Vitarum auctio

Buyer Come, my friend, and tell me, your purchaser, what sort of person you are, and, to begin with, whether it is not an affliction to you to be sold and in slavery.

Chrysippos Not at all; for those things are not under our control, and what is not under our control is therefore indifferent.

Buyer I don't understand just what you mean.

Chrysippos What, do you not understand that in such matters some things are preferred and some again rejected?

Buyer I don't understand even yet.

Chrysippos Naturally, for you are not accustomed to our terminology, nor have you the perceptive imagination. But the virtuous man, he who has mastered logical theory, knows not only

Buyer In the name of wisdom, kindly take the trouble to tell me this, too: what accidents and secondary accidents are. I am indescribably impressed by the roll of the words.

Chrysippos No trouble at all. If a lame man, stumbling with that lame foot itself against a stone gets unexpectedly hurt, this man's lameness is evidently a primary accident to which he adds a secondary accident in the way of the wound.

Buyer What else, now, do you claim to know?

Buyer How clever!

Chrysippos The meshes of argument wherewith I trip up my interlocutors and block their passage and reduce them to silence by actually muzzling them. The name of this faculty is the famous syllogism.

Buyer By Herkules, it is an irresistible, mighty weapon, from your description.

Chrysippos I will give you a specimen. Have you a child?

Buyer Certainly.

Chrysippos If a crocodile should manage to snatch it, finding it wandering too near the river, and if, then, he should promise to restore it if you could tell him truly whether he had determined

Buyer That is a difficult question, for I do not see which answer would be the more likely to get the child back. But do you, in Heaven's name, answer for me, and save my child before he eats him.

Chrysippos Never fear, I will teach you other things still more surprising.

Buyer What sort of things?

Chrysippos The Reaper, the Master, and, above all, the Elektra, and the Veiled.

Buyer What do you mean by the "Veiled," or the "Elektra ?"

Chrysippos Elektra is that famous person, the daughter of Agamemnon, who at the same moment knows a thing and does not know it; for when Orestes stands beside her, still incognito, she knows, indeed, that Orestes is her brother, but that this is Orestes she does not know. And I will tell you about the "Veiled," too, a most extraordinary figure. Answer me, do you know your father?

Buyer Yes.

Chrysippos Well, then, if I present some veiled person to you and ask whether you know him, what would you say?

Buyer That I do not, of course.

Chrysippos And yet this very person was your

Buyer Not at all, for if I unveil him I shall know the truth. However, what is the object of your philosophy? What do you do when you have reached the pinnacle of virtue?

Chrysippos I shall then be occupied with the first things in the order of nature-riches, I mean, and health, and such like things. But before that one must needs toil much, sharpening his sight on books in fine print, taking notes, and filling himself with solecisms aand uncouth phrases. Most important of all, it is not permitted to become a sage until you have drunk hellebore three times in succession.

Buyer This is all very noble in you and extremely manly. But what are we to say when a man, who has already drunk the hellebore and arrived at virtue, turns money - lender at fifty per cent., for I see this belongs to your principles too?

Chrysippos By all means. The sage is the only man fit to lend money; for since ratiocination is his peculiar function, and calculating ratios and per cents. seems to be the next thing to ratiocinating, it follows from these premises that the special business of the good man alone is to get not only simple interest like other people, but compound. For you know there are two sorts of interest, one sort coming first, and the other second,

Buyer And must we say the same of the fees you take for imparting your wisdom to young men? Is it clear that the good man alone will make money out of his virtue?

Chrysippos You grasp the idea. It is not on my own account that I take fees, but for the good of the giver himself. For since one party in a transaction must give and the other receive, I train myself to receive and my pupil to give.

Buyer It ought to be the other way about. The young man ought to receive, and you, who alone are rich, to give out.

Chrysippos You are chaffing, fellow; but be careful lest I let fly at you with the apodeiktic syllogism.

Buyer What are the frightful effects of the weapon?

Chrysippos Embarrassment, silence, confusion of mind.

If you like, I will give you an extreme example, and prove in a twinkling that you are a stone.

Buyer How a stone? You do not look to me like Perseus with the Gorgon's head, my friend.

Chrysippos This is the way. Is the stone a body?

Buyer Yes.

Chrysippos Well, is not a living creature a body?

Buyer Yes.

Chrysippos But you are a living creature?

Buyer Certainly, I have that appearance.

Chrysippos Then you are a stone, for you are a body.

Buyer Heaven forbid! In Zeus' name, release me and make me a man again!

Chrysippos That is easy; be a man once more. For, tell me, is every body a living creature?

Buyer No.

Chrysippos Well, is a stone a living creature?

Buyer No.

Chrysippos But you are a body?

Buyer Yes.

Chrysippos And being a body you are a living creature?

Buyer Yes.

Chrysippos Then you are not a stone, because you are a living creature.

Buyer Thank you. My legs were getting lifeless already and stiff, like Niobe's. But I am certainly going to buy you. What is his price?

Hermes Two hundred and forty dollars.

Buyer Here it is.

Hermes Are you the sole purchaser ?

Buyer Dear me, no. All these people are with me.

Hermes There are plenty of them, and strong in the shoulder. They are fit for "the Mower."

Zeus Don't waste time. Call up another, the Peripatetic.

Hermes You are the man I want-the handsome, the rich one. Come now, buy the most intelligent life-the one whose forte is omniscience!

Buyer What sort of a person is he?

Hermes He leads a reasonable, well-ordered life, never doing either too much or too little. Most important of all, he is double.

Buyer What do you mean?

Hermes It seems that his visible man is one person and his inward man another; so, if you buy him, remember to call the one "exoteric," the other "esoteric."

Buyer What does he know best?

Hermes That there are three classes of goods, relating to the soul, the body, and to externals.

Buyer He thinks like a human being. What is his price?

Hermes Three hundred and seventy-five dollars.

Buyer That is high.

Hermes No, my good fellow, for he seems to have some money himself, so you can't buy him too quickly. Moreover, you will presently learn from him how long the gnat lives, how far down the sea is lighted by the sun, and the nature of the soul of the oyster.

Buyer Herakles! there's precision for you.

Hermes What would you say if you should hear things a great deal shrewder than these— how man is a laughing animal, but the ass neither a laughing, nor a house-building, nor a seafaring animal?

Buyer Edifying and profitable knowledge! I will take him for four hundred dollars.

Hermes Done.

Zeus Whom have we still left?

Hermes The sceptic here. Come forward, Pyrrhias, and be published as fast as you can. Most of the people have already stolen away, and there will be few buyers. All the same, who wants this fellow, too?

Buyer I do. But first tell me, what is your line of knowledge?

Philosopher Nothing.

Buyer What do you mean by that?

Philosopher That in my opinion nothing at all exists.

Buyer Then are we nobody, too?

Philosopher I don't even know that.

Buyer Nor whether you happen to be somebody, either?

Philosopher I am still more ignorant of that, by a good deal.

Buyer What an uncertainty! But, tell me, what do you want with these balances?

Philosopher I weigh arguments in them and get them even, and when I see them exactly equal and of the same weight, then I am ignorant which is the truer.

Buyer What else are you clever at?

Philosopher Everything, except chasing a runaway slave.

Buyer Why can't you do that?

Philosopher Because, good sir, I never appresee. hend.

Buyer Of course. You do seem to be a slow, dull person. But what is the aim of your science?

Philosopher Ignorance; neither to hear nor to apprehend.

Buyer You mean, then, to be blind and deaf?

Philosopher Yes, and incapable of judgment and sensation, and, in a word, the double of an earthworm.

Buyer I must buy you for that. How much do you say he is worth?

Hermes Twenty dollars.

Buyer Here it is. What have you to say, fellow? Have I bought you?

Philosopher Doubtful.

Buyer Not at all. I have purchased you and paid the money.

Philosopher I suspend my judgment about it and consider.

Buyer You will follow me, as my slave should.

Philosopher Who knows whether you are telling the truth?

Buyer The salesman and the eighteen dollars and the by-standers.

Philosopher Are there, then, any standing by?

Buyer I will clap you into the mill in a moment, and persuade you by a vicious argument that I am your master.

Philosopher Suspend your judgment about that.

Buyer No, by Heaven, I have formed my opinion already!

Hermes Here, stop your resistance and follow your purchaser. We will summon you again to-morrow, for we are going to put up the lives of the private citizens and artisans and tradesfolk.