Once Stratonicus to Abdera went,
To see some games which there were celebrated;
And seeing every separate citizen
Having a private crier to himself,
And each of them proclaiming a new moon
Whene'er he pleased, so that the criers were
Quite out of all proportion to the citizens,
He walk'd about on tiptoes through the city,
Looking intently on the ground beneath.
And when some stranger ask'd him what had happen'd
To his feet, to make him look so gravely at them:—
He said, "I'm very well all over, friend,
And can run faster to an entertainment
Than any parasite; but I'm in fear
Lest I should tread by hazard on some [Greek: kêryx],[1]
And pierce my foot with its spikes and lame myself."
Once, when a wretched flute-player was preparing
To play the flute at a sacred festival,
"Let us have only sounds of omen good,"
Said Stratonicus; "let us pour libations
And pray devoutly to the mighty gods."
There was a harper, and his name was Cleon,
But he was nick-named Ox; he sang most vilely
Without th' accompaniment of the lyre.
When Stratonicus heard him, then he said,
"I've often heard of asses at the lyre,
But now I see an ox in the same case."
The harper Stratonicus once had sail'd
To Pontus, to see king Berisades.
And when he'd staid in Pontus long enough,
He thought he would return again to Greece.
But when the king refused to let him go,
They say that Stratonicus said to him—
"Why, do you mean to stay here long yourself?"
The harper Stratonicus once was staying
Some time at Corinth; when an aged woman
One day stood looking at him a long time,
And would not take her eyes off: then said he,
"Tell me, I pray you, in God's name, good mother,
What is't you wish, and why you look thus on me?"
"I marvell'd," said she, "how 'twas your mother
Held you nine months, without her belly bursting,
While this town can't endure you one whole day."
Fair Biothea, Nicotheon's wife,
Once at a party with a handmaid fair
Made some strange noise; and after that, by chance,
She trod upon a Sicyonian almond.
Then Stratonicus said, "The noise is different."
But when night came, for this heedless word,
He wash'd out his free-speaking in the sea.
means, not only a crier, but also a prickly instrument of
torture.]
- ↑ [Greek: Kêryx
