e in being much abused?

Strep. You blackguard!

Phid. Sprinkle me with roses in abundance.

Strep. Do you beat your father?

Phid. And will prove too, by Jupiter! that I beat you
with justice.

Strep. O thou most rascally! Why, how can it be just to
beat a father?

Phid. I will demonstrate it, and will overcome you in
argument.

Strep. Will you overcome me in this?

Phid. Yea, by much and easily. But choose which of the
two Causes you wish to speak.

Strep. Of what two Causes?

Phid. The better, or the worse?

Strep. Marry, I did get you taught to speak against
justice, by Jupiter, my friend, if you are going to
persuade me of this, that it is just and honourable for
a father to be beaten by his sons!

Phid. I think I shall certainly persuade you; so that,
when you have heard, not even you yourself will say
anything against it.

Strep. Well, now, I am willing to hear what you have to
say.

Cho. It is your business, old man, to consider in what
way you shall conquer the man; for if he were not
relying upon something, he would not be so licentious.
But he is emboldened by something; the boldness of the
man is evident. Now you ought to tell to the Chorus from
what the contention first arose. And this you must do by
all means.

Strep. Well, now, I will tell you from what we first
began to rail at one another. After we had feasted, as
you know, I first bade him take a lyre, and sing a song
of Simonides, "The Shearing of the Ram." But he
immediately said it was old-fashioned to play on the
lyre and sing while drinking, like a woman grinding
parched barley.

Phid. For ought you not then immediately to be beaten
and trampled on, bidding me sing, just as if you were
entertaining cicadae?

Strep. He expressed, however, such opinions then too
within, as he does now; and he asserted that Simonides
was a bad poet. I bore it at first, with difficulty
indeed, yet nevertheless I bore it. And then I bade him
at least take a myrtle-wreath and recite to me some
portion of Aeschylus; and then he immediately said,
"Shall I consider Aeschylus the first among the poets,
full of empty sound, unpolished, bombastic, using rugged
words?" And hereupon you can't think how my he