Gallus

MICYLLUS Way, you scurvy cock, may Zeus himself annihilate you for being so envious and shrill-voiced! I was rolling in wealth and having a most delightful dream and enjoying wonderful happiness when you uplifted your voice in a piercing, full-throated crow and waked me up. Even at night you won't let me escape my poverty, which is much more of a nuisance than you are. And yet to judge from the fact that the silence is still profound and the cold has not yet stiffened me as it always does in the morning—which _ is the surest indicator that I have of the approach of day—it is not yet midnight, and this bird, who is as sleepless as if he were guarding the golden fleece, has started crowing directly after dark. He shall suffer for it, though! I'll pay you back, never fear, as soon as it is daylight, by whacking the life out of you with my stick ; but if I tried it now, you would bother me by hopping about in the dark.

COCK Master Micyllus, I thought I should do you a favour by cheating the night as much as I could, so that you might make use of the morning hours and fnish the greater part of your work early ; you see, if you geta single sandal done before the sun rises,

MICYLLUS Zeus, god of miracles, and Heracles, averter of harm! what the devil does this mean? The cock talked like a human being!

COCK Then do you think it a miracle if I talk the same language as you men?

MICYLLUS Why isn’t it a miracle? Gods, avert the evil omen from us!

COCK It appears to me, Micyllus, that you are utterly uneducated and haven’t even read Homer’s poems, for in them Xanthus, the horse of Achilles, saying good-bye to neighing forever, stood still and talked in the thick of the fray, reciting whole verses, not prose as I did ; indeed he even made prophecies and foretold the future; yet he was not considered to be doing anything out of the way, and the one who heard him did not invoke the averter of harm as you did just now, thinking the thing ominous.[*](Iliad 19, 407 ff.) Moreover, what would you have done if the stem of the Argo had spoken to you as it spoke of old,[*](Apoll. Rhod. 4, 580 ff.) or the oak at Dodona had prophesied with a voice of its own; or if you had seen hides crawling and the flesh of oxen bellowing half-roasted on the spits?[*](Od. 12, 325 ff.) I am the friend of

MICYLLUS Why, this is not a dream, is it? A cock talking to me this way? Tell me, in the name of Hermes, my good friend, what other reason you have for your ability to speak. As to my keeping still and not telling anybody, why should you have any fear, for who would believe me if I told him anything asserting that I had heard it from a cock ?

COCK Listen, then, to an account which will be quite incredible to you, I am very sure, Micyllus. I who now appear to you in the guise of a cock was a man not long ago.

MICYLLUS I heard something to that effect about you cocks a good while ago. They say that a young fellow named Alectryon (Cock) became friends with Ares ind drank with the god and caroused with him and shared his amorous adventures ; at all events, whenever Ares went to visit Aphrodite on poaching bent, he took Alectryon along too ; and as he was especially uspicious of Helius, for fear that he would look down on them and tell Hephaestus, he always used to leave the young fellow outside at the door to warn him when Helius rose. Then, they say, Alectryon fell asleep one time and unintentionally

COCK That is what they say, Micyllus, I grant you; but my own experience has been quite different, and it is only just lately that I changed into a cock.

MICYLLUS How? That is what I want to know above all else.

COCK Have you ever heard of a man named Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, of Samos?

MICYLLUS You mean the sophist, the quack, who made laws against tasting meat and eating beans, banishing from the table the food that I for my part like best of all, and then trying to persuade people that before he became Pythagoras he was Euphorbus (Well-

COCK I am that very Pythagoras, Micyllus, so stop abusing me, my good friend, especially as you do not know what sort of man I really was.

MICYLLUS Now this is far more miraculous than the other thing! A philosopher cock! Tell me, though, son of Mnesarchus, how you became a cock instead of a man and a Tanagriote instead of a Samian.[*](Tanagra in Boeotia was famous for its game-cocks.) This story is not plausible nor quite easy to believe, for I think Ihave observed two things in you that are quite foreign to Pythagoras.

COCK What are they?

MICYLLUS One thing is that you are very noisy and loudvoiced, whereas he recommended silence for five whole years, I believe. The other is actually quite illegal ; I came home yesterday, as you know, with nothing but beans to throw you, and you picked them up without even hesitating. So it must be either that you have told a lie and are someone else, or, if you are Pythagoras, you have broken the law and committed as great an impiety in eating beans as if you had eaten your father’s head.[*](An allusion to the pseudo-Pythagorean verse ἶσόν τοι κυάμους τε φαγεῖν κεφαλάς τε τοκήων. (It is just as wrong for you to eat beans as to eat the heads of your parents).)

COCK Why, Micyllus, you don’t know what the reason for these rules is, and what is good for particular modes of existence. Formerly I did not eat beans because I was a philosopher, but now I can eat them because they are fit food for a bird and are not forbidden to us. But listen if you like, and I'll tell you how from Pythagoras I became what I am, and what existences I formerly led, and what I profited by each change.

MICYLLUS Do tell me, for I should be more than delighted to hear it. Indeed, if anyone were to let me choose whether I preferred to hear you tell a story like that or to have once more that blissful dream I had a little while ago, I don’t know which would be my choice; for in my estimation what you say is close akin to the most delightful of visions, and I hold you both in equal esteem, you and my priceless dream.

COCK What, are you still brooding on that vision, whatever it was that came to you, and are you still cherishing idle delusions, hunting down in your memory a vain and (as they say in poetry) disembodied happiness ?

MICYLLUS Why, I shall never forget that vision, cock, you may be sure. The dream left so much honied sweetness in my eyes when it went away that I can hardly open my lids, for it drags them down in sleep again. In fact, what I saw gave me as pleasant a titillation as a feather twiddled in one’s ear.

MICYLLUS I am ready to tell; in fact, it will be delightful to think and talk about it. But when are you going to tell me about your transmigrations, Pythagoras?

COCK When you stop dreaming, Micyllus, and rub the honey out of your eyes. At present, you speak first, so that I may find out whether it was through the gates of ivory or the gates of horn that the dream winged its way to you.

MICYLLUS Not through either of them, Pythagoras.

COCK Well, Homer mentions only those two.[*](Od. 19, 562. The truthful dreams use the gates of horn, the deceitful the gates of ivory.) MICYLLUS Let that silly poet go hang! He knows nothing about dreams. Perhaps the beggarly dreams go out through those gates, dreams like those he used to see; and he couldn’t see them very plainly at that, for he was blind! But my darling dream

COCK Stop babbling of gold, most noble Midas. Really your dream was just like Midas’ prayer, and you appear to me to have slept yourself into whole goldmines.

MICYLLUS I saw a lot of gold, Pythagoras, a lot; you can’t think how beautiful it was, and with what brilliancy it shone. What is it that Pindar says in praising it ? Remind me, if you know. It is where he says water is best and then extols gold (and well he may), right in the beginning of the most beautiful of all his odes.

COCK Is this what you are after?

1. Water is best, but gold
2. Like blazing fire at night
3. Stands out amid proud riches.

COCK I know that very well; I went hungry all day until finally, late in the evening, you came back rather tight, bringing me those five beans, not a very bounteous repast for a cock who was once an athlete and made a fair showing at the Olympic games.

MICYLLUS When I came home after dinner, I went to sleep as soon as I had thrown you the beans, and then “through the ambrosial night,” as Homer puts it,[*](Iliad 2, 56.) a truly divine dream came to me and. . .

COCK First tell me what happened at Eucrates’, Micyllus, how the dinner was and all about the drinkingparty afterwards. For there is nothing to hinder you from dining all over again by making up adream so to speak, about that dinner and chewing the cud of your food in fancy.

MICYLLUS I thought I should bore you by telling all that, but since you want it, here goes. I never before dined with a rich man in all my life, Pythagoras, but by a stroke of luck I met Eucrates yesterday; after giving him “Good-day, master,” as usual, I was for going away again, so as not to shame him by joining his company in my beggarly cloak. But: “Micyllus,” said he, “I am giving a birthday party for my daughter to-day, and have invited a great many of my friends: but as one of them is ill, they say, and can’t dine with us, you must take a bath and come in his place, unless, to be sure, the man I invited says

When the time finally came, I scrubbed myself with all speed and went off very well dressed, as I had turned my cloak inside out so that the garment might’ show the cleaner side.

I met at the door a number of people, and among them, carried on the shoulders of four bearers, the man whose place I was to have filled, who they said was ill; and in fact he was clearly ina bad way. At any rate he groaned and coughed and hawked in a hollow and Giencive way, and was all pale and flabby, a man of about sixty. He was said to be one of those philosophers who talk rubbish to the boys, and in fact. he had a regular goat’s beard, excessively long. And when Archibius, the doctor, took him to task for coming in that condition, “Duty,” he said, “must not be shirked, especially by a philosopher, though a thousand illnesses stand in his way; Eucrates would think he had been slighted by me.” “No indeed,” ‘said I, “He will commend you if you choose to die at home rather than to hawk and spit your life away at his party!” But the man’s pride

I was getting ready to go away, but he turned my way and hesitated a good while, and then, as he saw that I was very: downeast, said: “You come in too, Micyllus, and dine with us. Tl make my son eat with his mother in the women’s quarters so that you may have room.” I went in, therefore, after coming within an ace of licking my lips for nothing, like the wolf[*](The proverb seems to be founded on the fable of the wolf and the old woman ; she threatened to throw a baby to the wolf if it did not stop crying, and the wolf waited all day for the baby, only to go home disappointed. (Aesop, 275 Halm.)); I was ashamed, however, because I seemed to have driven Eucrates’ boy out of the dining-room.

When it was time to go to the table, first of all they picked Thesmopolis up and put him in place, not without some difficulty, though there were five stout lads, I think, to do it; and they stuffed eushions all round about him so that he could maintain his position and hold out for a long time. Then, as nobody else could endure to lie near him, they took me and put me in the place below him, making us neighbours at table. Then, Pythagoras, we began eating a dinner of many courses and great variety, served on gold and silver plate in profusion,

COCK It was not of the pleasantest, Micyllus, as your lot was cast with that silly old man.

MICYLLUS Now listen to my dream. I thought that Eucrates himself had somehow become childless and lay dying, and that, after sending for me and making a will in which I was heir to everything, he lingered a while and then died. On entering into possession of the property, I dipped up the gold and the silver in great bowlfuls, for there was an ever-flowing, copious stream of it; and all the rest, too—the ‘clothing and tables and cups and waiters—all was mine, ot course. Then I drove out behind a pair of white horses, holding my head high, the admiration and the envy of all beholders; many ran before me and rode beside me, and still more followed after me, and I with his clothing on and my fingers covered with

COCK Are you such a lover of gold and of riches, Micyllus, and is owning quantities of gold the only thing in the world that you admire and consider blissful ?

MICYLLUS I am not the only ‘one to do so, Pythagoras: you yourself, when you were Euphorbus, sallied forth to fight the Achaeans with your curls tricked out in gold and silver, and even in war, where it would have been better to wear iron, you thought fit to face danger with your hair caught up with gold.[*](Tliad 17, 52.) No doubt Homer said that your hair was “like the Graces” because “it was snooded with gold and with silver” ; for it looked far finer and lovelier, of course, when it was interwoven with gold and shone in unison with it. And yet as far as you are concerned, Goldenhair, it is of little moment that you, the son of a Panthous, honoured gold, but what of the father

For instance, you know my neighbour, of the same trade, Simon, who dined with me not long ago when I boiled the soup for Cronus-day and put in two slices of sausage?

COCK Yes, I know him; the snub-nosed, short fellow who filched the earthen bowl and went away with it under his arm after dinner, the only bowl we had— I myself saw him, Micyllus.

MICYLLUS So it was he that stole it and then swore by so many gods that he did not? But why didn’t you cry out and tell on him then, cock, when you saw us being plundered ?

COCK I crowed, and that was all that I could do at the time. But what about Simon? You seemed to be going to say something about him.

MICYLLUS He had a cousin who was enormously rich, named Drimylus. This fellow while he was alive never gave

1. Tis gold that over mortal men doth rule.

COCK Because in your ignorance, Micyllus, you have gone just as far astray as most people in regard to the rich. Take my word for it, they live a much

MICYLLUS Yes, by Heaven, it is high time now for you to talk and tell me how you got transformed and what you know of each existence.

COCK Listen ; but first let me tell you thus much, that I have never seen anyone leading a happier life than you.

MICYLLUS Than I, cock? I wish you no better luck yourself! You force me to curse you, you know. But begin with Euphorbus and tell me how you were transformed to Pythagoras, and then the rest of it till you get to the cock : for it is likely that you have seen many sights and had many adventures in your multifarious existences.

COCK How my soul originally left Apollo, flew down to earth and entered into a human body and what sin it was condemned to expiate in that way would make a long story; besides, it is impious either for me to tell or for you to hear such things. But when I became Euphorbus. . .

MICYLLUS But I,—who was I formerly, wondrous creature ? First tell me whether I too was ever transformed like you. Cock Yes, certainly.

COCK You were an Indian ant, one of the gold-digging kind.[*](Herod. 3, 102.) MICYLLUS Confound the luck ! to think that I did not dare to lay in even a small supply of gold-dust before coming from that life to this! But what shall I be next, tell me? You probably know. If it is anything good, [ll climb up this minute and hang myself from the peg that you are standing on.

COCK You can’t by any possibility find that out. But when I became Euphorbus—for I am going back to that subject—I fought at Troy and was killed by Menelaus, and some time afterwards I entered into Pythagoras. In the meanwhile I stood about and waited without a house till Mnesarchus should build me one.

MICYLLUS Without food and drink, my friend ?

COCK Yes, certainly ; for they turned out to be unnecessary, except for the body.

MICYLLUS Well, then, tell me the story of Troy first. Was it all as Homer says ?

COCK Why, where did he get his information, Micyllus? When all that was going on, he was a camel in

MICYLLUS But how about Achilles? Was he as Homer describes him, supreme in everything, or is this only a fable too ?

COCK I did not come into contact with him at all, Micyllus, and I can’t tell you as accurately about the Greek side. How could I, being one of the enemy? His comrade Patroclus, however, I killed without difficulty, running him through with my spear.[*](The cock is drawing the long-bow; Euphorbus only wounded Patroclus, Iliad 16, 806 ff.) MICYLLUS And then Menelaus killed you with much greater ease! But enough of this, and now tell me the story of Pythagoras.

COCK In brief, Micyllus, I was a sophist, for I must tell the truth, I suppose. However, I was not uneducated or unacquainted with the noblest sciences. I

MICYLLUS So I have heard, and I have also heard that you were thought to have come to life again after dying, and that you once showed them that your thigh was of gold. But, look here, tell me how it occurred to you to make a law against eating either meat or beans?

COCK Do not press that question, Micyllus.

MICYLLUS Why, cock ? Cock Because I am ashamed to tell you the truth of it.

MICYLLUS But you oughtn’t to hesitate to tell a housemate and a friend—for I cannot call myself your master any longer.

COCK It was nothing sensible or wise, but I perceived that if I made laws that were ordinary and just like those of the run of legislators I should not induce men to wonder at me, whereas the more I departed from precedent, the more of a figure I should cut, I thought, in their eyes. Therefore I preferred to introduce innovations, keeping the reason for them secret so that one man might guess one thing

MICYLLUS Not so much at you as at the people of Croton and Metapontum and Tarentum and all the rest who followed you dumbly and worshipped the footprints that you left in walking.

But after you put off the part of Pythagoras what other did you assume ?

COCK Aspasia, the courtesan from Miletus.

MICYLLUS Whew, what a yarn! So Pythagoras became a woman on top of everything else, and there was once atime when you laid eggs, most distinguished of cocks; when you lived with Pericles in the capacity of Aspasia and had children by him and carded wool and spun yarn and made the most of your sex in courtesan style?

COCK Yes, I did all that, and I am not the only one: both Tiresias and Caeneus the son of Elatus preecded me, so that all your jokes at my expense will be at their expense too.[*](Tiresias struck a pair of mating serpents with his staff, and turned into a woman ; seven years later he once more saw them and struck them, becoming a man again (Ovid, Melam. 3, 316 ff.). Poseidon turned Caenis into a man at her own request after he had wronged her (Metam. 12, 189 ff.).) MICYLLUS How about it? Which life did you find the pleasanter, when you were a man or when Pericles dallied with you ?

MICYLLUS Hang you, cock, do you think everybody hails from Miletus or Samos? They say that while you were Pythagoras and young and handsome you often played Aspasia to the tyrant.

But what man or woman did you become after Aspasia ?

COCK The Cynic Crates.

MICYLLUS Twin brethren! what ups and downs! First a courtesan, then a philosopher !

COCK Then a king, then a poor man, and soon a satrap ; then a horse, a jackdaw, a frog, and a thousand things besides ; it would take too long to enumerate them all. But of late I have often been a cock, for I liked that sort of life; and after belonging to many men,

MICYLLUS Well then, Pythagoras—but tell me what you like best to be called, so that I may not muddle up our conversation by calling you different names.

COCK It will make no difference whether you call me Euphorbus or Pythagoras, Aspasia or Crates; I am all of them. But you had better call me what you now see me to be, a cock, so as not to slight a bird that, although held in low esteem, has in itself so many souls.