Cock There is no way by which you can learn that. But when I became Euphorbos-to go back to what I was saying-I fought at Ilion, fell by the hand of Menelaos, and shortly after passed into Pythagoras. In the mean time I hung about homeless until Mnesarchos wrought my home for me.

Mikyllos With nothing to eat, my good sir, or to drink?

Cock Of course. It is only the body that needs such things.

Mikyllos Well, then, tell me first about affairs at Ilion. Were things as Homer says they were?

Cock How did he know anything about it, seeing he was a Baktrian camel at the time? But I will tell you this, that nothing was remarkable in those days. Ajax was not so tall nor Helen herself so beautiful as they are thought to have been. I saw some one with a white skin and a long neck, as was natural in a swan's daughter, but for the rest she was an old woman, almost Hekuba's age. For Theseus, who was born in the time of Herakles, first carried her off and held her in Aphidnai; and Herakles captured Troy before in the days of our fathers at the latest. Panthoos used to tell me all these things, saying that he had seen Herakles when he was a boy.

Mikyllos Dear me! Was Achilles, as he is said to be, best in every way, or is that, too, a myth?

Cock I never encountered him in battle, and I could not give you so exact an account of the Achaians' affairs. How could I, seeing that I was an enemy? However, I killed his comrade, Patroklos, without much trouble, piercing him with my spear.

Mikyllos And then Menelaos killed you more easily still. But that will do on this subject. Now tell me about Pythagoras.

Cock I was a complete sophist, Mikyllos, for it is right, I think, to tell the truth. However, I was not uneducated nor neglectful of the noblest studies, and I even journeyed to Egypt to receive instruction from the priests. I made my way into the temples and mastered the books of Oros and Isis. And then I sailed back to Italy and so wrought upon the Greeks there that they reckoned me a god.

Mikyllos I have heard of this, and that you were deemed to have risen from the dead, and that you once showed them that your thigh was gold. But tell me this, why did it occur to you to make a law against eating either flesh or beans?

Cock Don't ask such things, Mikyllos.

Mikyllos Why not?

Cock Because I am ashamed to tell you the truth about them.

Mikyllos Now, there is no reason whatever for hesitating to tell a man who is your messmate and friend, for I would no longer call myself your master.

Cock I had no sound or reasonable motive; but seeing that if my practices were ordinary and the same as most people's, I should fail to draw on men to wonder at me, but the more outlandish they were the more august I seemed to them, this was the reason why I chose to innovate, pretending that my grounds were too holy for discussion, so that each might have his conjecture, and all stand amazed as at the dark sayings of the oracles. There, even you are laughing at me in your turn.

Mikyllos Not so much at you as at the Krotoniates and Metapontines and Tarentines and the others who followed you speechless and kissed the footprints you left as you walked.

But when you had laid Pythagoras aside, what character did you clothe yourself with after him?

Cock Aspasia, the courtesan from Miletos.

Mikyllos Oh, what a tale! Pythagoras became even a woman among other people, and there was a time when you, most noble cock, were Aspasia, Perikles' mistress, and carded wool and wove the weft and sold your favors!

Cock I am not the only man who has done all these things. Teiresias, too, before me, and Kaineus, Elatos' son, were in my case, so that any joke you make against me will also be made against them.

Mikyllos Tell me, which life did you find. pleasanter, when you were a man or when Perikles caressed you?

Cock Beware of asking a question that was not agreeable even to Teiresias.

Mikyllos Even if you will not tell me, Euripides decided the matter adequately, saying that he would rather stand by his shield thrice than bear one child.

Cock You will be a woman yourself, Mikyllos, over and over in the great lapse of time.

Mikyllos Be hanged to you for thinking every one a Milesian or a Samian.

But what shape of man or woman did you ap pear in after Aspasia ?

Cock The cynic Krates.

Mikyllos Ye gods, that's a change - from a courtesan to a philosopher!

Cock Then I was a king, then a poor man, and a little while after a satrap, then a horse, and a jackdaw, and a frog, and a thousand other things. It would take too long to enumerate them all. Finally I have been a cock many times, for I liked the life. I have served many others, kings and poor men and rich men, and now finally I live with you, laughing daily to hear you weep and wail over your poverty and admire the rich, in your ignorance of the evils belonging to them. Certainly, if you knew the cares they have, your first laugh would be at yourself for thinking a rich man over-happy.

Mikyllos Well then, Pythagoras, or whatever you would prefer to be called, so that I may not disturb your recital, calling you first one thing and then another-

Cock It makes no difference whether you call me Euphorbus or Pythagoras or Aspasia or Krates, for I am all these. But you would do best to call this present form "Cock," not to be lacking in respect to the bird because it is held a humble creature, seeing that it embraces so many souls.

Mikyllos Well then, Cock, since you have tried pretty much every life and been everything, kindly tell me now what the private life of the rich is and of the poor, too, to show me whether you are telling the truth when you declare me happier than the rich.

Cock Come, look at it in this way: To you war is of no great moment, or the report that the enemy is invading us. You do not worry lest they attack your farm, cut down your crops, trample your shrubberies under foot, or ravage your grapes. When the trumpet sounds, if, indeed, you hear it at all, the most you do is to look for a place of safety for yourself, where you may escape the danger. But the rich, in addition to their personal anxiety, have the misery of looking from the walls and seeing all they had on their estates driven or carried away. And if subsidies are needed, they alone are called upon, and if an army must go out they have the posts of most danger as generals or cavalry officers. But you have an osier-shield, you are well equipped and lightly armed, so that you can save yourself, and you are ready to feast in honor of the victory when the triumphant general sacrifices to the gods.

In peace, on the other hand, you are one of the people, and you enter the assembly and domineer over the rich. They tremble and crouch before you, and propitiate you with grants, slaving to provide you with baths and games and shows and the other things in abundance. But you, as auditor of the public accounts or examiner, rule them like a savage master, sometimes without even accounting for your acts. If it seems good to you, you shower down stones on them like hail with a free hand, or confiscate their property. You have no fear of the sycophant for your person, or of the robber lest he climb over the coping or burrow through the wall and steal your gold. And you need not trouble yourself with keeping accounts or dunning people or wrestling with those confounded stewards. No such cares tear you asunder. No; when you have finished a shoe and received your twenty cents for it, you leave your work towards nightfall, and, if you like, have your bath; then you buy a salt fish or some sprats or a handful of onions, and with this you make merry, singing most of the time, and philosophising with your good friend, poverty.

This kind of life makes you healthy and strong and hardens you against the cold, for you are so whetted on the grindstone of your hardships that you are a shrewd fighter against things that other people find irresistible. Of course, none of those distressing diseases come your way. If ever a light fever touches you, you give way to it for a little, but then you start up and forthwith shake off the trouble. It flees on the instant in terror when it sees that you are a cold-water drinker, and have said a long fare-ill to the doctor's visits. But those who have come to grief through indulgence have every evil under the sun gout and consumption and pneumonia and dropsy, for these are the offspring of those sumptuous dinners. Accordingly, some of them who fly high, like Ikaros, and get near the sun, not knowing their plumage is fastened with wax, fall occasionally head-foremost into the sea with a mighty splash. But those who follow Daedalos, and whose ideas are not too lofty, but so near the earth that the wax is sometimes wet with spray, these, for the most part, fly in safety.

Mikyllos That is to say, people of good common-sense.

Cock But the other sort, Mikyllos, make shameful shipwreck. When Kroisos's feathers are plucked the Persians laugh to see him mount the pyre. Dionysios, his kingdom lost, is seen teaching school in Corinth. He descended from such a throne as his to teach children to spell.

Mikyllos Tell me, Cock, when you were a king -for you say you were once even on the throne —what was your experience of that life? I suppose you were perfectly happy, for you had whatever is best of all good things.

Cock Do not remind me of that thrice unhappy time. As far as those external goods go that you speak of, I seemed indeed perfectly happy, but I had a thousand troubles within.