Philosophies for Sale (14-15)

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.