Whilst every door flies open to these fellows.
But I'll do something desperate and decided.
Where is Amphitheus got to?
Amph. Here am I.
Dic. There—take you these eight drachmas on my part,
And make a separate peace for me with Sparta,
For me, my wife and children and maidservant. 160
And you—go on with your embassies and fooleries.
Her. Theorus, our ambassador into Thrace,
Returned from King Sitalces![1]
Τheor. Here am I.
Dic. More coxcombs called for! Here's another coming.
Τheor. We should not have remained so long in Thrace . . .
Dic. If you hadn't been overpaid I know you wouldn't.
Τheor. But for the snow, which covered all the country,
And buried up the roads, and froze the rivers.
'Twas singular this change of weather happened
Just when Theognis here, our frosty poet, 170
Brought out his tragedy. We passed our time
In drinking with Sitalces. He's your friend,
Your friend and lover, if there ever was one,
And writes the name of Athens on his walls.[2]
His son, your new-made fellow-citizen,
Had wished to have been enrolled in proper form
At the Apaturian festival; and meanwhile,
During his absence, earnestly desires
That the Apaturian sausages may be sent to him.
He is urgent with his father to befriend 180
His newly adopted countrymen; and in fine
Sitalces has been so far worked upon,
He has sworn at last his solemn Thracian oath,
Standing before the sacrifice, to send
Such an army, he said, that all the Athenian people
Shall think that there's a flight of locusts coming.
Dic. Then hang me if I believe a word about it,
Except their being locusts; that seems likely.
- ↑ Theorus is noted in the Wasps as a flattering, super-civil, parasitical person. See his efforts at reconciliation in the next page.
- ↑ The common practice of lovers both in ancient and modern times; but in this instance there is probably an allusion to some public monuments which recorded the king's alliance with the Athenians in terms flattering to their national vanity.
