Cyropaedia: The Education of Cyrus — Book IV - Chapter 6
[C.
6] While they were concerned with these matters, an old Assyrian prince, Gobryas by name, presented himself before Cyrus, mounted on horseback and with a mounted retinue behind him, all of them armed as cavalry.
The Persian officers who were appointed to receive the weapons bade them hand over their lances and have them burnt with the rest, but Gobryas said he wished to see Cyrus first.
At that the adjutants led him in, but they made his escort stay where they were.
[2] When the old man came before Cyrus, he addressed him at once, saying: "My lord, I am an Assyrian by birth; I have a strong fortress in my territory, and I rule over a wide domain; I have cavalry at my command, two thousand three hundred of them, all of which I offered to the king of Assyria; and if ever he had a friend, that friend was I. But he has fallen at your hands, the gallant heart, and his son, who is my bitterest foe, reigns in his stead.
Therefore I have come to you, a suppliant at your feet.
I am ready to be your slave and your ally, and I implore you to be my avenger.
You yourself will be a son to me, for I have no male children now.
[3] He whom I had, my only son, he was beautiful and brave, my lord, and loved me and honoured me as a father rejoices to be loved.
And this vile king--his father, my old master, had sent for my son, meaning to give him his own daughter in marriage; and I let my boy go, with high hopes and a proud heart, thinking that when I saw him again the king's daughter would be his bride.
And the prince, who is now king, invited him to the chase, and bade him do his best, for he thought himself far the finer horseman of the two.
So they hunted together, side by side, as though they were friends, and suddenly a bear appeared, and the two of them gave chase, and the king's son let fly his javelin, but alas!
he missed his aim, and then my son threw--oh, that he never had!
--and laid the creature low.
[4] The prince was stung to the quick, though for the moment he kept his rancour hidden.
But, soon after that, they roused a lion, and then he missed a second time--no unusual thing for him, I imagine--but my son's spear went home, and he brought the beast down, and cried, 'See, I have shot but twice, and killed each time!'
And at this the monster could not contain his jealousy; he snatched a spear from one of his followers and ran my son through the body, my only son, my darling, and took his life.
[5] And I, unhappy that I am, I, who thought to welcome a bride-groom, carried home a corpse.
I, who am old, buried my boy with the first down on his chin, my brave boy, my well-beloved.
And his assassin acted as though it were an enemy that he had done to death.
He never showed one sign of remorse, he never paid one tribute of honour to the dead, in atonement for his cruel deed.
Yet his own father pitied me, and showed that he could share the burden of my grief.
[6] Had he lived, my old master, I would never have come to you to do him harm; many a kindness have I received from him, and many a service have I done him.
But now that his kingdom has descended to my boy's murderer--I could never be loyal to that man, and he, I know, could never regard me as a friend.
He knows too well how I feel towards him, and how, after my former splendour, I pass my days in mourning, growing old in loneliness and grief.
[7] If you can receive me, if you can give me some hope of vengeance for my dear son, I think I should grow young again, I should not feel ashamed to live, and when I came to die I should not die in utter wretchedness."
[8] So he spoke, and Cyrus answered: "Gobryas, if your heart be set towards us as you say, I receive you as my suppliant, and I promise, God helping me, to avenge your son.
But tell me," he added, "if we do this for you, and if we suffer you to keep your stronghold, your land, your arms, and the power which you had, how will you serve us in return?"
[9] And the old man answered: "My stronghold shall be yours, to live in as often as you come to me;
the tribute which I used to pay to Assyria shall be paid to you; and whenever you march out to war, I will march at your side with the men from my own land.
Moreover, I have a daughter, a well-beloved maiden, ripe for marriage; once I thought of bringing her up to be the bride of the man who is now king; but she besought me herself, with tears, not to give her to her brother's murderer, and I have no mind to oppose her.
And now I will put her in your hands, to deal with as I shall deal with you."
[10] So it came to pass that Cyrus said, "On the faith that you have spoken truly and with true intent, I take your hand and I give you mine;
let the gods be witness."
And when this was done, Cyrus bade the old man depart in peace, without surrendering his arms, and then he asked him how far away he lived, "Since," said he, "I am minded to visit you."
And Gobryas answered, "If you set off early to-morrow, the next day you may lodge with us."
[11] With that he took his own departure, leaving a guide for Cyrus.
Then the Medes presented themselves; they had set apart for the gods what the Persian Priests thought right, and had left it in their hands, and they had chosen for Cyrus the finest of all the tents, and a lady from Susa, of whom the story says that in all Asia there was never a woman so fair as she, and two singing-girls with her, the most skilful among the musicians.
The second choice was for Cyaxares, and for themselves they had taken their fill of all they could need on the campaign, since there was abundance of everything.
[12] The Hyrcanians had all they wanted too, and they made the messenger from Cyaxares share and share alike with them.
The tents which were left over they delivered to Cyrus for his Persians; and the coined money they said should be divided as soon as it was all collected, and divided it was.
NOTES
C1.
10. Two theories of hedonism: (1) Cyaxares' "Economise the greatest joy when you have got it," and by contrast (2) Cyrus' roaming from joy to joy.
C1.
22. Xenophon the Artist: the "kinsman" of Cyrus again, and the light by-play to enliven the severe history.
The economic organising genius of Cyrus is also brought out.
C2.
25. No looting, an order of the Duke of Wellington, Napier, Wolseley.
C2.
32. Cf.
modern times; humane orders, but strict.
C2.
34. The question of commissariat.
Would a modern force storm a camp without taking rations?
I dare say they would.
C2.
37. Notice the tone he adopts to these slaves; no bullying, but appealing to appetite and lower motives.
This is doubtless Xenophontine and Hellenic.
C2.
38. Important as illustrating the stern Spartan self-denial of the man and his followers.
There is a hedonistic test, but the higher hedonism prevails against the lower: ignoble and impolitic to sit here feasting while they are fighting, and we don't even know how it fares with them, our allies.
The style rises and is at times Pauline.
St. Paul, of course, is moving on a higher spiritual plane, but still-- C2.
45, fin.
The Education of Cyrus, Cyropaedia, {Keroupaideia}; the name justified.
C2.
46. Hystaspas' simple response: important, with other passages, to show how naturally it came to them (i. e. the Hellenes and Xenophon) to give a spiritual application to their rules of bodily and mental training.
These things to them are an allegory.
The goal is lofty, if not so sublime as St. Paul's or Comte's, the Christians or Positivists (there has been an alteration for the better in the spiritual plane, and Socrates helped to bring it about, I believe), but _ceteris paribus_, the words of St. Paul are the words of Hystaspas and Xenophon.
They for a corruptible crown, and we for an incorruptible--and one might find a still happier parable!
C2.
46. Fine sentiment, this _noblesse oblige_ (cf.
the archangelic dignity in Milton, _Paradise Lost_, I think).
C2.
47. The aristocratic theory (cf.
modern English "nigger" theory, Anglo-Indian, etc. ).
C3.
3. Xenophon's dramatic skill.
We are made to feel the touch of something galling in the manner of these Median and Hyrcanian troopers.
C3.
4. A 'cute beginning rhetorically, because in the most graceful way possible, and without egotism _versus_ Medes and Hyrcanians, it postulates the Persian superiority, moral, as against the accidental inferiority of the moment caused by want of cavalry and the dependence on others which that involves.
I suppose it's no reflection on Cyrus' military acumen not to foreseen this need.
It would have been premature then, now it organically grows; and there's no great crisis to pass through.
C3.
11. I should have thought this was a dangerous argument; obviously boys do learn better than men certain things.
C3.
12. Short sharp snap of argumentative style.
C3.
19. The antithetic balance and word-jingle, with an exquisite, puristic, precise, and delicate lisp, as of one tasting the flavour of his words throughout.
C3.
23. I think one sees how Xenophon built up his ideal structure on a basis of actual living facts.
The actual diverts the creator of Cyrus from the ideal at times, as here.
It is a slight declension in the character of Cyrus to lay down this law, "equestrian once, equestrian always."
Xenophon has to account for the actual Persian horror of pedestrianism: Cyrus himself can dismount, and so can the Persian nobles with Cyrus the Younger, but still the rule is "never be seen walking;"
and without the concluding paragraph the dramatic narrative that precedes would seem a little bit unfinished and pointless: with the explanation it floats, and we forgive "the archic man" his partiality to equestrianism, as later on we have to forgive him his Median get-up and artificiality generally, which again is contrary to the Xenophontine and the ideal Spartan spirit.
C4.
Xenophon has this theory of mankind: some are fit to rule, the rest to be ruled.
It is parallel to the Hellenic slavery theory.
Some moderns, e. g. Carlyle (Ruskin perhaps) inherit it, and in lieu of Hellenic slavery we have a 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?
