The Sale of Lives (21-25)

Buyer

Come, my friend, and tell me, your purchaser, what sort of person you are, and, to begin with, whether it is not an affliction to you to be sold and in slavery.

Chrysippos

Not at all; for those things are not under our control, and what is not under our control is therefore indifferent.

Buyer

I don't understand just what you mean.

Chrysippos

What, do you not understand that in such matters some things are preferred and some again rejected?

Buyer

I don't understand even yet.

Chrysippos

Naturally, for you are not accustomed to our terminology, nor have you the perceptive imagination. But the virtuous man, he who has mastered logical theory, knows not only

these things, but also the nature of an accident and a secondary accident, and how much difference there is between them.

Buyer

In the name of wisdom, kindly take the trouble to tell me this, too: what accidents and secondary accidents are. I am indescribably impressed by the roll of the words.

Chrysippos

No trouble at all. If a lame man, stumbling with that lame foot itself against a stone gets unexpectedly hurt, this man's lameness is evidently a primary accident to which he adds a secondary accident in the way of the wound.

Buyer

What else, now, do you claim to know?

Buyer

How clever!

Chrysippos

The meshes of argument wherewith I trip up my interlocutors and block their passage and reduce them to silence by actually muzzling them. The name of this faculty is the famous syllogism.

Buyer

By Herkules, it is an irresistible, mighty weapon, from your description.

Chrysippos

I will give you a specimen. Have you a child?

Buyer

Certainly.

Chrysippos

If a crocodile should manage to snatch it, finding it wandering too near the river, and if, then, he should promise to restore it if you could tell him truly whether he had determined

to give it back or not, what would you tell him he had in mind?

Buyer

That is a difficult question, for I do not see which answer would be the more likely to get the child back. But do you, in Heaven's name, answer for me, and save my child before he eats him.

Chrysippos

Never fear, I will teach you other things still more surprising.

Buyer

What sort of things?

Chrysippos

The Reaper, the Master, and, above all, the Elektra, and the Veiled.

Buyer

What do you mean by the "Veiled," or the "Elektra?"

Chrysippos

Elektra is that famous person, the daughter of Agamemnon, who at the same moment knows a thing and does not know it; for when Orestes stands beside her, still incognito, she knows, indeed, that Orestes is her brother, but that this is Orestes she does not know. And I will tell you about the "Veiled," too, a most extraordinary figure. Answer me, do you know your father?

Buyer

Yes.

Chrysippos

Well, then, if I present some veiled person to you and ask whether you know him, what would you say?

Buyer

That I do not, of course.

Chrysippos

And yet this very person was your

father! Therefore, if you do not know him, it is plain you do not know your father.

Buyer

Not at all, for if I unveil him I shall know the truth. However, what is the object of your philosophy? What do you do when you have reached the pinnacle of virtue?

Chrysippos

I shall then be occupied with the first things in the order of nature-riches, I mean, and health, and such like things. But before that one must needs toil much, sharpening his sight on books in fine print, taking notes, and filling himself with solecisms aand uncouth phrases. Most important of all, it is not permitted to become a sage until you have drunk hellebore three times in succession.

Buyer

This is all very noble in you and extremely manly. But what are we to say when a man, who has already drunk the hellebore and arrived at virtue, turns money - lender at fifty per cent., for I see this belongs to your principles too?

Chrysippos

By all means. The sage is the only man fit to lend money; for since ratiocination is his peculiar function, and calculating ratios and per cents. seems to be the next thing to ratiocinating, it follows from these premises that the special business of the good man alone is to get not only simple interest like other people, but compound. For you know there are two sorts of interest, one sort coming first, and the other second,

as it were the offspring of the first, and of course you see what the syllogism has to say about it if he gets the simple interest, he will also get the compound, but he does get the simple interest, therefore he will also get the compound.

Buyer

And must we say the same of the fees you take for imparting your wisdom to young men? Is it clear that the good man alone will make money out of his virtue?

Chrysippos

You grasp the idea. It is not on my own account that I take fees, but for the good of the giver himself. For since one party in a transaction must give and the other receive, I train myself to receive and my pupil to give.

Buyer

It ought to be the other way about. The young man ought to receive, and you, who alone are rich, to give out.

Chrysippos

You are chaffing, fellow; but be careful lest I let fly at you with the apodeiktic syllogism.

Buyer

What are the frightful effects of the weapon?

Chrysippos

Embarrassment, silence, confusion of mind.

Chrysippos

If you like, I will give you an extreme example, and prove in a twinkling that you are a stone.

Buyer

How a stone? You do not look to me like Perseus with the Gorgon's head, my friend.

Chrysippos

This is the way. Is the stone a body?

Buyer

Yes.

Chrysippos

Well, is not a living creature a body?

Buyer

Yes.

Chrysippos

But you are a living creature?

Buyer

Certainly, I have that appearance.

Chrysippos

Then you are a stone, for you are a body.

Buyer

Heaven forbid! In Zeus' name, release me and make me a man again!

Chrysippos

That is easy; be a man once more. For, tell me, is every body a living creature?

Buyer

No.

Chrysippos

Well, is a stone a living creature?

Buyer

No.

Chrysippos

But you are a body?

Buyer

Yes.

Chrysippos

And being a body you are a living creature?

Buyer

Yes.

Chrysippos

Then you are not a stone, because you are a living creature.

Buyer

Thank you. My legs were getting lifeless already and stiff, like Niobe's. But I am certainly going to buy you. What is his price?

Hermes

Two hundred and forty dollars.

Buyer

Here it is.

Hermes

Are you the sole purchaser?

Buyer

Dear me, no. All these people are with me.

Hermes

There are plenty of them, and strong in the shoulder. They are fit for "the Mower."