SOSIAS. Why, Xanthias! what are you doing, wretched man?
XANTHIAS. I am teaching myself how to rest; I have been awake and on
watch the whole night.
SOSIAS. So you want to earn trouble for your ribs,[1] eh? Don't you know
what sort of an animal we are guarding here?
XANTHIAS. Aye indeed! but I want to put my cares to sleep for a while.
SOSIAS. Beware what you do. I too feel soft sleep spreading over my eyes.
Resist it, for you must be as mad as a Corybant if you fall asleep.[2]
XANTHIAS. No! 'Tis Bacchus who lulls me off.
SOSIAS. Then you serve the same god as myself. Just now a heavy slumber
settled on my eyelids like a hostile Mede; A nodded and, faith! I had a
wondrous dream.
XANTHIAS. Indeed! and so had I. A dream such as I never had before. But
first tell me yours.
SOSIAS. Methinks I saw an eagle, a gigantic bird, descend upon the
market-place; it seized a brazen buckler with its talons and bore it away
into the highest heavens; then I saw 'twas Cleonymus had thrown it away.
XANTHIAS. This Cleonymus is a riddle worth propounding among guests. How
can one and the same animal have cast away his buckler both on land, in
the sky and at sea?[3]
SOSIAS. Alas! what ill does such a dream portend for me?
XANTHIAS. Rest undisturbed! An it please the gods, no evil will befall
you.
SOSIAS. Nevertheless, 'tis a fatal omen when a man throws away his
weapons. But what was your dream? Let me hear.
XANTHIAS. Oh! it is a dream of high import. It has reference to the hull
of the State; to nothing less.
SOSIAS. Tell it me quickly; show me its very keel.
XANTHIAS. In my first slumber I thought I saw sheep, wearing cloaks and
carrying staves,[4] met in assembly on the Pnyx; a rapacious whale was
haranguing them and screaming like a pig that is being grilled.
SOSIAS. Faugh! faugh!
XANTHIAS. What's the matter?
SOSIAS. Enough, enough, spare me. Your dream stinks vilely of old
leather.[5]
XANTHIAS. Then this scoundrelly whale seized a balance and set to
weighing ox-fat.[6]
SOSIAS. Alas! 'tis our poor Athenian people, whom this accursed beast
wished to cut up and despoil of their fat.
XANTHIAS. Seated on the ground close to it, I saw Theorus,[7] who had the
head of a crow. The Alcibiades said to me in his lisping way, "Do you
thee? Theoruth hath a crow'th head."[8]
SOSIAS. Ah! 'twas very well lisped indeed!
XANTHIAS. This is might strange; Theorus turning into a crow!
SOSIAS. No, it is glorious.
XANTHIAS. Why?
SOSIAS. Why? He was a man and now he has suddenly become a crow; does it
not foretoken that he will take his flight from here and go to the
crows?[9]