Dialogues of the Dead [1.1–2]

Pollux, I want you to do something for me. I think it’s your turn to return to life tomorrow. Well, as soon as you get back to earth, if you happen to see Menippus the Cynic anywhere—you should find him either in Corinth at the Craneum Park or in Athens at the Lyceum, making fun of the philosophers arguing there—, give him this message. Tell him that Diogenes says, “Menippus, if you’ve had enough of poking fun at things up there, come on down here; there’s much more to laugh at. After all, your funmaking now has a bit of uncertainty about it. There’s always the question: ‘Who really knows what happens after death?’ But here you can laugh your head off without any worries, just the way I’m doing now. Especially when you see how the millionaires and the pashas and the dictators have been cut down to size and look just like everybody else —you can only tell them apart by their whimpering and the way they’re so spineless and miserable at the memory of all they left behind.” Give him that message. Oh, and tell him when he leaves to fill his sack with beans or whatever he can steal from an altar or a sacrifice.