This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
EURIPIDES
Whatever do you want such a thing as that for? DICAEOPOLIS
I do not need it, but I want it all the same. EURIPIDES
You importune me; get you gone! DICAEOPOLIS
Alas! may the gods grant you a destiny as brilliant as your mother's.1 EURIPIDES
Leave me in peace. DICAEOPOLIS
Oh, just a little broken cup. EURIPIDES
Take it and go and hang yourself. What a tiresome fellow! DICAEOPOLIS
Ah! you do not know all the pain you cause me. Dear, good Euripides, nothing beyond a small pipkin stoppered with a sponge. EURIPIDES
Miserable man! You are robbing me of an entire tragedy.2 Here, take it and be off. DICAEOPOLIS
I am going, but, great gods! I need one thing more; unless I have it, I am a dead man. Hearken, my little Euripides, only give me this and I go, never to return. For pity's sake, do give me a few small herbs for my basket. EURIPIDES
You wish to ruin me then. Here, take what you want; but it is all over with my pieces! DICAEOPOLIS
I won't ask another thing; I'm going. I am too importunate and forget that I rouse against me the hate of kings.—Ah! wretch that I am! I am lost! I have forgotten one thing, without which all the rest is as nothing. Euripides, my excellent Euripides, my dear little Euripides, may I die if I ask you again for the smallest present; only one, the last, absolutely the last; give me some of the chervil your mother left you in her will. EURIPIDES
Insolent hound! Slave, lock the door! DICAEOPOLIS
Oh, my soul! I must go away without the chervil. Art thou sensible of the dangerous battle we are about to engage upon in defending the Lacedaemonians? Courage, my soul, we must plunge into the midst of it. Dost thou hesitate and art thou fully steeped in Euripides? That's right! do not falter, my poor heart, and let us risk our head to say what we hold for truth. Courage and boldly to the front. I wonder I am so brave.
Aristophanes. Acharnians. The Eleven Comedies. Anonymous. New York. Liveright. 192?.