Gallus

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

apenny to Simon—why should he, when he himself did not touch his money? But since his death the other day all his property is Simon’s by law, and now he, the man with the dirty rags, the man that used to lick the pot, takes the air pleasantly, dressed in fine woollens and royal purple, the owner of servants and carriages and golden cups and_ ivory-legged tables, receiving homage from everybody and no longer even giving a glance at me. Recently, for example, I saw him coming toward me and said, “Good-day, Simon’; but he replicd: “Tell that pauper not to abbreviate my name; it is not Simon but Simonides.”[*](He adopts a name better suited to his new position in society ; ef. Timon 22.)1 What is more, the women are actually in love with him now, and he flirts with them and slights them, and when he receives some and is gracious to them the others threaten to hang themselves on account of his neglect. You see, don’t you, what blessings gold is able to bestow, when it transforms ugly people and renders them lovely, like the girdle in poetry?[*](The girdle of Aphrodite: /liad 14, 214 ff.) And you have heard the poets say: “O gold, thou choicest treasure,”[*](Euripides, from the lost Danae: Nauck, Vrag. Graec. Frag. 324.) and

1. Tis gold that over mortal men doth rule.

Source unknown ; Nauck, ibid., adesp. 294. But why did you interrupt me by laughing, cock ?

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

more wretched life than we. I who talk to you have been both poor and rich repeatedly, and have tested every kind of life : after a little you shall hear about it all.

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.

MICYLLUS Then what was I ? ‘Tell me if you can, for I want to know.

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

Bactria. Tl tell you thus much, though: nothing was out of the common then, and Ajax was not as tall and Helen herself not as fair as people think. As I saw her, she had a white complexion and a long neck, to be sure, so that you might know she was the daughter of a swan ; but as for the rest of it, she was decidedly old, about the saine age as Hecuba; for Theseus eloped with her in the first place and kept her at Aphidnae, and Theseus lived in the time of Heracles, who took Troy the first time it was taken, in the time of our fathers,—our then fathers, Imean. Panthous told me all this, and said that when he was quite small he had seen Heracles.

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

even went to: Egypt to study with the prophets, penetrated into their sanctuaries and learned the books of Horus and Isis by heart, and then I sailed away to Italy and worked upon the Greeks in that quarter of the world to such an extent that they thought me a god.

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

and one another, and all be perplexed, as they are in the case of oracles that are obscure. Look here, you are laughing at me, now.

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.