The Mistaken Critic, or a Discourse on the Word (27-28)

In Syria you were called Rhododaphne; the reason, by Athena, I am ashamed to tell. So as far as lies in me, it will still remain a mystery. In Palestine, you were Thorn-hedge, with reference, no doubt, to the prickling of your stubbly beard; for you still kept it shaved. In Egypt you were called Quinsy, which is clear. In fact, they say you were nearly throttled when you ran afoul of a lusty sailor who closed with you and stopped your mouth. The Athenians, excellent fellows that they are, gave you no enigmatic name but called you Atimarchus, honouring you with the addition of a single letter because you had to have something that went even beyond Timarchus.[*]. And in Italy—my word! you got that epic nickname of

Cyclops, because once, over and above your old bag of tricks, you took a notion to do an obscene parody on Homer’s poetry itself, and while you lay there, drunk already, with a bowl of ivy-wood in your hand, a lecherous Polyphemus, a young man whom you had hired came at you as Odysseus, presenting his bar, thoroughly made ready, to put out your eye;

And that he missed; his shaft was turned aside.

Its point drove through beside the jawbone’s root.

The first line of this cento from the Iliad is XIII, 605 combined with XI, 233; the second is V, 293. (Of course it is not at all out of the way, in discussing you, to be silly.) Well, you as the Cyclops, opening your mouth and setting it agape as widely as you could, submitted to having your jaw put out by him, or rather, like Charybdis, you strove to engulf your Noman whole, along with his crew, his rudder, and his sails. That was seen by other people present. Then the next day your only defence was drunkenness, and you sought sanctuary in the unwatered wine.

Rich as you are in these choice and numerous appellations, are you ashamed of ‘nefandous’? In the name of the gods, tell me how you feel when the rabble call you names derived from Lesbos and Phoenicia?, Are you as unacquainted with these as with ‘nefandous,’ and do you perhaps think they are praising you? Or do you know these through old acquaintance, and is it only ‘ nefandous’ that you scorn as unknown and exclude from your list of names? Consequently, you are paying us a penalty which cannot be considered inadequate; no, your notoriety

extends even to the women’s quarters. Recently, for instance, when you had the hardihood to seek a match in Cyzicus, that excellent woman, who had very thoroughly informed herself in every particular said: ‘I do not care to have a man who needs one.”