Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/483

453 A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD 453

you have a third. For I should become a perfect laughing-stock, if unarmed I cut to pieces two bat- talions of Lacedaemonians, but failed to crush one beastly pygmy of a fellow. IVhy, all in vain would have been my victories in the Olympic contests at fisticuffs and wrestling. lExit Demeas.

A DIALOGUE OF THE DEAD

MeNIPPUS 1 AND HeRMES.2

Menij)pus. Look here, Hermes, where are the hand- some men and women ? Show me the lions — I 'm a new-comer in these parts. ^

Hermes. I 've no time to spare, Menippus. How- ever, just look over there to your right. There are Hyacinthus, Narcissus, Nireus, and Achilles, and Tyro, Helen, and Leda — in fine, all the old-time beau- ties.

Menippus. I see nothing but bones and skulls, with not a scrap of flesh upon them — the most of them just alike.

Hermes. In sooth, they are what all the poets admire — these bones, which you appear to think slightly of.

Menippus. All the same, show me Helen, for I at least should n't know her from the others.

Hermes. That skull there is Helen.

Menippus. AVas it, then, for this that the thousand ships were manned from all Greece, and Greeks and

^ A cynic philosopher, represented by Lucian as always jesting at serious things.

2 H«rmes (Mercury) conducted the shades of the dead to the lower world. See page 228.

^ I. e., the lower world.