No More Learning

All I know is that last evening he brought along a huge mortar.

TRYGAEUS. And what is he going to do with his mortar?

HERMES. He wants to pound up all the cities of Greece in it. . . . But I
must say good-bye, for I think he is coming out; what an uproar he is
making!

TRYGAEUS. Ah! great gods! let us seek safety; meseems I already hear the
noise of this fearful war mortar.

WAR (_enters carrying a mortar_). Oh!
mortals, mortals, wretched mortals,
how your jaws will snap!

TRYGAEUS. Oh! divine Apollo! what a prodigious big mortar! Oh, what
misery the very sight of War causes me! This then is the foe from whom I
fly, who is so cruel, so formidable, so stalwart, so solid on his legs!

WAR. Oh! Prasiae! [275] thrice wretched, five times, aye, a thousand times
wretched! for thou shalt be destroyed this day.

TRYGAEUS. This does not yet concern us over much; 'tis only so much the
worse for the Laconians.

WAR. Oh!