The Cock (16-20)

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.

And in what form was your spirit next clothed, after it had put off Pythagoras?

In that of Aspasia, the Milesian courtesan.

Dear, dear! And your versatility has even changed sexes? My gallant cock has positively laid eggs in his time? Pythagoras has carded and spun? Pythagoras the mistress— ' and the mother—of a Pericles? My Pythagoras no better than he should be?

I do not stand alone. I had the example of Tiresias and of Caeneus; your gibes touch them as well as me.

And did you like being a man best, or receiving the addresses of Pericles?

Ha! the question that Tiresias paid so dearly for answering!

Never mind, then,—Euripides has settled the point; he says he would rather bear the shock of battle thrice Than once the pangs of labour.

Ah, just a word in your ear: those pangs will shortly be your own; more than once, in the course of a lengthy career, you will be a woman.

Strangulation on the bird! Does he think we all hail from Miletus or Samos? Yes, I said Samos; Pythagoras has had his admirers, by all accounts, as well as Aspasia.

However;— what was your sex next time?

I was the Cynic Crates.

Castor and Pollux! What a change was there!

Then it was a king; then a pauper, and presently a satrap, and after that came horse, jackdaw, frog, and I know not how many more; there is no reckoning them up in detail. Latterly, I have been a cock several times. I liked the life; many is the king, many the pauper and millionaire, with whom I took service in that capacity before I came to you. In your lamentations about poverty, and your admiration of the rich, I find an unfailing source of entertainment; little do you know what those rich have to put up with! If you had any idea of their anxieties, you would laugh to think how you had been deceived as to the blessedness of wealth.

Well, Pythagoras,—or is there any other name you prefer? I shall throw you out, perhaps, if I keep on calling you different things?

Euphorbus or Pythagoras, Aspasia or Crates, it is all the same to me; one is as much my name as another. Or stay: not to be wanting in respect to a bird whose humble exterior contains so many souls, you had better use the evidence of your own eyes and call me Cock.

Then, cock, as you have tried well nigh every kind of