Euripides.
No, you hadn't exactly the style to attract Aphrodite!
Aeschylus.
I'm better without it.
A deal too much of that style she found in some of your friends and you,
And once, at the least, left you flat on the ground!
Dionysus.
By Zeus, that's perfectly true.
If he dealt his neighbours such rattling blows, we must think how he suffered in person.
Euripides.
And what are the public defects you suppose my poor Stheneboia to worsen?
Aeschylus (evading the question with a jest).
She makes good women, and good men's wives, when their hearts are weary and want ease,
Drink jorums of hemlock and finish their lives, to gratify Bellerophontes!
Euripides.
But did I invent the story I told of—Phaedra, say? Wasn't it history?
Aeschylus.
It was true, right enough; but the poet should hold such a truth enveloped in mystery,
And not represent it or make it a play. It's his duty to teach, and you know it.
As a child learns from all who may come in his way, so the grown world learns from the poet.
Oh, words of good counsel should flow from his voice—
