Philosophies for Sale (11-15)

BUYER

Get out with you! The life you talk of is abominable and inhuman.

CYNIC

But at all events it is easy, man, and no trouble for all to follow; for you will not need education and doctrine and drivel, but this road is a short cut to fame. Even if you are an unlettered man,—a tanner

or a fish-man or a carpenter or a money-changer— there will be nothing to hinder you from being wondered at, if only you have impudence and _ boldness and learn how to abuse people properly.

BUYER

I do not want you for any such purpose, but you might do at a pinch for a boatman or a gardener, and only then if my friend here is willing to sell you for two obols at the outside.

HERMES

He’s yours: take him. We shall be glad to get rid of him because he is annoying and loud-mouthed and insults and abuses everybody without exception.

ZEUS

Call another; the Cyrenaic in the purple cloak, with the wreath on his head.[*]

HERMES

Come now, attend, everyone! Here we have high-priced wares, wanting a rich buyer. Here you are with the sweetest philosophy, the thrice-happy philosophy! Who hankers for high living? Who'll buy the height of luxury?

BUYER

Come here and tell me what you know; I will buy you if you are of any use.

HERMES

Don’t bother him, please, sir, and don’t question him, for he is drunk, and so can’t answer you because his tongue falters, as you observe.

BUYER

Who that is in his senses would buy so corrupt and lawless a slave? How he reeks of myrrh, and how he staggers and reels in his gait! But you yourself, Hermes, might tell me what traits he has and what his object in life is.

HERMES

In general, he is accommodating to live with, satisfactory to drink with, and handy to accompany an amorous and profligate master when he riots about town with a flute-girl, Moreover, he is a connoisseur in pastries and a highly expert cook: in short, a Professor of Luxury. He was educated in Athens, and entered service in Sicily, at the court of the tyrants, with whom he enjoyed high favour. The sum and substance of his creed is to despise everything, make use of everything and cull pleasure from every source.

BUYER

You had better look about for someone else, among these rich and wealthy people; for I can’t afford to buy a jolly life.

HERMES

It looks as if this fellow would be left on our hands, Zeus.

ZEUS

Remove him; bring on another—stay! those two, the one from Abdera who laughs and the one from Ephesus who cries, for I want to sell them together.[*]

HERMES

Come down among us, you two. I sell the two best philosophies; we offer the two that are sagest of all.

BUYER

Zeus! What a contrast! One of thei never stops laughing, and the other is apparently mourning a death, as he weeps incessantly. What is the matter, man? Why are you laughing?

DEMOCRITEAN

Dost thou need to ask? Because to me it seemeth that all your affairs are laughable, and yourselves as well.

BUYER

What, are you laughing at us all, and do you think nothing of our affairs?

DEMOCRITEAN

Even so; for there is nothing serious in them, but everything is a hollow mockery, drift of atoms, infinitude.

BUYER

No indeed, but you yourself are a hollow mockery in very truth and an infinite ass.

BUYER

Oh, what effrontery! Will you never stop laughing? (Zo the other.) But you, why do youcry? For I think it is much more becoming to talk with you.

HERACLITEAN

Because I consider, O stranger, that the affairs of man are woeful and tearful, and there is naught in them that is not foredoomed; therefore I pity and grieve for men. And their present woes I do not consider great, but those to come in future will be wholly bitter; I speak of the great conflagrations

and the collapse of the universe. It is for this that I grieve, and because nothing is fixed, but all things are in a manner stirred up into porridge, and joy and joylessness, wisdom and unwisdom, great and small are all but the same, circling about, up and down, and interchanging in the game of Eternity.

BUYER

And what is Eternity?

HERACLITEAN

A child playing a game, moving counters, in discord, in concord.

BUYER

What are men?

HERACLITEAN

Mortal gods.

BUYER

And the Gods?

HERACLITEAN

Immortal men.

BUYER

Are you telling riddles, man, or making conundrums? You are just like Apollo, for you say nothing plainly.[*]

HERACLITEAN

Because you matter naught to me.

BUYER

Then nobody in his sense will buy you.

HERACLITEAN

I bid ye go weep, one and all, buy you or buy you not.

BUYER

This fellow’s trouble is not far removed from insanity. However, I for my part will not buy either of them.

HERMES

They are left unsold also.

ZEUS

Put up another.

HERMES

Do you want the Athenian over there, who has so much to say?[*]

ZEUS

By all means.

HERMES

Come here, sir. We are putting up a righteous and intelligent philosophy. Who'll buy the height of sanctity?

BUYER

Tell me what you know best?

ACADEMIC

I am a lover, and wise in matters of love.

BUYER

How am I to buy you, then? What I wanted was a tutor for my son, who is handsome.

ACADEMIC

But who would be more suitable than I to associate with a handsome lad? It is not the body I love, it is the soul that I hold beautiful. As a matter of

fact, even if they lie beneath the same cloak with me, they will tell you that I have done them no wrong.[*]

BUYER

I can’t believe what you say, that you, though a lover, take no interest in anything beyond the soul, even when you have the opportunity, lying beneath the same cloak.