The Fly (6-10)

So strong is the fly that when she bites she wounds the skin of the ox and the horse as well as that of man. She even torments the elephant by entering his wrinkles and lancing him with her proboscis as far as its length allows. In mating, love, and marriage they are very free and easy. The male is not on and off again in a moment, like the cock; he covers the female a long time. She carries her spouse, and they take wing together, mating uninterruptedly in the air, as everyone knows. A fly with her head cut off keeps alive a long time with the rest of her body, and still retains the breath of life.

You may be sure I propose to mention the most important point in the nature of the fly. It is, I think, the only point that Plato overlooks in his discussion of the soul and its immortality. When ashes are sprinkled on a dead fly, she revives and has a second birth and a new life from the beginning. This should absolutely convince everyone that the fly’s soul is immortal like ours, since after leaving the body it comes back again, recognises and reanimates it, and makes the fly take wing. It also confirms the story that the soul of Hermotimus of Clazomenae would often leave him and go away

Knowing not labour and living at large, the. fly enjoys the fruits of the toil of others, and finds a bounteous table set everywhere. Goats give milk for her, bees work for flies and for men quite as much as for themselves, and cooks sweeten food for her. She takes precedence even of kings in eating, and walks about on their tables sharing their feasts and all their enjoyment.

She does not make a nest or habitation in any one place, but taking up a roving, Scythian life on the wing, finds bed and board wherever night chances to overtake her. But in the dark, as I have said, she does nothing: she has no desire for stealthy actions and no thought of disgraceful deeds which would discredit her if they were done by daylight.

The story goes that long ago there was a human being called Muia, a girl who was very pretty, but talkative, noisy, and fond of singing. She became a ‘rival of Selene by falling in love with Endymion, and as she was for ever waking the boy out of his sleep by chattering and singing and paying him visits, he became vexed at her, and Selene in anger turned her into the fly we know. [*] So, in remembrance of Endymion, she begrudges all sleepers their repose, especially those of tender years; and even her biting and bloodthirstiness is not a sign of savagery, but of love and friendship. She gets what