AESCHYLUS That I serenely there may go, And search by moonlight for the theft.”
DIONYSUS Enough of both your odes.
AESCHYLUS Enough for me.
DIONYSUS Now would I bring the fellow to the scales. That, that alone, shall test our poetry now, And prove whose words are weightiest, his or mine.
DIONYSUS Then both come hither, since I needs must weigh The art poetic like a pound of cheese.
CHORUS O the labour these wits go through! O the wild, extravagant, new, Wonderful things they are going to do! Who but they would ever have thought of it? Why, if a man had happened to meet me Out in the street, and intelligence brought of it, I should have thought he was trying to cheat me; Thought that his story was false and deceiving. That were a tale I could never believe in.
DIONYSUS Each of you stand beside his scale.
AESCHYLUS AND EURIPIDES We’re here.
DIONYSUS And grasp it firmly whilst ye speak your lines, And don’t let go until I cry “Cuckoo.”
AESCHYLUS AND EURIPIDES Ready!
DIONYSUS Now speak your lines into the scale.
EURIPIDES O that the Argo had not winged her way—
AESCHYLUS River Spercheius, cattle-grazing haunts—
DIONYSUS Cuckoo! let go. O look, by far the lowest His scale sinks down.
EURIPIDES Why, how came that about?
DIONYSUS He threw a river in, like some wool-seller Wetting his wool, to make it weigh the more. But you threw in a light and wingéd word.
EURIPIDES Come, let him match another verse with mine.
DIONYSUS Each to his scale.
AESCHYLUS AND EURIPIDES We’re ready.
DIONYSUS Speak your lines.
EURIPIDES Persuasion’s only shrine is eloquent speech.
AESCHYLUS Death loves not gifts, alone amongst the gods.
DIONYSUS Let go, let go. Down goes his scale again. He threw in Death, the heaviest ill of all.
EURIPIDES And I Persuasion, the most lovely word.
DIONYSUS A vain and empty sound, devoid of sense. Think of some heavier-weighted line of yours, To drag your scale down: something strong and big.
EURIPIDES Where have I got one? Where? Let’s see.
DIONYSUS I’ll tell you. “Achilles threw two singles and a four.” Come, speak your lines: this is your last set-to.
EURIPIDES In his right hand he grasped an iron-clamped mace.
AESCHYLUS Chariot on chariot, corpse on corpse was hurled.
DIONYSUS There now! again he has done you.
EURIPIDES Done me? How?
DIONYSUS He threw two chariots and two corpses in;
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