COMMISSIONER Lo, I to your Cloudcuckooburies come, By lot Commissioner,
PEISTHETAERUS Commissioner? Who sent you hither?
COMMISSIONER Lo, a paltry scroll Of Teleas.
PEISTHETAERUS Come now, will you take your pay And get you gone in peace?
COMMISSIONER By Heaven I will. I ought to be at home on public business, Some little jobs I’ve had with Pharnaces.
PEISTHETAERUS Then take your pay, and go: your pay’s just—this, (Striking him.)
COMMISSIONER What’s that?
PEISTHETAERUS A motion about Pharnaces.
COMMISSIONER Witness! he’s striking a Commissioner.
PEISTHETAERUS Shoo! shoo! begone; you and your verdict-urns. The shame it is! They send Commissioners Before we’ve finished our inaugural rites.
STATUTE-SELLER (Reading.) But if the Cloudcuckooburian wrong the Athenian—
PEISTHETAERUS Here’s some more writing. What new misery’s this?
STATUTE-SELLER I am a Statute-seller, and I’m come Bringing new laws to sell you.
PEISTHETAERUS Such as what?
STATUTE-SELLER Item, the Cloudcuckooburians are to use the selfsame weights and measures, and the selfsame coinage as the Olophyxians.
PEISTHETAERUS And you the selfsame as the Oh! Oh! -tyxians. (striking him.)
STATUTE-SELLER Hi! what are you at?
PEISTHETAERUS Take off those laws, you rascal. Laws you won’t like I’ll give you in a minute.
COMMISSIONER (Reappearing.) I summon Peisthetaerus for next Munychion on a charge of outrage.
PEISTHETAERUS O that’s it, is it? What, are you there still?
STATUTE-SELLER (Reappearing.) Item, if any man drive away the magistrates, and do not receive them according to the pillar—
PEISTHETAERUS O mercy upon us, and are you there still?
COMMISSIONER (Reappearing.) I’ll ruin you! I claim ten thousand drachmas!
PEISTHETAERUS I’ll overturn your verdicturn, I will,
STATUTE-SELLER (Reappearing.) Think of that evening when you fouled the pillar.
PEISTHETAERUS Ugh! seize him, somebody! Ha, you’re off there, are you? Let’s get away from this, and go within, And there we’ll sacrifice the goat in peace,
CHORUS Unto me, the All-controlling, All-surveying, Now will men, at every altar, Prayers be praying; Me who watch the land, protecting Fruit and flower, Slay the myriad-swarming insects Who the tender buds devour In the earth and on the branches with a never-satiate malice, Nipping off the blossom as it widens from the chalice. And I slay the noisome creatures Which consume And pollute the garden’s freshly scented bloom; And every little biter, and every creeping thing Perish in destruction at the onset of my wing.
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