3–12
Diogenes
Cleverly done. Now, when we were alive, we never had such designs on one another. I never prayed for Antisthenes’s death, with a view to inheriting his staff—though it was an extremely serviceable one, which he had cut himself from a wild olive; and I do not credit you, Crates, with ever having had an eye to my succession; it included the tub, and a wallet with two pints of lupines in it.
Crato
Why, no; these things were superfluities to me—and to yourself, indeed. The real necessities you inherited from Antisthenes, and I from you; and in those necessities was more grandeur and majesty than in the Persian Empire.
Crato
Wisdom, independence, truth, frankness, freedom.
Diogenes
To be sure; now I think of it, I did inherit all this from Antisthenes, and left it to you with some addition.
5
Crato
Others, however, were not interested in such property; no one paid us the attentions of an expectant heir; they all had their eyes on gold, instead.
Diogenes
Of course; they had no receptacle for such things as we could give; luxury had made them so leaky—as full of holes as a worn-out purse. Put wisdom, frankness, or truth into them, and it would have dropped out; the bottom of the bag would have let them through, like the perforated cask into which those poor Danaids are always pouring. Gold, on the other hand, they could grip with tooth or nail or somehow.
Crato
Result: our wealth will still be ours down here; while they will arrive with no more than one penny, and even that must be left with the ferryman.
