The Cock (21-22)

Mikyllos

Well then, Cock, since you have tried pretty much every life and been everything, kindly tell me now what the private life of the rich is

and of the poor, too, to show me whether you are telling the truth when you declare me happier than the rich.

Cock

Come, look at it in this way: To you war is of no great moment, or the report that the enemy is invading us. You do not worry lest they attack your farm, cut down your crops, trample your shrubberies under foot, or ravage your grapes. When the trumpet sounds, if, indeed, you hear it at all, the most you do is to look for a place of safety for yourself, where you may escape the danger. But the rich, in addition to their personal anxiety, have the misery of looking from the walls and seeing all they had on their estates driven or carried away. And if subsidies are needed, they alone are called upon, and if an army must go out they have the posts of most danger as generals or cavalry officers. But you have an osier-shield, you are well equipped and lightly armed, so that you can save yourself, and you are ready to feast in honor of the victory when the triumphant general sacrifices to the gods.

Cock

In peace, on the other hand, you are one of the people, and you enter the assembly and domineer over the rich. They tremble and crouch before you, and propitiate you with grants, slaving to provide you with baths and games and shows and the other things in abundance. But

you, as auditor of the public accounts or examiner, rule them like a savage master, sometimes without even accounting for your acts. If it seems good to you, you shower down stones on them like hail with a free hand, or confiscate their property. You have no fear of the sycophant for your person, or of the robber lest he climb over the coping or burrow through the wall and steal your gold. And you need not trouble yourself with keeping accounts or dunning people or wrestling with those confounded stewards. No such cares tear you asunder. No; when you have finished a shoe and received your twenty cents for it, you leave your work towards nightfall, and, if you like, have your bath; then you buy a salt fish or some sprats or a handful of onions, and with this you make merry, singing most of the time, and philosophising with your good friend, poverty.