MENIPPUS
Dream, man! Do you think I’m telling you a dream? [am just back from a visit to Zeus.
Dream, man! Do you think I’m telling you a dream? [am just back from a visit to Zeus.
FRIEND
What’s that you say? Menippus here from Heaven, dropt from the clouds?
What’s that you say? Menippus here from Heaven, dropt from the clouds?
MENIPPUS
Here I an, I tell you, just come back to-day from the very presence of your great Zeus himself, and I have seen and heard wonderful things. If you don’t believe me, I am overjoyed precisely because my good luck is beyond belief,
Here I an, I tell you, just come back to-day from the very presence of your great Zeus himself, and I have seen and heard wonderful things. If you don’t believe me, I am overjoyed precisely because my good luck is beyond belief,
FRIEND
Why, my divine Menippus, my Olympian Menippus, how can a mortal groundling like myself disbelieve a sky-man—in fact, to use the words of Homer, a son of Heaven?
1
But tell ine, please, how you were carried aloft, and where you got so long a ladder; for as far as looks go you are too little like the lad of Phrygia for us to suppose that, like hii, you were snatched up by the eagle to become a cupbearer.
2
Why, my divine Menippus, my Olympian Menippus, how can a mortal groundling like myself disbelieve a sky-man—in fact, to use the words of Homer, a son of Heaven?
1
But tell ine, please, how you were carried aloft, and where you got so long a ladder; for as far as looks go you are too little like the lad of Phrygia for us to suppose that, like hii, you were snatched up by the eagle to become a cupbearer.
2
MENIPPUS
You have clearly been making fun of me this long time, and it is no wonder you think that my strange story is like a fairy-tale. However, I had no need of your ladder; for my ascent, nor yet to become the eagle’s pet, for I had wings of my own.
You have clearly been making fun of me this long time, and it is no wonder you think that my strange story is like a fairy-tale. However, I had no need of your ladder; for my ascent, nor yet to become the eagle’s pet, for I had wings of my own.
FRIEND
You have improved on Daedalus, by what you say, if over and above all else, you have turned from a man to a hawk or a crow without our knowing it.
You have improved on Daedalus, by what you say, if over and above all else, you have turned from a man to a hawk or a crow without our knowing it.
MENIPPUS
Your guess is well-aimed, my friend, and hits the bull’s-eye; for I myself constructed wings, patterned after Daedalus’ clever invention.
Your guess is well-aimed, my friend, and hits the bull’s-eye; for I myself constructed wings, patterned after Daedalus’ clever invention.
Icaromenippus. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.