13
Come down among us, you two. I sell the two best philosophies; we offer the two that are sagest of all.
13
Zeus! What a contrast! One of thei never stops laughing, and the other is apparently mourning a death, as he weeps incessantly. What is the matter, man? Why are you laughing?
13
Dost thou need to ask? Because to me it seemeth that all your affairs are laughable, and yourselves as well.
13
What, are you laughing at us all, and do you think nothing of our affairs?
13
Even so; for there is nothing serious in them, but everything is a hollow mockery, drift of atoms, infinitude.
13
No indeed, but you yourself are a hollow mockery in very truth and an infinite ass.
14
Oh, what effrontery! Will you never stop laughing? (Zo the other.) But you, why do youcry? For I think it is much more becoming to talk with you.
14
Because I consider, O stranger, that the affairs of man are woeful and tearful, and there is naught in them that is not foredoomed; therefore I pity and grieve for men. And their present woes I do not consider great, but those to come in future will be wholly bitter; I speak of the great conflagrations and the collapse of the universe. It is for this that I grieve, and because nothing is fixed, but all things are in a manner stirred up into porridge, and joy and joylessness, wisdom and unwisdom, great and small are all but the same, circling about, up and down, and interchanging in the game of Eternity.
14
And what is Eternity?
14
A child playing a game, moving counters, in discord, in concord.
14
What are men?
14
Mortal gods.
14
And the Gods?
14
Immortal men.
14
Are you telling riddles, man, or making conundrums? You are just like Apollo, for you say nothing plainly.Heraclitus was nicknamed ὁ σκοτεινός, “the Obscure.”
14
Because you matter naught to me.
14
Then nobody in his sense will buy you.
14
I bid ye go weep, one and all, buy you or buy you not.
14
This fellow’s trouble is not far removed from insanity. However, I for my part will not buy either of them.
14
They are left unsold also.
14
Put up another.
