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For my part, gentlemen of the jury, I should prefer not to make you along speech, but to discuss the matter a little at a time, as is my wont. Nevertheless I will make my complaint in the way that is customary in courts of law, although I am completely uninformed and inexperienced in such matters. Please consider this my introduction. The wrongs done me and the insults put upon me by this man are these. I was formerly dignified, and pondered upon the gods and nature and the cycle of the universe, treading the airIn the Clouds of Aristophanes (225) Socrates says: “I tread the air and contemplate the sun.” high up above the clouds where “great Zeus in heaven driving his winged car”Plato, Phuedrus246 ¥. sweeps on; but he dragged me down when I was already soaring above the zenith. and mounting on “heaven’s back,”Plato, Phaedrus 247 B. and broke my wings, putting me on the same level as the common herd. Moreover, he took away from me the respectable tragic mask that I had, and put another upon me that is comic, satyr-like, and almost ridiculous. Then he unceremoniously permed me up with Jest and Satire and Cynicism and Eupolis and Aristophanes, terrible men for mocking all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right. At last he even dug up and thrust in upon me Menippus, a prehistoric dog,Cynic. with a very loud bark, it seems, and sharp fangs, a really dreadful dog who bites unexpectedly because he grins when he bites. Have I not been dreadfully maltreated, when I no longer occupy my proper réle but play the comedian and the buffoon and act out extraordinary plots for him? What is most monstrous of all, I have been turned into a surprising blend, for I am neither afoot nor ahorseback, neither prose nor verse, but seem to my hearers a strange phenomenon made up of. different elements, like a Centaur.This refers to the practice of mingling verse and prose, borrowed by Lucian from Menippus. For good illustrations see the beginning of Zeus Rants and of The Double Indictment.
