Dialogi mortuorum

Charon Your fare, you rascal.

Menippus Bawl away, Charon, if it gives you any pleasure.

Charon I brought you across: give me my fare.

Menippus I can’t, if I haven’t got it.

Charon And who is so poor that he has not got a penny?

Menippus I for one; I don’t know who else.

Charon Pay: or, by Pluto, I'll strangle you.

Menippus And Pll crack your skull with this stick.

Charon So you are to come all that way for nothing?

Menippus Let Hermes pay for me: he put me on board.

Hermes I dare say! A fine time I shall have of it, if I am to pay for the shades.

Charon I’m not going to let you off.

Menippus You can haul up your ship and wait, for all I care. If I have not got the money, I can’t pay you, can I?

Charon You knew you ought to bring it?

Menippus I knew that: but I hadn’t got it. What would you have? I ought not to have died, I suppose?

Charon So you are to have the distinction of being the only passenger that ever crossed gratis?

Menippus Oh, come now: gratis! I took an oar, and I baled; and I didn’t cry, which is more than can be said for any of the others.

Charon That’s neither here nor there. I must have my penny; it’s only right.

Menippus Well, you had better take me back again to life.

Charon Yes, and get a thrashing from Aeacus for my pains! I like that.

Menippus Well, don’t bother me.

Charon Let me see what you have got in that wallet.

Menippus Beans: have some?—and a Hecate’s supper.

Charon Where did you pick up this Cynic, Hermes? The noise he made on the crossing, too! laughing and jeering at all the rest, and singing, when every one else was at his lamentations.

Hermes Ah, Charon, you little know your passenger! Independence, every inch of him: he cares for noone. 'Tis Menippus.

Charon Wait till I catch you——

Menippus Precisely; I'll wait—till you catch me again.