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I was getting ready to go away, but he turned my way and hesitated a good while, and then, as he saw that I was very: downeast, said: “You come in too, Micyllus, and dine with us. Tl make my son eat with his mother in the women’s quarters so that you may have room.” I went in, therefore, after coming within an ace of licking my lips for nothing, like the wolfThe proverb seems to be founded on the fable of the wolf and the old woman; she threatened to throw a baby to the wolf if it did not stop crying, and the wolf waited all day for the baby, only to go home disappointed. (Aesop, 275 Halm.); I was ashamed, however, because I seemed to have driven Eucrates’ boy out of the dining-room.
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When it was time to go to the table, first of all they picked Thesmopolis up and put him in place, not without some difficulty, though there were five stout lads, I think, to do it; and they stuffed eushions all round about him so that he could maintain his position and hold out for a long time. Then, as nobody else could endure to lie near him, they took me and put me in the place below him, making us neighbours at table. Then, Pythagoras, we began eating a dinner of many courses and great variety, served on gold and silver plate in profusion, and there were goblets of gold and handsome waiters and musicians and clowns withal. In short, we were delightfully entertained, except for one thing that annoyed me beyond measure: Thesmopolis kept bothering me and talking to me about virtue, whatever that may be, and teaching me that two negatives make an affirmative, and that if it is day it is not night; and sometimes he actually said that I had horns.For this and other Stoic fallacies, see Lucian I. p. 437 and note 2. By philosophizing with me incessantly after that fashion when I had no mind for it, he spoiled and diminished my pleasure, not allowing me to hear the performers who were playing and singing. Well, there you have your dinner, cock.
