_Dic._ Perhaps-- But here’s the scene-shifter can wheel you round. _Eur._ It cannot be. _Dic._ But, however, notwithstanding. _Eur._ Well, there then, I’m wheeled round; for I had not time For coming down. _Dic._ Euripides, I say! _Eur._ What say ye? _Dic._ Euripides! Euripides! Good lawk, you’re there! up-stairs! you write up-stairs, Instead of the ground-floor? always up-stairs? Well now, that’s odd! But, dear Euripides, If you had but a suit of rags that you could lend me! You’re he that brings out cripples in your tragedies, A’nt ye?[20] You’re the new Poet, he that writes Those characters of beggars and blind people? Well, dear Euripides, if could you but lend me A suit of tatters from a cast-off tragedy! For mercy’s sake, for I’m obliged to make A speech, in my own defence before the Chorus, A long pathetic speech, this very day; And if it fails, the doom of death betides me. _Eur._ Say, what d’ye seek? is it the woful garb In which the wretched aged Æneus acted? _Dic._ No, ’twas a wretcheder man than Æneus, much. _Eur._ Was it blind Phœnix? _Dic._ No, not Phœnix; no, A fellow a great deal wretcheder than Phœnix.”--(F.) After some further suggestions on the part of Euripides of other tragic characters, whose piteous “get-up” might excite the compassion of audience or judges, it turns out that the costume on which the applicant has set his heart is that in which Telephus the Mysian, in the tragedy which bears his name, pleads before Achilles, to beg that warrior to heal, as his touch alone could do, the wound which he had made. The whole scene should be read, if not in the original, then in Mr Frere’s admirable translation. Dicæopolis begs Euripides to lend him certain other valuable stage properties, one after the other: a beggar’s staff,--a little shabby basket,--a broken-lipped pitcher. The tragedian grows out of patience at last at this wholesale plagiarism of his dramatic repertory:-- “_Eur._ Fellow, you’ll plunder me a whole tragedy! Take it, and go. _Dic._ Yes; I forsooth, I’m going. But how shall I contrive? There’s something more That makes or mars my fortune utterly; Yet give them, and bid me go, my dear Euripides; A little bundle of leaves to line my basket. _Eur._ For mercy’s sake!... But take them.--There they go! My tragedies and all! ruined and robbed! _Dic._ No more; I mean to trouble you no more. Yes, I retire; in truth I feel myself Importunate, intruding on the presence Of chiefs and princes, odious and unwelcome. But out, alas! that I should so forget The very point on which my fortune turns; I wish I may be hanged, my dear Euripides, If ever I trouble you for anything, Except one little, little, little boon,-- A single lettuce from your mother’s stall.”--(F.)