The Runaways (26-30)

HERMES Very well. But what is to be done now? How are we to track the beasts out?

HERACLES That is up to you, Hermes; you are a crier, so be quick and do your office.

HERMES Nothing hard about that, but I do not know their names. Tell me, Philosophy, what I am to call them, and their marks of identification as well.

PHILOSOPHY I myself do not know for certain what they are called, because of my not having had anything to do with them ever. But to judge from the craving for

riches which they have, you will not make any mistake if you call them Richman or Richmews or Richrenown or Goodrich or Richards.

HERMES Right you are.—But who are these people and why are they too looking about them? However, they are coming up and want to ask a question.

HUSBAND Could you tell us, gentlemen, or you, kind lady, whether you have seen three rogues together, and a woman with her hair closely clipped in the Spartan style, boyish-looking and quite masculine?

PHILOSOPHY Aha! They are looking for our quarry!

HUSBAND How yours? Those fellows are all fugitive slaves, and for my part I am particularly in search of the woman, whom they have kidnapped.

HERMES You will soon find out why we are in search of them. But at present let us make a joint proclamation. «If anyone has seen a Paphlagonian slave, one of those barbarians from Sinope, with a name of the kind that has ‘rich’ in it, sallow, close-cropped,[*] wearing a long beard, with a wallet slung from his shoulder and a short cloak about him, quick-

tempered, uneducated, harsh-voiced, and abusive, let him give information for the stipulated reward.”

FIRST SLAVE-OWNER Your proclamation does not tally, man! His name when I had him was Scarabee; furthermore, he wore his hair long, kept his chin hairless, and knew my trade. It was his business to sit in my fuller’s shop and shear off the excessive nap that makes cloaks fuzzy.

PHILOSOPHY That is the very man, your slave; but now he looks like a philosopher, for he has given himself a thorough dry-cleaning. FIRST SLAVE-OWNER (to Second and Third) The impudence of him! Scarabee is setting up for a philosopher, she says, and we do not enter into his speculations at all!

SECOND SLAVE-OWNER Never mind, we shall find them all, for this woman knows them, by what she says.

HERMES Who is this other person coming up, Heracles, the handsome man with the lyre?

HERACLES It is Orpheus, my shipmate on the Argo, the most tuneful of all chanteymen. Indeed, as we rowed to his singing, we hardly grew tired at all.

Good-day to you, Orpheus, best of men and first of musicians. Surely you have not forgotten Heracles.

ORPHEUS A very good-day to you also, Philosophy, Heracles, and Hermes. But the time has come to pay your reward, since I am very well acquainted with the man for whom you are looking.

HERMES Then show us where he is, son of Calliope, for you have no need of gold, I take it, being a wise man.

ORPHEUS You are right. I will show you the house where he lives, but not the man himself, so as not to be slanged by him. He is excessively foul-mouthed; that is the only thing he has thoroughly mastered.

HERMES Only show us.

ORPHEUS Here it is, close by. I am going away from your neighbourhood, so that I may not even see him.

PHILOSOPHY Hold! Is not that the voice of a woman, reciting something of Homer’s?

HERMES Yes, surely; but let us hear what she is saying.

WOMAN Hateful to me that man, no less than the portals of Hades, Who in his heart loves gold, and yet maintains that he does not.[*] HERMES Then you must needs hate Scarabee!

WOMAN Ever his host he abuseth, if anyone showeth him kindness.[*] HUSBAND That verse refers to me, for he went off with my wife because I took him in.

WOMAN Heavy with wine, dog-eyed, with the timid heart of a roe-deer, Never of any account in the fray or in giving of counsel, Loose-mouthed fool, Thersites, of evil jackdaws the foremost * Idle strife with kings to promote in no spirit of order! 8 FIRST SLAVE-OWNER The verses just fit the scoundrel!

WOMAN

Dog in the fore-parts, aye, and a lion behind; in the middle a she-goat,

Shedding the terrible reek of the third dog’s furious onslaught![*]