Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 03 by Lucian of Samosata
page 44 of 337 (13%)
page 44 of 337 (13%)
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Either let all these be blotted, or let me have the same licence.
Moreover, illustration is so irresponsible that Homer allows himself to convey his compliments to Goddesses by using creatures inferior to them. Hera is ox-eyed. Another poet colours Aphrodite's eyes from the violet. As for fingers like the rose, it takes but little of Homer's society to bring us acquainted with them. Still, so far we do not get beyond mere looks; a man is only called _like_ a God. But think of the wholesale adaptation of their names, by Dionysiuses, Hephaestions, Zenos, Posidoniuses, Hermaeuses. Leto, wife of Evagoras, King of Cyprus, even dispensed with adaptation; but her divine namesake, who could have turned her into stone like Niobe, took no offence. What need to mention that the most religious race on earth, the Egyptian, never tires of divine names? most of those it uses hail from Heaven. Consequently, there is not the smallest occasion for you to be nervous about the panegyric. If what I wrote contains anything offensive to the deity, you are not responsible, unless you consider we are responsible for all that goes in at our ears; no, I shall pay the penalty--as soon as the Gods have settled with Homer and the other poets. Ah, and they have not done so yet with the best of all philosophers [Footnote: Lucian's 'best of all philosophers' might be Plato, who is their spokesman in 'The Fisher' (see Sections 14, 22), or Epicurus, in the light of two passages in the 'Alexander' (Sections 47, 61) in which he almost declares himself an Epicurean. The exact words are not found in Plato, though several similar expressions are quoted; words of Epicurus appear to be translated in Cicero, _De nat. Deorum_, Book I, xviii s. f., hominis esse specie deos confitendum est: we |
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