Tut, tut! What you say is dreadful, cock. For me, at least, it is far safer to bend over and cobble shoes than to drink out of a golden cup when the health that is pledged you is qualified with hemlock or aconite. The only risk I run is that if my knife should slip sideways and fail to cut straight, I might draw a little blood by cutting my fingers; but they, as you say, do their feasting at the peril of their lives and live amid a thousand ills beside. Then when they fall they make no better figure than the actors that you often see, who for a time pretend to be a Cecrops or a Sisyphus or a Telephus, with diadems and ivory-hilted swords and waving hair and gold-embroidered tunics; but if (as often happens) one of them misses his footing and falls down in the middle of the stage, it naturally makes fun for the audience when the mask gets broken to pieces, diadem and all, and the actor’s own face is covered with blood, and his legs are bared high, so as to show that his inner garments are miserable rags and that the buskins with which he is shod are shapeless and do not fit his foot. Do you see how you have already taught me to make comparisons, friend cock? Well, as for absolute power, it proves to be something of that sort. But when you became a horse or a dog or a fish or a frog, how did you find that existence?

That is a long story you are starting, and we have not time for it just now. But to give the upshot of it, there is no existence that did not seem to me more care-free than that of man, since the others are con- ‘ formed to natural desires and needs alone; you will not see among them a horse bailiff or a frog informer or a jackdaw sophist or a mosquito chef or a libertine cock or any of the other modes of life that you men follow.

No doubt that is true, cock. But as to myself, I am not ashamed to tell you how I feel. I am not yet able to unlearn the desire of becoming rich that [have had since my boyhood. My dream, too, still stands before my eyes displaying its gold; and above all I am choking with envy of that confounded Simon, who is revelling in so many blessings.

I will cure you, Micyllus. As it is still night, get up and follow me; I will take you to visit Simon and to the house of the other rich men, so that you may see what their establishments are like.

How can you do it when their doors are locked? You aren't going to make me be a burglar?

Not by any means. But Hermes, to whom IT am consecrated, gave me this privilege, that if my longest tail feather, the one that is so pliant that it curls—

You have two like that.

It is the one on the right, and if I permit any man to pull it out and keep it, that man, as long as I choose, can open every door and see everything without being seen himself.

All right. Shall we visit Simon first, or one of the other rich men?

No: Simon, who wants to have a name of four syllables instead of two, now that he is rich. Here we are at the door already. What shall I do next?

Well, Micyllus, that is the way Simon lives. Let’s o and visit someone else while there is still a little of the night left.

Unfortunate man, what a life he leads! I wish my enemies wealth on those terms! Well, I want to hit him over the head before I go.

Who hit me? I’m being robbed, unlucky that I am!

Groan and lie awake and grow like your gold in colour, cleaving fast to it! Let’s go and see Gnipho the money-lender, if you don’t mind. He too lives not far off. This door has opened to us also.