The Parasite Tychiades (21-25)

TYCHIADES Quite true.

SIMON Moreover, Tychiades, it seems to me that the other arts stand in need of this one, but this one does not stand in need of any other.[*] TYCHIADES But, I say, don’t you think that people who take what belongs to someone else do wrong?

SIMON Certainly.

TYCHIADES How is it, then, that the parasite is the only one that does not do wrong in taking what belongs to someone else?

SIMON I can’t say![*]— Again, in the other arts the first steps are shabby and insignificant, but in Parasitic the first step is a very fine one, for friendship, that oft-lauded word, is nothing else, you will find, than the first step in Parasitic.

TYCHIADES What do you mean?

SIMON That nobody invites an enemy or an unknown person to dinner; not even a slight acquaintance. A

That in truth it is the most royal of the arts, you can infer from this fact above all: men work at the rest of them not only with discomfort and sweat but actually sitting or standing, just as if they were slaves to the arts, while the parasite plies his art lying down, like a king!

What need is there, in speaking of his felicity, to mention that he alone, according to wise Homer, “neither planteth a plant with his hands nor plougheth, but all, without sowing or ploughing,”[*] supply him with pasture?

Again, there is nothing to hinder a rhetorician or a geometer or a blacksmith from working at his trade whether he is a knave or a fool, but nobody can be a parasite who is either a knave or a fool.

TYCHIADES Goodness! What a fine thing you make out Parasitic to be! I myself already want to be a parasite, I think, rather than what I am.