The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece
History
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece
Literature -- Collections
The younger son gone, he turned to the elder and asked him what it was
that their grandfather had said to them. Then the son related in how
kind and friendly a fashion the grandfather had received them; but,
not having taken any notice of the speech which Procles had uttered at
parting, he quite forgot to mention it. Periander insisted that it was
not possible this should be all--their grandfather must have given
them some hint or other--and he went on pressing his son till at last
he remembered the parting speech and told it. Periander, after he had
turned the whole matter over in his thoughts and felt unwilling to
give way at all, sent a messenger to the persons who had opened their
houses to his outcast son and forbade them to harbor him. Then the
boy, when he had been driven from one friend, sought refuge with
another, but was forced from shelter to shelter by the threats of his
father, who menaced all those that took him in, and commanded them to
shut their doors against him. Still, as fast as he was forced to leave
one house he went to another, and was received by the inmates; for his
acquaintances, altho in no small alarm, yet gave him shelter, as he
was Periander's son.
At last Periander made proclamation that whoever harbored his son, or
even spoke to him, should forfeit a certain sum of money to Apollo. On
hearing this no one any longer liked to take him in, or even to hold
converse with him, and he himself did not think it right to seek to do
what was forbidden; so, abiding by his resolve, he made his lodging in
the public porticoes. When four days had passed in this way,
Periander, seeing how wretched his son was, that he neither washed nor
took any food, felt moved with compassion toward him; wherefore,
foregoing his anger, he approached the lad, and said, "Which is
better, oh, my son, to fare as now thou farest or to receive my crown
and all the good things that I possess, on the one condition of
submitting thyself to thy father? See, now, tho my own child, and lord
of this wealthy Corinth, thou hast brought thyself to a beggar's life,
because thou must resist and treat with anger him whom it least
behooves thee to oppose. If there has been a calamity, and thou
bearest me ill will on that account, bethink thee that I too feel it,
and am the greater sufferer, inasmuch as it was by me that the deed
was done. For thyself, now that thou knowest how much better a thing
it is to be envied than pitied, and how dangerous it is to indulge
anger against parents and superiors, come back with me to thy home."
With such words as these did Periander chide his son; but the latter
made no reply except to remind his father that he was indebted to the
god in the penalty for coming and holding converse with him. Then
Periander knew there was no cure for the youth's malady, nor means of
overcoming it; so he prepared a ship and sent him away out of his
sight to Corcyra,[17] which island at that time belonged to him. As
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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