TRYGAEUS Don’t let us seem to notice him.
SERVANT All right.
HIEROCLES What is this sacrifice, and made to whom?
TRYGAEUS Roast on: don’t speak: hands off the haunch remember.
HIEROCLES Will ye not say to whom ye sacrifice? This tail looks right.
SERVANT Sweet Peace! it does indeed.
HIEROCLES Now then begin and hand the firstlings here.
TRYGAEUS It must be roasted first.
HIEROCLES It’s roasted now.
TRYGAEUS You’re over-busy, man, whoe’er you are. Cut on: why, where’s the table? bring the wine.
HIEROCLES The tongue requires a separate cut.
TRYGAEUS We know. Now will you please?
HIEROCLES Yes, tell me.
TRYGAEUS Mind your business. Don’t talk to us: we sacrifice to Peace.
HIEROCLES O ye pitiful fools!
TRYGAEUS Pray speak for yourself, my good fellow.
HIEROCLES Ye who, blindly perverse, with the will of the Gods unacquainted, Dare to traffic for Peace, true men with truculent monkeys.
SERVANT O! O! O!
TRYGAEUS What’s the matter?
SERVANT I like his truculent monkeys.
HIEROCLES Silly and timorous gulls, ye have trusted the children of foxes Crafty of mind and crafty of soul.
TRYGAEUS You utter impostor, O that your lungs were as hot as a piece of the meat I am roasting!
HIEROCLES If the prophetic nymphs have not been imposing on Bakis, No, nor Bakis on men, nor the nymphs, I repeat, upon Bakis,
TRYGAEUS O perdition be yours if you don’t have done with your Bakis!
HIEROCLES Then is the hour not come for the fetters of Peace to be loosened. No; for before that hour—
TRYGAEUS This piece is with salt to be sprinkled.
HIEROCLES Yea, it is far from the mind of the Ever-blessed Immortals That we should cease from the strife, till the wolf and the lamb be united.
TRYGAEUS How, you scoundrel accurst, can the wolf and the lamb be united?
HIEROCLES Doth not the beetle, alarmed, emit a most horrible odour? Doth not the wagtail yapper produce blind young in its hurry? So is the hour not come for Peace to be sanctioned between us.
TRYGAEUS What then, what is to come? Are we never to cease from the battle, Always to chance it out, which most can enfeeble the other, When we might both join hands, and share the dominion of Hellas?
HIEROCLES Canst thou tutor the crab to advance straight forward? thou canst not.
TRYGAEUS Wilt thou dine any more in the Hall of Assembly? thou wilt not; No, nor ever again shall thy cheating knavery prosper.
HIEROCLES Thou wilt never be able to smooth the spines of the hedgehog.
TRYGAEUS Wilt thou never desist bamboozling the people of Athens?
HIEROCLES Say, what oracle taught you to burn the thighs of the victim?
TRYGAEUS This, the wisest and best, delivered by Homer the poet: When they had driven afar the detestable cloud of the battle, Then they established Peace, and welcomed her back with oblations, Duly the thighs they burned, and ate the tripe and the inwards, Then poured out the libations; and I was the guide and the leader;
TRYGAEUS None to the soothsayer gave the shining beautiful goblet.
HIEROCLES Nothing I know of these: these did not come from the Sibyl.
TRYGAEUS Nay, but wisely and well spake Homer the excellent poet: Tribeless, lawless, and hearthless is he that delighteth in bloodshed, Bloodshed of kith and kin, heart-sickening, horrible, hateful!
HIEROCLES Take thou heed, or a kite, by a trick thy attention beguiling, Down with a swoop may pounce.
TRYGAEUS (To the servant.) Ah! take heed really and truly. That’s an alarming hint: it bodes no good to the inwards. Pour the libation in, and hand me a piece of the inwards.
HIEROCLES Nay, but if such is the plan, I too for myself will be cater.
TRYGAEUS Pour libation! pour libation!
HIEROCLES Pour it in also for me, and reach me a share of the inwards.
TRYGAEUS That is far from the mind of the Ever-blessed Immortals. Yea, for before that hour—you go, we’ll pour the libation. Holy and reverend Peace, abide with thy servants for ever.
HIEROCLES Now, fetch hither the tongue.
TRYGAEUS You, take yours off I’d advise you.
HIEROCLES Pour the libation in.
TRYGAEUS Take that to assist the libation.
HIEROCLES What! will none of you give me some meat?
TRYGAEUS ’Tis strictly forbidden. You no inwards can have till the wolf and the lamb be united.
HIEROCLES Do, by your knees I beseech.
TRYGAEUS But fruitless are all your beseechings. Thou wilt never be able to smooth the spines of the hedgehog. Come now, spectators, won’t you share the mess Along with us?
HIEROCLES And I?
TRYGAEUS You? eat your Sibyl.
HIEROCLES No, by the Earth, you two shan’t feast alone! I’ll snatch a piece away: ’tis all in common.
TRYGAEUS Strike Bakis, strike!
HIEROCLES I call them all to witness—
TRYGAEUS And so do I, that you’re a rogue and glutton. Lay on him with the stick: strike, strike the rascal!
SERVANT You manage that, while I peel off the skins Which he has gathered by his cozening tricks, Now, sacrificer, off with all your skins. What, won’t you? here’s a crow from Oreus town!
SERVANT
Back to Elymnium! flutter off: shoo! shoo!
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