8–9
HERMES
You there, off first with your clothes, and then with all this here. Ye gods, what hypocrisy he carries, what ignorance, contentiousness, vanity, unanswerable puzzles, thorny argumentations, and complicated conceptions—yes, and plenty of wasted effort, and no little nonsense, and idle talk, and splitting of hairs, and, good heavens, here’s gold too, and soft living, shamelessness, temper, luxury, and effeminacy! I can see them, however much you try to hide them. Away with your falsehood too, and your pride, and notions of your superiority over the rest of men. If you came on board with all these, not even a battleship would be big enough for you.
PHILOSOPHER
Then I take them off, since these are your orders.
MENIPPUS
But he ought to take off that beard as well, Hermes; it’s heavy and shaggy, as you can see. He has at least five pounds of hair there.
HERMES
Well spoken. Off with that too.
PHILOSOPHER
Who will be my barber?
HERMES
Menippus here will take a shipwright’s axe and cut it off; he can use the gangway as his block.
MENIPPUS
No, Hermes, pass me up a saw. That’ll be better fun.
5
HERMES
The axe will do well enough. That’s fine. You look more human, now that you’ve lost that goat’s beard of yours.
MENIPPUS
Shall I take a little off his eyebrows as well?
HERMES
By all means; he has them rising high over his forehead, as he strains after something or other. What’s this? Crying, you scum? Afraid to face death? Get in with you.
MENIPPUS
He still has the heaviest thing of all under his arm.
HERMES
What, Menippus?
10
MENIPPUS
Flattery, Hermes, which was often most useful to him in life.
