Whereupon Aristotle rose from his seat, and treated the immortals to a sight which no one had as yet enjoyed: he smiled. And smilingly he said to the almighty son of Kronos, ruler of the world: "O Zeus, your wish is a behest, and if you insist I will of course obey. But pray, kindly consider that I have, with your consent, withheld from these people, who call themselves moderns, and who might better be called afterlings, the second book of my 'Poetics,' in which I treat of the comedy, the farce, the burlesque, and similar phlyakes, as we term them. If now I should reveal my thoughts on the phlyakes of the English, several of their sophists, whom they call University professors, might still add to the lava which my commentators have spurted out upon my works, just as we see here the lava of angry Vesuvius cover the beauteous fields in and around Pompeii.
"May I propose the proper person to entertain us about that sort of comedy of the English which, at present, is more or less generally considered to be their most valuable dramatic output? If so," Aristotle continued at a sign from Zeus, "I propose him who over there at the right entrance of the stage lies carelessly on the ground and seems to heed us as little as in his time he heeded the Athenians and the Corinthians." Aristotle, raising his hand, pointed to the shabby, untidy figure of Diogenes. When the gods and heroes heard the name and looked at the person of the Cynic, they all burst out in immortal laughter, and the sea, catching the gay ripple, laughed as far as Sorrento.
Diogenes, without moving from his position, and putting one of his legs comfortably on one of the low statues of a satyr, turned his head towards Zeus and exclaimed: "Verily, I tell you, you only confirm me in my old belief, that there is nothing sadder than laughter. Why should you laugh? Are we not here to enjoy ourselves? Is not this lovely spot one where even we might and ought to feel perfectly happy? Why, then, laugh? I mean, of course, laugh at me.
"I do pooh-pooh all your glories. Olympus to me is not a whit more agreeable than my tub at Corinth. This is, you understand, the reason of my predilection for the English. They, alone of all these Europeans, live at least for five seconds each day in a tub.
"I also pooh-pooh your feasts, your ambrosia and nectar. For having passed a few months in a large village they call London, I have so completely lost my palate and taste, that for the next two thousand years, at anyrate, I shall not be able to distinguish nectar from stale ale, nor ambrosia from cabbage.
"Yes, I still pooh-pooh, disdain and neglect most of the things that you and your worshippers hold in great esteem. Alcibiades raved about the beauty of women now limping about in the various cities of the barbarians, and more particularly in the towns of the English. A woman! A mere woman! What is the good of a woman unless one is rid of her? I still think what I used to teach, that between a man and a woman there is only a slight difference, one that is scarcely worth considering.
"You may laugh until Vesuvius again vomits scorn upon you, but I tell you here, at Pompeii, what I used to tell everybody at Corinth: your glories are all gone, or ought to go. Just look at Venus. There she sits displaying to eager-looking Pans and Sileni the loveliness of her head and neck and figure. But what does it mean after all? Repentance and wormwood. Look at Ares—(Mars). Does he not look as if he ruled the world? Does he not behave as if all great things were achieved through and by him? And what is it in reality? Mere butchery—cowardly butchery. You laugh; of course, you do. But I mean to show you that all that I have ever taught is nothing less than strictly true; the only truth; truth the one.
"Aristotle, in pointing me out as the person who can best tell you what this new Shavian drama of England really is; Aristotle, I say, may have acted with malice. He has, nevertheless, acted with great wisdom. I am indeed the only man out of the world (there is none in it), who does clearly and fully understand my little disciple who calls himself Bernard Shaw. Of the other friends and admirers of his, he might very well say what that great German philosopher Hegel said in his last moments: 'One man alone has understood me well,—and even he misunderstood me entirely.' He might with reference to my Cynic lady friend Hipparchia also say: 'One man alone understood me well,—and she was a woman.'
"The fact is, Shaw, the son of Pooh-Pooh, is simply a goody disciple of my school, of the Cynics. When I was still within that mortal coil which men call skin and flesh, I did take all my sputterings and utterings very seriously, or as they say in cultured Mayfair: 'Oh grant serio.' I really thought, as undoubtedly thinks my brave disciple in London, that my criticism of social, political, or religious things went deep into the essence of all that maintains Society, the State, and the Temples. Good old Plato, it is true, hinted at my vanity and conceit more than once, and I still feel the sting of his remark when once, soaked all through by the rain, I was surrounded by pitying folk: 'If you want to feel pity for Diogenes,' Plato said, 'then leave him alone.'