THIS little piece is a specimen of the paradoxical or humorous encomium, essentially a parody of serious speeches of praise, but practised as an exhibition of rhetorical skills. The structure of The Fly parodies the pattern of serious encomia, which discussed the subject’s origins, virtues, and accomplishments, and we should note here the strong stress on the fly’s virtues. The main point of the piece is thus the ingenuity shown in applying the techniques of a serious oratorical form to a ridiculously trivial subject, so that we find, for example, the august authority of Homer invoked where appropriate to support the writer’s laudatory claims. Furthermore, where Lucian quotes the story that the fly is in origin a girl called Muia, he is using an aetiological fable of a kind familiar to us from the many transformations described in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
The fly is not the smallest of winged creatures if you compare it with gnats and midges and even tinier things, but it is as much larger than those as it is smaller than the bee. It is not feathered like other creatures, with both plumage covering its body and wing-feathers to fly with; but like grasshoppers, cicadas, and bees it has membranous wings which are as much finer than theirs as Indian fabrics are softer and more delicate than Greek ones. What is more, it has all the colours of the peacock if you look closely at it when it spreads its wings in flight against the sun. Its flight is not like bats with a steady wing-beat as of oars, or like the jumping of grasshoppers, or the buzzing of wasps, but it turns easily to any part of the air it wants. It has another characteristic too: its flight is not silent but tuneful—not harsh like midges and gnats, nor a deep humming like bees, nor fierce and threatening like wasps, but much more melodious, just as pipes are more sweet-toned than trumpet and cymbals. As for the rest of its body, the head has a very slight attachment to the neck, and moves around easily, not being an integral part of it like the head of grass-hoppers. The eyes are prominent and have a very horny appearance. The chest is firm, and the feet grow right from the waist, which is not constricted like that of wasps. The abdomen too is fortified, and like a breastplate in having wide bands and scales. But it defends itself not with its tail-end like wasps and bees, but with its mouth and the proboscis, which it possesses as elephants do, and which it uses to forage, seizing and gripping things firmly with a sort of sucker at the end of it. There is also a tooth projecting from it with which the fly makes a puncture and drinks blood (for though it drinks milk too it likes blood), but its punctures do not hurt much. It has six feet but walks only on four, using the front two as hands. So you can see it standing on four legs and holding up a piece of food in its hands, just like us humans.
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It is not born fully formed like this, but starts life as a maggot from the carcass of a man or other animal. Then gradually it develops legs, sprouts wings, and from a creeping creature becomes a flying one, which itself conceives and produces a little maggot, the future fly. Living in men’s society and sharing their food and table, it eats everything except oil—to drink that is fatal to it. It is short-lived anyway, having been allotted a brief life-span, and delights most in daylight and pursues its activities there. It rests at night, neither flying nor buzzing, but hiding quietly away. I can also report its considerable intelligence in avoiding the designs of its enemy the spider, watching carefully as he lays his traps against it and dodging his attack, so as not to be trapped and caught by falling into the creature’s meshes. I need not speak of its courage and bravery, but leave it to that most mighty-voiced of poets, Homer. When he wants to praise the greatest hero,* he doesn’t liken his spirit to a lion’s or a leopard’s or a boar’s, but to the courage of the fly and its fearless and persistent attack—and it is courage he attributes to the fly, not recklessness. For even if driven away, he says, it does not give up but persists in trying to sting. He is so strong in his praise and affection for the fly that he mentions it not just once or twice but frequently: so much does the mention of it contribute to the beauty of his verses! Now he describes them flying in a mass looking for milk;* elsewhere, when Athena deflects an arrow from hitting Menelaus in a vital spot, he compares her to a woman caring for her sleeping child* and uses the fly again in the simile. What is more, he has dignified them with the impressive epithet ‘thronging’ and in calling their swarms ‘nations’.
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The fly is so strong that its bite wounds not only a man’s skin but that of an ox and a horse, and it even causes an elephant distress by burrowing into his wrinkles and stinging him as far as the length of its own proboscis allows. They have a very relaxed approach to sex, love, and mating: the male does not mount the female and straightway jump off like roosters, but covers her for a long time. She carries her mate and they fly together, not endangered in this aerial copulation by the movement of their flight. If a fly’s head is cut off its body goes on living and breathing for a long time.
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I want now to tell you the most remarkable fact about the fly’s nature, and it is the only point I think Plato overlooks in his discussion of the soul and its immortality. If ash is sprinkled on a dead fly it recovers, and from this second birth it has a whole new life. Everyone accepts this as clear proof that flies too have an immortal soul, since it departs and then returns, recognizes and revives its body, and makes the fly take wing again. This also confirms the story about Hermotimus of Clazomenae,* that his soul often left him and went off on its own, subsequently returning to occupy his body again and bring him back to life.
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The fly has a life of ease and idleness, enjoying the fruits of others’ labours and finding itself a full table everywhere. Goats produce milk for it; the bee toils specially for flies and men; cooks season their dishes for it; it tastes the food of kings before they do, walking all over their tables and sharing their enjoyment of all that they feast on. It doesn’t build a nest or lair in one particular place, but like the Scythians it adopts a roaming flight, and makes its home and its bed wherever night happens to overtake it. But, as I said, it is not active in the dark, not deigning to do anything by stealth, and not even considering any shameful action which would disgrace it if done in daylight.
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There is a story that long ago there was a girl called Muia:* she was extremely pretty, but over-talkative, gossipy and fond of singing, and she was a rival to Selene for the love of Endymion. She kept disturbing and waking the lad in his sleep with her chattering and singing, so that he got annoyed and Selene in anger turned her into her present form. This is why in memory of Endymion the fly still grudges all sleepers their rest, especially if they are young and tender, and even its bite and blood-thirstiness is not a sign of cruelty but of love and kindliness. It is getting what enjoyment it can and taking a sip of the flower of beauty.
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There also lived among the ancients a woman of the same name, a very pretty and skilful poetess;* and another who was a famous Athenian courtesan, of whom the comic poet wrote:
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‘Twas Muia bit him to the heart.*
So the spirit of Comedy did not disdain the name of Fly or ban it from the stage, and parents have not been ashamed to call their daughters by it. In fact, Tragedy too has high praise for the fly, as in these lines:
Strange that the fly with mighty strength
Should spring on men athirst for blood,
While soldiers armed should dread the foeman’s spear.*
I could say a lot too about Muia the Pythagorean* if her story were not familiar to all.
There are also some very large flies which many people call soldier-flies, and others dog-flies. They have a very strident buzz, fly very fast, and are extremely long-lived. They can last through the whole winter without food, mostly hiding under roofs. They are chiefly remarkable for being bisexual, mounting and mounted by their mates in turn, like the child of Hermes and Aphrodite who had a mixed nature and twofold beauty.*
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But I must stop though I have still a lot to say, lest you think, as the proverb puts it, that I am making an elephant out of a fly.*