Reader

NIREUS Look, here’s Menippus, who will decide which of us is more handsome. Tell us, Menippus, don’t you think I am? MENIPPUS Whoever are you both? I ought to know that first, I suppose. NIREUS NIreus and Thersites. MENIPPUS Well, which is NIreus, and which Thersites? That’s still not clear. THERSITES That’s already one point in my favour, if I’m like you, and you don’t have the great superiority for which Homer the blind praised you, when he called you the most handsome of them all; I, with my sugarloaf head, and thin hair, Cf. Iliad, II, 219. seemed just as good-looking as you to Minos; but you, Menippus, take a good look to see which you think more handsome. IREUS Me, son of Charops and Aglaea, “handsomest man of all who came to Troy”. Cf. Iliad, II, 672-3.

MENIPPUS But not, methinks, the handsomest that has come to the lower world; your bones are no different here, and your skull can only be told from that of Thersites, by its brittleness. Your skull is fragile and unmanly. NIREUS But just ask Homer what I was like when I was fighting in the Greek army. MENIPPUS You talk of dreams; I of what I see, and of your present state; your past is only known to the men of that time. NIREUS Then, Menippus, I’m not handsomer here than he is? MENIPPUS Neither you nor anyone else is handsome here. In Hades all are equal, and all alike. THERSITES That’s good enough for me.