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The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1910
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Культурология
Электронная книга - «The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]». Краткое содержание книги:
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 01 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 02 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 03 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 04 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 05 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 06 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 07 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 08 — Fiction от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 09 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 10 — Lives and Letters от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 11 — Ancient and Mediæval History от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 13 — Religion and Philosophy от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 14 — Philosophy and Economics от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 15 — Science от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 17 — Poetry and Drama от Неизвестный
The world's greatest books от Mee, Arthur, 1875-1943, joint editor & Hammerton, John Alexander, Sir, 1871-1949, joint editor & McClure, S. S. (Samuel Sidney), 1857-1949, joint editor
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 19 — Travel and Adventure от Неизвестный
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 20 — Miscellaneous Literature and Index от Неизвестный
The insinuating flatteries of these aliens are so masterfully contrived that the blunt Roman has no chance against such a nation of actors.
Greece is a theatre where all are players. For, lo! their patron smiles—they burst with mirth; He weeps—they droop, the saddest souls on earth; He calls for fire—they court the mantle's heat; "'Tis warm," he cries—the Greeks dissolve in sweat!
Besides, they are dangerously immoral. Their philosophers are perfidious. These sycophant foreigners can poison a patron against a poor Roman client. This leads to an outburst against poverty and its disadvantages.
The question is not put, how far extends One's piety, but what he yearly spends. The account is soon cast up: the judges rate Our credit in the court by our estate. Add that the rich have still a gibe in store, And will be monstrous witty on the poor. This mournful truth is everywhere confessed— Slow rises worth by property depressed. At Rome 'tis worse; where house-rent by the year, And servants' bellies costs so devilish dear.
It is a city where appearance beyond one's means must he kept up; whereas, in the country one need never spend money even on a toga. Everything has its price in Rome. To interview a great man, his pampered lackeys must have a fee.
Then there are risks in a great capital unknown in country towns. There are tumble-down tenements with the buttresses ready to give; there are top garrets where you may lose your life in a fire. You could buy a nice rustic home for the price at which a dingy hovel is let in Rome. Besides, the din of the streets is killing. Rome is bad for the nerves. Folk die of insomnia. By day you get crushed, bumped, and caked with mud. A soldier drives his hobnails into your toe. You may be the victim of a street accident.
Heavens! should the axle crack, which bears a weight Of huge Ligurian stone, and pour the freight On the pale crowd beneath, what would remain, What joint, what bone, what atom of the slain? The body, with the soul, would vanish quite, Invisible, as air, to mortal sight! Meanwhile, unconscious of their master's fate, At home they heat the water, scour the plate, Arrange the strigils, fill the cruse with oil, And ply their several tasks with fruitless toil. But he, the mangled victim, now a ghost, Sits pale and trembling on the Stygian coast, A stranger shivering at the novel scene, At Charon's threatening voice and scowling mien, Nor hopes a passage thus abruptly hurled, Without his farthing to the nether world.
In the dark there are equal perils.
Prepare for death if here at night you roam, And sign your will before you sup from home.
Lucky if people throw only dirty water from their windows! Be thankful to escape without a broken skull. A drunken bully may meet you.
There are who murder as an opiate take, And only when no brawls await them, wake.
And what chance have you, without attendants, against a street rough? Then there is the burglar; and the criminal classes are regularly increased in town whenever the authorities grow active enough to clear the main Italian roads of bandits.
The forge in fetters only is employed; Our iron-mines exhausted and destroyed In shackles; for these villains scarce allow Goads for our teams or ploughshares for the plough. Oh, happy ages of our ancestors, Beneath the kings and tribunician powers! One jail did all the criminals restrain, Whom now the walls of Rome can scarce contain.
III.—A Satire on the Vanity of Human Wishes
Look round the habitable world; how few Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue. To headlong ruin see whole houses driven, Cursed with their prayers, by too indulgent heaven.
The several passions and aspirations of mankind, successively examined in the light of legend and history, prove how hollow, if not pernicious, are the principal objects of pursuit. Wealth is one of the commonest aims.
But avarice spreads her deadly snare, And hoards amassed with too successful care. For wealth, in the black days, at Nero's word, The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword. Cut-throats commissioned by the government Are seldom to an empty garret sent. The traveller freighted with a little wealth, Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth: Even then he fears the bludgeon and the blade— Starts in the moonlight at a rush's shade, While, void of care, the beggar trips along, And to the robber's face will troll his song.
What would the "weeping" and the "laughing" sages of ancient Greece have thought of the pageants of modern Rome? Consider the vanity of ambition. It is illustrated by the downfall of the powerful minister Sejanus. On his overthrow, the fickle mob turned savagely upon his statues.
What think the people? They! They follow fortune, as of old, and hate With all their soul the victim of the state. Yet in this very hour that self-same crowd Had hailed Sejanus with a shout as loud, If his designs (by fortune's favour blessed) Had prospered, and the aged prince oppressed; For since our votes have been no longer bought, All public care has vanished from our thought. Romans, who once with unresisted sway, Gave armies, empire, everything, away, For two poor claims have long renounced the whole And only ask—the circus and a dole.
Would you rather be an instance of fallen greatness, or enjoy some safe post in an obscure Italian town? What ruined a Crassus? Or a Pompey? Or a victorious Cæsar? Why, the realisation of their own soaring desires.
Another vain aspiration covets fame in eloquence. But the gift of oratory overthrew the two greatest orators of Greece and Rome—Demosthenes and Cicero. If Cicero had only stuck to his bad verses, he would never have earned Antony's deadly hatred by his "Second Philippic" (see Vol. IX, p. 155).
"I do congratulate the Roman state Which my great consulate did recreate!" If he had always used such jingling words He might have scorned Mark Antony's swords.
A different passion is for renown in war. What is the end of it all? Only an epitaph on a tombstone, and tombstones themselves perish; for even a tree may split them!
Produce the urn that Hannibal contains, And weigh the paltry dust which yet remains. And is this all? Yet this was once the bold, The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold. Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds; Nature opposed her everlasting mounds, Her Alps and snows. O'er these with torrent force He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course. Already at his feet Italia lies. Yet, thundering on, "Think nothing done," he cries, "Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls, And Afric's standards float without her walls!" But what ensued? Illusive glory, say. Subdued on Zama's memorable day, He flies in exile to a petty state, With headlong haste; and, at a despot's gate, Sits, mighty suppliant, of his life in doubt, Till the Bithynian monarch's nap be out! Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled, Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world: The vengeance due to Cannæ's fatal field, And floods of gore, a poisoned ring shall yield! Fly, madman, fly! At toil and danger mock, Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock, To please the rhetoricians, and become A declamation—for the boys of Rome!
Consider next the yearning after long life.
Pernicious prayer! for mark what ills attend Still on the old, as to the grave they bend: A ghastly visage, to themselves unknown; For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown; And such a cheek, as many a grandam ape In Tabraca's thick woods is seen to scrape.
The old man rouses feelings of impatient loathing in those around him; his physical strength and faculties for enjoyment are gone. Even if he remain hale, he may suffer harrowing bereavements. Nestor, Peleus, and Priam had to lament the death of heroic sons; and in Roman history Marius and Pompey outlived their good fortune.
Campania, prescient of her Pompey's fate, Sent a kind fever to arrest his date: