Trips to the Moon Part 6

{25b} See Homer's "Iliad," [Greek] 1. 18. One of the blind bard's speciosa miracula, which Lucian is perpetually laughing at.

{26} [Greek], or cerussa. Painting, we see, both amongst men and women, was practised long ago, and has at least the plea of antiquity in its favour. According to Lucian, the men laid on white; for the [Greek] was probably ceruse, or white lead; the ladies, we may suppose, as at present, preferred the rouge.

{29} Dinocrates. The same story is told of him, with some little alteration, by Vitruvius. Mention is made of it likewise by Pliny and Strabo.

{35} "His buckler's mighty orb was next displayed; Tremendous Gorgon frowned upon its field, And circling terrors filled the expressive s.h.i.+eld.

Within its concave hung a silver thong, On which a mimic serpent creeps along, His azure length in easy waves extends, Till, in three heads, th' embroidered monster ends."

See Pope's "Homer's Iliad," book xi., 1. 43.

Lucian here means to ridicule, not Homer, but the historian's absurd imitation of him.

{39} The Greek expression was proverbial. Horace has adopted it: "Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus."

{40} Lucian adds, [Greek], ut est in proverbio, by which it appears that barbers and their shops were as remarkable for gossiping and t.i.ttle-tattle in ancient as they are in modern times. Aristophanes mentions them in his "Plutus," they are recorded also by Plutarch, and Theophrastus styles them [Greek].

{41} See Thucydides, book ii., cap. 34.

{42} Who fell upon his sword. See the "Ajax" of Sophocles.

{43} For a description of this famous statue, see Pausanias.

{44} The [Greek], or scarus, is mentioned by several ancient authors, as a fish of the most delicate flavour, and is supposed to be of the same nature with our chars in c.u.mberland, and some other parts of this kingdom. I have ventured, therefore, to call it by this name, till some modern Apicius can furnish me with a better.

{45} Dragons, or fiery serpents, were used by the Parthians, and Suidas tells us, by the Scythians also, as standards, in the same manner as the Romans made use of the eagle, and under every one of these standards were a thousand men. See Lips. de Mil. Rom., cap.

4.

{46} See Arrian.

{47} The idea here so deservedly laughed at, of a history of what was to come, if treated, not seriously, as this absurd writer treated it, but ludicrously, as Lucian would probably have treated it himself, might open a fine field for wit and humour. Something of this kind appeared in a newspaper a few years ago, which, I think, was called "News for a Hundred Years Hence;" and though but a rough sketch, was well executed. A larger work, on the same ground, and by a good hand, might afford much entertainment.

{49} This kind of scholastic jargon was much in vogue in the time of Lucian, and it is no wonder he should take every opportunity of laughing at it, as nothing can be more opposite to true genius, wit, and humour, than such pedantry.

{50} Milo, the Crotonian wrestler, is reported to have been a man of most wonderful bodily strength, concerning which a number of lies are told, for which the reader, if he pleases, may consult his dictionary. He lost his life, we are informed, by trying to rend with his hands an old oak, which wedged him in, and pressed him to death; the poet says-- "--he met his end, Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend."

t.i.tornus was a rival of Milo's, and, according to AElian, who is not always to be credited, rolled a large stone with ease, which Milo with all his force could not stir. Conon was some slim Macaroni of that age, remarkable only for his debility, as was Leotrophides also, of crazy memory, recorded by Aristophanes, in his comedy called The Birds.

{51} The Broughtons of antiquity; men, we may suppose, renowned in their time for teaching the young n.o.bility of Greece to bruise one another secundum artem.

{53a} See Diodorus Siculus, lib. vii., and Plutarch.

{53b} Concerning some of these facts, even recent as they were then with regard to us, historians are divided. Thucydides and Plutarch tell the story one way, Diodorus and Justin another. Well might our author, therefore, find fault with their uncertainty.

{55a} Lucian alludes, it is supposed, to Ctesias, the physician to Artaxerxes, whose history is stuffed with encomiums on his royal patron. See Plutarch's "Artaxerxes."

{55b} The Campus Nisaeus, a large plain in Media, near the Caspian mountains, was famous for breeding the finest horses, which were allotted to the use of kings only; or, according to Xenophon, those favourites on whom the sovereign thought proper to bestow them. See the "Cyropaed.," book viii.

{56} This fine picture of a good historian has been copied by Tully, Strabo, Polybius, and other writers; it is a standard of perfection, however, which few writers, ancient or modern, have been able to reach. Thua.n.u.s has prefixed to his history these lines of Lucian; but whether he, or any other historian, hath answered in every point to the description here given, is, I believe, yet undetermined.

{57a} The saying is attributed to Aristophanes, though I cannot find it there. It is observable that this proverbial kind of expression, for freedom of words and sentiments, has been adopted into almost every language, though the image conveying it is different. Thus the Greeks call a fig a fig, etc. We say, an honest man calls a spade a spade; and the French call "un chat un chat." Boileau says, "J'appelle un chat un chat, et Rolet un fripon."

{57b} Herodotus's history is comprehended in nine books, to each of which is prefixed the name of a Muse; the first is called Clio, the second Euterpe, and so on. A modern poet, I have been told, the ingenious Mr. Aaron Hill, improved upon this thought, and christened (if we may properly so call it), not his books, but his daughters by the same poetical names of Miss Cli, Miss Melp-y, Miss Terps-y, Miss Urania, etc.

{58} Both Thucydides and Livy are reprehensible in this particular; and the same objection may be made to Thua.n.u.s, Clarendon, Burnet, and many other modern historians.

{59} How just is this observation of Lucian's, and at the same time how truly poetical is the image which he makes use of to express it!

It puts us in mind of his rival critic Longinus, who, as Pope has observed, is himself the great sublime he draws.

{60} By this very just observation, Lucian means to censure all those writers--and we have many such now amongst us--who take so much pains to smooth and round their periods, as to disgust their readers by the frequent repet.i.tion of it, as it naturally produces a tiresome sameness in the sound of them; and at the same time discovers too much that laborious art and care, which it is always the author's business as much as possible to conceal.

{61} See Homer's "Iliad," bk. xiii., 1. 4.

{62a} The famous Lacedaemonian general. The circ.u.mstance alluded to is in Thucydides, bk. iv.

{62b} Gr. [Greek], a technical term, borrowed from music, and signifying that tone of the voice which exactly corresponds with the instrument accompanying it.

{66a} A coa.r.s.e fish that came from Pontus, or the Black Sea.-- Saperdas advehe Ponto. See Pers. Sat. v. 1. 134.

{66b} Here doctors differ. Several of Thucydides's descriptions are certainly very long, many of them, perhaps, rather tedious.

{67} Lucian is rather severe on this writer. Cicero only says, De omnibus omnia libere palam dixit; he spoke freely of everybody.

Other writers, however, are of the same opinion with our satirist with regard to him. See Dions. Plutarch. Cornelius Nepos, etc.

{69} Alluding to the story of Diogenes, as related in the beginning.

{75} See Homer's "Odyssey."--The strange stories which Lucian here mentions may certainly be numbered, with all due deference to so great a name, amongst the nugae canorae of old Homer. Juvenal certainly considers them in this light when he says:--

Tam vacui capitis populum Phaeaca putavit.

Some modern critics, however, have endeavoured to defend them.

{77} Here the history begins, what goes before may be considered as the author's preface, and should have been marked as such in the original.

{79} Among the Greek wines, so much admired by ancient Epicures, those of the islands of the Archipelago were the most celebrated, and of these the Chian wine, the product of Chios, bore away the palm from every other, and particularly that which was made from vines growing on the mountain called Arevisia, in testimony of which it were easy, if necessary, to produce an amphora full of cla.s.sical quotations.

The present inhabitants of that island make a small quant.i.ty of excellent wine for their own use and are liberal of it to strangers who travel that way, but dare not, being under Turkish government, cultivate the vines well, or export the product of them.

{81a} In the same manner as Gulliver's island of Laputa.--From this pa.s.sage it is not improbable but that Swift borrowed the idea.

{81b} The account which Lucian here gives us of his visit to the moon, perhaps suggested to Bergerac the idea of his ingenious work, called "A Voyage to the Moon."

{82a} Equi vultures, horse vultures; from [Greek], a horse: and [Greek], a vulture.

{82b} Lucian, we see, has founded his history on matter of fact.

Endymion, we all know, was a king of Elis, though some call him a shepherd. Shepherd or king, however, he was so handsome, that the moon, who saw him sleeping on Mount Latmos, fell in love with him.

This no orthodox heathen ever doubted: Lucian, who was a freethinker, laughs indeed at the tale; but has made him ample amends in this history by creating him emperor of the moon.

{83a} Modern astronomers are, I, think, agreed, that we are to the moon just the same as the moon is to us. Though Lucian's history may be false, therefore his philosophy, we see, was true (1780).

(The moon is not habitable, 1887.)