The Cock (4-6)

Cock

Yes, there is that story too: but that is nothing to do with mine; I only became a cock quite lately.

Micyllus

But what I want to know is, how did it happen?

Cock

Did you ever hear of Pythagoras of Samos, son of Mnesarchus?

Micyllus

What, that sophist quack, who forbade the eating of meat, and would have banished beans from our tables (no beans, indeed! my favourite food!), and who wanted people to go for five years without speaking?

Cock

And who, I may add, was Euphorbus before he was Pythagoras.

Micyllus

He was a knave and a humbug, that Pythagoras, by all accounts.

Cock

That Pythagoras, my worthy friend, is now before you in person: spare his feelings, especially as you know nothing about his real character.

Micyllus

Portent upon portent! a cock philosopher! But proceed, son of Mnesarchus: how came you to change from man to bird, from Samos to Tanagra[*]? 'Tis an unconvincing story; I find a difficulty in swallowing it. I have noticed two things about you already, which do not look much like Pythagoras.

Cock

Yes?

Micyllus

For one thing, you are garrulous; I might say noisy.

Now, if I am not mistaken, Pythagoras advocated a course of five years’ silence at a stretch. As for the other, it is rank heresy. You will remember that yesterday, not having anything else to give you, I brought you some beans: and you,— you gobbled them up without thinking twice about it! Either you lied when you told me you were Pythagoras, or else you have sinned against your own laws: in eating those beans, you have as good as bolted your own father’s head.

Cock

Ah, you don’t understand, Micyllus. There is a reason for these things: different diets suit different creatures. I was a philosopher in those days; accordingly I abstained from beans. Now, on the contrary, I propose to eat beans; they are an unexceptionable diet for birds. And now if you like I will tell you how from being Pythagoras I have come to be—what you see me; and all about the other lives I have lived, and what were the good points of each.

Micyllus

Tell on; there is nothing I should like better. Indeed, if I were given my choice between hearing your story, and having my late dream of riches over again, I don’t know which I should decide on. 'Twas a sweet vision, of joys above all price: yet not above the tale of my cock’s adventures.

Cock

What, still puzzling over the import of a dream? Still busy with vain phantoms, chasing a visionary happiness through your head, that ‘fleeting’ joy, as the poet calls it?

Micyllus

Ah, cock, cock, I shall never forget it. That dream has left its honeyed spell on my eyelids; ’tis all I can do to open them; they would fain close once more in sleep. As a feather tickles the ear, so did that vision tickle my imagination.

Cock

Bless me, you seem to be very hard hit. Dreams are winged, so they say, and their flight circumscribed by sleep: this one seems to have broken bounds, and taken up its abode in wakeful eyes, transferring thither its honeyed spell, its lifelike presence, Tell me this dream of your desire.

Micyllus

With all my heart; it is a joy to remember it, and to speak of it. But what about your transformations?

Cock

They must wait till you have done dreaming, and wiped the honey from your eyelids. So you begin: I want to see which gates the dream came through, the ivory or the horn.

Micyllus

Through neither.

Cock

Well, but these are the only two that Homer mentions.

Micyllus

Homer may go hang: what does a babbling poet know about dreams? Pauper dreams may come through those gates, for all I know; that was the kind that Homer saw, and not over clearly at that, as he was blind. But my beauty came through golden gates, golden himself and clothed i in gold and bringing gold.

Cock

Enough of gold, most gentle Midas; for to a Midasptayer it is that I trace your vision; you must have dreamt whole minefuls.