No More Learning

I now came
into the property, and ladled out gold and silver by the bucketful
from springs that never dried; furniture and plate, clothes and
servants, all were mine. I drove abroad, the admiration of all eyes
and the envy of all hearts, lolling in my carriage behind a pair of
creams, with a crowd of attendants on horseback and on foot in
front of me, and a larger crowd behind. Dressed in Eucrates's
splendid clothes, my fingers loaded with a score or so of rings, I
ordered a magnificent feast to be prepared for the entertainment of
my friends. The next moment they were there,--it happens so in
dreams; dinner was brought in, the wine splashed in the cups. I was
pledging each of my friends in turn in beakers of gold, and the
biscuits were just being brought in, when that unlucky crow of
yours spoilt all: over went the tables, and away flew my visionary
wealth to all the quarters of Heaven. Had I not some reason to be
annoyed with you? I could have gone on with that dream for three
nights on end.

_Cock_. Is the love of gold so absorbing a passion? Gold the
only thing you can find to admire? The possession of gold the sole
happiness?

_Mi_. I am not the only one, Pythagoras. Why, you yourself
(when you were Euphorbus) used to go to battle with your hair
adorned with gold and silver, though iron would have been more to
the point than gold under the circumstances; however, you thought
differently, and fought with a golden circlet about your brow;
which I suppose is why Homer compares your hair to that of the
Graces

in gold and silver clasped.

No doubt its charm would be greatly enhanced by the glitter of the
interwoven gold. After all, though, you, my golden-haired friend,
were but the son of Panthus; one can understand your respect for
gold. But the father of Gods and men, the son of Cronus and Rhea
himself, could find no surer way to the heart of his Argive
enchantress [Footnote: Danae. ]--or to those of her gaolers--than
this same metal; you know the story, how he turned himself into
gold, and came showering down through the roof into the presence of
his beloved? Need I say more? Need I point out the useful purposes
that gold serves? the beauty and wisdom and strength, the honour
and glory it confers on its possessors, at a moment's notice
turning obscurity and infamy into world-wide fame? You know my
neighbour and fellow craftsman, Simon, who supped with me not long
since? 'Twas at the Saturnalia, the day I made that pease-pudding,
with the two slices of sausage in it?

_Cock_. I know: the little snub-nosed fellow, who went off
with our pudding-basin under his arm,--the only one we had; I saw
him with these eyes.

_Mi_. So it was he who stole that basin! and he swore by all
his Gods that he knew nothing of it! But you should have called
out, and told me how we were being plundered.

_Cock_. I did crow; it was all I could do just then. But what
were you going to say about Simon?

_Mi_. He had a cousin, Drimylus, who was tremendously rich.
During his lifetime, Drimylus never gave him a penny; and no
wonder, for he never laid a finger on his money himself. But the
other day he died, and Simon has come in for everything. No more
dirty rags for him now, no more trencher-licking: he drives abroad
clothed in purple and scarlet; slaves and horses are his, golden
cups and ivory-footed tables, and men prostrate themselves before
him. As for me, he will not so much as look at me: it was only the
other day that I met him, and said, 'Good day, Simon': he flew into
a rage: 'Tell that beggar,' he said, 'not to cut down my name; it
is Simonides, not Simon. ' And that is not all,--the women are in
love with him too, and Simon is coy and cold: some he receives
graciously, but the neglected ones declare they will hang
themselves. See what gold can do! It is like Aphrodite's girdle,
transforming the unsightly and making them lovely to behold. What
say the poets?

Happy the hand that grasps thee, Gold!

and again,

Gold hath dominion over mortal men.

But what are you laughing at?

_Cock_. Ah, Micyllus, I see that you are no wiser than your
neighbours; you have the usual mistaken notions about the rich,
whose life, I assure you, is far more miserable than your own. I
ought to know: I have tried everything, and been poor man and rich
man times out of number. You will find out all about it before
long.

_Mi_. Ah, to be sure, it is your turn now. Tell me how you
came to be changed into a cock, and what each of your lives was
like.

_Cock_. Very well; and I may remark, by way of preface, that
of all the lives I have ever known none was happier than yours.

_Mi_. Than mine? Exasperating fowl! All I say is, may you have
one like it! Now then: begin from Euphorbus, and tell me how you
came to be Pythagoras, and so on, down to the cock. I'll warrant
you have not been through all those different lives without seeing
some strange sights, and having your adventures.

_Cock_. How my spirit first proceeded from Apollo, and took
flight to earth, and entered into a human form, and what was the
nature of the crime thus expiated,--all this would take too long to
tell; nor is it fitting either for me to speak of such matters or
for you to hear of them. I pass to the time when I became
Euphorbus,--

_Mi_. Wait a minute: have I ever been changed in this way?

_Cock_. You have.

_Mi_. Then who was I, do you know? I am curious about that.

_Cock_. Why, you were an Indian ant, of the gold-digging
species.

_Mi_. What could induce me, misguided insect that I was, to
leave that life without so much as a grain of gold-dust to supply
my needs in this one? And what am I going to be next? I suppose you
can tell me. If it is anything good, I'll hang myself this moment
from the very perch on which you stand.

_Cock_. That I can on no account divulge. To resume. When I
was Euphorbus, I fought at Troy, and was slain by Menelaus. Some
time then elapsed before I entered into the body of Pythagoras.
During this interval, I remained without a habitation, waiting till
Mnesarchus had prepared one for me.

_Mi_. What, without meat or drink?

_Cock_. Oh yes; these are mere bodily requirements.

_Mi_. Well, first I will have about the Trojan war. Did it all
happen as Homer describes?

_Cock_. Homer! What should he know of the matter? He was a
camel in Bactria all the time. I may tell you that things were not
on such a tremendous scale in those days as is commonly supposed:
Ajax was not so very tall, nor Helen so very beautiful. I saw her:
she had a fair complexion, to be sure, and her neck was long enough
to suggest her swan parentage [Footnote: See _Helen_ in Notes. ]:
but then she was such an age--as old as Hecuba, almost. You see,
Theseus had carried her off first, and she had lived with him at
Aphidnae: now Theseus was a contemporary of Heracles, and the
former capture of Troy, by Heracles, had taken place in the
generation before mine; my father, who told me all this, remembered
seeing Heracles when he was himself a boy.

_Mi_. Well, and Achilles: was he so much better than other
people, or is that all stuff and nonsense?

_Cock_. Ah, I never came across Achilles; I am not very strong
on the Greeks; I was on the other side, of course. There is one
thing, though: I made pretty short work of his friend Patroclus--
ran him clean through with my spear.

_Mi_. After which Menelaus settled you with still greater
facility. Well, that will do for Troy. And when you were
Pythagoras?

_Cock_. When I was Pythagoras, I was--not to deceive you--a
sophist; that is the long and short of it. At the same time, I was
not uncultured, not unversed in polite learning. I travelled in
Egypt, cultivated the acquaintance of the priests, and learnt
wisdom from their mouths; I penetrated into their temples and
mastered the sacred books of Orus and Isis; finally, I took ship to
Italy, where I made such an impression on the Greeks that they
reckoned me among the Gods.

_Mi_. I have heard all about that; and also how you were
supposed to have risen from the dead, and how you had a golden
thigh, and favoured the public with a sight of it on occasion. But
what put it into your head to make that law about meat and beans?

_Cock_. Ah, don't ask me that, Micyllus.

_Mi_. But why not?

_Cock_. I am ashamed to answer you.

_Mi_. Come, out with it! I am your friend and fellow lodger;
we will drop the 'master' now.

_Cock_. There was neither common sense nor philosophy in that
law. The fact is, I saw that if I did just the same as other
people, I should draw very few admirers; my prestige, I considered,
would be in proportion to my originality. Hence these innovations,
the motive of which I wrapped up in mystery; each man was left to
make his own conjecture, that all might be equally impressed by my
oracular obscurity. There now! you are laughing at me; it is your
turn this time.

_Mi_. I am laughing much more at the folk of Cortona and
Metapontum and Tarentum, and the rest of those mute disciples who
worshipped the ground you trod on. And in what form was your spirit
next clothed, after it had put off Pythagoras?

_Cock_. In that of Aspasia, the Milesian courtesan.

_Mi_. Dear, dear! And your versatility has even changed sexes?
My gallant cock has positively laid eggs in his time? Pythagoras
has carded and spun? Pythagoras the mistress--and the mother--of a
Pericles? My Pythagoras no better than he should be?

_Cock_. I do not stand alone. I had the example of Tiresias
and of Caeneus; your gibes touch them as well as me.

_Mi_. And did you like being a man best, or receiving the
addresses of Pericles?

_Cock_. Ha! the question that Tiresias paid so dearly for
answering!

_Mi_. Never mind, then,--Euripides has settled the point; he
says he would

rather bear the shock of battle thrice
Than once the pangs of labour.

_Cock_. Ah, just a word in your ear: those pangs will shortly
be your own; more than once, in the course of a lengthy career, you
will be a woman.

_Mi_. Strangulation on the bird! Does he think we all hail
from Miletus or Samos? Yes, I said Samos; Pythagoras has had his
admirers, by all accounts, as well as Aspasia. However;--what was
your sex next time?

_Cock_. I was the Cynic Crates.

_Mi_. Castor and Pollux! What a change was there!

_Cock_. Then it was a king; then a pauper, and presently a
satrap, and after that came horse, jackdaw, frog, and I know not
how many more; there is no reckoning them up in detail. Latterly, I
have been a cock several times. I liked the life; many is the king,
many the pauper and millionaire, with whom I took service in that
capacity before I came to you. In your lamentations about poverty,
and your admiration of the rich, I find an unfailing source of
entertainment; little do you know what those rich have to put up
with! If you had any idea of their anxieties, you would laugh to
think how you had been deceived as to the blessedness of wealth.

_Mi_. Well, Pythagoras,--or is there any other name you
prefer? I shall throw you out, perhaps, if I keep on calling you
different things?

_Cock_. Euphorbus or Pythagoras, Aspasia or Crates, it is all
the same to me; one is as much my name as another. Or stay: not to
be wanting in respect to a bird whose humble exterior contains so
many souls, you had better use the evidence of your own eyes and
call me Cock.

_Mi_. Then, cock, as you have tried wellnigh every kind of
life, you can next give me a clear description of the lives of rich
and poor respectively; we will see if there was any truth in your
assertion, that I was better off than the rich.

_Cock_. Well now, look at it this way. To begin with, you are
very little troubled with military matters. Suppose there is talk
of an invasion: _you_ are under no uneasiness about the destruction
of your crops, or the cutting-up of your gardens, or the ruin of
your vines; at the first sound of the trumpet (if you even hear
it), all you have to think of is, how to convey your own person out
of harm's way. Well, the rich have got to provide for that too, and
they have the mortification into the bargain of looking on while
their lands are being ravaged. Is a war-tax to be levied? It all
falls on them. When you take the field, theirs are the posts of
honour--and danger: whereas you, with no worse encumbrance than
your wicker shield, are in the best of trim for taking care of
yourself; and when the time comes for the general to offer up a
sacrifice of thanksgiving for his victory, your presence may be
relied on at the festive scene.

Then again, in time of peace, you, as one of the commons, march up
to the Assembly to lord it over the rich, who tremble and crouch
before you, and seek to propitiate you with grants. They must
labour, that you may be supplied with baths and games and
spectacles and the like to your satisfaction; you are their censor
and critic, their stern taskmaster, who will not always hear before
condemning; nay, you may give them a smart shower of stones, if the
fancy takes you, or confiscate their property. The informer's
tongue has no terrors for you; no burglar will scale or undermine
_your_ walls in search of gold; you are not troubled with
book-keeping or debt-collecting; you have no rascally steward to
wrangle with; none of the thousand worries of the rich distract
you. No, you patch your shoe, and you take your tenpence; and at
dusk up you jump from your bench, get a bath if you are in the
humour for it, buy yourself a haddock or some sprats or a few heads
of garlic, and make merry therewith; Poverty, best of philosophers,
is your companion, and you are seldom at a loss for a song. And
what is the result? Health and strength, and a hardiness that sets
cold at defiance. Your work keeps you keen-set; the ills that seem
insuperable to other men find a tough customer in you. Why, no
serious sickness ever comes near you: fever, perhaps, lays a light
hand on you now and again; you let him have his way for a day or
two, and then you are up again, and shake the pest off; he beats a
hasty retreat, not liking the look of a man who drinks cold water
at that rate, and has such a short way with the doctors. But look
at the rich: name the disease to which these creatures are not
subjected by their intemperance; gout, consumption, pneumonia,
dropsy,--they all come of high feeding. Some of these men are like
Icarus: they fly too high, they get near the sun, not realizing
that their wings are fastened with wax; and then some day there is
a great splash, and they have disappeared headlong into the deep.
Others there are who follow Daedalus's example; such minds eschew
the upper air, and keep their wax within splashing distance of the
sea; these generally get safely to their journey's end.

_Mi_. Shrewd, sensible fellows.

_Cock_. Yes, but among the others you may see some ugly
shipwrecks. Croesus is plucked of his feathers, and mounts a pyre
for the amusement of the Persians.
A tyranny capsizes, and the
lordly Dionysius is discovered teaching Corinthian children their
alphabet.

_Mi_. You tell me, cock, that you have been a king yourself:
now how did _you_ find the life? I expect you had a pleasant
time of it, living on the very fat of the land?

_Cock_. Do not remind me of that miserable existence. A
pleasant time! So people thought, no doubt: I knew better; it was
vexation upon vexation.

_Mi_. You surprise me. How should that be? It sounds unlikely.

_Cock_. The country over which I ruled was both extensive and
fertile. Its population and the beauty of its cities alike entitled
it to the highest consideration. It possessed navigable rivers and
excellent harbours. My army was large, my pike-men numerous, my
cavalry in a high state of efficiency; it was the same with my
fleet; and my wealth was beyond calculation. No circumstance of
kingly pomp was wanting; gold plate in abundance, everything on the
most magnificent scale. I could not leave my palace without
receiving the reverential greetings of the public, who looked on me
as a God, and crowded together to see me pass; some enthusiasts
would even betake themselves to the roofs of the houses, lest any
detail of my equipage, clothes, crown or attendants should escape
them. I could make allowance for the ignorance of my subjects, but
this did not prevent me from pitying myself, when I reflected on
the vexations and worries of my position. I was like those colossal
statues, the work of Phidias, Myron or Praxiteles: they too look
extremely well from outside: 'tis Posidon with his trident, Zeus
with his thunderbolt, all ivory and gold: but take a peep inside,
and what have we? One tangle of bars, bolts, nails, planks, wedges,
with pitch and mortar and everything that is unsightly; not to
mention a possible colony of rats or mice. There you have royalty.

_Mi_. But you have not told me what is the mortar, what the
bolts and bars and other unsightlinesses that lurk behind a throne.
Admiration, dominion, divine honours,--these no doubt fit your
simile; there is a touch of the godlike about them. But now let me
have the inside of your colossus.

_Cock_. And where shall I begin? With fear and suspicion? The
resentments of courtiers and the machinations of conspirators?
Scant and broken sleep, troubled dreams, perplexities, forebodings?
Or again with the hurry of business--fiscal--legal--military?
Orders to be issued, treaties to be drawn up, estimates to be
formed? As for pleasure, such a thing is not to be dreamt of; no,
one man must think for all, toil incessantly for all. The Achaean
host is snoring to a man:

But sweet sleep came not nigh to Atreus' son,
Who pondered many things within his heart.

Lydian Croesus is troubled because his son is dumb; Persian
Artaxerxes, because Clearchus is raising a host for Cyrus;
Dionysius, because Dion whispers in Syracusan ears; Alexander,
because Parmenio is praised. Perdiccas has no peace for Ptolemy,
Ptolemy none for Seleucus. And there are other griefs than these:
his favourite is cold; his concubine loves another; there is talk
of a rebellion; there has been muttering among a half-dozen of his
guards. And the bitterness of it is, that his nearest and dearest
are those whom he is most called on to distrust; from them he must
ever look for harm. One we see poisoned by his son, another by his
own favourite; and a third will probably fare no better.

_Mi_. Whew! I like not this, my cock. Methinks there is safety
in bent backs and leather-cutting, and none in golden loving-cups;
I will pledge no man in hemlock or in aconite. All _I_ have to
fear is that my knife may slip out of the line, and draw a drop or
two from my fingers: but your kings would seem to sit down to
dinner with Death, and to lead dogs' lives into the bargain. They
go at last; and then they are more like play-actors than anything
else--like such a one as you may see taking the part of Cecrops or
Sisyphus or Telephus. He has his diadem and his ivory-hilted sword,
his waving hair and spangled cloak: but accidents will happen,--
suppose he makes a false step: down he comes on the middle of the
stage, and the audience roars with laughter. For there is his mask,
crumpled up, diadem and all, and his own bloody coxcomb showing
underneath it; his legs are laid bare to the knees, and you see the
dirty rags inside his fine robe, and the great lumbering buskins.
Ha, ha, friend cock, have I learnt to turn a simile already? Well,
there are my views on tyranny. Now for the horses and dogs and
frogs and fishes: how did you like that kind of thing?

_Cock_. Your question would take a long time to answer; more
time than we can spare. But--to sum up my experience in two words--
every one of these creatures has an easier life of it than man.
Their aims, their wants, are all confined to the body: such a thing
as a tax-farming horse or a litigant frog, a jackdaw sophist, a
gnat confectioner, or a cock pander, is unknown; they leave such
things to humanity.

_Mi_. It may be as you say. But, cock (I don't mind making a
clean breast of it to you), I have had a fancy all my life for
being rich, and I am as bad as ever; nay, worse, for there is the
dream, still flaunting its gold before my eyes; and that confounded
Simon, too,--it chokes me to think of him rolling in luxury.

_Cock_. I'll put that right. It is still dark, get up and come
with me. You shall pay a visit to Simon and other rich men, and see
how things stand with them.

_Mi_. But the doors are locked. Would you have me break in?

_Cock_. Oh no; but I have a certain privilege from Hermes, my
patron: you see my longest tail-feather, the curling one that hangs
down,--

_Mi_. There are two curling ones that hang down.

_Cock_. The one on the right. By allowing any one to pluck out
that feather and carry it, I give him the power, for as long as I
like, of opening all doors and seeing everything, himself unseen.

_Mi_. Cock, you are a positive conjurer. Only give me the
feather, and it shall not be long before Simon's wealth shifts its
quarters; I'll slip in and make a clean sweep. His teeth shall tug
leather again.

_Cock_. That must not be. I have my instructions from Hermes,
and if my feather is put to any such purpose, I am to call out and
expose the offender.

_Mi_. Hermes, of all people, grudge a man a little thievery?
I'll not believe it of him. However, let us start; I promise not to
touch the gold . . . if I can help it.

_Cock_. You must pluck out the feather first. . . . What's this?
You have taken both!

_Mi_. Better to be on the safe side. And it would look so bad
to have one half of your tail gone and not the other.

_Cock_. Well. Where shall we go first? To Simon's?

_Mi_. Yes, yes, Simon first. Simonides it is, nowadays; two
syllables is not enough for him since he has come into money. . . .
Here we are; what do I do next?

_Cock_. Apply the feather to the bolt.

_Mi_. So. Heracles! it might be a key; the door flies open.

_Cock_. Walk in; you go first. Do you see him? He is sitting
up over his accounts.

_Mi_. See him! I should think I did. What a light! That lamp
wants a drink. And what makes Simon so pale? He is shrivelled up to
nothing. That comes of his worries; there is nothing else the
matter with him, that I have heard of.

_Cock_. Listen, and you will understand.

_Si_. That seventeen thousand in the hole under my bed is safe
enough; not a soul saw me that time. But I believe Sosylus caught
me hiding the four thousand under the manger: he is not the most
industrious of grooms, he was never too fond of work; but he
_lives_ in that stable now. And I expect that is not all that
has gone, by a long way. What was Tibius doing with those fine
great kippers yesterday? And they tell me he paid no less a sum
than four shillings for a pair of earrings for his wife. God help
me, it's _my_ money they're flinging about. I'm not easy about
all that plate either: what if some one should knock a hole in the
wall, and make off with it? Many is the one that envies me, and has
an eye on my gold; my neighbour Micyllus is as bad as any of them.

_Mi_. Hear, hear! He is as bad as Simon; he walks off with
other people's pudding-basins under his arm.

_Cock_. Hush! we shall be caught.

_Si_. There's nothing like sitting up, and having everything
under one's own eye. I'll jump up and go my rounds. . . . You there!
you burglar! I see you. . . . Ah, it is but a post; all is well. I'll
pull up the gold and count it again; I may have missed something
just now. . . . Hark! a step! I knew it; he is upon me! I am beset
with enemies. The world conspires against me. Where is my dagger?
Only let me catch . . . --I'll put the gold back.

_Cock_. There: now you have seen Simon at home. Let us go on
to another house, while there is still some of the night left.

_Mi_. The worm! what a life! I wish all my enemies such wealth
as his. I'll just lend him a box on the ear, and then I am ready.

_Si_. Who was that? Some one struck me! Ah! I am robbed!

_Mi_. Whine away, Simon, and sit up of nights till you are as
yellow as the gold you clutch. --I should like to go to Gniphon the
usurer's next; it is quite close. . . . Again the door opens to us.

_Cock_. He is sitting up too, look. It is an anxious time with
him; he is reckoning his interest. His fingers are worn to the
bone. Presently he will have to leave all this, and become a
cockroach, or a gnat, or a bluebottle.

_Mi_. Senseless brute! it will hardly be a change for the
worse. He, like Simon, is pretty well thinned down by his
calculations. Let us try some one else.

_Cock_. What about your friend Eucrates?