The Cock (16-18)

How my spirit first proceeded from Apollo, and took flight to earth, and entered into a human form, and what was the nature of the crime thus expiated,—all this would take too long to tell; nor is it fitting either for me to speak of such matters or for you to hear of them. I pass to the time when I became Euphorbus,—

Wait a minute: have I ever been changed in this way?

You have.

Then who was I, do you know? I am curious about that.

Why, you were an Indian ant, of the gold-digging’ species.

What could induce me, misguided insect that I was, to leave that life without’so much as a grain of gold-dust to supply my needs in this one? And what am I going to be next? I suppose you can tell me. If it is anything good, I’ll hang myself this moment from the very perch on which you stand.

That I can on no account divulge. Toresume. When I was Euphorbus, I fought at Troy, and was slain by Menelaus. Some time then elapsed before I entered into the body of: Pythagoras, During this interval, I remained without a habitation, waiting till Mnesarchus had prepared one for me.

What, without meat or drink?

Oh yes; these are mere bodily requirements.

Well, first I will have about the Trojan war. Did it all happen as Homer describes?

Homer! What should he know of the matter? He was a camel in Bactria all the time, I may tell you that things were not on such a tremendous scale in those days as is commonly supposed; Ajax was not so very tall, nor Helen so very beautiful. I saw her; she had a fair complexion, to be sure, and her neck was long enough to suggest her swan parentage[*]: but then she was such an age—as old as Hecuba, almost. You see, Theseus had carried her off first, and she had lived with him at Aphidnae; now Theseus was a contemporary of Heracles, and the former capture of Troy, by Heracles, had taken place in the generation before mine; my father, who told me all this, remembered seeing Heracles when he was himself a boy.

Well, and Achilles: was he so much better than other people, or is that all stuff and nonsense?

Ah, I never came across Achilles; I am not very strong on the Greeks; I was on the other side, of course. ‘There is one thing, though: I made pretty short work of his friend Patroclus—ran him clean through with my spear.

After which Menelaus settled you with still greater facility. Well, that will do for ew And when you were Pythagoras?

When I was Pythagoras, I was—not to deceive you— a sophist; that is the long and short of it. At the same time, I was not uncultured, not unversed in polite learning. I travelled in Egypt, cultivated the acquaintance of the priests, and learnt wisdom from their mouths; I penetrated into their temples and mastered the sacred books of Orus and Isis; finally, I took ship to Italy, where I made such an impression on the Greeks that they reckoned me among the Gods.

I have heard all about that; and also how you were supposed to have risen from the dead, and how you had a golden

Ah, don’t ask me that, Micyllus.

But why not?

I am ashamed to answer you.

Come, out with it! I am your friend and fellow lodger; we will drop the ‘master’ now.

There was neither common sense nor philosophy in that law. The fact is, I saw that if I did just the same as other people, I should draw very few admirers; my prestige, I considered, would be in proportion to my originality. Hence these innovations, the motive of which I wrapped up in mystery; each man was left to make his own conjecture, that all might be equally impressed by my oracular obscurity. There now! you are laughing at me; it is your turn this time.

I am laughing much more at the folk of Cortona and Metapontum and Tarentum, and the rest of those mute disciples who worshipped the ground you trod on.