SPEUSIPPUs.

And nine days of rigid mortification of the senses.

ALCIBIADES.

We will suppose that too. I am sure it was supposed, with as little reason, when I was initiated.

You a sophist, and talk of oaths! You a pupil of Euripides, and forget his maxims !

"My lips have sworn it; but my mind is free." 1

But Alcibiades

What!

SPEUSIPPUs.

ALCIBIADES.

Are you afraid of Ceres and Proserpine?

Νο

SPEUSIPPUs.

but -but -I-that is I-but it is best to be safe-I mean-Suppose there should be something in it.

ALCIBIADES.

Now, by Mercury, I shall die with laughing. Oh Speusippus, Speusippus! Go back to your old father. Dig vineyards, and judge causes, and be a respectable citizen. But never, while you live, again dream of being a philosopher.

Nay, I was only

SPEUSIPPUs.

1 See Euripides; Hyppolytus, 608.

For the jesuitical morality of this

line Euripides is bitterly attacked by the comic poet.

ALCIBIADES.

A pupil of Gorgias and Melesigenes afraid of Tartarus! In what region of the infernal world do you expect your domicile to be fixed? Shall stone like Sisyphus? Hard exercise, Speusippus !

SPEUSIPPus.

In the name of all the gods

ALCIBIADES.

you

roll a

Or shall you sit starved and thirsty in the midst of fruit and wine like Tantalus? Poor fellow! I think I see your face as you are springing up to the branches and missing your aim. Oh Bacchus! Oh Mercury!

SPEUSIPPUs.

Alcibiades!

ALCIBIADES.

Or perhaps you will be food for a vulture, like the huge fellow who was rude to Latona.

Alcibiades!

SPEUSIPPUS.

ALCIBIADES.

Never fear. Minos will not be so cruel. Your eloquence will triumph over all accusations. The furies will skulk away like disappointed sycophants. Only address the judges of hell in the speech which you were prevented from speaking last assembly. "When I consider" is not that the beginning of it? Come, man, do not be angry. Why do you pace up and down You are not in Tartarus yet.

with such long steps?

You seem to think that you are already stalking like poor Achilles,

Then march. You shall be the crier.2 Callicles,

you shall carry the torch. Why do

you

stare?

CALLICLES.

I do not much like the frolic.

ALCIBIADES.

Nay, surely you are not taken with a fit of piety. If all be true that is told of you, you have as little reason to think the gods vindictive as any man breathing. If you be not belied, a certain golden goblet which I have seen at your house was once in the temple of Juno at Corcyra. And men say that there was a priestess at Tarentum

CALLICLES.

A fig for the gods! I was thinking about the Archons. You will have an accusation laid against you to-morrow. It is not very pleasant to be tried before the king.3

1 See Homer's Odyssey, xi. 538.

2 The crier and torch-bearer were important functionaries at the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries.

3 The name of king was given in the Athenian democracy to the magistrate who exercised those spiritual functions which in the monarchical times had belonged to the sovereign. His court took cognisance of offences against the religion of the state.

ALCIBIADES.

Never fear: there is not a sycophant in Attica who would dare to breathe a word against me, for the golden plane-tree of the great king.

That plane-tree

HIPPOMACHUS.

ALCIBIADES.

Never mind the plane-tree. Come, Callicles, you were not so timid when you plundered the merchantman off Cape Malea. Take up the torch and move. Hippomachus, tell one of the slaves to bring a sow.2

CALLICLES.

And what part are you to play?

ALCIBIADES.

I shall be hierophant. Herald, to your office. Torchbearer, advance with the lights. Come forward, fair novice. We will celebrate the rite within. (Exeunt.)

1 See Herodotus, viii. 28.

2 A sow was sacrificed to Ceres at the admission to the greater mysteries.

In a review of Italian literature, Dante has a double claim to precedency. He was the earliest and the greatest writer of his country. He was the first man who fully descried and exhibited the powers of his native dialect. The Latin tongue, which, under the most favourable circumstances, and in the hands of the greatest masters, had still been poor, feeble, and singularly unpoetical, and which had, in the age of Dante, been debased by the admixture of innumerable barbarous words and idioms, was still cultivated with superstitious veneration, and received, in the last stage of corruption, more honours than it had deserved in the period of its life and vigour. It was the language of the cabinet, of the university, of the church. It was employed by all who aspired to distinction in the higher walks of poetry. In compassion to the ignorance of his mistress, a cavalier might now and then proclaim his passion in Tuscan or Provençal rhymes. The vulgar might occasionally be edified by a pious