_Diog_. Yes, my Spartan, and here is for the poor. There are a great many of them, very sorry for themselves and resentful of their helplessness. Tell them to dry their tears and cease their cries; explain to them that here one man is as good as another, and they will find those who were rich on earth no better than themselves. As for your Spartans, you will not mind scolding them, from me, upon their present degeneracy? _Pol_. No, no, Diogenes; leave Sparta alone; that is going too far; your other commissions I will execute. _Diog_. Oh, well, let them off, if you care about it; but tell all the others what I said. H. II _Before Pluto: Croesus, Midas, and Sardanapalus v. Menippus_ _Cr_. Pluto, we can stand this snarling Cynic no longer in our neighbourhood; either you must transfer him to other quarters, or we are going to migrate. _Pl_. Why, what harm does he do to your ghostly community? _Cr_. Midas here, and Sardanapalus and I, can never get in a good cry over the old days of gold and luxury and treasure, but he must be laughing at us, and calling us rude names; 'slaves' and 'garbage,' he says we are. And then he sings; and that throws us out.—In short, he is a nuisance. _Pl_. Menippus, what's this I hear? _Me_. All perfectly true, Pluto. I detest these abject rascals! Not content with having lived the abominable lives they did, they keep on talking about it now they are dead, and harping on the good old days. I take a positive pleasure in annoying them. _Pl_. Yes, but you mustn't. They have had terrible losses; they feel it deeply. _Me_. Pluto! you are not going to lend _your_ countenance to these whimpering fools? _Pl_. It isn't that: but I won't have you quarrelling. _Me_. Well, you scum of your respective nations, let there be no misunderstanding; I am going on just the same. Wherever you are, there shall I be also; worrying, jeering, singing you down. _Cr_. Presumption! _Me_. Not a bit of it. Yours was the presumption, when you expected men to fall down before you, when you trampled on men's liberty, and forgot there was such a thing as death. Now comes the weeping and gnashing of teeth: for all is lost! _Cr_. Lost! Ah God! My treasure-heaps— _Mid_. My gold— _Sar_. My little comforts— _Me_. That's right: stick to it! You do the whining, and I'll chime in with a string of GNOTHI-SAUTONS, best of accompaniments. F. III _Menippus. Amphilochus. Trophonius_ _Me_. Now I wonder how it is that you two dead men have been honoured with temples and taken for prophets; those silly mortals imagine you are Gods. _Amp_. How can we help it, if they are fools enough to have such fancies about the dead? _Me_. Ah, they would never have had them, though, if you had not been charlatans in your lifetime, and pretended to know the future and be able to foretell it to your clients.