through the crowd, on a winter's day, to the eyes in his own tan-pickle. But to warm yourself at the fire of the the Paphlagonian had parts. baths; or when you are fighting with beggars and beggars' dogs for the scraps of a sacrifice ;-or when you are glad to earn three wretched obols* by listening all day to lying speeches and crying children. SPEUSIPPUS. There are other means of support. CALLIDEMUS. What! I suppose you will wander from house to house, like that wretched buffoon Philippus,† and beg every body who has asked a supper-party to be so kind as to feed you and laugh at you; or you will turn sycophant; you will get a bunch of grapes, or a pair of shoes, now and then, by frightening some rich coward with a mock prosecution. Well! that is a task for which your studies under the sophists may have fitted you. SPEUSIPPUS. You are wide of the mark. CALLIDEMUS. Then what, in the name of Juno, is your scheme? Do you intend to join Orestes, and rob on the highway? Take care; beware of the eleven ;§ beware of the hemlock. It may be very pleasant to live at other people's expense; but not very pleasant, I should think, to hear the pestle give its last bang against the mortar, when the cold dose is ready. Pah! SPEUSIPPUS. Hemlock! Orestes! folly!-I aim at nobler objects. What say you to politics, the general assembly? CALLIDEMUS. You an orator!-oh no! no! Cleon was worth twenty such fools as you. You have succeeded, I grant, to his impudence, for which, if there be justice in Tartarus, he is now soaking up *The stipend of an Athenian juryman. Xenophon; Convivium. Well; suppose the agora crowded; an important subject under discussion;-an ambassador from Argos, or from the great king;-the tributes in short, anything you please. The from the islands;—an impeachment;crier makes proclamation." Any citizen above fifty years old may speakany citizen not disqualified may speak." Then I rise:-a great murmur of curiosity while I am mounting the stand. CALLIDEMUS. Of curiosity! yes, and of something else too. You will infallibly be dragged down by main force, like poor Glaucont last year. SPEUSIPPUS. Never fear. I shall begin in this style: "When I consider, Athenians, the A celebrated highwayman of Attica. See importance of our city;-when I con Aristophanes; Aves, 711; and in several other passages. § The police officers of Athens. *See Thucydides, vi. 8. † See Xenophon; Memorabilia, iii. CALLIDEMUS. Το sider the extent of its power, the wisdom | of its laws, the elegance of its decora- Oh Hercules! Oh Bacchus! This is tions;-when I consider by what names too much. Here is an universal and by what exploits its annals are genius; sophist,-orator,-poet. adorned;-when I think on Harmo- what a three-headed monster have dius and Aristogiton, on Themistocles given birth! a perfect Cerberus of and Miltiades, on Cimon and Pericles; intellect! And pray what may your -when I contemplate our pre-eminence piece be about? Or will your tragedy, in arts and letters;-when I observe like your speech, serve equally for any so many flourishing states and islands subject? compelled to own the dominion, and purchase the protection, of the City of the Violet Crown-"* SPEUSIPPUS. I thought of several plots;-Edipus, Eteocles and Polynices, the war of Troy,-the murder of Aga memnon. CALLIDEMUS. And what have you chosen? SPEUSIPPUS. You know there is a law which permits any modern poet to retouch a play of Eschylus, and bring it forward as his own composition. And, as there is an absurd prejudice, among the vulgar, in favour of his extravagant pieces, I have selected one of them, and altered it. CALLIDEMUS. Which of them? SPEUSIPPUS. Oh! that mass of barbarous absurdities, the Prometheus. But I have framed it anew upon the model of Euripides. By Bacchus, I shall make Sophocles and Agathon look about them. You would not know the play again. CALLIDEMUS. Well, I allow that will be striking; I | Phrynichus, and lived with Eschylus. did not think you capable of that idea. I saw the representation of the PerWhy do you laugh? sians. SPEUSIPPUS. Do you seriously suppose that one who has studied the plays of that great man, Euripides, would ever begin a tragedy in such a ranting style? CALLIDEMUS. What, does not your play open with the speech of Prometheus? SPEUSIPPUS. No doubt. SPEUSIPPUS. A wretched play; it may amuse the fools who row the triremes; but it is utterly unworthy to be read by any man of taste. CALLIDEMUS. If you had seen it acted ;-the whole theatre frantic with joy, stamping, shouting, laughing, crying. There was Cynægeirus, the brother of Eschylus, who lost both his arms at Marathon, beating the stumps against his sides with rapture. When the crowd reThen what, in the name of Bacchus, marked him-But where are you do you make him say? CALLIDEMUS. SPEUSIPPUS. You shall hear; and, if it be not in the very style of Euripides, call me a fool. CALLIDEMUS. That is a liberty which I shall venture to take, whether it be or no. But go on. SPEUSIPPUS. Prometheus begins thus: CALLIDEMUS. Very beautiful, and very natural; and, as you say, very like Euripides. SPEUSIPPUS. You are sneering. Really, father, you do not understand these things. You had not those advantages in your youth CALLIDEMUS. Which I have been fool enough to let you have. No; in my early days, lying had not been dignified into a science, nor politics degraded into a trade. I wrestled, and read Homer's battles, instead of dressing my hair, and reciting lectures in verse out of Euripides. But I have some notion of what a play should be; I have seen going? SPEUSIPPUS. To sup with Alcibiades; he sails with the expedition for Sicily in a few days; this is his farewell entertain ment. CALLIDEMUS. So much the better; I should say, so much the worse. That cursed Sicilian expedition! And you were one of the young fools who stood clapping and shouting while he was gulling the rabble, and who drowned poor Nicias's voice with your uproar. Look to it; a day of reckoning will come. As to Alcibiades himself SPEUSIPPUS. What can you say against him? His enemies themselves acknowledge his merit. CALLIDEMUS. They acknowledge that he is clever, and handsome, and that he was crowned at the Olympic games. And what other merits do his friends claim for him? A precious assembly you will meet at his house, no doubt. SPEUSIPPUS. The first men in Athens, probably. CALLIDEMUS. Whom do you mean by the first men in Athens? * See Thucydides, vi. 13. Callicles.* SPEUSIPPUs. CALLIDEMUS. A sacrilegious, impious, unfeeling ruffian ! SPEUSIPPUS. Hippomachus. CALLIDEMUS. A fool, who can talk of nothing but his travels through Persia and Egypt. Go, go. The gods forbid that I should detain you from such choice society! [Exeunt severally. II. CHARICLEA. Can I be cheerful when you are going to leave me, Alcibiades? ALCIBIADES. My life, my sweet soul, it is but for a short time. In a year we conquer Sicily. In another, we humble Carthage. 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 SCENE-A Hall in the House of ALCI- Susa. I wish that I had measured him. BIADES. ALCIBIADES, SPEUSIPPUS, CALLICLES, HIPPOMACHUS, CHARICLEA, and others, seated round a table, feasting. ALCIBIADES. Bring larger cups. This shall be our gayest revel. It is probably the last-for some of us at least. SPEUSIPPUS. At all events, it will be long before you taste such wine again, Alcibiades. CALLICLES. Nay, there is excellent wine in Sicily. When I was there with Eurymedon's squadron, I had many a long carouse. You never saw finer grapes than those of Ætna. HIPPOMACHUS. My own. Think you, because I do not shut myself up to meditate, and The Greeks do not understand the drink water, and eat herbs, that I canart of making wine. Your Persian is not write verses? By Apollo, if I did the man. So rich, so fragant, so spark-not spend my days in politics, and my ling! I will tell you what the Satrap feast of Venus, near Miletus. I used to sing it in my own country when I was a child; and-Ah, Alcibiades! ALCIBIADES. Dear Chariclea, you shall sing something else. This distresses you. on CHARICLEA. No: hand me the lyre:-no matter. You will hear the song to disadvantage. But if it were sung as I have heard it sung;-if this were a beautiful morning in spring, and if we were standing a woody promontory, with the sea, and the white sails, and the blue Cyclades beneath us, and the portico of a temple peeping through the trees on a huge peak above our heads,-and thousands of people, with myrtles in their hands, thronging up the winding path, their gay dresses and garlands disappearing and emerging by turns as they passed round the angles of the rock, then perhaps ALCIBIADES. Now, by Venus herself, sweet lady, where you are we shall lack neither sun, nor flowers, nor spring, nor temple, nor goddess. CHARICLEA. (Sings). Let this sunny hour be given, And the echoes from the mountains, Thou hast taught to lovers' eyes, All their golden zones unbound; Now, with slender fingers fair, ALCIBIADES. Sweetly sung; but mournfully, Chariclea; for which I would chide you, |