18
COCK
In brief, Micyllus, I was a sophist, for I must tell the truth, I suppose. However, I was not uneducated or unacquainted with the noblest sciences. I even went to: Egypt to study with the prophets, penetrated into their sanctuaries and learned the books of Horus and Isis by heart, and then I sailed away to Italy and worked upon the Greeks in that quarter of the world to such an extent that they thought me a god.
MICYLLUS
So I have heard, and I have also heard that you were thought to have come to life again after dying, and that you once showed them that your thigh was of gold. But, look here, tell me how it occurred to you to make a law against eating either meat or beans?
COCK
Do not press that question, Micyllus.
MICYLLUS
Why, cock? Cock Because I am ashamed to tell you the truth of it.
But you oughtn’t to hesitate to tell a housemate and a friend—for I cannot call myself your master any longer.
5
COCK
It was nothing sensible or wise, but I perceived that if I made laws that were ordinary and just like those of the run of legislators I should not induce men to wonder at me, whereas the more I departed from precedent, the more of a figure I should cut, I thought, in their eyes. Therefore I preferred to introduce innovations, keeping the reason for them secret so that one man might guess one thing and one another, and all be perplexed, as they are in the case of oracles that are obscure. Look here, you are laughing at me, now.
