DIOGENES

Isn’t that Heracles? No one else, by Heracles! Bow, club, lionskin, bulk—Heracles from head to toe. Is he dead, then, though a son of Zeus? Tell me, conquering hero, are you a shade? I used to sacrifice to you on earth above, thinking you a god.

HERACLES

And quite right too. The real Heracles is in heaven with the gods, and “hath beauteous-ankled Hebe for his wife”; ¹ I am his wraith.

DIOGENES

What do you mean? The god’s wraith? Is it possible for anyone to be half god, and half dead?

HERACLES

Yes, for Heracles is not dead, but only I his likeness.

DIOGENES

I understand. He has given you to Pluto in his own place as a substitute, and you are now dead instead of him.

HERACLES

Something like that.

DIOGENES

But Aeacus is very exact. How did he fail to spot that you were a fraud? How did he accept a changeling Heracles whom he saw face to face?

HERACLES

Because I was exactly like him.

DIOGENES

Very true; an exact likeness indeed; you might be the fellow himself. But perhaps it’s the other way round, and you are Heracles, and the wraith has married Hebe in heaven.

HERACLES

What impudence! You talk too much. If you don’t stop these gibes at me, I’ll soon show you what sort of god has me for a wraith.

DIOGENES

The bow is out and ready. But why should I fear you now? I’ve died once and for all. But please tell me, in the name of your Heracles; when he was alive, were you with him then too, as his wraith? Or were you both one during his lifetime, but split up when you died, Heracles flying off to heaven, while you, his wraith, came here to Hades, as was only right?

HERACLES

One who makes it his business to poke fun doesn’t so much as deserve a reply. However, I’ll let you have one more answer. All of Amphitryon that was in Heracles is dead, and I am all that part; but the part that came from Zeus is in heaven living with the gods.

DIOGENES

Now I understand perfectly. Alcmena, you mean, bore two Heracleses at the same time, one by Amphitryon, the other from Zeus, and so you were twin sons of the same mother—though nobody knew about it?

HERACLES

No, you fool. We were both the same person.

DIOGENES

That’s difficult to understand, two Heracleses in a compound, unless you were man and god fused together, like horse and man in a Centaur.

HERACLES

Well, don’t you think everyone is compounded of two parts, soul and body? What then prevents the soul, the part which came from Zeus, from being in heaven, and me, the mortal part, from being with the dead?

DIOGENES

But, most excellent son of Amphitryon, you would be right enough, if you were a body, but in fact you are a bodiless wraith. So it looks as if you’re now making Heracles triple.

HERACLES

How triple?

DIOGENES

Like this. If there’s one of him in heaven, and one here with us (that’s you the wraith), and there’s his body on Oeta, now dust, he’s now become three. You’d better start thinking what third father you’ll invent for your body.

HERACLES

You’re an impudent quibbler. Who the blazes are you?

DIOGENES

I’m the wraith of Diogenes of Sinope, but Diogenes himself isn’t “among the gods that know not death”, ² no indeed, but in the company of the finest of the ghosts, laughing at Homer and nonsensical stories like this.

Crato

Did you know Moerichus of Corinth, Diogenes? A shipowner, rolling in money, with a cousin called Aristeas, nearly as rich. He had a Homeric quotation Wilt thou heave me? shall I heave thee? ¹

Diogenes

What was the point of it?

Crato

Why, the cousins were of equal age, expected to succeed to each other’s wealth, and behaved accordingly. They published their wills, each naming the other sole heir in case of his own prior decease. So it stood in black and white, and they vied with each other in showing that deference which the relation demands. Ali the prophets, astrologers, and Chaldean dream-interpreters alike, and Apollo himself for that matter, held different views at different times about the winner; the thousands seemed to incline now to Aristeas’s side, now to Moerichus’s.

Diogenes

And how did it end? I am quite curious.

Crato

They both died on the same day, and the properties passed to Eunomius and Thrasycles, two relations who had never had a presentiment of it. They had been crossing from Sicyon to Cirrha, when they were taken aback by a squall from the north-west, and capsized in mid-channel.

Diogenes

Cleverly done. Now, when we were alive, we never had such designs on one another. I never prayed for Antisthenes’s death, with a view to inheriting his staff—though it was an extremely serviceable one, which he had cut himself from a wild olive; and I do not credit you, Crates, with ever having had an eye to my succession; it included the tub, and a wallet with two pints of lupines in it.

Crato

Why, no; these things were superfluities to me—and to yourself, indeed. The real necessities you inherited from Antisthenes, and I from you; and in those necessities was more grandeur and majesty than in the Persian Empire.

Diogenes

You allude to—.

Crato

Wisdom, independence, truth, frankness, freedom.

Diogenes

To be sure; now I think of it, I did inherit all this from Antisthenes, and left it to you with some addition.

Crato

Others, however, were not interested in such property; no one paid us the attentions of an expectant heir; they all had their eyes on gold, instead.

Diogenes

Of course; they had no receptacle for such things as we could give; luxury had made them so leaky—as full of holes as a worn-out purse. Put wisdom, frankness, or truth into them, and it would have dropped out; the bottom of the bag would have let them through, like the perforated cask into which those poor Danaids are always pouring. Gold, on the other hand, they could grip with tooth or nail or somehow.

Crato

Result: our wealth will still be ours down here; while they will arrive with no more than one penny, and even that must be left with the ferryman.