SOSIAS You ill-starred Xanthias, what’s the matter now?
XANTHIAS The nightly watch I’m studying to relieve.
SOSIAS Why then, your ribs will have a score against you. Do you forget what sort of beast we’re guarding?
XANTHIAS No, but I’d fain just drowse dull care away.
SOSIAS Well, try your luck: for I too feel a sort Of drowsy sweetness settling o’er my eyes.
XANTHIAS Sure you’re a maniac or a Corybant.
SOSIAS (Producing a wine flask) Nay ’tis a sleep from great Sabazius holds me.
XANTHIAS (Producing another) Aha! and I’m your fellow-votary there. My lids too felt just now the fierce assault Of a strong Median nod-compelling sleep. And then I dreamed a dream; such a strange dream!
SOSIAS And so did I: the strangest e’er I heard of. But tell yours first.
XANTHIAS Methought a monstrous eagle Came flying towards the market-place, and there Seized in its claws a wriggling brassy shield, And bore it up in triumph to the sky,
XANTHIAS And then—Cleonymus fled off and dropped it.
SOSIAS Why then, Cleonymus is quite a riddle.
XANTHIAS How so?
SOSIAS A man will ask his boon companions, What is that brute which throws away its shield Alike in air, in ocean, in the field?”
XANTHIAS O what mishap awaits me, that have seen So strange a vision?
SOSIAS Take it not to heart, ’Twill be no harm, I swear it by the Gods.
XANTHIAS No harm to see a man throw off his shield! But now tell yours.
SOSIAS Ah, mine’s a big one, mine is; About the whole great vessel of the state.
XANTHIAS Tell us at once the keel of the affair.
SOSIAS ’Twas in my earliest sleep methought I saw A flock of sheep assembled in the Pnyx, Sitting close-packed, with little cloaks and staves; Then to these sheep I heard, or seemed to hear An all-receptive grampus holding forth In tone and accents like a scalded pig.
XANTHIAS Pheugh!
SOSIAS Eh?
XANTHIAS Stop, stop, don’t tell us any more. Your dream smells horribly of putrid hides.
SOSIAS Then the vile grampus, scales in hand, weighed out Bits of fat beef, cut up.
XANTHIAS Woe worth the day! He means to cut our city up in bits.
SOSIAS Methought beside him, on the ground, I saw Theorus seated, with a raven’s head. Then Alcibiades lisped out to me, Cwemark! Theocwus has a cwaven’s head.
XANTHIAS Well lisped! and rightly, Alcibiades!
SOSIAS But is this not ill-omened, that a man Turn to a crow?
XANTHIAS Nay, excellent.
SOSIAS How?
XANTHIAS How! Being a man he straight becomes a crow: Is it not obvious to conjecture that He’s going to leave us, going to the crows?
SOSIAS Shall I not pay two obols then, and hire One who so cleverly interprets dreams?
XANTHIAS Come, let me tell the story to the audience With just these few remarks, by way of preface. Expect not from us something mighty grand, Nor yet some mirth purloined from Megara.” We have no brace of servants here, to scatter Nuts from their basket out among the audience, No Heracles defrauded of his supper, Nor yet Euripides besmirched again; No, nor though Cleon shine, by fortune’s favour, Will we to mincemeat chop the man again. Ours is a little tale, with meaning in it,
XANTHIAS Not too refined and exquisite for you, Yet wittier far than vulgar comedy. You see that great big man, the man asleep Up on the roof, aloft: well, that’s our master, He keeps his father here, shut up within, And bids us guard him that he stir not out. For he, the father, has a strange disease, Which none of you will know, or yet conjecture, Unless we tell: else, if you think so, guess. Amynias there, the son of Pronapes, Says he’s a dice-lover: but he’s quite out.
SOSIAS Ah, he conjectures from his own disease.
XANTHIAS Nay, but the word does really end with -lover. Then Sosias here observes to Dercylus, That ’tis a DRINK-lover.
SOSIAS Confound it, no? That’s the disease of honest gentlemen.
XANTHIAS Then next, Nicostratus of Secambon says, It is a sacrifice- or stranger-lover.
SOSIAS What, like Philoxenus? No, by the dog, Not quite so lewd, Nicostratus, as that.
XANTHIAS Come, you waste words: you’ll never find it out, So all keep silence if you want to know. I’ll tell you the disease old master has. He is a LAWCOURT-lover, no man like him. Judging is what he dotes on, and he weeps Unless he sit on the front bench of all. At night he gets no sleep, no, not one grain, Or if he doze the tiniest speck, his soul Flutters in dreams around the water-clock. So used he is to holding votes, he wakes
XANTHIAS
With thumb and first two fingers closed, as one That offers incense on a new moon’s day, If on a gate is written Lovely Demus, Meaning the son of Pyrilamp, he goes And writes beside it Lovely Verdict-box. The cock which crew from eventide, he said, Was tampered with, he knew, to call him late, Bribed by officials whose accounts were due. Supper scarce done, he clamours for his shoes, Hurries ere daybreak to the Court, and sleeps Stuck like a limpet to the doorpost there. So sour he is, the long condemning line He marks for all, then homeward like a bee Laden with wax beneath his finger-nails. Lest he lack votes, he keeps, to judge withal, A private pebble-beach secure within. Such is his frenzy, and the more you chide him The more he judges: so with bolts and bars We guard him straitly that he stir not out. For ill the young man brooks his sire’s disease. And first he tried by soft emollient words To win him over, not to don the cloak Or walk abroad: but never a jot he yielded. He washed and purged him then: but never a jot. A Corybant next he made him, but old master, Timbrel and all, into the New Court bursts And there sits judging. So when these rites failed, We cross the Strait, and, in Aegina, place him,
XANTHIAS
To sleep the night inside Asclepius’ temple: Lo! with the dawn he stands at the Court rails! Then, after that, we let him out no more. But he! he dodged along the pipes and gutters, And so made off: we block up every cranny, Stopping and stuffing them with clouts of rag: Quick he drove pegs into the wall, and clambered Up like an old jackdaw, and so hopped out. Now then, we compass all the house with nets, Spreading them round, and mew him safe within. Well, sirs, Philocleon is the old man’s name; Ay truly; and the son’s, Bdelycleon; A wondrous high-and-mighty mannered man.
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