26 Jan “What would you have? I ought not to have died, I suppose?” (LUCIAN)
CHARON
Your fare, you rascal.
MENIPPUS
Bawl away, Charon, if it gives you any pleasure.
CHARON
I brought you across: give me my fare.
MENIPPUS
I can’t, if I haven’t got it.
CHARON
And who is so poor that he has not got a penny?
MENIPPUS
I for one; I don’t know who else.
CHARON
Pay: or, by Pluto, I’ll strangle you.
MENIPPUS
And I’ll crack your skull with this stick.
CHARON
So you are to come all that way for nothing?
MENIPPUS
Let Hermes pay for me: he put me on board.
HERMES
I dare say! A fine time I shall have of it, if I am to pay for the shades.
CHARON
I’m not going to let you off.
MENIPPUS
You can haul up your ship and wait, for all I care. If I have not got the money, I can’t pay you, can I?
CHARON
You knew you ought to bring it?
MENIPPUS
I knew that: but I hadn’t got it. What would you have? I ought not to have died, I suppose?
CHARON
So you are to have the distinction of being the only passenger that ever crossed gratis?
MENIPPUS
Oh, come now: gratis! I took an oar, and I baled; and I didn’t cry, which is more than can be said for any of the others.
CHARON
That’s neither here nor there. I must have my penny; it’s only right.
MENIPPUS
Well, you had better take me back again to life.
CHARON
Yes, and get a thrashing from Aeacus for my pains! I like that.
MENIPPUS
Well, don’t bother me.
CHARON
Let me see what you have got in that wallet.
MENIPPUS
Beans: have some?—and a Hecate’s supper.
CHARON
Where did you pick up this Cynic, Hermes? The noise he made on the crossing, too! laughing and jeering at all the rest, and singing, when every one else was at his lamentations.
HERMES
Ah, Charon, you little know your passenger! Independence, every inch of him: he cares for no one. ’Tis Menippus.
CHARON
Wait till I catch you—
MENIPPUS
Precisely; I’ll wait—till you catch me again.
CHARON AND MENIPPUS
LUCIAN
