DICAEOPOLIS. Prytanes, in expelling this citizen, you are offering an outrage to the a.s.sembly. He only desired to secure peace for us and to sheathe the sword.

PRYTANIS. Sit down and keep silence!

DICAEOPOLIS. No, by Apollo, will I not, unless you are going to discuss the question of peace.

HERALD. The amba.s.sadors, who are returned from the Court of the King!

DICAEOPOLIS. Of what King? I am sick of all those fine birds, the peac.o.c.k amba.s.sadors and their swagger.

HERALD. Silence!

DICAEOPOLIS. Oh! oh! by Ecbatana,[161] what a.s.sumption!

AN AMBa.s.sADOR. During the archonship of Euthymenes, you sent us to the Great King on a salary of two drachmae per diem.

DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! those poor drachmae!

AMBa.s.sADOR. We suffered horribly on the plains of the Caster, sleeping under a tent, stretched deliciously on fine chariots, half dead with weariness.

DICAEOPOLIS. And I was very much at ease, lying on the straw along the battlements![162]

AMBa.s.sADOR. Everywhere we were well received and forced to drink delicious wine out of golden or crystal flagons....

DICAEOPOLIS. Oh, city of Cranaus,[163] thy amba.s.sadors are laughing at thee!

AMBa.s.sADOR. For great feeders and heavy drinkers are alone esteemed as men by the barbarians.

DICAEOPOLIS. Just as here in Athens, we only esteem the most drunken debauchees.

AMBa.s.sADOR. At the end of the fourth year we reached the King's Court, but he had left with his whole army to ease himself, and for the s.p.a.ce of eight months he was thus easing himself in midst of the golden mountains.[164]

DICAEOPOLIS. And how long was he replacing his dress?

AMBa.s.sADOR. The whole period of a full moon; after which he returned to his palace; then he entertained us and had us served with oxen roasted whole in an oven.

DICAEOPOLIS. Who ever saw an oxen baked in an oven? What a lie!

AMBa.s.sADOR. On my honour, he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,[165] and called the Boaster.

DICAEOPOLIS. And do we give you two drachmae, that you should treat us to all this humbug?

AMBa.s.sADOR. We are bringing to you, Pseudartabas,[166] the King's Eye.

DICAEOPOLIS. I would a crow might pluck out thine with his beak, thou cursed amba.s.sador!

HERALD. The King's Eye!

DICAEOPOLIS. Eh! Great G.o.ds! Friend, with thy great eye, round like the hole through which the oarsman pa.s.ses his sweep, you have the air of a galley doubling a cape to gain the port.

AMBa.s.sADOR. Come, Pseudartabas, give forth the message for the Athenians with which you were charged by the Great King.

PSEUDARTABAS. Jartaman exarx 'anap.i.s.sonnai satra.[167]

AMBa.s.sADOR. Do you understand what he says?

DICAEOPOLIS. By Apollo, not I!

AMBa.s.sADOR. He says, that the Great King will send you gold. Come, utter the word 'gold' louder and more distinctly.

DICAEOPOLIS. Thou shalt not have gold, thou gaping-a.r.s.ed Ionian.[168]

DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! may the G.o.ds forgive me, but that is clear enough.

AMBa.s.sADOR. What does he say?

DICAEOPOLIS. That the Ionians are debauchees and idiots, if they expect to receive gold from the barbarians.

AMBa.s.sADOR. Not so, he speaks of medimni[169] of gold.

DICAEOPOLIS. What medimni? Thou art but a great braggart; but get your way, I will find out the truth by myself. Come now, answer me clearly, if you do not wish me to dye your skin red. Will the Great King send us gold? (Pseudartabas makes a negative sign.) Then our amba.s.sadors are seeking to deceive us? (Pseudartabas signs affirmatively.) These fellows make signs like any Greek; I am sure that they are nothing but Athenians. Oh, ho! I recognize one of these eunuchs; it is Clisthenes, the son of Sibyrtius.[170] Behold the effrontery of this shaven rump! How! great baboon, with such a beard do you seek to play the eunuch to us? And this other one? Is it not Straton?

HERALD. Silence! Let all be seated. The Senate invites the King's Eye to the Prytaneum.[171]

DICAEOPOLIS. Is this not sufficient to drive one to hang oneself? Here I stand chilled to the bone, whilst the doors of the Prytaneum fly wide open to lodge such rascals. But I will do something great and bold. Where is Amphitheus? Come and speak with me.

AMPHITHEUS. Here I am.

DICAEOPOLIS. Take these eight drachmae and go and conclude a truce with the Lacedaemonians for me, my wife and my children; I leave you free, my dear citizens, to send out emba.s.sies and to stand gaping in the air.

HERALD. Bring in Theorus, who has returned from the Court of Sitalces.[172]

THEORUS. I am here.

DICAEOPOLIS. Another humbug!

THEORUS. We should not have remained long in Thrace....

DICAEOPOLIS. Forsooth, no, if you had not been well paid.

THEORUS. ... If the country had not been covered with snow; the rivers were ice-bound at the time that Theognis[173] brought out his tragedy here; during the whole of that time I was holding my own with Sitalces, cup in hand; and, in truth, he adored you to such a degree, that he wrote on the walls, "How beautiful are the Athenians!" His son, to whom we gave the freedom of the city, burned with desire to come here and eat chitterlings at the feast of the Apaturia;[174] he prayed his father to come to the aid of his new country and Sitalces swore on his goblet that he would succour us with such a host that the Athenians would exclaim, "What a cloud of gra.s.shoppers!"

DICAEOPOLIS. May I die if I believe a word of what you tell us! Excepting the gra.s.shoppers, there is not a grain of truth in it all!

THEORUS. And he has sent you the most warlike soldiers of all Thrace.

DICAEOPOLIS. Now we shall begin to see clearly.

HERALD. Come hither, Thracians, whom Theorus brought.

DICAEOPOLIS. What plague have we here?