The Ferry (8-10)

Come, let me know who he is.

Megapenthes, son of Lakydes, a despot.

Come aboard.

Not for worlds, Madam Klotho. Let me go up for a little while. Then I will come to you by my own free-will at no one's summons.

What is the reason you want to go?

Give me time to finish my house. I left my dwelling behind half built.

Nonsense! Get in.

I do not ask for a long time, Fate. Let me stay just this one day, to appear to my wife and tell her something about my moneywhere I kept my great treasure hidden.

It is fixed. You cannot do it.

Then will all that gold be lost?

Not at all; you may be at ease about that. Your cousin Megakles will get hold of it.

Oh, what an affront! My enemy, whom I was too easy-going to put to death before me?

The same. He will survive you forty years and something over, in possession of your harem and your clothes and all your wealth.

It is unjust, Klotho, to assign my property to my greatest enemies.

I suppose, my noble sir, that you did not seize it when it belonged to Kydimachos, murdering the man himself and then slaying his children on their father's warm body?

But at present it was mine.

Well, your time of possession had run out.

Listen, Klotho. There is something I should like to say to you in private without witnesses. You others step aside a moment. If you will give me a chance to run away I promise to give you this day a million dollars in coin of the realm.

You are absurd. Can you not get gold and dollars out of your head yet?

I will throw in the two bowls, if you like, that I got when I killed Kleakritos. kam

Drag him in, for apparently he will not embark of his own will.

I call you people to witness that my wall and my dockyards are unfinished. I could have completed them if I had lived five days longer.

Never mind. Some one else will build them.

Anyhow, this one thing it is perfectly reasonable to ask for.

What is that?

To come to life long enough to subdue the Persians, and impose taxes on the Lydians, and raise a huge monument to myself, inscribing on it how many great and warlike deeds I did in my lifetime.

My man, this is not asking for a single day any longer, but to spend about twenty years.

I am ready, moreover, to furnish sureties for my quickness and my reappearance. If you wish it, I will even provide you a substitute in my place in the person of my one beloved son.

You wretch, him whom you have often prayed you might leave behind you?

That used to be my prayer, but now I see the better course.

He, too, will join you soon, slain by the new king.