Fugitivi

What they do at drinking-parties, how intoxicated they become, would make a long story. And while they do all this, you cannot imagine how they berate drunkenness and adultery and lewdness and covetousness. Indeed you could not find any two things so opposed to each other as their words and their deeds. For instance, they claim to hate toadying, when as far as that goes they are able to outdo Gnathonides or Struthias;[*](Gluttonous parasites of the New Comedy. Struthias, whose name is evidently connected with the greediness of the sparrow, figures in the Toady (Colaz) of Menander. The play in which Gnathonides appeared is unknown, but Gnatho (“Fowl?) is mentioned by Plutarch to exemplify a typical rasite (Symp., VII, 6, 2), and in utilising part of the Toady for his Hunuchus Terence changed the name of the chief role from Struthias to Gnatho. ) and although they exhort everyone else to tell the truth, they themselves cannot so much as move their tongues except ina lie. To all of them pleasure is nominally an odious thing and Epicurus a foeman; but in practice they do everything for the sake of it. In irascibility, pettishness, and proneness to anger they are beyond young children ; indeed, they give no little amusement to onlookers when their blood boils up in

And “may you never chance to be there”[*](The words are those of Circe to Odysseus, alluding to Charybdis (Odyssey, XII, 106). ) when that vile filth of theirs is exuded! “As to gold or silver, Heracles! I do not want even to ownit. An obol is enough, so that I can buy lupines, for a spring or a stream will supply me with drink.” Then after a little they demand, not obols nor a few drachmas, but whole fortunes. What shipman could make as much from his cargoes as philosophy contributes to these fellows in the way of gain? And then, when they have levied tribute and stocked themselves up to their heart’s content, throwing off that ill-conditioned philosopher’s cloak, they buy farms every now and then, and luxurious clothing, and long-haired pages, and whole apartmenthouses, bidding a long farewell to the wallet of Crates, the mantle of Antisthenes, and the jar of Diogenes.

The unschooled, seeing all this, now spit scornfully at philosophy, thinking that all of us are like this and blaming me for my teachings, so that for a long time now it has been impossible for me to win over a single one of them. I am in the same fix as Penelope,[*](The story of Penelope’s web is told several times in the Odyssey ; II, 93-110; XIX, 138-156; XXIV, 129-146. ) for truly all that I weave is instantly unravelled again; and Stupidity and Wrongdoing laugh in my face to see that I cannot bring my work to completion and my toil to an end.

ZEUS Ye gods! what treatment our dear Philosophy has had from those scoundrels! It is high time, then, to see what is to be done and how they are to be punished. Well, the thunderbolt despatches at a single blow, and the death is a swift one.

APOLLO I will offer you a suggestion, father, for I myself have come to detest the knaves; the Muses mean nothing to them, so I am indignant on behalf of the Nine. Those fellows are by no means worthy of a thunderbolt or of that right hand of yours. Send Hermes down to get after them, if you think best, with unlimited powers in the matter of their punishment. As he himself is interested in argumentation, he will very soon know those who are genuine students of philosophy and those who are not. Then he will commend the former, naturally, and the latter will be punished as he sees fit in the circumstances.

ZEUS A good idea, Apollo. But you go too, Heracles; take along Philosophy herself and all be off, as quickly as you can, to the world. Bear in mind that you will be doing a thirteenth labour of no mean order if you exterminate such pestilential, shameless beasts.

HERACLES On my word, father, I should have preferred to clean out the muck of Augeas once more, rather than to get involved with these creatures. Let us be off, however.