Charon (13-16)

Hermes

This blunt sincerity is not to the Lydian’s taste. Things are come to a strange pass, he thinks, if a poor man is to hold up his head, and speak his mind in this frank manner! He will remember Solon presently, when the time comes for Cyrus to conduct him in chains to the pyre. I heard Clotho, the other day, reading over the various dooms. Among other things, Croesus was to be led captive by Cyrus, and Cyrus to be murdered by the queen of the Massagetae. There she is: that Scythian woman, riding on a white horse; do you see?

Charon

Yes.

Hermes

That is Tomyris. She will cut off Cyrus’s head, and put it into a wine-skin filled with blood. And do you see his son, the boy there? That is Cambyses. He will succeed to his father’s throne; and, after innumerable defeats in Libya

and Ethiopia, will finally slay the god Apis, and die a raving madman.

Charon

What fun! Why, at this moment no one would presume to meet their eyes; from such a height do they look down on the rest of mankind. Who would believe that before long one of them will be a captive, and the other have his head in a bottle of blood?—

Charon

But who is that in the purple robe, Hermes?— the one with the diadem? His cook has just been cleaning a fish, and is now handing him a ring,—‘in yonder sea-girt isle’; ''tis, sure, some king.'

Hermes

Ha, ha! A parody, this time——That is Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. He is extremely well pleased with his lot: yet that slave who now stands at his side will betray him to the satrap Oroetes, and he will be crucified. It will not take long to overturn his prosperity, poor man! This, too, I had from Clotho.

Charon

I like Clotho; she is a lady of spirit. Have at them, madam! Off with their heads! To the cross with them! Let them know that they are men. And let them be exalted in the meantime; the higher they mount, the heavier will be the fall. I shall have a merry time of it hereafter, identifying their naked shades, as they come aboard; no more purple robes then; no tiaras; no golden couches!

Hermes

So much for royalty; and now to the common herd. Do you see them, Charon;—on their ships and on the field of battle; crowding the law-courts and following the plough; usurers here, beggars there?

Charon

I see them. What a jostling life it is! What a world of ups and downs! Their cities remind me of bee-hives. Every man keeps a sting for his neighbour’s service; and a few, like wasps, make spoil of their weaker brethren. But what are all these misty shapes that beset them on every side?

Hermes

Hopes, Fears, Follies, Pleasures, Greeds, Hates, Grudges,

and such like. They differ in their habits. The Folly is a domestic creature, with vested rights of its own. The same with the Grudge, the Hate, the Envy, the Greed, the Knownot, and the What’s-to-do. But the Fear and the Hope fly overhead. The Fear swoops on its prey from above; sometimes it is content with startling a man out of his wits, sometimes it frightens him in real earnest. The Hope hovers almost within reach, and just when a man thinks he is going to catch it, off it flies, and leaves him gaping—like Tantalus in the water, you know.

Hermes

Now look closely, and you will make out the Fates up aloft, spinning each man his spindle-full; from that spindle a man hangs by a narrow thread. Do you see what looks like a cobweb, coming down to each man from the spindles?

Charon

I see each has a very slight thread. They are mostly entangled, one with another, and that other with a third.

Hermes

Of course they are. Because the first man has got to be murdered by the second, and he by the third; or again, B is to be A’s heir (A’s thread being the shorter), and C is to be B’s, That is what the entangling means. But you see what thin threads they all have to depend on. Now here is one drawn high up into the air; presently his thread will snap, when the weight becomes too much for it, and down he will come with a bang: whereas yonder fellow hangs so low that when he does fall it makes no noise; his next-door neighbours will scarcely hear him drop.

Charon

How absurd it all is!