(Have done with all this nonsense! At any rate lay it aside now if not before, when you can get no advantage from your long hair and your staff. Shall I tell you how you have caused philosophy to be lightly esteemed? It is because the most ignorant of the rhetoricians, those whose tongues not King Hermes himself could purify, and who could not be made wise by Athene herself with the aid of Hermes, having picked up their knowledge from their industry in frequenting public places,—for they do not know the truth of the current proverb, “Grape ripens near grape”(218)—then all rush into Cynicism. They adopt the staff, the cloak, the long hair, the ignorance that goes with these, the impudence, the insolence, and in a word everything of the sort. They say that they are travelling the short and ready road to virtue.(219) I would that you were going by the longer! For you would more easily arrive by that road than by this of yours. Are you not aware that short cuts usually involve one in great difficulties? For just as is the case with the public roads, a traveller who is able to take a short cut will more easily than other men go all the way round, whereas it does not at all follow that he who went round could always go the short cut, so too in philosophy the end and the beginning are one, namely, to know oneself and to become like the gods. That is to say, the first principle is self‐knowledge, and the end of conduct is the resemblance to the higher powers.) Ὅστις οὖν Κυνικὸς εἶναι ἐθέλει, πάντων ὑπεριδὼν τῶν νομισμάτων καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων δοξῶν, εἰς ἑαυτὸν καὶ τὸν θεὸν ἐπέστραπται πρότερον. ἐκείνῳ τὸ χρυσίον οὐκ ἔστι χρυσίον, οὐχ ἡ ψάμμος ψάμμος, εἰ πρὸς ἀμοιβήν τις αὐτὰ ἀξετάζοι καὶ τῆς ἀξίας αὐτῶν ἐπιτρέψειεν αὐτῷ τιμητῇ γενέσθαι· [226] γῆν γὰρ αὐτὰ οἶδεν ἀμφότερα. τὸ σπανιώτερον δὲ καὶ τὸ ῥᾷον ἀνθρώπων εἶναι κενοδοξίας ταῦτα καὶ ἀμαθίας νενόμικεν ἔργα· τὸ αἰσχρὸν ἢ καλὸν οὐκ ἐν τοῖς ἐπαινουμένοις ἢ ψεγομένοις τίθεται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῇ φύσει· φεύγει τὰς περιττ`ας τροφάς· ἀποστρέφεται δὲ τὰ ἀφροδίσια. βιαζομένου δὲ τοῦ σώματος, οὐ δόξῃ προστέτηκεν οὐδὲ περιμένει τὸν μάγειρον καὶ τὰ ὑποτρίμματα καὶ τὴν κνίσσαν, οὐδὲ τὴν Φρύνην οὐδὲ τὴν Λαΐδα οὐδὲ τὴν τοῦ δεῖνος(220) περιβλέπεται γαμετὴν οὐδὲ [B] τὸ θυγάτριον οὐδὲ τὴν θεράπαιναν· ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἔνι μάλιστα ἐκ τῶν προστυχόντων ἀποπλήσας τὴν θεραπείαν τοῦ σώματος καὶ τὸ ἐνοχλοῦν ἐξ αὐτοῦ παρωσάμενος, ἄνωθεν ἐκ τῆς Ὀλύμπου κορυφῆς ἐπιβλέπει τοὺς ἄλλους