The Cock (26-31)

Mikyllos

That will do! These are horrible things you tell me of. To my mind, then, it is a good deal safer to sit stooping over one's last than to drink from a golden goblet if the lovingcup is mixed with hemlock or aconite. The only danger I run is of cutting my fingers so that they bleed for a moment, if my knife should slip aside and run out of the straight groove. But they, by your story, feast on deadly food, surrounded by a thousand evils. Then, when they fall from power, they are more like the tragic actors than anything else, whom you may see often with diadems, and ivory-hilted swords, and waving hair, and gold-sprinkled cloaks, as long as they are Kekrops or Sisyphos or Telephos. But if one of them steps into a hole, as often happens, and tumbles down in the middle of the stage, see how

the spectators laugh at the broken mask and diadem, and the actor's own bleeding head, and his legs bared so that you can see the wretched rags under his robe, and the straps that hold on his shapeless and ill-fitting buskins. You see how I have learned the art of simile from you already, my best of cocks! But we have seen what royalty is like; when you became a horse or a dog or a fish or a frog, how did you enjoy that sort of life?

Cock

You raise a great question, and this is not the time to discuss it. But to put it in a nutshell, every one of those lives, in my judgment, is freer from care than the human life, being measured only by the physical desires and needs. You will never find among the animals a horse who is a tax-gatherer, or a frog who is a spy, or a jackdaw who is a sophist, or a mosquito who is a cook, or a cock who is a libertine, or any other evil life you can think of.

Mikyllos

Probably this is all very true, Cock, but I will confess my case to you without shame. I am still unable to rid my mind of the longing I have had from childhood to be a rich man. In fact, the dream still stands before my eyes pointing to gold, and, most of all, it chokes me to think of that confounded Simon revelling in such goodfortune.

Cock

I will cure you, Mikyllos. It is still

night, so get up and come with me. I will take you to see Simon and into the houses of the other rich men, to show you how things are with them.

Mikyllos

How can you? The doors are locked. You are not going to make a burglar of me, are you?

Cock

Heaven forbid; but Hermes, whose sacred bird I am, bestowed on me this special gift: if my longest tail-feather, the one that curls because it is so soft, be-

Mikyllos

But you have two like that!

Cock

The man whom I permit to pluck the right hand one and keep it will be able to open any door and see everything, himself unseen, as long as I am willing.

Mikyllos

I did not know, Cock, that you are a sorcerer, too. Now if you will give me this chance once, you will soon see all Simon's wealth transferred to this house; for if I can make my way in I will carry it off, and then he will have to come back to his lasts and nibble for a living.

Cock

That is not permitted. Hermes commanded me, if the holder of the feather should do anything of the sort, to give the alarm and have him caught in the theft.

Mykillos

That is a likely story! Hermes, a thief himself, begrudges theft to others! However, let us be off. I will keep my hands off the gold if I can.

Cock

First, Mikyllos, pluck the soft feather. What are you doing? You have plucked them both!

Mykillos

To be on the safe side, Cock. And you will look better so. Your tail will be more symmetrical.

Cock

All right. Shall we go to see Simon first, or some other millionaire?

Mikyllos

Oh, Simon, by all means, who thinks himself a greater man by two syllables now he is rich. Here we are already at his door. What must I do next?

Cock

Touch the bolt with the feather.

Mykillos

That's done. Gracious heaven, the door has opened as if with a key!

Cock

Go in first. There, do you see him keeping vigil over his accounts?

Mikyllos

Yes! by Zeus, with a feeble, ill-fed lamp. And he is pale, I don't know why, and he has fallen away to a skeleton. It must be from anxiety, for I never heard he was ill otherwise.

Cock

Hear what he says. Then you will know why he is thus.

Simon

So that seventy thousand dollars is pretty safely buried under the bed, and nobody at all knows about it; but I have an idea that Sosylos the groom saw me burying the sixteen thousand under the manger. Anyhow, he is forever about the stable now, though he was not so

very careful or fond of his work before. And probably I am being plundered of a good deal besides this; for where did Tibios get the money for those large fish they say he bought yesterday, and those ear-rings for his wife, worth a dollar at least? It is my money they are snatching, unlucky wretch that I am! Even my plate is not safely stored, and there is so much of it! I am afraid a house-breaker will get it. A great many people envy me and plot against me, particularly my neighbor Mikyllos.

Mikyllos

Yes, by Zeus! I am going off with a basin under my arm just as you did!

Cock

Hush, Mikyllos, he will know we are here.

Simon

The best plan is to sit up all night myself and look after everything. I will get up and make the round of the house. Who is that? I see you, you thief— Good heaven, you are only a pillar-that's all right. I will dig up my money and count it again, lest I overlooked any the day before yesterday. There, I hear some one coming to attack me again. Every one is besieging me and plotting against me. Where is my dagger? If I catch any one- Come, I must bury the money again.

Cock

Such, Mikyllos, is the state of affairs with Simon. Let us be off to some one else while there is still a little of the night left.

Mikyllos

Poor devil, what a life he leads. May my enemies get rich like him! I want to give him one good thump and then go off.

Simon

Who struck me? I am robbed, wretched man!

Mikyllos

Bemoan yourself and lie awake, and stick to your gold till you turn to the color of it! Let us go, if you please, to see Gniphon, the money-lender. He lives near by. This door, too, opened of itself.

Cock

See, he is awake with his cares like the other, calculating his interest with his fingers stiff already. He must soon leave all these behind and turn to a book-worm or a carrion-fly.

Mikyllos

I see a wretched, senseless human being, whose life now is not much better than a worm's or a gnat's. He, too, is worn to the bone with his accounts.