Book 20
4
Tell me, my brazen-slippered friend, what induced you to jump into the crater?
4
I did it in a fit of melancholy.
4
Not you. Vanity, pride, folly; these were what burnt you up, slippers and all; and serve you right. All that ingenuity was thrown away, too: your death was detected.—
4
where is Socrates?
4
He is generally talking nonsense with Nestor and Palamedes.
4
But I should like to see him, if he is anywhere about.
4
You see the bald one?
4
They are all bald; that is a distinction without a difference,
4
The snub-nosed one.
4
There again: they are all snub-nosed.
5
Do you want me, Menippus?
5
The very man I am looking for.
5
How goes it in Athens?
5
There are a great many young men there professing philosophy; and to judge from their dress and their walk, they should be perfect in it.
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I have seen many such.
5
For that matter, I suppose you saw Aristippus arrive, reeking with scent; and Plato, the polished flatterer from Sicilian courts?
5
And what do they think about me in Athens?
5
Ah, you are fortunate in that respect. You pass for a most remarkable man, omniscient in fact. And all the time— if the truth must out—you know absolutely nothing.
5
I told them that myself: but they would have it that that was my irony.
6
And who are your friends?
6
Charmides; Phaedrus; the son of Clinias.
6
Ha, ha! still at your old trade; still an admirer of beauty.
6
How could I be better occupied? Will you join us?
6
No, thank you; I am off, to take up my quarters by Croesus and Sardanapalus. I expect huge entertainment from their outcries.
6
I must be off, too; or some one may escape. You shall see the rest another day, Menippus.
6
I need not detain you. I have seen enough.
