16–17
Friend
I must say, Menippus, I should have liked the details here too; it all seems to have been very much to your taste.
Menippus
I could not go through the whole of it, even to please you; to take it in with the eyes kept one busy. But the main divisions were very much what Homer gives from the shield of Achilles: here junketings and marriages, there courts and councils, in another compartment a sacrifice, and hard by a mourning. If I glanced at Getica, I would see the Getae at war; at Scythia, there were the Scythians wandering about on their waggons; half a turn in another direction gave me Egyptians at the plough, or Phoenicians chaffering, Cilician pirates, Spartan flagellants, Athenians at law.
All this was simultaneous, you understand; and you must try to conceive what a queer jumble it all made. It was as if aman were to collect a number of choristers, or rather of chorusesThe Greek chorus combined singing with dancing., and then tell each individual to disregard the others and start a strain of his own; if each did his best, went his own way, and tried to drown his neighbour, can you imagine what the musical effect would be?
Friend
A very ridiculous confusion.
