Well, the first thing I did when I got to Elis was to takeĪ turn in the gymnasium, listening the while to the discordant yells of some Cynic or other -the usual platitudes, you know -ringing commendations of Virtue-indiscriminate slaughter of characters-finally, a peroration on the subject of Proteus. As to our author, I say nothing: you know the man, you know the sublime utterances that marked his earthly course, outvoicing Sophocles and Aeschylus. I can tell you, I was within an ace of being torn limb from limb by the Cynics, like Actaeon among 3the dogs, or his cousin Pentheus among the Maenads.-But I must sketch you the whole drama in detail. But then you are far enough off to be comparatively safe: now I made my remarks before a vast audience, in the very moment of cremation (and before it for that matter), exciting thereby the indignation of all the old fool's admirers, though there were a few who joined in the laugh against him. ' everything else that we are accustomed to attribute to these gentry.
He bides his time till all Greece is mustered in full force-constructs a pyre of the largest dimensions-and jumps on top in the eyes of all the world, having briefly addressed the nation a few days before on the 2subject of his daring enterprise! I fancy I see you chuckling away at the old dotard or rather I hear you blurting out the inevitable comments-' Mere imbecility Mere clap-trap'-Mere. That philosopher would fain have sneaked into his crater unobserved: not so our high-souled friend. It's just like Empedocles only with a difference. Yes, Cronius all that is left of the best of men is a handful of ashes. We have seen him under many shapes: countless have been his transformations for glory's sake and now-’tis his last appearance-we see him in the shape of fire. Poor dear Peregrine-or Proteus, as he loved to call himself,-has quite come up to his namesake in Homer. Sacred Texts Classics Lucian Fowler Index Index Previous Next
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