The Double Indictment (16-20)

ACADEMY

Listen first, gentlemen of the jury, to the plea of Intemperance, as the water now runs for her. The poor creature has been treated with the greatest injustice by me, the Academy. She has been robbed of the only friendly and faithful slave she had, who thought none of her orders unbecoming, Polemo yonder, who used to go roistering through the middle of the square in broad day, who kept a music-girl’and had himself sung to from morning to night, who was always drunk and debauched and

had garlands of flowers on his head. That this: is true, all the Athenians will testify; for they never saw Polemosober. But when the unhappy man went rollicking to the Academy's door, as he used to go to everybody's, she claimed him as her slave, snatched him out of the hands of Intemperance by main strength, and took him into her house. Then she forced him to drink water, taught him to keep sober, stripped off his garlands: and when he ought to have been drinking at table, she made him study intricate, gloomy terms, full of profound thought. So, instead of the flush that formerly glowed upon him, the poor man has grown pale, and his body is shrivelled; he has forgotten all his songs, and he sometimes sits without food or drink till the middle of the evening, talking the kind of balderdash that I, the Academy, teach people to talk unendingly. What is more, he even abuses Intemperance at my instigation and says any number of unpleasant things about her. I have said about all that there is to say for Intemperance. Now I will speak for myself, and from this point let the water run for me.

JUSTICE

What in the world will she say in reply to that? Anyhow, pour in the same amount for her in turn.

ACADEMY

Heard casually, gentlemen of the jury, the plea which the advocate has made in behalf of Intemperance is quite plausible, but if you give an unprejudiced hearing to my plea also, you will find out that I have done her no wrong at all. This man Polemo, who, she « says, is her servant, was not naturally bad or inclined to Intemperance,

but had a nature like mine. But while he was still young and impressionable she preémpted him, with the assistance of Pleasure, who usually helps her, and corrupted the poor fellow, surrendering him unconditionally to dissipation and to light women, so that he had not the slightest remnant of shame. In fact, what she thoughf was said on her behalf a moment ago, you should consider said on my behalf. The poor fellow went about from early to late with garlands on his head, flushed with wine, attended by music right through the public square, never sober, making roisterous calls upon everybody, a disgrace to his ancestors and to the whole city and a laughing-stock to strangers.

But when he came to my house, it chanced that, as usual, the doors were wide open and I was discoursing about virtue and temperance to such of my friends as were there. Coming in upon us with his flute and his garlands, first of all he began to shout and tried to break up our meeting by disturbing it with his noise. But we paid no attention to him, and as he was not entirely sodden with Intemperance, little by little he grew sober under the influence of our discourses, took off his garlands, silenced his flute-player, became ashamed of his purple mantle, and, awaking, as it were, from profound sleep, saw his own condition and condemned his past life. The flush that came from Intemperance faded and vanished, and he flushed for shame at what he was doing. At length he abandoned her then and there, and took up with me, not because I either invited or constrained him, as this person says, but voluntarily, because he believed the conditions here were better.

Please summon him now, that you may see how he has fared at my hands.... Taking this man, gentlemen of the jury, when he was in a ridiculous plight, unable either to talk or to stand on account of his potations, I converted him and sobered him and made him from a slave into a well-behaved, temperate man, very valuable to the Greeks; and he himself is grateful to me for it, as are also his relatives on his account. I have done. It is for you now to consider which of us it was better for him to associate with.

JUSTICE

Come, now, do not delay; cast your ballots and get up; others must have their hearing.

HERMES

The Academy wins by every vote but one.

JUSTICE

It is not at all surprising that there should be one man to vote for Intemperance.

JUTICE

Take your seats, you who have been drawn to hear Stoa v. Pleasure in re a lover. The clock is filled. You with the paint upon you and the gaudy colours, make your plea now.[*]

STOA

I am not unaware, gentlemen of the jury, that I shall have to speak against an attractive opponent; indeed, I see that most of you are gazing at her and smiling at her, contemptuous of me because my head is close-clipped, my glance is masculine, and I seem dour. Nevertheless, if you are willing to hear me

speak, I am confident that my plea will be.far more just than hers.

As a matter of fact, the present charge is that by getting herself up in this courtesan style she beguiled my lover, Dionysius, a respectable man until then, by the seductiveness of her appearance, and drew him to herself. Furthermore, the suit which your predecessors decided between the Academy and Intemperance was the twin-sister of the present suit. For the point at issue now is whether we should live like swine with our noses to the ground in the enjoyment of pleasure, without a single noble thought, or whether, considering what is enjoyable — secondary to what is right, we should follow philosophy in a free spirit like free men, neither fearing pain as invincible nor giving preference to pleasure in a servile spirit and seeking happiness in honey and in figs. By holding out such bait to silly people and by making a bogey. out of pain,' my opponent wins over the greater part of them, and this poor man is one; she made him run away from me by keeping an eye upon him until he was ill, for while he was well he would never have accepted her arguments.

After all, why should I be indignant at her? Forsooth, she does not even let the gods alone, but _slanders their management of afffirs! If you are wise, then, you will give her a sentence for impiety also. I hear, too, that she is not even prepared to plead in person, but will have Epicurus appear as her illustrating the point that Cicero makes in the T'uscwlans (ii. 15): Haec duo (te. laborem et dolorem) Graeci illi, quorum copiosior est lingua quam’ nostra, uno nomine appellant . . . O verborum inops interdum, quibus abundare te semper putas, Graecia!

advocate, such contempt does she show the court!; But see here—ask her what kind of men she thinks Heracles and your own[*] Theseus would have been if they had allied themselves to Pleasure and had shirked pain and toil. Nothing would hinder the earth from being full of wrong-doing if they had not toiled painfully.

This is all I have to say, for I am not at all fond of long speeches. But if she should consent to let me put questions and to give a brief reply to each, it would very soon be evident that she amounts to nothing. However, remember your oath and vote in accordance with it now, putting no faith in Epicurus, who says that the gods take no note of what happens among us.

JUSTICE

Stand aside. Epicurus, speak for Pleasure.