No More Learning

Will you have a high-sounding Laconian name? Shall we call
it Sparta?

EUELPIDES. What! call my town Sparta? Why, I would not use esparto for my
bed,[269] even though I had nothing but bands of rushes.

PISTHETAERUS. Well then, what name can you suggest?

EUELPIDES. Some name borrowed from the clouds, from these lofty regions
in which we dwell--in short, some well-known name.

PISTHETAERUS. Do you like Nephelococcygia? [270]

EPOPS. Oh! capital!
truly 'tis a brilliant thought!

EUELPIDES. Is it in Nephelococcygia that all the wealth of Theogenes[271]
and most of Aeschines'[272] is?

PISTHETAERUS. No, 'tis rather the plain of Phlegra,[273] where the gods
withered the pride of the sons of the Earth with their shafts.

EUELPIDES. Oh! what a splendid city! But what god shall be its patron?
for whom shall we weave the peplus? [274]

PISTHETAERUS. Why not choose Athene Polias? [275]

EUELPIDES. Oh! what a well-ordered town 'twould be to have a female deity
armed from head to foot, while Clisthenes[276] was spinning!

PISTHETAERUS.