ble Carthage. (See Thucydides,
vi. 90.) I will bring back such robes, such necklaces, elephants' teeth
by thousands, ay, and the elephants themselves, if you wish to see them.
Nay, smile, my Chariclea, or I shall talk nonsense to no purpose.

HIPPOMACHUS. The largest elephant that I ever saw was in the grounds of
Teribazus, near Susa. I wish that I had measured him.

ALCIBIADES. I wish that he had trod upon you. Come, come, Chariclea, we
shall soon return, and then--

CHARICLEA. Yes; then indeed.

ALCIBIADES.

Yes, then--
Then for revels; then for dances,
Tender whispers, melting glances.
Peasants, pluck your richest fruits:
Minstrels, sound your sweetest flutes:
Come in laughing crowds to greet us,
Dark-eyed daughters of Miletus;
Bring the myrtles, bring the dice,
Floods of Chian, hills of spice.

SPEUSIPPUS. Whose lines are those, Alcibiades?

ALCIBIADES. My own. Think you, because I do not shut myself up to
meditate, and drink water, and eat herbs, that I cannot write verses?
By Apollo, if I did not spend my days in politics, and my nights in
revelry, I should have made Sophocles tremble. But now I never go beyond
a little song like this, and never invoke any Muse but Chariclea. But
come, Speusippus, sing. You are a professed poet. Let us have some of
your verses.

SPEUSIPPUS. My verses! How can you talk so? I a professed poet!

ALCIBIADES. Oh, content you, sweet Speusippus. We all know your designs
upon the tragic honours. Come, sing. A chorus of your new play.

SPEUSIPPUS. Nay, nay--

HIPPOMACHUS. When a guest who is asked to sing at a Persian banquet
refuses--

SPEUSIPPUS. In the name of Bacchus--

ALCIBIADES. I am absolute. Sing.

SPEUSIPPUS. Well, then, I will sing you a chorus, which, I think, is a
tolerable imitation of Euripides.

CHARICLEA. Of Euripides?--Not a word.

ALCIBIADES. Why so, sweet Chariclea?

CHARICLEA. Would you have me betray my sex? Would you have me forget
his Phaedras and Sthenoboeas? No if I ever suffer any lines of that
woman-hater, or his imitators, to be sung in my presence, may I sell
herbs (The mother of Euripides was a herb-woman. This was a favourite
topic of Aristophanes.) like his mother, and wear rags like his
Telephus. (The hero of one of the lost plays of Euripides, who appears
to have been brought upon the stage in the garb of a beggar. See
Aristophanes; Acharn. 430; and in other places.)

ALCIBIADES. The