A LITTLE before noon on the sixteenth, I was walking in the Porch — it was on the left-hand side as you go out — when Thersagoras appeared; I dare say he is known to some of you — short, hook-nosed, fair-complexioned, and virile2. He drew nearer, and I spoke3: ‘Thersagoras the poet. Whence, and whither?’ ‘From home, hither,’ he replied. ‘Just a stroll?’ I asked. ‘Why, I do need a stroll too,’ he said. ‘I got up in the small hours, impressed with the duty of making a poetic4 offering on Homer’s birthday.’ ‘Very proper,’ said I; ‘a good way of paying for the education he has given you.’ ‘That was how I began,’ he continued, ‘and time has glided5 by till now it is just upon noon; that was what I meant by saying I wanted a stroll.
‘However, I wanted something else much more — an inter6 view with this gentleman’ (and he pointed7 to the Homer; you know the one on the right of the Ptolemies’ shrine8, with the hair hanging loose); ‘I came to greet him, and to pray for a good flow of verse.’ ‘Ah,’ I sighed, ‘if prayers would do it! in that case I should have given Demosthenes a worrying for assistance against his birthday. If prayers availed, I would join my wishes to yours; for the boons9 we desire are the same.’ ‘Well, I put down to Homer,’ he replied, ‘my facility of this night and morning; ardours divine and mystic have possessed10 me. But you shall judge. Here are my tablets, which I have brought with designs upon any idle friend I might light upon; and you, I rejoice to see, are idle.’
‘Ah, you lucky man!’ I exclaimed; ‘you are like the winner of the three miles, who had washed off the dust, and could amuse himself for the rest of the day. He was minded to crack a story with the wrestler12, when the wrestling was next on the programme; but the wrestler asked him whether he had felt like cracking stories when he toed the line just now. You have won your poetic three miles, and want me to minister to your amusement just as I am shivering at the thought of my hundred yards.’ He laughed: ‘Why, how will it make things worse for you? ’
‘Ah, you probably consider Demosthenes of much less account than Homer. You are very proud of your eulogy13 on Homer; and is Demosthenes a light matter to me?’ ‘A trumped14 up charge,’ he exclaimed; ‘I am not going to sow dissension between these two mighty15 ones, though it is true my own allegiance is rather to Homer.’
‘Good,’ I said, ‘and you must allow me to give mine to Demosthenes. But, though you do not disqualify my subject, I am sure you think poetry the only real treatment; you feel about mere16 rhetoric17 what the cavalryman18 feels as he gallops19 past the infantry20.’ ‘I hope I am not so mad as that,’ he said, ‘though a considerable touch of madness is required of him who would pass the gates of poetry.’ ‘If you come to that, prose cannot do without some divine inspiration either, if it is not to be flat and common.’ He admitted that at once: ‘I often delight myself with comparing passages from Demosthenes and other prose writers with Homer in point of vehemence21, pungency22, fire. “Flown with wine” I pair off against the revellings and dancings and debauchery of Philip; “One presage23 that ne’er fails 1“ finds its counterpart in “It is for brave men, founding themselves upon brave hopes —”; “How would old Peleus, lord of steeds, repine —” is matched by “What a cry of lamentation24 would go up from the men of those days who laid down their lives for glory and freedom —”; “fluent Python” reminds me of Odysseus’s “snow-flake speech”; “If ’twere our lot neither to age nor die,” I illustrate25 by “For every man’s life must end in death, though he shut himself up in a narrow chamber26 for safer keeping.” In fact the instances are numberless in which they attack their meaning by the same road.
‘I love too to study his feelings and moods and transitions, the variety with which he combats weariness, his resumptions after digression, the charm of his opportune27 illustrations, and the never-failing native purity of his style.
‘It has often struck me about Demosthenes — for I will tell the whole truth out — that that looser of the bonds of speech rebukes28 Athenian slackness with a dignity that is lacking in the “Greekesses” used by Homer of the Greeks; and again he maintains the tragic30 intensity31 proper to the great Hellenic drama more consistently than the poet who inserts speeches at the very crisis of battle and allows energy to evaporate in words.
‘As often as I read Demosthenes, the balanced clauses, the rhythmic32 movement and cadence33, make me forget that this is not my beloved poetry; for Homer too abounds34 in contrast and parallel, in figures startling or simple. It is a provision of nature, I suppose, that each faculty35 should have its proper equipment attached to it. How should I scorn your Muse11? I know her powers too well.
‘None the less, I consider my task of a Homeric encomium twice as difficult as your praise of Demosthenes; not because it must be in verse, but from the nature of the material; I cannot lay down a foundation of fact to build the edifice36 of praise upon; there is nothing but the poems themselves. Everything else is uncertain — his country, his family, his time. If there had been any uncertainty37 about them,
Debate and strife38 had not divided men;
but as it is, they give him for a country Ios or Colophon or Cumae, Chios, Smyrna, or Egyptian Thebes, or half a hundred other places; his father may be Macon the Lydian, or he may be a river; his mother is now Melanope, and now in default of satisfactory human descent a dryad; his time is the Heroic Age, or else perhaps it is the Ionic. There is no knowing for certain whether he was before or after Hesiod, even; and no wonder, considering that some object to his very name, and will have him Melesigenes instead. So too with his poverty, and his blindness. However, all these questions are best left alone. So you see the arena39 open to my panegyric40 is extremely limited; my theme is a poet and not a man of action; I can infer and collect his wisdom only from his verses.
‘Your work, now, can be reeled smoothly41 off out of hand; you have your definite known facts; the butcher’s meat is there, only needing to be garnished42 with the sauce of your words. History supplies you with the greatness and distinction of Demosthenes; it is all known; his country was Athens, the splendid, the famous, the bulwark43 of Hellas. Now if I could have laid hands on Athens, I might have used the poet’s right to introduce the loves and judgements and sojourns44 there of the Gods, the gifts they lavished47 on it, the tale of Eleusis. As for its laws and courts and festivals, its Piraeus and its colonies, the memorials set up in it of victory by land and sea, Demosthenes himself is the authority for saying that no words could do justice to them. My material would have been inexhaustible; and I could not have been accused of hanging up my true theme; the formula of panegyric includes the arraying of the man in the splendours of his country. So too Isocrates ekes29 out his Helen by introducing Theseus. It is true that poets have their privileges; and perhaps you have to be more careful about your proportions; there must not be too much sack to the proverbial halfpennyworth of bread.
‘Well then, let Athens go; but your discourse48 at once finds another support in his father’s wealth — that “golden base” which Pindar likes —; for to be responsible for providing a warship49 was to be among the richest Athenians in those days. And though he died while Demosthenes was quite a child, we are not to count his orphan50 state a disaster; it led to the distinction that brought his splendid gifts into notice.
‘Tradition gives us no hint of how Homer was educated or developed his powers; the panegyrist must plunge51 straight into his works, and can find nothing to talk about in his breeding and training and pupilage; he has not even the resource of that Hesiodic sprig of bay which could make a facile poet out of a shepherd. But think of your abundance in this branch of the subject. There is Callistratus and all the mighty roll of orators53, Alcidamas, Isocrates, Isaeus, Eubulides. Then again, at Athens even those who were subject to paternal54 control had countless55 temptations to indulgence, youth is the susceptible56 time, a neglected ward57 could have lived as irregular a life as he chose, and yet the objects that Demosthenes set up for himself were philosophy and patriotism58, and the doors they took him to not Phryne’s, but those of Aristotle and Theophrastus, Xenocrates and Plato.
‘And so, my dear sir, your way is open to a disquisition upon the two kinds of human love, the one sprung of a desire that is like the sea, outrageous60, fierce, stormily rocking the soul; it is a true sea wave, which the earthly Aphrodite sets rolling with the tempestuous61 passions of youth; but the other is the steady drawing of a golden cord from heaven; it does not scorch62 and pierce and leave festering wounds; it impels63 towards the pure and unsullied ideal of absolute beauty, and is a sane64 madness in those souls which “yet hold of Zeus and nurse the spark divine.”
‘Love will find out the way, though that way involve a shaven head, a cavern66 dwelling67, a discouraging mirror and punitive68 sword, a disciplining of the tongue, a belated apprenticeship69 to the actor’s art, a straining of the memory, a conquest over clamour, and a borrowing of night hours to lengthen70 toilsome days 1. All this your Demosthenes endured, and who knows not what an orator52 it made of him? his speech packed with thought and terse71 of language, himself convincing in his knowledge of human nature, as splendid in the elevation72 as mighty in the force of his sentiments, the master and not the slave of his words and his ideas, ever fresh with the graces of his art. He is the one orator whose speech has, in the bold phrase of Leosthenes, at once the breath of life and the strength of wrought73 iron.
Callisthenes remarked of Aeschylus that he wrote his tragedies in wine, which lent vigour74 and warmth to his work. With Demosthenes it was otherwise; he composed not on wine but on water; whence the witticism75 of Demades, that most men’s tongues are regulated by water 2, but Demosthenes’s pen was subject to the same influence. And Pytheas detected the smell of the midnight oil in the very perfection of the speeches. Well, there is much in common between your subject and mine, so far as this branch of them is concerned; on Homer’s poems I was no worse off than you are.
‘But when you come to your hero’s acts of humanity, his pecuniary76 sacrifices, his grand political achievements ’ (and he was going on in full swing to the rest of the catalogue, when I interrupted, with a laugh: ‘Must I be dowsed with the remainder of your canful, good bath-man?’ ‘Most certainly,’ he retorted, and went straight on), ‘the public entertainments he gave, the public burdens he assumed, the ships, the wall, the trench77 he contributed to, the prisoners he ransomed78, the girls he portioned, his admirable policy, the embassies he served on, the laws he got passed, the mighty issues he was concerned in — why, then I cannot but laugh to see your contracted brows; as if a recital79 of the exploits of Demosthenes could lack matter!’
‘I believe you think, my good man,’ I protested, ‘that I have never had the deeds of Demosthenes drummed into me; I should be singular among rhetoricians, then.’ ‘It was on the assumption,’ he said, ‘implied by you, that we want assistance. But perhaps your case is a very different one; is the light so bright that you cannot manage to fix your eyes on the dazzling glory of Demosthenes? Well, I was rather like that about Homer at first. Indeed, I came very near turning mine away, thinking I could not possibly face my subject. However, I got over it somehow or other; became gradually inured80, as it were, superior to the weakness of vision that would have condemned81 me for a bastard82 eagle and no true son of Homer.
‘But now here is another great advantage that I consider you have over me. The poetic faculty has a single aim; from which it follows that Homer’s glory must be laid hold of at once and as a whole. You on the other hand, if you were to attempt dealing83 with the whole Demosthenes all at once, would never know what to say; you would waver and not be able to set your thoughts to work. You would be like the gourmand84 at a Sicilian banquet, or the aesthete85 who has a thousand delightful86 sights and sounds presented to him at once; they do not know which way to turn for their conflicting desires. I suspect that you too are distracted and find concentration impossible; all round you are the varied87 attractions — his magnanimity, his fire, his orderly life, his oratorical88 force and practical courage, the endless opportunities of gain that he scorned, his justice, humanity, honour, spirit, sagacity, and each of all his great services to his country. It may well be that, when you behold89 on this side decrees, ambassadors, speeches, laws, on the other, fleets, Euboea, Boeotia, Chios, Rhodes, the Hellespont, Byzantium, you are pulled to and fro among these too numerous invitations, and cannot tell which to accept.
‘Pindar once found himself in a similar difficulty with an overabundant theme:
Ismenus? Melia’s distaff golden-bright?
Cadmus? the race from dragon’s teeth that came?
Thebe’s dark circlet? the all-daring might
Of Heracles? great Bacchus’ merry fame?
White-armed Harmonia’s bridal? — Ay, but which?
My Muse, we ‘re poor in that we are too rich.
You, I dare say, are in the same quandary90. Logic91 and life, rhetoric and philosophy, popularity and death — ay, but which?
The maze92 is quite easy to escape from, though; you have only to take hold of one single clue, no matter which — his oratory93, if you will, so that it is taken by itself — and stick to that one throughout your present discourse. You will have ample material; his oratory is not of the Periclean type. Pericles could lighten and thunder, and he could hit the right nail on the head; so much tradition tells us; but we have nothing to judge for ourselves by, no doubt because, beyond the momentary94 impression produced, there was in his performances no element of permanence, nothing that could stand the searching test of time. But with Demosthenes’s work — well, that it will be your province to deal with, if your choice goes that way.
Or if you prefer his character, or his policy, it will be well to isolate95 some particular detail — if you are greedy you may pick out two or three — which will give you quite enough to go upon; so great was he at every point. And for such specializing we have Homer’s example; the compliments he pays his heroes are attached to parts of them, their feet, their heads, their hair, even their shields or something they have on; and the Gods seem to have had no objection to poets’ basing their praises merely on a distaff, a bow, or the aegis96; a limb or a quality must pass still more easily; and as for good actions, it is impossible to give an exhaustive list of them. Demosthenes accordingly will not blame you for confining your eulogy to one of his merits, especially as to celebrate the whole of them worthily97 would be beyond even his powers.’
When Thersagoras had finished this harangue98, I remarked: ‘Your intention is plain; I am to be convinced that you are more than a good poet; so you have constructed your prose Demosthenes as a pendant to your verse Homer.’ ‘No, no,’ he said; ‘what made me run on so long was the idea that, if I could ease your mind by showing how light your task was, I should have secured my listener.’ ‘Then let me tell you that your object has not been furthered, and my case has only been aggravated99.’ ‘A fine doctor I seem to be!’ he said. ‘Not knowing where the difficulty lies,’ I continued, ‘you are a doctor who mistakes his patient’s ailment100 and treats him for another.’ ‘How so?’
‘You have been prescribing for the troubles that would attend a first attempt; unfortunately it is years and years since I got through that stage, and your remedies are quite out of date.’ ‘Why, then,’ he exclaimed, ‘the cure is complete; nobody is nervous about a road of which he knows every inch.’
‘Ah, but then I have set my heart upon reversing the feat101 that Anniceris of Cyrene exhibited to Plato and his friends. To show what a fine driver he was, he drove round the Academy time after time exactly in his own track, which looked after it as if it had only been traversed once. Now my endeavour is just the opposite, to avoid my old tracks; and it is by no means so easy to keep out of the ruts.’ ‘Pauson’s is the trick for you,’ he said. ‘What is that? I never heard of it.’
‘Pauson the painter was commissioned to do a horse rolling. He painted one galloping102 in a cloud of dust. As he was at work upon it, his patron came in, and complained that this was not what he had ordered. Pauson just turned the picture upside down and told his man to hold it so for inspection103; there was the horse rolling on its back.’ ‘You dear innocent!’ I said; ‘do you suppose I have kept my picture turned the same way all these years? It has been shifted and tilted104 at every conceivable angle, till I begin to have apprehensions105 of ending like Proteus.’ ‘And how was that?’ ‘Oh, I mean the issue of his attempts to evade106 human observation; when he had exhausted107 all shapes of animals and plants and elements, finding no metamorphosis left him, he had to be Proteus again.’
‘You have more shifts than ever Proteus had,’ he said, ‘to get off hearing my poem.’
‘Oh, do not say that,’ said I; ‘off goes my burden of care, and I am at your service. Perhaps when you have got over your own pains of child-birth you will show more feeling for my delicate state.’
He liked the offer, we settled down on a convenient stone step, and I listened to some excellent poetry. In the middle of reading he was seized with an idea, did up his tablets, and said: ‘You shall have your hearer’s fee, as well deserved as an Athenian’s after a day in court or assembly. Thank me, please.’ ‘I do, before I know what for. But what may it be?’ ‘It was in the Macedonian royal archives that I came across the book;
I was delighted with it at the time, and took considerable trouble to secure it; it has just come into my head that I have it at home. It contains, among details of Antipater’s management of the household, facts about Demosthenes that I think you will find worth your best attention.’ ‘You shall have payment on the spot,’ I said, ‘in the shape of an audience for the rest of your verses; and moreover I shall not part with you till your promise is fulfilled. You have given me a luscious108 Homer birthday dinner; and it seems you are to be at the charges of the Demosthenes one too.’
He read to the end, we stayed long enough for me to give the poem its meed of praise, and then adjourned109 to his house, where after some search the book was found. I took it away with me, and on further acquaintance was so much impressed by it that I shall do no editing, but read it you totidem verbis. Asclepius is not less honoured if his worshippers, in default of original compositions, have the hymns110 of Isodemus or Sophocles performed before him; there is a failure nowadays in the supply of new plays for Dionysus; but those who produce the works of old masters at the proper season have the credit all the same of honouring the God.
This book, then (the part of the state records that concerns us is the conversation I shall give you)— the book informs us that Archias’s name was announced to Antipater. In case any of my younger hearers should not know the fact already, this Archias had been charged with the arrest of all exiles. In particular, he was to get Demosthenes from Calauria into Antipater’s presence, but rather by persuasion111 than by force. Antipater was excited about it, hoping that Demosthenes might arrive any day. So, hearing that Archias was come from Calauria, he gave orders for his instant admittance.
When he entered — but you shall have the conversation as it stands.
Archias. Antipater
Ar. Is it well with you, Antipater?
Ant. It is well, if you have brought Demosthenes.
Ar. I have brought him as I might. I have the urn45 that holds his remains112
Ant. Ha? my hopes are dashed. What avail ashes and urns46, if I have not Demosthenes?
Ar. The soul, O King, may not be prisoned in a man’s own despite.
Ant. Why took you him not alive?
Ar. We took him.
Ant. And he has died on the way?
Ar. He died where he was, in Calauria.
Ant. Your neglect is to blame; you took not due care of him.
Ar. Nay113, it lies not at our door.
Ant. What mean you? These are riddles114, Archias; you took him alive, and you have him not?
Ar. Was it not your charge that we should use no force at first? Yet indeed we should have fared no better if we had; we did intend it.
Ant. You did not well, even in the intention; it may be your violence killed him.
Ar. No, we killed him not; but if we could not persuade him, there was nothing for it but force. But, O King, how had you been the better off, if he had come alive? you could have done no more than kill him.
Ant. Peace, Archias! methinks you comprehend neither the nature of Demosthenes, nor my mind. You think there is no more in the finding of Demosthenes than in the hunting down such scoundrels as Himeraeus or Aristonicus or Eucrates; these are like swollen115 torrents116 — mean fellows in themselves, to whom a passing storm gives brief importance; they make a brave show while the disturbance117 lasts; but they are as sure to vanish soon as the wind to fall at evening. The recreant118 Hyperides is another — a selfish demagogue, who took no shame to curry119 favour with the mob by libelling Demosthenes, and make himself its instrument for ends that his dupes soon wished they had never attained120; for the libels had not long borne their fruit before the libelled was reinstated with more honour than Alcibiades himself. But what reeked121 Hyperides? he scrupled122 not to use against what had once been dearest to him the tongue that he deserved, even by that iniquity123, to lose.
Ar. How.? was Demosthenes not our enemy of enemies?
Ant. Not in the eyes of one who cares for an honourable124 nature, and loves a sincere consistent character. The noble is noble, though it be in an enemy; and virtue125 has no country. Am I meaner than Xerxes? he could admire Bulis and Sperchis the Spartans126, and release them when they were in his power. No man that ever lived do I admire more than Demosthenes; twice I was in his company at Athens (in hurried times, it is true), and I have heard much from others, and there is his work to judge by. And what moves me is not his skill in speech. You might well suppose so; Python was nothing, matched with him, and the Attic127 orators but babes in comparison with his finish and intensity, the music of his words, the clearness of his thoughts, his chains of proof, his cumulative128 blows. We found our mistake when we listened to Python and his promises; we had gathered the Greeks to Athens to see the Athenians confuted; it was Demosthenes who confuted us. But no words of mine can describe the power of his eloquence129.
Yet to that I give but a secondary place, as a tool the man used. It was the man himself I marvelled130 at, his spirit and his wisdom, and the steadiness of soul that steered131 a straight course through all the tempests of fortune with never a craven impulse. And Philip was of my mind about him; when a speech of his before the Athenian assembly against Philip was reported, Parmenio was angry, and made some bitter jest upon him. But Philip said: Ah, Parmenio, he has a right to say what he pleases; he is the only popular orator in all Greece whose name is missing in my secret service accounts, though I would far rather have put myself in his hands than in those of clerks and third-rate
actors. All the tribe of them are down for gold, timber, rents, cattle, land, in Boeotia if not in Macedonia 1; but the walls of Byzantium are not more proof against the battering-ram than Demosthenes against gold.
This is the way I look at it, Parmenio. An Athenian who speaking in Athens prefers me to his country shall have of my money, but not of my friendship; as for one who hates me for his country’s sake, I will assault him as I would a citadel132, a wall, a dock, a trench, but I have only admiration133 for his virtue, and congratulations for the State that possesses him. The other kind I should like to crush as soon as they have served my purpose; but him I would sooner have here with us than the Illyrian and Triballian horse and all my mercenaries; arguments that carry conviction, weight of intellect, I do not put below force of arms.
That was to Parmenio; and he said much the same to me. At the time of the Athenian expedition under Diopithes, I was very anxious, but Philip laughed at me heartily134, and said: Are you afraid of these town-bred generals and their men? Their fleet, their Piraeus, their docks, I snap my fingers at them. What is to be looked for from people whose worship is of Dionysus, whose life is in feasting and dancing? If Demosthenes, and not a man besides, had been subtracted from Athens, we should have had it with less trouble than Thebes or Thessaly; deceit and force, energy and corruption135, would soon have done the thing. But he is ever awake; he misses no occasion; he makes move for move and counters every stroke. Not a trick of ours, not an attempt begun or only thought of, but he has intelligence of it; in a word he is the obstacle that stands between us and the swift attainment136 of our ends. It was little fault of his that we took Amphipolis, that we won Olynthus, Phocis, Thermopylae, that we are masters of the Hellespont.
He rouses his reluctant countrymen out of their opiate sleep, applies to their indolence the knife and cautery of frank statement, and little he cares whether they like it or not. He transfers the revenues from state theatre to state armament, re-creates with his navy bill a fleet disorganized to the verge137 of extinction138, restores patriotism to the place from which it had long been ousted139 by the passion for legal fees, uplifts the eyes of a degenerate140 race to the deeds of their fathers and emulation141 of Marathon and Salamis, and fits them for Hellenic leagues and combinations. You cannot escape his vigilance, he is not to be wheedled142, you can no more buy him than the Persian King could buy the great Aristides.
This is the direction your fears should take, Antipater; never mind all the war-ships and all the fleets. What Themistocles and Pericles were to the Athens of old, that is Demosthenes to Athens to-day, as shrewd as Themistocles, as high of soul as Pericles. He it was that gained them the control of Euboea and Megara, the Hellespont and Boeotia. It is well indeed that they give the command to such as Chores or Diopithes or Proxenus, and keep Demosthenes to the platform at home. If they had given into his hands their arms and ships and troops, their strategy and their money, I doubt he would have put me on my mettle143 to keep Macedonia; even now that he has no weapon but his decrees, he is with us at every turn, his hand is upon us; the ways and means are of his finding, the force of his gathering144; it is he that sends armadas afar, he that joins power to power, he that meets our every change of plan.
This was his tone about Demosthenes on many other occasions too; he put it down as one of his debts to fortune that armies were never led by the man whose mere words were so many battering-rams and catapults worked from Athens to the shattering and confounding of his plans. As to Chaeronea, even the victory made no difference; he continued to impress upon us how precarious145 a position this one man had contrived146 for us. Things went unexpectedly well; their generals were cowards and their troops undisciplined, and the caprice of fortune, which has so often served us well, brought us out victorious147; but he had reduced me to hazarding my kingdom and my life on that single throw; he had brought the most powerful cities into line, he had united Greece, he had forced Athens and Thebes and all Boeotia, Corinth, Euboea, Megara — the might of Greece, in short — to play the game out to its end, and had arrested me before I reached Attic soil.
He never ceased to speak thus about Demosthenes. If any one told him the Athenian democracy was a formidable rival, ‘Demosthenes,’ he would say, ‘is my only rival; Athens without him is no better than Aenianes or Thessalians.’ Whenever Philip sent embassies to the various states, if Athens had sent any one else to argue against his men, he always gained his point with ease; but when it was Demosthenes, he would tell us the embassy had come to naught148: there was not much setting up of trophies149 over speeches of Demosthenes.
Such was Philip’s opinion. Now I am no Philip at the best, and do you suppose, Archias, that if I could have got a man like Demosthenes, I should have found nothing better to do with him than sending him like an ox to the slaughter150? or should I have made him my right-hand man in the management of Greece and of the empire? I was instinctively151 attracted long ago by his public record — an attraction heightened by the witness of Aristotle. He constantly assured both Alexander and myself that among all the vast number of his pupils he had found none comparable to Demosthenes in natural genius and persevering152 self-development, none whose intellect was at once so weighty and so agile153, none who spoke his opinions so freely or maintained them so courageously154.
But you (said Aristotle) confuse him with an Eubulus, a Phrynon, a Philocrates, and think to convert with gifts a man who has actually
lavished his inheritance half on needy155 Athenians and half on Athens; you vainly imagine that you can intimidate156 one who has long ago resolved to set his life upon his country’s doubtful fortunes; if he arraigns157 your proceedings158, you try denunciation; why, the nearer terrors of the Assembly find him unmoved. You do not realize that the mainspring of his policy is patriotism, and that the only personal advantage he expects from it is the improvement of his own nature.
All this it was, Archias, that made me long to have him with me, to hear from his own lips what he thought about the state of things, and be able at any time of need, abandoning the flatterers who infest159 us, to hear the plain words of an independent mind and profit by sincere advice. And I might fairly have drawn160 his attention to the ungrateful nature of those Athenians for whom he had risked all when he might have had firmer and less unconscionable friends.
Ar. O King, your other ends you might have gained, but that you would have told him to no purpose; his love of Athens was a madness beyond cure.
Ant. It was so indeed; ’twere vain to deny it. But how died he?
Ar. O King, there is further wonder in store for you. We who have had the scene before our eyes are as startled and as unbelieving yet as when we saw it. He must long ago have determined161 how to die; his preparation shows it. He was seated within the temple, and our arguments of the days before had been spent on him in vain.
Ant. Ay? and what were they?
Ar. Long and kindly162 I urged him, with promises on your part, not that I looked to see them kept (for I knew not then, and took you to be wroth with him), but in hopes they might prevail.
Ant. And what hearing did he give them? Keep nothing back; I would I were there now, hearing him with my own ears; failing which, do you hide nothing from me. ’Tis worth much to learn the bearing of a true man in the last moments of his life, whether he gave way and played the coward, or kept his course unfaltering even to the end.
Ar. Ah, in him was no bending to the storm; how far from it! With a smiling allusion163 to my former life, he told me I was not actor enough to make your lies convincing.
Ant. Ha? he left life for want of belief in my promises?
Ar. Not so; hear to the end, and you will see his distrust was not all for you. Since you bid me speak, O King, he told me there was no oath that could bind164 a Macedonian; it was nothing strange that they should use against Demosthenes the weapon that had won them Amphipolis, and Olynthus, and Oropus. And much more of the like; I had writers there, that his words might be preserved for you. Archias (he said), the prospect165 of death or torture would be enough to keep me out of Antipater’s presence. And if you tell me true, I must be on my guard against the worse danger of receiving life itself as a present at his hands, and deserting, to serve Macedonia, that post which I have sworn to hold for Greece.
Life were a thing to be desired, Archias, were it purchased for me by the power of Piraeus (a war-ship, my gift, has floated there), by the wall and trench of which I bore the cost, by the tribe Pandionis whose festival charges I took upon me, by the spirit of Solon and Draco, by unmuzzled statesmen and a free people, by martial166 levies167 and naval168 organization, by the virtues169 and the victories of our fathers, by the affection of fellow citizens who have crowned me many a time, and by the might of a Greece whose guardian170 I have never ceased to be. Or again, if life is to be owed to compassion171, though it be mean enough, yet compassion I might endure among the kindred of the captives I have ransomed, the fathers whose daughters I have helped to portion, and the men whose debts I have joined in paying.
But if the island empire and the sea may not save me, I ask my safety from the Posidon at whose altar and under whose sanctuary172 I stand. And if Posidon’s power avails not to keep his temple inviolate173, if he scorns not to surrender Demosthenes to Archias, then welcome death; I will not transfer my worship to Antipater. I might have had Macedonia more at my devotion than Athens, might be now a partaker in your fortunes, if I would have ranged myself with Callimedon, and Pytheas, and Demades. When things were far gone, I might yet have made a shift, if I had not had respect to the daughters of Erechtheus and to Codrus. Fortune might desert, I would not follow her; for death is a haven65 of safety, which he who reaches will do no baseness more. Archias, I will not be at this late day a stain upon the name of Athens; I will not make choice of slavery; be my winding-sheet the white one of liberty.
Sir actor, let me recall to you a fine passage from one of your tragedies 1:
But even at the point of death
She forethought took to fall in seemly wise.
She was but a girl; and shall Demosthenes choose an unseemly life before a seemly death, and forget what Xenocrates and Plato have said of immortality174? And then he was stirred to some bitter speech upon men puffed175 up by fortune. What remains to tell? At last, as I now besought176 and now threatened, mingling177 the stern and mild, ‘Had I been Archias,’ he said, ‘I had yielded; but seeing that I am Demosthenes, your pardon, good sir, if my nature recoils178 from baseness.’
Then I was minded to hale him off by force. Which when he observed, I saw him smile and glance at the God. Archias (he said) believes that there is no might, no refuge for the human soul, but arms and war-ships, walls and camps. He scorns that equipment of mine which is proof against Illyrians and Triballi
and Macedonians, surer than that wooden wall 1 of old, which the God averred179 none should prevail against. Secure in this I ever took a fearless course; fearless I braved the might of Macedonia; little I cared for Euctemon or Aristogiton, for Pytheas and Callimedon, for Philip in the old days, for Archias to-day.
And then, Lay no hand upon me. Be it not mine to bring outrage59 upon the temple; I will but greet the God, and follow of my free will. And for me, I put reliance upon this, and when he lifted his hand to his mouth, I thought it was but to do obeisance180.
Ant. And it was indeed —?
Ar. We put his servant to the question later, and learned from her that he had long had poison by him, to give him liberty by parting soul from body. He had not yet passed the holy threshold, when he fixed181 his eye on me and said: ‘Take this to Antipater; Demosthenes you shall not take, no, by ———’ And methought he would have added, by the men that fell at Marathon.
And with that farewell he parted. So ends, O King, the siege of Demosthenes.
Ant. Archias, that was Demosthenes. Hail to that unconquerable soul! how lofty the spirit, how republican the care, that would never be parted from their warrant of freedom! Enough; the man has gone his way, to live the life they tell of in the Isles182 of the heroic Blest, or to walk the paths that, if tales be true, the heaven-bound spirits tread; he shall attend, surely, on none but that Zeus who is named of Freedom. For his body, we will send it to Athens, a nobler offering to that land than the men that died at Marathon. H.
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1
encomium
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| n.赞颂；颂词 | |
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2
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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3
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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inter
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| v.埋葬 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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boons
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| n.恩惠( boon的名词复数 )；福利；非常有用的东西；益处 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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12
wrestler
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| n.摔角选手，扭 | |
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13
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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14
trumped
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| v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去分词 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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17
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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18
cavalryman
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| 骑兵 | |
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19
gallops
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| （马等）奔驰，骑马奔驰( gallop的名词复数 ) | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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21
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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pungency
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| n.（气味等的）刺激性；辣；（言语等的）辛辣；尖刻 | |
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presage
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| n.预感，不祥感；v.预示 | |
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lamentation
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| n.悲叹，哀悼 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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opportune
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| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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rebukes
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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ekes
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| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的第三人称单数 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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30
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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cadence
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| n.（说话声调的）抑扬顿挫 | |
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abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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panegyric
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| n.颂词，颂扬 | |
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41
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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42
garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
bulwark
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| n.堡垒，保障，防御 | |
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44
sojourns
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| n.逗留，旅居( sojourn的名词复数 ) | |
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45
urn
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| n.（有座脚的）瓮；坟墓；骨灰瓮 | |
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urns
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| n.壶( urn的名词复数 )；瓮；缸；骨灰瓮 | |
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47
lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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49
warship
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| n.军舰，战舰 | |
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50
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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51
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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52
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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53
orators
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| n.演说者，演讲家( orator的名词复数 ) | |
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54
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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55
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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56
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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57
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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58
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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59
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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60
outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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61
tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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62
scorch
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| v.烧焦，烤焦；高速疾驶；n.烧焦处，焦痕 | |
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63
impels
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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64
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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65
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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66
cavern
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| n.洞穴，大山洞 | |
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67
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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68
punitive
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| adj.惩罚的，刑罚的 | |
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69
apprenticeship
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| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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70
lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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71
terse
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| adj.(说话，文笔)精炼的，简明的 | |
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72
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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73
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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74
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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75
witticism
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| n.谐语，妙语 | |
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76
pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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77
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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ransomed
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| 付赎金救人，赎金( ransom的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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80
inured
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| adj.坚强的，习惯的 | |
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81
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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82
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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83
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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84
gourmand
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| n.嗜食者 | |
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aesthete
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| n.审美家 | |
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86
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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oratorical
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| adj.演说的，雄辩的 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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quandary
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| n.困惑，进迟两难之境 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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94
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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isolate
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| vt.使孤立，隔离 | |
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aegis
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| n.盾；保护，庇护 | |
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worthily
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| 重要地，可敬地，正当地 | |
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harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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ailment
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| n.疾病，小病 | |
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feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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102
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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103
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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104
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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105
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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luscious
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| adj.美味的；芬芳的；肉感的，引与性欲的 | |
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adjourned
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| （使）休会， （使）休庭( adjourn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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110
hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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111
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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112
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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113
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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114
riddles
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| n.谜（语）( riddle的名词复数 )；猜不透的难题，难解之谜 | |
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115
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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116
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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117
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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118
recreant
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| n.懦夫；adj.胆怯的 | |
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119
curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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120
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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121
reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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122
scrupled
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| v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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123
iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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124
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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125
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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126
spartans
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| n.斯巴达（spartan的复数形式） | |
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127
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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128
cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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129
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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130
marvelled
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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131
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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132
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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133
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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134
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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135
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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136
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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138
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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139
ousted
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| 驱逐( oust的过去式和过去分词 )； 革职； 罢黜； 剥夺 | |
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degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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142
wheedled
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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143
mettle
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| n.勇气，精神 | |
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144
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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145
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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149
trophies
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| n.（为竞赛获胜者颁发的）奖品( trophy的名词复数 )；奖杯；（尤指狩猎或战争中获得的）纪念品；（用于比赛或赛跑名称）奖 | |
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150
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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151
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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152
persevering
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| a.坚忍不拔的 | |
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153
agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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154
courageously
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| ad.勇敢地，无畏地 | |
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155
needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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156
intimidate
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| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
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157
arraigns
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| v.告发( arraign的第三人称单数 )；控告；传讯；指责 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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159
infest
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| v.大批出没于；侵扰；寄生于 | |
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160
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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161
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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162
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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164
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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165
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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166
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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167
levies
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| （部队）征兵( levy的名词复数 )； 募捐； 被征募的军队 | |
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168
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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169
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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170
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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171
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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172
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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173
inviolate
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| adj.未亵渎的，未受侵犯的 | |
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174
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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175
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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176
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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177
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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178
recoils
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| n.（尤指枪炮的）反冲，后坐力( recoil的名词复数 )v.畏缩( recoil的第三人称单数 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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179
averred
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| v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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180
obeisance
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| n.鞠躬，敬礼 | |
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181
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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182
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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