Toxaris; Or, Friendship (62)

These five, Mnesippos, I have chosen from many to tell you of. And now it should be time to decide between us whether you are to lose your tongue or I my right hand. Who, then, shall be our judge?

Mnesippos No one, for we did not appoint any arbiter of the discussion. But do you know what we shall do? Since we have this time shot our arrows without a mark, let us choose an umpire and tell him the stories of other friends, and then

he who is defeated shall be punished by the loss of his tongue if it be I, of his right hand if it be you. Nay, this is barbarous; but since you have shown yourself an encomiast of friendship, and I, too, believe that mankind have no better or fairer possession, why should not we too agree between ourselves that we are friends now and will be forever, and acquiesce in a common victory, carrying off the greatest prizes—instead of one tongue or one right-hand, each gaining two and four eyes besides, and four feet, and a double allowance of everything? For when two or three friends join. they form something like the painters' picture of Geryon, a man with six hands and three heads. It strikes me that they were three people acting in concert as they ought to do, if they are friends.