The Cock (17-18)

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.