The Scythian or Consul (1-5)

LYCINUS

To judge from your book, Hermotimus, and the speed of your walk, you seem to be hurrying to your teacher. You were certainly thinking something over as you went along; you were twitching your lips and muttering quietly, waving your hand this way and that as though you were arranging a speech to yourself, composing one of your crooked problems or thinking out some sophistical question; even when you are walking along you must not take it easy, but be always busy at some serious matter which is likely to help your studies.

HERMOTIMUS

Yes, certainly, that is about it, Lycinus; I was going over yesterday’s lecture and what he said to us, running through the points in my mind. We must, I think, never lose an opportunity, for we know the truth of what the Coan Doctor [*] said: “Life is short, but Art is long.” He was speaking of medicine of course, which is easier to learn; philosophy is unattainable even over a long period, unless you are very much awake all the time and keep a stern glaring eye on her. The venture is for no mere trifle—whether to perish miserably in the vulgar rabble of

the common herd or to find happiness through philosophy.

LYCINUS

That is a very wonderful prize, Hermotimus, and I fancy you are near winning it, to judge by the time you spend on your philosophical studies and also the considerable energy you seem to have devoted for so long. If I remember, it must be nigh on twenty years that I have seen you doing nothing but going to the teachers, and usually bent over a book and writing notes on the lectures, always pale and wasted with studying. I suppose even your dreams give you no rest, you are so wrapped up in it. So, when I consider this, I feel that you will not be long in reaching happiness, unless it has been your companion for years and we have missed seeing it.

HERMOTIMUS

How can that be, Lycinus? I am just beginning to get a glimpse of my way there. Virtue, says Hesiod, [*] lives far away, and the path to her is long and steep and rough, with plenty of sweat for travellers.

LYCINUS

Have you not sweated and travelled enough, Hermotimus?

HERMOTIMUS

No, I tell you. I couldn’t be other than perfectly happy if I were at the top. At this moment I am still beginning, Lycinus.

LYCINUS

But this same Hesiod says that the beginning is half-way there, [*] so that we should not wrong you if we said that you were half-way up.

HERMOTIMUS

No, not even that yet. That would be a great achievement.

LYCINUS

Well, where on the road may we put you?

HERMOTIMUS

Still down in the foothills, Lycinus, though lately struggling on. It is slippery and rough and needs a hand to help.

LYCINUS

Your teacher can do that: he can let down his own teaching from the top like Zeus’s golden rope in Homer, [*] and clearly pull and lift you up to himself and Virtue. He made the climb long ago.

HERMOTIMUS

That is just what happens, Lycinus. As far as he is concerned I should have been pulled up long ago and been in their company. But my share still falls short.

LYCINUS

Be brave now and keep cheerful. Look to the end of the journey and the happiness up there, especially

since he is as keen as you are. But when does he suggest you may hope to come up? Did he suggest next year to reach the top—after the other Mysteries, say, or the Panathenaea?

HERMOTIMUS

Too soon, Lycinus.

LYCINUS

Next Olympiad, then?

HERMOTIMUS

Too soon again for a training in virtue and the winning of happiness.

LYCINUS

After two Olympiads, surely? Or shall we accuse you of excessive sloth, if you cannot succeed even in all that time? You could easily make three journeys from Gibraltar to India and back in that time, even if you did not go straight without breaking your journey, but made excursions occasionally to visit the nations on the way. But this summit where your Virtue lives—how much higher and smoother are we to put it than Aornos which Alexander stormed in a few days?

HERMOTIMUS

Nothing like, Lycinus, Your comparison is wrong; it cannot be won or captured in a short time, even if innumerable Alexanders attack it. Many would climb it, if it could. As it is, a fair number make a very strong beginning and travel part of the way,

some very little, some more; but when they get halfway and meet plenty of difficulties and snags, they lose heart and turn back, gasping for breath and dripping with sweat; the hardships are too much for them. But only as many as endure to the end arrive at the top, and from then on are happy having a wonderful time for the rest of their life, from their heights seeing the rest of mankind as ants.

LYCINUS

Goodness, Hermotimus! How small you make us, not even as big as pygmies! Utter groundlings crawling over the earth’s surface. It’s not surprising—your mind is already away up above; and we, the whole trashy lot of us ground-crawlers, will pray to you along with the gods, when you get above the clouds and reach the heights to which you have been hastening for so long.

HERMOTIMUS

Oh, may I really get up there, Lycinus! But a great deal remains to be done.