3
But I must sketch you the whole drama in detail. As to our author, I say nothing: you know the man, you know the sublime utterances that marked his earthly course, outvoicing Sophocles and Aeschylus.
3
Well, the first thing I did when I got to Elis was to take a turn in the gymnasium, listening the while to the discordant yells of some Cynic or other;—the usual platitudes, you know; —ringing commendations of Virtue—indiscriminate slaughter of characters—finally, a peroration on the subject of Proteus. I must try and give you the exact words, as far as I can remember them; you will recognize the true Cynic yell, I’ll be bound; you have heard it before.
4
‘Proteus,’ he cried, ‘Proteus vain-glorious? Who dares name the word? Earth! Sun! Seas! Rivers! God of our fathers, Heracles! Was it for this that he suffered bondage in Syria? that he forgave his country a debt of a million odd? that he was cast out of Rome,—he whose brilliance exceeds the Sun, fit rival of the Lord of Olympus? ”Tis his good will to depart from life by fire, and they call it vain-glory!_ What other end had Heracles? Twas the thunderbolt, methinks, that slew Asclepius, DionysusThe allusion to Dionysus is unexplained. The Greek requires a fiery death, not the fiery birth, for which see Dionysus and Semele in Notes.? 'Twas in the crater that Empedocles sought death?’
