The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children Read Online Free Page B

of Cyme. In my possession are sundry amusing, very original doctor jokes.
    b ) I speak and behave playfully and in a merry way.
    c ) I can compare any man’s face to that of the particular animal that suits him, and thereby cause amusement.
    d ) When it comes to telling riddles, I do not exaggerate when I say that there is none better than myself, and never has been since the time of Necho, that pygmy clown of the Pharaoh Dadkeri-Assi.
    e ) I give an imitation of a cyclops trying to sing.
    f ) I can ingurgitate a pigeon at a mouthful and forty duck eggs in rapid succession.
    g ) I am a dwarf of ridiculous appearance and am skilled at humorous body language to match all occasions.
    h ) I am a eunuch and therefore can be trusted around both wives and daughters; though, like a gelded charger I am far from lacking spirit.
    i ) I know many tricks, such as how to make a man’s face turn green, how to make your guests’ urine phosphorescent, and how, with a tincture of coloquintida, to make it so everything they put in their mouths tastes harsh and disagreeably acrid like wormwood.
    In sum: whether it be engaging in japes, down-to-earth leg-pullings or quips, dealing out pranks or weighty hilarity, you will not find one more skilled, search you from Caria to Euboea, scrounge through distant Thrace or far away Carmania.
    I eagerly await your response.
    Epistle:
     
    Anacreon to Polycrates { in the handwriting of the former’s anagnostes }
 
    To my Lord,
    You have given me an exposition on Hipponax and asked if I have heard of him. The answer is in the affirmative, for he is the author of that piece which begins with the line ‘Very little wit have men who dine on drink’. But he himself does not possess keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas which awaken amusement and pleasure in the least and, to tell the truth, I am rather shocked that you should have become such a fan of his. Simply because he substitutes a spondee for the final iambus of an iambic senarius does not make him a genius. He uses vulgar language. Will you, whose sensibilities I have always considered to be more delicate than the rose, be angry if I say that he is just a fad? And then, my Lord, I understand the interest you might feel in these brothers, Athenis and Bupalos, hanging themselves, but of what use is it to then catalogue the various works of art of the latter? Do you not know that the surest way to bore your reader is to tell him everything? Have I not often told you that less is more? And the word acrasscent, which you use with such authority. Where did you find it, as I have never known any of the old authors to use it, or for that matter any modern? Or yet is it merely a quaint spelling of some common word, as when Sappho uses ‘
zapaton’
for ‘
diabaton’
?

In either case, b
etter if you stick to the old vintage. Furthermore, you should not say ‘make excuses’ but rather ‘apologetic’ just as one should not say ‘make speech’ but rather ‘perorate’ and instead of using ‘make parallels’ use ‘collimate’. But to conclude, talking about the niceties of language when the subject is Hipponax is in itself absurd, and not unlike serving lentils seasoned with myrrh oil.
    XIII.
     
    The palace of Polycrates, the roof covered with quasi-translucent Pentelic stone tiles from Naxos, was splendidly decorated, the floors of certain chambers interlaid with precious stones and agate, others with extravagant mosaics, the walls of all painted with a hundred interesting scenes. One room was frescoed like an ocean deep, with octopuses, urchins, lantern-fish and dolphins, tritons, nereides and sea-dragons. Another had diverse birds of the air admirably depicted flying across wall and ceiling, perched on branches and pecking or scratching at the earth. There was a chamber which displayed scenes from the Cypria of Stasinus, another with scenes from Aesop’s fables. In his room of oddities he had a stuffed