t exactly see how that last line is to scan,
But that's a consideration I leave to our musical man.

THE PROLOGUES OF EURIPIDES

From 'The Frogs'

[The point of the following selection lies in the monotony of
both narrative style and metre in Euripides's prologues, and
especially his regular caesura after the fifth syllable of a
line. The burlesque tag used by Aristophanes to demonstrate
this effect could not be applied in the same way to any of
the fourteen extant plays of Sophocles and AEschylus.]

_AEschylus_--And by Jove, I'll not stop to cut up your verses
word by word, but if the gods are propitious I'll spoil
all your prologues with a little flask of smelling-salts.

_Euripides_--With a flask of smelling-salts?

_AEsch_.--With a single one. For you build your verses so that
anything will fit into the metre,--a leathern sack,
or eider-down, or smelling-salts. I'll show you.

_Eur_.--So, you'll show me, will you?

_AEsch_.--I will that.

_Dionysus_--Pronounce.

_Eur_. [_declaiming_]--
AEgyptus, as broad-bruited fame reports,
With fifty children voyaging the main
To Argos came, and

_AEsch_.--lost his smelling-salts.

_Dion_.--What the mischief have the smelling-salts got to do with
it? Recite another prologue to him and let me see.

_Eur_.--
Dionysus, thyrsus-armed and faun-skin-clad,
Amid the torchlights on Parnassus's slope
Dancing and prancing

_AEsch_.--lost his smelling-salts.

_Dion_.--Caught out again by the smelling-salts.

_Eur_.--No matter. Here's a prologue that he can't fit 'em to.

No lot of mortal man is wholly blest:
The high-born youth hath lacked the means of life,
The lowly lout hath

_AEsch_.--lost his smelling-salts.

_Dion_.--Euripides--

_Eur_.--Well, what?

_Dion_.--Best take in sail.
These smelling-salts, methinks, will blow a gale.

_Eur_.--What do I care? I'll fix him next time.

_Dion_.--Well, recite another, and steer clear of the smelling-salts.

_Eur_.--
Cadmus departing from the town of Tyre,
Son of Agenor

_AEsch_.--lost his smelling-salts.

_Dion_.--My dear fellow, buy those smelling-salts, or there won't
be a rag left of all your prologues.

_Eur_.-