Me. Not so; a living guest in Hades I.
Phi. But what induced you to take this queer original journey?
Me. Youth drew me on—too bold, too little wise.
Phi. My good man, truce to your heroics; get off those iambic stilts, and tell me in plain prose what this get-up means; what did you want with the lower regions? It is a journey that needs a motive to make it attractive.
Me. Dear friend, to Hades’ realms I needs must go, To counsel with Tiresias of Thebes.
Phi. Man, you must be mad; or why string verses instead of talking like one friend with another?
Me. My dear fellow, you need not be so surprised. I have just been in Euripides’s and Homer’s company; I suppose I am full to the throat with verse, and the numbers come as soon as I open my mouth. But how are things going up here? what is Athens about?
Phi. Oh, nothing new; extortion, perjury, forty per cent, face-grinding.
Me. Poor misguided fools! they are not posted up in the latest lower-world legislation; the recent decrees against the rich will be too much for all their evasive ingenuity.
Phi. Do you mean to say the lower world has been making new regulations for us?