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.