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, As a Cynic, the man should wear his hair long; but we are informed that he has Stoic leanings (§ 31). 
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. Iliad, IX, 312 (= Odyssey, XIV, 156) and313, which reads ὅς χ' ἕτερον ἐν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ. 
 HERMES 
Then you must needs hate Scarabee!
 WOMAN 
Ever his host he abuseth, if anyone showeth him
kindness. Iliad, II, 354, with a slight change, ῥέξεν for ῥέξαι. Iliad, I, 325; TI, 202, 246 (the close is Lucian’s: Homer has λιγύς, περ ἐὼν. ἀγορητής), and 214, or 
 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! Iliad, VI, 181 and182 with liberal alterations. The original is: Πρόσθε λέων, ὄπιθεν δὲ δράκων, μέσση δὲ χίμαιρα δεινὸν ἀποπνείουσα πυρὸς μένος αἰθομένοιο.