2–3
MENIPPUS
Then you haven’t heard, Tiresias, what Euripides’ Medea Euripides, Medea, 11. 230-231 and 11. 250-251. said about women’s pitiable plight in having an unhappy lot, and having to endure intolerable suffering in childbirth? But tell me, now that I’m reminded of it by Medea’s lines from the play, did you ever have any children, when you were a woman, or did you remain barren and childless in that life?
TIRESIAS
Why do you ask that, Menippus?
MENIPPUS
It’s an easy enough question, Tiresias. Just answer, if it’s not too difficult.
TIRESIAS
I wasn’t barren, but I didn’t have any children.
MENIPPUS
That will suffice; I wanted to know if you had a womb.
5
TIRESIAS
Of course I did.
MENIPPUS
And in time your womb gradually disappeared, the woman’s place sealed up, your breasts subsided, you grew a male organ and produced a beard? Or was your change from woman to man sudden?
TIRESIAS
I don’t understand the object of your question, but it seems to me you don’t believe things happened like that.
MENIPPUS
Why shouldn’t I disbelieve such a story, Tiresias, rather than accept it like a dolt without examining whether its possible or not?
TIRESIAS
Then you don’t believe any of the other stories either, when you hear of women changing into birds or trees or beasts, as, for example, Aedon, or Daphne, or the daughter of Lycaon? Aedon became a nightingale, Daphne a laurel tree, and Callisto a bear.
