3–6
Pythagoras
We shall begin with a long course of silent contemplation. Not a word to be spoken for five years.
10
First Dealer
You would have been just the creed for Croesus’s son! But I have a tongue in my head; I have no ambition to be a statue. And after the five years’ silence?
Pythagoras
You will study music and geometry.
First Dealer
A charming recipe!’ The way to be wise: learn the guitar.
Pythagoras
Next you will learn to count.
First Dealer
I can do that already.
Pythagoras
Let me hear you.
First Dealer
One, two, three, four,—
Pythagoras
There you are, you see. Four (as you call it) is ten. Four the perfect triangle. Four the oath of our school.
5
First Dealer
Now by Four, most potent Four!—higher and holier mysteries than these I never heard.
Pythagoras
Then you will learn of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water; their action, their movement, their shapes.
First Dealer
Have Fire and Air and Water shapes?
Pythagoras
Clearly. That cannot move which lacks shape and form. You will also find that God is a number; an intelligence; a harmony.
First Dealer
You surprise me.
10
Pythagoras
More than this, you have to learn that you yourself are not the person you appear to be.
First Dealer
What, I am some one else, not the I who am speaking to you?
Pythagoras
You are that you now: but you have formerly inhabited another body, and borne another name. And in course of time you will change once more.
First Dealer
Why then I shall be immortal, and take one shape after another?
But enough of this, And now what is your diet?
Pythagoras
Of living things I eat none. All else I eat, except beans.
