Book 30
1
Look, here’s Menippus, who will decide which of us is more handsome. Tell us, Menippus, don’t you think I am?
1
Whoever are you both? I ought to know that first, I suppose.
1
NIreus and Thersites.
1
Well, which is NIreus, and which Thersites? That’s still not clear.
1
That’s already one point in my favour, if I’m like you, and you don’t have the great superiority for which Homer the blind praised you, when he called you the most handsome of them all; I, with my sugarloaf head, and thin hair, Cf. Iliad, II, 219. seemed just as good-looking as you to Minos; but you, Menippus, take a good look to see which you think more handsome.
1
Me, son of Charops and Aglaea, “handsomest man of all who came to Troy”. Cf. Iliad, II, 672-3.
2
But not, methinks, the handsomest that has come to the lower world; your bones are no different here, and your skull can only be told from that of Thersites, by its brittleness. Your skull is fragile and unmanly.
2
But just ask Homer what I was like when I was fighting in the Greek army.
2
You talk of dreams; I of what I see, and of your present state; your past is only known to the men of that time.
2
Then, Menippus, I’m not handsomer here than he is?
2
Neither you nor anyone else is handsome here. In Hades all are equal, and all alike.
2
That’s good enough for me.
