A Chapter of Autobiography (11-15)

‘This penniless son of who knows whom, contemplating but now a vocation so ignoble, shall soon be admired and envied of all, with honour and praise and the fame of high achievement, respected by the high-born and the affluent, clothed as I am clothed’ (and here she pointed to her own bright

‘And if some great moment come to try your friends or country, then shall all look to you. And to your lightest word the many shall listen open-mouthed, and marvel, and count you happy in your eloquence, and your father in his son. ’Tis said that some from mortal men become immortal; and I Will make it truth in you; for though you depart from life yourself, you shall; keep touch with the learned and hold communion with the best. Consider the mighty Demosthenes, whose son he was, and whither I exalted him; consider Aeschines; how came a Philip to pay court to the cymbal-woman’s brat? how but for my sake? Dame Statuary here had the breeding of Socrates himself; but no sooner could he discern the better part, than he deserted her and enlisted with me; since when, his name is on every tongue.

‘You may dismiss all these great men, and with them all glorious deeds, majestic words, and seemly looks, all honour, repute, praise, precedence, power, and office, all landed eloquence and envied wisdom; these you may put from you, to gird on a filthy apron and assume a servile guise; then will you handle crowbars and graving tools, mallets and chisels; you will be bowed over your work, with eyes and thoughts bent earthwards, abject as abject can be, with never a free and manly upward look or aspiration; all your care will be to proportion and fairly drape your works; to proportioning and adorning yourself you will give little heed enough, making yourself of less account than your marble.’

I waited not for her to bring her words to an end, but rose up and spoke my mind; I turned from that clumsy mechanic

Then the other looked upon me and spoke:—‘For this justice done me,’ said she, ‘you shall now be recompensed; come, mount this car’—and lo, one stood ready, drawn by winged steeds like Pegasus—, ‘that you may learn what fair sights another choice would have cost you.” We mounted, she took the reins and drove, and I was carried aloft and beheld towns and nations and peoples from the East to the West; and methought I was sowing like Triptolemus; but the nature of the seed I cannot call to mind—only this, that men on earth when they saw it gave praise, and all whom I reached in my flight sent me on my way with blessings.