TRUMPET-MAKER Ha! would you mock me?
TRYGAEUS Well, here's another notion. Pour in lead as I said, add here a dish hung on strings, and you will have a balance for weighing the figs which you give your slaves in the fields.
A HELMET-MAKER Cursed fate! I am ruined. Here are helmets, for which I gave a mina each. What I to do with them? who will buy them?
TRYGAEUS Go and sell them to the Egyptians; they will do for measuring loosening medicines.(1)
f(1) Syrmoea, a kind of purgative syrup much used by the
Egyptians, made of antiscorbutic herbs, such as mustard,
horse-radish, etc.
A SPEAR-MAKER Ah! poor helmet-maker, things are indeed in a bad way.
TRYGAEUS That man has no cause for complaint.
SPEAR-MAKER But helmets will be no more used.
TRYGAEUS Let him learn to fit a handle to them and he can sell them for more money.(1)
f(1) As wine-pots or similar vessels.