MEGAPENTHES

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.

CLOTHO

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

MEGAPENTHES

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.

CLOTHO

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

MEGAPENTHES

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.

CLOTHO

Never mind; someone else will build the wall.

MEGAPENTHES

But this request at all events is reasonable.

CLOTHO

What request?

MEGAPENTHES

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.

CLOTHO

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