We should not have
remained
long in Thrace.
Aristophanes
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 embassies 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 grasshoppers! "
DICAEOPOLIS. May I die if I believe a word of what you tell us! Excepting
the grasshoppers, there is not a grain of truth in it all!
THEORUS.
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 embassies 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 grasshoppers! "
DICAEOPOLIS. May I die if I believe a word of what you tell us! Excepting
the grasshoppers, there is not a grain of truth in it all!
THEORUS.
