The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-07-06
Strange Deaths.

Homer, they tell us, died of broken
heart because he could not guess a riddle.
The old gentleman had been warned by an
oracle that if he did not mind what he was
about he would be killed by riddle, and
his day came. Seeing some young fisher
men in boat, he unfortunately asked them
what sport they had had, to which they re-
piled, that "As many as we caught we left,
as many as we could not catch we carry with
U.S." This was too much for the author of
the Iliad and the Odyssey he guessed and
guessed till he could guess no longer, and
finally died of sheer vexation. Aristotle
"went of" in precisely the same way. be
cause he could not understand more in
teresting riddle set by nature, viz, the
cause of the ebbing and flowing of the Eu-
ripus. Others relate that he angrily threw
himself into the stream. Diodorus, the
immortal inventor of the "horned" and
"veiled" sophism, having met his match
in one Stilpo, who Caught" him with an
other sophism which he was unable to
solve, went home, wrote book about it,
and died of despair. Philetas bad reduced
himself to such state of tenuity by rehec-
tion and study that he was obliged to wear
lead soles to his boots, to keep him from
being blown away, or possibly from rising
like balloon in the heaven of invention
however, the end of Philetes was, as Suidas
solemnly informs US, evaporation-he posi-
lively evaporated. Anacreon was chok,
with grape stone. Sophocles is said by
some to have come to the same end, though
according to others he died of joy at being
victor in his last tragic contest Euripides
was torn in pieces by dogs, bounded on by
some women, in revenge for his mysogyn-
ism. Kschylus was killed by an eagle drop
ping tortoise on his bald head, the king of
birds mistaking the shining poll for a
stone, and applying it to uses other than
Melpomene would sanction. Ibycus, the
great lyric poet, was murdered by rob
bers; and Sappho flung herself from
the Leucalan rock, to cure her love for
Phaon. Honest Hesiod also came to a mel
ancholy end, but having been flung into the
sea his corpse was solemnly brought back
to the shore on the backs of some dol
phins. Lucretius, as we all know from
Tennyson's fine poem, was poisoned by a
love philtre. and finally finished himself
off with his own hand, as also did his first
English editor and translator, the Rev
Thomas Creech. Pietro Aretino, a celebra-
ted Italian iterdteur of the Renaissance, came
to a singular end. He was drinking and
enjoying himself with certain other ecclesi.
astics and one of them telling story
which certainly ought not to have amused
either the narrator or his friends, Aretinc
leaned his chair back to laugh with full
freedom, slipped and dashed out his brains
on the marble floor. Sir George Etheridge
author of 'Sir Topley Flutter," "Love in 6
Tub" ETC., brought similar life to a sim
liar conclusion. He was lighting some
friends who had been to pay him visit, ant
as he stood doing so he tumbed down Stair
and broke his neck; "and So" as the note'
to Grammont put 1t, ''fell a martyr to iol
lity and civility." Peter Motteaux, tht
translator of Rabelais, came to very mys
terious end and the mystery which sur
rounded the death of Edward H., Richard
Ill, Clarence, and many kings and princes
both in ancient and modern history, ha
never been cleared up. Demosthenes pois
oned himself, but no one knows how. Ter
rible as it may seem, it is nevertheless true
= that if a complete list were drawn up o
men of mark in the worlds history, reckon
ing all nations and all times, it would ap
pear that at least quarter of them die
not like other men, and that very nearl
another quarter committed suicide.