The Cock (16-20)

Cock

How my soul first took its flight from Apollo down to earth, and made its way into the body of a man in expiation of some crime would be over long to tell; and, moreover, it is not lawful for me to speak or you to hear such matters as these. Then I became Euphorbos.

Mikyllos

Tell me this first, have I, too, ever been changed like you?

Cock

Certainly.

Mikyllos

Who was I, then, if you can tell me, for I long to know.

Cock

You? You were an Indian ant of the gold-digging variety.

Mikyllos

Poor devil, why did I hesitate to provide myself with even a few grains when I came from that life to this? But tell me, too, what I am going to be next. Probably you know. If it should be anything good, I will get up forthwith and hang myself from the peg you are standing on.

Cock

There is no way by which you can learn that. But when I became Euphorbos-to go back to what I was saying-I fought at Ilion, fell by the hand of Menelaos, and shortly after passed into Pythagoras. In the mean time I hung about homeless until Mnesarchos wrought my home for me.

Mikyllos

With nothing to eat, my good sir, or to drink?

Cock

Of course. It is only the body that needs such things.

Mikyllos

Well, then, tell me first about affairs at Ilion. Were things as Homer says they were?

Cock

How did he know anything about it, seeing he was a Baktrian camel at the time? But I will tell you this, that nothing was remarkable in those days. Ajax was not so tall nor Helen herself so beautiful as they are thought to have been. I saw some one with a white skin and a long neck, as was natural in a swan's daughter, but for the rest she was an old woman, almost Hekuba's

age. For Theseus, who was born in the time of Herakles, first carried her off and held her in Aphidnai; and Herakles captured Troy before in the days of our fathers at the latest. Panthoos used to tell me all these things, saying that he had seen Herakles when he was a boy.

Mikyllos

Dear me! Was Achilles, as he is said to be, best in every way, or is that, too, a myth?

Cock

I never encountered him in battle, and I could not give you so exact an account of the Achaians' affairs. How could I, seeing that I was an enemy? However, I killed his comrade, Patroklos, without much trouble, piercing him with my spear.

Mikyllos

And then Menelaos killed you more easily still. But that will do on this subject. Now tell me about Pythagoras.

Cock

I was a complete sophist, Mikyllos, for it is right, I think, to tell the truth. However, I was not uneducated nor neglectful of the noblest studies, and I even journeyed to Egypt to receive instruction from the priests. I made my way into the temples and mastered the books of Oros and Isis. And then I sailed back to Italy and so wrought upon the Greeks there that they reckoned me a god.

Mikyllos

I have heard of this, and that you

were deemed to have risen from the dead, and that you once showed them that your thigh was gold. But tell me this, why did it occur to you to make a law against eating either flesh or beans?

Cock

Don't ask such things, Mikyllos.

Mikyllos

Why not?

Cock

Because I am ashamed to tell you the truth about them.

Mikyllos

Now, there is no reason whatever for hesitating to tell a man who is your messmate and friend, for I would no longer call myself your master.

Cock

I had no sound or reasonable motive; but seeing that if my practices were ordinary and the same as most people's, I should fail to draw on men to wonder at me, but the more outlandish they were the more august I seemed to them, this was the reason why I chose to innovate, pretending that my grounds were too holy for discussion, so that each might have his conjecture, and all stand amazed as at the dark sayings of the oracles. There, even you are laughing at me in your turn.

Mikyllos

Not so much at you as at the Krotoniates and Metapontines and Tarentines and the others who followed you speechless and kissed the footprints you left as you walked.

Mikyllos

But when you had laid Pythagoras aside, what

character did you clothe yourself with after him?

Cock

Aspasia, the courtesan from Miletos.

Mikyllos

Oh, what a tale! Pythagoras became even a woman among other people, and there was a time when you, most noble cock, were Aspasia, Perikles' mistress, and carded wool and wove the weft and sold your favors!

Cock

I am not the only man who has done all these things. Teiresias, too, before me, and Kaineus, Elatos' son, were in my case, so that any joke you make against me will also be made against them.

Mikyllos

Tell me, which life did you find. pleasanter, when you were a man or when Perikles caressed you?

Cock

Beware of asking a question that was not agreeable even to Teiresias.

Mikyllos

Even if you will not tell me, Euripides decided the matter adequately, saying that he would rather stand by his shield thrice than bear one child.

Cock

You will be a woman yourself, Mikyllos, over and over in the great lapse of time.

Mikyllos

Be hanged to you for thinking every one a Milesian or a Samian.

Mikyllos

But what shape of man or woman did you appear in after Aspasia?

Cock

The cynic Krates.

Mikyllos

Ye gods, that's a change - from a courtesan to a philosopher!

Cock

Then I was a king, then a poor man, and a little while after a satrap, then a horse, and a jackdaw, and a frog, and a thousand other things. It would take too long to enumerate them all. Finally I have been a cock many times, for I liked the life. I have served many others, kings and poor men and rich men, and now finally I live with you, laughing daily to hear you weep and wail over your poverty and admire the rich, in your ignorance of the evils belonging to them. Certainly, if you knew the cares they have, your first laugh would be at yourself for thinking a rich man over-happy.

Mikyllos

Well then, Pythagoras, or whatever you would prefer to be called, so that I may not disturb your recital, calling you first one thing and then another-

Cock

It makes no difference whether you call me Euphorbus or Pythagoras or Aspasia or Krates, for I am all these. But you would do best to call this present form "Cock," not to be lacking in respect to the bird because it is held a humble creature, seeing that it embraces so many souls.