Chorus.
Ah! God grant we may see the blessed day. I have suffered so much; have so oft slept with Phormio[1] on hard beds. You will no longer find me an acid, angry, hard judge as heretofore, but will find me turned indulgent and grown younger by twenty years through happiness. We have been killing ourselves long enough, tiring ourselves out with going to the Lyceum[2] and returning laden with spear and buckler.—But what can we do to please you? Come, speak; for ’tis a good Fate, that has named you our leader.
Trygæus.
How shall we set about removing these stones?
Hermes.
Rash reprobate, what do you propose doing?
Trygæus.
Nothing bad, as Cillicon said.[3]
Hermes.
You are undone, you wretch.
Trygæus.
Yes, if the lot had to decide my life, for Hermes would know how to turn the chance.[4]
- ↑ A general of austere habits; he disposed of all his property to pay the cost of a naval expedition, in which he beat the fleet of the foe off the promontory of Rhium in 429 B.C.
- ↑ The Lyceum was a portico ornamented with paintings and surrounded with gardens, in which military exercises took place.
- ↑ A citizen of Miletus, who betrayed his country to the people of Priené. When asked what he purposed, he replied, “Nothing bad,” which expression had therefore passed into a proverb.
- ↑ Hermes was the god of chance.
the beam so as to balance; beneath these two other and larger dishes were placed and filled with water, and in the middle of each a brazen figure, called Manes, was stood. The game consisted in throwing drops of wine from an agreed distance into one or the other vessel, so that, dragged downwards by the weight of the liquor, it bumped against Manes.
