TYCHIADES Well, how it pleases you to be styled matters little or nothing to me; but you must consider the general absurdity of it.

SIMON What absurdity, I should like to know?

TYCHIADES If we are to list this among the other arts, so that when anybody enquires what art it is, we shall say “Parasitic,” to correspond with Music and Rhetoric.

The examples in the Greek are “Grammar and Medicine,” but it was necessary to choose English examples which retained the Greek ending.

SIMON For my part, Tychiades, I should call this an art far more than any other. If you care to listen, I think I can tell you why, although, as I just said, I am not entirely prepared for it. TYCHIADES It will make no difference at all if you say little, as long as that little is true.

SIMON Come now, first of all, if it please you, let us consider what an art is in general; for in that way we can go on to the individual] arts and see if they truly come under that head. TYCHIADES What on earth is an art, then? Surely you know.

SIMON To be sure.

TYCHIADES Then do not hesitate to tell, if you do know.