Chorus. What's the matter? Is there any child or infant that you cherish,
Missing here amongst you, neighbours, whom he keeps
confined in durance? 390
What can else inspire the man with such a confident assurance?
Dic. Strike, destroy me then, while I shall act in turn the assassin's part,
If the native love of charcoal moves not your obdurate heart.
[Dicæopolis discovers a hamper of charcoal, and stands over it in a menacing theatrical attitude, with a sword drawn.
Chorus. Ο forbear! see there!
See the poor natural Acharnian hamper of our own,
Ready to be overthrown.
Spare it, I beseech thee, spare.[1]
Dic. I'll not hear; the word is past. Poor thing, this instant is its last.
Chorus. Spare it as our only joy,
Our solace and employ, 400
The staff of our declining years.
Dic. You, when I besought a hearing, armed your hands and shut your ears.
Chorus. Yes, but now we'll permit,
We'll dispense, we'll allow
Your defence.
Our beloved
Darling is at stake.
We submit
Wholly for his sake.
Dic. Before we parley or compound, cast me those pebbles to the ground. 410
Chorus. See there, all's fair.
But keep your word, sheath the sword.
- ↑ A burlesque of some scene in a contemporary tragedy in which the actors were "brought to a dead-lock." It should seem as if, in the original here parodied, the assailants had been kept at bay by the counter-menace of destroying some royal infant in a cradle, which suggested the substitute of a hamper of charcoal. In one of the existing tragedies of Euripides there is an instance of a dead-lock quite as deeded as the one which seems to be parodied here.
