Essays in Portraiture (15-17)

As to the precision of her language, and its pure Ionic quality, as to the fact that she has a ready tongue in conversation and is full of Attic wit— that is nothing to wonder at. It is an inherited trait in her, and ancestral, and nothing else was to be expected, since she partakes of Athenian blood through the settlement which they planted.[*] Nor indeed am I disposed to wonder at the further fact that a countrywoman of Homer likes poetry and holds much converse with it.

There you have one picture, Lycinus, that of her exquisite speech and her singing, as it might be portrayed in an inadequate sort of way. And now look at the others—for I have decided not to exhibit a single picture made up, like yours, out of many. That is really less artistic, to combine beauties so numerous and create, out of many, a thing of many different aspects, completely at odds with itself.

LYCINUS It is a feast, Polystratus, a full banquet, that you promise! In fact, it appears that you really will give me back better measure. Anyhow, get on with your measuring; there is nothing else that you can do which would please me more.

POLYSTRATUS Then inasmuch as culture must stand at the head of all that is fair, and particularly all that is acquired by study, let us now create its likeness, rich, however, in colours and in modelling, that even in this point we may not fall short of your achievement in sculpture. So let her be pictured as possessing all the good gifts that come from Helicon. Unlike Clio, Polymnia, Calliope, and the others, each of whom has a single accomplishment, she shall have those of all the Muses, and in addition those of Hermes and Apollo. For all that poets have set forth with the embellishment of metre or orators with the might of eloquence, all that historians have related or philosophers recommended shall give beauty to our picture, not simply to the extent of tinting its surface, but staining it all deeply with indelible colours till it will take no more. And you must pardon me if I can show no ancient model for this picture; for tradition tells us of nothing similar in point of culture among the men of olden times. But in spite of that, if you approve, it too may now

LYCINUS It is very beautiful, to be sure, Polystratus, and every line of it correctly drawn.

POLYSTRATUS Next we must delineate her wisdom and understanding. We shall require many models there, most of them ancient, and one, like herself, Ionic, painted and wrought by Aeschines, the friend of Socrates, and by Socrates himself,[*] of all craftsmen the truest copyists because they painted with love. It is that maid of Miletus, Aspasia, the consort of the Olympian,[*] himself a marvel beyond compare. Putting before us, in her, no mean pattern of understanding, let us take all that she had of experience in affairs, shrewdness in_ statescraft, quick-wittedness, and penetration, and transfer the whole of it to our own picture by accurate measurement; making allowance, however, for the fact that she was painted on a small canvas, but our figure is colossal in its scale.

LYCINUS What do you mean by that?

POLYSTRATUS I mean, Lycinus, that the pictures are not of equal size, though they look alike; for the Athenian state of those days and the Roman empire of to-day are not equal, nor near it. Consequently, although