HERACLES O by Demeter, I can’t choose but laugh. Biting my lips won’t stop me. Ha! ha! ha!
DIONYSUS Pray you, come hither, I have need of you.
HERACLES I vow I can’t help laughing, I can’t help it. A lion’s hide upon a yellow silk, A club and buskin! What’s it all about? Where were you going?
DIONYSUS I was serving lately Aboard the—Cleisthenes.
HERACLES And fought?
DIONYSUS And sank More than a dozen of the enemy’s ships..
HERACLES You two?
DIONYSUS We two.
HERACLES And then I awoke, and lo!
DIONYSUS There as, on deck, I’m reading to myself The Andromeda, a sudden pang of longing Shoots through my heart, you can’t conceive how keenly.
HERACLES How big a pang?
DIONYSUS A small one, Molon’s size.
HERACLES Caused by a woman?
DIONYSUS No.
HERACLES A boy?
DIONYSUS No, no.
HERACLES A man?
DIONYSUS Ah! ah!
HERACLES Was it for Cleisthenes?
DIONYSUS Don’t mock me, brother: on my life I am In a bad way: such fierce desire consumes me.
HERACLES Aye, little brother? how?
DIONYSUS I can’t describe it. But yet I’ll tell you in a riddling way. Have you e’er felt a sudden lust for soup?
HERACLES Soup! Zeus-a-mercy, yes, ten thousand times.
DIONYSUS Is the thing clear, or must I speak again?
HERACLES Not of the soup: I’m clear about the soup.
DIONYSUS Well, just that sort of pang devours my heart For lost Euripides.
HERACLES A dead man too.
DIONYSUS And no one shall persuade me not to go After the man.
HERACLES Do you mean below, to Hades?
DIONYSUS And lower still, if there’s a lower still.
HERACLES What on earth for?
DIONYSUS I want a genuine poet, “For some are not, and those that are, are bad.”
HERACLES What! does not Iophon live?
DIONYSUS Well, he’s the sole Good thing remaining, if even he is good. For even of that I’m not exactly certain.
HERACLES If go you must, there’s Sophocles—he comes Before Euripides—why not take him?
DIONYSUS Not till I’ve tried if Iophon’s coin rings true When he’s alone, apart from Sophocles. Besides, Euripides, the crafty rogue, Will find a thousand shifts to get away,
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