The Downward Journey, or the Tyrant (11-15)

MEGAPENTHES Well, at all events don't refuse me this, Lady of Destiny. ,

CLOTHO What ?

MEGAPENTHES I want to know how things will turn out after my death.

CLOTHO Listen, for it will vex you all the more to know. Midas, your slave, will have your wife ; indeed, he has been her lover a long time.

MEGAPENTHES Curse him, I set him free at her request !

CLOTHO Your daughter will be enrolled among the concubines of the present tyrant, and the busts and statues which the city long ago set up in your honour will all be pulled down and will make everyone who looks at them laugh.

MEGAPENTHES Tell meé, will none of my friends get angry at these doings ?

CLOTHO Why, what friend did you have, and how did you make him? Don’t you know that all those who bowed the knee and praised your every word and deed did so either from hope or from fear, being

MEGAPENTHES But as they poured their libations at our drinking parties they used to pray at the top of their voices that many blessings might descend upon me, saying every one of them that he was ready to die for me if so might be ; in a word, they swore by me.

CLOTHO Consequently, you died after dining with one of them yesterday : it was that last drink he gave you that sent you down here.

MEGAPENTHES Then that is why I noticed a bitter taste. But what was his object in doing it?

CLOTHO You are asking me many questions when you ought to get aboard.

MEGAPENTHES There is one thing that sticks in my throat above all, Clotho, and on account of it I longed to slip back again to the light of day, if only for a moment.

CLOTHO What is that? It must be something tremendous.

MEGAPENTHES As soon as Cario, my valet, saw that I was dead, toward evening he came into the room where I lay, having nothing to do, for nobody was doing anything, not even guarding me, and brought in my mistress Glycerium; they had been on good terms a long time,

CLOTHO Stop threatening and get aboard; it is already time for you to make your appearance in court.

MEGAPENTHES And who will dare to pass judgement on a tyrant?

CLOTHO On a tyrant, no one, but on a dead man, Rhadamanthus. You shall soon see him impose on every one of you the sentence that is just and fits the case. No more delay now!

MEGAPENTHES Make me even a common man, Lady of Destiny, one of the poor people; make me evenaslave instead of the king that once I was. Only let me come to life again!

HERMES Come along now, runaway. (Zo cuanon.) Take this fellow, ferryman, and see here—mind you make sure—

CHARON No fear! he shall be lashed to the mast.

MEGAPENTHES But I ought to sit on the quarter-deck !

CLOTHO For what reason ?

MEGAPENTHES Because I was a tyrant, God knows, and had a regiment of guardsmen.

CYNISCUS Then wasn’t Cario justified in pulling your hair, if you were such a lout? But you'll get small joy of your tyranny if I give you a taste of my club!

MEGAPENTHES What, will a Cyniscus make bold to shake his staff at me? Did I not come within an ace of tricing you up to a cross the other day because you were too free-spoken and sharp-tongued and censorious?

CYNISCUS That is why you yourself will stay triced up to the mast.

MICYLLUS Tell me, Clotho, do you people take no account at all of me? Is it because I am poor that I have to get aboard last?

MICYLLUS The cobbler Micyllus.

CLOTHO So you are aggrieved at having to wait? Don’t you see how much the tyrant promises to give us if we will let him go for a little while? Indeed, it surprises me that you are not equally glad of the delay.

MICYLLUS Listen, kind. Lady of Destiny; I have no great liking for such gifts as the famous one of the Cyclops,—to be promised “T’]l eat Noman last of all.”[*] In truth, be it first, be it last, the same teeth are in waiting. Besides, my position is not like that of the rich; our lives are poles apart, as the saying goes. Take the tyrant, considered fortunate his whole life long, feared and admired by everybody ; when he came to leave all his gold and silver and clothing and horses and dinners and handsome favourites and beautiful women, no wonder he was distressed and took it hard to be dragged away from them. Somehow or other the soul is limed, as it were, to things like these and will not come away readily because it has been cleaving to them long; indeed, the ties with which such men have the misfortune to be bound are like unbreakable fetters. Even if they are haled away by force, they lament and entreat, you may be sure, and although they are bold in everything else, they prove to be cowardly in the face of this journey to Hades. At any rate, they turn back and, like unsuccessful lovers, want to

But as for me, having nothing at stake in life, neither farm nor tenement nor gold nor gear nor reputation nor statues, of course I was in marching order, and when Atropos did but sign to me I gladly flung away my knife and my leather (I was working on a sandal) and sprang up at once and followed her, barefooted as I was and without even washing off the blacking. In fact, I led the way, with my eyes to the fore, since there was nothing in the rear to turn me about and call me back. And by Heaven I see already that everything is splendid here with you, for that all should have equal rank and nobody be any better than his neighbour is more than pleasant, to me at least. And I infer that there is no dunning of debtors here and no paying of taxes, and above all no freezing in winter or falling ill or being thrashed by men of greater consequence. All are at peace, and the tables are turned, for we paupers laugh while the rich are distressed and lament.