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weats of for law sets.

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pierate

καὶ συκοφάντης, ΠΕΙ. ὦ μακάριε τῆς τέχνης.
ΣΥ. καὶ πραγματοδίφης. εἶτα δέομαι πτερὰ λαβὼν
κύκλῳ περισοβεῖν τὰς πόλεις καλούμενος.
ΠΕΙ. ὑπαὶ πτερύγων τι προσκαλεῖ σοφώτερον ;
ΣΥ. μα Δί' ἀλλ ̓ ἵν ̓ οἱ λῃσταί γε μὴ λυπῶσί με,
μετὰ τῶν γεράνων τ ̓ ἐκεῖθεν ἀναχωρῶ πάλιν,
ἀνθ ̓ ἕρματος πολλὰς καταπεπωκὼς δίκας.
ΠΕΙ. τουτὶ γὰρ ἐργάζει σὺ τοῦργον ; εἰπέ μοι,

νεανίας ὢν συκοφαντεῖς τοὺς ξένους,
ΣΥ. τί γὰρ πάθω; σκάπτειν γὰρ οὐκ ἐπίσταμαι.

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his own armour being now worn in triumph by Hector, Iliad xvii. 194.

1421. Πελλήνης] This is another allusion to the Sycophant's insufficient attire. He must be wanting wings, so Peisthetaerus judges from his appearance, that he may fly away to Pellene, and carry off as Epharmostus did (Pind. Ol. ix. 146, to which Bergler refers) “a warm protection from the wintry winds," ψυχρᾶν εὐδιανὸν φάρμακον αὐραν, in the shape of one of those famous ελληνικαὶ χλαῖναι, which were given to the victors in the games there held. So in the 10th Nemean (to which Cary refers) we are told that the Argive victors returned from Sicyon enriched with silver wine-cups, and from Pellene clad in soft-woven

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PEI.

To scare the cities, serving writs all round.

You'll summon them more cleverly, I suppose,

To the tune of wings? SYC. No, but to dodge the pirates,
I'll then come flying homeward with the cranes,
First swallowing down a lot of suits for ballast.
Is this your business? you, a sturdy youngster,
Live by informing on the stranger-folk?
SYC. What can I do? I never learnt to dig.

PEI.

garments. These thick woollen robes were seasonable prizes at Pellene, for the Scholiasts on Pindar tell us that the games were held in winter, and that the locality itself was δυσχείμέρος. Αἱ Πελληνικαὶ χλαῖναι, says Pollux vii. segm. 67, ἦσαν εὐδόκιμοι, ὡς καὶ τοῖς νικῶσιν ἀθληταῖς δίδοσθαι. They are frequently mentioned by ancient authors.

1424. καὶ πραγματοδίφης] The Informer takes no heed of Peisthetaerus' interruption, but continues with the liveliest relish to roll out his various callings.

1426. ὑπαὶ πτερύγων] With the accompaniment of wings. The words are taken from an old song (Ach. 970), whence

the use of the form ὑπαί. There is probably an allusion to the "call" of decoy-birds.

1427. Anorai] No sooner had Athens become Mistress of the seas than she endeavoured to suppress the business of piracy, which in heroic times had been so common that it involved no discredit to those who practised it. Many passages, however, show that it still lingered on, in some parts of the Aegaean. As to the notion that cranes swallowed stones by way of ballast, see 1137 supra.

1432. σκάπτειν] The surprising resemblance between this line and St. Luke's Gospel xvi. 3 ri ronow; σκάπτειν οὐκ ἰσχύω, has of course been

ΠΕΙ. ἀλλ ̓ ἔστιν ἕτερα νὴ Δί ̓ ἔργα σώφρονα, ἀφ ̓ ὧν διαζὴν ἄνδρα χρῆν τοσουτονὶ

Stitch up

ἐκ τοῦ δικαίου μᾶλλον ἢ δικορραφεῖν. ΣΥ. ὦ δαιμόνιε μὴ νουθέτει μ' ἀλλὰ πτέρου. ΠΕΙ. νῦν τοι λέγων πτερῶ σε.

ΣΥ. καὶ πῶς ἂν λόγοις
ΠΕΙ. πάντες τοῖς λόγοις
ΣΥ. πάντες ;

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ΠΕΙ. οὐκ ἀκήκοας,

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και μες

ἄνδρα πτερώσειας σύ ;
ἀναπτεροῦνται.
ὅταν λέγωσιν οἱ πατέρες ἑκάστοτε
τοῖς μειρακίοις ἐν τοῖσι κουρείοις ταδί ;
“ δεινῶς γέ μου τὸ μειράκιον Διιτρέφης
λέγων ἀνεπτέρωκεν ὥσθ' ἱππηλατεῖν.”
ὁ δέ τις τὸν αὑτοῦ φησιν ἐπὶ τραγωδία
ἀνεπτερώσθαι καὶ πεποτῆσθαι τὰς φρένας.

frequently noticed. The Scholiast says that there was a proverbial expression, πεζῇ βαδίζω· νεῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐπίσταμαι.

1435. ἐκ τοῦ δικαίου] The reader must not overlook the jingle of sound in the first syllables of δικαίου and δικορραφεῖν.

1439. ἀναπτεροῦνται] This little philosophical disquisition—for it is nothing lesson the ἀναπτέρωσις (if I may coin a word) τῆς ψυχῆς seems to have reference to some theories with which we are now unacquainted. In later times both the idea and the language became very familiar.

1441. κουρείοις] That the barber's shop was the recognized resort of Athenian, as of Roman, gossips is of course well

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known. Θεόφραστος ἄοινα συμπόσια
παίζων ἐκάλει τὰ κουρεῖα, διὰ τὴν λαλιὰν τῶν
προσκαθιζόντων, Plutarch, Symposiacs v.
5 (7). There men sat, retailing and
discussing news; and a barber's shop is
rarely mentioned without some refer-
ence to this seated group. In Plutus
338 Blepsidemus comes hurrying in,
saying that those who sat in the bar-
bers' shops were full of the news, in-
credible to him, that Chremylus had
suddenly become a wealthy man; ἦν
λόγος πολὺς Ἐπὶ τοῖσι κουρείοισι τῶν καθη-
μένων. In the Maricas of Eupolis, the
demagogue Hyperbolus avers that he
had picked up much useful information
by sitting in these resorts:

καὶ πόλλ ̓ ἔμαθον ἐν τοῖσι κουρείοις ἐγὼ
ἀτόπως καθίζων κοὐδὲ γιγνώσκειν δοκῶν (ΜΕΙΝΕΚΕ, F. C. G. ii. 499).
bers' shops, and make sport for the
company, ἀποκαθῆσθαι ἐν τοῖς κουρείοις καὶ
γελωτοποιείν, Aelian, V. H. vi. 12. And
it was while sitting in one of these

It was told of Dionysius the Younger
that, after he had fallen from the throne
of Syracuse and was living in obscurity
at Corinth, he used to sit in the bar-

PEI.

SYC.

PEI.

O, but by Zeus, there's many an honest calling
Whence men like you can earn a livelihood,
By means more suitable than hatching suits.

Cmoe, come, no preaching; wing me, wing me, please.

I wing you now by talking.
Can you wing men?

All men are winged.

SYC, What, by talk

PEI. Undoubtedly. By talk

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shops, καθήμενος ἐπὶ κουρείου, that the son of Pittacus was killed, Diog. Laert. (Pittacus segm. 76). And finally, according to the well-known anecdote recorded by Plutarch (Nicias 30) it was from a stranger sitting in one of these shops that the Athenians first received the news of the Sicilian catastrophe; ξένος γάρ τις, ἀποβὰς εἰς Πειραιᾶ, καὶ καθίσας ἐπὶ κουρείον, ὡς ἐγνωκότων ἤδη τῶν ̓Αθηναίων, λόγους ἐποιεῖτο περὶ τῶν γεγονότων. If in the commencement of the line the MS. reading rois petpakiois is retained, the old men must be conceived as sitting in the barber's shop discoursing to a group of youths.

1442. Διατρέφης] This rising and successful personage, of whom we have heard supra 798, had recently, we may suppose, been making some grand display of horsemanship or charioteering, which, as we know from the Knights and the Clouds, were fashionable ex

travagances with high-born Athenian youths.

1443. ἀνεπτέρωκεν] This use of the word is very common with St. Chrysostom. I will give one or two instances out of many. Wanton women, he says in one place, τὰς τῶν νέων ἀνα

Tepovσi vxàs, Ad Viduam chap. 6. And to the Phoenician elders and monks he writes, If ye will not hold by me, but prefer τοῖς ἀπατῶσιν ὑμᾶς καὶ ἀναπτεροῦσι πεισθῆναι, ἐγὼ ἀνεύθυνος εἰμι, Epistle 123. And such expressions as πως ἀνεπτέρωσε τὸν ἀκροατήν; how did the speaker raise and excite the minds of the audience? are constant in his writings. With μETEwpicerat four lines below, compare Lucian, Icaromenipp. 3, where Menippus offers to explain his scheme if his friend desires it, and the latter replies πάνυ μὲν οὖν, ὡς ἐγώ σοι μετέωρος εἰμι ὑπὸ τῶν λόγων.

ΣΥ. λόγοισί τἄρα καὶ πτεροῦνται;

ΠΕΙ. φήμ' ἐγώ.

ὑπὸ γὰρ λόγων ὁ νοῦς τε μετεωρίζεται

ἐπαίρεταί τ ̓ ἄνθρωπος. οὕτω καί σ' ἐγὼ

ἀναπτερώσας βούλομαι χρηστοῖς λόγοις

τρέψαι πρὸς ἔργον νόμιμον. ΣΥ. ἀλλ ̓ οὐ βούλομαι.

ΠΕΙ. τί δαὶ ποιήσεις ; ΣΥ. τὸ γένος οὐ καταισχυνῶ.
παππῷος ὁ βίος συκοφαντεῖν ἐστί μοι.
ἀλλὰ πτέρου με ταχέσι καὶ κούφοις πτεροῖς
ἱέρακος ἢ κερχνῇδος, ὡς ἂν τοὺς ξένους
καλεσάμενος κατ' ἐγκεκληκὼς ἐνθαδὶ
κατ ̓ αὖ πέτωμαι πάλιν ἐκεῖσε. ΠΕΙ. μανθάνω.
ὡδὶ λέγεις· ὅπως ἂν ὠφλήκῃ δίκην

proscreete

ἐνθάδε πρὶν ἥκειν ὁ ξένος. ΣΥ. πάνυ μανθάνεις. ΠΕΙ. κἄπειθ' ὁ μὲν πλεῖ δεῦρο, σὺ δ ̓ ἐκεῖσ ̓ αὖ πέτει

ἁρπασόμενος τὰ χρήματ' αὐτοῦ. ΣΥ. πάντ ̓ ἔχεις.
βέμβικος οὐδὲν διαφέρειν δεῖ. ΠΕΙ. μανθάνω.
βέμβικα· καὶ μὴν ἔστι μοι νὴ τὸν Δία
κάλλιστα Κορκυραῖα τοιαυτὶ πτερά.

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1454. ἱέρακος ἢ κερχνήδος] Here again, as in lines 303 and 304, a distinction is drawn between the kestrel and the ἱέραξ, which, though often used as a generic name, in strictness belongs only to the goshawk and sparrow-hawk.

1455. καλεσάμενος] The Sycophant has already declared himself to be a κλητήρ νησιωτικός, by which he means that he is a sompnour or process-server (see the note on Wasps 1408) in suits where the defendant was not an Athenian citizen residing in Athens, but one of the subject allies dwelling over-sea. The expression νήσοι is often intended, as in Knights 1319, to embrace the entire Athenian Empire beyond the coasts of

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