5–6
Cock
Nay, Mikyllos, you do not know the reason of these things, nor what is suitable to each life. Formerly I did not eat beans, because I was a philosopher; but now I am willing to eat them, for they are bird's food and not forbidden to us. But come, you shall hear if you like how, after being Pythagoras, I come to be as you see, and what sort of lives I lived before, and what good I got of each transformation.
Mikyllos
Pray tell me; I should be enchanted to listen. If some one should ask me to choose whether I preferred to hear you tell about these things or see that heavenly dream again that I had a little while ago, I do not know which I should choose. You see how nearly akin I judge what you offer to the sweetest visions, and I hold you both in equal esteem, you and the blessed dream.
Cock
What are you still pondering on your dream, wondering who in the world it was that appeared to you? Still cherishing certain fond images and chasing in memory an empty and (as the poets would say) fleeting happiness?
Mikyllos
I can tell you, Cock, that I will never forget that vision. The dream as it went left so much honey in my eyes that I can hardly lift my lids, for it drags them down again to sleep. You know the tickling you get if you twirl a feather in your ear; well, that is just the sensation I had from my dream.
