Gallus

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

that he will come himself, for just now his coming is doubtful.” On hearing this I made obeisance to him and went away, praying to all the gods to send an attack of ague or pleurisy or gout to the invalid whose substitute and diner-out and heir I had been invited to become. I thought it an interminable age until my bath, and kept looking all the while to see how long the shadow was and when it would at last be time to bathe.

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

was so great that he pretended not to have heard the sally. In a moment Eucrates joined us after his bath, and on seeing ‘Thesmopolis—for that was the philosopher’s name—he said : “Professor, it was very good of you to come to us, but you would not have fared any the worse if you had stayed away, for everything from first to last would have been sent you.” With that he started to go in, conducting Thesmopolis, who was supported by the servants too.

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,

and there were goblets of gold and handsome waiters and musicians and clowns withal. In short, we were delightfully entertained, except for one thing that annoyed me beyond measure: Thesmopolis kept bothering me and talking to me about virtue, whatever that may be, and teaching me that two negatives make an affirmative, and that if it is day it is not night ; and sometimes he actually said that I had horns.[*](For this and other Stoic fallacies, see Lucian I. p. 437 and note 2.) By philosophizing with me incessantly after that fashion when I had no mind for it, he spoiled and diminished my pleasure, not allowing me to hear the performers who were playing and singing. Well, there you have your dinner, cock.

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

heavy rings, fully sixteen of them, was giving orders for a splendid feast to be prepared for the entertainment of my friends. In a moment they were there, as is natural in a dream, and the dinner was being served, and the drinking-bout was under way. While I was thus engaged and was drinking healths with each person there out of golden cups, just as the dessert was being brought in you lifted up your voice unseasonably, and disturbed our party, upset the tables and caused that wealth of mine to be scattered to the winds. Now do you think I was unreasonable in getting angry at you, when I should have been glad to see the dream last for three nights ?

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

of gods and of men, the son of Cronus and Rhea? When he was in love with that slip ofa girl in Argos, not having anything more attractive to change himself into nor any other means of corrupting the sentries of Acrisius, he turned into gold, as you, of course, have heard, and came down through the roof to visit his beloved. Then what is the use of my telling you the rest of it—how many uses gold has, and how, when people have it, it renders them handsome and wise and strong, lending them honour and esteem, and not infrequently it makes inconspicuous and contemptible people admired and renowned in a short time?