No More Learning

. . .

EURIPIDES. Well, let them roll me out; as to coming down, I have not the
time.

DICAEOPOLIS. Euripides. . . .

EURIPIDES. What words strike my ear?

DICAEOPOLIS. You perch aloft to compose tragedies, when you might just as
well do them on the ground. I am not astonished at your introducing
cripples on the stage.
[208] And why dress in these miserable tragic rags?
I do not wonder that your heroes are beggars. But, Euripides, on my knees
I beseech you, give me the tatters of some old piece: for I have to treat
the Chorus to a long speech, and if I do it ill it is all over with me.

EURIPIDES. What rags do you prefer? Those in which I rigged out
Aeneus[209] on the stage, that unhappy, miserable old man?

DICAEOPOLIS. No, I want those of some hero still more unfortunate.

EURIPIDES. Of Phoenix, the blind man?

DICAEOPOLIS. No, not of Phoenix, you have another hero more unfortunate
than him.

EURIPIDES. Now, what tatters _does_ he want? Do you mean those of the
beggar Philoctetes?

DICAEOPOLIS.