The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men (10)

All the consult approved of Thales’s solutions. Then Cleodemus said: My friend Niloxenus, it becomes kings to propound and resolve such questions; but the insolence of that barbarian who would have Amasis drink the sea would have been better fitted by such a smart reprimand as Pittacus gave Alyattes, who sent an imperious letter to the

Lesbians. He made him no answer, except to bid him spend his time in eating his hot bread and onions.

Periander here assumed the discourse, and said: It was the manner of the ancient Grecians heretofore, O Cleodemus, to propound doubts to one another; and it hath been told us, that the most famous and eminent poets once met at the grave of Amphidamas in Chalcis. This Amphidamas was a leading citizen, one that had perpetual wars with the Eretrians, and at last lost his life in one of the battles fought for the possession of the Lelantine plain. Now, because the writings of those poets were composed in verse, and so made the argument more knotty and the decision more difficult, and the great names of the antagonists, Homer and Hesiod, whose excellence was so well known, made the umpires timorous and shy to determine; they therefore betook themselves to these sorts of questions, and Homer, says Lesches, propounded this riddle:—

Tell me, O Muse, what never was

And never yet shall be.

Hesiod answered readily and extempore in this wise:—

When steeds with sounding hoof, to win

The prize, shall run amain;

And at the tomb of mighty Jove

Their chariots break in twain.

For this reply he was infinitely commended and won the tripod. Pray tell me, quoth Cleodemus, what difference there is between these riddles and those of Eumetis, which she frames and invents to recreate herself with as much pleasure as other virgins make nets and girdles? They may be fit to offer and puzzle women withal; but for men to beat their brains to find out their mystery would be mighty ridiculous. Eumetis looked like one that had a great mind to reply; but her modesty would not permit her, for her face was filled with blushes. But Esop in her vindication asked: Is it not much more ridiculous that

all present cannot resolve the riddle she propounded to us before supper? This was as follows:—

A man I saw, who by his fire

Did set a piece of brass

Fast to a man, so that it seemed

To him it welded was.

Can you tell me, said he, how to construe this, and what the sense of it may be? No, said Cleodemus, nor do I care to know what it means. And yet, quoth Esop, no man understands this thing better and practises it more judiciously and successfully than yourself. If you deny it, I have my witnesses ready; for there are your cupping glasses. Cleodemus laughed outright; for of all the physicians in his time, none used cupping-glasses like him, he being a person that by his frequent and fortunate application thereof brought them first into request in the world.