COCK
That is what they say, Micyllus, I grant you; but my own experience has been quite different, and it is only just lately that I changed into a cock.
That is what they say, Micyllus, I grant you; but my own experience has been quite different, and it is only just lately that I changed into a cock.
MICYLLUS
How? That is what I want to know above all else.
How? That is what I want to know above all else.
COCK
Have you ever heard of a man named Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, of Samos?
Have you ever heard of a man named Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, of Samos?
MICYLLUS
You mean the sophist, the quack, who made laws against tasting meat and eating beans, banishing from the table the food that I for my part like best of all, and then trying to persuade people that before he became Pythagoras he was Euphorbus (Well- fed)? They say he was a conjurer and a miraclemonger, cock.
You mean the sophist, the quack, who made laws against tasting meat and eating beans, banishing from the table the food that I for my part like best of all, and then trying to persuade people that before he became Pythagoras he was Euphorbus (Well- fed)? They say he was a conjurer and a miraclemonger, cock.
COCK
I am that very Pythagoras, Micyllus, so stop abusing me, my good friend, especially as you do not know what sort of man I really was.
I am that very Pythagoras, Micyllus, so stop abusing me, my good friend, especially as you do not know what sort of man I really was.
MICYLLUS
Now this is far more miraculous than the other thing! A philosopher cock! Tell me, though, son of Mnesarchus, how you became a cock instead of a man and a Tanagriote instead of a Samian.
1
This story is not plausible nor quite easy to believe, for I think Ihave observed two things in you that are quite foreign to Pythagoras.
Now this is far more miraculous than the other thing! A philosopher cock! Tell me, though, son of Mnesarchus, how you became a cock instead of a man and a Tanagriote instead of a Samian.
1
This story is not plausible nor quite easy to believe, for I think Ihave observed two things in you that are quite foreign to Pythagoras.
COCK
What are they?
What are they?
MICYLLUS
One thing is that you are very noisy and loudvoiced, whereas he recommended silence for five whole years, I believe. The other is actually quite illegal; I came home yesterday, as you know, with nothing but beans to throw you, and you picked them up without even hesitating. So it must be either that you have told a lie and are someone else, or, if you are Pythagoras, you have broken the law and committed as great an impiety in eating beans as if you had eaten your father’s head.
2
One thing is that you are very noisy and loudvoiced, whereas he recommended silence for five whole years, I believe. The other is actually quite illegal; I came home yesterday, as you know, with nothing but beans to throw you, and you picked them up without even hesitating. So it must be either that you have told a lie and are someone else, or, if you are Pythagoras, you have broken the law and committed as great an impiety in eating beans as if you had eaten your father’s head.
2
Gallus. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.