But I swear to you by the dog and the plane-tree that this is so.

Heracles! What curious gods!

What is that you say? Don’t you think the dog is a god? Don’t you know about Anubis in Egypt, how great he is, and about Sirius in the sky and Cerberus in the world below?

Quite right; I was entirely mistaken. But what is your manner of life?

I dwell in a city that I created for myself, using an imported constitution and enacting statutes of my own.The allusion is to Plato’s Republic.

I should like to hear one of your enactments.

Let me tell you the most important one, the view that I hold about wives; it is that none of thei shall belong solely to any one man, but that everyone who so desires may share the rights of the husband.

You mean by this that you have abolished the laws against adultery?

Yes, and in a word, all this pettiness about such matters.

What is your attitude as to pretty boys?

Their kisses shall be a guerdon for the bravest after they have done some splendid, reckless deed.