ship and temper all hearts with the gentle feeling of forgiveness. Make excellent commodities flow to our markets, fine heads of garlic, early cucumbers, apples, pomegranates and nice little cloaks for the slaves; make them bring geese, ducks, pigeons and larks from Bœotia and baskets of eels from Lake Copaïs; we shall all rush to buy them, disputing their possession with Morychus, Teleas, Glaucetes and every other glutton. Melanthius[1] will arrive on the market last of all; ’twill be, “no more eels, all sold!” and then he’ll start a-groaning and exclaiming as in his monologue of Medea,[2] “I am dying, I am dying! Alas! I have let those hidden in the beet escape me!” [3] And won’t we laugh? These are the wishes, mighty goddess, which we pray thee to grant.
Servant.
Take the knife and slaughter the sheep like a finished cook.
Trygæus.
No, the goddess does not wish it.[4]
Servant.
And why not?
Trygæus.
Blood cannot please Peace, so let us spill none upon her altar. Therefore go and sacrifice the sheep in the house, cut off the legs and bring them here; thus the carcase will be saved for the choragus.
Chorus.
You, who remain here, get chopped wood and everything needed for the sacrifice ready.
- ↑ A tragic poet, reputed a great gourmand.
- ↑ A tragedy by Melanthius.
- ↑ Eels were cooked with beet.—A parody on some verses in the ‘Medea’ of Melanthius.
- ↑ As a matter of fact, the Sicyonians, who celebrated the festival of Peace on the sixteenth day of the month of hecatombeon (July), spilled no blood upon her altar.
