e
lot at once? Begone, you and your fillets and all; I shall know how to
complete the sacrifice by myself.

PRIEST It is imperative that I sing another sacred chant for the rite of
the lustral water, and that I invoke the immortals, or at least one of
them, provided always that you have some suitable food to offer him;
from what I see here, in the shape of gifts, there is naught whatever
but horn and hair.

PISTHETAERUS Let us address our sacrifices and our prayers to the winged
gods.

A POET Oh, Muse! celebrate happy Nephelococcygia in your hymns.

PISTHETAERUS What have we here? Where did you come from, tell me? Who
are you?

POET I am he whose language is sweeter than honey, the zealous slave of
the Muses, as Homer has it.

PISTHETAERUS You a slave! and yet you wear your hair long?

POET No, but the fact is all we poets are the assiduous slaves of the
Muses, according to Homer.

PISTHETAERUS In truth your little cloak is quite holy too through zeal!
But, poet, what ill wind drove you here?

POET I have composed verses in honour of your Nephelococcygia, a host of
splendid dithyrambs and parthenians(1) worthy of Simonides himself.

f(1) Verses sung by maidens.

PISTHETAERUS And when did you compose them? How long since?

POET Oh! 'tis long, aye, very long, that I have sung in honour of this
city.

PISTHETAERUS But I am only celebrating its foundation with this
sacrifice;(1) I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.

f(1) This ceremony took place on the tenth day after birth, and may be
styled the pagan baptism.

POET "Just as the chargers fly with the speed of the wind, so does the
voice of the Muses take its flight. Oh! thou noble founder of the town
of Aetna,(1) thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices,(2) make us
such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest."

f(1) Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse.--This passage is borrowed from Pindar.

f(2) (Hiero) in Greek means 'sacrifice.'

PISTHETAERUS He will drive us silly if we do not get rid of him by some
present. Here! you, who have a fur as well as your tunic, take it off
and give it to this clever poet. Come, take this fur; you look to me to
be shivering with cold.

POET My Muse will gladly accept this gift; but engrave these verses of
Pindar's on your mind.

PISTHETAERUS Oh! what a pest! 'Tis impossible then to be rid of him!

POET "Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen
garment. He is sad at only