EURIPIDES. If we were to mistrust the citizens, whom we trust, and to employ those whom we to-day neglect, we should be saved. Nothing succeeds with us; very well then, let's do the opposite thing, and our deliverance will be assured.
DIONYSUS. Very well spoken. You are the most ingenious of men, a true
Palamedes![530] Is this fine idea your own or is it Cephisophon's?
EURIPIDES. My very own,—bar the vinegar, which is Cephisophon's.
DIONYSUS (to Aeschylus). And you, what have you to say?
AESCHYLUS. Tell me first who the commonwealth employs. Are they the just?
DIONYSUS. Oh! she holds them in abhorrence.
AESCHYLUS. What, are then the wicked those she loves?
DIONYSUS. Not at all, but she employs them against her will.
AESCHYLUS. Then what deliverance can there be for a city that will neither have cape nor cloak?[531]
DIONYSUS. Discover, I adjure you, discover a way to save her from shipwreck.