TRYGAEUS. It is absolutely necessary.
SECOND SERVANT. Alas! alas! dear little girls, your father is deserting you secretly to go to heaven. Ah! poor orphans, entreat him, beseech him.
LITTLE DAUGHTER. Father! father! what is this I hear? Is it true? What! you would leave me, you would vanish into the sky, you would go to the crows?[267] 'Tis impossible! Answer, father, an you love me.
TRYGAEUS. Yes, I am going. You hurt me too sorely, my daughters, when you ask me for bread, calling me your daddy, and there is not the ghost of an obolus in the house; if I succeed and come back, you will have a barley loaf every morning—and a punch in the eye for sauce!
LITTLE DAUGHTER. But how will you make the journey? 'Tis not a ship that will carry you thither.
TRYGAEUS. No, but this winged steed will.
LITTLE DAUGHTER. But what an idea, daddy, to harness a beetle, on which to fly to the gods.
TRYGAEUS. We see from Aesop's fables that they alone can fly to the abode of the Immortals.[268]
LITTLE DAUGHTER. Father, father, 'tis a tale nobody can believe! that such a stinking creature can have gone to the gods.
TRYGAEUS. It went to have vengeance on the eagle and break its eggs.