Gallus

Mikyllos But you have not told me what the clay and bolts and bars of royalty are, nor the nature of that mass of unsightly things. To be stared at when you drive out, and to rule so many people, and to be saluted like a god, may justly be likened to the great statue, for they are both well-nigh divine. But tell me now, what is inside the colossus?

Cock Where shall I begin? With the fears and frights and suspicions? The hatred and plots of those about the king? The scanty sleep, and that with one eye open, that these leave him? The troubled dreams, the tangled schemes, the hopes that never come to pass? Or the press of business, the audiences, the decisions, the going out to war, the orders to be given, the treaties to be made, the accounts to be kept?. This will not suffer a king to have any pleasure, even in his dreams, but he alone must keep watch for all and feel a thousand cares.

1. For sweet sleep held not Agamemnon, son of
2. Atreus, revolving many things in his mind,

Mikyllos That will do! These are horrible things you tell me of. To my mind, then, it is a good deal safer to sit stooping over one's last than to drink from a golden goblet if the lovingcup is mixed with hemlock or aconite. The only danger I run is of cutting my fingers so that they bleed for a moment, if my knife should slip aside and run out of the straight groove. But they, by your story, feast on deadly food, surrounded by a thousand evils. Then, when they fall from power, they are more like the tragic actors than anything else, whom you may see often with diadems, and ivory-hilted swords, and waving hair, and gold-sprinkled cloaks, as long as they are Kekrops or Sisyphos or Telephos. But if one of them steps into a hole, as often happens, and tumbles down in the middle of the stage, see how

Cock You raise a great question, and this is not the time to discuss it. But to put it in a nutshell, every one of those lives, in my judgment, is freer from care than the human life, being measured only by the physical desires and needs. You will never find among the animals a horse who is a tax-gatherer, or a frog who is a spy, or a jackdaw who is a sophist, or a mosquito who is a cook, or a cock who is a libertine, or any other evil life you can think of.

Mikyllos Probably this is all very true, Cock, but I will confess my case to you without shame. I am still unable to rid my mind of the longing I have had from childhood to be a rich man. In fact, the dream still stands before my eyes pointing to gold, and, most of all, it chokes me to think of that confounded Simon revelling in such goodfortune.

Cock I will cure you, Mikyllos. It is still

Mikyllos How can you? The doors are locked. You are not going to make a burglar of me, are you?

Cock Heaven forbid; but Hermes, whose sacred bird I am, bestowed on me this special gift: if my longest tail-feather, the one that curls because it is so soft, be-

Mikyllos But you have two like that!

Cock The man whom I permit to pluck the right hand one and keep it will be able to open any door and see everything, himself unseen, as long as I am willing.

Mikyllos I did not know, Cock, that you are a sorcerer, too. Now if you will give me this chance once, you will soon see all Simon's wealth transferred to this house; for if I can make my way in I will carry it off, and then he will have to come back to his lasts and nibble for a living.

Cock That is not permitted. Hermes commanded me, if the holder of the feather should do anything of the sort, to give the alarm and have him caught in the theft.

Mykillos That is a likely story! Hermes, a thief himself, begrudges theft to others! However, let us be off. I will keep my hands off the gold if I can.

Cock First, Mikyllos, pluck the soft feather. What are you doing? You have plucked them both!

Mykillos To be on the safe side, Cock. And you will look better so. Your tail will be more symmetrical.

Cock All right. Shall we go to see Simon first, or some other millionaire ?

Mikyllos Oh, Simon, by all means, who thinks himself a greater man by two syllables now he is rich. Here we are already at his door. What must I do next?

Cock Touch the bolt with the feather.

Mykillos That's done. Gracious heaven, the door has opened as if with a key!

Cock Go in first. There, do you see him keeping vigil over his accounts?

Mikyllos Yes! by Zeus, with a feeble, ill-fed lamp. And he is pale, I don't know why, and he has fallen away to a skeleton. It must be from anxiety, for I never heard he was ill otherwise.

Cock Hear what he says. Then you will know why he is thus.

Simon So that seventy thousand dollars is pretty safely buried under the bed, and nobody at all knows about it; but I have an idea that Sosylos the groom saw me burying the sixteen thousand under the manger. Anyhow, he is forever about the stable now, though he was not so

Mikyllos Yes, by Zeus! I am going off with a basin under my arm just as you did!

Cock Hush, Mikyllos, he will know we are here.

Simon The best plan is to sit up all night myself and look after everything. I will get up and make the round of the house. Who is that? I see you, you thief— Good heaven, you are only a pillar-that's all right. I will dig up my money and count it again, lest I overlooked any the day before yesterday. There, I hear some one coming to attack me again. Every one is besieging me and plotting against me. Where is my dagger? If I catch any one- Come, I must bury the money again.

Cock Such, Mikyllos, is the state of affairs with Simon. Let us be off to some one else while there is still a little of the night left.

Mikyllos Poor devil, what a life he leads. May my enemies get rich like him! I want to give him one good thump and then go off.

Simon Who struck me? I am robbed, wretched man!

Mikyllos Bemoan yourself and lie awake, and stick to your gold till you turn to the color of it! Let us go, if you please, to see Gniphon, the money-lender. He lives near by. This door, too, opened of itself.

Cock See, he is awake with his cares like the other, calculating his interest with his fingers stiff already. He must soon leave all these behind and turn to a book-worm or a carrion-fly.

Mikyllos I see a wretched, senseless human being, whose life now is not much better than a worm's or a gnat's. He, too, is worn to the bone with his accounts.

Cock Well, now, Mikyllos, should you like to fall heir to all this, along with the wealth of Eukrates?

Mikyllos Heaven forbid, Cock. I would rather starve. Farewell to gold and dinners! I call five cents a better fortune than to be robbed by your servants.

Cock But for this time we must go home, for day is already beginning to break. You shall see the rest another time, Mikyllos.