Lexiphanes (16-20)

LYCINUS Enough, Lexiphanes, both of the drinking-party and of the reading. I am already half-seas-over and squeamish, and if I do not very soon jettison all this gallimaufry of yours, depend upon it, I expect to go raving crazy with the roaring in my ears from the words with which you have showered me. At first I was inclined to laugh at it all, but when it turned out to be such a quantity and all of a sort, I pitied you for your hard luck, seeing that you had fallen into a labyrinthine maze from which there was no escaping and were afflicted with the most serious of all illnesses—I mean, were as mad as a hatter.

But what luck! here I see Sopolis the physician drawing near. Come now, suppose we put you in his hands, have a consultation with him about your complaint, and find some cure for you. The man is clever, and often before now, taking charge of people like yourself, half crazed and full of drivel, he has relieved them with his doses of medicine. —Good-day to you, Sopolis. Do take charge of Lexiphanes here, who is my friend, as you know, and at present has on him a nonsensical, outlandish distemper affecting his speech which is likely to be the death of him outright. Do save him in one way or another.

LEXIPHANES Not me, Sopolis, but this man Lycinus, who is patently maggoty and thinks that well-furnished heads want wits, and imposes silence and a truce of the tongue upon us in the style of the son of Mnesarchus, the Samian.[*]_ But I protest, by bashless Athena and by mighty Heracles, slayer of ferines, I shan’t bother even a flock or a doit about him! In fact I abominate meeting him at all, and I am fit to snort when I hear him pass such censure. Any-

SOPOLIS What ails him, Lycinus?

LYCINUS Just that, Sopolis! Can’t you hear how he talks? Abandoning us, who converse with him now, he talks to us from a thousand years ago, distorting his language, making these preposterous combinations, and taking himself very seriously in the matter, as if it were a great thing for him to use an alien idiom and debase the established currency of speech.

SOPOLIS By Zeus, it is no trivial disorder you tell of, Lycinus. The man must be helped by all means. As good luck would have it, I came away with this medicine, made up for an insane person, so that by taking it he might throw off his bile. Come, you be the first to take it, Lexiphanes, that we may have you cured and cleansed, once you have rid yourself of such impossible language. Do obey me and take it, and you will feel better.

LEXIPHANES I don’t know what you and Lycinus mean to do to me, Sopolis, plying me with this drench. Indeed, I fear your draught may chill my vocabulary.

LEXIPHANES There, I obey and drink. Oh me, what is this? The bombilation is vast! I would seem to have swallowed a familiar spirit.[*]