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Page 15
But temperament cannot be changed by persuasion and counsel, nor by
enlightenment. The young man, eager, ardent, and full of courage, no
sooner felt the promptings of his years than he sighed for the
forbidden pleasures. The greater the hindrance the stronger the desire.
Knowing the reason of his galling restrictions, and viewing day by day
in his palatial home the hunting scenes pictured in paint and tapestry
on every wall, his excitement became unrestrained.
Once his eye fell upon a pictured lion. "Ah! Monster!" he exclaimed in a
transport of indignation. "It is to you that the shade and fetters in
which I live are due!" With that he struck the lion's form a heavy blow
with his fist. Hidden under the tapestry a great nail offered its cruel
point, and upon this his hand was impaled. The wound grew beyond the
reach of medical skill, and in the end this life, so guarded and
cherished, was lost by means of the very care taken to preserve it.
The same jealous precaution proved fatal to the poet �schylus. It is
said that some fortune-teller menaced him with the fall of a house as
his doom, upon which he at once left the town and made his bed in the
open fields, far from roofs and beneath the sky. But an eagle flew by
overhead carrying in its talons a tortoise, and seeing the bald head of
the poet beneath, which it mistook for a stone, the bird let fall its
prey in order to break the shell of the tortoise. Thus were the days of
poor �schylus ended.
From these two examples it would seem that this art of fortune-telling,
if there be any truth in it, causes one to fall into the very evil one
would be in dread of when one consulted it. But I will demonstrate and
maintain that the art is false. I do not believe that Nature would have
tied her own hands, and ours also, to the extent of marking our fate in
the heavens. For our fate depends upon certain combinations of time,
place, and people; not upon the combinations of charlatans. A shepherd
and a king are born under the same planet: one carries the sceptre; the
other the crook. The planet Jupiter willed it so! But what is this
planet Jupiter? A body without senses. Whence comes it then that its
influence works so differently on these two men? Further, how could its
influence, if it had any, penetrate through endless voids to our world?
* * * * *
Do not attach too much importance to the two instances I have related.
This beloved son and the good man �schylus are beside the mark.
Nevertheless, however blind and lying is the fortuneteller's art, it may
yet hit home once in a thousand times. That is just a matter of chance.
[Illustration]
XXI
JUPITER AND THE THUNDERBOLTS
(BOOK VIII--No. 20)
One day, as Jupiter seated on high looked down upon the world, he was
incensed at the faults committed by mankind. "Let us," he said, "have
some other occupants in the regions of the universe in place of these
present inhabitants who importune and weary me. Go you to Hades,
Mercury, and bring hither the cruellest of the furies. This time, O race
that I have too tenderly nurtured, you shall perish."
After this outburst the temper of the god began to cool.
O ye sovereigns of this world, to whom it has been given to be the
arbiters of our destinies, let a night intervene between your wrath and
the storm which follow!
Mercury, light of wing and sweet of tongue, descended to the abode of
the dread sisters Tisiphone, Meg�ra, and Alecto, and his choice fell
upon the latter, the pitiless one. She, feeling proud of the preference,
grew so arrogant as to swear by Pluto that the whole of the human brood
should soon people his domains. But Jupiter did not approve of the vow
this member of the Eumenides had sworn, and he sent her back to Hades.
At the same time he launched a thunderbolt upon one particularly
perfidious race of men. This, however, being hurled by a father's arm,
mercifully fell in a desert, causing less ruin than alarm. What followed
from this was simply that the wicked brood took heart at such indulgence
and did not trouble to mend their ways. Then all the gods in Olympus
complained, until he who controls the clouds swore by the Styx that
further storms should be sent and that they should not fail as the other
had.
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