Vitarum auctio

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.