Ep. V.

(Circa a.d. 361.)

Since you do take my jokes kindly, I send you the rest.  My prelude is from Homer.

“Come now and change thy theme,

And sing of the inner adornment.”

—Od. viii. 492.

Your roofless and doorless hut, your fireless and smokeless hearth, your walls dried by fire, that we may not be hit by the drops of the mud, condemned like Tantalus thirsting in the midst of waters, and that pitiable feast with nothing to eat, to which we were invited from Cappadocia, not as to a Lotus-eater’s poverty, but to a table of Alcinous—we young and miserable survivors of a wreck.  For I remember those loaves and the broth (so it was called), yes, and I shall remember them too, and my poor teeth that slipped on your hunks of bread, and then braced themselves up, and pulled themselves as it were out of mud.  You yourself will raise these things to a higher strain of tragedy, having learnt to talk big through your own sufferings…for if we had not been quickly delivered by that great supporter of the poor—I mean your mother—who appeared opportunely like a harbour to men tossed by a storm, we should long ago have been dead, rather pitied than admired for our faith in Pontus.  How shall I pass over that garden which was no garden and had no vegetables, and the Augean dunghill which we cleared out of the house, and with which we filled it up (sc. the garden), when we drew that mountainous wagon, I the vintager, and you the valiant, with our necks and hands, which still bear the traces of our labours.  “O earth and sun, O air and virtue” (for I will indulge a little in tragic tones), not that we might bridge the Hellespont, but that we might level a precipice.  If you are not put out by the mention of the circumstances, no more am I; but if you are, how much more was I by the reality.  I pass by the rest, through respect for the others from whom I received much enjoyment.

[5] ΤΩΙ ΑΥΤΩΙ

Ἐπειδὴ φέρεις μετρίως τὴν παιδιάν, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς προσθήσομεν. Ἐξ Ὁμήρου δὲ τὸ προοίμιον:

Ἀλλ' ἄγε δὴ μετάβηθι καὶ τὸν ἕσο κόσμον ἄεισον, τὴν ἄστεγον σκέπην καὶ ἄθυρον, τὴν ἄπυρον ἑστίαν καὶ ἄκαπνον, τοὺς πυρὶ ξηραινομένους τοίχους, ἵνα μὴ ταῖς τοῦ πηλοῦ ῥανίσι βαλλώμεθα, Ταντάλειοί τινες καὶ κατάκριτοι, διψῶντες ἐν ὕδασι, _ τὴν ἐλεεινὴν ἐκείνην καὶ ἄτροφον πανδαισίαν ἐφ' ἣν ἀπὸ Καππαδοκίας ἐκλήθημεν, οὐχ ὡς Λωτοφάγων πενίαν ἀλλ' ὡς Ἀλκινόου τράπεζαν, ἡμεῖς οἱ νέοι ναυαγοί τε καὶ τλήμονες. Μέμνημαι γὰρ τῶν ἄρτων ἐκείνων καὶ τῶν ζωμῶν (οὕτω γὰρ ὠνομάζοντο), ἀλλὰ καὶ μεμνήσομαι καὶ τῶν περιολισθαινόντων τοῖς βλωμοῖς ὀδόντων, εἶτα ἐνισχομένων καὶ ἀνελκομένων ὥσπερ ἐκ τέλματος. Αὐτὸς ταῦτα τραγῳδήσεις ὑψηλότερον, ἐκ τῶν οἰκείων παθῶν ἔχων τὸ μεγαλόφωνον: ὧν εἰ μὴ ταχέως ἡμᾶς ἡ μεγάλη καὶ πτωχοτρόφος ὄντως ἐρρύσατο, τὴν σὴν λέγω μητέρα, ὥσπερ λιμὴν ἐν καιρῷ φανεῖσα χειμαζομένοις, πάλαι ἂν ἦμεν νεκροί, πίστεως ποντικῆς οὐκ ἐπαινούμενοι μᾶλλον ἢ ἐλεούμενοι. Πῶς παρέλθω τοὺς ἀκήπους κήπους ἐκείνους καὶ ἀλαχάνους, καὶ τὴν Αὐγείου κόπρον ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας ἐκκαθαιρομένην, ᾗ τούτους ἀνεπληρώσαμεν, ἡνίκα τὴν γεωφόρον ἅμαξαν εἵλκομεν, ἐγώ τε ὁ βοτρύων καὶ ὁ λαμυρὸς σύ, τοῖς αὐχέσι τούτοις καὶ ταῖς χερσὶ ταύταις, αἳ τῶν πόνων ἔτι τὰ ἴχνη φέρουσιν, _ὦ γῆ καὶ ἥλιε καὶ ἀὴρ καὶ ἀρετή, τραγωδήσω γάρ τι μικρόν, _οὐχ ἵνα τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον ζεύξωμεν, ἀλλ' ἵνα τὸν κρημνὸν ὁμαλίσωμεν. Τούτοις εἰ μὲν οὐδὲν ἀχθεσθήσῃ λεγομένοις, πάντως οὐδ' ἡμεῖς: εἰ δὲ ἀχθεσθήσῃ, πόσον γενομένοις ἡμεῖς: καὶ τὰ πλείω παρήσομεν, αἰδοῖ τῶν ἄλλων, ὧν πολλῶν ἀπελαύομεν.