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. This point is not dwelt upon here because the author proposes to use it with great effect later at the expense of philosophy (§$ 31 ff.). 
 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! Fritzsche gives the two questions to Simon and the answers to Tychiades, at the expense of a little rewriting. Perhaps he is right, but it is rather too bad to lose the humorous effect of the “I can’t say” in the mouth of Simon, followed by the change of subject. — 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



 

man must first, I take it, become a friend in order to
share another's bow] and board, and the mystic rites
of this art. Anyhow, I have often heard people say:
“How much of a friend is he, when he has neither
eaten nor drunk with us?”’ That is of course because they think that only one who has shared their
meat and drink is a trusty friend.
 
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,” Odyssey9, 108-109. 
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.