25–26
STOIC
Then you are not a stone, being an animal.
BUYER
Thank you kindly; my legs were already as cold and solid as Niobe’s. Iwill buy you. (Zo uunmes.) How much have I to pay for him?
20
HERMES
Are you the sole purchaser?
BUYER
No, indeed; there are all these men whom you see.
HERMES
Yes, there are many of them, heavy-shouldered fellows, fit associates for the Reaper.
25
ZEUS
Don’t delay; call another, the Peripatetic.
HERMES
(To renivatetic.) I say, you who are handsome, you who are rich! (Yo the buyers.) Come now, buy the height of intelligence, the one who knows absolutely everything!
HERMES
Moderate, gentlemanly, adaptable in his way of living, and, what is more, he is double.
BUYER
What do you mean?
5
HERMES
Viewed from the outside, he seems to be one man, and from the inside, another; so if you buy him, be sure to call the one self “exoteric” and the other “esoteric.”
BUYER
What does he know best?
HERMES
That goods are threefold, in the soul, in the body, and in things external.Aristotle, Hth. Nicom. A, 8, 1098 b.
BUYER
He has common sense. How much is he?
BUYER
Your price is high.
HERMES
Not so, bless you, for he himself appears to have a bit of money, so you can’t be too quick about buying him. Besides, he will tell you at once how long a gnat lives, how far down into the sea the sunlight reaches, and what the soul of an oyster is like.
