Racine: Phaedra

198
ARISTOPHANES
The nature of Cleonymus,
All the modes of his existence,
His provision and subsistence.
His necessities and wants,
And the houses that he haunts,
Till the master of the table,
Accosts him like the gods in fable,
Manifested and adored
At Baucis's and Philemon's board
" Mighty sovereign ! Mighty lord
Leave us in mercy and grace. Forbear!
Our frugal insufficient fare,
'*
Pardon it ! and in mercy spare !
Antepirrhema.
Our Triremes, I was told, held a conference of late,
One, a bulky dame and old, spoke the first m the debate
*' Ladies, have you heard the news ? In the town it passed
for truth,
That a certain lowbred upstart, one Hyperbolus for-
sooth.
Asks a hundred of our number, with a further proposi-
tion,
That we should sail with him to Carthage ^* on a secret
expedition."
They all were scandalized and shocked to hear so wild a
project planned,
A virgin vessel newly docked, but which never had been
manned.
Answered instantly with anger, "If the Fates will not
afford me,
Some more suitable proposal, than that wretch to come
aboard me,
I would rather rot and perish, and remain from year to
year.
Till the worms have eat my bottom, lingering in the har-
bor here.
••Carthage, in this instance, may ad- beyond the speculations of Atbeman
mit of a doubt, but it was by no means ambition at that time.