Dialogues of the Dead (3.2-5.1)

MENIPPUS

Even so, you lowest of the low from Lydia, Phrygia and Assyria, I’d have you know that I’ll never stop. Wherever you go, I’ll follow, tormenting you with my songs and mockery.

CROESUS

Isn’t this outrageous?

MENIPPUS

No, the outrageous thing was your behaviour, when you expected people to worship you, treated free men with contempt, and forgot all about death.

That’s why you’re going to lament the loss of all those things.

CROESUS

Oh, ye gods, many and great possessions they were!

MIDAS

All my gold!

SARDANAPALUS

All my luxury!

MENIPPUS

Bravo, go on. You keep up your whimperings, and I’ll accompany you with song, with a string of “Know-Thyself” s for my refrain. That’s the proper accompaniment for such lamentations.

MENIPPUS

My dear Cerberus—I’m a relation, being a Dog myself—I beg you, in the name of the Styx, to tell me what Socrates was like when he came down to you. Seeing that you’re a god, you can be expected not merely to bark, but also to talk like a human when you wish.

CERBERUS

When he was at a distance, Menippus, his face seemed completely impassive as he approached, and he appeared to have not the slightest fear of death, and he wanted to impress this on those who stood

outside the entrance, but when he had peeped into the chasm, and seen the darkness, and I had bitten him and dragged him by the foot, because he was still slowed down by the hemlock, he shrieked like an infant, and cried for his children and went frantic.

MENIPPUS

Then the fellow was just a sham, and didn’t really despise his plight?

CERBERUS

No, but since he could see it was inescapable, he put on a bold front, pretending he would be glad to accept what was quite inevitable, all to win the admiration of the onlookers. I could Generalise about all such men: as far as the entrance, they are bold and brave, but what comes inside is the real test.

MENIPPUS

What did you think of me, when I came down?

CERBERUS

You alone were a credit to your breed—you and Diogenes before you, because you came in without having to be forced or pushed, but of your own accord, laughing and cursing at everyone.

MENIPPUS

Tell me, Hermes, where are the beauties of both sexes? Show me round, as I’m a newcomer.

HERMES

I have no time, Menippus. But just look over there to your right, where you’ll see Hyacinthus, Narcissus, NIreus, Achilles, Tyro, Helen, and Leda, and, in fact, all the beauties of old.

MENIPPUS

I can only see bones and bare skulls, most of them looking the same.

HERMES

Yet those are what all the poets admire, those bones which you seem to despise.

MENIPPUS

But show me Helen. I can’t pick her out myself.

HERMES

This skull is Helen.

MENIPPUS

Was it then for this that the thousand ships were manned from all Greece, for this that so many Greeks and barbarians fell, and so many cities were devastated?