6
I wish first of all to paint you a picture in words, like Cebes of old, and show you both the roads; for there are two that lead to Lady Rhetoric, of whom you seem to me exceedingly enamoured. So let her be sitting upon a high place, very fair of face and form, holding in her right hand the Horn of Plenty, which runs over with all manner of fruits. Beside her imagine, pray, that you see Wealth standing, all golden and lovely. Let Fame, too, and Power stand by; and let Compliments, resembling tiny Cupids, swarm all about her on the wing in great numbers from every side. If you have ever seen the Nile represented in a painting, lying on the back of a crocodile or a hippopotamus, such as are frequent in his stream, while tiny infants play beside him—the Egyptians call them cubits— the Compliments that surround Rhetoric are like these.Evidently there were many copies of this picture about, and they were not all exactly alike. The Vatican has a treatment of the theme in sculpture, in which Nile rests upon a sphinx, and has about him sixteen ‘ cubits,” symbolizing the desired yearly rise of his stream.
6
Now you, her lover, approach, desiring, of course, to get upon the summit with all speed in order to marry her when you get there, and to possess all that she has—the Wealth, the Fame, the Compliments; for by law everything accrues to the husband.
7
Then when you draw near the mountain, at first you despair of climbing it, and the thing seems to you just as AornusA table-mountain captured by Alexander on his way to India, 11 stades high at its lowest point, according to Arrian (Alex. 4, 28). Cunningham identifies it ss Ranigat. Tomaschek considers the Greek name derived from Sanscrit avarana by popular etymology; but compare the Avestan name Upairi-saena (above the eagle). looked to the Macedonians when they observed that it was precipitous on every side, truly far from easy even for a bird to fly over, calling for a Dionysus or a Heracles if it were ever going to be taken.
