The ship or the wishes (41-45)

LYCINUS

But now it’s your turn to make your request, Timolaus. See that you outdo them—as we expect from an intelligent man of the world.

TIMOLAUS

Well, Lycinus, see if my wish will be open to censure or possible correction. Gold, treasures and

bushels of coin, kingdoms, wars and fears for empire you have rightly censured—I shall not ask for them. They are insecure, full of plots and give more grief than pleasure.

TIMOLAUS

I want Hermes to meet me and give me a set of rings with certain powers: one is to keep the body always strong and healthy, invulnerable and free from disease, another to make the wearer invisible like the ring of Gyges, [*] a third to make me stronger than thousands of men and able easily to carry by myself a weight that thousands together could hardly move, and another to lift me flying far above the earth—let me have a ring for this as well. Then a ring to put anyone I want to sleep and open every door as I approach, releasing bolts and bars—let one ring do both.

TIMOLAUS

But in particular let me have one more, the most delightful of all, one that when I wear it will make the pretty boys and women and whole peoples fall in love with me—no one will fail to love me and think me desirable: I shall be on every tongue. Many women will hang themselves in despair, boys will be mad for me and think themselves blessed if I but glance at one of them, and pine away for grief if I ignore them. Just let me be better than Hyacinthus or Hylas or Phaon the Chian. [*]

TIMOLAUS

All these let me have and not for a short time: for I shall not live the measure of human life but for a thousand years, renewing my youth and always casting off

old age about every seventeen years, as a snake sloughs its skin. While I have all this I shall want for nothing: all that others own would be mine as long as I could open doors, put watchmen to sleep, and pass in myself unseen. Whatever remarkable sight there were in India or beyond the North Wind, whatever precious possession, whatever dainty morsel or pleasant drink, I should not send for them, but fly there myself and enjoy them all to satiety. That winged beast the griffin or the Phoenix bird in India may be unseen by others, but I should see it: I alone would know the source of the Nile and how much of the earth is uninhabited and if people live head-downwards in the southern half of the world. Again I should know the nature of the stars and the moon and the sun itself without trouble, being insensitive to fire; sweetest pleasure of all, on the self-same day I should give Babylon the name of the Olympic victor, and after breakfast perhaps in Syria dine in Italy. If I had an enemy I could pay him out by dropping a stone on his head unseen and cracking his skull: my friends I could help by pouring gold on them as they slept. Then if there was a haughty person or a rich and bullying tyrant, I could pick him up and throw him down the cliffs twenty furlongs off. I could meet my darlings without let or hindrance: I’d go in unseen and put everyone to sleep but them alone. What a wonderful thing, aloft and out of arrow-shot, to spy on embattled armies and, if I wished, to support the vanquished and send the victors to sleep and to give victory to fugitives turned back from their flight. In a word I should make human life my plaything, all things would be mine and I would be thought by all others a god. This is the supreme bliss which cannot be destroyed or schemed against, being particularly accompanied by health in a long life.

TIMOLAUS

What fault can you find in my wish, Lycinus?

LYCINUS

None, Timolaus. It isn’t safe to oppose a winged man stronger than ten thousand. But I will ask you this: did you see in all those tribes you flew over any other old man so out of his mind, carried by a little ring and able to move whole mountains with his finger-tip, loved by everyone, even though he was bald and snub-nosed? But tell me this: why cannot just one ring do all this for you? Why must you go about weighed down by such a load of rings on one finger of your left hand? There are too many, and your right hand must take its share. Yet there is one more ring you most certainly need to put on, one which will stop your fooling and wipe away all this drivel. Or perhaps a stronger dose of hellebore than usual will be adequate?