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
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
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
That is to say, people of good common-sense.
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.
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.
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.
What were they? This is astonishing, and I don't altogether believe it.
I ruled over a large and fertile country,
Mikyllos, fit to rank with the best for its population and the beauty of its cities. It was traversed
by navigable rivers, and had a seaboard with
good harbors. I had a large army, with welltrained cavalry, a considerable body-guard, a
navy, untold treasure, quantities of gold plate,
and all the rest of the royal mise en scène in profusion and excess. Whenever I went abroad the
crowd saluted me, believing they beheld a god,
and thronged on each others' heels to get sight
of me; some would even mount the roofs and
count it a great thing to have a clear view of my
chariot, my robes, my outriders, and my escort.
But I, conscious of my sorrows and agonies,
made allowance for their ignorance and pitied my
own case, which I compared with the colossal
statues that Pheidias or Myron or Praxiteles
wrought. Each of these, too, if you look at it
from the outside, is a Poseidon or a Zeus of perfect beauty, made in gold or ivory, grasping the
thunderbolt or the lightning or the trident in his
right hand; but if you stoop and look inside you
will see bars and bolts and nails piercing from
side to side, and timbers and wedges and pitch
and clay and a great many other things just as
unsightly which are hidden there, to say nothing
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?
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.
though all the Achaians were snoring. Kroisus
was troubled because his son was deaf, Artaxerxes
because Klearchos hired himself to Cyros, another
ruler because Dion whispered in the ears of some
of the Syracusans, and another because Parmenion
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
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.
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.
I will cure you, Mikyllos. It is still
How can you? The doors are locked. You are not going to make a burglar of me, are you?
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-
But you have two like that!
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.
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.
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.
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.
First, Mikyllos, pluck the soft feather. What are you doing? You have plucked them both!
To be on the safe side, Cock. And you will look better so. Your tail will be more symmetrical.
All right. Shall we go to see Simon first, or some other millionaire ?
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?
Touch the bolt with the feather.
That's done. Gracious heaven, the door has opened as if with a key!
Go in first. There, do you see him keeping vigil over his accounts?
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.
Hear what he says. Then you will know why he is thus.
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
Yes, by Zeus! I am going off with a basin under my arm just as you did!
Hush, Mikyllos, he will know we are here.
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.
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.
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.
Who struck me? I am robbed, wretched man!
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.
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.
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.
Well, now, Mikyllos, should you like to fall heir to all this, along with the wealth of Eukrates?
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.
But for this time we must go home, for
day is already beginning to break.
You shall see the rest another time, Mikyllos.