Book 25
1
Here we are; Menippus shall award the palm of beauty, Menippus, am I not better-looking than he?
1
Well, who are you? I must know that first, mustn’t I?
1
Nireus and Thersites.
1
Which is which? I cannot tell that yet.
1
One to me; I am like you; you have no such superiority as Homer (blind, by the way) gave you when he called you the handsomest of men; he might peak my head and thin my hair, our judge finds me none the worse. Now, Menippus, make up your mind which is handsomer.
1
I, of course, I, the son of Aglaia and Charopus, Comeliest of all that came ’neath Trojan walls.
2
But not comeliest of all that come ’neath the earth, as far as I know. Your bones are much like other people’s; and the only difference between your two skulls is that yours would not take much to stove it in. It is a tender article, something short of masculine,
2
Ask Homer what I was, when I sailed with the Achaeans.
2
Dreams, dreams, I am looking at what you are; what you were is ancient history.
2
Am I not handsomer here, Menippus?
2
You are not handsome at all, nor any one else either. Hades is a democracy; one man is as good as another here.
2
And a very tolerable arrangement too, if you ask me.
