The Mistaken Critic, or a Discourse on the Word (7-8)

“Among all these, among those who laughed, was the writer of these words. And why should not he laugh at a piece of cheek so manifest and unconvincing and shameless? So, somehow or other, being one who cannot control his laughter, when the speaker had attuned his voice to song, as he thought, and was intoning a regular dirge over Pythagoras, our author, seeing an ass trying to play the lyre, as the saying goes, burst into a very melodious cachinnation, and the other turned and saw him. That created a state of war between them, and the recent affair sprang from it.

It was the beginning of the year, or rather, the second day after the New Year,[*] the day on which the Romans, by an ancient custom, make prayers in person for the entire yearand holdsacrifices, following ceremonies which King Numaestablished for them; they are convinced that on that day beyond all others the gods give ear to those who pray. Well, on that festival and high holiday, the man who burst out laughing then in Olympia at the suppositious Pythagoras saw this contemptible cheat approaching, this presenter of the speeches of others. It happened that he knew his character, too, and all his wantonness and unclean living, both what he was said to do, and what he had been caught doing. So he said to

“On hearing that, the sophist at once laughed at the word nefandous as if it were strange and alien to the Greeks, and paid the man back, in his own estimation, at least, for the laughter of that former time, saying to all: ‘Nefandous! What, pray, is that? A fruit, or a herb, or a utensil? Can it be something to eat ordrink? For my part I have never heard the word, and should never be able to guess what it means.’