Dialogi mortuorum

Aeacus Would you like to see the philosophers?

Menippus I should like it of all things.

Aeacus First comes Pythagoras.

Menippus Good-day, Euphorbus, alias Apollo, alias what you will.

Pythagoras Good-day, Menippus.

Menippus What, no golden thigh nowadays?

Pythagoras Why, no. I wonder if there is anything to eat in that wallet of yours?

Menippus Beans, friend; you don’t like beans,

Pythagoras Try me. My principles have changed with my quarters. I find that down here our parents’ heads are in no way connected with beans.

Aeacus Here is Solon, the son of Execestides, and there is Thales, By them are Pittacus, and the rest of the sages, seven in all, as you see,

Menippus The only resigned and cheerful countenances yet. Who is the one covered with ashes, like a loaf baked in the embers? He is all over blisters,

Aeacus That is Empedocles, He was half-roasted when he got here from Etna.

Menippus Tell me, my brazen-slippered friend, what induced you to jump into the crater?

Empedocles I did it in a fit of melancholy.

Menippus Not you. Vanity, pride, folly; these were what burnt you up, slippers and all; and serve you right. All that ingenuity was thrown away, too: your death was detected.—

Aeacus where is Socrates?

Aeacus He is generally talking nonsense with Nestor and Palamedes.

Menippus But I should like to see him, if he is anywhere about.

Aeacus You see the bald one?

Menippus They are all bald; that is a distinction without a difference,

Aeacus The snub-nosed one.

Menippus There again: they are all snub-nosed.