Lexiphanes (11-15)

‘As for me,’ said Eudemus, ‘I was sent for in the gloaming by Damasias, the athlete many-victoried of yore, now pithless from age; you know him in bronze in the market. He was busy with roast and boiled. He was this day to exdomesticate his daughter, and was decking her out for her husband, when a baleful incident occurred, which cleft the feast in twain. For Dion bis son, on grievance unknown, if it were not rather the hostility of Heaven, hanged himself 3 and be sure be was a dead man, had I not been there, and dislocated and loosed him from his implication, Long time I squatted a-knee, pricking and rocking, and sounding him, to see whether his throat was still whole. What profited most was compressure of the extremities with both my hands.’

‘What, Dion the effeminate, the libertine, the debauchee, the mastich-chewer, the too susceptible to amorous sights?’ ‘Yes;

‘Let us drink, then, said Megalonymus; ‘here have I brought you a flagon of antiquated wine, with cream cheese and windfall olives—I keep them under seal, and the seals are worm-eaten— and others brine-steeped, and these fictile cups, thin-edged, firmbased, that we might drink therefrom, and a pasty of tripe rolled like a top-knot.—Now, you sir, pour me in some more water; if my head begins to ache, I shall be sending for your master to talk to you.—You know, gentlemen, what megrims I get, and what a numskull mine is. After drinking, we will chirp a little as is our wont; 'tis not amiss to prate in one’s cups.’

'So be it, quoth I;

‘we are the very pink and perfection of the true Attic” ‘Done with you!’ says Callicles, ‘frequent quizzings are a whetstone of conversation” ‘For my part, cries Eudemus, ‘—it grows chill—I like my liquor stronger, and more of 1t; I am deathly cold; sf I could get some warmth into me, I had rather listen to these light-fingered gentry of flute and lyre?

‘What is this you say, Eudemus? says I; 'You would exact mutation from us? are we so hard-mouthed, so untongued'? For my tongue, tis garriturient. I was just getting under way, and making ready to hail you with a fine old Attic shower. 'Tis as if a three-master were satling before the breeze, with stay-sails wind-bellied, scudding along wave-skimming, and you should throw out two-tongued anchorage and iron stoppers and ship-fetters, and block her foaming course, in envy of her fair-windedness.’ ‘Why then, if you will, splash and dash and crash through the waves; and I upsoaring, and drinking