Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature

by August Wilhelm von Schlegel

EURIPIDES.
Whose sorry tatters can the fellow want?
'Tis Philoctetes' sure! You mean that beggar.

DIKAIOPOLIS.
No; but a person still more beggarly.

EURIPIDES.
I have it. You want the sorry garments
Bellerophon, the lame man, used to wear.

DIKAIOPOLIS.
No,—not Bellerophon. Though the man I mean
Was lame, importunate, and bold of speech.

EURIPIDES.
I know, 'Tis Telephus the Mysian.

DIKAIOPOLIS.
Right.
Yes, Telephus: lend me his rags I pray you.

EURIPIDES.
Ho, boy! Give him the rags of Telephus.
There lie they; just upon Thyestes' rags,
And under those of Ino.

CEPHISOPHON.
Here! take them.

DIKAIOPOLIS (putting them on).
Now Jove! who lookest on, and see'st through all, [5]
Your blessing, while thus wretchedly I garb me.
Pr'ythee, Euripides, a further boon,
It goes, I think, together with these rags:
The little Mysian bonnet for my head;
"For sooth to-day I must put on the beggar,
And be still what I am, and yet not seem so." [6]
The audience here may know me who I am,
But like poor fools the chorus stand unwitting,
While I trick them with my flowers of rhetoric.

EURIPIDES.
A rare device, i'faith! Take it and welcome.