How say you? Menippus let down from heaven?
MENIPPUS.
Even so: this moment come from thence, where I have seen and heard things most strange and miraculous. If you doubt the truth of them, the happier shall I be to have seen what is past belief.
FRIEND.
How is it possible, most heavenly and divine Menippus, that a mere mortal, like me, should dispute the veracity of one who has been carried above the clouds: one, to speak in the language of Homer, of the inhabitants [{155}] of heaven? But inform me, I beseech you, which way you got up, and how you procured so many ladders; for, by your appearance, I should not take you for another Phrygian boy, [{156}] to be carried up by an eagle, and made a cup-bearer of.
MENIPPUS.
You are an old scoffer, I know, and therefore I am not surprised that an account of things above the comprehensions of the vulgar should appear like a fable to you; but, let me tell you, I wanted no ladders, nor an eagle’s beak, to transport me thither, for I had wings of my own.
FRIEND.
This was beyond Dædalus himself, to be metamorphosed thus into a hawk, or jay, and we know nothing of it.
MENIPPUS.