. They honey of Mount Hymettus
was famous.

TRYGAEUS Oh! I beseech you! use some other honey; this kind is worth
four obols; be careful, oh! be careful of our Attic honey.

WAR Hi! Tumult, you slave there!

TUMULT What do you want?

WAR Out upon you! Standing there with folded arms! Take this cuff o' the
head for your pains.

TUMULT Oh! how it stings! Master, have you got garlic in your fist, I
wonder?

WAR Run and fetch me a pestle.

TUMULT But we haven't got one; 'twas only yesterday we moved.

WAR Go and fetch me one from Athens, and hurry, hurry!

TUMULT Aye, I hasten there; if I return without one, I shall have no
cause for laughing. (EXIT.)

TRYGAEUS Ah! what is to become of us, wretched mortals that we are? See
the danger that threatens if he returns with the pestle, for War will
quietly amuse himself with pounding all the towns of Hellas to pieces.
Ah! Bacchus! cause this herald of evil to perish on his road!

WAR Well?

TUMULT (WHO HAS RETURNED) Well, what?

WAR You have brought back nothing?

TUMULT Alas! the Athenians have lost their pestle--the tanner, who
ground Greece to powder.(1)

f(1) Cleon, who had lately fallen before Amphipolis, in 422
B.C.

TRYGAEUS Oh! Athene, venerable mistress! 'tis well for our city he is
dead, and before he could serve us with this hash.

WAR Then go and seek one at Sparta and have done with it!

TUMULT Aye, aye, master!

WAR Be back as quick as ever you can.

TRYGAEUS (TO THE AUDIENCE) What is going to happen, friends? 'Tis the
critical hour. Ah! if there is some initiate of Samothrace(1) among you,
'tis surely the moment to wish this messenger some accident--some sprain
or strain.

f(1) An island in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Thrace and
opposite the mouth of the Hebrus; the Mysteries are said to
have found their first home in this island, where the
Cabirian gods were worshipped; this cult, shrouded in deep
mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an
almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said
that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and
they were feared as to-day the 'jettatori' (spell-throwers,
casters of the evil eye) in Sicily are feared.

TUMULT (WHO RETURNS) Alas! alas! thrice again, alas!

WAR What is it? Again you come back without it?

TUMULT The Spartans too have lost their pestle.

WAR How, varlet?

TUMULT They had lent i