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MENIPPUS All hail, ye halls and portals of my home! What joy you give mine eyes, to light returned!Euripides, Hercules Furens, 523-4. A FRIEND Isn’t this Menippus the Cynic? Assuredly nobody else, unless I cannot see straight; Menippus all over. Then what is the meaning of that strange costume— a felt cap, a lyre, and a lion’s skin? Anyhow, I must go up to him. Good day, Menippus; where under the sun have you come from? It is a long time since you have shown yourself in the city.
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MENIPPUS I come from Dead Men’s Lair and Darkness Gate Where Hades dwells, remote from other gods.Euripides, Hecuba, 1; spoken by Polydorus as prologue. FRIEND Heracles! Did Menippus die without our knowing it, and has he now come to life all over again? MENIPPUS Nay, I was living when I went to Hell.Attributed to Euripides; play unknown, perhaps the Petrithous (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Fragm., p. 663). FRIEND What reason had you for this novel and surprising trip?
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MENIPPUS Youth spurred me, and I had more pluck than sense.Perhaps from the lost Andromeda of Euripides (Nauck, p. 403). FRIEND My dear fellow, do stop your play-acting; come off your blank-verse, and tell me in plain language like mine what your costume is, and why you had to go down below. Certainly it is not a pleasant and attractive journey!
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MENIPPUS Friend, ’twas necessity drew me below to the kingdom of Hades, There to obtain, from the spirit of Theban Teiresias, counsel.Odyssey, 11, 164. Lucian substitutes “Friend” for Homer’s “Mother.” FRIEND Man, you are surely out of your mind, or you would not recite verse in that way to your friends!
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MENIPPUS Don’t be surprised, my dear fellow. I have just been in the company of Euripides and Homer, so that somehow or other I have become filled with poetry, and verses come unbidden to my lips.The Greek words form a trimeter, possibly borrowed from some comedy.
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But tell me, how are things going on earth, and what are they doing in the city?
