The Bleating Herd

The Bleating Herd
Han Ryner
Extract from Cynical Parables
1913

Many of the disciples seemed mute as long as Psychodorus was there. But, among those who spoke, two, from the first days, had been noticed.

Eubule d'Andros was skilled at following the floating meaning of the parables. Often he continued the thought of the master. Some claimed that he looked like Psychodore as a son looks like his father. Yet, blond and sweet, this young man had in his smile and mind more tenderness than Psychodore ever had and less malice.

But Excycle de Mégare was a passionate and singularly changing being. He passed, with childish ease, from tears to laughter. Sometimes he exaggerated the thought of the master until he made it repulsive to the master himself; and only then did he love that thought. Usually he would fight against what had been said; and he had the habit of arguing about all things, as the young dog with painful teeth bites all objects. Vanity and obstinacy, he tried to make people admire the ingenuity and independence of his spirit. His eyes sparkled when he thought, by a captivating question, to embarrass the old philosopher. But he hated parables and all the answers that smile and wave like light. He would have wanted precise formulas, affirmations and rigid negations to be opposed to him, which the spirit seized, irritated hand, to break them or to tear themselves apart.

The day after Lycon left, Excycle asked in these terms:

0 Psychodore, does money produce less pain than the poisoned source you were talking about yesterday?

And he received this answer:

Money alone produces more evil than all the springs and torrents that fall from the mountains.

But, he continued, whoever invented it thought only of certain advantages it realizes. He wanted to be the benefactor of men; he wanted to facilitate exchanges that barter made painful and uncertain. So I suppose you absolve him as you absolve the source. Or rather you love and admire him.

Psychodore shrugged.

Excycle's word became bitter:

If I understand correctly, O my master, the unclear answer of which you deign to honour me, you are committing an injustice at this moment and, with two similar acts, you condemn one but you approve the other.

The inventor of money, oh my son, does not resemble the high source. To arrive at such an invention, one needed a thought singularly applied to low things. And he has given nothing that corresponds to man's healthy needs. What has it produced that can satisfy your hunger, or protect you from the cold, or put you above fear and desire? He is rather the poisoner who, between the spring and the city, interposed the factory; and he soils the waters, weighing down with metallic reflections and fetid what comes towards our mouth.

Psychodorus remained silent for a moment and his lips, just now wrinkled as in nausea, slowly became a smile.

Nature, he continued, wanted the fruit, meat and other necessary things to keep for a short time. This wise foresight had established among men a brotherhood and as a necessity of mutual benefits. In the past, a person who had too much food would give it to his neighbour, even if the neighbour had nothing that was bartered. Generosity was the only remedy for the suffering of seeing good rot useless.

The philosopher's eyes seemed to look at a distant and joyful horizon. Sadness, on the contrary, almost closed them while he was finishing his speech:

Today, alas! money makes it possible to exchange what would perish for a durable material, without use and without value by itself, but that our madness accepts as real wealth. In a form as hard as a rich man's heart, he who has too much of what is lacking to others; and he erects, with the hunger of the poor, the edifice of his power and of their servitude. The inventor of money perfected something: he perfected tyranny and slavery; he made the inequality that was precarious, light and uncertain durable, solid and growing. He is the father of myriads of murders, myriads of lies, myriads of violence and myriads of baseness. Did he plan some of his crimes and did he want them, a robber laughing under a mask? I don't think so. He was rather the one whose vile thought harms when it wants to serve, the one who has only to give his garbage and who spreads his droppings at random, as well on the bread that we have just baked as on the field that we will sow...

Yet, Excycle objected, the peoples praise him and forever will praise him.

The noble argument for a philosopher! exclaimed Eubule.

But Psychodorus:

Hear a parable:

*

* *

A man says to a flock of sheep:

Love me. For I have sharpened with art the knife from which you shall be slain. So cheer your benefactor.

Now the sheep bleated together. But I could not guess whether the bleating approved. The bleating of herds and peoples almost always cheers the butchers and knife sharpeners. Sometimes, however, its meaning remains shaky, equivocal and obscure. Many say that the voice of the people is the voice of the gods. Perhaps they are right and - until a priest or a speaker translates them in a way that pleases the tyrants - the roar of thunder, the flight of birds, the bleating of sheep and the distant cries of the people mean absolutely nothing.

Translated by Bayron Pascal