Charon, or the Inspectors (5-8)

Upon my word, we are still away down among the foot-hills of Heaven! Toward the east I can only just. see Ionia and Lydia, toward the west not beyond Italy and Sicily, toward the north only the country on this side the Danube, and in that direction Crete, but not very plainly. Apparently we must move up

Let’s do so. But take care that we don’t make the structure too slender by heightening it beyond all reason, and so tumble down with it and pay bitterly for our experiment in Homeric building by breaking our heads.

Never fear; everything will be secure. Move Oeta over. Roll Parnassus this way. There now, I am going up again. — It is all right, I see everything: now come up yourself.

Put out your hand, Hermes. This is an uncommonly big piece of stage-machinery that you are mounting me on.

Must be done, if you are bound to see everything, Charon. One can’t see sights without taking chances. Come, take hold of my right hand and look out you don’t step where it is slippery. Good, you are up too, As Parnassus has two peaks, let us each take a suminit for himself and sit on it. Now, then, look round about you and inspect everything.

I see a quantity of land with a great lagoon encircling it, mountains, rivers bigger than Cocytus and Pyriphlegethon, tiny little men, and things which look like their hiding-places.

Those things which you take to be hiding-places are cities.

Do you know, Hermes, we haven’t accomplished anything, but have moved Mount Parnassus, Castaly and all, Mount Oeta and the rest of them for nothing.

Why?

I can’t see anything plainly from on high. What I wanted was not just to look at cities and mountains as in a picture, but to observe men themselves, what they are doing and what they are saying. For instance, when we first met and you saw me laughing and asked what I was laughing at, I had heard something which amused me vastly.

What was it?

A man who had been invited to dinner, I take it, by one of his friends for the next day replied “Certainly I shall come,” and even as he spoke a tile from the roof which someone had dislodged fell on him and killed him. I had to laugh at him because he did not keep his promise—I_ think I shall go down a little, so as to see and_ hear better.

Hold still; I will remedy that for you too and will. make you sharp-sighted in a minute by getting a charm out of Homer for this purpose as well as the other. When I say the verses remember not to ‘be short-sighted any longer, but to sce everything distinctly.

Only say them!

Lo, from your eyes I have lifted a veil that before was upon them.

So that your sight may be sure to distinguish a god from a mortal.

Marvellously! Lynceus was a blind man beside me; so now give me the necessary instruction and answer. my questions. But would you like me to ask them in the language of Homer, so that you may know that I myself am not unfamiliar with his poetry?

How can you know any of it when you are always on shipboard and at the oar?

See here, that is a libel on my calling! When I set’ him over the ferry after his death, I leard him recite a quantity of verses and still remember some of them, although a good bit of a storm caught us then. You see, he began to sing a song that was not too auspicious for ‘the passengers, telling how Poseidon brought the clouds together, stirred up the deep by plunging in his trident as if it were a ladle, excited all the gales and a lot more of it. Thus he put the sea in a commotion with his verses, and a black squall suddenly struck us and just missed capsizing the boat. Then he became seasick and jettisoned most of his lays, including Scylla and

Tell me:

Who is the burly man yonder, the hero so tall and so handsome,

Towering over the throng by a head and a broadpair of shoulders?

That is Milo, the athlete from Croton. The Greeks are clapping their hands at him because he has lifted the bull and is carrying him through the centre of the stadium.

How much more fitting it would be, Hermes, if they should applaud me; for in a little while I shall seize Milo himself and heave him aboard the boat, when he comes to us after getting thrown by Death, the most invincible of all antagonists, without even knowing how he was tripped! Then we shall hear him wail, depend upon it, when he remembers these crowns of victory and this applause; but now he thinks highly of himself because of the admiration he is winning for carrying the bull. What! Are we to think that he expects to die some day?

Why should he think of death now, when he is so young and strong?

Never mind him; he will give us food for laughter