Vitarum auctio

HERMES Do you want the dirty one over yonder, from the Black Sea ?[*](Diogenes, chief of the Cynics, came from Sinope.) ZEUS By all means.

HERMES You there with the wallet slung about you, you

with the sleeveless shirt, come and walk about the room. I offer for sale a manly philosophy, a noble philosophy, a free philosophy ; who'll buy ?

BUYER Crier, what’s that you say? Are you selling someone who is free ?

HERMES That I am.

BUYER Then aren’t you afraid he may have the law on you for kidnapping or even summon you to the Areopagus ?

HERMES He doesn’t mind being sold, for he thinks that he is free anyhow.

BUYER What use could a man make of him, filthy as he is, and in such a wretched condition? However, he might be made a shoveller or a drawer of water.

HERMES Not only that, but if you make him doorkeeper, you will find him far more trusty than a dog. In tact, he is even called a dog.[*](The name of the sect in Greek means doggish.) BUYER Where is he from, and what creed does he profess ?

HERMES Ask the man himself; it is better to do so.

BUYER I am afraid of his sullen, hang-dog look; he may bark at me if I go near him, or even bite me, by Zeus! Don’t you see how he has his cudgel poised

and his brows bent, and scowls in a threatening, angry way?

HERMES Don’t be afraid ; he is gentle.

BUYER First of all, my friend, where are you from?

CYNIC Everywhere.

BUYER What do you mean ?

CYNIC You see in me a citizen of the world.

BUYER Whom do you take for your pattern ?

CYNIC Heracles.

BUYER Then why don’t you wear a lion’s skin? For as to the cudgel, you are like him in that.

CYNIC This short cloak is my lion-skin; and I am a soldier like him, fighting against pleasures, no conscript but a volunteer, purposing to make life clean.

BUYER A fine purpose! But what do you know best, and what is your business?

CYNIC I am a liberator of men and a physician to their ills; in short I desire to be an interpreter of truth and free speech.

BUVER Very good, interpreter! But if IT buy you, what course of training will you give me ?

CYNIC First, after taking you in charge, stripping you of your luxury and shackling you to want, I will puta short cloak on you. Next I will compel you to undergo pains and hardships, sleeping on the ground, drinking nothing but water and filling yourself with any food that comes your way. As for your money, in case you have any, if you follow my advice you will throw it into the sea forthwith. You will take no thought for marriage or children or native land: all that will be sheer nonsense to you, and you will leave the house of your fathers and make your home in atomb or a deserted tower or even a jar.[*](As did Diogenes ; for his “tub” was really a jar.) Your wallet will be full of lupines, and of papyrus rolls written on both sides. Leading this life you will say that you are happier than the Great King ; and if anyone flogs you or twists you on the rack, you will think that there is nothing painful in it.

BUYER What do you mean by not feeling pain when I am flogged? I am not enclosed in the carapace of a turtle or a crab !

CYNIC You will put in practice the saying of Euripides, slightly revised.

BUYER What saying?

CYNIC Your mind will suffer, but your tongue will not.[*](Hippol. 612: ἡ γλῶσσ᾽ ὀμώμοχ᾽, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος. (My tongue took oath ; my mind has taken none).)