urs.

f(5) The poet supplied everything needful for the production
of his piece--vases, dresses, masks, etc.

f(6) Aristophanes was bald himself, it would seem.

f(7) Carcinus and his three sons were both poets and
dancers. (See the closing scene of 'The Wasps.') Perhaps
relying little on the literary value of their work, it seems
that they sought to please the people by the magnificence of
its staging.

f(8) He had written a piece called 'The Mice,' which he
succeeded with great difficulty in getting played, but it
met with no success.

f(9) This passage really follows on the invocation, "Oh,
Muse! drive the War," etc., from which indeed it is only
divided by the interpolated criticism aimed at Carcinus.

f(10) The scholiast informs us that these verses are
borrowed from a poet of the sixth century B.C.

f(11) Sons of Philocles, of the family of Aeschylus, tragic
writers, derided by Aristophanes as bad poets and notorious
gluttons.

f(12) The Gorgons were represented with great teeth, and
therefore the same name was given to gluttons. The Harpies,
to whom the two voracious poets are also compared, were
monsters with the face of a woman, the body of a vulture and
hooked beak and claws.

TRYGAEUS Ah! 'tis a rough job getting to the gods! my legs are as good
as broken through it. How small you were, to be sure, when seen from
heaven! you had all the appearance too of being great rascals; but seen
close, you look even worse.

SERVANT Is that you, master?

TRYGAEUS So I've been told.

SERVANT What has happened to you?

TRYGAEUS My legs pain me; it is such a plaguey long journey.

SERVANT Oh! tell me...

TRYGAEUS What?

SERVANT Did you see any other man besides yourself strolling about in
heaven?

TRYGAEUS No, only the souls of two or three dithyrambic poets.

SERVANT What were they doing up there?

TRYGAEUS They were seeking to catch some lyric exordia as they flew by
immersed in the billows of the air.

SERVANT Is it true, what they tell us, that men are turned into stars
after death?

TRYGAEUS Quite true.

SERVANT Then who is that star I see over yonder?

TRYGAEUS That is Ion of Chios,(1) the author of an ode beginning
"Morning"; as soon as ever he got to heaven, they called him "the
Morning Star."

f(1) A tragic and dithyrambic poet, who had written many
p