PISTHETAERUS. What have we here? Where do you come from, tell me? Who are you?
POET. I am he whose language is sweeter than honey, the zealous slave of the Muses, as Homer has it.
PISTHETAERUS. You a slave! and yet you wear your hair long?
POET. No, but the fact is all we poets are the assiduous slaves of the
Muses according to Homer.
PISTHETAERUS. In truth your little cloak is quite holy too through zeal!
But, poet, what ill wind drove you here?
POET. I have composed verses in honour of your Nephelococcygia, a host of splendid dithyrambs and parthenians,[284] worthy of Simonides himself.
PISTHETAERUS. And when did you compose them? How long since?
POET. Oh! 'tis long, aye, very long, that I have sung in honour of this city.
PISTHETAERUS. But I am only celebrating its foundation with this sacrifice;[285] I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.
POET. "Just as the chargers fly with the speed of the wind, so does the voice of the Muses take its flight. Oh! thou noble founder of the town of Aetna,[286] thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices,[287] make us such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest."