2
TANTALUS
I don’t mind drinking even hellebore—I only wish I could have some.
MENIPPUS
Don’t worry, Tantalus, for neither you nor any other dead man will drink; that’s impossible. However, they’ve not all been condemned to thirst, as you do, for water which won’t wait for them.
5
I heard, Chiron, that though you were a god, you wanted to die.
CHIRON
What you heard is true, Menippus, and I am dead, as you see, though I could have been immortal.
MENIPPUS
Whatever made you so enamoured of death, a thing for which most men have no love?
CHIRON
I’ll tell you, seeing that you’re an intelligent fellow. I had no pleasure left in enjoying immortality.
MENIPPUS
Was it not pleasant to live and see the light?
5
CHIRON
No, Menippus. I consider pleasure to come from variety and change; but I was living on and on, and enjoying the same things—sun, light and food; the seasons were always the same, and everything came in its turn, one thing seeming to follow automatically upon another; and so I had too much of it all, for I found my pleasure not in always having the same thing, but also in doing quite without it.
MENIPPUS
Well spoken, Chiron. But how do you endure things in Hades, now that you’ve come down here out of preference?
CHIRON
I find them not unpleasant, Menippus. The equality here is truly democratic, and it makes no difference whether one is in light or in darkness. Besides, there’s no need to be thirsty or hungry, as up above; we don’t feel any of these needs.
MENIPPUS
Take care you don’t trip yourself up, Chiron, and have to use the same theory again.
