there are honest ways of gaining a living at
your age without all this infamous trickery.
your age without all this infamous trickery.
Aristophanes
.
.
a hatcher of lawsuits.
Hence I have great need of wings to
prowl round the cities and drag them before justice.
PISTHETAERUS. Would you do this better if you had wings?
INFORMER. No, but I should no longer fear the pirates; I should return
with the cranes, loaded with a supply of lawsuits by way of ballast.
PISTHETAERUS. So it seems, despite all your youthful vigour, you make it
your trade to denounce strangers?
INFORMER. Well, and why not? I don't know how to dig.
PISTHETAERUS. But, by Zeus!
there are honest ways of gaining a living at
your age without all this infamous trickery.
INFORMER. My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words.
PISTHETAERUS. 'Tis just my words that give you wings.
INFORMER. And how can you give a man wings with your words?
PISTHETAERUS. 'Tis thus that all first start.
INFORMER. All?
PISTHETAERUS. Have you not often heard the father say to young men in the
barbers' shops, "It's astonishing how Diitrephes' advice has made my son
fly to horse-riding. "--"Mine," says another, "has flown towards tragic
poetry on the wings of his imagination. "
INFORMER. So that words give wings?
prowl round the cities and drag them before justice.
PISTHETAERUS. Would you do this better if you had wings?
INFORMER. No, but I should no longer fear the pirates; I should return
with the cranes, loaded with a supply of lawsuits by way of ballast.
PISTHETAERUS. So it seems, despite all your youthful vigour, you make it
your trade to denounce strangers?
INFORMER. Well, and why not? I don't know how to dig.
PISTHETAERUS. But, by Zeus!
there are honest ways of gaining a living at
your age without all this infamous trickery.
INFORMER. My friend, I am asking you for wings, not for words.
PISTHETAERUS. 'Tis just my words that give you wings.
INFORMER. And how can you give a man wings with your words?
PISTHETAERUS. 'Tis thus that all first start.
INFORMER. All?
PISTHETAERUS. Have you not often heard the father say to young men in the
barbers' shops, "It's astonishing how Diitrephes' advice has made my son
fly to horse-riding. "--"Mine," says another, "has flown towards tragic
poetry on the wings of his imagination. "
INFORMER. So that words give wings?
