"Aid in love, lord. She wanted to be cured of unrequited love."

"Didst thou cure her?"

"I did more, lord. I gave her an amulet which secures mutuality. In
Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, is a temple, O lord, in which is
preserved a zone of Venus. I gave her two threads from that zone,
enclosed in an almond shell."

"And didst thou make her pay well for them?"

"One can never pay enough for mutuality, and I, who lack two fingers on
my right hand, am collecting money to buy a slave copyist to write down
my thoughts, and preserve my wisdom for mankind."

"Of what school art thou, divine sage?"

"I am a Cynic, lord, because I wear a tattered mantle; I am a Stoic,
because I bear poverty patiently; I am a Peripatetic, for, not owning a
litter, I go on foot from one wine-shop to another, and on the way teach
those who promise to pay for a pitcher of wine."

"And at the pitcher thou dost become a rhetor?"

"Heraclitus declares that 'all is fluid,' and canst thou deny, lord,
that wine is fluid?"

"And he declared that fire is a divinity; divinity, therefore, is
blushing in thy nose."