120
ay we moved.
WAR. Go and fetch me one from Athens, and hurry, hurry!
TUMULT. Aye, I hasten there; if I return without one, I shall have no cause for laughing. [Exit.
TRYGAEUS. Ah! what is to become of us, wretched mortals that we are? See the danger that threatens if he returns with the pestle, for War will quietly amuse himself with pounding all the towns of Hellas to pieces. Ah! Bacchus! cause this herald of evil to perish on his road!
WAR. Well!
TUMULT (who has returned). Well, what?
WAR. You have brought back nothing?
TUMULT. Alas! the Athenians have lost their pestle--the tanner, who ground Greece to powder.[280]
TRYGAEUS. Oh! Athené, venerable mistress! 'tis well for our city he is dead, and before he could serve us with this hash.
WAR. Then go and seek one at Sparta and have done with it!
TUMULT. Aye, aye, master!
WAR. Be back as quick as ever you can.
TRYGAEUS (to the audience). What is going to happen, friends? 'Tis a critical hour. Ah! if there is some initiate of Samothrace[281] among you, 'tis surely the moment to wish this messenger some accident--some sprain or strain.
TUMULT (who returns). Alas! alas! thrice again, alas!
WAR. What is it? Again you come back without it?
TUMULT. The Spartans too have lost their pestle.
WAR. How, varlet?
TUMULT. They had lent it to their allies in Thrace,[282] who have lost it for them.
TRYGAEUS. Long life to you, Thracians! My hopes revive, pluck up courage, mortals!
WAR. Take all this stuff away; I am going in to make a pestle for myself.
TRYGAEUS. 'Tis now the time to sing as Datis did, as he masturbated himself at high noon, "Oh pleasure! oh enjoyment! oh delights!" 'Tis now, oh Greeks! the moment when freed of quarrels and fighting, we should rescue sweet Peace and draw her out of this pit, before some other pestle prevents us. Come, labourers, merchants, workmen,