Chollidan Deme who calls you. Do you hear?

EURIPIDES
I have no time to waste.

DICAEOPOLIS
Very well, have yourself wheeled out here.(1)

f(1) "Wheeled out"--that is, by means of a mechanical contrivance of
the Greek stage, by which an interior was shown, the set scene
with performers, etc., all complete, being in some way, which cannot
be clearly made out from the descriptions, swung out or wheeled out
on to the main stage.

EURIPIDES
Impossible.

DICAEOPOLIS
Nevertheless...

EURIPIDES
Well, let them roll me out; as to coming down, I have not
the time.

DICAEOPOLIS
Euripides....

EURIPIDES
What words strike my ear?

DICAEOPOLIS
You perch aloft to compose tragedies, when you might just as
well do them on the ground. I am not astonished at your introducing
cripples on the stage.(1) And why dress in these miserable tragic rags?
I do not wonder that your heroes are beggars. But, Euripides, on my knees
I beseech you, give me the tatters of some old piece; for I have to
treat the Chorus to a long speech, and if I do it ill it is all over
with me.

f(1) Having been lamed, it is of course implied, by tumbling from the lofty
apparatus on which the Author sat perched to write his tragedies.

EURIPIDES
What rags do you prefer? Those in which I rigged out Aeneus(1) on
the stage, that unhappy, miserable old man?

f(1) Euripides delighted, or was supposed by his critic Aristophanes to
delight, in the representation of misery and wretchedness on the stage.
'Aeneus,' 'Phoenix,' 'Philoctetes,' 'Bellerophon,' 'Telephus,' Ino' are titles
of six tragedies of his in this genre of which fragments are extant.

DICAEOPOLIS
No, I want those of some hero still more unfortunate.

EURIPIDES
Of Phoenix, the blind man?

DICAEOPOLIS
No, not of Phoenix, you have another hero more unfortunate than him.

EURIPIDES
Now, what tatters DOES he want? Do you mean those of the beggar
Philoctetes?

DICAEOPOLIS
No, of another far more the mendicant.

EURIPIDES
Is it the filthy dress of the lame fellow, Bellerophon?

DICAEOPOLIS
No, 'tis not Bellerophon; he, whom I mean, was not only lame and a
beggar, but boastful and a fine speaker.

EURIPIDES
Ah! I know, it is Telephus, the Mysian.

DICAEOPOLIS
Yes, Telephus. Give me his rags, I beg of you.

EURIPIDES
Slave! give him Telephus' tatters; they are on top of the rags
of Thyestes and mixed with those o