TERPSION

Is this just, Pluto? Me to die at thirty, and old Thucritus, already over ninety, to go on living?

PLUTO

Perfectly just, Terpsion; he lives on without praying for the death of any of his friends, but you spent all your time plotting against him and waiting for his possessions.

TERPSION

Well, oughtn’t an old man like him, who can no longer make use of his wealth, to depart from life and make way for young men?

PLUTO

I never heard the like of this edict of yours, Terpsion, requiring the death of anyone who can no longer use his wealth on pleasure. But Fate and Nature have arranged things otherwise.

TERPSION

Then I object to the present arrangement. It ought to be a matter of turn, with the oldest man first, and after him the next oldest, without the slightest change in the order. Your Methuselah shouldn’t live on, when he has no more than three teeth still left, and is scarcely able to see, supported by four servants, with his nose always running and his eyes bleary, past knowing any of the pleasures of life, a living tomb laughed at by the young men. He shouldn’t live, while handsome lusty young men die. That’s as unnatural as “rivers running backwards ”. ¹ The young men ought at least to know when each old man is going to die, so that they wouldn’t waste their attentions upon some of them. But at present, it’s just one more case of the proverbial cart coming before the horse.

PLUTO

Things are done much more sensibly than you think, Terpsion. Tell me now, what makes you gape with greed at other people’s property, and foist yourselves upon childless old men? As a result you provide a good laugh, if your burial comes before theirs, and most folk find the situation really delightful. The more you pray for their death, the more delighted people are, if you die first; for there’s never been anything like this art you’ve invented, with your love for old men and women, and for the childless ones in particular, while those with children inspire no love in your hearts. However, many of those you love have seen through the wickedness behind your affection, and, even if they have children, they pretend to hate them, so that they too may have their own lovers. But later, when the wills are read, the bodyguard, for all their years of service, are excluded, and the sons and Nature herself, as is only right, prevail over all of them, and they gnash their teeth in secret at having been made to look such fools.

TERPSION

True enough. Take me, for example—how much of mine has Thucritus devoured! Yet he always seemed on the point of death, and whenever I came in, would be groaning to himself, and his voice would be as faint and squeaky as an unfledged chicken straight from the egg; and so I, thinking I’d be putting him in his coffin any minute, would send in most of what he got, ² so that my rivals in love should not outdo me in generosity, and usually I lay awake at night, sleepless with worry, calculating each penny and arranging each move. It is this that has caused my death—the loss of sleep and the worry. But he gobbled down all that bait, and turned up the other day to gloat at my funeral.

PLUTO

Well done, Thucritus! Long may you live to keep your wealth, and, at the same time, have the laugh on fellows like that! May you never die till you have seen the funeral of all these toadies!

TERPSION

It will give me too, the greatest pleasure Pluto, under the circumstances, if Charoeades is another to die before Thucritus.

PLUTO

Don’t worry, Terpsion. Not only he but Phidon and Melanthus, and, in fact, all of them will come here before him through the same worries.

TERPSION

I’m glad to hear it. Long life to you, Thucritus.

Diogenes

Surely this is Heracles I see? By his godhead, ’tis no other! The bow, the club, the lion’s-skin, the giant frame; 'tis Heracles complete. Yet how should this be?—a son of Zeus and mortal? I say, Mighty Conqueror, are you dead? I used to sacrifice to you in the other world; I understood you were a God!

Heracles

Thou didst well. Heracles is with the Gods in Heaven, And hath white-ankled Hebe there to wife. I am his phantom.

Diogenes

His phantom! What then, can one half of any one be a God, and the other half mortal?

Heracles

Even so. The God still lives. 'Tis I, his counterpart, am dead.

Diogenes

I see. You’re a dummy; he palms you off upon Pluto, instead of coming himself. And here are you, enjoying his mortality!

Heracles

'Tis somewhat as thou hast said.

Diogenes

Well, but where were Aeacus’s keen eyes, that he let a counterfeit Heracles pass under his very nose, and never knew the difference?

Heracles

I was made very like to him.

Diogenes

I believe you! Very like indeed, no difference at all! Why, we may find it’s the other way round, that you are Heracles, and the phantom is in Heaven, married to Hebe!

Heracles

Prating knave, no more of thy gibes; else thou shalt presently learn how great a God calls me phantom.

Diogenes

H’m. That bow looks as if it meant business, And yet,—what have I to fear now? A man can die but once. Tell me, phantom,—by your great Substance I adjure you— did you serve him in your present capacity in the upper world? Perhaps you were one individual during your lives, the separation taking place only at your deaths, when he, the God, soared heavenwards, and you, the phantom, very properly made your appearance here?

Heracles

Thy ribald questions were best unanswered. Yet thus much thou shalt know.—All that was Amphitryon in Heracles, is dead; I am that mortal part. The Zeus in him lives, and is with the Gods in Heaven.

Diogenes

Ah, now I see! Alcmena had twins, you mean,— Heracles the son of Zeus, and Heracles the son of Amphitryon? You were really half-brothers all the time?

Heracles

Fool! not so. We twain were one Heracles.

Diogenes

It’s a little difficult to grasp, the two Heracleses packed into one. I suppose you must have been like a sort of Centaur, man and God all mixed together?

Heracles

And are not all thus composed of two elements,—the body and the soul? What then should hinder the soul from being in Heaven, with Zeus who gave it, and the mortal part— myself—among the dead?

Diogenes

Yes, yes, my esteemed son of Amphitryon,—that would be all very well if you were a body; but you see you are a phantom, you have no body. At this rate we shall get three Heracleses.

Heracles

Three?

Diogenes

Yes; look here. One in Heaven: one in Hades, that’s you, the phantom: and lastly the body, which by this time has returned to dust. That makes three, Can you think of a good father for number Three?

Heracles

Impudent quibbler! And who art thou?

Diogenes

I am Diogenes’s phantom, late of Sinope. But my original, I assure you, is not ‘among th’ immortal Gods,’ but here among dead men; where he enjoys the best of company, and snaps my fingers at Homer and all hair-splitting.