No More Learning

eight years after the production of 'Peace'; the great king, however, was
trying to derive advantages out of the dissensions in Greece.

[267] _Go to the crows_, a proverbial expression equivalent to our _Go to
the devil_.

[268] Aesop tells us that the eagle and the beetle were at war; the eagle
devoured the beetle's young and the latter got into its nest and tumbled
out its eggs. On this the eagle complained to Zeus, who advised it to lay
its eggs in his bosom; but the beetle flew up to the abode of Zeus, who,
forgetful of the eagle's eggs, at once rose to chase off the
objectionable insect. The eggs fell to earth and were smashed to bits.

[269] Pegasus is introduced by Euripides both in his 'Andromeda' and his
'Bellerophon. '

[270] Boats, called 'beetles,' doubtless because in form they resembled
these insects, were built at Naxos.

[271] Nature had divided the Piraeus into three basins--Cantharos,
Aphrodisium and Zea; [Greek: kantharos] is Greek for a dung-beetle.

[272] In allusion to Euripides' fondness for introducing lame heroes in
his plays.

[273] An allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the
Chians--[Greek: Chios apopat_on], "shitting Chian. " On account of their
notoriously pederastic habits, the inhabitants of this island were known
throughout Greece as '_loose-arsed_' Chians, and therefore always on the
point of voiding their faeces. There is a further joke, of course, in
connection with the hundred and one frivolous pretexts which the
Athenians invented for exacting contributions from the maritime allies.

[274] Masters of Pylos and Sphacteria, the Athenians had brought home the
three hundred prisoners taken in the latter place in 425 B. C. ; the
Spartans had several times sent envoys to offer peace and to demand back
both Pylos and the prisoners, but the Athenian pride had caused these
proposals to be long refused.
Finally the prisoners had been given up in
423 B. C. , but the War was continued nevertheless.

[275] An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf,
celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of
Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second
year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B. C. As he utters this imprecation,
War throws some leeks, [Greek: prasa], the root-word of the name Prasiae,
into his mortar.

[276] War throws some garlic into his mortar as emblematical of the city
of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.

[277] Because the smell of bruised garlic causes the eyes to water.

[278] He throws cheese into the mortar as emblematical of Sicily, on
account of its rich pastures.

[279] Emblematical of Athens. The honey of Mount Hymettus was famous.

[280] Cleon, who had lately fallen before Amphipolis, in 422 B. C.

[281] An island in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Thrace and opposite
the mouth of the Hebrus; the Mysteries are said to have found their first
home in this island, where the Cabirian gods were worshipped; this cult,
shrouded in deep mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained
an almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said that the
wishes of the initiates were always granted, and they were feared as
to-day the _jettatori_ (spell-throwers, casters of the evil eye) in
Sicily are feared.