The Carousal, or the Lapiths (19-21)

LYCINUS

The rest laughed when they were made fun of, but when he took a fling at Alcidamas in

the same way, calling him a Maltese lapdog, [*] Alcidamas got angry: indeed, for a long time it had been plain that he was jealous because the other fellow was making a hit and holding the attention of the room. So, throwing off his philosopher’s cloak, he challenged him to fight, or else, he said, he would lay his staff on him. Then poor Satyrion, for that was the clown’s name, stood up to him and fought. It was delicious to see a philosopher squaring off at a clown, and giving and receiving blows in turn. Though some. of onlookers were disgusted, others kept laughing, until finally Alcidamas had enough of his punishment, well beaten by a tough little dwarf. So they got roundly laughed at.

LYCINUS

At that point Dionicus, the doctor, came in, not long after the fray. He had been detained, he said, to attend a man who had gone crazy, Polyprepon the flute-player; and he told a funny story. He said that he had gone. into the man’s room without knowing that he was already affected by the trouble, and that Polyprepon, getting out of bed quickly, had locked the door, drawn a knife, handed him his flutes and told him to begin playing; and then, because he could not play, had beaten him with a strap on the palms of his hands. At last in the face of so great a peril, the doctor devised this scheme: he challenged him to a match, the loser to get a certain number of blows. First he himself played wretchedly, and then giving up the flutes to Polyprepon, he

took the strap and the knife and threw them quickly out of the window into. the open court. Then, feeling safer, he grappled with him and called the neighbours, who prised the door open and rescued him. And he showed the marks of the blows, and a few scratches on his face. Dionicus, who had made no less of a hit than the clown, thanks to his story, squeezed himself in beside Histiaeus and fell to dining on what was left. His coming was a special dispensation, for he proved very useful in what followed.

LYCINUS

You see, a servant came into the midst of us, saying that he was from Hetoemocles the Stoic and carrying a paper which he said his master had told him to read in public, so that everybody would hear, and then to go back again. On getting the consent of Aristaenetus, he went up to the lamp and began to read.

PHILO

I suppose, Lycinus, that it was an address in praise of the bride, or else a wedding-song? They often write such pieces.

LYCINUS

Of course we ourselves expected something of the sort, but it was far from that: its contents were: