good many caste-distinction crotchets still left.
C4.13, fin. The first salaam, ominous of the advent of imperialism; the sun's rim visible, and a ray shot up to the zenith.
C5. Here the question forces itself in the midst of all this 'ironic' waiting on the part of the Persians in Spartan durance for a future apotheosis of splendour and luxuriance,--what is the moral? 'Hunger now and thirst, for ye shall be filled'--is that it? Well, anyhow it's parallel to the modern popular Christianity, reward-in-heaven theory, only on a less high level, but exactly the same logicality.
C5.6. A point, this reward to the catcher, and this rigid /couvrefeu/ habit (cf. modern military law).
C5.8. A dramatic contrast, the Median Cyaxares who follows Pleasure, and the Persian Cyrus who follows Valour, /vide/ Heracles' choice [/Memorabilia/, II. i. 21]. This allegorising tendency is engrained in Xenophon: it is his view of life; one of the best things he got from Socrates, no doubt. Later (§ 12) the 'ironic' suicidal self- assertion of Cyaxares is contrasted with the health-giving victorious self- repression of Cyrus.
C5.9-10. Xenophon can depict character splendidly: this is the crapulous {orge} of the somewhat 'hybristic' nature, seeing how the land lies, /siccis luminibus/, the day after the premature revel. Theophrastus couldn't better have depicted the irascible man. These earliest portraits of character are, according to Xenophon's genius, all sketched in the concrete, as it were. The character is not philosophised and then illustrated by concrete instances after the manner of Theophrastus, but we see the man moving before us and are made aware of his nature at once.
C5.17. {kalos ka nomimos}, 'in all honour, and according to the law,' almost a Xenophontine motto, and important in reference to the 'questionable' conduct on his part in exile--'questionable' from a modern rather than an 'antique' standard. [The chief reference is to Xenophon's presence on the Spartan side at the battle of Coronea against his native city of Athens. See /Sketch/, Works, Vol. I. pp. cxxiii. ff.]
C5.20. The 'archic man' does not recognise the littleness of soul of the inferior nature, he winks at it, and so disarms at once and triumphs over savagery, and this not through cunning and pride, but a kind of godlike imperturbable sympathy, as of a fearless man with a savage hound. Still there is a good dash of diplomacy.
C5.21, fin. Pretty sentence. Xenophon's words: some of these are prettily-sounding words, some are rare and choice and exquisite, some are charged with feeling, you can't touch them with your finger-tips without feeling an 'affective' thrill. That is in part the /goeteia/, the witchery, of his style.
C5.30-31. A brilliant stroke of diplomacy worthy of the archic man. This {arkinoia} of the Hellene is the necessary sharp shrewdness of a brain, which, however 'affectively' developed, is at bottom highly organised intellectually. H. S.[*] has it, all 'cute people and nations have it, the Americans, e.g.--every proposition must, however else it presents itself, be apprehended in its logical bearings: the result may be logically damaging to the supporter of it, but does not necessarily banish an affective sympathetic attitude on the part of the common-sense antagonist, who is not bound, in other words, to be a sharp practitioner because he sees clearly. Affection is the inspirer, intellect the up-and-doing agent of the soul. The Hellenes and all 'cute people put the agent to the fore in action, but if besides being 'cute they are affective, the operations of the agent will be confined within prescribed limits.
[* 'H. S.' = Henry Sidgwick, the philosopher, author of /Methods of Ethics/, etc., a life-long friend of Mr. Dakyns.]
C5.32. This is almost pummelling, but it's fair: it's rather, 'See, I have you now in Chancery, I could pummel if I would.'
C5.37. These constant masters' meetings!
C5.38 ff. The mind of Xenophon: guiding principles, rule of Health, rule of Forethought. Religious trust in the divine, and for things beyond man's control; orderly masterly working out of problems within his power. Economic, diplomatic, anchinoetic, archic manhood. Moral theory, higher hedonism.
C5.45. The archic man trusts human nature: this appeal to their good faith is irresistible. The archic is also the diplomatic method.
C5.54. N.B.--Rhetorical artifice of winding-up a speech with a joke. This is the popular orator. Xenophon the prototype himself perhaps.
C6.3. Is this by chance a situation in Elizabethan or other drama? It's tragic enough for anything.
C6.4. Admirable colloquial style: 'well done, me!'
C6.6, fin. Beautifully-sounding sentence [in the Greek]. Like harp or viol with its dying mournful note.
C6.8. A new tributary for the archic man, and a foothold in the enemy's country.
C6.9, fin. As to this daughter, /vide infra/. Who do you think will win her? We like her much already.
C6.11. The first flutings of this tale. The lady of Susa, quasi- historic, or wholly imaginative, or mixed?
BOOK V
[C.1] Such were the deeds they did and such the words they spoke. Then Cyrus bade them set a guard over the share chosen for Cyaxares, selecting those whom he knew were most attached to their lord, 'And what you have given me,' he added, 'I accept with pleasure, but I hold it at the service of those among you who would enjoy it the most.'
At that one of the Medes who was passionately fond of music said, 'In truth, Cyrus, yesterday evening I listened to the singing-girls who are yours to-day, and if you could give me one of them, I would far rather be serving on this campaign than sitting at home.'
And Cyrus said, 'Most gladly I will give her; she is yours. And I believe I am more grateful to you for asking than you can be to me for giving; I am so thirsty to gratify you all.'
So this suitor carried off his prize. [2] And then Cyrus called to his side Araspas the Mede, who had been his comrade in boyhood. It was he to whom Cyrus gave the Median cloak he was wearing when he went back to Persia from his grandfather's court. Now he summoned him, and asked him to take care of the tent and the lady from Susa. [3] She was the wife of Abradatas, a Susian, and when the Assyrian army was captured it happened that her husband was away: his master had sent him on an embassy to Bactria to conclude an alliance there, for he was the friend and host of the Bactrian king. And now Cyrus asked Araspas to guard the captive lady until her husband could take her back himself. [4] To that Araspas replied, 'Have you seen the lady whom you bid me guard?'
'No, indeed,' said Cyrus, 'certainly I have not.'
'But I have,' rejoined the other, 'I saw here when we chose her for you. When we came into the tent, we did not make her out at first, for she was seated on the ground with all her maidens round her, and she was clad in the same attire as her slaves, but when we looked at them all to discover the mistress, we soon saw that one outshone the others, although she was veiled and kept her eyes on the ground. [5] And when we bade her rise, all her women rose with her, and then we saw that she was marked out from them all by her height, and her noble bearing, and her grace, and the beauty that shone through her mean apparel. And, under her veil, we could see the big tear-drops trickling down her garments to her feet. [6] At that sight the eldest of us said, 'Take comfort, lady, we know that your husband was beautiful and brave, but we have chosen you a man to-day who is no whit inferior to him in face or form or mind or power; Cyrus, we believe, is more to be admired than any soul on earth, and you shall be his from this day forward.' But when the lady heard that, she rent the veil that covered her head and gave a pitiful cry, while her maidens lifted up their voice and wept with their mistress. [7] And thus we could see her face, and her neck, and her arms, and I tell you, Cyrus,' he added, 'I myself, and all who looked on her, felt that there never was, and never had been, in broad Asia a mortal woman half so fair as she. Nay, but you must see her for yourself.'
[8] 'Say, rather, I must not,' answered Cyrus, 'if she be such as you describe.'
'And why not?' asked the young man.
'Because,' said he, 'if the mere report of her beauty could persuade me to go and gaze on her to-day, when I have not a moment to spare, I fear she would win me back again and perhaps I should neglect all I have to do, and sit and gaze at her for ever.'
[9] At that the young man laughed outright and said:
'So you think, Cyrus, that the beauty of any human creature can compel a man to do wrong against his will? Surely if that were the nature of beauty, all men would feel its force alike. [10] See how fire burns all men equally; it is the nature of it so to do; but these flowers of beauty, one man loves them, and another loves them not, nor does every man love the same. For love is voluntary, and each man loves what he chooses to love. The brother is
