small farm outside the city, and the house in which he lives—and where the treasure is buried. This house at last he offers for sale: and Callicles is only just in time to buy it in for himself, and so to preserve for his absent friend the precious deposit.
The action of the piece is introduced by a short allegorical 'Prologue,' in which Luxury introduces her daughter Poverty into the house of the prodigal, and bids her take possession: a very direct mode of enforcing its moral upon the audience. This moral, however, is by no means carried out with the same distinctness in the catastrophe.
So much of the story is told at the opening of the play by Callicles to a friend, who seems to have called purposely to tell him some disagreeable truths—as is the recognised duty of a friend. People are talking unpleasantly about his conduct: they say that he has been winking at the young man's extravagance, and has now made a good thing of it by buying at a low price the house which he is obliged to sell. Callicles listens with some annoyance, but at first with an obstinate philosophy. Can he do nothing, his friend asks, to put a stop to these evil rumours?
I can,—and I can not; 'tis even so;
As to their saying it,—that I cannot help;
I can take care they have no cause to say it.
But, on his old friend pressing him, he yields so far as to intrust him with the whole secret.
A suitor now appears for the hand of the young daughter of the absent Charmides. It is Lysiteles, a young man of great wealth and noble character, the
