for the infected. O that I 
 were with you ! to snatch you away from the approach 
 of the distemper. But I sadly fear I should grow hard- 
 hearted toward others, in your danger. 
 
 I must be with my Aspasia ; and very soon. 
 
 O Athens ! Athens ! are there not too many of the 
 dead within thy walls already ? and are none there who 
 never should have been ? * 
 
 * This seems to refer to Xeniadea. 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 275 
 
 CCXXXni. ASPASIA TO PERICLES. 
 
 Never tell me, O my Pericles ! that you are suddenly 
 changed in appearance. May every change of your 
 figure and countenance be gradual, so that I shall not 
 perceive it ; but if you really are altered to such a degree 
 as you describe, I must transfer my affection . . from 
 the first Pericles to the second. Are you jealous ! if 
 you are, it is I who am to be pitied, whose heart is des- 
 tined to fly from the one to the other incessantly. In the 
 end it will rest, it shall, it must, on the nearest. I would 
 write a longer letter ; but it is a sad and wearisome thing 
 to aim at playfulness where the hand is palsied by 
 affliction. Be well ; and all is well : be happy ; and 
 Athens rises up again, alert, and blooming, and vigorous, 
 from between war and pestilence. Love me : for love 
 cures all but love. How can we fear to die, how can we 
 die, while we cling or are clung to the beloved ? 
 
 CCXXXrV. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 The pestilence has taken from me both my sons, You, 
 who were ever so kind and affectionate to them, will 
 receive a tardy recompense, in hearing that the least 
 gentle and the least grateful did acknowledge it. 
 
 I mourn for Paralos, because he loved me ; for Xan- 
 thippos, because he loved me not. 
 
 Preserve with all your maternal care our little Pericles. 
 I cannot be fonder of him than I have always been ; I 
 can only fear more for him. 
 
 Is he not with my Aspasia ? What fears then are so 
 irrational as mine ? But oh ! I am living in a widowed 
 bouse, a house of desolation ; I am living in a city of 
 tombs and torches ; and the last I saw before me were 
 for my children. 
 
276 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 CCXXXV. PERICLES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 It is right and orderly, that he who has partaken so 
 largely in the prosperity of the Athenians, should close 
 the procession of their calamities. The fever that has 
 depopulated our city, returned upon me last night, and 
 Hippocrates and Acron tell me that my end is near. 
 
 When we agreed, O Aspasia ! in the beginning of our 
 loves, to communicate our thoughts by writing, even 
 while we were both in Athens, and when we had many 
 reasons for it, we little foresaw the more powerful one 
 that has rendered it necessary of late. We never can 
 meet again : the laws forbid it, and love itself enforces 
 them. Let wisdom be heard by you as imperturbably, 
 and affection as authoritatively, as ever ; and remember 
 that the sorrow of Pericles can arise but from the bosom 
 of Aspasia. There is only one word of tenderness we 
 could say, which we have not said oftentimes before ; and 
 there is no consolation in it. The happy never say, and 
 never hear said, farewell. 
 
 Reviewing the course of my life, it appears to me at 
 one moment as if we met but yesterday ; at another as 
 if centuries had passed within it ; for within it have 
 existed the greater part of those who, since the origin of 
 the world, have been the luminaries of the human race. 
 Damon called me from my music to look at Aristides on 
 his way to exile ; and my father pressed the wrist by 
 which he was leading me along, and whispered in my ear : 
 
 " Walk quickly by ; glance cautiously ; it is there Mil- 
 tiades is in prison." 
 
 In my boyhood Pindar took me up in his arms, when 
 he brought to our house the dirge he had composed 
 for the funeral of my grandfather ; in my adolescence I 
 offered the rites of hospitality to Empedocles ; not long 
 afterward I embraced the neck of JEschylus, about to 
 abandon his country. With Sophocles I have argued on 
 eloquence ; with Euripides on policy and ethics ; I have 
 discoursed, as became an inquirer, with Protagoras and 
 Democritus, with Anaxagoras and Meton. From Herod- 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 277 
 
 otus I have listened to the most instructive history, 
 conveyed iu a language the most copious and the most 
 harmonious ; a man worthy to carry away the collected 
 suflPrages of univei'sal Greece ; a man worthy to throw 
 open the temples of Egypt, and to celebrate the exploits of 
 Cyrus. And from Thucydides, who alone can succeed to 
 him, how recently did my Aspasia hear with me the ener- 
 getic praises of his just supremacy ! 
 
 As if the festival of life were incomplete, and wanted 
 one great ornament to crown it, Phidias placed before us, 
 in ivory and gold, the tutelary deity of this land, and the 
 Zens of Homer and Olympus. 
 
 To have lived with such men, to have enjoyed their 
 familiarity and esteem, overpays all labors and anxieties. 
 I were unworthy of the friendships I have commemorated, 
 were I forgetful of the latest. Sacred it ought to be, 
 formed as it was under the portico of Death, my friend- 
 ship with the most sagacious, the most scientific, the most 
 beneficent of philosophers, Acron and Hippocrates. If 
 mortal could war against Pestilence and Destiny, they 
 had been victorious. I leave them in the field : unfortu- 
 nate he who finds them among the fallen ! 
 
 And now, at the close of my day, when every light is 
 dim and every guest departed, let me own that these wane 
 before me, remembering, as I do in the pride and fulness 
 of my heart, that Athens confided her glory, and Aspasia 
 her happiness, to me. 
 
 Have I been a faithful guardian? do I resign them to 
 the custody of the gods undiminished and unimpaired? 
 Welcome then, welcome, my last hour ! After enjoying 
 for so great a number of years, in my public and my 
 private life, what I believe has never been the lot of any 
 other, I now extend my hand to the urn, and take with- 
 out reluctance or hesitation what is the lot of all. 
 
 CCXXXVI. AiCIBIADES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 I returned to Athens in time to receive the last injunc- 
 tions of my guardian. What I promised him, to comfort 
 
278 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 him in his departure, I dare not promise his Aspasia, lest 
 I fail in the engagement ; nevertheless I will hope that my 
 natural unsteadiness may sometimes settle on his fixed 
 principles. But what am I, what are all my hopes, in 
 comparison with the last few words of this great man, 
 surely the greatest that earth has ever seen, or ever will 
 see hereafter ! Let me repeat them to you, for they are 
 more than consolation, and better. If on such a loss I 
 or any one could console you, I should abominate you 
 eternally. 
 
 I found him surrounded by those few friends whom 
 pestilence and despair had left in the city. They had 
 entered but a little while before me ; and it appears that 
 one or other of them had been praising him for his 
 exploits. 
 
 " In these," replied he, "Fortune hath had her share ; 
 tell me rather, if you wish to gratify me, that never have 
 I caused an Athenian to put on mourning." 
 
 I burst forward from the door-way, and threw my arms 
 around his neck. 
 
 " O Pericles ! my first, last, only friend ! afar be that 
 hour yet ! " cried I, and my tears rolled abundantly on 
 his cheeks. Either he felt them not, or dissembled, or 
 disregarded them ; for, seeing his visitors go away, he 
 began with perfect calmness to give me such advice as 
 would be the best to follow in every occurrence, and 
 chiefly in every difficulty. When he had ended, and I 
 was raising my head from above his pillow (for I con- 
 tinued in that posture, ashamed that he, who spake sc 
 composedly, should perceive my uncontrollable emotion), 
 I remarked I knew not what upon his bosom. He smiled 
 faintly, and said, "Alcibiades! I need not warn you 
 against superstition ; it never was among your weak- 
 nesses. Do not wonder at these amulets ; above all, do 
 not order them to be removed. The kind old nurses, who 
 had been carefully watching over me day and night, are 
 persuaded that these will save my life. Superstition is 
 rarely so kind-hearted ; whenever she is, unable as we 
 are to reverence, let us at least respect her. After the 
 good, patient creatures have found, as they must soon, all 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 279 
 
 _ their traditional charms unavailing, they will surely grieve 
 enough, and perhaps from some other motive thau their 
 fallibility in science. Inflict not, O Alcibiades ! a fresh 
 wound upon their grief, by throwing aside the tokens of 
 their affection. In hours like these we are the most 
 indifferent to opinion, and greatly the most sensible to 
 kindness." 
 
 The statesman, the orator, the conqueror, the protector, 
 had died away ; the philosopher, the humane man, yet 
 was living . . alas ! few moments more. 
 
 CCXXXVII. AiCIBIADES TO ASPASIA. 
 
 Must I again, Aspasia, torment my soul? again must 
 I trouble yours? Has the pestilence then seized me, 
 that I want hardihood, strength, understanding, to begin 
 ray labor ? No ; I walk through the house of mourning, 
 firmly, swiftly, incessantly ; my limbs are alert as ever. 
 
 Write it I must. Somebody was at the house-door ; 
 admittance was, it seems, not granted readily. I heard 
 a voice, feeble and hoarse, and, looking forth, saw two 
 women who leaned against the lintels. 
 
 "Let her enter, let her enter ; look at her ; she is one 
 of us." 
 
 These words were spoken by the younger ; and malic- 
 iously. Scarcely had she uttered them when her head 
 dropped forward. The stranger caught and supported 
 her, and cried help I help I and rubbed her temples, and, 
 gazing on her with an intensity of compassion, closed her 
 eyelids ; for death had come over them. In my horror 
 (my fright and dastardly cowardice I should rather call 
 it), I failed to prevent or check her. 
 
 Aspasia has, then, her equal on the earth ! 
 
 Aspasia is all that women in their wildest wishes can 
 desire to be ; Cleone, all that the Immortals are. But 
 she has friendship, she has sympathy ; have those ? 
 
 She has, did I say ? And can nothing then bring me 
 back my recollection ? not even she ! I want it not ; those 
 moments are present yet, and will never pass away. 
 
280 PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 
 
 She asked for you. 
 
 " Aspasia," answered I, " is absent.*' 
 
 "Not with her husband? not with her husband?' 
 cried she. 
 
 "Pericles," I replied, "is gone to the Blessed." 
 
 " She was with him then, while hope remained for her ! 
 I knew she would be. Tell me she was." 
 
 And saying it, she grasped my arm and looked earnestly 
 in my face. Suddenly, as it appeared to me, she blushed 
 slightly ; on her countenance there was, momentarily, 
 somewhat less of its paleness. She walked into the 
 aviary ; the lattice stood open ; the birds were not flown, 
 but dead. She drew back ; she hesitated ; she departed. 
 I followed her ; for now, and not earlier, I bethought me 
 it was Cleone. Before I came up to her, she had asked 
 a question of an elderly man, who opened his lips, but 
 could not answer her, and whose arm, raised with diffi- 
 culty from the pavement, when it would have directed her 
 to the object of her inquiry, dropped upon his breast. A 
 boy was with him, gazing in wonder at the elegance and 
 composure of her attire, such as, in these years of 
 calamity and of indifference to seemliness, can nowhere 
 be found in Athens. He roused himself from his listless 
 posture, beckoned, and walked before us. Reaching the 
 garden of Epimedea, we entered it through the house ; 
 silent, vacant, the doors broken down. Sure sign that 
 some family, perhaps many, had, but few days since, 
 utterly died off within its chambers ; for nearly all the 
 habitations, in all quarters of the city, are crowded with 
 emigrants from the burghs of Attica. The pestilence is 
 now the least appalling where it has made the most havoc. 
 But how hideous, how disheartening, is the sudden stride 
 before our eyes, from health and beauty to deformity and 
 death ! In this waste and desolation there was more 
 peacefulness, I believe, than anywhere else beyond, in the 
 whole extent of our dominions. It was not to last. 
 
 A tomb stood opposite the entrance : Cleone rushed 
 toward it, reposed her brow against it, and said at 
 intervals : 
 
PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 281 
 
 "lam weary; I ache throughout; I thirst bitterly ; 
 I cannot read the epitaph." 
 
 The boy advanced, drew his finger slowly along, at the 
 bottom of the letters, and said : 
 
 "Surely they are plain enough. 
 
 " '■Xeniades son of Charondas.' " 
 
 He turned round and looked at me, well satisfied. 
 Cleone lowered her cheek to the inscription ; but her 
 knees bent under her, and she was fain to be seated on 
 the basement. 
 
 "Cleone!" said I . , she started at the name. . 
 " Come, I beseech you, from that sepulchre." 
 
 "The reproof is just!" she replied . . "Here too, 
 even here I am an alien ! " 
 
 Aspasia ! she will gladden your memory no more ; 
 never more will she heave your bosom with fond ex- 
 pectancy. There is none to whom, in the pride of your 
 soul, you will run with her letters in your hand. He, 
 upon whose shoulder you have read them in my presence 
 lies also in the grave. The last of them is written. 
 
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 A very pleasant story, In a natural key, and in a thoroughly healthful tone. 
 The author of this story is not unused to the writing of short stories, but this Is, if 
 we are not mistaken, her first long novel. If so, it is an unusually successful first 
 effort : for it is admirably put together in the matter of construction, and it ja 
 written in a quiet and attractive style, free from extravagance, verbosity, and over- 
 elaboration. The story is laid in Boston and central New York, and the contrast 
 between the different kinds of society in the two places is very successfully drawn. 
 The quality of the book promises well for books of the future from the same hand. 
 The Outlook. 
 
 SUCH AS THEY ARE. 
 
 Poems by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mary 
 Thacher Higginson. Illustrated by E. H. Garrett. Small 
 quarto. Cloth. jiSt.OO. 
 
 Thoughtful, musical, and beautifully finished, these verses appeal to the best 
 taste. The first part, containing about a score of short pieces, is by Colonel 
 Higginson. The scholarly touch prevails here without pedantry.^ In the second 
 part, which is by Mrs. Higginson, a very sweet and womanly spirit holds the pen 
 and controls the strokes. It is a little volume to be kept as an embodiment of the 
 gentlest influences of cultured life. The illustrations are beautiful. — Tlu 
 Independent, 
 
 THE WEDDING GARMENT. 
 
 A Tale of the Life to Come. By LOUIS Pewdleton. l6mo. 
 Cloth, $1.00. White and Gold, $1.25. 
 
 "The Wedding Garment" tells the story of the continued existence of a 
 young man after his death, or departure from the natural world. Awakening in 
 the other world, — in an intermediate region between Heaven and Hell, where the 
 good and the evil live together temporarily commingled, — he is astonished and 
 delighted to find himself the same man m all respects as to every characteristic of 
 his mind and ultimate of the body. So closely does everything about him resem- 
 ble the world he has left behind that he believes he is still in the latter until con- 
 vinced of the error. The young man has good impulses, but is no saint, and he 
 listens to the persuasions of certain persons who were his friends in the world, but 
 who are now numbered among the evil, even to the extent of following them 
 downward to the very confines of Hell. Resisting at last and saving himself, later 
 on, and after many remarkable experiences, he gradually makes his way through the 
 intermediate region to the gateways of Heaven (which can be found only by those 
 prepared to enter), where he is left with the prospect before him of a blessed 
 eternity in the company of the woman he loves. 
 
 The book is written in a reverential spirit ; it is unique and quite unlike any 
 story of the same type heretofore published, full of telling incidents and dramatic 
 situations, and not merely a record of the doings of sexless '' shades," but of 
 living human beings. 
 
THE DANCING FAUN. 
 
 A Novel. By Florence Farr. With title-page by Aubrey 
 Beardsley. American Copyright Edition. l6mo. Cloth. 
 $1.00. 
 
 A clever and original story, evidently based on original observation of life. 
 The surprise at the end is admirably managed, and the" daring philosophy of 
 murder which Miss Farr thus indicates makes a striking moral for the book, 
 which is sure to attract notice aud criticism 
 
 KEYNOTES. 
 
 A volume of stories. By George Egerton. With title-page 
 by Aubrey Beardsley. l6mo. Cloth. $i.oo. 
 
 Not since " The Story of an African Farm " was written has any woman de- 
 livered herself of so strong, so forcible a book. — Queen. 
 
 Knotty questions in sex problems are dealt with in these brief sketches. They 
 are treated boldly, fearlessly, perhaps we may say forcefully, with a deep plunge 
 into the realities of life. — Public Opinion, 
 
 Indeed, we do not hesitate to say that "Keynotes'* is the strongest volume 
 of short stories that the year has produced. Further, we would wager a good 
 deal, were it necessary, that George Egerton is a Tiont de plume, and of a woman 
 too. 
 
 The characters are intense, yet not overdrawn ; the experiences are dramatic, 
 In one sense or another, and yet are never hyper-emotionai. And all is told with 
 a power of concentration that is simply astonishing. A sentence does duty for 
 a chapter, a paragraph for a picture of^ years of experience. — TitneSf Boston. 
 
 DREAM LIFE AND REAL LIFE. 
 
 A Little African Story. By Olive Schreiner, author of 
 '•Dreams," "The Story of an African Farm." l6mo. Half 
 cloth. 60 cents. 
 
 "Dream Life and Real Life" is the title of the first story in a tiny volume by 
 Olive Schreiner, containing ninety-one pages of perfect workmanship and unutter- 
 able pathos. She takes the vital elements of life, love, trust, and felf-sacri6ce, 
 and weaves them into tales bristling with action. When the deed is done, the tale 
 ends. Neither word of explanation nor thinly covered moral mars their dramatic 
 force. Each reader must find out these stories for himself; but he should not 
 read the first to a child, for his heart would beat too fast under the woe of it. 
 Every selfish woman might take home the third sketch unto herself, in daily pen- 
 ance for want of insight into another's misery. — Literary World. 
 
 THE AIM OF LIFE. 
 
 Plain Talks to Youn^ Men and Women. By Rev. Philip 
 Stafford Moxom. l6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 
 
 Of this book, the New England Journal of Education says: "Under the 
 title of ' The Aim of Life,* Rev. Philip S. Moxom addresses to young people a 
 series of plain, practical talks upon influences that are to be met, contended, or 
 redeemed every day. The essays evince a keen yet sympathetic observation of 
 young manhood and womanhood, and an appreciative regard for its foibles, the 
 force of its environments, and, above all, of its possibilities of achievement. That 
 possibility of achievement and the means thereto derives a forceful significance 
 from being made the subject of the first essay and the title of the book. _ Having 
 thus laid stress on his principle, the author forbears to lift up beautiful ideals in 
 the hope that their intrinsic merit shall draw all men unto them, but rather he 
 endeavors to incite the noble instincts that practical every-day life must either 
 foster or annul. Such titles as Character, Companionship, Temperance, Debt, 
 The True Aristocracy, Education, Saving Time, Ethics of Amusement, Reading, 
 Orthodoxy, show the scope of the theme, which, if varied in expression, is one 
 throughout all. The essays are not sermonic; they emphasize the powerof 
 Christianity; they recognize at the same time the power of personality.^ Christian 
 ethics expressed in plain, forcible language, and innocent of didacticism, young 
 people always appreciate. Such are Dr. Moxom's essays, originally given to the 
 
 fmblic as addresses to young people in Boston and Cleveland. _ Now their pub- 
 ication, in convenient form, it is to be hnped, seals their value with permanency." 
 
BY MOORLAND AND SEA. 
 
 By Francis A. Knight, author of "By Leafy Ways," 
 " Idyils of the Field," etc. Illustrated by the author. t2mo. 
 Cloth. )Sil.50, 
 
 There is a vein of genuine poetry in Mr. Knight, and in his wanderings ** By 
 Moorland and Sea" it finds graceful expression. These fifteen descriptive essays 
 are filled with close but never paraded observation of Nature in sunshine and 
 storm, and each little delicate picture is firmly drawn, and has in it just the requisite 
 amount of local color. He takes us to the stormy waters of the Hebrides, and in 
 his company we sail up narrow Loch Dunvegan and climb the rock on which 
 stands the gray stronghold of the Macleods,— a fortress that for ten centuries has 
 remained in the family of its founders, and stands on its sea-washed reef today 
 apparently untouched by time, in spite of the hurricanes and the sieges of a thou- 
 sand years. Then we find ourselves far away to the south on Sedgmoor, thinking 
 of Monmouth and of what Macaulay has termed " the last fight deserving of the 
 name of 'battle* that has been fought on English ground." Once more — to pick 
 another scene at random — we are in the midsummer fields in the dewy dawn, 
 listening as the shadows vanish for the musical carol of the thrush, whose joyous 
 prelude quickly awakens the invisible choir of the neighboring woodlands. The 
 breath of the country is in these sketches, and that fact in part explains their 
 spell, and the rest of the secret stands revealed in the brilliant descriptive gift of 
 the writer. — The Speaker. 
 
 ART FOR AMERICA. 
 
 By William Ordway Partridge, l6mo. Cloth. $t.oo. 
 A strong plea for the elevation of American Art to its rightful 
 place in the scheme of general education. 
 
 Contents: — The True Education and the False, An American School of 
 Sculpture, The Outlook for Sculpture in America, Manhood in Art, The Relation 
 of the Drama to Education. Goethe as a Dramatist. 
 
 Mr. Partridge is thoughtful, forceful, and sincere, and he has put his thought- 
 fulness, forcefulness, and sincerity into this book, and for this reason the essays it 
 contains are interesting as discourses and valuable as arguments. The book 
 is a plea for a more general art culture, for a higher refinement, and for a bringing 
 out of that which is noblest in our people, trusting and believing that the outcome 
 will be an American school of art that will express the highest and noblest life and 
 spirit, as did the grand art of the Greeks during the era of their highest Ctilture, 
 refinement, and nobihty. — Boston Traveller. 
 
 LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 By W. I Fletcher, a.m.. Librarian of Amherst College. 
 Reprinted with alterations, additions, and an index from his 
 " Public Libraries in America.** One volume, thin 8vo, limp 
 covers. jiSi.oo. 
 
 There are already in the field many rival schemes of classification for libraries. 
 The present publication is not intended to add one to the number, but rather to 
 offer a way of escape for those who shrink from the intricacies and difficulties of 
 the elaborate systems, and to substitute for painstaking analytical classification a 
 simple arrangement which it is believed is better adapted to be practically useful 
 in a library, while doing away with most of the work involved in carrying out one 
 of these schemes. 
 
 WAYSIDE SKETCHES. 
 
 By Eben J. LOOMIS. l6mo. Cloth, j^i.oo. 
 
 A pleasing out-of-door book, embodying essays on : The Advance of the 
 Seasons, The Coming and Going of the Birds, Searching; for the First Flowers of 
 Spring, and Observations of the Processes of Nature during Quiet Walks in the 
 Country. 
 
 Here are twenty essays, a few of them m verse, all breathing the love of 
 Nature, and pervaded by a sweetness, restfulness, and simplicity, that make them 
 very attractive. The author recommends quiet walks in the country, and a loving 
 observation of the processes of Nature, as a cure for unhealthy introspection, to 
 say nothing of ennui and dyspepsia. Next to taking such walks, we should say, 
 would be the reading of such essays as this. — Fortland Transcript. 
 
I >"