Page:Lucian (IA lucianlucas00collrich).pdf/126

116 he protests against betraying the secrets of hospitality; he declares that, like the poet, he "hates a guest who has a retentive memory;" but since the tale has already, he finds, got abroad,—why, perhaps he had better tell it himself, in order that at least it may be told truly. His friend is sure that in point of fact he is burning to tell it, and threatens, if he affects any more scruple in the matter, to go to some one else for his information.

Then Lucian begins his narrative. There had been invited to this banquet representatives of all the different schools,—Stoic, Peripatetic, and Epicurean, and a "grammarian" (what we should call a "literary man") and a rhetorician besides. Io the Platonist, known in the circles of schoolmen as "The Model," tutor to the young bridegroom, also enters among the guests, and is treated by the host and by most of the company with great consideration and respect, though the Stoic insisted upon being assigned the highest seat. Alcidamas, the Cynic, came in last, without an invitation, quoting, as an impudent sort of apology, the words of Homer—

To which one of the guests whispered a very apposite reply from the same poet—

The good host, however, though all the seats were already filled, with much courtesy offered him a stool; but this the Cynic declined as an effeminate and needless luxury. He preferred, he said, to take his food standing; and accordingly ate his supper, as Lucian