DIC.-Baste with honey these small guts. Grill the cuttlefish. CHOR.-Do you hear his vociferous orders? CHOR.-You will kill me with hunger, and your neighbours with savoury smells and noise, if you use such loud terms as these. DIC.-Roast these and brown them well. PARANYMPH. PAR.-A bridegroom has sent you these tit bits from the marriage feast. DIC.-It was well meant, whoever he be. PAR.—And he bids you pour, in return for the meats, that he may not be called out to service, but spend the honey-moon at home, into the ointment box of alabáster, one cyathus of peace. DIC. — Away, away with the meats, and give them not to me, since I could not think of pouring in, no, not for a thousand drachms. But who have we here? PAR.—The bridemaid has something to say to you in private from the bride. DIC.-Well then, what is it you have to say? How ridiculous, ye Gods, is the request of the bride, which she earnestly asks at me! Bring hither the truces, that I may give to her only, inasmuch as she is a woman, and not fit for war.Woman, hold under here the cruise, thus. Do you know what is to be done with it? Tell the bride when a muster of soldiers is to be drawn out, to anoint the bridegroom with it over night. Away with the truces. Bring the funnel, that I may pour out wine, and take it to the feast of Pitchers. CHOR.-But who comes here in such haste, with his brows drawn up, as it were the bearer of unwelcome news ? HERALD, LA MACHUS. HER.–Alas! for toils, and fights, and Lamachus. 1“ Observandum est non temerè à sponso mitti vas unguentarium, cujus maximus usus in nuptiis erat. Ita noster Plut. 529, Adde Lys. 943.-ELMsl. LAM.- Who knocks at the house girt round with brazen trappings? her.'— The generals have ordered you to commence march to-day, having summoned quickly your troops and crests, and there to keep guard at the passes, though it snow. For some one has told them that, at the feast of Pitchers and Pots, Bæotians, freebooters, are about to make an incursion. LAM.—Leaders more conspicuous for your numbers than your merits. “ Is it not hard that I should not even be permitted to celebrate the feast?" DIC.-Wo to the Achaian warrior host of Lamachus ! LAM.-Miserable wretch that I am! Already am I your laughing stock? DIC.-Will you fight with Geryon of the four feathers ? LAM.-Alas! alas! what tidings has this messenger told me? DIC.—Alas! alas ! what comes this man running to tell me? MESSENGER. MESS.-Haste and walk to the banquet, taking with you your basket and pitcher; for the priest of Bacchus has sent for you. Come, haste, you have kept the guests in waiting long, and every thing else is in readiness; couches, tables, cushions for the head, beds, chaplets, ointment, sweetmeats, a women too, cakes, cheese-cakes, sesame-cakes, pancakes, lovely dancing women, Harmodius's delight. Come, haste, as quick as possible. LAM.--Ill-starred wretch. DIC.- True, for you have taken as a patron that mighty Gorgon. Shut the door, and let every one get ready the banquet. 1 Vide Potter, vol. ii. p. 51.—“ The Signori della guerra of the Florentine Republic had precisely the same authority, and were the same in number.”– MITCHELL. 2 Matth. G. G. $ 456. LAM.-Slave! slave! bring out here my knapsack. DIC.-But for me junks of fish, for I abominate onions. - DIC.—And for me, too, bring a fat olio: and I will roast it there. LAM.-Bring hither the two feathers from my helmet. DIC.—But for me bring the ring-doves, at least, and the thrushes. LAM.-Beautiful, yes, and white too, is the ostrich's wing. DIC.-Beautiful, yes, and yellow too, is the ring-dove's flesh. LAM.-Fellow, cease scoffing at my equipment. DIC.-Fellow, can you keep your eyes off my thrushes? LAM.-Bring me out the plume-case in which my three feathers are kept. DIC.-And to me a little dish of hashed hare. LAM.-Verily the moths have gnawed my crests. DIC.-Verily I am eating my hare pasty before the banquet. LAM.-Fellow, will you leave off addressing me? DIC.-I have not been addressing you; but I and the slave have been contending long. Will you lay down a wager, and give the decision to Lamachus, whether locusts or thrushes are the sweetest morsels? LAM.-Wo's me! how insolent you are! DIC.-He gives his decision, with odds, in favour of locusts. LAM.-Taking down my spear, hither bring it out. DIC.-Slave! slave! do you, taking them away, bring the chitterlings here. LAM.-Come, I will draw off the sheath of my spear: take hold to it, slave. DIC.-Slave, hold to this too. LAM.-Slave, bring hither the stilts of my buckler. DIC. And to support this my cellaret, bring forth the baked bread. LAM. Bring hither the orbit of the buckler with the Gorgon on its field. 1 For an account of the Optov, vide Poll. vi. 57. DIC.-To me too give the orbit of a cheese-cake, with cheese on its field.. LAM. Is not this a flat insult to a man? DIC.-Is not this a sweet cheese-cake for a man ? LAM.-Slave, do you pour out the oil from the cruise. I behold in it (i. e. in the shield) an old man about to be brought to trial on a charge of cowardice. DIC.-Pour over the honey: there too is clearly an old man bidding' Lamachus, the son of Gorgasus, go weep. LAM.-Slave, bring out the warrior coat of mail. DIC.-Bring out, slave, a coat of mail for me also, a pitcher. LAM.—With this I will arm myself against my foes. DIC.-With this I will arm myself against the carousers. LAM.-My bed-clothes, slave, bind to the buckler: but take up and bear off my knapsack. DIC.-My (viands for the) banquet, slave, bind to the cellaret, but I will take up the cloak, and come out. LAM.-Lift up the buckler, and go, slave, having taken it. It snows. Ill fate! matters are in a stormy state. DIC.-Take up (the viands for the) banquet; matters are ready for the carouse. CHOR.-Joy go with you to the warfare. What a different journey you two are going! The one, indeed, goes crowned with chaplets to carouse; you, the other, to shiver and keep picket-guard. * Antimachus, the son of Psacas, that wretched of wretched poets, to speak the simple truth, may Jove utterly destroy : he who, when Choregus at the Lenæa, excluded me wretched from the banquet: whom yet, some day or other, may I see longing for a cuttle-fish, and may it roasted, frizzling, ready salted, laid upon the table, pull to: and then," when about to seize it, may a bitch catch at it, and hurry away. This is one misfortune I wish him. Next, may he meet with such a one as this by night, on his return home in a feverish state from riding; then let some maddened drunken Orestes break his 1 This is said in comic raillery; Lamachus was really the son of Xenophanes. Vide Thucyd. lib. vi. 8, καὶ Λάμακον τὸν Ξενοφάνους. 2 Vide Elmsl. ad Eur. Heracl. v. 710. head, and may he, wishing to take hold of a stone and with this let him rush out, and, missing his aim, strike Cratinus. MESSENGER. MESS.-Servants, you who are in the house of Lamachus, water, heat water in a little dish, get ready linen rags, cerecloth, filthy wool, bandages for the binding of legs. The hero has been wounded with a vine stake in leaping over a trench, and his ancle bone, wrenched in the socket, is out of joint, and he has broken his head by falling upon a stone, and has roused the Gorgon from his shield. The mighty plume too of the Mock-Chatterer, as it fell upon the stones, uttered a doleful cry, "O thou resplendent orb, now seeing you for the last time, I leave at least my light: I am no more." Having uttered these words, he fell into a water-pipe, rose again, and meeting with some fugitive freebooters, pursued and made a violent attack upon them with his spear. But here comes the man himself: here, open the door. LAMACHUS. LAM.-Atatatatai! Bitter these and chilling sufferings ! Wretched man, I am undone, struck by the spear of the enemy! But that would be a source of wo, a source of lamentation to me, should Dicæopolis see me' in my wounds, and then gape in derision at my evil fortune. DIC.—Atatatatai! These breasts, how hard and Cydonian like delicately kiss me, both of you, my golden ones, give me the luscious and ecstatick kiss! for I first have drank up this pitcher. LAM.-O the unhappy event of my woes! alas! alas! the wracking wounds! DIC.-Alas! alas! Hail my little Knight Lamachus. 1 See Spectator, No. 70. "Lord Percy sees my fall."-CHEVY CHASE. 2 "Dicæopolis returns to the stage supported by two of the dancing women, who had formed part of the High Priest's entertainment."-MITCHELL. |