Thra. Yes. And then, when he was tired
Of seeing people, or grew sick of business,
And wanted to unbend him, as it were,—
You understand?
Gna. I know—something, you mean,
In what we call the free-and-easy line?
Thra. Just so—he'd ask me to a quiet dinner.
Gna. Indeed! his Majesty showed fine discernment.
Thra. That's just the man he is—one in a thousand—
There are few like him.
Gna. (aside). Very few, I fancy,
If he could stand your company.[1]
Thraso goes on to relate to his friend some of the excellent jokes which he made during the time he enjoyed this intimacy with royalty; jokes at which the parasite (who was paid for it in good dinners) laughs more perhaps than the reader would. Here is a specimen.
Thraso. Did I ever tell you
How I touched up the Rhodian once at dinner?
Gna. Never! pray tell me—(aside) for the hundredth time.
Thra. This youth was dining with us; as it chanced,
- ↑ A fragment preserved by Athenæus from a lost comedy of Menander—'The Flatterer'—from which this play is partly taken, has the following passage. [Bias is the original of Thraso, and Strouthias is his "flatterer."]
Bias. I have drunk off, in Cappadocia, Strouthias,
A golden goblet that held full ten quarts—
And three times filled.
Strouthias. Why, sir, you must have drunk
More than the great King Alexander could!
Bias. Well—perhaps not less—by Pallas, no!
Str. Prodigious!
