HKB
TRYGAEUS Wise Homer has also said: "He who delights in the horrors of civil war has neither country nor laws nor home." What noble words!
HIEROCLES Beware lest the kite turn your brain and rob...
TRYGAEUS Look out, slave! This oracle threatens our meat. Quick, pour the libation, and give me some of the inwards.
HIEROCLES I too will help myself to a bit, if you like.
TRYGAEUS The libation! the libation!
HIEROCLES Pour out also for me and give me some of this meat.
TRYGAEUS No, the blessed gods won't allow it yet; let us drink; and as for you, get you gone, for 'tis their will. Mighty Peace! stay ever in our midst.
HIEROCLES Bring the tongue hither.
TRYGAEUS Relieve us of your own.
HIEROCLES The libation.
TRYGAEUS Here! and this into the bargain (STRIKES HIM).
HIEROCLES You will not give me any meat?
TRYGAEUS We cannot give you any until the wolf unites with the sheep.
HIEROCLES I will embrace your knees.
TRYGAEUS 'Tis lost labour, good fellow; you will never smooth the rough spikes of the hedgehog.... Come, spectators, join us in our feast.
HIEROCLES And what am I to do?
TRYGAEUS You? go and eat the Sibyl.
HIEROCLES No, by the Earth! no, you shall not eat without me; if you do not give, I take; 'tis common property.
TRYGAEUS (TO THE SERVANT) Strike, strike this Bacis, this humbugging soothsayer.
HIEROCLES I take to witness...
TRYGAEUS And I also, that you are a glutton and an impostor. Hold him tight and beat the impostor with a stick.
SERVANT You look to that; I will snatch the skin from him which he has stolen from us.(1) Are you going to let go that skin, you priest from hell! do you hear! Oh! what a fine crow has come from Oreus! Stretch your wings quickly for Elymnium.(2)
f(1) The skin of the victim, that is to say.
f(2) A temple in Euboea, close to Oreus. The servant means, "Return where you came from."