ZEUS 
(To an attendant.) You arrange the benches and
make the place ready for the men that are coming.
(To another avrenpant.) You bring on the philosophies and put them in line ; but first groom them up,
so that they will look well and will attract as many
as possible. (Zo nErmeEs.) You, Hermes, be crier
and call them together.
 HERMES 
Under the blessing of Heaven, let the buyers
now appear at the sales-room. We shall put up for
sale philosophies of every type and all manner of
creeds; and if anyone is unable to pay cash, he is to
name a surety and pay next year.

 ZEUS 
Many are gathering, so we must avoid wasting
time and delaying them. Let us begin the sale,
then.
 HERMES 
Which do you want us to bring on first ?
 ZEUS 
This fellow with the long hair, the Ionian, for he
seems to be someone of distinction.
 

 HERMES 
You Pythagorean, come forward and let yourself
be looked over by the company.
 ZEUS 
Hawk him now.
 HERMES 
The noblest of philosophies for sale, the most
distinguished ; who'll buy ? Who wants to be more
than man? Who wants to apprehend the music of
the spheres and to be born again ?
 BUYER 
For looks, he is not bad, but what does he know
best ?
 HERMES 
Arithmetic, astronomy, charlatanry, geometry,
music and quackery; you see in him a first-class
soothsayer.
 BUYER 
May I question him?
 HERMES 
Yes, and good luck to you!

 BUYER 
Where are you from?
 PYTHAGOREAN 
From Samos. The birthplace of Pythagoras. Hence the “‘ Pythagorean philosophy” talks Ionic Greek. 
 BUYER 
Where were you educated ?
 PYTHAGOREAN 
In Egypt, with the sages there.

 

 BUYER 
Come now, if I buy you, what will you teach me?
 PYTHAGOREAN 
I shall teach thee nothing, but make thee remember. Before centering upon its round of transmigrations, the soul was all-wise ; learning is merely remembering. Socrates expounds this theory in Plato’s Jeno. 
 BUYER 
How will you make me remember ?
 PYTHAGOREAN 
First by making thy soul pure and purging off the
filth upon it.
 BUYER 
Well, imagine that my purification is complete,
what will be your method of making me remember?
 PYTHAGOREAN 
In the first place, long silence and speechlessness,
and for five entire years no word of talk.
 BUYER 
My good man, you had better teach the son of
Croesus!? One of the sons of Crocsus was mute: Herod. 1. 34, 85. I want to be talkative, not a graven
image. However, what comes after the silence and
the five years?
 PYTHAGOREAN 
Thou shalt be practised in music and geometry.
 BUYER 
That is delightful ; I am to become a fiddler before
being wise!
 PYTHAGOREAN 
Then, in addition to this, in counting.

 

 BUYER 
I know how to count now.
 PYTHAGOREAN 
How dost thou count ?
 BUYER 
One, two, three, four—
 PYTHAGOREAN 
Lo! what thou thinkest four is ten, and a perfect
triangle, and our oath. Four is ten, because it contains three, two and one, and 1 2 3 4 10. The perfect triangle is 
 BUYER 
Well, by your greatest oath, by Four, I never
heard diviner doctrines or more esoteric.
 PYTHAGOREAN 
Thereafter, my friend, thou shalt learn of earth
and air and water and fire, what their flux is, and
what form they have and how they move.
 BUYER 
Why, has fire form, or air, or water ?
 PYTHAGOREAN 
Yea, very notably, for without shape and form
there can be no motion. And in addition thou
shalt learn that God is number and mind and
harmony.
 BUYER 
What you say is wonderful.

 PYTHAGOREAN 
And beside all that I have said, thou shalt learn

 

that thou, who thinkest thyself a single individual,
art one person in semblance and another in reality.
 BUYER 
What’s that? I am another and not this man
who now talks to you!
 PYTHAGOREAN 
Now thou art he, but erstwhile thou didst manifest thyself in another body and under another name,
and in time thou shalt again migrate into another
person.
 BUYER 
You mean that I shall be immortal, changing into
many forms? But enough of this.