The Downward Journey, or the Tyrant (9)

Listen, Clotho, to something that I have to say to you in private, with nobody else listening. (Yo the others.) You people stand aside a moment. (Yo ctoruo) If you let me run away, I promise to give you a thousand talents of coined gold to-day.

What, you ridiculous creature, have you gold and talents still on the brain?

And I'll give you also, if you wish, the two winebowls that I got when I put Cleocritus to death; they are of refined gold and weigh a hundred talents each.

Hale him off: it seems that he won’t go aboard willingly.

I call you all to witness, the town wall and the docks remain unfinished. I could have finished them if I had lived only five days longer.

Never mind; someone else will build the wall.

But this request at all events is reasonable.

What request?

To live only long enough to subdue the Pisidians and subject the Lydians to tribute, and to build myself a huge mausoleum and inscribe on it all the great military exploits of my life.

Why, man, you are no longer asking for this one day, but for a stay of nearly twenty years!