Lucian's True History by of Samosata Lucian (easy books to read in english .txt) 📕

is lost; and expression, as always in the classics, is reduced to its lowest terms. But when the travellers reach the Islands of the Blessed, the style takes on a colour and a beauty which it knew not before. A fragrant air breathed upon them, as of "roses, daffodils, gillyflowers, lilies, violets, myrtles, bays, and blossoms of vines." Happy also was the Isle to look upon: ἔνθα δὴ καὶ καθεωρῶμεν λιμένας τε πολλοὺς περὶ πᾶσαν ὰκλύστους καὶ μεγάλους, ποταμούς τε διαυγεῖς ἐξίοντας ἠρέμα ἐς τὴν θάλατταν· ἔτὶ δὲ λειμῶνας καὶ ὕλας καὶ ὄρνεα μουσικὰ, τὰ μὲν πὶ τῶν ἠΐόνων ἄδοντα, πολλὰ δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κλάδων ἀήρ τε κοῦφος καὶ εὔπνους περιεκέχυτο τὴν χώραν: "a still and gentle air compassing the whole country." Where will you find a more vivid impression of elegance and serenity? or where match "the melody of the branches, like the sound of wind instruments in a solitary place" (ἀπὸ τῶν κλάδων κινουμένον τερπνὰ καὶ συνεχῆ μέλη ἀπεσυρίξετο ἐοικότα τοῖς ἐπ' ἐρημίας αὐλήμασι τῶν πλαγίων αὐλῶν)? And when the splendour of the city breaks upon you, with its smaragdus, its cinnamon-tree, its amethyst, ivory, and beryl, the rich barbarity suggests Solomon's Temple, or the City of the Revelation. Its inhabitants are the occasion of infinite jesting, and again and again does Lucian satirize the philosophers, his dearest foes. Socrates was in danger of being thrust forth by Rhadamanthus, ἤν φλυαρῇ καὶ μὴ ἐθέλῃ ἀφεὶς τὴν εἰρωνείαν εὐωχεῖσθαι, while as for Diogenes the Sinopean, so profoundly was he changed from his old estate, that he had married Lais the Harlot. The journey to Hell is another excuse to gird at the historians. The severest torments were inflicted, says Lucian, upon Ctesias the Cnidian, Herodotus and many others, which the writer beholding "was put in great hopes that I should never have anything to do there, for I do not know that ever I spake any untruth in my life." And yet with all his irony, all his scorn, Lucian has ever a side-glance at literature. The verse of Homer is constantly upon his lips, and it is from Homer that the Gods take their ditties in the Elysian fields. Again, when the traveller visits the city of Nephelococcygia, it is but to think upon the poet Aristophanes, "how wise a man he was, and how true a reporter, and how little cause there is to question his fidelity for what he hath written."

Such is the work which, itself a masterpiece, has been a pattern and an exemplar unto others. If Utopia and its unnumbered rivals derive from Plato, there is not a single Imaginary Traveller that is not modelled upon Lucian. The True History was, in effect, the beginning of a new literature. Not only was its framework borrowed, not only was its habit of fantastic names piously imitated, but the disciples, like the master, turned their voyages to the purpose of satire. It was Rabelais who made the first adaptation, for, while Epistemon's descent into Hell was certainly suggested by Lucian, Pantagruel's voyage is an ample travesty of The True History, and Lanternland, the home of the Lychnobii, is but Lychnopolis, Lucian's own City of Lights. The seventeenth century discovered another imitator in Cyrano de Bergerac, whose tepid Voyage dans la Lune is interesting merely because it is a link in the chain that unites Lucian with Swift. Yet the book had an immense popularity, and Cyrano's biographer has naught to say of the original traveller, save that he told his story "avec beaucoup moins de vraisemblance et de gentilesse d'imagination que M. de Bergerac." An astounding judgment surely, which time has already reversed. And then came Gulliver's Travels, incomparably the greatest descendant of The True History. To what excellent purpose Swift followed his Lucian is proved alike by the amazing probability of his narrative, and the cruelty of his satire. Like Lucian, he professed an unveiled contempt for philosophers and mathematicians; unlike Lucian, he made his imaginary journey the occasion for a fierce satire upon kings and politicians. But so masterly is the narrative, so convincing the reality of Lilliput and Brobdignag, that Gulliver retains its hold upon our imagination, though the meaning of its satire is long since blunted. Swift's work came to astonish the world in 1727, and some fourteen years later in the century Holberg astonished the wits of Denmark with a satire cast in Lucian's mould. Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum—thus ran the title, and from Latin the book was translated into every known tongue. The city of walking trees, the home of the Potuans, and many another invention, prove Holberg's debt to the author of The True History. And if the genre is dead to-day, it is dead because the most intrepid humourist would hesitate to walk in the footsteps of Lemuel Gulliver.

Fortunate in his imitators, Lucian has been not wholly unfortunate in his translators. Not even envy could pick a quarrel with Francis Hickes, whose Englishing of The True History is here reprinted. The book appeared, under the auspices of Hickes's son, in 1634, four years after the translator's death. Thus it is described on the title-page: "Certaine Select Dialogues of Lucian together with his True Historie, translated from the Greeke into English by Mr. Francis Hickes. Whereunto is added the Life of Lucian gathered out of his own Writings, with briefe Notes and Illustrations upon each Dialogue and Booke, by T. H. Master of Arts, of Christ Church in Oxford. Oxford, Printed by William Turner. 1634." Composed with a certain dignity, it is dedicated "to the Right Worshipfull Dr. Duppa, Deane of Christ-Church, and Vice-Chancellor of the famous Universitie in Oxford." And the work reflects a wholesome glory upon the famous University. For it is the work of a scholar, who knew both the languages. Though his diction lacked the spirit and colour which distinguished the splendid versions of North and Holland, he was far more keenly conscious of his original than were those masters of prose. Not only did he, unlike North, translate directly from the Greek, but he followed his original with loyalty and patience. In brief, his Lucian is a miracle of suitability. The close simplicity of Hickes fits the classical restraint of The True History to admiration. As the Greek is a model of narrative, so you cannot read the English version without thinking of the incomparable Hakluyt. Thirty years after the first printing of the translation, Jasper Mayne published his "Part of Lucian made English," wherein he added sundry versions of his own to the work already accomplished by Francis Hickes. And in his "Epistle Dedicatory" he discusses the art of translation with an intelligence which proves how intimately he realized the excellent quality of Hickes's version. "For as the Painter," thus Jasper Mayne, "who would draw a man of a bald head, rumpled forehead, copper nose, pigge eyes, and ugly face, draws him not to life, nor doth the business of his art, if he draw him less deformed or ugly than he is; or as he who would draw a faire, amiable lady, limbes with an erring pencil, and drawes a libell, not a face, if he gives her not just features, and perfections: So in the Translation of Bookes, he who makes a dull author elegant and quick; or a sharp, elegant author flat, rustick, rude and dull, by contrary wayes, commits the same sinne, and cannot be said to translate, but to transforme." That is sound sense, and judged by the high standard of Jasper Mayne, Francis Hickes has most valiantly acquitted himself.

He was the son of Richard Hickes, an arras-weaver of Barcheston, in Warwickshire, and after taking the degree of bachelor in the University of Oxford, which he entered in 1579, at the age of thirteen, he was diverted (says Thomas, his son) "by a country retirement." Henceforth he devoted his life to husbandry and Greek. Besides Lucian, he translated Thucydides and Herodian, the manuscripts of which are said to survive in the library of Christ Church. Possibly it was his long retirement that gave a turn of pedantry to his mind. It was but natural that in his remote garden he should exaggerate the importance of the knowledge acquired in patient solitude. But certain it is that the notes wherewith he decorated his margins are triumphs of inapposite erudition. When Lucian describes the famous cobwebs, each one of which was as big as an island of the Cyclades, Hickes thinks to throw light upon the text with this astonishing irrelevancy: "They are in the Aegean Sea, in number 13." The foible is harmless, nay pleasant, and consonant with the character of the learned recluse. Thus lived Francis Hickes, silent and unknown, until in 1630 he died at a kinsman's house at Sutton in Gloucestershire. And you regret that his glory was merely posthumous. For, pedant as he was, he made known to his countrymen the enemy of all the pedants, and turned a masterpiece of Greek into English as sound and scholarly as is found in any translator of his time.