The Cock (1-5)

Mikyllos

May Zeus strike you dead, you confounded cock, for the envy in your heart and the clarion in your throat! Why did you lift up your voice and wake me when I was a rich man in a glorious dream and revelling in marvellous happiness? Can't you let me escape by night either from poverty, which I hate even worse than you? To judge from the great quiet that still prevails it is not yet midnight. It can't be, for I am not stiff yet with the early frost as usual—that is my trusty clock to tell me of the approach of day. But this sleepless beast has begun to crow already, just at the end of the evening, as if he were guarding the golden fleece in the story. Not for your own good, though! I shall certainly have my revenge when daylight comes, and smash you with my club. You would give me too much trouble just now, hopping about in the dark.

Cock

Master Mikyllos, I thought I was going to do you a kindness by being as beforehand with the night as I could, so that you might get up and finish most of your work. Certainly if you

make one shoe before sunrise you will be so much ahead, having accomplished this towards your daily bread. However, if you prefer to sleep, I will hold my tongue at your pleasure and be as dumb as a fish; but do you look out lest by dreaming of riches you starve when you are awake.

Mikyllos

O Zeus, god of prodigies, and Herakles, that keepest mischief from us, what is this fearful thing? The cock spoke like a human being!

Cock

Does a thing of this sort strike you, then, as a prodigy—that I should speak the same tongue as you?

Mikyllos

I should think it is a prodigy. But do ye, O gods, avert misfortune from us!

Cock

You seem to me, Mikyllos, to be actually illiterate. Have you not read Homer's poems, in which Achilles's horse, too, Xanthos, bade a long farewell to neighing, and stood in the midst of the battle and conversed, reciting whole verses, not prose as I do now? And he prophesied, too, and foretold coming events, and was not considered to be doing anything out of the way; nor did he who heard him call upon the Protector against evil as you did, thinking the sound an omen to be averted. Moreover, what would you have done if the keel of the Argo had spoken to you, or if the oak of Dodona had prophesied for you

with its own voice, or if you had seen skins creeping and heard the flesh of oxen lowing half-roasted on the spits? I am the coadjutor of Hermes, who is the most loquacious and eloquent of all the gods, and for the rest I was not likely to find much trouble in mastering the human language, seeing that I live with you and share your table. But if you should promise me to keep the secret I would not mind telling you the truer reason of our having the same language, and how I came to speak thus.

Mikyllos

But is not this a dream, too: a cock talking to me like this? Tell me, then, in the name of Hermes, my friend, what other reason there is for your gift of speech. You need not fear that I shall break silence and tell any one, for who would believe me if I told anything, giving out that I had heard it from a cock?

Cock

Listen, then. I am well aware that what I say will be most incredible to you, Mikyllos- I who now appear to you in the guise of a cock was not long ago a man.

Mikyllos

I have heard something of the kind about your race before: that a certain young man named Cock became a friend of Ares, and was a boon companion of the god, joined his revels, and shared his love affairs. So whenever Ares went to see his mistress, Aphrodite, he took Cock along, too, and, because he was suspicious

chiefly of the Sun, lest he should look down upon them and tell tales to Hephaistos, he always left the young man outside at the door to report the rising of the Sun. On one occasion Cock fell asleep and betrayed his post without meaning to, and the Sun appeared unexpectedly to Aphrodite and to Ares, taking his rest securely in his confidence that Cock would let him know if any one approached. In this way Hephaistos learned about them from the Sun and caught them, netting them and snaring them in the bonds which he had wrought for them before. Ares, when he was released, was furious against Cock, and changed him into the bird of that name, armor and all, so that he still has the crest of his helmet on his head; and this is the reason why, whenever you perceive the sun about to rise you lift up your voices long before to declare his rising, defending yourself to Ares, though it will do you no good now.

Cock

They tell that story, too; but my case was somewhat different, and it is quite lately that I turned into a cock, at your service.

Mikyllos

In what way? I have the greatest desire to know.

Cock

Do you know by hearsay one Pythagoras, a Samian, the son of Mnesarchos?

Mikyllos

Do you mean the sophist, the impostor, who made laws against tasting meat or eating

beans-declaring my favorite dish banished from the table-and who moreover persuaded people to keep silence for five years?

Cock

Of course you know this, too, that before he was Pythagoras he was Euphorbos?

Mikyllos

They say that fellow was a juggler and a conjurer.

Cock

I myself am none other than that Pythagoras; so stop your railing at me, my friend, particularly since you do not know what manner of man I was.

Mikyllos

This is an even greater prodigy than the other, to find a cock a philosopher! However, tell me, son of Mnesarchos, how is it that you have appeared to me as a bird instead of a man, and a Tanagrian instead of a Samian. The thing is incredible. I can't readily believe it, for I think I have observed two traits in you already very unlike Pythagoras.

Cock

What are they?

Mikyllos

For one thing, you are talkative and noisy, while he, I believe, used to enjoin five whole years of silence. And the other thing is also entirely contrary to his law, for yesterday, when I had no food to scatter for you, I came and brought some beans, as you know, and you did not hesitate to pick them up. So that either you have lied and are somebody else, or else, if you are Pythagoras, you have broken the law, and by

eating beans have committed as great an impiety as if you had devoured your father's head.

Cock

Nay, Mikyllos, you do not know the reason of these things, nor what is suitable to each life. Formerly I did not eat beans, because I was a philosopher; but now I am willing to eat them, for they are bird's food and not forbidden to us. But come, you shall hear if you like how, after being Pythagoras, I come to be as you see, and what sort of lives I lived before, and what good I got of each transformation.

Mikyllos

Pray tell me; I should be enchanted to listen. If some one should ask me to choose whether I preferred to hear you tell about these things or see that heavenly dream again that I had a little while ago, I do not know which I should choose. You see how nearly akin I judge what you offer to the sweetest visions, and I hold you both in equal esteem, you and the blessed dream.

Cock

What are you still pondering on your dream, wondering who in the world it was that appeared to you? Still cherishing certain fond images and chasing in memory an empty and (as the poets would say) fleeting happiness?