2. But such was not the opinion of my master Socrates. For once when he saw a youth of handsome appearance who remained for a long time without uttering a syllable, he said to him, 'Say something, that I may see what you are like.' For Socrates felt that a man who spoke not at all was in a sense invisible, since he held that it was not with the bodily vision, but with the mind's eye and the sight of the soul that men should be regarded. In this he disagreed with the soldier in [Plautus], who says,
One man that has eyes is better by far as a witness than ten that have ears.
Indeed, for the purpose of examining men he had practically reversed the meaning of the line to
One man that has ears is better by far as a witness than ten that have eyes.
Moreover, if the judgements of the eye were of greater value than those of the soul, we should assuredly have to yield the palm for wisdom to the eagle. For we men cannot see things far removed from us nor yet things that are very near us, but all of us to a certain extent are blind. And if you confine us to the eyes alone with their dim earthly vision, the words of [the great poet] will be very true, that a cloud as it were is shed upon our eyes and we cannot see beyond a stone's cast. The eagle, on the other hand, soars exceeding high in heaven to the very clouds, and rides on his pinions through all that space where there is rain and snow, regions beyond whose heights thunderbolts and lightnings have no place, even to the very floor of heaven and the topmost verge of the storms of earth. And having towered thus high, with gentle motion he turns his great body to glide to left or right, directing his wings, that are as sails, whither he will by the movement of his tail, which, small though it be, serves as a rudder. Thence he gazes down on the world, staying awhile in that far height[36] the ceaseless oarage of his wings and, poised almost motionless with hovering flight, looks all around him and seeks what prey he shall choose whereon to swoop[37] sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven on high. In one glance he sees all cattle in the field, all beasts upon the mountains, all men in their cities, all threatened at once by his intended swoop, and thence he falls to pierce with his beak and clutch with his claws the unsuspecting lamb, the timid hare, or whatsoever living creature chance offers to his hunger or his talons.
The story of Marsyas and his challenge to Apollo.
3. Hyagnis, according to tradition, was the father and instructor of the piper Marsyas, and skilled in song beyond all others in the years when music was still in its infancy. It is true that as yet the sound of his breath lacked the finer modulations; he knew but a few simple modes and his pipe had but few stops. For the art was but newly born and only just beginning to grow. There is nothing that can attain perfection in its first beginnings; everything must commence by mastering the elements in hope, ere it can attain experience and success. Well, then, before Hyagnis the majority of musicians could do no more than the shepherds or cowherds of [Vergil] who
Made sorry strains on pipes of scrannel straw.
If any of them seemed to have made some real advance in art, even he played only on one pipe or one trumpet. Hyagnis was the first to separate his hands when he played, the first to fill two pipes with one breath, the first to finger stops with either hand and make sweet harmony of shrill treble and booming bass. Marsyas was his son, and though he possessed his father's skill upon the pipe, he was in all else a barbarous Phrygian, with a filthy beard and the grim and shaggy face of a wild beast. All his body was covered with hair and bristles, and yet—good heavens! he is said to have striven for mastery with Apollo. 'Twas hideousness contending with beauty, a rude boor against a sage, a beast against a god. The Muses and Minerva, hiding their amusement, stood by to judge, that they might make a mockery of the monster's uncouth presumption and punish his stupidity. But Marsyas, like the peerless fool he was, never perceived that he was an object of ridicule, and before he began to blow upon his pipes stammered out in his barbarous jargon some insane boasts about himself and Apollo. He prided himself on the mane thrown back from his brow, on his unkempt beard, his shaggy breast, his skill upon the pipes and his lack of wealth. By contrast—oh the absurdity of it!—he blamed Apollo for the opposite of these qualities, for being Apollo, for wearing his hair long, for having a fair face and smooth body, for his skill in so many arts, and for the opulence of his fortune. 'In the first place,' he said, 'his hair is smoothed and plastered into tufts and curls that fall about his brow and hang before his face. His body is fair from head to foot, his limbs shine bright, his tongue gives oracles, and he is equally eloquent in prose or verse, propose which you will. What of his robes so fine in texture, so soft to the touch, aglow with purple? What of his lyre that flashes gold, gleams white with ivory, and shimmers with rainbow gems? What of his song, so cunning and so sweet? Nay, all these allurements suit with naught save luxury. To virtue they bring shame alone!' And then he proceeded to display his own body as the model of perfection. The Muses laughed when they heard him denounce Apollo for possessing gifts such as the wise would pray to possess, and when this boastful piper had been defeated in the contest and had been skinned as though he were a two-footed bear, they left him with his entrails torn and exposed to the air. Thus did Marsyas sing for his own undoing, and such was his fall. As for Apollo he was ashamed of so inglorious a victory.