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Tell him that I shall want not a few books for the purpose, and moreover the help of Greeks, and that therefore I require support. In saying this, Battus, you will be telling no lies. For I really mean to do all this. He was, indeed, in a serious mood on this point, as he was soon to prove to the world. His conquest of Greek was a veritable feat of heroism.
"Grant me patience," would Battus reply; "here am I getting into years, and never do I consult the Oracle about my precious sight, but you, King Phoebus, begin your old yarn about Cyrene. Confound Cyrene! Nobody knows where it is. But, if you are serious, speak to my son he's a likely young man, and worth a hundred of old rotten hulks, like myself."
But I, Milon, am in love for almost eleven days! Milan. 'Tis easily seen that thou drawest from a wine-cask, while even vinegar is scarce with me. Battus. And for Love's sake, the fields before my doors are untilled since seed-time. Milan. But which of the girls afflicts thee so? Battus. The daughter of Polybotas, she that of late was wont to pipe to the reapers on Hippocoon's farm. Milan.
Wretched enough in truth, and they have no more care to pasture. Battus. Nothing is left, now, of that heifer, look you, bones, that's all. She does not live on dewdrops, does she, like the grasshopper? Corydon. No, by Earth, for sometimes I take her to graze by the banks of Aesarus, fair handfuls of fresh grass I give her too, and otherwhiles she wantons in the deep shade round Latymnus. Battus.
Tisamenus, soothsayer to the Greek army, consulted the oracle at Delphi concerning his lack of offspring, when he was told by the Pythia that he would win five glorious combats; and when Battus asked about his voice he was told "to establish a city in Libya abounding in fleeces." Such freaks are common with the modern Pythia. The resemblance is complete.
It was sometimes hard for him to restrain his indignation before the insolence and partiality of the victors: once, for instance, he appealed to the general in command to obtain for the French wounded an equal portion of the bread given to the Prussians; but he was pushed by the shoulder to an open window, from which the French army could be seen, and the general exclaimed pointing to the soldiers in the distance: "Vous n'aurez rien, rien! tant que nous ne les aurons pas battus!... allez!..."
And he told us a jest of Battus, Caesar's jester, who called those that came late supper-lovers, because out of their love to entertainments, though they had business, they would not desire to be excused.
Certainly no such fancies were to be expected from the French peasants of Fontenelle's age, 'creatures blackened with the sun, and bowed with labour and hunger. The imaginative grace of Battus is quite as remote from our own hinds.
They shall sit one beside the other, each holding a spear in the right hand, and between them, in the centre, there shall be a dog, and above them a small head of Vulcan, wearing a little cap, with a smith's pincers beside it. In the other horn, next to the façade at the head, you must paint a Battus being converted into stone for having revealed the cattle stolen by Mercury.
"BERLIN, ce 10 de Janv. 1757. Si nous somes battus en Saxse du Cote de leipssic Le Lieu Le plus propre pour Le transport de La famille et du Tressor est a Custrin, il faut en ce Cas que la famille Royalle et touts cidesus nomez aillent esCortez de toute La Guarnisson a Custrin.
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