Dialogues of the Dead (13.6-15.1)

DIOGENES

Well, here’s what to do. I’ll prescribe a cure for your grief. As there’s no hellebore [*] growing here, you’d better take a stiff drink of the water of Lethe, and repeat the dose frequently, and then you’ll stop sorrowing for Aristotle’s “goods”. Do so, for I see Clitus over there and Callisthenes [*] and many others bearing down on you, to tear you to pieces and get even with you for the things you did to them. So you’d better take this other path here, and take frequent doses as I’ve just said.

HERMES

If you don’t mind, ferryman, let’s work out how much you owe me at the moment, so that we won’t quarrel about it later.

CHARON

Let’s do that, Hermes. It’s better to have this settled, and it’ll save trouble.

HERMES

I brought you an anchor as you ordered; five drachmae.

CHARON

That’s dear.

HERMES

By Hades, that’s what I paid for it, and a thong for an oar cost me two obols.

CHARON

Put down five drachmae and two obols.

HERMES

And a darning-needle for your sail. Five obols it cost me.

CHARON

Put that down too.

HERMES

And wax to plug up the leaks in your boat, and nails, and a bit of rope which you made into a brace, costing two drachmae in all.

CHARON

You got these cheap too!

HERMES

That’s all, unless we’ve forgotten something in our calculations. Well, when do you say that you are going to pay me?

CHARON

For the moment, Hermes, it’s impossible, but if an epidemic or a war sends me down a large batch, I can then make a profit, by overcharging on the fares in the rush.

HERMES

So, for the present, I’ll have to sit down and pray for the worst to happen so that I may be paid?

CHARON

It can’t be helped, Hermes. We get few coming here at the moment, as you can see. It’s peacetime.

HERMES

Better so, even if you do keep me waiting for what you owe me. Ah, but in the old days, Charon, you know what men they were that came, all of them brave, and most of them covered with blood and wounded; but now we get a few poisoned by a wife or a son, or with their legs and bellies all puffed out with rich living, a pale miserable lot, all of them, quite unlike the old ones. Most of them have money to thank for their coming here; they scheme against each other for it, apparently.

CHARON

Yes, it’s the grand passion.

HERMES

Then you won’t think it wrong of me if I dun you for my debt.

PLUTO

Do you know the old man—I mean that veritable greybeard, EuCrates the rich—the man with no sons, but with fifty thousand men hunting his estate?

HERMES

Yes, you mean the man from Sicyon. Well, what?

PLUTO

Let him go on living, Hermes, and, over and above the ninety years he’s had already, measure out as many more for him, if possible, or even more; but as for his toadies, young Charinus and Damon and the rest, drag them all down here one after the other.

HERMES

That would look queer.

PLUTO

No; it would be perfectly just. What possesses them that they pray for his death, or aspire to his fortune, although not related? But what’s most disgusting of all is the way they shower attentions on him in public in spite of such prayers, and make their plans obvious to everyone when he’s sick, but,

in spite of it all, they promise sacrifices if he recovers; in fact there’s no little versatility in their flattery. So, I’d like him to be immortal, and them, thwarted in their open-mouthed greed, to depart the scene before him.