The Double Indictment (10-12)

Pan

Hail, Justice and Hermes!

Justice

Hail, Pan; chief of Satyrs in dance and song, and most gallant of Athens’ soldiers!

Pan

But what brings you here, Hermes?

Hermes

Justice will explain; I must be off to the Acropolis on my errand.

Justice

Zeus has sent me down, Pan, to preside in the law-court. —And how do you like Athens?

Pan

Well, the fact is, I am a good deal disappointed: they do not treat me with the consideration to which I am erititled, after repelling that tremendous barbarian invasion. All they do is to come up to my cave two or three times a year with a particularly high-scented goat, and sacrifice him: I am permitted to look on whilst they enjoy the feast, and am complimented with a perfunctory dance. However, there is some joking and merrymaking on the occasion, and that I find rather fun.

Justice

And, Pan,—have they become more virtuous under the hands of the philosophers?

Pan

Philosophers? Oh! people with beards just like mine; sepulchral beings, who are always getting together and jabbering?

Justice

Those are they.

Pan

I can’t understand a word they say; their philosophy is too much forme. I am mountain-bred; smart city-language is not in my line; sophists and philosophers are not known in Arcadia. I ama good hand at flute or pipe; I can mind goats, I can dance, I can fight at a pinch, and that is all. But I hear them all day long, bawling out a string of hard words about virtue, and nature, and ideas, and things incorporeal. They are good enough friends when the argument begins, but their voices mount higher and higher as they go on, and end in a scream; they get more and more excited, and all try to speak at once; they grow red in the face, their necks swell, and their veins stand out, for all the world like a flute-player on a high note. The argument is turned upside down, they forget what they are trying to prove, and finally go off abusing one another and brushing the sweat from their brows; victory rests with him who can show the boldest front and the loudest voice, and hold his ground the longest. The people, especially those who have nothing better to do, adore them, and stand spellbound under their confident bawlings. For all that I could see, they were no better than humbugs, and I was none too pleased at their copying my beard. If there were any use in their noise, if the talking did any good to the public, I should not have a word to say against them: but, to tell you the plain unvarnished truth, I have more than once looked out from my peep-hole yonder and seen them—

Justice

Hush, Pan: was not that Hermes making the proclamation?

Pan

I thought so.

Hermes

Be it known to all men that we purpose on this seventh day of March to hold a court of justice, and Fortune defend the right / All litigant parties to assemble on Areopagus, where Fustice will assign the juries and preside over the trials in person. The juries to be taken from the whole Athenian people; the pay to be sixpence

for each case s the number of jurors to vary with the nature of the accusation. Any parties who had commenced legal proceedings and have died in the interim to be sent up by Aeacus. Any party doubting the justice of bis sentence may appeal; the appeal to be heard by Zeus.

Pan

Talk about noise! how they shout! And what a hurry they are in to get here! See how one hales another up the hill! Here comes Hermes himself. Well, I leave you to your juries and your evidence; you are accustomed to it. I will return to my cave, and there play over one of those amorous ditties with which I love to upbraid Echo. As to rhetoric and law-pleadings, I hear enough of those every day in this very court of Areopagus.