4
I am that very Pythagoras, Micyllus, so stop abusing me, my good friend, especially as you do not know what sort of man I really was.
4
Now this is far more miraculous than the other thing! A philosopher cock! Tell me, though, son of Mnesarchus, how you became a cock instead of a man and a Tanagriote instead of a Samian.Tanagra in Boeotia was famous for its game-cocks. This story is not plausible nor quite easy to believe, for I think Ihave observed two things in you that are quite foreign to Pythagoras.
4
What are they?
4
One thing is that you are very noisy and loudvoiced, whereas he recommended silence for five whole years, I believe. The other is actually quite illegal; I came home yesterday, as you know, with nothing but beans to throw you, and you picked them up without even hesitating. So it must be either that you have told a lie and are someone else, or, if you are Pythagoras, you have broken the law and committed as great an impiety in eating beans as if you had eaten your father’s head.An allusion to the pseudo-Pythagorean verse ἶσόν τοι κυάμους τε φαγεῖν κεφαλάς τε τοκήων. (It is just as wrong for you to eat beans as to eat the heads of your parents).
5
Why, Micyllus, you don’t know what the reason for these rules is, and what is good for particular modes of existence. Formerly I did not eat beans because I was a philosopher, but now I can eat them because they are fit food for a bird and are not forbidden to us. But listen if you like, and I'll tell you how from Pythagoras I became what I am, and what existences I formerly led, and what I profited by each change.
5
Do tell me, for I should be more than delighted to hear it. Indeed, if anyone were to let me choose whether I preferred to hear you tell a story like that or to have once more that blissful dream I had a little while ago, I don’t know which would be my choice; for in my estimation what you say is close akin to the most delightful of visions, and I hold you both in equal esteem, you and my priceless dream.
