_Me_. Let me see, now. First stage, Earth to Moon, 350 miles. Second stage, up to the Sun, 500 leagues. Then the third, to the actual Heaven and Zeus’s citadel, might be put at a day’s journey for an eagle in light marching order. _Fr_. In the name of goodness, Menippus, what are these astronomical sums you are doing under your breath? I have been dogging yon for some time, listening to your suns and moons, queerly mixed up with common earthly stages and leagues. _Me_. Ah, you must not be surprised if my talk is rather exalted and ethereal; I was making out the mileage of my journey. _Fr_. Oh, I see; using stars to steer by, like the Phoenicians? _Me_. Oh no, travelling among them. _Fr_. Well, to be sure, it must have been a longish dream, if you lost yourself in it for whole leagues. _Me_. Dream, my good man? I am just come straight from Zeus. Dream, indeed! _Fr_. How? What? Our Menippus a literal godsend from Heaven? _Me_. ’Tis even so; from very Zeus I come this day, eyes and ears yet full of wonders. Oh, doubt, if you will. That my fortune should pass belief makes it only the more gratifying. _Fr_. Nay, my worshipful Olympian, how should I, ‘a man begotten, treading this poor earth,’ doubt him who transcends the clouds, a ‘denizen of Heaven,’ as Homer says? But vouchsafe to tell me how you were uplifted, and where you got your mighty tall ladder. There is hardly enough of Ganymede in your looks to suggest that you were carried off by the eagle for a cupbearer. _Me_. I see you are bent on making a jest of it. Well, it _is_ extraordinary; you could not be expected to see that it is not a romance. The fact is, I needed neither ladder nor amorous eagle; I had wings of my own. _Fr_. Stranger and stranger! this beats Daedalus. What, you turned into a hawk or a crow on the sly? _Me_. Now that is not a bad shot; it was Daedalus’s wing trick that I tried. _Fr_. Well, talk of foolhardiness! did you like the idea of falling into the sea, and giving us a _Mare Menippeum_ after the precedent of the _Icarium_? _Me_. No fear. Icarus’s feathers were fastened with wax, and of course, directly the sun warmed this, he moulted and fell. No wax for me, thank you. _Fr_. How did you manage, then? I declare I shall be believing you soon, if you go on like this. _Me_. Well, I caught a fine eagle, and also a particularly powerful vulture, and cut off their wings above the shoulder- joint.... But no; if you are not in a hurry, I may as well give you the enterprise from the beginning. _Fr_. Do, do; I am rapt aloft by your words already, my mouth open for your _bonne bouche_; as you love me, leave me not in those upper regions hung up by the ears!