Ah, Micyllus, I see that you are no wiser than your neighbours; you have the usual mistaken notions about the tich, whose life, I assure you, is far more miserable than your own. I ought to know: I have tried everything, and been poor man and rich man times out of number. You will find out all about it before long.
Ah, to be sure, it is your turn now. Tell me how you came to be changed into a cock, and what each of your lives was like.
Very well; and I may remark, by way of preface, that of all the lives I have ever known none was happier than yours.
Than mine? Exasperating fowl! All I say is, may you have one like it! Now then: begin from Euphorbus, and tell me how you came to be Pythagoras, and so on, down to the cock. I'll warrant you have not been through all those different lives without seeing some strange sights, and having your adventures.
How my spirit first proceeded from Apollo, and took flight to earth, and entered into a human form, and what was the nature of the crime thus expiated,—all this would take too long to tell; nor is it fitting either for me to speak of such matters or for you to hear of them. I pass to the time when I became Euphorbus,—
Wait a minute: have I ever been changed in this way?
You have.
Then who was I, do you know? I am curious about that.
Why, you were an Indian ant, of the gold-digging’ species.
What could induce me, misguided insect that I was, to leave that life without’so much as a grain of gold-dust to supply my needs in this one? And what am I going to be next? I suppose you can tell me. If it is anything good, I’ll hang myself this moment from the very perch on which you stand.
That I can on no account divulge. Toresume. When I was Euphorbus, I fought at Troy, and was slain by Menelaus. Some time then elapsed before I entered into the body of: Pythagoras, During this interval, I remained without a habitation, waiting till Mnesarchus had prepared one for me.
What, without meat or drink?
Oh yes; these are mere bodily requirements.
Well, first I will have about the Trojan war. Did it all happen as Homer describes?
Homer! What should he know of the matter? He was a camel in Bactria all the time, I may tell you that things were not on such a tremendous scale in those days as is commonly supposed; Ajax was not so very tall, nor Helen so very beautiful. I saw her; she had a fair complexion, to be sure, and her neck was long enough to suggest her swan parentage
Well, and Achilles: was he so much better than other people, or is that all stuff and nonsense?
Ah, I never came across Achilles; I am not very strong on the Greeks; I was on the other side, of course. ‘There is one thing, though: I made pretty short work of his friend Patroclus—ran him clean through with my spear.
After which Menelaus settled you with still greater facility. Well, that will do for ew And when you were Pythagoras?
When I was Pythagoras, I was—not to deceive you— a sophist; that is the long and short of it. At the same time, I was not uncultured, not unversed in polite learning. I travelled in Egypt, cultivated the acquaintance of the priests, and learnt wisdom from their mouths; I penetrated into their temples and mastered the sacred books of Orus and Isis; finally, I took ship to Italy, where I made such an impression on the Greeks that they reckoned me among the Gods.
I have heard all about that; and also how you were supposed to have risen from the dead, and how you had a golden
Ah, don’t ask me that, Micyllus.
But why not?
I am ashamed to answer you.
Come, out with it! I am your friend and fellow lodger; we will drop the ‘master’ now.
There was neither common sense nor philosophy in that law. The fact is, I saw that if I did just the same as other people, I should draw very few admirers; my prestige, I considered, would be in proportion to my originality. Hence these innovations, the motive of which I wrapped up in mystery; each man was left to make his own conjecture, that all might be equally impressed by my oracular obscurity. There now! you are laughing at me; it is your turn this time.
I am laughing much more at the folk of Cortona and Metapontum and Tarentum, and the rest of those mute disciples who worshipped the ground you trod on.
And in what form was your spirit next clothed, after it had put off Pythagoras?
In that of Aspasia, the Milesian courtesan.
Dear, dear! And your versatility has even changed sexes? My gallant cock has positively laid eggs in his time? Pythagoras has carded and spun? Pythagoras the mistress— ' and the mother—of a Pericles? My Pythagoras no better than he should be?
I do not stand alone. I had the example of Tiresias and of Caeneus; your gibes touch them as well as me.
And did you like being a man best, or receiving the addresses of Pericles?
Ha! the question that Tiresias paid so dearly for answering!
Never mind, then,—Euripides has settled the point; he says he would rather bear the shock of battle thrice Than once the pangs of labour.
Ah, just a word in your ear: those pangs will shortly be your own; more than once, in the course of a lengthy career, you will be a woman.
Strangulation on the bird! Does he think we all hail from Miletus or Samos? Yes, I said Samos; Pythagoras has had his admirers, by all accounts, as well as Aspasia.
However;— what was your sex next time?
I was the Cynic Crates.
Castor and Pollux! What a change was there!
Then it was a king; then a pauper, and presently a satrap, and after that came horse, jackdaw, frog, and I know not how many more; there is no reckoning them up in detail. Latterly, I have been a cock several times. I liked the life; many is the king, many the pauper and millionaire, with whom I took service in that capacity before I came to you. In your lamentations about poverty, and your admiration of the rich, I find an unfailing source of entertainment; little do you know what those rich have to put up with! If you had any idea of their anxieties, you would laugh to think how you had been deceived as to the blessedness of wealth.
Well, Pythagoras,—or is there any other name you prefer? I shall throw you out, perhaps, if I keep on calling you different things?
Euphorbus or Pythagoras, Aspasia or Crates, it is all the same to me; one is as much my name as another. Or stay: not to be wanting in respect to a bird whose humble exterior contains so many souls, you had better use the evidence of your own eyes and call me Cock.
Then, cock, as you have tried wellnigh every kind of
Well now, look at it this way.
To begin with, you are very little troubled with military matters. Suppose there is talk of an invasion: you are under no uneasiness about the destruction of your crops, or the cutting-up of your gardens, or the ruin of your vines; at the first sound of the trumpet (if you even hear it), all you have to think of is, how to convey your own person out of harm’s way. Well, the rich have got to provide for that too, and they have the mortification into the bargain of looking on while their lands are being ravaged. Is a war-tax to be levied? It all falls on them. When you take the field, theirs are the posts of honour—and danger: whereas you, with no worse encumbrance than your wicker shield, are in the best of trim for taking care of yourself; and when the time comes for the general to offer up a sacrifice of thanksgiving for his victory, your presence may be relied on at the festive scene.