Dialogi mortuorum

What are you all whining about, you fools? You philosopher, late of the beard,—you’re as bad as any of them.

A Philosopher Ah, Hermes: I had thought that the soul was immortal.

Menippus He lies: that is not the cause of his distress.

Hermes What is it, then?

Menippus He knows that he will never have a good dinner again; never sneak about at night with his cloak over his head, going the round of the brothels; never spend his mornings in fooling boys out of their money, under the pretext of teaching them wisdom.

A Philosopher And pray are you content to be dead?

Menippus It may be presumed so, as I sought death of my own

By the way, I surely heard a noise, as if people were shouting on the earth?

Hermes You did; and from more than one quarter.—There are people running in a body to the Town-hall, exulting over the death of Lampichus; the women have got hold of his wife; his infant children fare no better,—the boys are giving them a handsome pelting. Then again you hear the applause that greets the orator Diophantus, as he pronounces the funeral oration of our friend Crato. Ah yes, and that’s Damasias’s mother, with her women, striking up a dirge. No one has a tear for you, Menippus; your remains are left in peace. Privileged person!

Menippus Wait a bit: before long you will hear the mournful howl of dogs, and the beating of crows’ wings, as they gather to perform my funeral rites.

Hermes I like your spirit——However, here we are in port. Away with you all to the judgement-seat; it is straight ahead. The ferryman and I must go back for a fresh load.

Menippus Good voyage to you, Hermes.—Let us be getting on; what are you all waiting for? We have got to face the judge, sooner or later; and by all accounts his sentences are no joke; wheels, rocks, vultures are mentioned. Every detail of our lives will now come to light!

Crato Did you know Moerichus of Corinth, Diogenes? A shipowner, rolling in money, with a cousin called Aristeas, nearly as rich. He had a Homeric quotation Wilt thou heave me? shall I heave thee?[*](Homer, Il. xxiii. 724. When Ajax and Odysseus have wrestled for some time without either’s producing any impression, and the spectators are getting tired of it, the former proposes a change in tactics, '"Let us hoist—try you with me or I with you." The idea evidently is that each in turn is to offer only a passive resistance, and let his adversary try to fling him thus.’ Leaf.)

Diogenes What was the point of it?

Crato Why, the cousins were of equal age, expected to succeed to each other’s wealth, and behaved accordingly. They published their wills, each naming the other sole heir in case of his own prior decease. So it stood in black and white, and they vied with each other in showing that deference which the relation demands. Ali the prophets, astrologers, and Chaldean dream-interpreters alike, and Apollo himself for that matter, held different views at different times about the winner; the thousands seemed to incline now to Aristeas’s side, now to Moerichus’s.

Diogenes And how did it end? I am quite curious.

Crato They both died on the same day, and the properties passed to Eunomius and Thrasycles, two relations who had never had a presentiment of it. They had been crossing from Sicyon to Cirrha, when they were taken aback by a squall from the north-west, and capsized in mid-channel.

Diogenes Cleverly done. Now, when we were alive, we never had such designs on one another. I never prayed for Antisthenes’s death, with a view to inheriting his staff—though it was an extremely serviceable one, which he had cut himself from a wild olive; and I do not credit you, Crates, with ever having had an eye to my succession; it included the tub, and a wallet with two pints of lupines in it.

Crato Why, no; these things were superfluities to me—and to yourself, indeed. The real necessities you inherited from Antisthenes, and I from you; and in those necessities was more grandeur and majesty than in the Persian Empire.

Diogenes You allude to—.

Crato Wisdom, independence, truth, frankness, freedom.

Diogenes To be sure; now I think of it, I did inherit all this from Antisthenes, and left it to you with some addition.

Crato Others, however, were not interested in such property; no one paid us the attentions of an expectant heir; they all had their eyes on gold, instead.

Diogenes Of course; they had no receptacle for such things as we could give; luxury had made them so leaky—as full of holes as a worn-out purse. Put wisdom, frankness, or truth into them, and it would have dropped out; the bottom of the bag would have let them through, like the perforated cask into which those poor Danaids are always pouring. Gold, on the other hand, they could grip with tooth or nail or somehow.

Crato Result: our wealth will still be ours down here; while they will arrive with no more than one penny, and even that must be left with the ferryman.