Does it not, then, fit such a man to a hair to call him
nefandous? But why in the name of Zeus should you
take it upon yourselfto kiss us after such performances?
In so doing you behave very offensively, especially
to those who ought least of all to be so treated, your
pupils, for whom it would have been enough to get
only those other horrid boons from your lips—barbarity of language, harshness of voice, indistinctness,


 

confusedness, complete tunelessness, and the like,
but to kiss you—forfend it, Averter of Ill! Better
kiss an asp or a viper; then the risk is a bite and a
pain which the doctor cures when you call him. But
from the venom of your kiss, who could approach
victims or altars? What god would listen to one’s
prayer? How many bowls of holy water, how many
rivers are required?
 
And you, who are of that sort, laughed at others in
the matter of words and phrases, when you were doing
such terrible deeds! For my part, had I not known
the word nefandous, I should have been ashamed, so
far am I from denying that I used it. In your own
case, none of us criticised you for saying “bromologous” and “tropomasthletes” and “to rhesimeter,” and “Athenio,” and “anthocracy” and
“sphendicise” and “‘cheiroblime.” Except for rhesimeter (to speak for a measured time, as in court), which Lucian’s Lexiphanes uses (Lez., 9), these words are found only here. Their meaning is: bromologous: stench-mouthed. tropomasthletes: oily-mannered fellows. athenio: to yearn for Athens. anthocracy: apparently, rule of the “flower”; i.e., the select few. sphendicise: to sling, very likely in the sense, to throw. cheiroblime: to handle. May Hermes,
Lord of Language, blot you out miserably, language
and all, for the miserable wretch that you are!
Where in literature do you find these treasures?
Perhaps buried somewhere in the closet of some
composer of dirges, full of mildew and spiders’ webs,
or from the Tablets of Philaenis, The Tablets of Philaenis are frequently mentioned as an ars amatoria. An epigram by Aeschrion (Anth. Pal., VII, 345) says that it was not written by the woman whose name it bore, but by the sophist Polycrates. The book is therefore of the time of Polycrates, the beginning of the fourth century B.C. which you keep in
hand. For you, however, and for your lips they are
quite good enough.