Vitarum auctio

Zeus Now get those benches straight there, and make the place fit to be seen. Bring up the lots, one of you, and put them in line. Give them a rub up first, though; we must have them looking their best, to attract bidders. Hermes, you can declare the sale-room open, and a welcome to all comers.—For Sale! A varied assortment of Live Creeds. Tenets of every description—Cash on delivery; or credit allowed on suitable security.

Hermes Here they come, swarming in. No time to lose; we must not keep them waiting.

Zeus Well, let us begin.

Heraclitus What are we to put up first?

Zeus The Ionic fellow, with the long hair. He seems a showy piece of goods.

Heraclitus Step up, Pythagoreanism, and show yourself.

Zeus Go ahead.

Heraclitus Now here is a creed of the first water. Who bids for this handsome article? What gentleman says Superhumanity? Harmony of the Universe! Transmigration of souls! Who bids? First Dealer. He looks all right. And what can he do?

Heraclitus Magic, music, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, jugglery. Prophecy in all its branches,

First Dealer Can I ask him some questions?

Heraclitus Ask away, and welcome.

First Dealer Where do you come from?

Pythagoras Samos.

First Dealer Where did you get your schooling?

Pythagoras From the sophists in Egypt.

First Dealer If I buy you, what will you teach me?

Pythagoras Nothing. I will remind you.

First Dealer Remind me?

Pythagoras But first I shall have to cleanse your soul of its filth.

First Dealer Well, suppose the cleansing process complete. How is the reminding done?

Pythagoras We shall begin with a long course of silent contemplation. Not a word to be spoken for five years.

First Dealer You would have been just the creed for Croesus’s son! But I have a tongue in my head; I have no ambition to be a statue. And after the five years’ silence?

Pythagoras You will study music and geometry.

First Dealer A charming recipe!’ The way to be wise: learn the guitar.

Pythagoras Next you will learn to count.

First Dealer I can do that already.

Pythagoras Let me hear you.

First Dealer One, two, three, four,—

Pythagoras There you are, you see. Four (as you call it) is ten. Four the perfect triangle. Four the oath of our school.

First Dealer Now by Four, most potent Four!—higher and holier mysteries than these I never heard.

Pythagoras Then you will learn of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water; their action, their movement, their shapes.

First Dealer Have Fire and Air and Water shapes?

Pythagoras Clearly. That cannot move which lacks shape and form. You will also find that God is a number; an intelligence; a harmony.

First Dealer You surprise me.;

Pythagoras

More than this, you have to learn that you yourself are § not the person you appear to be.

First Dealer What, I am some one else, not the I who am speaking to you?

Pythagoras You are that you now: but you have formerly inhabited another body, and borne another name. And in course of time you will change once more.

First Dealer Why then I shall be immortal, and take one shape after another?

But enough of this, And now what is your diet?

Pythagoras Of living things I eat none. All else I eat, except beans.

First Dealer And why no beans? Do you dislike them?

Pythagoras No. But they are sacred things. Their nature is a mystery. Consider them first in their generative aspect; take a green one and peel it, and you will see what I mean. Again, boil one and expose it to moonlight for a proper number of nights, and you have—blood. What is more, the Athenians use beans to vote with.

First Dealer Admirable! A very feast of reason. Now just strip, and let me see what you are like. Bless me, here is a creed with a golden thigh! He is no mortal, he is a God. I must have him at any price. What do you start him at?

Heraclitus Forty pounds.

First Dealer He is mine for forty pounds,

Zeus Take the gentleman’s name and address.

Heraclitus He must come from Italy, I should think; Croton or Tarentum, or one of the Greek towns in those parts. But he is not the only buyer. Some three hundred of them have clubbed together.

Zeus They are welcome to him. Now up with the next.

Heraclitus What about yonder grubby Pontian[*](See Diogenes in Notes.)?

Zeus Yes, he will do.

Heraclitus You there with the wallet and cloak; come along, walk round the room. Lot No.2, A most sturdy and valiant creed, free-born. What offers?

Second Dealer Hullo, Mr. Auctioneer, are you going to sell a free man?

Heraclitus That was the idea

Second Dealer Take care, he may have you up for kidnapping. This might be matter for the Areopagus.

Heraclitus Oh, he would as soon be sold as not. He feels just as free as ever.

Second Dealer But what is one to do with such a dirty fellow? He is a pitiable sight. One might put him to dig perhaps, or to carry water.

Heraclitus That he can do and more. Set him to guard your house, and you will find him better than any watch-dog.— They call him Dog for short.

Second Dealer Where does he come from? and what is his method?

Heraclitus He can best tell you that himself.

Second Dealer I don’t like his looks. He will probably snarl if I go near him, or take a snap at me, for all I know. See how he lifts his stick, and scowls; an awkward-looking customer!

Heraclitus Don’t be afraid. He is quite tame.

Second Dealer Tell me, good fellow, where do you come from?

Diogenes Everywhere.

Second Dealer What does that mean?

Diogenes It means that I am a citizen of the world.

Second Dealer And your model?

Diogenes Heracles.

Second Dealer Then why no lion’s-skin? You have the orthodox club.

Diogenes My cloak is my lion’s-skin. Like Heracles, I live in a state of warfare, and my enemy is Pleasure; but unlike him I am a volunteer. My purpose is to purify humanity.

Second Dealer A noble purpose. Now what do I understand to be your strong subject?. What is your profession?

Diogenes The liberation of humanity, and the treatment of the” passions, In short, I am the prophet of Truth and Candour.

Second D. Well, prophet; and if I buy you, how shall you handle my case?

Diogenes I shall commence operations by stripping off your superfluities, putting you into fustian, and leaving you closeted with Necessity. Then I shall give you a course of hard labour. You will sleep on the ground, drink water, and fill your belly as best you can, Have you money? ‘Take my advice and throw it into the sea. With wife and children and country you will not concern yourself; there will be no more of that nonsense. You will exchange your present home for a sepulchre, a ruin, or a tub. What with lupines and close-written tomes, your knapsack will never be empty; and you will vote yourself happier than any king. Nor will you esteem it any inconvenience, if a flogging or a turn of the rack should fall to your lot.

Second Dealer How! Am I a tortoise, a lobster, that I should be flogged and feel it not?

Diogenes You will take your cue from Hippolytus; mutatis mutandis.

Second Dealer How so?

Diogenes ‘The heart may burn, the tongue knows nought thereof’[*](Hippolytus (in Euripides’s play of that name) is reproached with having broken an oath, and thus defends himself; ‘The tongue hath sworn: the heart knew nonght thereof.’)

Second D, Oh, vile creed! Monstrous creed! Avaunt!

Diogenes But look you, it is all so easy; it is within every man’s reach. No education is necessary, no nonsensical argumentation. I offer you a short cut to Glory. You may be the merest clown—cobbler, fishmonger, carpenter, money-changer; yet there is nothing to prevent your becoming famous. Given brass and boldness, you have only to learn to wag your tongue with dexterity.

Second Dealer All this is of no use to me. But I might make a sailor or a gardener of you at a pinch; that is, if you are to be had cheap. Three-pence is the most I can give.

Heraclitus He is yours, to have and to hold. And good riddance to the brawling foul-mouthed bully. He is a slanderer by wholesale.

Zeus Now for the Cyrenaic, the crowned and purple-robed.

Heraclitus Attend please, gentlemen all. A most valuable article, this, and calls for a long purse.’ Look at him, A sweet thing in creeds. A creed for a king. Has any gentleman a use for the Lap of Luxury? Who bids?:

Third Dealer Come and tell me what you know. If you are a practical creed, I will have you.

Heraclitus Please not to worry him with questions, sir. He is drunk, and cannot answer; his tongue plays him tricks, as you see.

Third Dealer And who in his senses would buy such an abandoned reprobate? How he smells of scent! And how he slips and staggers about! Well, you must speak for him, Hermes. What can he do? What is his line?

Heraclitus Well, for any gentleman who is not strait-laced, who loves a pretty girl, a bottle, and a jolly companion, he is the very thing. He is also a past master in gastronomy, and a connoisseur in voluptuousness generally. He was educated at Athens, and has served royalty in Sicily[*](See Aristippus in Notes.), where he had a very good character. Here are his principles in a nutshell: Think the worst of things: make the most of things: get all possible pleasure out of things.

Third Dealer You must look for wealthier purchasers. My purse is not equal to such a festive creed.

Heraclitus Zeus, this lot seems likely to remain on our hands.

Zeus Put it aside, and up with another. Stay, take the pair from Abdera and Ephesus; the creeds of Smiles and Tears. They shall make one lot.

Heraclitus Come forward, you two. Lot No. 4. A superlative pair. The smartest brace of creeds on our catalogue.

Fourth Dealer Zeus! What a difference is here! One of them does nothing but laugh, and the other might be at a funeral; he is all tears—You there! what is the joke?

Democritus You ask? You and your affairs are all one vast joke.

Fourth Dealer So! You laugh at us? Our business is a toy?

Democritus It is. There is no taking it seriously. All is vanity. Mere interchange of atoms in an infinite void.

Fourth Dealer Your vanity is infinite, if you like. Stop that laughing, you rascal.—

And you, my poor fellow, what are you crying for? I must see what I can make of you.

Heraclitus I am thinking, friend, upon human affairs; and well may I weep and lament, for the doom of all is sealed. Hence my compassion and my sorrow. For the present, I think not of it; but the future!—the future is all bitterness. Conflagration and destruction of the world. I weep to think that nothing abides, All things are whirled together in confusion. Pleasure and pain, knowledge and ignorance, great and small; up and down they go, the playthings of Time.

Fourth Dealer And what is Time?

Heraclitus A child; and plays at draughts and blindman’s-buff.

Fourth Dealer And men?

Heraclitus Are mortal Gods.

Fourth Dealer And Gods?

Heraclitus Immortal men.

Fourth Dealer So! Conundrums, fellow? Nuts to crack? You are a very oracle for obscurity.

Heraclitus Your affairs do not interest me.

Fourth Dealer No one will be fool enough to bid for you at that rate.

Heraclitus Young and old, him that bids and him that bids not, a murrain seize you all!

Fourth Dealer A sad case. He will be melancholy mad before long. Neither of these is the creed for my money.

Heraclitus No one bids.

Zeus Next lot.

Heraclitus The Athenian there? Old Chatterbox?

Zeus By all means.

Heraclitus Come forward!—A good sensible creed this. Who buys Holiness?

Fifth Dealer Let me see. What are you good for?

Socrates I teach the art of love.

Fifth Dealer A likely bargain for me! I want a tutor for my young Adonis.

Socrates And could he have a better? The love I teach is of.

Fifth Dealer Very unconvincing that. A teacher of the art of love, and never meddle with anything but the spirit? Never use the opportunities your office gives you?

Socrates Now by Dog and Plane-tree, it is as I say!

Fifth Dealer Heracles! What strange Gods are these?

Socrates Why, the Dog is a God, I suppose? Is not Anubis made much of in Egypt? Is there not a Dog-star in Heaven, and a Cerberus in the lower world?

Fifth D. Quite so. My mistake. Now what is your manner of life?

Socrates I live in a city of my own building; I make my own laws, and have a novel constitution of my own.

Fifth Dealer I should like to hear some of your statutes.

Socrates You shall hear the greatest of them all. No woman shall be restricted to one husband. Every man who likes is her husband.

Fifth Dealer What! Then the laws of adultery are clean swept away?

Socrates I should think they were! and a world of hair-splitting with them.

Fifth Dealer And what do you do with the handsome boys?

Socrates ‘Their kisses are the reward of merit, of noble and spirited actions.

Fifth D. Unparalleled generosity!—And now, what are the main features of your philosophy?

Socrates Ideas and types of things. All things that you see, the earth and all that is upon it, the sea, the sky,—each has its counterpart in the invisible world.

Fifth Dealer And where are they?

Socrates Nowhere. Were they anywhere, they were not what they are.

Fifth Dealer I see no signs of these ‘types’ of yours.

Socrates Of course not; because you are spiritually blind. I see the counterparts of all things; an invisible you, an invisible me; everything is in duplicate.

Fifth Dealer Come, such a shrewd and lynx-eyed creed is worth a bid. Let me see. What do you want for him?

Heraclitus Five hundred.

Fifth Dealer Done with you. Only I must settle the bill another day.

Heraclitus What name?

Fifth Dealer Dion; of Syracuse.

Heraclitus Take him, and much good may he do you. Now I want Epicureanism. Who offers for Epicureanism? He isa disciple of the laughing creed and the drunken creed, whom we were offering just now. But he has one extra accomplishment— impiety. For the rest, a dainty, lickerish creed.

Sixth Dealer What price?

Heraclitus Eight pounds.

Sixth Dealer Here you are. By the way, you might let me know what he likes to eat.

Heraclitus Anything sweet. Anything with honey in it. Dried figs are his favourite dish.

Sixth Dealer That is all right. We will get in a supply of Carian fig-cakes,

Zeus Call the next lot.

Stoicism; the creed of the sorrowful countenance, the close-cropped creed.

Heraclitus Ah yes, several customiers, I fancy, are on the look-out for him. Virtue incarnate! The very quintessence of creeds! Who is for universal monopoly?

Seventh Dealer How are we to understand that?

Heraclitus Why, here is monopoly of wisdom, monopoly of beauty, monopoly of courage, monopoly of justice. Sole king, sole orator, sole legislator, sole millionaire.

Seventh Dealer And I suppose sole cook, sole tanner, sole carpenter, and all that?

Heraclitus Presumably.