.

HIEROCLES The tongue is cut separately.

TRYGAEUS We know all that. But just listen to one piece of advice.

HIEROCLES And that is?

TRYGAEUS Don't talk, for 'tis divine Peace to whom we are sacrificing.

HIEROCLES Oh! wretched mortals, oh, you idiots!

TRYGAEUS Keep such ugly terms for yourself.

HIEROCLES What! you are so ignorant you don't understand the will of the
gods and you make a treaty, you, who are men, with apes, who are full of
malice?(1)

f(1) The Spartans.

TRYGAEUS Ha, ha, ha!

HIEROCLES What are you laughing at?

TRYGAEUS Ha, ha! your apes amuse me!

HIEROCLES You simple pigeons, you trust yourselves to foxes, who are all
craft, both in mind and heart.

TRYGAEUS Oh, you trouble-maker! may your lungs get as hot as this meat!

HIEROCLES Nay, nay! if only the Nymphs had not fooled Bacis, and Bacis
mortal men; and if the Nymphs had not tricked Bacis a second time...(1)

f(1) Emphatic pathos, incomprehensible even to the diviner
himself; this is a satire on the obscure style of the
oracles. Bacis was a famous Boeotian diviner.

TRYGAEUS May the plague seize you, if you don't stop wearying us with
your Bacis!

HIEROCLES ...it would not have been written in the book of Fate that the
bends of Peace must be broken; but first...

TRYGAEUS The meat must be dusted with salt.

HIEROCLES ...it does not please the blessed gods that we should stop the
War until the wolf uniteth with the sheep.

TRYGAEUS How, you cursed animal, could the wolf ever unite with the
sheep?

HIEROCLES As long as the wood-bug gives off a fetid odour, when it
flies; as long as the noisy bitch is forced by nature to litter blind
pups, so long shall peace be forbidden.

TRYGAEUS Then what should be done? Not to stop War would be to leave
it to the decision of chance which of the two people should suffer the
most, whereas by uniting under a treaty, we share the empire of Greece.

HIEROCLES You will never make the crab walk straight.

TRYGAEUS You shall no longer be fed at the Prytaneum; the war done,
oracles are not wanted.

HIEROCLES You will never smooth the rough spikes of the hedgehog.

TRYGAEUS Will you never stop fooling the Athenians?

HIEROCLES What oracle ordered you to burn these joints of mutton in
honour of the gods?

TRYGAEUS This grand oracle of Homer's: "Thus vanished the dark
war-clouds and we offered a sacrifice to new-born Peace. When the flame
had consumed the thighs