_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.