François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon: Telemachus, Son of Ulysses. Books VII-XI. Patrick Riley translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Telemachus and Mentor escape Calypso on a Phoenician vessel bound for Epirus and captained by Adoam, the brother of their friend, Narbal. Telemachus lets mentor do the talking, as “the faultiness of his conduct in the isle of Calypso had much increased his wisdom,” making him “more aware of his own weakness,” including his propensity to run his mouth (VII.98). Adoam, who recognizes Telemachus from the previous voyage to Egypt, reports that Astarbé poisoned the tyrant Pygmalion; upon being arrested, the queen poisoned herself. Pygmalion’s good son, Baleazar, inherited the throne of Phoenicia. A pious man, Baleazar regularly sacrifices to the gods, works to rebuild Phoenicia’s commercial life, “consults Narbal in all matters of importance” while not neglecting “to see everything with his own eyes” (VII.105). He retains “the best of all guards, namely the love of his people,” having left them in the enjoyment of their own property and hence neither “idle nor indolent” but “industrious” (VII.105). “Thus Phoenicia has arrived at the highest pinnacle of glory and grandeur” (VII.106).
Adoam puts on a shipboard feast, which Telemachus initially fears to enjoy. “Since the mortifying proof he had experienced in the isle of Calypso, how violent the passions of youth are, he was afraid even of the most innocent pleasures; all was now suspect to him” (VII.107). Mentor kindly remarks that “such fear may be carried too far,” and goes on to instruct him in the governance of pleasure. “The pleasures to be indulged are such as will relax the mind, yet leave you in possession of yourself; not such as will bewitch and enslave you”—pleasures that are “calm and serene, which do not take your reason from you” and do not denature you, pleasures that “do not turn a man into a savage brute” (VII.107). Unlike Fénelon’s contemporaneous Puritans, men animated by “true wisdom” avoid “all austerity and affectation,” as “all true pleasure” derives from true wisdom, which “blend[s] mirth and sport with serious and important business, amusement with application, and diversion with labor” (VII.107). As an illustration of his teaching, Mentor takes up the lyre and sings a song of the birth of Minerva from the head of Zeus, “by which is meant that is formed therein, and from which descends to illuminate docile men,” followed by the contrasting stories of self-loving, self-destroying Narcissus and of Venus’ incapacity to restore the life of her mortal lover, Adonis, torn to pieces by a wild boar (VII.108).
Telemachus does indeed now mix business with pleasure, asking Adoam to describe the country of Bétique, a little-known land of “wonders” which Adoam had visited (VII.108). The legends are true, Adoam relates: “In this country the golden age seems still to exist” (VII.109). The people of Bétique live simply, themselves wondering at why other nations corrupt themselves with “superfluities” which “enervate, intoxicate, and torment those who possess them,” leaving them no more “healthy and robust than we,” nor longer lived, no more united, enjoying no “greater liberty, tranquility, and contentment” (VII.110. “On the contrary, they must be jealous of one another; mean, spiteful, and envious; and continually harassed by avarice, fear, and ambition; incapable of true genuine pleasure, since they are enslaved by so man false necessities” (VII.110). Better look to “simple nature alone” for wisdom (VII.110).
Nature teaches that fathers may punish their children and grandchildren for misbehavior but not before considering “the advice of the rest of the family”—a constitutional patriarchy, as it were (VII.110-111). Such punishments are rarely needed in Bétique, given its ethos of “innocence, sincerity, obedience to parents, and abhorrence of vice” (VII.111). The residents are monogamous; husbands and wives divide household management between tasks performed outdoors by the men, indoor tasks by the women. While a wife’s “whole ambition is to please” her husband, she thereby “gains his confidence, and engages his affection more by her virtue than by her beauty”—a model Rousseau follows when Emile’s governor advises Sophie. The people drink no wine, and this too may contribute to domestic peace.
The regime needs no judges, as the consciences of the people suffice. There is no property; “everything is common among them,” and “the people are so sober and easily satisfied” that the common store is enough (VII.111). With “no interests to pursue, they love one another with a brotherly affection that nothing can trouble,” “free and equal” except for the “ancient sages” who rule in light of their experience and “some young men” of “uncommon wisdom” (VII.111). They waste no blood on civil strife or foreign wars. Viewing conquerors elsewhere, they shrug, “What madness, to place one’s happiness in ruling strangers, a task so difficult and troublesome, if it is performed according to the dictates of reason and justice” (VII.111). “If a man is ambitious for glory,” they ask, “will he not find enough in ruling, with wisdom, those whom the gods have committed to his charge?” (VII.111).
How do they defend themselves against military attack? Part of the answer lies in geopolitics. “Nature has separated them from other nations—on one side by the sea, on the other by high mountains towards the north” (VII.113). But more tellingly (again with an eye toward the Europe of Fénelon’s time, but not only then and there), the people of Bétique are respected for their virtues; their neighbors often choose them as arbitrators and as rulers of territories and cities under dispute. “As this wise nation never does any violence, no one is distrustful of them,” and indeed they “are entirely free of pride, vanity, deceit, and all desire of extending their territories” (VII.113). Ready “to submit to the loss of their lives or their country, rather than be made slaves, they are equally incapable of enslaving others, and of being enslaved themselves” (VII.114). They eschew navigation, politely rejecting Phoenicians’ offer to teach it, as “they think it a pernicious art,” one that opens a nation to desires for “more than is sufficient to satisfy their real needs” (VII.114). In sum, “by following nature and right reason,” they are “at the same time wise and happy” (VII.114). In seventeenth-century Europe, one might suspect, they resemble the Swiss.
Telemachus may think he knows all he needs to know to return to Ithaca and eventually to rule it. The gods think differently and have other plans. Venus and Neptune remain angry with him, and Venus asks her father, Jupiter, to take her side against sister Minerva. Jupiter refuses but promises to make Telemachus continue to wander for a while, since “the destinies do not admit of his perishing, or being overcome by those pleasures, with which you allure mankind” (VIII.116). Neptune agrees to deflect Adoam’s ship away from Ithaca. Mentor-Minerva breaks the news to Telemachus, telling him that “Jupiter aims not at your destruction, but only tests you; and he tests you only in order to lead you to glory,” even as he tested Hercules and your father. Therefore, “You must, by resolution and patience, tire out the cruel fortune that persecutes you” (VIII.120). They land at Salente, the city (it will be remembered) that the exiled Phoenician king Idomeneus and his friends had founded on the coast of Hesperia.
Idomeneus welcomes the son of Ulysses and recalls meeting Mentor at Troy. Mentor immediately establishes a tone of frankness, not flattery, by remarking that the king has aged considerably since then, then sympathetically adds that “kings wear faster than other men” because their peacetime pleasures and wartime stresses “hasten the approach of old age before the natural date of its arrival”—not incidentally, a word of caution to Telemachus (VIII.123). The king takes no offense, instead conducting his guests to the temple of Jupiter, where an elderly priest prophesies that these men will enable the Sarentines to win a war they have recently undertaken.
The remainder of his prophecy is obscure, suggesting but not confirming that Telemachus will see his father again. Mentor is no less frank, and no less comforting, to him. “A rash curiosity deserves to be confounded. It is an effect of the wisdom and goodness of the gods, that the destinies of weak mortals are wrapped up in impenetrable darkness. It is an advantage to foresee whatever is controllable by our will; but it is no less for our good and quiet to be ignorant of what is independent of our will, and of the fate for which we are reserved by the decrees of heaven (VIII.126). This calms Telemachus and induces Idomeneus to reflect upon his own fate. He admits “that I was not sufficiently acquainted with the art of government when I returned from the siege of Troy to Crete,” but “I may still be happy, if these heavy calamities serve as lessons to me, and teach me moderation” (VIII.126). He requests the aid of Telemachus and Mentor in the conduct of the war, promising to send them to Ithaca when it’s over. Telemachus agrees.
Mentor cautions him. Recall that your father’s practical wisdom and moderation, his “cool, deliberate valor,” not Achilles’ “headlong, blind ferocity” won the Trojan War; “Minerva surpasses Mars,” Minerva in the guise of Mentor assures him (IX.129). Mentor therefore requests that Idomeneus “first to explain to us whether the war is just; then tell us with whom it is to be carried on; and lastly, on what forces and resources your prospect of success is based” (IX.130). The king readily answers. The war is against the Mandurians, “a savage race” who roam the forests, hunting and gathering (IX.130). The Mandurians met a small hunting party of Cretans, who had inadvertently encroached upon their territory, with humaneness but then attacked the larger Cretan force that soon followed. After the initial fighting, the Mandurians offered peace, saying that they preferred it to war so long as the Cretans restricted their occupation to the coastal areas and let the Mandurians alone in the mountains. “We abhor that brutality which, under the gaudy names of ambition and glory, madly ravages whole provinces, and sheds the blood of men who are all brothers” (IX.131). That is, savages are not necessarily ‘savage’; rather, they are uncivilized, and happily so. In words that will become characteristic of Rousseau, Fénelon has the Mandurian elders say as much: “If the sciences to which the Greeks apply themselves so closely, and the politeness on which they value themselves so highly, inspire them with such a detestable injustice, we cannot but think ourselves happy in not having such advantages. We will always glory in being ignorant barbarians, but just, humane, faithful, and disinterested, satisfied with little, and despising that vanity and delicacy that cannot be gratified without wealth. We value health, frugality, liberty, and vigor of body and mind: the love of virtue, the fear of the gods, a natural goodness towards our neighbors, attachment to our friends, fidelity to all the world, moderation in prosperity, fortitude in adversity, courage always bold to speak the truth, and abhorrence of flattery.” (IX.131). The Cretans happily agreed to peace but the war renewed the next day because a Cretan hunting party, ignorant of the treaty, violated its terms.
This time, the Mandurians have allies, including the Locrians, themselves civilized Greeks. Although Telemachus remains eager to fight, Mentor asks how this could be. He tells the king that the gods “have not yet finished your instruction” because you have yet to learn “how to act in order to prevent a war” (IX.133). For example, “you might have exchanged hostages” with the Mandurians, sent some of your officers with them to escort the elderly envoys safely back to their people; you might have apologized for the violation of the treaty and explained that it was done out of ignorance, not malice. Idomeneus explains that “I thought it would be stooping too low, to endeavor to pacify these barbarians,” but Mentor bluntly tells him that such “pride and haughtiness give rise to the most dangerous wars” (IX.131). It was “these barbarians” who “gave you a valuable lesson,” in proposing peace: “Why did you not imitate their moderation?” (IX.134). You have stirred the fear and animosity not only of the Mandurians but of many of your neighbors, when you could have earned their confidence with a policy of “justice, moderation, [and] good faith” (IX.134).
What will you do now? Idomeneus sees that the neighboring Greek colonies, along with the other Hesperian states, fear “that we have a design upon their liberty,” that if the Salentines defeat the Mandurians we will be “ambitious of extending our conquests still further” (IX.135). Indeed so, Mentor replies. “By wanting to appear too powerful, you have ruined your power; for, while abroad, you are the object of the hatred and jealousy of your neighbors, you exhaust yourself at home in the efforts and preparations necessary to maintain a war against them” (IX.135), a lesson Mentorian Fénelon obviously intends for Bourbons old and young. Idomeneus gratefully accepts Mentor’s offer to serve as his negotiator with Nestor of Pylus, one of the Mandurians’ Greek allies. Mentor’s appeal to Nestor turns out to be a critique of war itself, and he takes as his example the carnage at Troy, which after all began as a fight over an adulterous abducted wife. Following his own advice to king, he gives Telemachus to Nestor as a hostage, “the most valuable pledge we can offer for the good faith of Idomeneus” (IX.141). Although the Mandurians remain suspicious and angry, Mentor succeeds in persuading the Greek allies by adding himself and twelve additional Salentine hostages and by offering to remove the king’s troops from his strategic forts, replacing those troops with neutrals. “It is no less your interest to prevent the native inhabitants of Hesperia from destroying Salente, a new Greek colony, like that which you yourselves have planted, than to restrain Idomeneus from usurping the territories of his neighbors. Hold the balance even between him and them.” (IX.143). If you reject this prudent and just arrangement, “Idomeneus will have the gods, whom before he had reason to fear were offended at him, on his side” (IX.144).
Mentor concludes with a peroration on universal justice. Someday, “your several nations…will be but one, under different names and governors”; “the just gods, who formed and love the human race, would have them united in an everlasting bond of perfect amity and concord,” given the fact that “all mankind are but one family dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (IX.147). “War, it is true, is sometimes necessary,” but this fact only “reflects disgrace on human nature”; it usually occurs because kings seek glory, yet “true glory cannot exist independent of humanity”; it can be “acquired only by moderation and goodness” (IX.147). He reprises his beatus illi theme, this time as it can be applied to politics foreign and domestic: “Happy the king, who loves his people, and is beloved by them; who trusts his neighbors, and is trusted by them; who, far from making war upon them, prevents their going to war with one another, and who makes the happiness his subjects enjoy under his government, to be envied by all other nations” (IX.148). To give these fine sentiments some institutional substance, he recommends an assembly of all the kings in the region, to be held every three years, to renew the treaty and to “deliberate on their common interests” (IX.148).
Nestor accepts the offer. But he then warns not against Idomeneus but Adrastus, the king of the Daunians, a man who “despises the gods, and thinks the whole race of mankind were born for no other purpose but to be his slaves, and to promote his glory” (IX.148). Adrastus would replace the gods with himself, as “it is not enough for him to have subjects, and to be the king and the father of his people; he will have slaves and worshipers, and actually causes divine honors to be paid him” (IX.148). The reason for the allies’ haste in laying siege to Salente was to get rid of it, the weaker enemy, first, then “afterwards turn our arms against the other and more formidable” (IX.148). If we treat with you, we want not only peace but your support against the tyrant. Mentor returns to Idomeneus for his concurrence.
Once again, he spurns flattery, prefers just rebuke. “While these kings were extolling your magnificence” at the peace conference, “I reflected within myself on the temerity of your conduct” (X.151). Idomeneus resents that, but restrains himself, allowing Mentor to continue. “Kings ought to be respected, and treated with delicacy, even when reproved. Truth is apt enough of itself to offend them, without the addition of harsh terms; but I thought I might venture to speak with the utmost plainness” because I intend “to accustom you to hear things called by their proper names” (X.151). The words addressed to kings by their advisers are crucial to the welfare of their regimes and their peoples. “Hard language” has no place in public discourse, but “it is useful that a man without interest and without importance should to speak to you in private” in exactly such terms (X.151). The king takes the point. Admitting that he has been accustomed to flattery, to being addressed in improper terms, he acknowledges that he owes to Mentor the security of his newly-founded city and accepts him as an honest counselor. Most immediately, this is Fênelon’s appeal to the Sun King, but as always it has universal application.
Thus encouraged, Mentor minces no words. “You deserve nothing but blame for that very conduct which was so highly extolled,” namely your construction of “magnificent edifices” at Salente (including the temple of Jupiter?) when you “had so many enemies [outside] your walls”; you exhausted your revenues, did nothing to encourage the industriousness of your people or the cultivation of the fertile lands you control—the “only solid foundations of your power” (X.152). “By aiming at appearing great and powerful, you have almost destroyed your real power and greatness,” as measured by “the number, submission and attachments of the inhabitants” of your realm (X.152-153).
Idomeneus admits these charges but points to the danger of admitting them. “Shall I confess my weakness” to the other kings in Hesperia, exposing himself to “shame and dishonor”? (X153). Mentor agrees that “the interest of state requires that care be taken of your honor”; the way to save face is for Mentor to tell them that the King of the Salentines has promised to restore Ulysses, “if he is yet alive, or at least his son, on the throne of Ithaca” against the forces of Penelope’s suitors (X.153). Being preoccupied with this task, he can only send a token supply of troops against the Daunians, although Telemachus will be among them. This satisfies his alliance partners and leaves him free to reform his regime according to the advice of Mentor. It also lets Telemachus seemingly test his own “wisdom and virtue,” no longer relying on Mentor, although in fact Minerva covers the young man with her aegis and “inspir[es] him at the same time with the spirit of wisdom and foresight, intrepid valor, and calm moderation: virtues that are seldom found united” (X.155).
Mentor takes the opportunity to correct Telemachus’ too-sharp criticisms of the king, which the young man offered in “a presumptuous vein of censure” typical of “inexperienced youths” (X.159): “What philosopher,” Mentor asks, “had he been in his place, would not have been the worse for flattery” and deception? (X.157). “Alas! my dear Telemachus, you will one day be too well convinced of this” (X.157). “A private station, accompanied with a little intelligence to speak well, hides every natural defect, sets off shining talents, and makes a man appear capable and worthy of the highest employments from which he is so far removed. But it is authority which put talents to a severe trial, and brings great defects to view.” (X.158). “Grandeur is like certain glasses that magnify every object” (X.158). “Those who judge [a king] are unacquainted with his situation. They know nothing of his difficulties, they will not allow him to have any human weaknesses and failings, but expect he should be altogether perfect.” (X.158). Simply in admitting his faults without rancor Idomeneus has displayed magnanimity, “a true greatness of soul” (X.159). Indeed, “to reform mankind would require gods!” the goddess in the form of a man exclaims. She will now undertake exactly that task, in Salente.
With Telemachus safely packed off to the war, Mentor advises Idomeneus on re-founding his regime. The first task is to gather the relevant information through a census, an economic survey, and an assessment of the military. Preparatory to the economic survey, the king will promulgate a law requiring merchants to give a thorough accounting of their property, profits, expenses, and investments, while preserving full “liberty of commerce” (X.161). He also establishes sumptuary laws, prohibiting foreign merchandise “that might introduce luxury and effeminacy” and establishing regulations of dress and diet (X.162). For example, social ranks will be denoted primarily by the color of clothing, not by gold, silver, and jewels. Rank itself will be determined by ancestry because that is the distinction “least exposed to envy” (X.162). Above all, the king himself must set an example, as no one will dare “complain of a regulation to which the king himself submitted” (X.164). In all this, the laws of Minos, Idomeneus’ ancestor and therefore the source of his own rank, are restored.
Turning next to the arts, “Mentor suppressed that oft and effeminate music that tended to corrupt the manners of the youth” as well as “that bacchanalian music which intoxicates almost as much as wine, and is productive of impudence and violent passions” (X.164). Only music in temples on festival days, in honor of the gods and heroes, shall be permitted. Architecture shall be unornamented—no columns, pediments, or porticoes—but “beautiful and simple,” consisting of “airy hous[ing] convenient for a numerous family” whereby “order and neatness might be easily preserved and the whole maintained at a small expense” (X.164). As for the artists themselves, only such youths “as have a promising genius and are likely to excel” should be schooled in the high arts; others who “are designed by nature for arts less noble…may be usefully employed by the ordinary occupations of the republic” (X.165).
A republic: the new regime will be a mixed-regime monarchy, not an absolute monarchy. To defend itself cities ruled by the latter regime, war preparations will proceed “in the midst of a profound peace” (X.166). To strengthen republicanism, city artisans will be transferred to the countryside, in order to strengthen agriculture and rural life generally, aiming at increasing the number of “moderate industrious men” instead of prideful and luxurious urban oligarchs and courtiers who “involve so many of their fellow creatures in all the horrors of poverty” (X.168). Families that “are industrious and multiply” should be rewarded with “more lands to cultivate in proportion to their increase,” a reform which will obviate the necessity, or temptation, to send children off to the cities for employment in servile jobs (X.168). “The profession of a husbandman will no longer be despised, being no longer attended with such misery and distress” (X.168).
Idomeneus worries that if his people become prosperous under such conditions of “peace and plenty, luxury will corrupt their manners, and they will employ against me the wealth that I have given them” (X.169). This was what happened in Phoenicia, and it poses a threat to any monarchy, absolute or not. It stands as a frequent justification for absolutism or even tyranny, at least in the minds of monarchs. Mentor assures the king that such a condition “may be easily prevented” because the farmers’ lives will remain “laborious,” “notwithstanding their abundance,” as “they will have nothing more than necessities, because we have proscribed all the arts that furnish superfluities” and because big families are unlikely to be rich families (X.169). Further, never “allow any one family, of what rank soever, to possess more land than is absolutely necessary to maintain the number of persons of which it shall consist”; this will prevent aristocrats from “aggrandiz[ing] themselves at the expense of the poor” while requiring every family to engage in true household economy, cultivating land “with great care”—not only working hard but working smart, engaging minds as well as bodies (X.169). Consistent with the sumptuary laws, growing wine grapes shall be discouraged.
The laws of Minos also provided for public education by which “the youth may be taught to fear the gods, to love their country, to respect the laws, and to prefer honor to pleasure and even to life itself” (X.170). Magistrates shall be appointed “to watch over the families and the morals of the individuals that compose them,” and you, King Idomeneus, should “share this task yourself” as “shepherd of your people” (X.170). Punish violations of the laws “with the utmost severity,” for “to make examples is an act clemency,” stopping “the progress of iniquity”; “by a little blood shed seasonably a great deal is saved” (X.170). (Rousseau will endorse this in his lapidary sentence, “pity for the wicked is a great cruelty to men.”)
At the same time, ever-moderate Mentor insists, “What a detestable maxim it is for a sovereign to think he cannot be safe without oppressing his people!” (X.170). Driving your people “to despair by terror and dismay,” putting them “under the hard necessity either of shaking off the yoke of arbitrary power or bidding adieu for ever to liberty,” are hardly “the paths that lead to glory” (X.170). On the contrary, “the countries where the power of the sovereign is most absolute are those where the sovereigns are least powerful” because by treating “the whole state [as] their property” such monarchs remove incentive to work and to reproduce; he “gradually diminishes his own power by the continual diminution of his people, from whom his wealth and influence flow” (X.170). True, “his power is absolute, his subjects by consequence…all slaves. But wait till the smallest revolution happens, and you will find that this despotic power, being over-strained, is only of short duration, as not being supported by the affections of the people…. By the first blow that is struck the idol is overturned, broken to pieces, and trodden underfoot” as “contempt, hatred, fear, resentment, distrust, in short, all the passions unite against such odious despotism” (X.171).
Idomeneus implements every one of Mentor’s recommendations. Seeing their salutary results, he “acknowledged to Mentor that he had never known joy equal to that of being loved, and making such multitudes happy” (X.172). “My heart [had] been poisoned from my earliest infancy in regard to the authority of kings. This has been the occasion of all the misfortunes of my life.” (X.172). He goes on to tell how this happened—a cautionary tale, characteristically aimed at Louis XIV in particular and kings generally.
Years earlier, in Crete, Idomeneus had a true friend and a false friend. Pious, great-souled yet moderate, and frank in remarking the king’s faults, Philocles found an enemy in his rival, Protesilaus. Idomeneus recalls that Philocles wanted Idomeneus to imitate “my ancestor Minos” (XI.173); Protesilaus wanted no such thing, persuading the king to send Philocles on a naval expedition, getting him away from the royal court. The king went along with this, as he confesses, out of weariness in finding himself “between two men who could never agree”; “I weakly chose to risk the interest of the public in some measure to breathe in freedom” (XI. 175). In Philocles’ absence, Protesilaus had a corrupt servant, Timocrates (which means ‘rule of the honor lovers,’ ironically enough) claim that Philocles intended to turn the fleet against the king. A complex conspiracy culminated in Timocrates unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Philocles at the behest of the traduced king. “Philocles, shocked to find so much malice in mankind, took a part that was full of moderation,” telling his loyal troops that Timocrates was innocent, a mere instrument of his monarch; he then resigned his commission and self-exiled to the island of Samos, “where he lives quietly in poverty and solitude” (XI.179).
Even after Idomeneus “found out by degrees the artifices of Protesilaus and Timocrates” (“and the sooner by their falling out,” as “it is difficult for bad men to continue long united”), he kept them on, in fear of Protesilaus and also because he found him so “easy, obliging, attentive to gratify my passions, and zealous for my interest”; he “had never known what true virtue was,” and rather supposed it nothing more than “a beautiful phantom,” existing nowhere (XI.180). Removing one corrupt minister would only saddle him with an equally ruinous replacement, he reasoned. And he was lazy, “too averse to business, and too indolent to be able to extricate myself from his hands” (XI.180). The other members of the king’s council dared speak no truth to the king’s power, or against the influence of his false friend. “You know, my dear mentor, the false ridiculous notions of glory and grandeur in which kings are brought up: they will never be in the wrong. To cover one blunder, they must commit a hundred” (XI.181). This was what led him to embark on the siege of Troy, leaving the government of Crete “in the hands of Protesilaus, who acted with haughtiness and inhumanity during my absence,” his tyranny unreported because the people “knew I was afraid of discovering the truth” (XI.181). The revolt of the Cretans upon his return “was not occasioned so much by the death of my son,” as readers had earlier been led to think, “as the wrath of the gods, who were offended at my weak conduct, and the hatred of the people, which Protesilaus had drawn upon me” (XI.182).
Most remarkably, to this day, at Salente, Idomeneus has kept Protesilaus and Timocrates with him. He explains: “Being used for so many years to be guided by these two men, was like a chain of iron that fastened me to them; besides, I was watched and beset by them continually” (XI.182). They are the ones who urged him on in undertaking “all those expensive projects that you know of, and have quite drained this infant settlement,” and “they too were the occasion of the war,” from which you, Mentor, have extricated me, “inspir[ing] me with the courage I lacked” (XI.183). Since Mentor’s arrival, Protesilaus has attempted to dissuade the king of the reforms he undertook. Thinking of himself, now removed from the French court, and, quite possibly, Bishop Bossuet—who had been his friend but became his determined enemy at court and a fervent defender of absolute monarchy— Fénelon has Mentor say, “You now recognize, O Idomeneus, that bold perfidious men, if suffered to be about weak, indolent princes, will gain an ascendancy over them, and mislead them; but there is another misfortune to which those princes are subject, not less than the other, which you ought also to be aware of, and that is of easily forgetting the virtue and services of one that has been obliged to be absent any time” (XI.185).
Mentor recommends the obvious remedy: the dismissal of the blackguards, the recall of Philocles. The king hesitates, fearing “the severity of Philocles,” only to be reminded that this was precisely what he needed (XI.185). Philocles, however, has no desire to return. Here on Samos, he tells the king’s messenger, “men no longer deceive me, for I seldom see them, or hear their flattering, deluding speeches; I do not need them,” preferring the company of “my well-chosen books,” which “teach me to make good use” of my “profound tranquility and delightful liberty” (XI.191). He only unbends after “having consulted the gods” and finding “it was their pleasure that he should go along with his friend” (XI.192). Upon returning he still eschews life at court, preferring to stay in an isolated part of Salente and to make himself available for consultation.
He and Mentor agree on the importance of public education. As Mentor puts it, children “belong not so much to their parent as to the public; they are the children of the state, its hope and strength; it is too late to attempt to reform them after they have been corrupted” (XI. 194). “Vigorous bodily exercises” to “prevent idleness and effeminacy, which are the bane of the most promising geniuses,” can be encouraged with “a great variety of games and shows”; their souls should be “taught to despise hardship and death, to place honor in undervaluing riches and pleasure to account lying, ingratitude, injustice, and effeminacy infamous vices; to sing the praises of heroes who have been loved by the gods, have performed great actions for the good of their country, and demonstrated their valor in battle,” while at the same time “elevat[ing] their minds and civiliz[ing] their hearts with “the charms of music” (XI.195). They will then “be kind to their friends, faithful to their allies, just to all men, even their most inveterate enemies, and to dread death and torture less than he reproaches of their own conscience” (XI.195). Finally, “for the sake of order and decorum” you should have youth “marry early, and their parent to leave them at full liberty to choose such as were agreeable to them, in respect of both body and mind, for wives; and not to impose them upon them from interested views” (XI.195).
Philocles, “who loved war,” disagreed on Mentor’s policies of peace, which will only leave Salente vulnerable to conquest, thanks to creeping “effeminacy, luxury, and corruption of manners” (XI.195). Mentor refutes this argument, first by recalling the evils of war (“worst of all is that the best laws would be weakened, and a corruption of manners ensue”), then by explaining “how the martial spirit of a nation may be kept up in time of peace,” not only by the bodily exercises they have already instituted in Salente, not only by the celebration of heroism in story and song in the schools, and not only the advantages “of a sober, laborious life,” but also with policy (XI.196). Salente already has formed an alliance with many kingdoms in Hesperia. When future wars occur, send “the flower of youth” to it, but especially those who “reveal a military genius, and are most likely to profit by the experience” (XI.196). Not only will your alliance be welcomed, even “courted,” but “without having a war to carry on at your own expense, or in your own country, you will have a gallant and intrepid youth” (XI.196). Attacks on Salente itself will be rare, since “the surest way to prevent war and to secure a long peace is to have your people trained to arms; to distinguish those who are eminent in the profession; to have always some officers who have served abroad and are acquainted with the forces and discipline of the neighboring nations, and their manner of waging war; to be alike incapable of making war from ambition, and of dreading it from sloth and effeminacy”—ready to fight necessary wars while deterring almost all enemies (XI.197). “In this state, should a neighboring people attack you unjustly, it will find you trained to arms and prepared; and, what is still more, it will find that you are loved and will be supported; all you neighbors will take the alarm, fully persuaded that their common safety depends upon their supporting and defending you” (XI.197)
“And thus did Minerva, in the guise of Mentor, establish the government of Salente upon the best laws and the most useful maxims of government; not so much to make the dominions of Idomeneus flourish as to show Telemachus, when he returned, by a visible example, how much a wise administration contributed to render a nation happy, and to procure a good king a lasting glory” XI.197). The new regime imports the natural virtues of the men of Bétique into Greek civilization.
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