The Hall (21-25)

"Is not then a hall so beautiful and admirable a dangerous adversary to a speaker? But I ,have not yet mentioned the principal point. You yourselves, gentlemen of the jury, have been regarding the roof as we spoke, admiring the walls and examining the pictures, turning toward each of them. Do not be ashamed! It is excusable if you have felt a touch of human nature, especially in the presence of pictures so beautiful and so varied. The exactness of their technique and the combination of antiquarian interest and instructiveness in their subjects are truly seductive and call for a cultivated ‘spectator. That you may not look exclusively in that direction and leave us in the lurch, I will do my best to paint you a word-picture of them, for I think you will be glad to hear about things which you look at with admiration. Perhaps you will even applaud me for it and prefer me to my opponent, saying. that I have displayed my powers as well as he, and that I have made your pleasure double. But the difficulty of the task is patent, to represent so many pictures without colour, form or space. Word-painting is but a bald thing.

“On the right as you come in, you have a‘ combination of Argolic myth and Ethiopian romance. Perseus is killing the sea-monster and freeing Andromeda; in a little while he will marry her and go away with her. It is an incident to his winged quest of the Gorgons. The artist has represented much in little—the maid’s modesty and terror (for she is looking down on the fight from the cliff overhead), the lad’s fond courage and the beast’s unconquerable mien. ‘As he comes on bristling with spines and inspiring terror with his gaping jaws Perseus displays the Gorgon in his left hand, and with his right assails him with the sword: the part of the monster which has seen the Medusa is already stone, and the part that is still alive is feeling the hanger’s edge. [*]

“Next to this picture is portrayed another righteous deed, for which the painter derived his model, I suppose, from Euripides or Sophocles, inasmuch as they have portrayed the subject in the same way. [*] The two youthful comrades Pylades of Phocis and Orestes (supposed to be dead) have secretly entered the palace and are slaying Aegisthus. Clytemnestra is already slain and is stretched on a bed half-naked, and the whole household is stunned by tle deed— some are shouting, apparently, and others casting about for a way of escape. It was a noble device on the painter’s part simply to indicate the impious element in the undertaking and pass it over as an

“Next is a handsome god and a pretty boy, a scene of fond foolery. Branchus, sitting on a rock, is holding up a hare and teasing his dog, while the dog is apparently going to spring up at him; Apollo, standing near, is smiling in amusement at the tricks of the lad and the efforts of the dog.

“Then comes Perseus again, in the adventure: which preceded the sea-monster. He is cutting off the head of Medusa, and Athena is shielding him. He has done the daring deed, but has not looked, except at the reflection of the Gorgon in the shield, for he knows the cost of looking at the reality.