[363] He is addressing his servant, Manes.
[364] Heracles softens at sight of the food.—Heracles is the glutton of the comic poets.
[365] He pretends not to have seen them at first, being so much engaged with his cookery.
[366] He pretends to forget the presence of the ambassadors.
[367] Posidon jestingly swears by himself.
[368] The barbarian god utters some gibberish which Pisthetaerus interprets into consent.
[369] Heracles, the god of strength, was far from being remarkable in the way of cleverness.
[370] This was Athenian law.
[371] The poet attributes to the gods the same customs as those which governed Athens, and according to which no child was looked upon as legitimate unless his father had entered him on the registers of his phratria. The phratria was a division of the tribe and consisted of thirty families.
[372] The chorus continues to tell what it has seen on its flights.