Dialogi mortuorum

Croesus Pluto, we can stand this snarling Cynic no longer in our neighbourhood; either you must transfer him to other quarters, or we are going to migrate,

Pluto Why, what harm does he do to your ghostly community?

Croesus Midas here, and Sardanapalus and I, can never get in a good cry over the old days of gold and luxury and treasure, but he must be laughing at us, and calling us rude names; ‘slaves’ and ‘garbage,’ he says we are. And then he sings; and that throws us out.—In short, he is a nuisance,

Pluto Menippus, what’s this I hear?

Menippus All perfectly true, Pluto. I detest these abject rascals! Not content with having lived the abominable lives they did, they keep on talking about it now they are dead, and harping on the good old days. I take a positive pleasure in annoying them,

Pluto Yes, but you mustn’t. They have had terrible losses; they feel it deeply.

Menippus Pluto! you are not going to lend your countenance to these whimpering fools?

Pluto It isn’t that; but I won’t have you quarrelling.

Menippus Well, you scum of your respective nations, let there be no misunderstanding: I am going on just the same. Wherever

Croesus Presumption!

Menippus Not a bit of it. Yours was the presumption, when you expected men to fall down before you, when you trampled on men’s liberty, and forgot there was such a thing as death. Now comes the weeping and gnashing of teeth: for all is lost!

Croesus Lost! Ah God! My treasure-heapp——

Midas My gold——

Sardanapalus My little comforts——

Menippus That’s right: stick to it! You do the whining, and I'll chime in with a string of cnotHi-saurons, best of accompaniments,

Menippus Now I wonder how it is that you two dead men have been honoured with temples and taken for prophets; those silly mortals imagine you are Gods.

Ampbilochus How can we help it, if they are fools enough to have such fancies about the dead?

Menippus Ah, they would never have had them, though, if you had not been charlatans in your lifetime, and pretended to know the future and be able to foretell it to your clients.

Trophonius Well, Menippus, Amphilochus can take his own line, if he likes; as for me, I am a Hero, and do give oracles to any one who comes down to me. It is pretty clear you were never at Lebadea, or you would not be so incredulous.

Menippus What do you mean? I must go to Lebadea, swaddle myself up in absurd linen, take a cake in my hand, and crawl through a narrow passage into a cave, before I could tell that you are a dead man, with nothing but knavery to differentiate

Trophonius He is half God, and half man,

Menippus So what is neither man (as you imply) nor God, is both at once? Well, at present what has become of your diviner half?

Trophonius He gives oracles in Boeotia.

Menippus What you may mean is quite beyond me; the one thing I know for certain is that you are dead—the whole of you.