Xan. Stop, Stop, don't tell any more: your vision stinks[1] most abominably of rotten hide.
Sos. Then the accursed whale with a pair of scales was weighing bull's fat.[2]
Xan. Ah me, wretched man! He wishes to create divisions amongst our people.
Sos. And methought Theorus sat near it, on the ground, with the head of a raven. And then Alcibiades lisped and said to me, "Do you see? Theorus has the head of a flatterer."[3]
Xan. Rightly did Alcibiades lisp this.
Sos. Is not that strange,[4] then—Theorus becoming a raven?
Xan. By no means, but most proper.
Sos. How?
Xan. How? Being a man, he then suddenly became a raven. Is not this, therefore, clear to conjecture, that he will be raised aloft from us, and go to the ravens?
Sos. Shall I not then give two obols and hire a person, who interprets dreams so cleverly?
Xan. Come now, let me declare[5] the argument to the audience; first having premised to them some few matters as follows,[6]—to expect nothing very great from us, nor yet, on the other hand, jokes stolen from Megara.[7] For we have neither two slaves throwing about nuts from a basket amongst the spectators, nor a Hercules defrauded of his dinner, nor yet is Euripides again treated with insult; nor if Cleon even has be-
- ↑ Vide Equit. vs. 887, αἰβοῖ·
οὐκ ἐς κόρακας ἀποφθερεῖ, βύρσης κάκιστον ὄζων;
- ↑ There is a play on δημὸς fat, and δῆμος, people.
- ↑ ὁλᾷς (ὁρᾷς) Θέωλος (Θέωρος) κόλακος (κόρακος), for an Athenian lisper would substitute λ for ρ. See Plutarch, Alcib. c. i. Süvern, Clouds, p. 47. Mitchell compares,—
Ῥῶ καὶ λάμβδα μόνον κόρακασ κολάκων διορίζει.
Λοιπὸν ταὐτὸ κόραξ βωμολόχος τε κόλαξ.
Τοὔνεκά μοι, βέλτιστε, τόδε ζῶον πεφύλαξο.
Εἰδῶς καὶ ζῶντων τοὺς κόλακας κόρακας.
Brunck's Anal. ii. 413. - ↑ For the construction, cf. Nub. 381.
- ↑ Vide Elmsl. ad Heraclid. vs. 559; and Krüger's Gr. Gr. § 54, 2, obs. 1. Cf. note on Lys. 864.
- ↑ Vide Dawes, Miscell. Crit., ed. Kidd, pp. 550—554.
- ↑ Susarion was of Megara. Vide Bentley's Diss. upon Phalaris, pp. 202—211; Aristot. Ethic, lib. iv. 2.
