Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

7520

Lucian, The Sky-Man, 13

nan Me. Why, to be sure! how did I come to leave out so essential a particular? I had made out the Earth, you see, but could not distinguish any details; the distance was so great, quite beyond the scope of my vision; so I was much chagrined and baffled. At this moment of depression — I was very near tears — who should come up behind me but Empedocles the physicist? His complexion was like charcoal variegated with ashes, as if he had been baked. I will not deny that I felt some tremors at the sight of him, taking him for some lunar spirit. But he said: ‘Do not be afraid, Menippus;A mortal I, no God; how vain thy dreams.I am Empedocles the physicist. When I threw myself into the crater in such a hurry, the smoke of Etna whirled me off up here; and now I live in the Moon, doing a good deal of high thinking on a diet of dew. So I have come to help you out of your difficulty; you are distressed, I take it, at not being able to see everything on the Earth.’ ‘Thank you so much, you good Empedocles,’ I said; ‘as soon as my wings have brought me back to Greece, I will remember to pour libations to you up the chimney, and salute you on the first of every month with three moonward yawns.’ ‘Endymion be my witness,’ he replied, ‘I had no thought of such a bargain; I was touched by the sight of your distress. Now, what do you think is the way to sharpen your sight?’

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subject	book bibliographic info
antipater	Amendola (2022) 411
dinarchus of corinth (politician)	Amendola (2022) 411
parallelism'	Amendola (2022) 411
pella	Amendola (2022) 411