You lucky Menippus, what a surprising spectacle !
I suppose you have often seen a swarm of ants,
in which some are huddling together about the
mouth of the hole and transacting affairs of state in
public, some are going out and others are coming
back again to the city; one is carrying out the dung,
and another has caught up the skin of a bean or half
a grain of wheat somewhere and is running off with
it; and no doubt there are among them, in due proportion to the habits of ants, builders, politicians,
aldermen, musicians, and philosophers. But however that may be, the cities with their population
resembled nothing so much as ant-hills. If you think
it is belittling to compare men with the institutions
of ants, look up the ancient fables of the Thessalians
and you will find that the Myrmidons, the most
warlike of races, turned from ants into men.
Well, when I had looked and laughed at everything to my heart’s content, I shook myself and flew
upward,
Before I had gone a furlong upward, the moon spoke
with a voice like a woman’s and said: “Menippus,
Pll thank you kindly to do me a service with Zeus.”
"Tell me what it is,’ said I, “it will be no trouble
at all, unless you want me to carry something.”
"Take a simple message and a request from me to