4
Micyllus
What, that sophist quack, who forbade the eating of meat, and would have banished beans from our tables (no beans, indeed! my favourite food!), and who wanted people to go for five years without speaking?
Cock
And who, I may add, was Euphorbus before he was Pythagoras.
5
Micyllus
He was a knave and a humbug, that Pythagoras, by all accounts.
Cock
That Pythagoras, my worthy friend, is now before you in person: spare his feelings, especially as you know nothing about his real character.
Micyllus
Portent upon portent! a cock philosopher! But proceed, son of Mnesarchus: how came you to change from man to bird, from Samos to TanagraSee Notes.? 'Tis an unconvincing story; I find a difficulty in swallowing it. I have noticed two things about you already, which do not look much like Pythagoras.
Micyllus
For one thing, you are garrulous; I might say noisy. Now, if I am not mistaken, Pythagoras advocated a course of five years’ silence at a stretch. As for the other, it is rank heresy. You will remember that yesterday, not having anything else to give you, I brought you some beans: and you,— you gobbled them up without thinking twice about it! Either you lied when you told me you were Pythagoras, or else you have sinned against your own laws: in eating those beans, you have as good as bolted your own father’s head.
10
