GetPassage urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0062.tlg024.perseus-eng2:14-20 urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0062.tlg024.perseus-eng2:14-20

Oh, what effrontery! Will you never stop laughing? (Zo the other.) But you, why do youcry? For I think it is much more becoming to talk with you.

Because I consider, O stranger, that the affairs of man are woeful and tearful, and there is naught in them that is not foredoomed; therefore I pity and grieve for men. And their present woes I do not consider great, but those to come in future will be wholly bitter; I speak of the great conflagrations and the collapse of the universe. It is for this that I grieve, and because nothing is fixed, but all things are in a manner stirred up into porridge, and joy and joylessness, wisdom and unwisdom, great and small are all but the same, circling about, up and down, and interchanging in the game of Eternity.

And what is Eternity ?

A child playing a game, moving counters, in discord, in concord.

What are men?

Mortal gods.

And the Gods ?

Immortal men.

Are you telling riddles, man, or making conundrums? You are just like Apollo, for you say nothing plainly.Heraclitus was nicknamed ὁ σκοτεινός, “the Obscure.” Because you matter naught to me.

Then nobody in his sense will buy you.

I bid ye go weep, one and all, buy you or buy you not. This fellow’s trouble is not far removed from insanity. However, I for my part will not buy either of them.

They are left unsold also.

Put up another.

Do you want the Athenian over there, who has so much to say?Both Socrates and Plato contribute to the picture of the typical Academic. Consequently some editors, misled by the manuscripts (see introductory note) ascribe the part of Academic to Socrates, some to Plato, and some divide it between the two. By all means.

Come here, sir. We are putting up a righteous and intelligent philosophy. Who'll buy the height of sanctity ?

Tell me what you know best ?

I am a lover, and wise in matters of love.

How am I to buy you, then? What I wanted was a tutor for my son, who is handsome.

But who would be more suitable than I to associate with a handsome lad? It is not the body I love, it is the soul that I hold beautiful. As a matter of fact, even if they lie beneath the same cloak with me, they will tell you that I have done them no wrong.See Plato’s Symposium, particularly 216 p-219 D. I can’t believe what you say, that you, though a lover, take no interest in anything beyond the soul, even when you have the opportunity, lying beneath the same cloak.

But I swear to you by the dog and the plane-tree that this is so.

Heracles! What curious gods!

What is that you say? Don’t you think the dog is a god? Don’t you know about Anubis in Egypt, how great he is, and about Sirius in the sky and Cerberus in the world below ?

Quite right ; I was entirely mistaken. But what is your manner of life?

I dwell in a city that I created for myself, using an imported constitution and enacting statutes of my own.The allusion is to Plato’s Republic. I should like to hear one of your enactments.

Let me tell you the most important one, the view that I hold about wives ; it is that none of thei shall belong solely to any one man, but that everyone who so desires may share the rights of the husband.

You mean by this that you have abolished the laws against adultery ?

Yes, and in a word, all this pettiness about such matters.

What is your attitude as to pretty boys?

Their kisses shall be a guerdon for the bravest after they have done some splendid, reckless deed.

My word, what generosity! And what is the gist of your wisdom ?

My “ideas”; I mean the patterns of existing things: for of everything that you behold, the earth, with all that is upon it, the sky, the sea, invisible images exist outside the universe.

Where do they exist ?

Nowhere ; for if they were anywhere, they would not be.As space cannot be predicated of anything outside the univerge, it cannot be predicated of the Platonic Ideas. To do so would be to make them phenomena instead of realities, for nothing in the universe is real. I do not see these patterns that you speak of. Of course not, for the eye of your soul is blind ; but I see images of everything,—an invisible “you,” another “me,” and in a word, two of everything.

Then I must buy you for your wisdom and your sharp sight. (Zo Hermes.) Come, let’s see what price you will make me for him?

Give me two talents.

He is sold to me at the price you mention, But I will pay the money later on.

What is your name?

Dion of Syracuse.Chosen for mention, because he was Plato’s pupil. He is yours; take him, with good luck to you. Epicurean, I want you now. Who will buy him? He is a pupil of the laugher yonder and of the drunkard, both of whom we put up a short time ago.The Epicureans took over the atomic theory from Democritus and the idea that pleasure is the highest good from the Cyrenaics. In one way, however, he knows more than they, because he is more impious. Besides, he is agreeable and fond of good eating.

What is his price?

Two minas. Here you are. But, say! I want to know what food he likes.

He eats sweets and honey-cakes, and, above all, figs.

No trouble about that; we shall buy him cakes of pressed figs from Caria.

Call another, the one over there with the cropped head, the dismal fellow from the Porch.

Quite right; at all events it looks as if the men who frequent the public square were waiting for him in great numbers.Lucian means that the Stoic philosophy was in high favour with statesmen, lawyers, and men of affairs generally. I sell virtue itself, the most perfect of philosophies. Who wants to be the only one to know everything ?

What do you mean by that?

That he is the only wise man, the only handsome man, the only just man, brave man, king, orator, rich man, lawgiver, and everything else that there is.Compare Ad summam: sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives,Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum,Praecipue sanus,— nisi cum pituita molestast !Horace, Epp. 1, I 106 ff Then he is the only cook,—yes and the only tanner or carpenter, and so forth ? So it appears.