A Feast of Lapithae (4-6)

Philosophy

Coquette! and you have mistaken your man too; I am quite aware that you are more eager to tell than I to hear; I believe, if you had no one to listen, you would find a pillar or statue and out with the whole tale to it in one torrent. If

I try to make off now, you will never let me go till I have done my listening; you will hold on to me and pursue me and solicit me. Then it will be my turn to coquet. Oh, very well; do not trouble to tell me; good-bye; I will get it out of some one else.

Lycinus

Oh, you needn’t be so hasty. I will tell you, if you are so set upon it; only don’t repeat it to everybody.

Philosophy

If I know anything whatever of you, you will take good care of that; you will not leave me many to repeat it to.

Philosophy

Now begin with telling me what Aristaenetus was giving the banquet for; was it his boy Zeno’s wedding?

Lycinus

No, his girl Cleanthis’s—to the son of Eucritus the banker, a student of philosophy.

Philosophy

I know; a fine lad; only a lad, though; old enough to marry?

Lycinus

Well, he was the most suitable to be had, I suppose. He is a well-behaved youngster, has taken up philosophy, and is sole heir to a rich father; so he was the selected bridegroom.

Philosophy

Ah, no doubt Eucritus’s money is a consideration. Well, and who were the guests?

Lycinus

Why, I need not give you the whole list; what you want is the philosophers and men of letters. There was the old Stoic Zenothemis, and with him ‘Labyrinth’ Diphilus; Aristaenetus’s son Zeno is his pupil. The Peripatetics were represented by Cleodemus—the ready, argumentative person—you know him; ‘Sword,’ and ‘Cleaver,’ his disciples call him. And then diere was Hermon the Epicurean; directly he came in, there were queer looks and edgings away in the Stoic contingent; he might have been a parricide or an outlaw, by the way they treated him. These had been asked as Aristaenetus’s personal friends and intimates, under which head come also Histiaeus the literary man and Dionysodorus the rhetorician.