...and Lemmings

I keep thinking about your Hyperboreans, I said to Pliny the Elder. It seems a funny way to choose to die, by jumping off a cliff after a special dinner.

No, it doesn't , said Pliny. I might very well choose to do the same myself.

Hah! I said. You can't. It's too late for you.

I mean if I still had the choice before me, said Pliny.

I don't believe anyone would do that, I said. Except perhaps for lemmings. Where was it you said these Hyperboreans lived?

Beyond the Ripaean Mountains, said Pliny, which I think are these days called the Alps. In Hyperborea they enjoy six months of daylight at a time. There are found the hinges on which the world turns, and the limits of the circuits of the stars.

The Arctic? I said. Are you sure your Hyperboreans weren't actually lemmings? Because lemmings live up in those regions.

It is you who are confused, said Pliny. You probably think lemmings leap off cliffs in order to commit mass suicide. They do not.

I thought they did, I said.

No, said Pliny. That is where you have not kept up with modern research.

But what about that Disney Documentary, White Wilderness? I said. In 1958, they made a documentary that actually showed hundreds of lemmings jumping off a cliff to certain death. I think I saw it. No, I'm sure I did.

Aha, said Pliny. But did you see the The Cruel Camera, in 2008?

No, I said. Have I missed something?

It seems, said Pliny that the makers of White Wilderness, which won an Academy Award, by the way, transported lemmings from Hudson Bay to Calgary and launched them off a cliff using a turntable.

How dreadful, Pliny! I had no idea. Lucky you saw that and could put me right about lemmings.

One should always keep one's ears and eyes open, said Pliny.

I was silent for a while, thinking of the lemmings, and of the Hyperboreans.

Do you think, I asked, that something like that might have happened to the Hyperboreans?

What? said Pliny. That after dinner their guests shot them into the sea from a turntable?

No, I said, but maybe they didn't really want to go.

You don't understand the ancients at all, said Pliny.

Hyperboreans

So that's the end of Wittgenstein and Saint Nicholas? said Pliny the Elder.

Yes, I suppose so, I said.

Good, said Pliny.

Why? I asked. I've grown to like them. I could probably keep on writing about them for ever.

I'm certain you could, said Pliny. And it was all very well during the holiday period, but there are more serious things to write about than philosophy, icecreams and paintball.

What do you have in mind? I asked.

Well, said Pliny. I'm glad that you've asked. I couldn't help noticing that you received a copy of my Natural History for Christmas. How are you liking it so far?

I think Professor Healy has done a good job, I said. I expected he would have chosen to present only the most interesting parts of your work, but he's given us quite a lot of the tedious stuff as well.

What tedious stuff? asked Pliny.

Geography, I said, for example. And it's all wrong.

It may be all wrong now, said Pliny, but it was all right at the time. Where are you up to?

The Hyperboreans, I replied. I'm enjoying reading about them. "Death does not come until they have had their fill of life. Setting a banquet, they greet their old age with luxury, and then leap into the sea from a certain rock. This method of burial is the most serene." It's all in the way that you tell it, of course.

Thank you , said Pliny. I'm aware of that.