François Fénelon
The Adventures of Telemachus
Books X to XII
Translated by N. Hewitt © Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved.
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Contents
BOOK X
Meanwhile, all the armies of the allies pitched their tents, and the countryside was already covered with rich pavilions of all sorts of colours, where the tired Hesperians awaited sleep. When the kings along with their entourages had entered into the city, they looked astonished that, in so little time, one could have built so many magnificent buildings and the hindrance of so great a war had not impeded this nascent city from growing and embellishing itself all at once.
They marvelled at the wisdom and vigilance of Idomeneus, who had founded so beautiful a kingdom, and each concluded that peace being made with him, the allies would be more mighty if he entered into their league against the Daunians. They proposed to Idomeneus that he enter in with them. He could not reject so just a proposition and promised troops. But, as Mentor was not ignorant of all that is needed to render a state flourishing, he realised Idomeneus’ military forces could not be as great as they appeared. He took him in private and spoke to him in this way:
“You see that our attentions have not been useless to you. Salentum is protected from the misfortunes that threatened it. It is up to you to raise the glory of it to the sky and to equal the wisdom of Minos, your grandfather, in the governance of your peoples. I continue to speak freely to you, assuming you desire it and you detest all flattery. While those kings lauded your magnificence, I was thinking to myself of the temerity of your conduct.”
At the word “temerity,” Idomeneus’ expression changed; his eyes clouded, he reddened, and he hardly needed to interrupt Mentor to show his resentment. Mentor said to him in a modest and respectful tone, yet free and bold,
“This word ‘temerity’ shocks you, I see well. Anyone other than me would have been wrong to use it, for kings must be respected and their delicateness handled, even in correcting them of it. Truth alone wounds them enough, without adding to it hard terms. But, I thought you would be able to tolerate my speaking to you without softening so as to reveal your error to you. My design was to accustom you to hearing things called by their names and to realise that when others give you counsel about your conduct, they will never dare to tell you all they are thinking. You must, if you do not want to be deceived by them, understand even more that they will not tell you of things that will be disadvantageous to you. As for me, I am quite willing to soften my words, according to your need, but it is useful to you that a man without self-interest, and inconsequential, use a harsh tongue with you in private. No one else will ever dare to speak like this to you. You will see the truth only halfway and in beautiful wrapping.”
At these words Idomeneus, already recovered from his former quick temper, appeared ashamed of his delicateness.
“You see,” he said to Mentor, “what the habit of being flattered does. I owe the salvation of my new kingdom to you. There is no truth I would not believe myself fortunate to hear from your mouth, but have mercy on a king whom flattery has poisoned and who could not, even in his misfortunes, find men generous enough to tell him the truth. No, I have never found anyone who loved me enough to want to displease me in telling me the whole truth.”
Saying these words, tears came to his eyes and he embraced Mentor tenderly. Then this wise old man said, “It is with pain that I find myself compelled to say harsh things to you, but can I betray you in hiding the truth from you? Put yourself in my place. If you have been deceived up until now, it is that you were willing to be; it is that you feared counsellors too sincere. Have you sought out the most selfless people, and the most suitable to contradict you? Have you taken care to draw out the people least eager to please you, the most selfless in their conduct, the most capable of condemning your passions and your unjust sentiments? When you have found flatterers, have you scattered them? You, were you distrustful of them? No, indeed, you have not done what those who love the truth, and who merit knowing it do. Let us see if you will now have the courage to allow yourself to be humbled by the truth that condemns you.
“I was saying, then, that what attracts so much praise to you only merits being reprimanded. While you had so many enemies on the outside who were threatening your kingdom, still poorly established, you only thought to build magnificent works on the inside of your new city. It is this that has cost you so many bad nights, as you have confessed to me yourself. You drained your riches. You did not think of either increasing your population or of cultivating the fertile lands of this coast. Was it not necessary to regard these two things as the two essential foundations of your power, to have lots of good men, and well cultivated lands to feed them? An extended peace was necessary in the beginning to favour the proliferation of your people. You should have only thought of agriculture and the establishment of the wisest laws. A vain ambition has pushed you to the brink of the precipice. By dint of wanting to appear grand, you thought to ruin your true grandeur.
“Hasten to mend these errors. Suspend all your grand works. Renounce this splendour that will ruin your new city. Allow your peoples to breathe in peace. Apply yourself to putting them in abundance in order to facilitate marriages. Know that you are only king to the extent you have peoples to govern, and that your power should be measured not by the stretch of lands you occupy, but by the number of men who inhabit those lands and who will be bound to obey you. Possess a good land, though average in stretch, covered with countless peoples, hard-working and disciplined. Make it so these peoples love you. You are more mighty, more happy, more filled with glory than all the conquerors who ravage so many kingdoms.”
“What will I do then with regard to these kings?” responded Idomeneus. “Shall I confess my weakness to them? It is true that I neglected agriculture, and even the commerce that is so easy for me on this coast. I only thought of building a magnificent city. Must I then, my dear Mentor, dishonour myself in the assembly of so many kings and reveal my imprudence? If I must, I desire it. I will do it without hesitation, whatever it costs me; for you have taught me that a true king, who is made for his peoples, and who owes himself entirely to them, must prefer the salvation of his kingdom to his own reputation.”
“This sentiment is worthy of the father of the peoples,” resumed Mentor. “It is to this goodness and not to the vain magnificence of your city that I recognised in you the heart of a true king. But, your honour must be handled carefully for the very interest of your kingdom. Leave it to me. I will make these kings understand that you are committed to reestablishing Odysseus, if he is still alive, or at least his son to royal power in Ithaca, and that you want to chase out, through military force, all Penelope’s suitors. They will have no difficulty understanding this war demands numerous troops. So then, they will consent to your only giving them, at first, a weak help against the Daunians.”
At these words, Idomeneus looked like a man relieved of a crushing burden. “You know, dear friend, of my honour and the reputation of this emerging city, whose depletion you will conceal from all my neighbours. But how does it look to say that I want to send troops to Ithaca to reestablish Odysseus, or at least Telemachus, his son, while Telemachus himself is enlisted to go to war against the Daunians?”
“Do not be troubled,” replied Mentor. “I will say nothing but the truth. The vessels you send to establish your commerce will go along the coast of Epirus. They will do two things at once: one, call back to your coast the foreign merchants that the overly-high taxes distanced from Salentum; the other, seek news of Odysseus. If he is still alive, he must not be far from these seas that divide Greece from Italy, and it is assured that he was seen with the Phaeacians. Even though there may no longer be any hope of seeing him again, your vessels will render a significant service to his son; they will spread in Ithaca and throughout the neighbouring countries the terror of the name of the young Telemachus, who is believed dead like his father; Penelope’s suitors will be stunned to learn he is ready to return with the succour of a mighty ally; the Ithacans will not dare shake off the yoke; Penelope will be consoled and will continue refusing to choose a new spouse. In this way, you will serve Telemachus while he will be in your place with the allies of this coast of Italy against the Daunians.”
At these words, Idomeneus cried out, “Lucky the king who is supported by wise counsel! A wise and faithful friend is worth more to a king than victorious armies. But doubly lucky the king who senses his good fortune and who knows how to profit from it by making good use of wise counsel! For often it happens that one distances from his confidence the wise and virtuous men whose virtue they fear, in order to lend an ear to flatterers whose treason they do not fear. I have myself fallen into this error, and I will recount to you all the woes that have come to me through a false friend who flattered my passions in the hope that I would in turn flatter his.”
Mentor easily convinced the allied kings that Idomeneus must take charge of Telemachus’ affairs while Telemachus would go with them. They were satisfied with having in their army the young son of Odysseus along with one hundred young Cretans that Idomeneus gave to accompany him. They were the flower of the young nobility that this king had brought over from Crete.
Mentor had counselled him to send them into this war. “You must attend during peacetime to multiply the people. But, for fear of the entire nation softening and falling into an ignorance of warfare, you must send the young nobility into foreign wars. That suffices to maintain the entire nation in an emulation of glory, in the love of arms, in the scorn for struggles and for death itself, lastly, in the experience of military art.”
The allied kings departed Salentum content with Idomeneus and enchanted by the wisdom of Mentor. They were filled with joy that they were bringing Telemachus with them. This one could not moderate his pain when it was necessary to separate from his friend. While the allied kings were making their farewells and swearing to Idomeneus that they would keep an eternal alliance with him, Mentor held Telemachus tightly in his arms and felt himself soaked with his tears.
“I am numb,” Telemachus said, “with joy to be going to acquire glory, and I am only touched with the pain of our separation. I seem to see that woeful time again when the Egyptians snatched me from your arms and distanced me from you, without leaving me any hope of seeing you again.”
Mentor responded to these words with gentleness to console him. “This is a very different separation—it is willing, it will be short. You are going to seek victory. You must, my son, love me with a love that is less tender and more courageous. Accustom yourself to my absence, you will not always have me. It must be wisdom and virtue rather than the presence of Mentor that inspires in you what you must do.”
In saying these words, the goddess, hidden beneath the figure of Mentor, covered Telemachus with her aegis. She filled him with the spirit of wisdom and foresight, intrepid valour, and gentle restraint, which are so rarely found together.
“Go,” said Mentor, “into the midst of the greatest perils, every time it is useful for you to go. A prince dishonours himself even more in avoiding the dangers in combat than in never going to war. The courage of the one who commands others must not be in doubt. If it is essential for a people to preserve its chief or its king, it is even more essential for them to not find him with a dubious reputation about valour. Remember, the one who commands must be the model to all others. His example must animate the entire army. So fear no danger, O Telemachus, and perish in combat rather than have your courage doubted. Flatterers—who will be the most eager to prevent you from exposing yourself to peril on necessary occasions—will be the first to say in secret that you lack heart, should they find you easy to stop on those occasions.
“But also, do not go seeking perils uselessly. valour can only be a virtue to the extent it is ruled by prudence. Otherwise, it is a senseless scorn for life and a brutal ardour. Fiery valour has nothing sure about it. The one who does not have possession of himself in danger is more hot-headed than brave. He needs to be beside himself in order to rise above fear because he cannot surmount it through the natural disposition of his heart. In that state, if he does not flee, he is at the very least distressed. He loses the freedom of his mind, which he needs to give good orders, to profit from opportunities, to overthrow the enemy, and to serve his homeland. If he has all the ardour of a soldier, he does not have the discernment of a captain. He does not even have the true courage of a simple soldier, for the soldier must preserve in combat the presence of mind and the restraint needed to obey. The one who brashly takes risks disrupts the order and discipline of the troops, sets an example of temerity, and often risks the entire army to great misfortunes; those who prefer their vain ambition to the safety of the common cause merit punishments and not rewards. Be very careful then, my dear son, of seeking glory with impatience. The true means of finding it is to tranquilly wait for the favourable opportunity. Virtue makes itself revered all the more to the extent that it reveals itself to be more natural, more modest, more hostile to all flamboyance. It is as the need to expose yourself to peril increases that you must have fresh reserves of foresight and courage, which are ever-increasing.
“Furthermore, remember, you must not attract the envy of anyone. For your part, do not be jealous of the success of others. Praise them for all that merits some praise, but praise with discernment, saying the good with pleasure, hiding the bad and only thinking on it with sorrow.
“Do not make a decision in front of all those old captains who have all the experience that you cannot have. Listen to them with deference. Consult them, beg the most able to instruct you, and do not be ashamed to attribute to their instruction all the good you will do.
“Lastly, never listen to the discourses by which someone will want to incite your distrust or your jealousy of other chiefs. Speak to them with confidence and genuineness. If you think they have missed something in your regard, open up your heart to them; explain all your reasons to them. If they are capable of sensing the nobility of this conduct, you will enchant them and draw from them all that you will have had cause to expect from them. If, on the contrary, they are not reasonable enough to take an interest in your sentiments, you will learn for yourself what unreasonableness there is to be tolerated in them, you will take measures so as not to commit yourself any longer than the war’s end, and you will have nothing to reproach yourself for. But above all, never tell certain flatterers, who sow division, about the difficult issues that you believe to have against the army chiefs with whom you will be.”
“I will stay here,” continued Mentor, “to assist Idomeneus in his need to strive for the happiness of his peoples and to complete having him mend the errors his poor counsel and flatterers have caused him to commit in the establishment of his new kingdom.”
Then Telemachus could not keep from expressing to Mentor some surprise and even some scorn for Idomeneus’ conduct. But Mentor corrected him in a severe tone,
“Are you surprised,” he said to him, “that the most estimable men are still men and still show some remnants of the foibles of humanity amidst the innumerable traps and impediments inseparable from the kingship? Idomeneus, it is true, has been nourished on ideas of splendour and haughtiness, but what philosopher would have been able to protect himself from flattery had he been in his place? It is true he allowed himself to be thwarted by those who have had his confidence. But the wisest kings are often deceived, whatever precautions they take not to be. A king cannot do without ministers who unburden him and in whom he trusts, since he cannot do everything. Besides, a king knows much less than the private individuals do of the men who surround him. They are always masked alongside him. They exhaust all sorts of artifices to deceive him. Alas, dear Telemachus, you will experience it only too much. One does not find in men either the virtues or the talents one seeks in them. No matter how hard we study them and dig deep, we are disappointed every day. There never comes an end to making the best men do what you need them to do for the public good. They have their hardheadedness, their incompatibilities, their jealousies. One hardly persuades them nor corrects them.
“The more peoples one has to govern, the more ministers are needed to do through them what one cannot do himself; and the more one needs men to whom authority is entrusted, the more one is exposed to being mistaken in such choices. Such a merciless critic of kings today would govern tomorrow much less well than they, and would make the same errors, along with infinitely greater ones, if the same power were entrusted in him. The private station, should a man combine it with a little wit to speak well, covers over all natural faults, highlights dazzling talents, and makes a man appear worthy of every position from which he is far removed. But it is authority that puts all talents to a severe test and reveals great faults.
“Grandeur is like certain glasses that enlarge every object. All faults appear to grow in those high places where the least things have great consequences and where the slightest errors have violent repercussions. The entire world is busy observing a single man at all hours and judging him with extreme rigour. Those who judge him have no experience in the position he holds; they do not appreciate the difficulties of it, and they no longer desire him to be a man as much as they demand perfection of him.
“A king, however good and wise he may be, is still a man. His mind has limits and his virtue has them too. He has moods, passions, habits, of which he is not entirely the master. He is obsessed over by self-interested and artful people. He does not find the help he seeks. He falls each day into some miscalculation, at times through his passions, and at times through those of his ministers. No sooner has he mended an error than he falls into another. Such is the condition of the most enlightened and the most virtuous kings. The longest and best reigns are too short and too imperfect to mend in the end what one has spoiled, without wanting to, in the beginning. Kingship carries with it all these miseries. Human impotence succumbs under so crushing a burden. One must pity kings and excuse them. Are they not to be pitied for having to govern so many men, whose needs are infinite and who give so much difficulty to those who want to govern them well? Frankly speaking, men are greatly to be pitied in having to be governed by a king who is only a man like them, for it would require gods to redress men. But kings are to be pitied no less, being only men—that is to say, weak and imperfect—in having to govern this countless multitude of corrupt and deceiving men.”
Telemachus retorted, “Idomeneus lost through his error the kingdom of his ancestors in Crete, and without your counsel, he would have lost a second one in Salentum.”
“I confess,” resumed Mentor, “that he made great errors. But seek in Greece and all the better governed countries a king who has not made inexcusable errors. The greatest men have, in their temperament and the character of their mind, faults that lead them astray, and the most laudable are those who have the courage to know and to mend their waywardness. Do you think that Odysseus, the great Odysseus, your father, who is the model for the kings of Greece, would not have his weaknesses and his faults too? If Athena had not led him step by step, how many times would he have succumbed in the perils and the predicaments where Fortune toyed with him! How many times did Athena have to restrain or redress him in order to always lead him to glory by the path of virtue! Do not even expect, when you see him reigning with so much glory in Ithaca, to find him without imperfections. You will see them in him, undoubtedly. Greece, Asia, and all the islands of the sea admired him despite those faults; a thousand marvellous qualities make them forget. You will be only too happy to be able to admire him too and to study him unceasingly as your model.
“Accustom yourself then, O Telemachus, to only expect of the greatest men what humanity is capable of doing. Youth, inexperienced, delivers itself over to a presumptuous criticism, which disgusts it with all the models it needs to follow and throws it into an incurable indocility. Not only must you love, respect, imitate your father, though he may not be perfect, but also you must have a high esteem for Idomeneus despite all I have corrected in him. He is naturally sincere, upright, fair, open-handed, beneficent. He is the model of valour. He detests fraud when he knows of it, and he freely follows the true leanings of his heart. All his apparent talents are great and proportionate to his rank. His simplicity in confessing his wrong, his gentleness, his patience in allowing me to say the harshest things, his courage to publicly mend his errors, and in so doing put himself above all the criticism of men, show a truly great soul. Good fortune or the counsel of others can preserve a very mediocre man from certain errors, but there is only an extraordinary virtue that can push a king, so long seduced by flattery, to mend his wrong. It is even more glorious to pick oneself up again in this way than to have never fallen. Idomeneus has made the errors almost all kings make. But almost no king does, in order to correct himself, what he just did. As for me, I could not weary of admiring him in the very moments when he permitted me to contradict him. Admire him too, my dear Telemachus, it is less for his reputation than for your own usefulness that I give you this counsel.”
Mentor made Telemachus sense, through this discourse, how dangerous it is to be unjust in letting oneself indulge in a rigorous critique against other men, and above all against those who are charged with the predicaments and difficulties of governing. Then he said to him, “It is time you depart. Farewell. I will wait for you. O my dear Telemachus, remember, those who fear the gods have nothing to fear from men. You will find yourself in the most extreme perils. But know that Athena will not abandon you.”
At these words, Telemachus thought he felt the presence of the goddess, and he would have even recognised it was her speaking in order to fill him with confidence, had the goddess not recalled the notion of Mentor to him by saying, “Do not forget, my son, all the cares I took during your childhood to render you wise and courageous like your father. Do nothing that would not be worthy of his great examples and of the maxims of virtue I have tried to inspire in you.”
The sun was already rising and gilding the summits of the mountain when the kings went out of Salentum to rejoin their troops. These troops, camped around the city, began to march under their commanders. One saw on all sides the glinting iron of raised pikes. The brilliance of the shields dazzled the eyes. A cloud of dust rose up to the clouds. Idomeneus, along with Mentor, led the allied kings into the countryside and drew away from the walls of the city. Finally they separated after having given, on both sides, marks of a true friendship, and the allies no longer doubted that peace would last when they knew the goodness in Idomeneus’ heart, which had been represented to them so very differently than what it was; it is that they had judged him, not by his own natural sentiments, but by the flattering and unjust counsel to which he had delivered himself.
After the army had departed, Idomeneus led Mentor throughout the quarters of the city.
“Let us see,” said Mentor, “how many men you have, not only in the city but even in the neighbouring countryside. Let us make a count of them. Let us also examine how many ploughmen you have among those men. Let us see how much your lands bear in average years, of wheat, wine, oil, and other useful things. We will know by this path if the land supplies something to feed all its inhabitants, and if it even produces something to make a useful commerce of its surplus with foreign countries. Let us also examine how many vessels you have, and sailors. That is how your might must be judged.”
He went to visit the port and boarded each vessel. He informed himself of the countries where each vessel was going for commerce; what merchandise it carried there, what it took in return; what the expenses of the vessel were during the voyage; the loans the merchants made to each other; the companies they formed among each other, so as to know if they were equitable and faithfully observed; and lastly, the risks of shipwreck and other misfortunes of commerce, to prevent the ruin of the merchants who, through avidity for gain, often undertook things that were beyond their forces.
He wanted all bankruptcies punished severely, because those who are exempt of bad faith are almost never exempt of temerity. At the same time, he made rules to arrange things in such a way that it would be easy to never go bankrupt. He established magistrates to whom the merchants rendered an account of their assets, profits, expenses, and enterprises. It was never permitted for them to risk the goods of others, and they could only risk half of their own. Moreover, they formed companies for the enterprises which they could not do alone, and the policies of those companies were inviolable through the rigour of the penalties imposed on those who did not follow them. Outside of that, freedom of commerce was complete. Far from interfering with it through taxes, they promised a reward to all merchants who could attract to Salentum the commerce from some new nation.
Thus, the peoples soon came rushing there in droves from all parts. The commerce of this city was like the ebb and flow of the sea. Treasures swept in like the tides coming one on top of another. All was brought in and all went out freely. All that came in was useful. All that went out left, in going out, other riches in its place. Severe justice presided in the port amidst so many nations. Franchise, good faith, candour seemed, from the top of those superb towers, to call merchants from the most distant lands. Each of those merchants, whether he came from the eastern shores where the sun emerges each day from the bosom of the ocean waters, whether he came from the part of that great sea where the sun, wearied from her course, goes to extinguish her fires, lived as peacefully in security in Salentum as in their homeland.
As for the interior of the city, Mentor visited every warehouse, every artisanal boutique and every public square. He prohibited all merchandise from foreign countries that could introduce luxury and softness. He regulated the dress, the nourishment, the furnishings, the grandeur and ornamentation of the homes for all the different stations. He banned all ornamentations of gold and silver, and he said to Idomeneus, “I only know of a single means of rendering your people modest in their spending—it is for you yourself to give the example. It is necessary that you have a certain majesty in your appearance. But your authority will be denoted enough by your guards and by the principal officers who surround you. Be content with a habit of very fine wool tinted purple. May the principals of the state, after you, be dressed in the same wool, and may the only difference consist in the colour and in a light gold embroidery you will have on the hem of your habit. The different colours will serve to distinguish the different stations without needing gold, silver, or precious stones. Sort out the stations by birth. In the first rank, put those who are of a nobility more ancient and more brilliant. Those who have the merit and authority over employees will be content enough to come after those ancient and illustrious families who have been in possession of first honours for so long. Men who do not have the same nobility will cede to them without difficulty, provided you do not accustom them to forgetting their origins through an overly swift and large fortune and you praise the moderation of those who are modest in prosperity. The distinction the least exposed to envy is that which comes from a long line of ancestors. As for virtue, it will be excited enough and there will be enough eagerness to serve the state provided you give crowns and statues for beautiful deeds, and it would be a beginning of nobility for the children of those who will have done them.
“The persons of the first rank, after you, will be dressed in white with a gold fringe at the bottom of their habit. They will have a gold ring on their finger and a gold medal with your portrait on their neck. Those of the second rank will be dressed in blue, they will wear a silver fringe, along with the ring, and no medal; the third, in green, without the ring and without the fringe, but with the medal; the fourth, in a sunrise yellow; the fifth, in a pale red or rose; the sixth, in linen grey; and the seventh, who will be the last of the people, in a mix of yellow and white. Voila, there you have the habits for the seven different stations of free men. All the slaves will be dressed in grey-brown. In this way, without any expense, each will be distinguished according to his station, and all the arts that only serve to maintain flamboyance will be banished from Salentum. All the artisans who would be employed in those pernicious arts will serve either in necessary arts, which are few in number, or in commerce or agriculture. No changes will ever be tolerated, either in regard to the nature of the fabrics or in the form of the habits; for it is unworthy that men, destined for a serious and noble life, amuse themselves in inventing pretentious finery, or that they permit their wives, to whom those amusements would be less shameful, to ever fall into this excessiveness.”
Mentor, like an able gardener who prunes his fruit trees of useless branches, tried thereby to prune the useless flamboyance that corrupted mores. He brought all things back to a noble and frugal simplicity. He regulated in the same way the nourishment of the citizens and slaves.
“What a shame,” he said, “that the most elevated men have their grandeur consist in rich sauces by which they soften their souls and imperceptibly ruin the health of their bodies! They should have their happiness consist in their moderation, in their authority to do good to other men, and in the reputation their good deeds should procure for them. Sobriety renders the simplest foods very agreeable. It is sobriety that yields, along with the most vigorous health, the purist and most constant pleasures. You must, then, limit your meals to the best meats, but prepared with no rich sauces. It is an art for poisoning men, that of stirring their appetite beyond their true need.”
Idomeneus understood well that he had been wrong to allow the inhabitants of his new city to soften and corrupt their mores in violating all the laws of Minos on sobriety. But wise Mentor pointed out to him that the laws themselves, though renewed, would be useless if the example of the king did not give them an authority that could not come from anywhere else. Straightaway Idomeneus put his table in order, where he only admitted excellent bread, wine of the country that is strong and agreeable, but in extremely small quantity, along with plain meats such as he had eaten along with the other Greeks at the siege of Troy. No one dared to complain of a rule the king imposed on himself, and each corrected himself in this way from the profusion and the delicateness where they were beginning to plunge with regard to meals.
Mentor then cut back on the soft and effeminate music, which corrupted all the youth. He condemned with no less severity the manic music, which intoxicated hardly any less than wine and which produced mores filled with frenzy and impudence. He limited all music to the feasts at the temples so as to sing there the praises of the gods and the heroes who had exemplified the rarest virtues.
Also, he only allowed the temples to have grand architectural adornments such as columns, pediments, porticos. He gave models of a simple and gracious architecture in order to build, in an average space, a cheerful and comfortable home for a large family, such that it was turned out in a healthy aspect, the lodgings were spread out one from another, orderliness and cleanliness would be easily preserved there, and the maintenance would cost little. He wanted each house of any consequence to have a salon and small peristyle, along with small bedrooms for every free person. Yet, he adamantly prohibited the superfluous multitude and magnificence of lodgings. These various models of houses, according to the grandeur of the families, served to embellish a part of the city at little cost and to render it harmonious; whereas another part, already completed according to the caprice and the flamboyance of private individuals had, despite its magnificence, a disposition less agreeable and less comfortable. This new city was built in very little time because the neighbouring coast of Greece supplied good architects, and they had a very large number of masons from Epirus and several other countries come, on condition that after having completed their work they would establish themselves around Salentum, they would take lands from there to clear, and they would serve to populate the countryside.
Painting and sculpture seemed to Mentor arts that he was not allowed to abandon. But, he wanted tolerated in Salentum only a few men attached to these arts. He established a school where teachers of an exquisite taste presided, who examined the young students. “There must not be,” he said, “anything of baseness and weakness in these arts which is not absolutely necessary. Consequently, only young people of a genius with much promise and who tend toward perfection should be accepted. Others are born for less noble arts, and they will be more usefully employed in the ordinary needs of the republic. Sculptors and painters must only be employed,” he said, “in order to preserve the memory of great men and great deeds. It is in the public buildings or in the tombs that one should preserve the representations of all that which has been done with an extraordinary virtue in serving the homeland.”
Nevertheless, the moderation and frugality of Mentor did not prevent him authorising all the great structures destined for horse and chariot races, for wrestling matches, for those of boxing, and for all the other exercises that cultivate bodies in order to render them more adept and more vigorous.
He cut back a prodigious number of merchants who sold fabrics manufactured in distant lands; embroideries of an excessive price; gold and silver vases with figures of gods, men, and animals; lastly, liquors and perfumes. He even desired the furnishings of each house to be simple and made in a manner to last a long time in such a way that the Salentines, who were complaining loudly of their poverty, would begin to sense how much superfluous wealth they had. But it was deceptive wealth that impoverished them, and they actually became wealthy as they had the courage to divest themselves of it. It is enriching oneself, they said to themselves, to scorn such riches that drain the state, and to diminish one’s needs by reducing them to the true necessities of nature.
Mentor hastened to visit the arsenals and all the warehouses to learn whether the armaments and all the other things necessary for war were in good condition.
“For you must always be ready to wage war,” he said, “in order to never be reduced to the misfortune of waging it.”
He found that several things were lacking everywhere. Straightaway, workers were assembled to work in iron, steel, and brass. One saw rising blazing furnaces, swirls of smoke and flames like those subterranean fires that Mount Etna vomits. The hammer resounded on the anvil that groaned under the redoubled blows. The neighbouring mountains and shores of the sea reverberated with them. One would have believed to be on that island where Hephaestus, animating the Cyclops, forges thunderbolts for the father of the gods, and, through a wise foresight, one saw during a profound peacetime all the preparations for war.
Then Mentor went out of the city with Idomeneus and found a large stretch of fertile land that remained uncultivated. Others were only half-cultivated through the negligence and poverty of the ploughmen who, lacking men, also lacked the courage and manpower to bring agriculture to its perfection.
Mentor, seeing that desolated countryside, said to the king, “The land here is only asking to enrich its inhabitants. But the inhabitants are missing from the land. Let us take then all those superfluous artisans who are in the city, and whose professions would only serve to disrupt the mores, to have them cultivate these plains and these hills. It is true that it is a misfortune that all those men trained in the arts that require a sedentary life may not be trained for physical work, but here is a means to remedy that. The vacant lands must be divided among them, and they must call to their aid neighbouring peoples who will do under them the hardest, toughest work. Those people will do it, provided they are promised suitable rewards for the produce of the very lands they clear. They will be able, afterward, to possess a part of them and to thereby be incorporated into your people, who are not numerous enough. Provided they are hard-working and law-abiding, you will not have better subjects, and they will increase your might. Your artisans of the city, transplanted into the countryside, will raise their children to work and to have a taste for the country life. Moreover, all the masons from foreign countries working to build your city are committed to clearing a part of your lands, to becoming ploughmen, and to be incorporated into your people as soon as they have completed their work in the city. These workers are delighted to commit to spending their life under a dominion that is now so sweet. As they are robust and hard-working, their example will serve to incite hard work in the artisans transplanted from the city to the countryside with whom they will mingle. Afterward, the entire country will be populated with vigorous families devoted to agriculture.
“Furthermore, do not be pained about the proliferation of this people. They will soon become countless, provided you facilitate marriages. The manner of facilitating marriages is very simple. Almost all men have the inclination to marry. There is only destitution that keeps them from it. If you do not burden them with taxes, they will live with their wives and children without difficulty, for the Earth is never ungrateful. She always nourishes with her fruits those who cultivate her attentively. She only refuses her bounty to those who fear giving her their efforts. The more children the ploughmen have, the richer they are if the prince does not impoverish them, for their children, from their earliest youth, begin to help them. The youngest drive sheep to the pastures, the others, who are bigger, already handle large herds. The oldest plough with their father. Meanwhile, the mother of the family prepares a simple meal for her husband and their dear children, who must return tired from the work of the day. She attends to milking her cows and her ewes, and streams of milk are seen to flow. She builds a great fire around which the entire family, innocent and peaceful, takes pleasure in singing all evening while awaiting sweet Sleep. She prepares cheeses, chestnuts, and fruits preserved in the same freshness as if they had just been picked. The shepherd returns with his flute and sings to the gathered family new songs he has learned in neighbouring hamlets. The ploughman returns with his plough and his tired oxen walk, necks hanging low, with a slow and halting step despite the goad that prods them. All the woes of work end with the day. The poppies that Sleep, by order of the gods, spreads over the land, appeases all the dark worries with their spells, and hold all nature in a sweet enchantment. Each sleeps without anticipating the difficulties of the morrow.
“Happy are those men without ambition, without distrust, without artifice, provided the gods give them a good king who does not trouble their innocent joy! But what horrible inhumanity to snatch from them, for designs full of flamboyance and ambition, the sweet fruits of their land, which they only hold through generous nature and the sweat of their brow. Nature alone will draw from her fruitful womb all that is necessary for an infinite number of modest and hard-working men. But it is the pridefulness and softness of certain men that put so many others in a frightful poverty.”
“What will I do,” said Idomeneus, “if those peoples I scatter about these fertile countrysides neglect to cultivate them?”
“Do,” Mentor answered, “the complete opposite of what is commonly done. Princes, avid and without foresight, only think to charge taxes to those among their subjects who are the most vigilant and the most clever in profiting from their possessions— it is because they hope to be paid more easily by them. At the same time, they charge those that laziness renders more destitute less. Reverse this evil order that overburdens the good, that rewards vice, and that introduces a negligence as ill-fated to the king himself as to the entire state. Put taxes, fines, and even, if you must, other rigorous penalties on those who neglect their fields, just as you would punish soldiers who abandon their posts in war.
On the contrary, give favours and exemptions to families who, in proliferating, increase proportionately the cultivation of their lands. Soon, the families will proliferate, and everyone will be animated to work. It will even become honourable. The profession of the ploughman will no longer be scorned and no longer be overburdened with so many woes. The plough will be honoured again, handled by the victorious hand that would have defended the homeland. It will be no less excellent to cultivate the inheritance received from one’s ancestors during a happy peacetime than to have generously defended it during the difficulties of war. All the countryside will flourish again. Demeter will be crowned with golden grains. Dionysus, stamping the grapes under his feet, will cause streams of wine sweeter than nectar to flow from the mountainside. Deep vales will reverberate with the concerts of shepherds, who, along the clear streams, will join their voices with their flutes, while their bounding flocks graze on the grass and among the flowers without fear of wolves.
“Will you not be only too happy, O Idomeneus, to be the source of so much good and to cause to live in the shade of your name so many peoples in such lovable repose? This glory, is it not more touching than that of ravaging the land, of spreading everywhere—almost as much at home as amidst the victories in vanquished foreign lands—carnage, distress, horror, languor, dismay, cruel hunger, and despair? O happy the king loved enough by the gods, and with a heart great enough, to undertake to be thereby the delight of the peoples, and to display to all the centuries so enchanting a spectacle during his reign! The entire land, far from protecting itself from his might through combat, will come to his feet to beg him to reign over it.”
Idomeneus responded, “But when the peoples are in peace and abundance like this, the delights will corrupt them, and they will turn the strengths I have given them against me.”
“Do not fear that inconvenience. It is a pretext that is always alleged to flatter spendthrift princes who want to overburden their people with taxes. The remedy is easy. The laws we just established with regard to agriculture will render their life laborious and, in their abundance, they will have only what is needed because we are curtailing all the arts that supply the superfluous. This very abundance will be diminished by the facilitation of marriages and by the great proliferation of families. Each family, being numerous and having little land, will need to cultivate it through unrelenting work. It is softness and idleness that render the peoples insolent and rebellious. They will have bread, and quite amply to tell the truth. But they will only have bread and fruits from their own land earned by the sweat of their brow. To keep your people in this moderation, you must sort out, from the present, the stretch of land each family will be able to possess. You know we have divided all your people into seven classes according to the different stations. Each family, in each class, must only be permitted to be able to possess the stretch of land absolutely necessary to feed the number of persons of which it is comprised. This rule being inviolate, the nobles will not be able to make acquisitions over the poor. Everyone will have lands. But each will have very little of it and will thus be incited to cultivate it well. If, in the long term, lands are lacking here, you will form colonies, which will augment this state.
“I even believe you must take care to never allow wine cultivation to become too widespread in your kingdom. If too many vines are planted, they must be pulled up. Wine is the source of the greatest woes among peoples. It causes maladies, quarrels, seditions, idleness, disgust for work, the disorder of families. May wine be, therefore, reserved as a kind of remedy, or as a very rare liqueur which is only used for sacrifices or for extraordinary feasts. But do not expect to have such an important rule observed if you do not make yourself the example of it.
“Furthermore, you must inviolably keep the laws of Minos for the education of children. Public schools must be established where they teach the reverential awe of the gods, love of homeland, respect of the laws, the preference for honour over pleasures and even over life itself. There must be magistrates who watch over the families and over the mores of private individuals. Watch over them yourself, you who are only king—that is to say, shepherd of the people—in order to watch over your flock night and day. By doing so, you will prevent an infinite number of disorders and crimes. Those which you are unable to prevent, severely punish at the outset. It is a clemency to make examples up front that staunch the course of iniquity. Through a little blood appropriately spilled, one spares much afterward and puts himself in a position of being respected without using rigour often.
“But what a detestable maxim to believe to only find his safety in the oppression of his peoples! Not to instruct them, not to guide them to virtue, never making them love it, to push them through terror to the point of despair, to put them in the dreadful necessity of either never being able to breathe freely or shaking off the yoke of your tyrannical domination—is that the true means of reigning without trouble; is that the true path that leads to glory?
“Remember, the countries where the domination of the sovereign is most absolute are those where the sovereigns are less mighty. They take, they ruin everything, they alone possess the entire state, but also the entire state languishes: countrysides are covered with weeds and almost deserted, cities diminish each day, commerce dries up. The king, who cannot be king all alone and who is only great through his peoples, annihilates himself bit by bit through the heartless annihilation of his peoples from whom he draws his riches and his might. His state is drained of money and men—this latter loss is the greatest and the most irreparable. His absolute power makes as many slaves as he has subjects. They flatter him, they pretend to worship him, they tremble at the least of his regards. But wait for the slightest revolution. This monstrous might, pushed to an overly violent excessiveness, will not know how to last—it has no resource in the hearts of the peoples. It has wearied and angered all the bodies of state; it compels all the limbs of that body to yearn for a change. At the first blow dealt it, the idol topples, shatters, and is trampled underfoot. Scorn, hate, fear, resentment, distrust—in a word, all the passions reunite against an authority so odious. The king, who, in his vain prosperity, did not find a single man bold enough to tell him the truth, will not find, in his misfortune, any man who deigns either to excuse him or to defend him against his enemies.”
After these discourses, Idomeneus, persuaded by Mentor, hastened to distribute the vacant lands, filling them with all the unnecessary artists and executing all that had been resolved. He only reserved for the masons the lands that he had intended for them and that they could only cultivate after the end of their work for the city.
Already the reputation of the gentle and moderate government of Idomeneus attracts in droves from every direction peoples coming to incorporate themselves into his own, in pursuit of their happiness under so lovable a dominion. Already those countrysides, covered with brambles and thorns for so long, promise rich harvests and fruits unknown until then. The earth opens her womb to the blade of the plough and prepares her riches to reward the ploughman. Hope shines again from all sides. In the vales and on the hillsides are seen flocks of sheep that bound over the grass, and great herds of oxen and heifers that cause the tall mountains to echo with their bellowing. These herds serve to fertilise the countryside. It is Mentor who found the means of having these herds. Mentor counselled Idomeneus to make a trade with the Peucetians, a neighbouring peoples, of all the superfluous things that they no longer wanted to tolerate in Salentum for these herds that the Salentines were lacking.
At the same time, the city and surrounding villages were filled with a beautiful youth who had languished in misery for a long time, and who had not dared marry for fear of increasing their woes. When they saw how Idomeneus was embracing humanitarian sentiments and that he desired to be their father, they no longer feared famine and the other scourges with which heaven afflicts earth; only cries of joy and the songs of shepherds and ploughmen who were celebrating their weddings were then heard. One would have believed to see the god Pan along with a throng of Satyrs and Fauni mingling among the Nymphs and dancing to the sound of the flute in the shade of the wood. All was tranquil and laughing. But the joy was restrained, and the pleasures only served to relax them from long travails. They were more alive and more pure-hearted from it.
The old men, astonished to see what they had not dared hope for after so long a lifetime, were crying through an exceeding joy mixed with tenderness. They raised their trembling hands toward the sky and said, “Bless, O great Zeus, the king, who resembles you and who is the greatest gift that you have made to us. He was born for the good of mankind. Render unto him all the goods we receive from him. Our descendants, coming from these marriages that he favours, will owe everything to him up to their birth, and he will truly be the father of all his subjects.”
The young men and the young girls they married could only burst out in joy, singing the praises of the one from whom this joy so sweet had come to them. Their mouths, and even more their hearts, were unceasingly filled with his name. They believed themselves to be happy to see him; they feared losing him. His loss would have been the desolation of each family.
Then Idomeneus avowed to Mentor that he had never felt pleasure as touching as that of being loved and of making so many people happy.
“I would never have believed it,” he said. “It seemed to me that all the grandeur of princes only consisted in making themselves feared, that the rest of men were created for them, and that all I had heard said of kings who had been the love and the delight of their peoples appeared a pure fable to me. I recognise the truth in it now. But, I must recount to you how my heart has been poisoned since my earliest childhood about the authority of kings. It is what has caused all the misfortunes of my life.”
Then Idomeneus began this narration.
END OF BOOK X
BOOK XI
“Protesilas, who is a little older than me, was the one of all the young men I liked the most. His keen and bold nature suited my taste. He joined in my pleasures. He flattered my passions; he made me suspicious of another young man, whom I also liked and who was named Philocles. This one had reverence for the gods and a great yet restrained soul. He put his grandeur not in elevating himself, but in vanquishing himself and doing nothing base. He spoke to me freely about my faults, and even when he dared not speak to me, his silence and the sadness of his expression made me hear well enough what he wanted to reproach me for.
“In the beginning, this sincerity pleased me, and I often professed to him that I would listen to him with confidence all my life to preserve myself from flatterers. He told me all I should do in order to walk in the footsteps of my grandfather, Minos, and to render my kingdom happy. He did not have as profound a wisdom as you, O Mentor. But his maxims were good; I recognise it now. Little by little, the artifices of Protesilas, who was jealous and full of ambition, disgusted me with Philocles. This one, Philocles, was not eager to please, and he allowed the other to prevail. He contented himself in always telling me the truth, when I wanted to hear it. It was my welfare, and not his fortune he sought.
“Protesilas persuaded me, gradually, that Philocles’ was a grievous and lofty mind who criticised all my deeds, who asked me for nothing because he had the pridefulness to want nothing from me and to aspire to the reputation of a man who is above all honours. He added that this young man, who spoke to me so liberally about my faults, was speaking of them to others with the same liberty, and he quite implied that he hardly esteemed me and that, in belittling my reputation so, he wanted, through the brilliance of an austere virtue, to open up the path to the kingship for himself.
“At first, I could not believe that Philocles would want to dethrone me. There is in real virtue a candour and genuineness that nothing can fake, and in which one cannot be mistaken, provided one is attentive to it. But the firmness of Philocles against my weaknesses was beginning to weary me. The complaisance of Protesilas and his inexhaustible cleverness in inventing new pleasures for me made me feel even more impatiently the austerity of the other. Meanwhile, Protesilas, unable to tolerate that I would not believe all he was telling me against his enemy, took the position to no longer speak of him to me and to persuade me through something stronger than all words. Here is how he succeeded in deceiving me. He counselled me to send Philocles to command the vessels that should attack those of Carpathus, and, to convince me of it, he said to me, “‘You know that I am not suspect in the praises I give him. I confess he has courage and genius for warfare. He will serve you better than another, and I prefer the interest of your service to all my resentments against him.’”
“I was delighted to find this uprightness and fairness in the heart of Protesilas, to whom I had entrusted the administration of my greatest affairs. I embraced him in a transport of joy, and I believed myself only too fortunate in having given all my trust to a man who appeared, thereby, above all passion and all self-interest. But, alas, how worthy princes are of compassion! This man knew me better than I knew myself. He knew that kings are usually distrustful and distracted—distrustful through the continual experience they have with the artifices of corrupt men, by whom they are surrounded; distracted because pleasures sweep them away and they are accustomed to having people charged with thinking for them, without them taking on the difficulty of it. He understood, therefore, that he would have no great difficulty making me distrustful and jealous of a man who would not fail to do great deeds. Above all, his absence made it very easy for Protesilas to set traps for him.
“Philocles, in departing, foresaw what could happen to him. ‘Remember,’ he said to me, ‘I will no longer be able to defend myself, you will only listen to my enemy, and, in serving you at the peril of my life, I run the risk of having no other reward than your indignation.’
“‘You are mistaken,’ I said to him, ‘Protesilas does not speak of you as you speak of him. He lauds you, he esteems you, he believes you worthy of the most important posts. If he began to speak against you to me, he would lose my confidence. Fear nothing, go, and only think of serving me well.’ He departed and left me in a strange situation.
“I must confess to you, Mentor, I saw clearly how necessary it was for me to have several men whom I might consult and that nothing was worse, either for my reputation or for the outcome of affairs, than to deliver myself over to one alone. I had experienced that the wise counsel of Philocles had protected me from several dangerous faults into which Protesilas’ haughtiness would have caused me to fall. I quite felt there was in Philocles a foundation of probity and equitable maxims, which did not make themselves felt in the same way in Protesilas. But I had allowed Protesilas to take on a certain decisive tone, to which I could almost no longer fight back. I was tired of always finding myself between two men whom I was unable to reconcile, and in this weariness I preferred, through weakness, to hazard something at the expense of affairs and breathe freely. I would not have dared admit to myself so shameful a reason for the decision I had made, but this shameful reason, which I dared not unwrap, did not fail to secretly act in the depths of my heart and be the true motive for everything I did.
“Philocles overtook the enemy, brought home a total victory, and hastened to come back so as to prevent the wicked machinations he had to fear. However, Protesilas, who had not yet had time to deceive me, wrote to him that I desired he raid the island of Carpathus to profit from the victory. Indeed, he had persuaded me I could easily conquer this island. But, he made it such that several essential things were lacking to Philocles in this enterprise, and he subjected him to certain orders which caused various unexpected setbacks in the execution. Meanwhile, he made use of a very corrupt attendant whom I had alongside me and who was observing even the slightest things so as to render an account of them to Protesilas, even though they seemed to hardly see each other and never to agree on anything. This attendant, named Timocrates, came one day to tell me, in great secrecy, that he had uncovered a very dangerous affair.
“‘Philocles,’ he told me, ‘wants to use your naval army to make himself king of the island of Carpathus. The chiefs of the troops are attached to him. All the soldiers are won over by his largesse and even more by the pernicious licentiousness in which he allows the troops to live. He is puffed up by his victory. Here is a letter he wrote to one of his friends about his project to make himself king. One can no longer doubt it after so evident a proof.’
“I read this letter, and it appeared to me to be from the hand of Philocles. However, someone had perfectly imitated his handwriting, and it was Protesilas who had done it along with Timocrates. This letter cast me into a strange shock. I reread it incessantly and could not persuade myself that it was from Philocles as I passed over in my troubled mind all the touching marks he had given me of his selflessness and his good faith. However, what could I do? How could I resist a letter, in which I believed to be certain of recognising Philocles’ handwriting?
“When Timocrates saw I could no longer resist his artifice, he pushed it even further.
“’Dare I,’ he said to me hesitatingly, ‘point out to you a word in this letter? Philocles says to his friend that he is able to speak in confidence to Protesilas about a thing, which he only designates with a cipher. Assuredly, Protesilas entered into Philocles’ scheme, and they reconciled at your expense. You know that it was Protesilas who pressed you to send Philocles against the Carpathians. For some time, he has ceased speaking against him to you as he once so often did. On the contrary, he lauds him. He excuses him on every occasion. They have been seeing each other somewhat civilly for a while. Undoubtedly, Protesilas has taken steps, along with Philocles, to share the conquest of Carpathus with him. You see yourself that he wanted this enterprise to be done against all the rules, and he risks having your naval army perish in order to satisfy his ambition. Do you think he would have wanted to make use of Philocles’ ambition in this way if they were still adversarial? No, no, it can no longer be doubted, these two men are reunited so as to rise together to a great authority and, perhaps, to overthrow the throne on which you reign. In speaking to you so, I know I am exposing myself to their resentment, if, despite my sincere advice, you still leave your authority in their hands. But what does it matter, provided I tell you the truth?’
“Those last words of Timocrates made a great impression on me. I no longer doubted the treason of Philocles, and I distrusted Protesilas as his friend. Meanwhile, Timocrates was incessantly saying to me, ‘If you wait until Philocles has conquered the island of Carpathus, there will no longer be time to stop his schemes. Hasten to imprison him while you still can.’
“I was horrified by the profound dissimulation of men. I no longer knew who to trust. After having uncovered Philocles’ treason, I no longer saw any men on earth whose virtue could reassure me. I was resolved to destroy this perfidy at the earliest, but I feared Protesilas, and I did not know how to do it with regard to him. I feared finding him guilty, and I also feared trusting him. Finally, in my distress, I could not keep from telling him that Philocles had become suspect to me. He appeared surprised by it; he represented his upright and moderate conduct to me; he exaggerated his services—in a word, he did everything he must to persuade me he was on very good terms with Philocles.
“On the other side, Timocrates did not waste a minute to point out this harmonious relationship and oblige me to lose Philocles while I could still protect myself from him. See, my dear Mentor, how unfortunate and exposed kings are to being the plaything of other men, even while other men appear trembling at their feet. I thought to make a deep political strike and disconcert Protesilas by secretly sending Timocrates to the naval army to kill Philocles. Protesilas pushed his dissimulation to the limit and deceived me all the more as he effortlessly appeared as the sort of man who allows himself be deceived. Timocrates departed then and found Philocles sufficiently hampered in his raid. He lacked everything, for Protesilas, not knowing if the supposed letter would be able to destroy his enemy, wanted to have at the same time another resource ready for the poor outcome of an enterprise, about which he had given me so much hope, and which would not fail to make me angry with Philocles. This one was sustaining that very difficult war through his courage, his genius, and the love his troops had for him. Although everyone in the army recognised that this raid was brash and ill-fated for the Cretans, each was striving to make it succeed as if they saw their life and their happiness attached to the outcome. Each was content to risk his life at all hours under a chief so wise and so applied to making himself loved.
“Timocrates had everything to fear in wanting to slay this chief in the midst of an army that loved him with so much passion— but furious ambition is blind. Timocrates found nothing difficult when it came to satisfying Protesilas, with whom he imagined himself having absolute governance over me after the death of Philocles. Protesilas could not bear a good man, the mere sight of whom was a hidden reproach for his crimes and who could, in opening my eyes, overturn his projects.
“Timocrates assured himself of two captains who were incessantly alongside Philocles. He promised them great rewards from me, and then said to Philocles that he had come on my behalf to tell him secret things, which he must only confide to him in the presence of those two captains. Philocles shut himself up with them and Timocrates. Then Timocrates thrusts a knife at Philocles. The thrust slipped and barely pierced the skin. Philocles, not overtaken, grabbing the knife away from him, used it against him and against the two others. At the same time, he shouted, troops came running, knocked down the door, and delivered Philocles from the hands of these three men who, being distressed, had attacked him weakly. They were taken and, so great was the indignation of the army, they would have immediately been ripped apart had Philocles not stopped the multitude. Then he took Timocrates in private and gently asked him what had obliged him to commit so black a deed. Timocrates, who feared they would kill him, hastened to show him the order I had given him in writing to murder Philocles and, as traitors are always cowardly, he only thought to save his life in revealing to Philocles all the treason of Protesilas. Philocles, frightened to see so much malice in men, took a position full of restraint. He declared to all the army that Timocrates was innocent, he kept him safe, sent him back to Crete, and deferred the command of the army to Polymenes, whom I had named in my handwritten order to take command when Philocles had been murdered. Lastly, he exhorted the troops to the loyalty they owed me and passed during the night in a light boat, which he drove onto the isle of Samos, where he lives tranquilly in poverty and solitude, working to make statues to earn his living, no longer wanting to hear deceiving and unjust men speak—but above all kings whom he believes the most unhappy and the most blind of all men.”
At this spot Mentor stopped Idomeneus. “Well then, did it take you long to uncover the truth?”
“No, I comprehended, little by little, the artifices of Protesilas and Timocrates. They even had a falling out, for the wicked have great difficulty remaining united. Their division ended up revealing to me the depths of the abyss where they had flung me.”
“Well then,” resumed Mentor, “did you not make the decision to rid yourself of them both?”
“Alas,” replied Idomeneus, “is it, my dear Mentor, that you are ignorant of the weakness and the predicament of princes? When they have once delivered themselves over to corrupt and bold men, who have the art of making themselves essential, they can no longer hope for any liberty. Those whom they scorn the most are those whom they treat the best and lavish with benefits. I was horrified by Protesilas, and I was leaving all authority to him. Strange delusion! I knew I was glad to recognise it, but I did not have the fortitude to take back the authority I had abandoned to him. Besides, I found him accommodating, complaisant, clever in flattering my passions, ardent with regard to my interests. Lastly, I had a reason to excuse myself for my weakness: it was that I did not know real virtue. For want of knowing how to choose good men who might conduct my affairs, I believed there were none of them on earth and probity was a fine phantom. What does it matter, I told myself, if one makes a great row in order to get out of the hands of one corrupt man only to fall into those of some other, who will be neither more selfless nor more sincere than he? Meanwhile, the naval army commanded by Polymenes returned. I was no longer thinking of conquering the island of Carpathus, and Protesilas could not dissimulate so profoundly such that I would not discover how afflicted he was to learn Philocles was safe in Samos.”
Mentor interrupted Idomeneus again to ask if he had continued, after so black a treason, to entrust all his affairs to Protesilas.
“I was,” Idomeneus answered him, “too hostile to affairs and too distracted to be able to pull myself from his hands. I would have had to upset the order I had established for my convenience and instruct a new man. That is what I never had the strength to undertake. I preferred to close my eyes so as not to see the artifices of Protesilas. I only consoled myself in making it understood to certain confidantes that I was not ignorant of his bad faith. In this way, I imagined myself only half-deceived, since I knew I was being deceived. I even made Protesilas aware from time to time that I bore his yoke with impatience. I took particular pleasure in contradicting him, in reprimanding him publicly for something he had done, in deciding against his sentiment. But, as he knew my haughtiness and my laziness, he was not bothered by all my grievances. He stubbornly returned to the attack. At times he used an insistent manner, at other times he used suppleness and insinuation. Above all, when he perceived I was upset with him, he redoubled his attentions in order to provide me with new amusements likely to soften me up or have me embark on some affair where he would have the opportunity to make himself essential and have his zeal for my reputation valued.
“Although I was on guard against him, this manner of flattering my passions always dragged me along; he unburdened me in my predicaments; he caused everyone to tremble through my authority. In the end, I could not resolve myself to lose him. But, in maintaining him in his rank, I put all the good people in no position to represent my true interests to me. From that moment on, no free speech was heard in my councils. Truth distanced itself from me. Ruin, who prepares the downfall of kings, punished me for having sacrificed Philocles to the cruel ambition of Protesilas.
Even those who had the most zeal for the state, and for my person, believed themselves dispensed with setting me straight after so terrible an example. Myself, my dear Mentor, I feared the truth would pierce the cloud and reach me despite the flatterers, for, no longer having the strength to follow it, its light importuned me. I felt deep inside that it would have caused me cruel remorse, being unable to pull myself from so ill-fated a commitment. My softness and the ascendancy that Protesilas had gradually gained over me plunged me into some despair of ever getting my freedom back. I neither wanted to see so shameful a state of affairs nor to allow others to see it. You know, dear Mentor, the vain haughtiness and the false glory in which kings are raised. They never want to be wrong. To cover up one error, they must make a hundred of them. Rather than confessing he is mistaken and having the difficulty of recovering from his mistake, he must be allowed to be wrong all his life. That is the state of affairs of weak and inattentive princes; it was precisely mine when I had to depart for the siege of Troy.
“In departing, I left Protesilas as master of affairs. He conducted them in my absence with haughtiness and inhumaneness. The entire kingdom of Crete groaned under his tyranny. But no one dared summon me over the oppression of the peoples. They knew I feared seeing the truth and that I abandoned to the cruelty of Protesilas all those who undertook to speak against him. But the less they dared to cry out, the more violent the evil was. In the aftermath of the siege of Troy, he compelled me to dismiss the valiant Meriones, who had followed me with so much glory. He had become jealous of him, as with all those I loved and who demonstrated some virtue. You must know, my dear Mentor, that all my misfortunes came from that. It is not the death of my son that caused the revolt of the Cretans so much as it was the vengeance of the gods, angered by my weaknesses, and the hatred of the peoples that Protesilas had attracted to me. When I spilled the blood of my son, the Cretans, weary of a rigorous government, had exhausted all their patience, and the horror of that last act only made them show on the outside what had been deep in their hearts for a long time.
“Timocrates followed me to the siege of Troy and secretly rendered an account through his letters to Protesilas of all he was able to discover. I indeed felt that I was in captivity. But I tried not to think about it, despairing of remedying it. When the Cretans, upon my arrival, revolted, Protesilas and Timocrates were the first to flee. They would have undoubtedly abandoned me had I not been compelled to flee myself almost as quickly as they. Count on it, my dear Mentor, men who are insolent during prosperity are always weak and trembling in disgrace. Their heads spin as soon as absolute authority escapes them. One sees them to be as groveling as they had been haughty, and it is in an instant that they pass from one extreme to the other.”
Mentor said, “But how does it come about then, knowing these two wicked men so well, that you still keep them alongside you, as I see? I am not surprised they would have followed you, having nothing better to do for their interests. I even understand that you did a generous act in giving them asylum in your new settlement. But why do you still deliver yourself over to them after so many cruel experiences?”
“You do not know,” answered Idomeneus, “how useless all experiences are to soft and distracted princes, who live without reflection. They are dissatisfied with everything, and they do not have the courage to redress anything. So many years of habit were shackles that bound me to these two men, and they obsessed over me at all hours. Since I have been here, they have thrown me into all the excessive expenditures you have seen; they drained this nascent state; they attracted this war to me, which was going to crush me without you. I would have soon experienced in Salentum the same misfortunes I felt in Crete. But you have finally opened my eyes and have inspired in me the courage I lacked to get myself out of servitude. I do not know what you have done in me, but since you have been here, I feel myself another man.”
Mentor then asked Idomeneus what Protesilas’ conduct was in this changeover of affairs.
“Nothing is more artful,” resumed Idomeneus, “than what he has done since your arrival. At first, he did his utmost to cast, indirectly, some distrust in my mind. He said nothing against you, but I saw various people who came to warn me that these two foreigners were to be greatly feared. ‘The one,’ they were saying, ‘is the son of the deceitful Odysseus, the other is a man cloaked and of a profound mind. They are accustomed to wandering from kingdom to kingdom. Who knows if they have not formed some design on this one? These adventurers themselves recount that they have caused great troubles in every country they have passed through. This is a nascent state, and poorly reinforced. The least movements could topple it.’
“Protesilas said nothing. But he tried to have me glimpse the danger and the excessiveness of all these reforms you were having me undertake. He took me through my own self-interest. ‘If you put the people in abundance,’ he said, ‘they will no longer work, they will become proud, disobedient, and will always be ready to revolt. There is only weakness and misery that renders them supple and keeps them from resisting authority.’
“Often, he tried to take back his former authority so as to drag me along, and he shrouded it under a pretext of zeal for my service.
“‘In wanting to unburden the peoples,’ he said, ‘you diminish the royal might, and in doing so, you do an irreparable wrong to the peoples themselves, for they need to be kept low for their own repose.’
“To all that, I responded that I would know well how to keep the peoples in their duty, in making myself loved by them, in relaxing none of my authority even though I unburdened them, in punishing all the guilty with firmness, lastly, in giving to the children a good education and to all the people an exact discipline, in order to hold them in a simple, sober, and hard-working life.
“‘Ho! What’s this!’ I said, ‘Can one not subjugate a people without causing them to die of hunger? What inhumanity! What a brutal politic! How many peoples do we see kindly treated and very loyal to their princes! What causes revolts—it is the ambition and the restlessness of the elites of a state when they are given too much licence and their passions are allowed to expand without limits; it is the multitude of the elites and the hangers-on who live in softness, in luxury, and in idleness; it is the overly great abundance of men devoted to war, who have neglected all the useful occupations, which must be taken up in times of peace; lastly, it is the despair of poorly treated peoples, it is the harshness, the haughtiness of kings and their softness that render them incapable of watching over all the members of the state in order to anticipate troubles. Voila, that is what causes revolts and not the bread that is left to the ploughman to eat in peace after he has earned it by the sweat of his brow.’
“When Protesilas saw I was unwavering in these maxims, he took a position completely opposite that of his past conduct. He began to follow these maxims he had been unable to destroy. He pretended to appreciate them, to be convinced of them, to be obliged to me for having shed light on them. He goes beyond all I could wish for to unburden the poor. He is the first to represent their needs to me and cry out against excessive expenditures. You know yourself that he praises you, he shows confidence in you, and he does his utmost to please you. As for Timocrates, he is beginning to no longer get on so well with Protesilas. He had thought to become independent. Protesilas is jealous of him, and it is in part through their differences that I discovered their perfidy.”
Mentor, smiling, responded to Idomeneus, “What then! You have been weak to the point of allowing yourself to be tyrannised for so many years by two traitors, whose treason was well known to you?”
“Ah, you do not know,” responded Idomeneus, “what power artful men have over a weak and distracted king who has delivered himself over to them for all his affairs. Besides, I have already told you that Protesilas now enters into all your views for the public good.”
Mentor resumed the discourse with a grave air. “I see only too well how much the wicked prevail over the good alongside kings. You are a terrible example of it. So you say I have opened your eyes about Protesilas, and they are still closed with regard to leaving the governance of your affairs to this man unworthy of living. Know that the wicked are not men incapable of doing good. They do it indifferently, the same as evil, when it can serve their ambition—doing evil costs them nothing because no sentiment of goodness nor any principle of virtue holds them back. But they also do good without difficulty because their corruption carries them to do it in order to look good and deceive the rest of men. Strictly speaking, they are not capable of virtue though they appear to practise it. But they are capable of adding to all their other vices the most horrible of vices, which is hypocrisy. As much as you would absolutely desire to do good, Protesilas will be ready to do it along with you to preserve authority, but should he sense even a little laxity in you, he will spare no effort to cause you to tumble into waywardness again and to freely resume his deceptive and fierce nature.
“Can you live with honour and in repose, while such a man obsesses over you at all hours and while you know the wise and loyal Philocles is poor and dishonoured on the island of Samos? You recognise well, O Idomeneus, that deceptive and bold men who are in their presence, drag weak princes along. But you should add that princes have still another misfortune that is no less bad; it is that of easily forgetting the virtue and services of a man pushed away. The multitude of men who surround princes is the reason they never have any men who make a deep impression on them. They are only struck by the one who is present and who flatters them. All the rest soon fade away. Above all, virtue touches them little because virtue, far from flattering them, contradicts them and condemns them in their weaknesses. Must you be astonished that they are not loved since they are not lovable, and they love nothing but their grandeur and their pleasure?”
After having said these words, Mentor persuaded Idomeneus that he must, at the earliest, dismiss Protesilas and Timocrates so as to recall Philocles. The only difficulty that was stopping the king was he feared the severity of Philocles.
“I confess,” he said, “I cannot help but fear his return a little, even though I love and esteem him. I have been, since my earliest youth, accustomed to praises, eagerness, and indulgences, which I would not know how to hope to find in this man. As soon as I did something he did not approve of, his sad air signalled well enough that he condemned me. When he was in private with me, his manners were respectful and restrained, but dry.”
“Do you not see,” responded Mentor, “that princes spoiled by flattery find dry and austere all that is open and ingenuous? They even go so far as to imagine that one is not zealous for service to them and does not love their authority as soon as one does not have a servile heart and is not ready to flatter them in the most unjust use of their power. All free and liberal speech seems haughty, critical, and seditious to them. They become so delicate that everything that is not flattering wounds and provokes them. But let us go further. I assume Philocles actually is dry and austere. His austerity, is it not more valuable than the pernicious flattery of your counsellors? Where will you find a man without faults? And the fault of telling you the truth too boldly, is it not the one that you must fear the least? What I am saying, is it not a necessary fault in order to correct yours, and to vanquish the disgust for truth, where flattery has caused you to fall? You need a man who only loves the truth and you, who loves you more than you know how to love yourself, who would tell you the truth in spite of you, who enforces your cutbacks, and this essential man—it is Philocles. Remember, a prince is only too happy when a single man emerges under his reign with this generosity, he is the most precious treasure of the state, and the greatest punishment that must be feared from the gods is losing such a man should the prince render himself unworthy of him for want of knowing how to make use of him.
“As for the faults of good people, you must know how to recognise them, and never cease using them, redress them, never deliver yourself over blindly to their indiscreet zeal; but listen to them favourably, honour their virtue, demonstrate to the public that you know how to distinguish it, above all, be very wary of continuing to be as you have been up until now. Princes who have been spoiled as you were, being content to scorn corrupt men, never cease employing them with confidence and lavishing them with benefits. On the other hand, they pride themselves in also knowing virtuous men, but they only give them vain accolades, not daring to entrust posts to them, nor accept them into their inner circle, nor shower benefits on them.”
Then Idomeneus said he was ashamed to have so long delayed freeing the oppressed innocent and punishing those who had deceived him. Mentor had no difficulty convincing the king to lose his favourite, for as soon as one has managed to render the favourites suspect and importune to their masters, princes, weary and embarrassed, only seek to be rid of them. Their friendship vanishes, their services are forgotten—the downfall of their favourites cost them nothing, provided they no longer see them.
Straightaway, the king secretly ordered Hegesippe, who was one of the principal officers of his house, to take Protesilas and Timocrates, conduct them safely to the island of Samos, leave them there, and bring Philocles back from that place of exile. Hegesippe, surprised by this order, could not keep from crying with joy.
“It is now,” he said to the king, “that you are going to enchant your subjects. Those two men have caused all your misfortunes and all those of your peoples. For twenty years they have made all the good people groan, and barely did one even dare to groan so cruel was their tyranny. They crushed all those who undertook to go to you through a channel other than theirs.”
Then Hegesippe revealed to the king a great number of perfidies and inhumanities committed by those two men, of which the king had never heard spoken because no one dared accuse them. He even recounted to him what he had uncovered of a secret conspiracy to slay Mentor. The king was horrified by all he witnessed.
Hegesippe hastened to seize Protesilas in his house. It was less grand but more comfortable and more pleasant than that of the king. The architecture was of better taste. Protesilas had decorated it with an expenditure drawn from the blood of the destitute. He was, at that time, in a salon of marble alongside his baths, casually lying on a bed of purple with a gold embroidery. He appeared weary and drained from his work. His eyes and eyebrows showed a certain something of agitation, sombreness, and fierceness. The most elite men of the state were arranged on carpets around him, composing their expressions from that of Protesilas, of whom they observed even the slightest nod. Barely had he opened his mouth when everyone cried out to admire what he was going to say. One of the principals of the group was recounting to him with ridiculous exaggeration what Protesilas had personally done for the king. Another was assuring him that Zeus, having deceived his mother, had given him life and he was the son of the father of the gods. A poet had just sung verses assuring that Protesilas, instructed by the Muses, had equaled Apollo in all his intellectual works. Another poet, even more base and more impudent in his verses, was calling him the inventor of fine arts and the father of the peoples whom he rendered happy. He depicted him holding in his hand the horn of plenty.
Protesilas was listening to all these praises with a dry, distracted, and disdainful air, like a man who knows well he merits still greater ones, and he is only too gracious in allowing himself be praised. There was one flatterer who took the liberty of speaking in his ear to tell him something amusing against the policies that Mentor was trying to establish. Protesilas smiled. All the assembly laughed, though most could not yet know what had been said. But as Protesilas soon regained his severe and haughty air, each fell back into fear and silence. Several nobles were seeking the moment when Protesilas would be able to turn their way and listen to them. They looked fidgety and awkward; it is that they had to ask him for favours. Their suppliant posture spoke for them. They appeared as submissive as a mother at the foot of the altars as she asks the gods for the healing of her only son. They looked content, touched with tender feelings, full of admiration for Protesilas, even though they all held against him an implacable rage in their hearts.
At that moment, Hegesippe enters, seizes Protesilas’ sword, and declares to him on behalf of the king that he is going to take him to the island of Samos. At these words, all the arrogance of that favourite tumbled like a rock that detaches from the summit of a steep mountain. There he is, hurling himself, trembling and distraught, at Hegesippe’s feet. He cries, he hesitates, he stammers, he trembles, he embraces the knees of this man whom he did not deign an hour before to honour with one of his regards. All those who were showering him with praise, seeing him lost without recourse, changed their flattery into ruthless insults.
Hegesippe did not want to allow him time to make his final farewells to his family nor to take certain secret writings. All was seized and carried to the king. Timocrates was arrested at the same time and his surprise was extreme, for he believed that, having turned against Protesilas, he could not be wrapped up in his ruin.
They depart in a vessel that had been readied. They arrive at Samos. Hegesippe leaves those two wretches there and, to top off their wretchedness, he leaves them together. There, they furiously reproach each other for the crimes they had committed, which were the cause of their downfall. They find themselves without hope of seeing Salentum again, condemned to live far from their wives and their children—I do not say far from their friends, for they did not have any.
They led them into a strange land where they should no longer have any other resource to live than their work, those two who had spent so many years in delights and splendour. Like two ferocious beasts, they were always ready to rip each other apart.
Meanwhile, Hegesippe asked in what part of the island Philocles lived. They told him he lived somewhat far from the city on a mountain, where a grotto served him as a home. Everyone spoke to him admiringly of this foreigner.
“Since he has been on this island,” they said to him, “he has offended no one. Each is touched by his patience, his work, his tranquillity. Having nothing, he always appears content. Even though he is far from affairs here, without property and without authority, he does not fail to oblige those who merit it, and he has a thousand clever skills to please all his neighbours.”
Hegesippe advances toward this grotto. He finds it empty and open, for the poverty and simplicity of Philocles' mores made it so that, in going out, he had no need to shut his door. A mat of thick bulrush served him as a bed. Rarely did he light a fire, because he ate nothing cooked. He lived off freshly picked fruits during the summer and dates and dried figs in the winter. A clear spring that formed a sheet of water as it tumbles from a rock quenched his thirst. In his grotto, he had only the instruments needed for sculpture and some books, which he read at certain hours, not to sharpen his wit, nor to content his curiosity, but to instruct himself while relaxing from his work and to learn to be good. As for sculpture, he only applied himself to it in order to exercise his body, flee idleness, and earn his living without needing anyone.
Hegesippe, upon entering the grotto, marvelled at the works which were begun. He noticed a Zeus whose serene expression was so full of majesty one easily recognised him for the father of gods and men. On another side appeared Ares with a tough and menacing pride. But what was most touching—it was an Athena animating the arts. Her expression was noble and gentle, her build tall and free; she was in an act so lifelike that one could have believed she was going to walk.
Hegesippe, having taken pleasure in seeing these statues, came out of the grotto and saw in the distance under a tall tree Philocles reading on the lawn. He goes toward him and Philocles, spotting him, does not know what to think. Is that not Hegesippe there, he said to himself, with whom I lived for so long in Crete? But what is the likelihood he would come onto an island so remote? Would this be his shade, which would come after his death from the banks of the Styx?
While he was in this doubt, Hegesippe arrived so near him that he could not help but recognise him and embrace him.
“Is it you, then,” he said, “my dear and old friend? What chance, what tempest has cast you onto this shore? Why have you abandoned the island of Crete? Is it a disgrace similar to mine that has snatched you from our homeland?”
Hegesippe answered, “It is not a disgrace; on the contrary, it is the favour of the gods that leads me here.”
Straightaway, he recounted to him the long tyranny of Protesilas, his plots with Timocrates, the misfortunes into which they had precipitated Idomeneus, the downfall of this prince, his flight along the coasts of Italy, the founding of Salentum, the arrival of Mentor and Telemachus, the wise maxims with which Mentor had filled the mind of the king, and the disgrace of the two traitors. He added that he had brought them to Samos to suffer there the exile, which they had made Philocles suffer, and he ended by telling him he had orders to conduct him to Salentum where the king, who knew his innocence, wanted to entrust his affairs to him and shower him with goods.
“Do you see,” Philocles responded to him, “that grotto more suited to hiding wild beasts than to being inhabited by men? For so many years, I have enjoyed more sweetness and repose there than in the golden palaces on the island of Crete. Men no longer deceive me, for I no longer see men. I no longer hear their flattering and poisonous discourses. I no longer need them. My hands, hardened from work, easily give me the simple nourishment that is necessary. I only need, as you see, a light cloth to cover me.
No longer having needs, enjoying a profound calm, and a sweet liberty, which the wisdom in my books teaches me to make good use of, what else would I go seeking among jealous, deceitful, and inconstant men? No, no, my dear Hegesippe, do not envy me my happiness. Protesilas betrayed himself in wanting to betray the king and to lose me. But he did me no evil. On the contrary, he did me the greatest good. He delivered me from the tumult and from the servitude of affairs. I owe my cherished solitude and all the innocent pleasures I enjoy here to him.
“Return, O Hegesippe, return to the king, help him to bear the miseries of grandeur and do alongside him what you would desire I do. Since his eyes, so long closed to the truth, have finally been opened by this wise man you call Mentor, may he retain him at his side. As for me, after my shipwreck, it does not suit me to quit the harbour where the tempest has fortunately tossed me just to put myself at the mercy of the winds again. O how kings are to be pitied, O how those who serve them are worthy of compassion! If kings are wicked, how much do they cause men to suffer and what torments are prepared for them in gloomy Tartarus. If they are good, what difficulties will they not have to vanquish, what traps to avoid, what evils to endure! Once again, Hegesippe, leave me in my fortunate poverty.”
While Philocles was speaking so, with much vehemence, Hegesippe was regarding him with astonishment. He had seen him once in Crete when he governed over the greatest affairs, thin, languishing, and drained, for his ardent and austere nature consumed him in his work. He could not see, without indignation, vice go unpunished. He wanted a certain exactness in affairs that one never finds in them. Thus, his posts were destroying his delicate health. But in Samos, Hegesippe saw him stout and vigorous. Despite the years, glowing youth was renewed on his face; a sober, tranquil, and hard-working life had caused something of a new temperament in him.
“You are surprised to see me so changed,” Philocles said, smiling. “It is my solitude that has given me this freshness and this perfect health. My enemies have given me what I would never have been able to find in the greatest fortune. Do you want me to lose true goods to chase after false ones, and to plunge myself into my old miseries again? Do not be more cruel than Protesilas. At least, do not envy me the happiness that I hold from him.”
Then Hegesippe represented to him, but uselessly, all he thought suitable to touch his heart.
“Are you, then, insensitive to the pleasure of seeing your relatives and your friends again, who yearn for your return and whom the mere hope alone of embracing you fills with joy? But you, who reveres the gods and who loves your duty, do you count serving your king as nothing, helping him in all the good things he wants to do, and rendering so many peoples happy? Is one permitted to abandon oneself to an uncivilised philosophy, to preference oneself over all the rest of humankind, and to prefer one’s peace of mind to the happiness of one’s fellow citizens? Moreover, they will think it is through resentment that you no longer want to see the king. If he had wanted to harm you, it was because he did not know you. It is not the true, the good, the just Philocles he wanted to slay. It was a man very different from you that he was wanting to punish. But now that he knows you, and he no longer takes you for another, he feels all his old friendship revived in his heart. He is waiting for you; he is already holding out his arms to embrace you. In his impatience, he counts the days and the hours. Will you have so hard a heart as to be inexorable to your king and to all your most affectionate friends?”
Philocles, who had at first been touched with tenderness upon recognising Hegesippe, resumed his austere air as he listened to this discourse. Like a rock against which the winds fight in vain, and on which all the ocean waves go to crash, howling, he remained unmoved, and neither pleas nor reasoning found any opening to enter into his heart. But, at the moment when Hegesippe was beginning to despair of winning him over, Philocles, having consulted the gods, beheld through the flight of birds, through the entrails of sacrifices, and through various other presages that he should follow Hegesippe. Then he no longer resisted. He prepared to depart, but it was not without lamenting the wilderness where he had spent so many years.
“Alas, must I forsake you, O lovable grotto, where peaceful Sleep came every night to relax me from the work of the day? Here the Fates spun for me, in the midst of my poverty, days of gold and silk.”
He bowed down, weeping, to worship the Naiad who had quenched his thirst for so long with her clear water, and the Nymphs who inhabited all the neighbouring mountains. Echo heard his laments and, with a sad voice, repeated them to all the country deities.
Afterward, Philocles went to the city with Hegesippe to embark. He thought that the wretched Protesilas, filled with shame and resentment, would not want to see him. But he was mistaken, for corrupt men have no shame, and they are always ready for all sorts of baseness. Philocles was hiding modestly for fear of being seen by this poor wretch. He feared increasing Protesilas’ misery in displaying to him the prosperity of an enemy who was going to rise up on his ruins. But Protesilas was eagerly seeking Philocles. He wanted to inspire pity in him and to enlist him to ask the king that he be able to return to Salentum. Philocles was too sincere to promise to work toward having him recalled, for he knew better than anyone how pernicious his return would have been. But he spoke to him very gently, showed him compassion, tried to console him, exhorted him to appease the gods through pure mores and through a great patience in his woes. As he had learned the king had taken from Protesilas all his property unjustly acquired, he promised him two things that he would faithfully execute afterward. One was to take care of his wife and children, who had remained in Salentum in dreadful poverty, exposed to public indignation. The other was to send to Protesilas on this distant island some monetary aid to soften his misery.
Meanwhile, the sails swell with a favourable wind. Hegesippe, impatient, hastens to have Philocles depart; Protesilas watches them embark. His eyes remain attached and fixed from the shore. They follow the vessel, which ploughs the waters and which the wind always distances. Even when he can no longer see it, he still repaints the image of it in his mind. Finally, distressed, furious, delivered over to his despair, he pulls out his hair, rolls in the sand, reproaches the gods for their rigour, calls, in vain, to his aid cruel Death, who, deaf to his pleas, does not deign to deliver him from so many woes—and he does not have the courage to deliver himself.
Meanwhile, the vessel, favoured by Poseidon and the winds, soon arrived in Salentum. The king was told it was already entering the harbour. Immediately, he ran out, along with Mentor, to welcome Philocles. He embraced him tenderly, bearing witness to a visible regret for having persecuted him so unjustly. This confession, far from appearing a weakness in a king, was regarded by all the Salentines as the effort of a great soul, who rises above his own wrongdoings by courageously confessing them in order to mend them. Everyone was crying with joy at seeing again the good man who had loved the people and hearing the king speak with so much wisdom and goodness. Philocles, with a respectful and modest air, received the accolades of the king and was impatient to steal away from the acclamations of the people. He followed the king to the palace. Soon, Mentor and he were in the same confidence as if they had spent their lives together, even though they had never seen each other; for the gods, who have refused to the wicked eyes to know the good, have given to the good something to recognise one another. Those who have the taste for virtue cannot be together without being united through the virtue they love.
Soon, Philocles asked the king to allow him to retire near Salentum in a solitude where he continued to live in poverty, as he had lived in Samos. The king went with Mentor to see him almost every day in his wilderness. It is there that they examined the means of firming up the laws and giving a solid shape to the government for the public happiness. The two main things they examined were the education of the children and the manner of living during peace.
As for the children, Mentor said, “They belong less to their parents than to the republic. They are the children of the people. They are the hope and the strength of them. It is not the time to correct them once they are corrupted. It is a small thing to exclude them from posts when one sees they have become unworthy of them. It is much better to prevent evil than to be reduced to punishing it.
“The king,” he added, “who is the father of all his people, is even more particularly the father of all the youth, who are the flower of all the nation. It is in the flower that the fruits must be prepared. May the king not disdain, then, overseeing and having overseen the education that is given to the children. May he hold steadfast, then, to have the laws of Minos observed, which command that children be raised with a scorn for pain and for death; that honour be placed in fleeing delights and riches; that injustice, mendacity, ingratitude, and softness pass for infamous vices; that they are taught from their earliest childhood to sing the praises of the heroes, who have been loved by the gods, who have performed generous deeds for their homeland, and whose courage has shone in combat. May the enchantment of music seize their souls, so as to render their mores sweet and pure. May they learn to be tender with regard to their friends, loyal to their allies, fair to all men, even with regard to their most cruel enemies. May they fear death and torment less than the slightest reproach from their consciences. If, at an early age, one fills children with these great maxims and causes them to enter into their hearts through the sweetness of song, there will be few children who are not enflamed with the love of glory and virtue.”
Mentor added that it was capital to establish public schools to accustom youth to the toughest exercises of the body and avoid the softness and idleness that corrupt the most beautiful natures. He wanted a great variety of games and events that would animate all the people but would, above all, exercise the body to make it adept, supple, and vigorous. He added prizes to excite a noble emulation. But what he wished for the most with regard to good mores is that the young people marry at an early age, and that their relatives, without any view to self-interest, would allow them to choose wives agreeable in body and mind to whom they could grow attached.
But while they were preparing, in this way, the means of keeping the youth pure, innocent, hard-working, docile, and passionate for glory, Philocles, who loved warfare, said to Mentor, “It is in vain that you busy the young people with all these exercises if you allow them to languish in a continual peace where they will gain no experience with warfare, nor any need to put their valour to the test. In doing so, you will gradually weaken the nation. Courage will wane, delights will corrupt mores, other bellicose peoples will have no difficulty vanquishing them, and for having wanted to avoid the woes that war drags after it, they will fall into a dreadful servitude.”
Mentor responded, “The woes of war are even more horrific than you think. War drains a state and always puts it in danger of perishing, even when you bring home the greatest victories. With whatever advantages you begin it, you are never sure of ending it without being exposed to the most tragic reversals of fortune. No matter what superior military forces you enlist in combat, the least miscalculation, a panic terror, a mere nothing, snatches from you the victory that was already in your hands and conveys it to the enemy. Even when you hold victory in the camp, as if shackled, you would destroy yourself in destroying your enemies: you depopulate your country, you leave the lands practically uncultivated, you disrupt commerce. But what is still worse, you weaken the best laws, and you allow mores to be corrupted. The youth no longer devote themselves to scholarship. Pressing need makes it so that you have to tolerate a pernicious licentiousness in the troops. Justice, polity, all suffer from this disorder. A king who sheds the blood of so many men and who causes so much unhappiness to acquire a little glory or to extend the borders of his kingdom is unworthy of the glory that he seeks and merits losing what he possesses for having wanted to usurp what does not belong to him.
“But here are the means of exercising the courage of a nation in times of peace. You have already seen the exercises of the body that we are establishing, the prizes that will excite emulation, the maxims of glory and virtue with which the hearts of children will be filled, almost from the cradle, through the song of great heroic deeds. Add to these aids that of a sober and hard-working life. But that is not all. As soon as a people allied with your nation are at war, you must send the flower of your youth, above all those in whom you notice a genius for war and who will be the most suitable to profit from the experience. In so doing, you will preserve a high reputation among your allies. Your alliance will be sought after; they will fear losing it. Without having war at home at your expense, you will always have a war-ready and intrepid youth. Although you have peace at home, you will not fail to treat with the greatest honours those who have the talent for warfare, for the true means of keeping war far away and preserving a long peace—it is to cultivate the armies; it is to honour the excellent men in this profession; it is to always have in the army those who were trained in foreign countries and who know the military forces, the discipline, and the methods of the warfare of neighbouring peoples; it is to be not only incapable of waging war through ambition but equally incapable of fearing war through softness. Then, being always ready to wage war in necessity, you arrive at almost never having it.
“As for the allies, when they are ready to wage war against each other, it is up to you to make yourself the mediator. By doing so, you acquire a glory more solid and more sure than that of conquerors. You gain the love and esteem of foreigners. They all need you. You reign over them through trust, just as you reign over your subjects through authority. You become the custodian of secrets, the arbiter of treaties, the master of hearts. Your reputation flies throughout the most distant countries. Your name is like a delightful perfume that wafts from country to country to the most distant peoples. In this state, should a neighbouring people attack you against the rules of justice, they find you war-ready, prepared, but what is even stronger, they find you loved and succoured; all your neighbours call to arms for you, and are persuaded that your preservation makes for public safety. That is a rampart much more assured than all the walls of the cities and than all the best fortified places. That is true glory. But how few kings there are who know how to seek it and who do not distance themselves from it. They run after a deceiving shadow and leave true honour behind them for want of knowing it.”
After Mentor had spoken in this way, Philocles, astonished, was staring at him; then he cast his eyes on the king and was enchanted to see how avidly Idomeneus was gathering, in the depths of his heart, all those words that emerged, like a river of wisdom, from the lips of this foreigner.
Athena, in the figure of Mentor, thus established in Salentum all the best laws and the most useful maxims of government, less to cause the kingdom of Idomeneus to flourish than to show Telemachus, when he returned, a visible example of what a wise government can do to render the peoples happy and to give to a good king a lasting glory.
END OF BOOK XI
BOOK XII
Meanwhile, Telemachus was demonstrating his courage in the perils of war. Upon departing Salentum, he applied himself to gaining the affection of the old captains, whose reputation and experience were of the highest rank. Nestor, who had already seen him in Pylos, and who had always loved Odysseus, treated him as if he were his own son. He gave him training that he bolstered with various examples. He recounted to him all the adventures of his youth and all the most remarkable things he had witnessed of the heroes of past ages. The memory of this wise old man, who had lived to see three generations of men, was like a history of ancient times engraved on brass or marble.
Philoctetes did not have the same inclination for Telemachus as Nestor at first. The hate he had nurtured for so long in his heart for Odysseus distanced him from Odysseus’ son, and he could only see with difficulty all it seemed the gods were preparing in favour of this young man to render him equal to the heroes who had overthrown the city of Troy.
But in the end, Telemachus’ restraint vanquished all of Philoctetes’ resentments. He could not defend himself from loving that sweet and modest virtue. He often took Telemachus aside and said to him, “My son (for I no longer fear calling you such), your father and I, I confess, we have been enemies for a long time. I even confess that after we had brought down the lofty city of Troy, my heart was not yet appeased, and when I saw you, I had difficulty loving the virtue in the son of Odysseus. I have often reproached myself for it. But in the end, virtue, when it is sweet, unaffected, ingenuous, and modest, overcomes all.”
Then Philoctetes gradually promised to recount to him what had ignited in his heart so much hate for Odysseus. “I must,” he said, “take up my story from the top. I followed everywhere the great Heracles, who delivered the Earth from so many monsters and before whom the other heroes were only like weak reeds alongside a great oak, or like the least of birds in the presence of the eagle. His woes and mine came from a passion that causes all the most dreadful disasters. It is Love. Heracles, who had vanquished so many monsters, could not vanquish that shameful passion, and the cruel infant Eros toyed with him. He could not think back without blushing with shame of how he had once forgotten his glory to the point of trailing alongside Omphale, queen of Lydia, like the most cowardly and effeminate of all men, so much had he been swept away by a blind love.
“A hundred times he confessed to me that this part of his life had tarnished his virtue and almost blotted out the glory from all his labours. Nevertheless, O gods, such is the weakness and inconstancy of men! They expect everything of themselves and resist nothing. Alas! The great Heracles fell back into the snares of Love that he had so often detested. He loved Deianira. He would have been only too happy had he been constant in this passion for one woman, who was his wife! But soon the youthfulness of Iole, on whose face the Graces were painted, delighted his heart. Deianira burned with jealousy. She thought back to that fatal tunic which the centaur Nessus had left her when he was dying as an assured means of reawakening Heracles’ love every time he appeared to neglect her for the love of some other. That tunic, filled with the venomous blood of the centaur, contained poison from the arrows with which that monster had been pierced. You know that the arrows of Heracles, who killed that perfidious centaur, had been dipped in the blood of the Hydra of Lerna, and this blood poisoned those arrows in a way that all the wounds they made were incurable.
“Heracles, having donned that tunic, soon felt the devouring fire, which slipped into the marrow of his bones. He loosed horrible screams with which Mount Oeta resounded and caused to reverberate in all the deepest valleys; even the sea appeared stirred by them. The most furious bulls, who would have bellowed in their fights, would not have made a noise as dreadful. The unfortunate Lichas, who had brought that tunic to him on Deianira’s behalf, having dared approach him, Heracles, racked with pain, took him, spun him, just as a slinger spins with his slingshot the stone he wants to hurl far from him. So Lichas, launched from the top of the mountain by the mighty hand of Heracles, fell into the swells of the sea, where he was instantly changed into a rock that still keeps the human shape and that, always buffeted by the angry waves, horrifies wise pilots from afar.
“After this misfortune of Lichas, I believed I could no longer trust Heracles. I thought to hide in the deepest caverns. I saw him effortlessly uproot with one hand the tall pines and old oaks that had for several centuries scorned the winds and the tempests. With the other hand, he tried in vain to snatch from his back the fatal tunic; it clung to his skin, as if incorporated into his limbs. As he tore at it, he also tore his skin and his flesh; his blood streamed and drenched the ground. Finally, his virtue overcoming his pain, he cried out, ‘You see, O my dear Philoctetes, the evils the gods make me suffer. They are just. It is I who offended them. I violated conjugal love. After having vanquished so many enemies, I cravenly let myself be vanquished by the love of a beautiful foreigner. I am perishing, and I am content to perish to appease the gods.
‘But alas dear friend, where did you flee? The excessive pain made me commit, it is true, a cruelty against that wretched Lichas, for which I reproach myself. He did not know what poison he presented me. He did not merit what I made him suffer. But do you think I could forget the friendship I owe you and could want to snatch life from you? No, no, I will not cease loving Philoctetes. Philoctetes will receive in his bosom my soul ready to soar. It is he who will gather my ashes. Where are you then,
O my dear Philoctetes, Philoctetes, the only hope that remains to me here below!’”
“At these words, I hasten to run to him. He holds out his arms to me and wants to embrace me. But he draws back, for fear of igniting in my bosom the cruel fire with which he himself is burned.
“‘Alas,’ he said, ‘even this consolation is no longer permitted me.’
“Speaking so, he assembles all those trees he has just felled. He makes of them a pyre on the summit of the mountain. He tranquilly ascends onto the pyre. He lays out the skin of the Nemean lion, which had covered his shoulders for so long when he was going from one end of the earth to the other to slay monsters and deliver the unfortunate. He leans on his club and orders me to light the fire of the pyre. My hands, trembling and seized with horror, could not refuse him this cruel office, for life was no longer for him a present from the gods so much as it was gruesome to him. I even feared the excessiveness of his pain might carry him to do something unworthy of that virtue that had astounded the universe.
“As he saw that the flame of the pyre was beginning to take, he cried out, ‘It is now, my dear Philoctetes, that I put to the test your true friendship! Since you love my honour more than my life, may the gods render honour to you. I leave you that which I have of the most precious on earth, those arrows dipped in the blood of the Hydra of Lerna. You know the wounds they make are incurable. By them you will be invincible, as I have been, and no mortal will dare fight against you. Remember that I die faithful to our friendship and never forget how dear you have been to me. But, if it is true that you are touched by my woes, you can give me one last consolation—promise me never to reveal to any mortal either my death, or the place where you will have hidden my ashes.’
“I promised it—alas, I even swore it—while drenching his pyre with my tears. A ray of joy appeared in his eyes, but instantly a swirl of flames that engulfed him smothered his voice and nearly stole him from my sight. I still saw him a little, nevertheless, through the flames with an expression as serene as if he would have been wreathed with flowers and covered with perfumes in the joy of a delicious feast amidst of all his friends.
“The fire soon consumed all there was of earthliness and mortality in him; soon there remained nothing at all of what he had received at birth from his mother Alcmena. But he preserved, by the command of Zeus, that subtle and immortal nature, that celestial flame, which is the true principle of life and which he had received from the father of the gods. Thus, he went with them, under the golden vaults of shining Olympus to drink nectar, where the gods gave him as a spouse the lovely Hebe, the goddess of youth. She poured the nectar into the cup of the great Zeus before Ganymede received that honour. As for me, I found an inexhaustible source of pain in those arrows he had given me so as to elevate me above all the heroes.
“Soon, the leagued kings undertook with Menelaus to exact vengeance on the infamous Paris, who had abducted Helen, and to overthrow Priam’s empire. The oracle of Apollo caused them to understand that they must not hope to end that war happily unless they had the arrows of Heracles.
“Odysseus, your father, who was always the most enlightened and the most clever in all the councils, charged himself with persuading me to go with them to the siege of Troy and to bring those arrows he believed I had. It had already been a long time since Heracles had appeared on earth. One no longer heard of any new exploit of this hero. Monsters and scoundrels began to appear again with impunity. The Greeks did not know what to think of him—some were saying he was dead; others were maintaining he had gone just below the frozen Great Bear to subdue the Scythians.
“But Odysseus maintained he was dead and undertook to make me confess it. He came to find me at a time when I still could not console myself of having lost the great Alcides. He had great difficulty coming up to me, for I could no longer bear the sight of men. I could not suffer someone snatching me from those deserts of Mount Oeta where I had seen my friend perish. I only thought of repainting the image of this hero and weeping at the sight of those sad places. But sweet and powerful persuasion was on the lips of your father. He appeared almost as afflicted as me. He shed tears, he knew how to gradually win my heart and lure my trust. He softened me toward the Greek kings who were going to fight for a just cause and who could not succeed without me. He could never, however, wrest from me the secret of Heracles’ death, which I had sworn to never tell. But he did not doubt he was dead, and he pressed me to reveal to him the spot where I had hidden his ashes. Alas, I was horrified of perjuring myself in telling him a secret I had promised the gods to never tell. But I was weak enough to elude my oath, not daring to violate it—the gods punished me for it—I struck the ground with my foot at the spot where I had placed Heracles’ ashes.
“Afterward, I went to join the leagued kings who received me with the same joy as they would have received Heracles himself. As I was passing into the island of Lemnos, I wanted to demonstrate to all the Greeks what my arrows could do. Preparing to shoot a fallow deer that was leaping into a wood, I allowed, accidentally, the arrow to fall from the bow onto my foot, and it caused a wound I still feel. Instantly, I experienced the same pains Heracles had suffered. Night and day, I filled the island with my screams. A black and corrupt blood oozing from my cut infected the air, and spread in the encampment of the Greeks a stench capable of suffocating the most vigorous men. The entire army was horrified to see me in this extremity. Each concluded that it was a torture that was sent to me by the just gods.
“Odysseus, who had enlisted me into this war, was the first to abandon me. I have recognised since that he did it because he preferred the common interest of Greece, and victory, to all the reasons of friendship or of common decency. They could no longer make sacrifices in the camp, so much did the horror of my cut, its infection, and the violence of my screams disturb the entire army. But at the moment when I saw myself abandoned by all the Greeks through Odysseus’ counsel, that politic seemed to me filled with the most horrific inhumanity and the blackest betrayal. Alas, I was blind and did not see that it was right that the wisest of men would be against me, the same as the gods whom I had angered.
“I remained, throughout almost all the siege of Troy, alone, without help, without hope, without relief, delivered over to horrific pains on that deserted and wild island, where I heard only the noise of the ocean waves crashing against the rocks. I found, in the midst of that solitude, an empty cavern in a rock, with two peaks raised toward the sky resembling two heads. From that rock emerged a clear spring. This cavern was the retreat of ferocious beasts whose fury I was exposed to night and day. I amassed some leaves on which to sleep. The only goods left me were a roughly worked wooden pot and some worn rags with which I wrapped my cut to stop the bleeding and which I also used to clean it. There, abandoned by men and delivered over to the anger of the gods, I passed my time piercing with my arrows doves and other birds that flew around that rock. When I had killed some bird for my nourishment, I had to painfully drag myself along the ground to gather my prey. In this way my hands prepared something to nourish myself.
“It is true the Greeks, in departing, left me some provisions, but they did not last long. I lit a fire with rocks. That life, as dreadful as it was, would have seemed sweet to me, far from ungrateful and deceptive men, had the pain not crushed me and had I not incessantly passed over and over again in my mind my sad adventure. What! I said, to pull a man out of his homeland, as the only man who can avenge Greece, and then to abandon him on this deserted island during his sleep!
“For it was during my sleep the Greeks departed. Judge what was my surprise, and how many tears I shed upon awakening, when I saw the vessels ploughing the waters. Alas, searching in every direction on that wild and terrible island, I found only pain.
“On this island, there is neither port, nor commerce, nor hospitality, nor men who land there willingly. One only sees the unfortunates, who tempests have cast onto the island, and one can only hope for any company from shipwrecks. Even still, those who came to this place dared not take me to bring me back—they feared the anger of the gods and that of the Greeks.
“For ten years I suffered shame, pain, hunger. I fed a cut that was devouring me. Even hope was extinguished in my heart. All of a sudden, returning from seeking medicinal plants for my cut, I spotted in my cave a young man, handsome and charming, yet proud and of a heroic build. It seemed to me that I was seeing Achilles, so much did he have his traits, his look, and his walk. His age alone made me realise it could not be him. I noticed on his face both compassion and discomfort. He was touched to see with what difficulty and what slowness I dragged myself along. The piercing and painful cries I made echo along that shoreline touched his heart.
“‘O stranger,’ I said to him from some distance, ‘what misfortune has driven you onto this uninhabited island? I recognise the Greek dress, this dress that is still so dear to me. O how I long to hear your voice and to find on your lips that tongue I learned in childhood and that I could no longer speak to anyone for so long in this solitude! Do not be frightened to see a man so wretched. You must pity him.’
“Barely had Neoptolemus said, ‘I am Greek,’ when I cried out, ‘O sweet words after so many years of silence and pain without consolation! O my son, what misfortune? What tempest? Or rather, what favourable wind drove you here to end my woes?’
“He answered me, ‘I am from the island of Scyros. I am returning there. They say I am the son of Achilles. You know all.’
“Words so curt did not satisfy my curiosity. I said, ‘O son of a father whom I so loved, dear nursling of Lycomedes, how did you come here then? Where are you coming from?’
“He answered that he was coming from the siege of Troy.
“‘You were not,’ I said to him, ‘from the first expedition.’
“‘And you?’ he said. ‘Were you from it?’”
“So I answered, ‘You do not know, I see well, either the name of Philoctetes, or his misfortunes. Alas, woeful as I am! My persecutors insult me in my misery. Greece is ignorant of what I suffer; my pain increases. The Atreidae put me in this state. May the gods render such a state to them.’ Then I recounted to him the manner by which the Greeks had abandoned me. As soon as he had listened to my complaints, he made his to me.
“‘After the death of Achilles…’
“Immediately I interrupted him, ‘What? Achilles is dead! Forgive me, my son, if I disrupt your story with the tears I owe your father.’
“Neoptolemus responded, ‘You console me in interrupting me. How sweet it is for me to see Philoctetes mourn my father!’ Neoptolemus, resuming his discourse, said to me:
“‘After the death of Achilles, Odysseus and Phoenix came to seek me, assuring they could not, without me, overthrow the city of Troy. They had no difficulty taking me, for my grief over the death of Achilles, and the desire to inherit his glory in that celebrated war enlisted me enough to follow them.’
“‘I arrive at Sigeum. The army assembles around me. Each swears he is seeing Achilles again, but alas, he was no more. Young and inexperienced, I believed I could expect everything of those who were giving me so much praise. Immediately I ask the Atreidae for my father’s armour. They answer me cruelly, ‘You will have the rest of what belonged to him. But as for his armour, it is destined for Odysseus.’ Instantly, I am distraught, I weep, I lose my temper, but Odysseus, without emotion, says, ‘Young man, you were not with us in the perils of this long siege. You have not merited such arms, and you already speak too proudly! You will never have them.’ Stripped unjustly by Odysseus, I am going back to the isle of Scyros, less indignant with Odysseus than with the Atreidae. May whoever is their enemy be the friend of the gods. O Philoctetes, I have told all.’
“Then I asked Neoptolemus how Great Ajax , son of Telamon, had not stopped that injustice.
“‘He is dead,’ he answered.”
“‘He is dead!’, I cried out, ‘And Odysseus did not die—on the contrary, he flourishes in the army.’ Then I asked him for news of Antilochus, the son of wise Nestor, and of Patroclus, so cherished by Achilles.
“‘They are dead too,’ he told me.
“Immediately, I cried out again, ‘What, dead! Alas, what are you telling me! Cruel war harvests the good and spares the wicked. Odysseus is alive then. Thersites is also undoubtedly. This is what the gods do, and we still praise them!’
“While I was in that fury against your father, Neoptolemus continued to deceive me. He added these sad words, ‘Far away from the Greek army, where evil prevails over good, I am going to live contentedly on the wild island of Scyros. Farewell, I am departing. May the gods heal you.’
“Quickly I said, ‘O my son, I conjure you by the manes of your father, by your mother, by all that you have of the most dear on earth, to not leave me alone in these woes that you see. I am not ignorant of how much I will be a burden to you, but there would be shame in abandoning me. Throw me in the bow, in the stern, into the bilge even, wherever I would inconvenience you the least. There are only great hearts who know how much glory there is in being good. Do not leave me in a wilderness where there is no vestige of man; take me into your homeland or into Euboea, which is not far from Mount Oeta, Trachis, and the agreeable banks of the river Spercheios. Render me to my father. Alas, I fear he is dead. I had summoned him to send me a vessel—either he is dead, or indeed those who had promised me to tell him did not do it. I resort to you, O my son. Remember the fragility of things human. He who is in prosperity ought fear abusing it and come to the aid of the unfortunate ones.’
“Voila, that is what my excessive pain made me say to Neoptolemus. He promised to take me away. Then I cried out again, ‘O happy day! O lovable Neoptolemus, worthy of the glory of his father. Dear comrades of this voyage, suffer that I would say farewell to this sad dwelling. See where I lived. Understand what I suffered. No other would have been able to suffer it. But necessity has taught me, and it teaches men what they would never be able to know otherwise. Those who have never suffered know nothing. They know neither the good nor the evil. They are ignorant of men. They are ignorant of themselves.’ Having spoken so, I grabbed my bow and my arrows.
“Neoptolemus begged me to suffer he kiss them, those arms so famous, and consecrated by the invincible Heracles.
“I answered, ‘You may do all. It is you, my son, who today renders to me the light, my homeland, my father stooped with old age, my friends, myself. You may touch those arms and boast of being the only one among the Greeks who has merited touching them.’ Quickly, Neoptolemus enters my grotto to marvel at my arms.
“At that moment, a cruel pain seizes me. It distresses me. I no longer know what I am doing. I demand a sharp glaive to cut my foot, I cry out, ‘O Death so desired, why do you not come! O young man, burn me this instant, as I burned the son of Zeus. O earth! O earth! Receive a dying man, who can no longer get up.’
“From this onslaught of pain, I suddenly fell, according to my habit, into a deep drowsiness. A heavy sweat began to relieve me; a black and corrupt blood oozed from my cut. During my sleep, it would have been easy for Neoptolemus to take my arms and depart. But he was the son of Achilles and was not born to deceive. Awakening, I recognised his discomfort; he was sighing like a man who does not know how to dissimulate, and who is acting against his heart.
“’Do you want to overtake me?’ I said to him, ‘What is it, then?’ “‘You must,’ he answered, ‘follow me to the siege of Troy.’
“I retorted, ‘Ah, what did you say, my son? Give me back that bow. I am betrayed. Do not snatch life from me.’
“Alas, he said nothing. He looked at me tranquilly. Nothing touched him.
“‘O shores! O promontories! O ferocious beasts! O steep cliffs! It is to you I complain, for I only have you to whom I can complain. You are accustomed to my wails. Must I be betrayed by the son of Achilles? He takes the sacred bow of Heracles away from me; he wants to drag me into the Greek camp to triumph over me. He does not see that it is to triumph over a dead man, a shade, a vain image. O if he would have attacked me in my prime! But even now, it is only by surprise. What will I do? Give back, my son, give back. Be like your father, like yourself. What do you say? You say nothing! O savage rock, I come back to you naked, miserable, abandoned, without nourishment! I will die in this cave alone. No longer having my bow to kill the beasts, the beasts will devour me. What does it matter? But, my son, you do not appear wicked. Some counsel pushes you. Give back my arms. Go away.’
“Neoptolemus, tears in his eyes, said very softly, ‘Would to the gods had I never left Scyros.’
“At that moment, I cry out, ‘Ho! What do I see? Is it not Odysseus?’
“Instantly, I hear his voice, and he answers me, ‘Yes, it is I.’
“Had the gloomy kingdom of Hades opened up and I had seen the black Tartarus, which even the gods fear to glimpse, I would not have been gripped, I confess, with a greater horror.
“I cried out again. ‘O land of Lemnos, I take you as witness! O Sun, you see him, and you suffer him!’
“Odysseus responds without emotion, ‘Zeus desires it, and I execute it.’
“‘Dare you,’ I said to him, ‘name Zeus? Do you see this young man, who was not born for fraud, and who suffers in executing what you oblige him to do?’
“‘It is not in order to deceive you,’ Odysseus said to me, ‘nor to harm you that we come. It is to deliver you, to heal you, to give you the glory of overthrowing Troy, and to take you back to your homeland. It is you, and not Odysseus, who is the enemy of Philoctetes.’
“Then I said to your father all that furore could inspire in me, ‘Since you abandoned me on this shore,’ I told him, ‘why not leave me here in peace? Go seek the glory of combat and every pleasure. Enjoy your happiness with the Atreidae. Leave me my misery and my pain. Why take me away? I am no longer anything. I am already dead. Why do you not still believe today, as you once believed, that I would not know how to leave, that my screams, and the infection of my cut would disturb the sacrifices? O Odysseus, author of my woes, may the gods… But the gods do not listen to me—on the contrary, they incite my enemy. O soil of my homeland that I will never see again, O gods, if there still remains someone among you who has any justice at all, have mercy on me, punish, punish Odysseus! Then I will believe myself healed.’
“While I was speaking so, your father, tranquil, regarded me with an air of compassion, like a man who, far from being angered, bears and excuses the distress of a wretch that Fortune angered. I saw him, just as a boulder on the summit of a mountain toys with the fury of the winds and allows their rage to wane while it remains unmoved, so your father, remaining silent, waited for my anger to wane, for he knew that one must only attack the passions of men, to reduce them to reason, when they begin to weaken through a kind of weariness. Then he said these words to me:
“‘O Philoctetes, what have you done with your reason and your courage? This is the moment to make use of them. If you refuse to follow us to fulfil the great plans of Zeus for you, farewell; you are unworthy of being the liberator of Greece and the destroyer of Troy. Remain in Lemnos. These arms I carry away will bring me a glory that was destined for you. Neoptolemus, let us depart. It is useless to speak to him. Compassion for a single man must not cause us to abandon the salvation of all Greece.’
“Then I felt like a lioness whose cubs have just been snatched. She fills the forests with her roars.
“‘O cavern,’ I said, ‘never will I forsake you! You will be my tomb. O sojourn of my pain! No more nourishment, no more hope! Who will give me a glaive to impale myself? O, if the birds of prey could take me away! I would no longer pierce them with my arrows. O precious bow, bow consecrated by the hands of the son of Zeus! O dear Heracles, if there still remains in you some feeling, are you not indignant? This bow is no longer in the hands of your faithful friend. It is in the impure and deceiving hands of Odysseus. Birds of prey! Ferocious beasts no longer flee this cavern! My hands no longer have arrows. Wretched, I can no longer harm you. Come take me away. Or rather may the thunderbolt of merciless Zeus crush me.’
“Your father, having attempted all other means to persuade me, judged in the end that it was best to give my arms back to me. He motioned to Neoptolemus, who quickly gave them to me. Then I said, ‘Worthy son of Achilles you show that you are—but leave me to pierce my enemy.’
“Straightaway I wanted to draw my arrow against your father, but Neoptolemus stopped me, saying, ‘Anger distresses you and keeps you from seeing the unworthiness of the deed you want to do.’
“As for Odysseus, he appeared as tranquil against my arrows as against my insults. I felt touched by that intrepidness and that patience. I was ashamed for having wanted in that former outburst to use my arms to kill the one who had had them given back to me. But as my resentment was not yet appeased, I was inconsolable to owe my arms to a man whom I hated so.
“Meanwhile, Neoptolemus was saying to me, ‘Know that the divine Helenus, son of Priam, having left the city of Troy by the command and inspiration of the gods, has unveiled the future to us. “The unfortunate Troy will fall,’ he said, ‘but it can only fall after it will have been attacked by the one who holds the arrows of Heracles. That man can only heal when he is before the walls of Troy. The children of Asclepius will heal him.’
“At that moment, I felt my heart split. I was touched by the naïveté of Neoptolemus and by the good faith with which he had given back my bow. But I could not yet resolve myself to see the day when it would be necessary to cede to Odysseus, and a wicked shame held me in suspense. Will I be seen, I said to myself, with Odysseus and the Atreidae? What will one think of me! While I was in this uncertainty, all at once I hear a voice, superhuman; I see Heracles in a brilliant cloud. He was surrounded with rays of glory. I easily recognised his somewhat rugged features, his robust body, and his natural mannerisms. But he had a loftiness and a majesty that had never appeared so great in him when he was subduing monsters. He said to me:
‘You hear, you see Heracles. I have quit high Olympus to announce the commands of Zeus to you. You know through what labours I acquired immortality. You must go with the son of Achilles to walk in my footsteps on the path to glory. You will heal. You will pierce with my arrows Paris, author of so many woes. After the taking of Troy, you will send the rich spoils to your father, Poias, on Mount Oeta. Those spoils will be placed on my tomb as a monument of the victory owed to my arrows. And you, O son of Achilles, I declare to you that you cannot vanquish without Philoctetes, nor Philoctetes without you. Go then, like two lions who seek their prey together. I will send Asclepius to Troy to heal Philoctetes. Above all, O Greeks, love and observe religion. The rest dies, it never dies.’
“After hearing those words, I cried out, ‘O happy day! Sweet light! You finally reveal yourself after so many years. I am obeying you. I am departing after having bowed to these places. Farewell dear cave. Farewell nymphs of these damp meadows. I will no longer hear the dull noise of the surf of this sea. Farewell shores where so many times I suffered the assaults of the air. Farewell promontory, where Echo repeated my wails so many times. Farewell sweet springs that were so bitter to me. Farewell O land of Lemnos, allow me to depart happily since I go where the will of the gods and my friends call me.
“So we departed. We arrived at the siege of Troy. Machaon and Podalirius, through the divine science of their father Asclepius, healed me, or at least put me in the state where you find me. I no longer suffer, I have found all my vigour again, but I am a little crippled. I made Paris fall like a timid young doe that a hunter pierces with his shafts. Soon Ilium was reduced to ashes. You know the rest. Nevertheless, I still had somewhat of an aversion for the wise Odysseus in thinking back on those woes, and his virtue could not appease that resentment. But the sight of a son who resembles him, and whom I cannot help loving, touches my heart, even for the father.”
END OF BOOK XII