DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! may the gods forgive me, but that is clear enough.
AMBASSADOR. What does he say?
DICAEOPOLIS. That the Ionians are debauchees and idiots, if they expect
to receive gold from the barbarians.
AMBASSADOR. Not so, he speaks of medimni[169] of gold.
DICAEOPOLIS. What medimni? Thou art but a great braggart; but get your
way, I will find out the truth by myself. Come now, answer me clearly, if
you do not wish me to dye your skin red. Will the Great King send us
gold? (_Pseudartabas makes a negative sign._) Then our ambassadors are
seeking to deceive us? (_Pseudartabas signs affirmatively._) These
fellows make signs like any Greek; I am sure that they are nothing but
Athenians. Oh, ho! I recognize one of these eunuchs; it is Clisthenes,
the son of Sibyrtius.[170] Behold the effrontery of this shaven rump!
How! great baboon, with such a beard do you seek to play the eunuch to
us? And this other one? Is it not Straton?
HERALD. Silence! Let all be seated. The Senate invites the King's Eye to
the Prytaneum.[171]
DICAEOPOLIS. Is this not sufficient to drive one to hang oneself? Here I
stand chilled to the bone, whilst the doors of the Prytaneum fly wide
open to lodge such rascals. But I will do something great and bold. Where
is Amphitheus? Come and speak with me.
AMPHITHEUS. Here I am.
DICAEOPOLIS. Take these eight drachmae and go and conclude a truce with
the Lacedaemonians for me, my wife and my children; I leave you free, my
dear citizens, to send out embassies and to stand gaping in the air.
HERALD. Bring in Theorus, who has returned from the Court of
Sitalces.[172]
THEORUS. I am here.
DICAEOPOLIS. Another humbug!
THEORUS. We should not have remained long in Thrace....
DICAEOPOLIS. Forsooth, no, if you had not been well paid.
THEORUS. ... If the country had not been covered with snow; the rivers
were ice-bound at the time that Theognis[173] brought out his tragedy
here; during the whole of that time I was holding my own with Sitalces,
cup in hand; and, in truth, he adored you to such a degree, that he wrote
on the walls, "How beautiful are the Athenians!" His son, to whom we gave
the freedom of the city, burned with desire to come here and eat
chitterlings at the feast of the Apaturia;[174] he prayed his father to
come to the aid of his new country and Sitalces swore on his goblet that
he would succour us with such a host that the Athenians would exclaim,
"What a cloud of grasshoppers!"
DICAEOPOLIS. May I die if I believe a word of what you tell us! Excepting
the grasshoppers, there is not a grain of truth in it all!
THEORUS. And he has sent you the most warlike soldiers of all Thrace.
DICAEOPOLIS. Now we shall begin to see clearly.
HERALD. Come hither, Thracians, whom Theorus brought.
DICAEOPOLIS. What plague have we here?