45
IMITATED FROM ARISTOPHANES
(Nubes 315, 317.)
μεγάλαι θεαὶ ἀνδράσιν ἀργοῖς,
αἵπερ γνώμην καὶ διάλεξιν καὶ νοῦν ἡμῖν παρέχουσι
καὶ τερατείαν καὶ περίλεξιν καὶ κροῦσιν καὶ καταληψιν.
For the ancients . . . had their glittering vapors, which (as the comic poet tells us) fed a host of sophists.
Great goddesses are they to lazy folks,
Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech,
Sense most sententious, wonderful fine effect,
And how to talk about it and about it,
Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy.
1817. First published in The Friend, 1818, iii. 179; 1850, iii. 138. First collected 1893.