Book 6
1
I ask you, Aeacus, in the name of Pluto, to conduct me round every thing in Hades.
1
It’s not easy to do it all, Menippus, but I’ll show you the chief things. This is Cerberus, as you know, and on your way in you’ve already seen the ferryman here who brought you over, and the lake and Pyriphlegethon.
1
I know all that and that you are the gate-keeper, and I’ve seen the king and the Furies. But show me the men of old, and particularly the famous ones.
1
This is Agamemnon, and this Achilles, here is Idomeneus close by, and here Odysseus, then come Ajax, Diomede and the finest of the Greeks.
2
Dear me, Homer, how the central figures of your epics have been cast to the ground and lie unrecognisable and ugly, all so much dust and rubbish, “strengthless heads” Cf. Homer, Od. II, 29, etc. in very truth! But who is this, Aeacus?
2
Cyrus, and this is Croesus, and the one beyond him Sardanapalus, and beyond them Midas, and that one is Xerxes.
2
Then you, you scum, were the terror of Hellas? You bridged the Hellespont, and wanted to sail through the mountains? By a canal through Athos. And what a sight Croesus is! And, Aeacus, let me slap the face of Sardanapalus.
2
Don’t, you’re breaking his skull; it’s as weak as a woman’s.
2
Then at least I’ll have a good spit at him, since he’s as much woman as man.
3
Would you like me to show you the Philosophers?
3
Oh yes, please.
3
Here first you have Pythagoras.
3
Good day to you, Euphorbus or Apollo, or whatever name you prefer. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, VIII, 4 and 11.
3
And a bad day to you, Menippus.
3
Don’t you still have your thigh of gold? Cf. Diogenes Laertius, VIII, 4 and 11.
3
No; but let me see if there’s anything to eat in your wallet.
3
Beans, my good fellow—something you mustn’t eat.
3
Just give me some. Doctrines are different among the dead; I’ve learnt that beans and parents’ heads Cf. note on The Cock, 4 (vol. 2, p. 181), for verse forbidding Pythagoreans to eat beans. are not the same thing here.
