The Dog’s Counsel

by Dimitar Dakovski

Knock, knock, knock.

Diogenes woke up. “What do those brats want now?” he thought. His disheveled head emerged from the large ceramic pithos in which he slept and lived. Before him stood a man and a woman, both richly dressed.

Diogenes rose in an attempt to climb out of the vessel but lost his balance. The pithos rolled over, and he tumbled out at the man’s feet. From the vessel’s opening, liquid spilled out, forming a yellow puddle that stopped a finger’s length from the woman’s sandals.

“Are you the one they call Diogenes of Sinope, the philosopher?” asked the man with slightly furrowed brows. He had thick white hair and a beard, though his face bore no wrinkles.

“Aye, aye, that’s me, though I prefer to be called the Dog.” At that moment, a mangy mutt with matted fur crawled out of the overturned pithos and curled up at Diogenes’ feet.

The woman, beautiful but with a stern expression, said, “My husband and I are in need of counsel. We’ve heard you’re a man who speaks the truth as he sees it and doesn’t conceal it even from the King of Macedon. We are... also people to whom no one wants to speak their mind directly.”

“Ah, nobility, then?” inquired the philosopher.

“Let’s say my wife and I are the rulers of a certain mountain kingdom,” replied the man. “Come with us.”

The two turned and strode off. Diogenes stood up, swayed and, when he managed to steady himself, his surroundings had changed; the familiar pithos and ditch had been replaced by a beautiful park with stone benches and well-tended olive trees. A peacock spread its magnificent tail some ten paces away. He didn’t find this particularly surprising. He pointed to a bench and said, “Very well then, sit down and tell me your troubles.”

The spouses exchanged glances and sat at opposite ends of the bench, as far from each other as possible. The Dog positioned himself cross-legged on the ground before them and, in his lap, settled the actual dog, which began scratching and biting to rid itself of at least some of the annoying parasites crawling beneath its fur.

The white-haired man began: “My wife and I have been having some minor marital problems—”

But he was rudely interrupted by his partner. “Minor?! How can you call your constant infidelities minor?”

At the sound of her shriek, the peacock also let out a piercing cry.

“Very well, let the lady continue. Tell me, Your Highness, with how many other women has your husband lain?”

“Hmm, let me see: Metis, Eurynome, Leto, Demet—” she began to enumerate.

“Those don’t count; they were before I married you!” A shadow of anger wrinkled his brow and, perhaps coincidentally, the sky also darkened just then.

“Fine, fine, and what about Io, Europa, Danaë, Alcmene, Leda...”

“My dear, they’re just some women. Compared to them, you’re a goddess!”

“I may be a goddess but, with them, you’re like some rutting bull, and when was the last time you were with me, hm?”

“An actual bull!” her husband corrected. “With Europa, I was an actual bull.”

His wife gave him an icy look.

Diogenes intervened: “Let’s return to the matter at hand. When did you last share the marital bed?”

“Perhaps when we conceived Eileithyia.” The man’s gaze turned blissful. “They were still building the sun chariot back then; we’d hidden inside it. What a night that was...” He sighed.

The sun emerged from behind the thunderous cloud. The peacock proudly spread its tail beneath the rays.

The Dog continued with his questions. “All right, there’s something I don’t quite understand. Why do you occupy yourself with these other maids when you have such an exquisite lady by your side?”

“It’s her temper. She hates everyone in our family: our brothers, our children, my children. And I even named one of my sons after her!”

“That bastard!” she bristled, then caught herself. “Well, yes, perhaps you’re right, I do have a difficult temper. Most likely I got it from my father—”

“May he rot in Tartarus!” her husband shouted angrily. The storm cloud engulfed the sun’s disk.

“Not that you’re any better!” she retorted.

“If it weren’t for me, you’d still be in his gut!” His words were nearly drowned out by a bolt of lightning that tore across the sky and struck the peacock with blinding brilliance. Nothing remained of the bird but a handful of charred feathers.

“Hey, let’s take it easy,” suggested Diogenes. “It seems to me you need a bit more time for yourselves. Your royal duties have stolen away that spark that brought you together. Why don’t you rest a while, go somewhere peaceful, where no one knows who you are, and be just the two of you for a time? No obligations, no family drama. Well, what do you say?”

The woman looked surprised by this radical idea, but the anger had vanished from her gaze, and from the way the sun caressed her cheeks, it was clear her husband had also regained his composure.

“You know what, we’ll do exactly that. Come, dear, I know a place north of here, full of pagans. No one will recognize us. Just you and me.”

He rose and set off down one of the park’s paths. His wife followed. “Have you taken any other woman there before?”

A pause. “No, dear, I haven’t.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“From Hermes.”

Diogenes stood up but swayed again and would have fallen if he hadn’t managed to lean against his pithos, which suddenly stood before him. The fragrance of flowers and olives was replaced by the familiar, even cozy, stench of urine.

The philosopher pondered: either he had just given marital advice to Zeus and Hera or the mushrooms he’d eaten last night hadn’t agreed with him. Anyway, another cosmic mystery to contemplate later with Plato.