1
Lycinus Give an account of yourself, my man. You wear a beard and let your hair grow; you eschew shirts; you exhibit your skin; your feet are bare; you choose a wandering, outcast, beastly life; unlike other people, you make your own body the object of your severities; you go from place to place sleeping on the hard ground where chance finds you, with the result that your old cloak, neither light nor soft nor gay to begin with, has a plentiful load of filth to carry about with it. Why 4s it all?
1
Cynic It meets my needs. It was easy to come by, and it gives its owner no trouble. It is the cloak for me.
2
Pray tell me, do you not call extravagance a vice?
2
Lycinus Oh, yes.
2
Cynic And economy a virtue?
2
Lycinus Yes, again.
2
Cynic Then, if you find me living economically, and others extravagantly, why blame me instead of them?
2
Lycinus I do not call your life more economical than other people’s; I call it more destitute—destitution and want, that is what it is; you are no better than the poor who beg their daily bread.
3
Cynic That brings us to the questions, What is want, and what is sufficiency? Shall we try to find the answers?
3
Lycinus If you like, yes.
3
Cynic A man’s sufficiency is that which meets his necessities; will that do?
3
Lycinus I pass that.
3
Cynic And want occurs when the supply falls short of necessity —does not meet the need?
3
Lycinus Yes.
3
Cynic Very well, then, I am not in want; nothing of mine fails to satisfy my need.
4
Lycinus How do you make that out?
4
Cynic Well, consider the purpose of anything we require; the purpose of a house is protection?
4
Lycinus Yes.
4
Cynic Clothing—what is that for? protection too, I think.
4
Lycinus Yes.
4
Cynic But now, pray, what is the purpose of the protection, in turn? the better condition of the protected, I presume.
4
Lycinus I agree.
4
Cynic Then do you think my feet are in worse condition than yours?
4
Lycinus I cannot say.
4
Cynic Oh, yes; look at it this way;; what have feet to do?
4
Lycinus Walk.
