The Sale of Lives (16-20)

Indeed, I swear it to you by the dog and the plane-tree.

Buyer Heavens, what strange gods!

Sokrates What's that you say? Don't you think the dog is a god? Perhaps you have not noticed how great Anoubis is in Egypt, and Seirios in the heavens, and Kerberos among the dead.

BuyerYou are right, it was my mistake. But what is your manner of life?

Sokrates I live by myself in a sort of state that I fashioned with a foreign form of government, and I enact my own laws.

Buyer I should like to hear one of your principles.

Sokrates Well, this is the most important: my decision about women. No woman is assigned to one man alone, but to every one who wishes her in marriage. Have you, then, abrogated the laws about marriage?

Buyer What!

Sokrates Dear me, yes, and all such petty formalities. Beauty shall be the reward of the bravest-those who have accomplished some brilliant feat of daring.

Buyer A fine reward! And what is the substance of your philosophy?

Sokrates The ideas and the types of existing things; for, indeed, everything that you see-the earth and all upon it, the sky, the sea-all these things have invisible images outside the universe.

Buyer Where are they?

Sokrates Nowhere; for if they were anywhere they could not be.

Buyer I don't see these types you speak of.

Sokrates Naturally; for your soul's eye is blind.

Buyer Then you will do to buy, for you are wise and have good eyes. Come, Hermes, how much will you charge me for him?

Hermes Two thousand dollars.

Buyer I take him at the price. However, I will pay you later.

Hermes What is your name?

Buyer Dion of Syracuse.

Hermes Take him, with my best wishes. Next I call you, the Epicurean. Who will buy this one? He is the pupil of that laugher and of the drunkard whom I offered a little while ago. But he has made one step in advance of them, inasmuch as he has less regard for holy things. For the rest, he is pleasant and the friend of good living.

Buyer What's the price?

Hermes Forty dollars.

Buyer Here you are. But tell me what sort of food he likes.

Hermes He lives on sweet things like honey, and particularly figs.

Buyer That is easy enough. I will buy him penny-loaves of fig-cake.

Zeus Call up another-that scowling fellow with the shaved head from the Porch.

Hermes Very well. At all events, a great crowd of those who have come to the sale seem to be waiting for him. I offer for sale virtue herself, the most perfect of lives. Who wishes to know everything, alone of all men?

Buyer What do you mean?

Hermes This man alone is wise, he alone is beautiful, he alone is just, manly, a king, an orator, a millionaire, a legislator, and everything else.

Buyer Then, friend, is he alone a cook, and a tanner, by Jove! and a carpenter, and everything of that sort?

Hermes Apparently.