Cho. What a scandal! what an insult! what an outrage on the state!
Are ye come to plead before us as the Spartans' advocate?"
Well,—yes, he is, if they will only listen to him; and so confident is he of the justice of his views, that he undertakes to plead his cause with his head laid upon a chopping-block, with full permission to his opponents to cut it off at once if he fails to convince them. Even this scanty grace the indignant Acharnians are unwilling to allow him, until he fortunately lays his hand upon an important hostage, whose life shall, he declares, be forfeited the moment they proceed to violence. He produces what looks like a cradle, and might contain a baby. It is really nothing more or less than a basket of charcoal—the local product and staple merchandise of Acharnæ. "Lo," says he to his irate antagonists, throwing himself into a tragic attitude and brandishing a dagger—"Lo, I will stab your darling to the heart!" The joke seems so very feeble in itself, that it is necessary to bear in mind that a well-known "situation" in a lost tragedy of Euripides (Telephus), which would have been fresh in the memory of an audience of such inveterate play-goers, is here burlesqued for their amusement. The threat brings the Acharnians to terms at once; they lay down their stones, and prepare to listen to argument, even in apology for the detested Spartans. The chopping-block is brought out; but before Dicæopolis begins to plead, he remembers that he is not provided with one very important requisite for a prisoner on
