little sketch, cast in Lucian's favourite form of a Dialogue—"The Cock and the Cobbler."
The Cobbler is our old friend Micyllus, who is awakened one morning much earlier than he likes by the crowing of his cock, whom he declares he would kill if it were not too dark to catch him. The Cock remonstrates: he is only doing his duty; and if his master will not get up and make a shoe before breakfast, he is very likely to go without. Micyllus is very much startled at the prodigy of a cock's finding a human voice; upon which the bird remarks that if Achilles's horse Xanthus could make a long speech, and in verse too, and the half-roasted oxen in the Odyssey could low even on the spit—and there is Homer's excellent authority for both[1]— surely he may say a few words in humble prose. Besides, if his master wants to know, he has not always been a bird—he was a man, once upon a time: Micyllus has surely heard of the great philosopher Pythagoras, and his transformations? Yes, Micyllus has heard all about it—and a great imposter he was. "Pray, don't use violent language," replies the Cock; "I am Pythagoras—or rather, I was." He proceeds to explain how many and various transmigrations he has already gone through; he has been a king, a beggar,
- ↑ It will be observed that Lucian is continually jesting upon the marvels related by Homer, and affecting to be shocked at them as palpable lies. But his very familiarity with the poet is proof sufficient of his real appreciation of him. Like the old angler, he puts him on his hook, but still "handles him tenderly, as though he loved him."
