No More Learning

Come on, Laches, let's hurry, let's bring succour to the goddess; it's
now or never! Phew! phew! (_blows the fire_). Oh! dear! what a confounded
smoke! --There now, there's our fire all bright and burning, thank the
gods! Now, why not first put down our loads here, then take a
vine-branch, light it at the brazier and hurl it at the gate by way of
battering-ram? If they don't answer our summons by pulling back the
bolts, then we set fire to the woodwork, and the smoke will choke 'em. Ye
gods! what a smoke! Pfaugh! Is there never a Samos general will help me
unload my burden? [415]--Ah!
it shall not gall my shoulder any more.
(_Tosses down his wood. _) Come, brazier, do your duty, make the embers
flare, that I may kindle a brand; I want to be the first to hurl one. Aid
me, heavenly Victory; let us punish for their insolent audacity the women
who have seized our citadel, and may we raise a trophy of triumph for
success!

CHORUS OF WOMEN. [416] Oh! my dears, methinks I see fire and smoke; can it
be a conflagration? Let us hurry all we can. Fly, fly, Nicodice, ere
Calyce and Critylle perish in the fire, or are stifled in the smoke
raised by these accursed old men and their pitiless laws. But, great
gods, can it be I come too late? Rising at dawn, I had the utmost trouble
to fill this vessel at the fountain. Oh! what a crowd there was, and what
a din! What a rattling of water-pots! Servants and slave-girls pushed and
thronged me! However, here I have it full at last; and I am running to
carry the water to my fellow townswomen, whom our foes are plotting to
burn alive.