That speech begins exactly like the one with which you bade farewell to Dionea-the only dame on whom I sometimes think with jealousy. Am I also to tremble? Alc. Tremble not! Never was I less inclined to such a parting than now. Yet it is true, beloved Timandra, days of a certain kind have for me something so awful, so disquieting, that I myself cannot comprehend it. A tempest rages in my blood; a deep gloom overspreads my imagination. At every stone that falls, at every helmet that glitters, at every cloud that lowers or breaks, my soul begins to spin the thread of its thick arising fancies;-a visionary thread, but one which often stretches further than the real one that rescued Theseus-while it involves me in a labyrinth, instead of guiding me out of its windings. Tim. Dreamer! And is it one of these days to-day? Alc. Ay!-and not without a cause. With this day my fortieth year fleets away, whither all the rest have flown irrevocably. After many of these fugitives I have gazed attentively enough; but after none so thoughtfully as this. Tim. And wherefore? Alc. O, 'tis a momentous year this fortieth! the middle point of even the most protracted life. To-day, methinks, I resemble some wayfaring man, who has long toiled up hill-his eye fixed upon the summit. At last he turns him round, and, lo! before him lies, in renovated tints, each scene he wandered through-every green tract, that called forth his smiles-every steep pass and trembling quagmire, through which he strained with pain and fear. Now, for the first time, he perceives where he made his deviations-where he chose the rougher path-where he might have rested in a grateful shade, and forgot to do it. Displeased, he shakes his head; and yet 'tis a solace to mark that his view has been often clear, and his route well chosen-to remember how swift have been his steps-how many hazards he has conquered-how high he has attained. The comparison may be old; but I feel that it is true for me. Tim. And may I venture to ask which emotion is the strongest on thy retrospect contentment or regret? Alc. Dost thou know, that in thy very question there lurks reproach? Tim. As plain as the vanity in thy reply. Alc. Wo to poor Homer, and to all the poets of the olden time, if the expounders interpret their meaning no better than thou mine! Yet, why should I deny, that on many passages of my career, I look back with gladness-on some with a feeling which stern censors might entitle pride? And still a single point of my life, a single one, will often make complacency and self-congratulation vanish, and force me, amid hurraing crowds, to think-ONE voice is wanting here; and more than a thousand heralds would that voice be worth. Tim. Ha! the living image of AMBITION! Nine-and-ninety bow themselves to earth before him: he regards only the hundredth, who omitted the homage. Half-a-world had Cyrus already conquered; but even for the deserts of the Scythian Queen his insatiable spirit lusted still. Alc. A flattering allusion! There have been moments in my being when it would have been sufficiently appropriate; but for the present thou dost me wrong. If I ever had an honest grief, an emotion of my soul derived from a pure source, it must be that which has often already swelled within me, and now more overpoweringly than ever.- -(With great warmth). O, take away one stain-but onefrom my life, and boldly will I meet the Areopagus of future judgment, or even an Egyptian tribunal for the dead! Tim. (with increasing earnestness). And this point-this stain? My curiosity mounts higher and higher. Appease it, I beseech thee. Alc. (smiling). Exert thy faculties, and guess. Tim. The aspects of thy life are too manifold for one to display itself pre-eminent above the rest. Was it, peradventure, thy faithlessness towards my sex? Alc. (laughing loud). Ha! excellent!-to see how every one supposes what concerns himself to be the weightiest thing for others! No, Timandra; as to trifles of that description my conscience is perfectly easy. Tim. (offended). Then it was never so with more injustice! Canst thou reckon up the crimes, the frauds, the perjuries that lie upon thy soul? Dost thou count as nought the remorse of the corrupted, the curses of the deceived, the tears of the forsaken, the Alc. (interrupting her). Gently, gently, good Timandra! Thou art speaking in thine own cause, and, in such cases, exaggeration is an epidemic malady.-Deceived or Deceiver! Such is the eternal rule in playing the game with you. With the first spark of life Prometheus breathed love into our hearts; and in the same moment Venus herself prescribed this law, which will endure as long as the difference of sexes. Tim. Admirable indeed! Wonderfully witty and keen! Alc. Nay, nay! Only true, and nothing more! However I myself, I deny it not, did at first occasionally fret and feel unhappy about the sighs of a Nais, the tears of a Glycerium, the mild and moping melancholy of a deserted Dionea. But when I weigh ed the benefits I had heaped on them against the injuries; the blissful moments I had given them-the requited tenderness of their passion-the flattered pride of their womanhood ;when I reflected on the facility with which you console yourselves, the charm you find in variety, the necessity that one of the two parties should be the first to cool-tranquil, tranquil then became my spirit, and I betook myself, with benevolent eagerness, to the task of blessing a new object. Tim. Of blessing!—Odious mocker! Insupportable vanity! Alc. (offering his hand with a smile). And yet beloved of thee!-Is it not so? O ye yourselves love not those deities ye can only adore and never rail at!-Mark me, Timandra! Were the intercourse with thy sex to be my cause of condemnation-the burning spot upon my soul-'twould tell much heavier against me in another point of view. That the man, on whose yes or no, in the assembly of the people, the fate of Greece has oftimes hung; who has oftimes held in his sole hands the weal or wo of his country that this man should have often withdrawn himself too soon from council, in order to sink the sooner in a maiden's arms; should have often made the people wait on him for hours, in order to luxuriate longer on a bed of roses; should have often, in the embrace of a Timandra, wellnigh forgotten that there were such places as Sparta and Argos, Miletus and Persepolis;-by the gods! on seasons like to-day, a self-reproach of this kind will often rise out of the abyss of the past, and would press too hard upon me, were it not for the consoling thought, that nature designed to make in me the perfect model of man as well as hero. Of Miltiadeses, who beat their enemies; of Themistocleses, who saved their country; of individuals great in war, and noble in peace, we had already our full share. From all these the Son of Clinias was meant to be distinguished-by his weakness no less than by his strength. Tim. A very peculiar sort of consolation! From flowers you suck poison; but from rocks you squeeze out honey. Truly, if on every article of accusation you choose to play selfadvocate with like adroitness, it will be more than ever a puzzle to me to guess what can be giving uneasiness to so tender a conscience.-(Reflects for a few seconds).-Is it, perchance, the war with Sicily, in which you, and you alone, plunged your country? Alc. Indubitably not! On that I still look as the crowning point of my youthful enterprises-the most speaking proof that Pericles bequeathed me his spirit. Tim. But was it not this war inflicted wounds on Athens that are bleeding still? Was it not in this that thousands of thy brethren fell-unrevenged-unburied to this hour? Was it not this prepared the way for Sparta's victories, and made the Athenian rule be feared and hated by universal Greece? Alc. It did all this. It was more pernicious to my country than the plague that cut off Pericles. But mark you, not through my fault! I had promised the Athenians success and glory; I would have heaped upon them both; but I included myself in the bargain. The blame of subsequent reverses the seas of wasted blood-O cast that load on those who tore me from the arms of victory! They, because a few square blocks were chipped by scoundrels-because the heads of lifeless images were defaced by rioters-they sought to strike her living head from Athens; they hoped to shroud their envy in religion-their spite beneath a cloak of pious frenzy-they-O think on them no more, my soul! Mine already was Messena-mine, in a few moons thereafter, Syracuse! Mounted were the first steps of a renown that soared into infinitude of a power that would have thundered laws o'er every sea and land! Tim. It may be, then, that advice Tissaphernes, which Alc. (interrupting her with some heat). O no, Timandra, no!-proceed not to recount what I did afterwards! Seek not a fault in this—that I brought an ungrateful country to the brink of ruin-that I taught Persia to know her interest, and Sparta her strength. The two words, selfpreservation and necessity are sufficient for my exculpation. But back, back into my youthful years must thou go, wouldst thou discover the weak point I lay bare to the rebuke of posterity -or, should that prove a mild tribunal-at least to the scourge of my own conscience!—(She gazes at him without catching his meaning). O Timandra, daughter of the Graces, rememberest thou not the man, who once gave shape in stone to these thy guardian-goddesses, who since has served them with such rare fidelity, who taught them an alliance with wisdom and with virtue?—the first, the noblest, the best of mortal beings? Tim. Dost thou mean SOCRATES? Alc. Whom else could I mean? Tim. Indeed! Twofold more bright thine eyes are sparkling, thy cheeks are glowing Alc. And sevenfold more strongly beats my heart!- Mark me, Timandra; I can forgive thee, if thou laughest at the heat with which I name the son of Sophroniscus ; since thou knowest his outward form alone, and nature has made that hideous. But O, he is like those wooden figures of Silenus, ugly and unseemly to behold without, but full within of the fairest images of gods. His words sound common to the ear, but enshrined in them lies all that wisdom has of the beautiful, and virtue of the godlike. Tim. Who doubts that? Only how does it apply just here? VOL. XLI. NO. CCLV. Alc. Apply just here? Know you not that I was once his scholar? Tim. Methought his favourite too. Alc. His scholar and his favourite! When I bethink me of that of how my soul used to hang upon his lipshow, as he spoke, my heart would dance like some frenzied Corybant— how often I shed tears of anguish when I compared myself with him, and so more strongly felt my worthlessness when I remember the benignity with which he endured my faults and governed my frivolity ;when I confess that to him to this siren-satyr—my mouth yet owes the best part of its eloquence, as my mind does all its knowledge,-O, then, then peals a voice in my inner ear. Inconstant! wherefore didst thou spurn so soon the choicest gift of heaven? Wherefore didst thou pluck, with thine own hand, out of thy life's golden ring, a jewel of such sumless value? That man, whom Apollo counted wise-that man once owned thee his disciple-and thou left'st him for the sake of an—Aspasia ! Tim. (somewhat surprised). For the sake of an Aspasia! By Aphrodite, an exchange that seems not altogether so bad! Do you forget to-day the praises you have so often lavished on her head? Alc. Not lavished! I only paid her due. She was when I won her love the foremost woman in all Athens; worthy of any sacrifice-but the friendship of Socrates! Kingdoms I might have spurned for her, without fault, without remorse-but not the man who would have been my pride and happiness, my guardian and guide through life!—O Timandra, you know the glance of this eye. No foe has ever yet traced fear in it, no antagonist embarrassment; but often, when I returned home from victory-when the maidens were showering on me garlands-and the hurras of the sailors were resounding-and my eyes were looking proudly round upon the thronging multitude of flatterers and enviers, transported friends and abashed enemies and suddenly they lighted upon HIM-the kind old man-as he stood afar, full of a magnanimity no tinsel can impose on, a contentment that envies no purple, a celestial wisdom that ranks him with the demigods-O then, then has the tint of E shame suffused my cheeks! then have the feelings which this anniversary I said to myself, Thou art conqueror and peerless; but far more wouldst thou have been, hadst thou longer been HIS disciple and HIS friend.-Behold! all the laurels of Europe and Asia I would but no! no! I cannot give voice to emotions that are unspeakable. Farewell for the present! Tim. And whither goest thou? Alc. Into the free air! The fieldthe ride the chase-must dissipate awakened, and our conversation has embittered!-Enough! When thou shalt one day collect my ashes-when the accusations of my enemies are heard more loud than now-then wilt thou have some grounds more than hitherto thou knewest of to urge in my defence; but then, too, wilt thou recall one point, wherein I blushed not to be my own accuser! Far from Athens-for the second time an exile--his country still possessed the heart of Alcibiades. And still, at Sparta and Samos, at Athens and Miletus, in Europe and in Asia, he had his correspondents and intelligencers. He, in his Thracian hold, often knew before the Attic council what was doing in the fleet, and before the Athenian commanders what was doing in the city. The Peloponnesian war was raging with unmitigated fury. Twenty-five years had not abated the vehemence of mutual hatred in the bosoms of the great belligerents. Athens, so frequently on the brink of destruction, makes one more convulsive effort has one more day of triumph. Seventy-seven vessels of the enemy sunk or taken the Spartan admiral drowned-the Spartan squadron reduced to a single galley-the whole Asian coast strewn with wreck and corses-such was the tale of ARGINUSÆ. But oh the accursed spirit of democracy, and its accursed instruments! Every reader of ancient annals knows what followed this splendid victory, and how it was accomplished. When we call to mind that the successful commanders charged with omitting to collect the bodies of the Athenian slain, and to save the survivors out of the lost vessels, an omission for which tempestuous weather was responsible-when we call to mind that these gallant men, these preservers of their country-all of them, at least, whom the sovereign people could lay hold of-were delivered over, for their reward, under a mockery of legal form, to the hands of the executioner-let us never forget, at the same time, that the scoundrel demagogues, who led the multitude in this act of execrable wickedness, could effect nothing until they called into operation the assistance of the BALLOT. Away now, sapient Grote! Down with the heads and a little more-of the next republican effusion you intend to read to the House of Commons-and pray don't leave out the battle of Argi nusæ. The transports of indignation with which Alcibiades heard this news we will not describe. His first consolation was a present made him by Timandra. Returning from one of his Thracian campaigns, he was greeted by the smiles of a daughter, born during his brief absence. That daughter was the celebrated LAIS. Believe us, good reader, we beseech thee. Timandra was her mother, on first-rate evidence; and Plutarch makes a slight mistake in calling Sicily her birth-place. Winter passes away. Spring arrives. The fleet of Athens is at Ægospo tami, in the Thracian Chersonese, not far from Alcibiades. At the head of the hostile navy is Lysander, too terrible an "opposite" for the six commanders of the Athenian force. Three days' observation of the manoeuvres on either side make this plain to the Son of Clinias. On the fourth he mounts his swiftest horse-the gift of Seuthes-and gallops off for Egospotami. sun has long gone down, and he has not yet returned. Towards midnight an anxious group assemble in the chamber of Timandra. The Antisth. One hour later, and I give up all hope. Dioph. Perhaps 'tis a propitious sign, that they let him not depart so soon. Tim. My heart presages the contrary. For many a fight already have I seen him sail, and trembled less than to-day, when he mounted horse. Who can hate him more bitterly than they do? They who foresee-in his restoration to Athens-the obscuration of their own renown! Who-(A noise without). All at once. O that that were he! Slave (entering). My mistress, our lord is just returned. Tim. Away, away to meet him! Slave. He is already here. (ALCIBIADES rushes in. His hair disordered. His eye restless. His whole appearance singularly wild). Tim. Welcome, welcome, thou vagrant! I began to fear thou would'st not keep thy word. (Embracing him, and then first perceiving his plight). But how Alc. O away, away with your eyes! Not Alcibiades, only his shadow has returned. To-day, to-day, has my country for the first time cast me off; and ripe for the sickle of destruction do I leave her. Antisth. and Dioph. By thy life and ours, what has befallen thee? Alc. (laughing bitterly). O, me nothing! At least, nothing for the present; though more-all the morefor the future. Ah, I hear them already rustling, the wings of approaching ruin! I see her already overthrown --the queen of cities, the sovereign of islands, the pearl in the girdle of the Graces! Witness for me, ye righteous gods, I have done what became me! Guiltless of my country's fall have I returned from thence. Tim. What, then, they have not listened to thee?-have not followed thine advice? Alc. No! that have they not!And yet, if ever words flowed convincingly from Grecian lips-if ever warrior offered himself for noble deeds if ever truth arrayed herself upon the side of patriot's counsel-such case this day was mine. But in vain, all in vain! The times, when Orpheus moved rocks, are gone! O Diophantes, O Antistheus, remember my words!— a few days more, and Lysander has destroyed their last defence-throws chains upon the citizens of Athensand fire into her ships, her havens, and her citadel. O my country, my country! to what blind guides dost thou commit thyself, since thou hast slain or banished those who saw ! Dioph, And wilt thou not yet tell us what thy counsel was? Alc. O, willingly! Look here! In this letter, which you, Antistheus, brought me, Seuthes proffers an army of four thousand men to my free disposal. That I should lead them--and that he himself should be henceforth an ally of the Athenians-were his sole conditions. (With a forced calmness). They rejected his offer with a sort of sneering acknowledgment. (Again with heat). That their present position was full of danger-their conduct inconsiderate-Lysander's apparent quiet formidable-all this I proved to them by arguments, at which envy itself could only show its teeth, not laugh--and they were silent! That, if they would sail for Sestos, and take me along with them, I would there, within three days, force the enemy to combat, or to a surrender of his conquests that, with a stout band of well-armed Thracians, I would fall upon his camp, and compel him to abandon it ;-for this I pledged myself, and was able to have kept my pledge. Then, with an insolent tone, with eyes that gladly would have wounded, words that gladly would have slain, Tydeus at last arose, and bade me depart. The rest assented. Conon alone was silent. Still I lingered, still I warned them—and obeyed not till my own life was in danger, and the furious Menander had ten times bawled to me that they-not I were generals there. Antisth. The blinded |