7–8
MENIPPUS
Moreover, was it not silly and completely absurd that when they were talking about things so uncertain they did not make a single assertion hypothetically but were vehement in their insistence and gave the rest no chance to outdo them in exaggeration; all but swearing that the sun is a mass of molten metal, that the moon is inhabited, and that the stars drink water, the sun drawing up the moisture from the sea with a rope and bucket, as it were, and distributing the beverage to all of them in order?
As for the contradictory nature of their theories, that is easy to appreciate. Just see for yourself, in Heaven’s name, whether their doctrines are akin and not widely divergent. First of all, there is their difference of opinion about the universe. Some think it is without beginning and without end, but others have even ventured to tell who made it and how it was constructed; and these latter surprised me most, for they made some god or other the creator of the universe, but did not tell where he came from or where he stood when he created it all; and yet it is impossible to conceive of time and space before the genesis of the universe.
FRIEND
They are very presumptuous charlatans by what you say, Menippus.
