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

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.

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.

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.

Call another; the Cyrenaic in the purple cloak, with the wreath on his head.The Cyrenaic school, which made pleasure the highest good, was founded by Aristippus, who furnished a detail or two to this caricature.

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?

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

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.

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.The Schools of Democritus of Abdera, the propounder of the atomic theory, and of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who originated the doctrine of the flux; he held that fire is the first principle, and its manifestations continually change, so that nothing isstable. Both representatives talk Ionic Greck.

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.

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.

And what is Eternity?

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

What are men?

Mortal gods.

And the Gods?

Immortal men.

Are you telling riddles, man, or making conundrums? You are just like Apollo, for you say nothing plainly.Heraclitus was nicknamed ὁ σκοτεινός, “the Obscure.”

Because you matter naught to me.

Then nobody in his sense will buy you.

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

Do you want the Athenian over there, who has so much to say?Both Socrates and Plato contribute to the picture of the typical Academic. Consequently some editors, misled by the manuscripts (see introductory note) ascribe the part of Academic to Socrates, some to Plato, and some divide it between the two.

By all means.

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

Tell me what you know best?

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

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

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.See Plato’s Symposium, particularly 216 p-219 D.

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.