A DRAMA.
I.
Scene—A Street in Athens.
Enter Callidemus and Speusippus.
CALLIDEMUS.
So, you young reprobate! You must be a man of wit, forsooth, and a man of quality! You must spend as if you were as rich as Nicias, and prate as if you were as wise as Pericles! You must dangle after sophists and pretty women! And I must pay for all! I must sup on thyme and onions, while you are swallowing thrushes and hares! I must drink water, that you may play the cottabus (1) with Chian wine! I must wander about as ragged as Pauson,(2) that you may be as fine as Alcibiades! I must lie on bare boards, with a stone (3) for my pillow, and a rotten mat for my coverlid, by the light of a wretched winking lamp, while you are marching in state, with as many torches as one sees at the feast of Ceres, to thunder with your hatchet(4) at the doors of half the Ionian ladies in Peiræus.(5)
(1) This game consisted in projecting wine out of cups; it
was a diversion extremely fashionable at Athenian
entertainments.
(2) Pauson was an Athenian painter, whose name was
synonymous with beggary. See Aristophanes; Plutus, 602. From
his poverty, I am inclined to suppose that he painted
historical pictures.
(3) See Aristophanes; Plutus, 542.
(4)See Theocritus; Idyll ii. 128.
(5) This was the most disreputable part of Athens. See
Aristophanes; Pax, 165.
SPEUSIPPUS.
Why, thou unreasonable old man! Thou most shameless of fathers!——