Hear ye my statute, men of Attica--
Ye who of bloodshed judge this primal cause;
Yea, and in future age shall Aegeus's host
Revere this court of jurors. This the hill
Of Ares, seat of Amazons, their tent,
What time 'gainst Theseus, breathing hate, they came,
Waging fierce battle, and their towers upreared,
A counter-fortress to Acropolis;--
To Ares they did sacrifice, and hence
This rock is titled Areopagus.
Here then shall sacred Awe, to Fear allied,
By day and night my lieges hold from wrong,
Save if themselves do innovate my laws,
If thou with mud, or influx base, bedim
The sparkling water, nought thou'lt find to drink.
Nor Anarchy, nor Tyrant's lawless rule
Commend I to my people's reverence;--
Nor let them banish from their city Fear;
For who 'mong men, uncurbed by fear, is just?
Thus holding Awe in seemly reverence,
A bulwark for your State shall ye possess,
A safeguard to protect your city walls,
Such as no mortals otherwhere can boast,
Neither in Scythia, nor in Pelops's realm.
Behold! This Court august, untouched by bribes,
Sharp to avenge, wakeful for those who sleep,
Establish I, a bulwark to this land.
This charge, extending to all future time,
I give my lieges. Meet it as ye rise,
Assume the pebbles, and decide the cause,
Your oath revering. All hath now been said.
From Miss Swanwick's Translation of 'The Eumenides.'
AESOP
(Seventh Century B.C.)
BY HARRY THURSTON PECK
ike Homer, the greatest of the world's epic poets, Aesop (Aesopus), the most famous of the world's fabulists, has been regarded by certain scholars as a wholly mythical personage. The many improbable stories that are told about him gain some credence for this theory, which is set forth in detail by the Italian scholar Vico, who says:--"Aesop, regarded philosophically, will be found not to have been an actually existing man, but rather an abstraction representing a class,"--in other words, merely a convenient invention of the later Greeks, who ascribed to him all the fables of which they could find no certain author.
