SYCOPHANT So then by talk they are winged.
PEISTHETAERUS Exactly so. Through talk the mind flutters and soars aloft, And all the man takes wing. And so even now I wish to turn you, winging you by talk, To some more honest trade.
SYCOPHANT But I DON’T wish.
PEISTHETAERUS How then?
SYCOPHANT I’ll not disgrace my bringing up. I’ll ply the trade my father’s fathers plied. So wing me, please, with light quick-darting wings Falcon’s or kestrel’s, so I’ll serve my writs Abroad on strangers; then accuse them here; Then dart back there again.
PEISTHETAERUS I understand. So when they come, they’ll find the suit decided, And payment ordered.
SYCOPHANT Right! you understand.
PEISTHETAERUS And while they’re sailing hither you’ll fly there, And seize their goods for payment.
SYCOPHANT That’s the trick! Round like a top I whizz.
PEISTHETAERUS I understand. A whipping-top; and here by Zeus I’ve got Fine Corcyraean wings to set you whizzing.
SYCOPHANT O, it’s a whip!
PEISTHETAERUS Nay, friend, a pair of wings, To set you spinning round and round today. (Striking him.)
SYCOPHANT O! O! O! O!
PEISTHETAERUS Come, wing yourself from hence. Wobble away, you most confounded rascal! I’ll make you spin! I’ll law-perverting-trick you! Now let us gather up the wings and go.
CHORUS We’ve been flying, we’ve been flying Over sea and land, espying Many a wonder strange and new. First, a tree of monstrous girth, Tall and stout, yet nothing worth, For ’tis rotten through and through; It has got no heart, and we Heard it called “Cleonymus-tree.” In the spring it blooms gigantic,
CHORUS
Fig-traducing, sycophantic, Yet in falling leaf-time yields Nothing but a fall of shields. Next a spot by darkness skirted, Spot, by every light deserted, Lone and gloomy, we descried. There the human and divine, Men with heroes, mix and dine Freely, save at even-tide. ’Tis not safe for mortal men To encounter heroes then. Then the great Orestes, looming Vast and awful through the glooming, On their right a stroke delivering, Leaves them palsied, stript, and shivering.
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