18
Do not press that question, Micyllus.
18
Why, cock? Cock Because I am ashamed to tell you the truth of it.
18
But you oughtn’t to hesitate to tell a housemate and a friend—for I cannot call myself your master any longer.
18
It was nothing sensible or wise, but I perceived that if I made laws that were ordinary and just like those of the run of legislators I should not induce men to wonder at me, whereas the more I departed from precedent, the more of a figure I should cut, I thought, in their eyes. Therefore I preferred to introduce innovations, keeping the reason for them secret so that one man might guess one thing and one another, and all be perplexed, as they are in the case of oracles that are obscure. Look here, you are laughing at me, now.
18
Not so much at you as at the people of Croton and Metapontum and Tarentum and all the rest who followed you dumbly and worshipped the footprints that you left in walking.
19
But after you put off the part of Pythagoras what other did you assume?
19
Aspasia, the courtesan from Miletus.
19
Whew, what a yarn! So Pythagoras became a woman on top of everything else, and there was once atime when you laid eggs, most distinguished of cocks; when you lived with Pericles in the capacity of Aspasia and had children by him and carded wool and spun yarn and made the most of your sex in courtesan style?
19
Yes, I did all that, and I am not the only one: both Tiresias and Caeneus the son of Elatus preecded me, so that all your jokes at my expense will be at their expense too.Tiresias struck a pair of mating serpents with his staff, and turned into a woman; seven years later he once more saw them and struck them, becoming a man again (Ovid, Melam. 3, 316 ff.). Poseidon turned Caenis into a man at her own request after he had wronged her (Metam. 12, 189 ff.).
19
How about it? Which life did you find the pleasanter, when you were a man or when Pericles dallied with you?
