The Lover of Lies, or the Doubter Tychiades (1-5)

Can you tell me, Philocles, what in the world it is that makes many men so fond of lying that they delight in telling preposterous tales themselves and listen with especial attention to those who spin yarns of that sort?

PHILOCLES There are many reasons, Tychiades, which constrain men occasionally to tell falsehoods with an eye to the usefulness of it.

TYCHIADES That has nothing to do with the case, as the phrase is, for I did not ask about men who lie for advantage. They are pardonable—yes, even praiseworthy, some of them, who have deceived national enemies or for safety’s sake have used this kind of expedient in extremities, as Odysseus often did in seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades.[*] No, my dear sir, I am speaking of those men who put sheer useless lying far ahead of truth, liking the thing and whiling away their time at it without any valid excuse. I want to know about these men, to what end they do this.

PHILOCLES Have you really noted any such men anywhere in whom this passion for lying is ingrained?

TYCHIADES Yes, there are many such men.

PHILOCLES What other reason, then, than folly may they be said to have for telling untruths, since they choose the worst course instead of the best? —

TYCHIADES That too has nothing to do with the case, Philocles, for I could show you many men otherwise sensible and remarkable for their intelligence who have somehow become infected with this plague and are lovers of lying, so that it irks me when such men, excellent in every way, yet delight in deceiving themselves and their associates. Those of olden time should be known to you before I mention them— Herodotus, and Ctesias of Cnidus, and before them the poets, including Homer himself—men of renown, who made use of the written lie, so that they not only deceived those who listened to them then, but transmitted the falsehood from generation to generation even down to us, conserved in the choicest of diction and rhythm. For my part it. often occurs to me to blush for them when they tell of the castration of Uranus, and the fetters of Prometheus, and the revolt of the Giants, and the whole sorry show in Hades, and how Zeus turned into a bull or a swan on account of a loveaffair, and how some woman changed into a bird or a

Yet as far as the poets are concerned, perhaps the case is not so bad; but is it not ridiculous that even cities and whole peoples tell lies unanimously and officially? The Cretans exhibit the tomb of Zeus and are not ashamed of it, and the Athenians assert that Erichthonius sprang from the earth and that the first men came up out of the soil of Attica like vegetables; but at that their story is much more dignified than that of the Thebans, who relate that ““Sown Men” grew up from serpents’ teeth. If any man, however, does not think that these silly stories are true, but sanely puts them to the proof and holds that only a Coroebus or a Margites[*] can believe either that Triptolemus drove through the air behind winged serpents, or that Pan came from Arcadia to Marathon to take a hand in the battle, or that Oreithyia was carried off by Boreas, they consider that man a sacrilegious fool for doubting facts so evident and genuine; to such an extent does falsehood prevail.

PHILOCLES Well, as far as the poets are concerned, Tychiades, and the cities too, they may properly be pardoned. The poets flavour their writings with the delectability that the fable yields, a most seductive thing, which they need above all else for the benefit of their readers; and the Athenians, Thebans and others, if

TYCHIADES You are quite right in what you say. For example, I come to you from Eucrates the magnificent, having listened to a great lot of incredible yarns; to put it more accurately, I took myself off in the midst of the conversation because I could not stand the exaggeration of the thing: they drove me out as if they had been the Furies by telling quantities of extraordinary miracles.

PHILOCLES But, Tychiades, Eucrates is a trustworthy person, and nobody could ever believe that he, with such a long beard, a man of sixty, and a great devotee of philosophy too, would abide even to hear someone else tell a lie in his presence, let alone venturing to do anything of that sort himself.

TYCHIADES Why, my dear fellow, you do not know what sort of statements he made, and how he confirmed them, and how he actually swore to most of them, taking oath upon his children, so that as I gazed at him all sorts of ideas came into my head, now that he was insane and out of his right mind, now that he was only a fraud, after all, and I had failed, in all these

PHILOCLES What were they, Tychiades, in the name of Hestia?[*] I should like to know what sort of quackery he has been screening behind that great beard.