This parting shot at the tragedian’s family antecedents (for his mother was said to have been a herb-woman) is quite in the style of Athenian wit, which was nothing if not personal. Euripides very naturally orders the door to be shut in the face of this uncivil intruder,--who has got all he wanted, however. Clad in the appropriate costume, he lays his head on the chopping-block, while one of the Chorus stands over him with an axe; and in this ludicrous position makes one of those addresses to the audience which were usual in these comedies, in which the poet assumes for the moment his own character, and takes the house into his personal confidence. As he has already told Euripides,-- “For I must wear a beggar’s garb to-day, Yet be myself in spite of my disguise, That the audience all may know me.” He will venture upon a little plain-speaking to his fellow-Athenians, upon a very delicate subject, as he is well aware. But at this January festival, unlike the greater one in March, no foreigners were likely to be present, so that all that was said might be considered as between friends. “The words I speak are bold, but just and true. Cleon, at least, cannot accuse me now, That I defame the city before strangers. For this is the Lenæan festival, And here we meet, all by ourselves alone; No deputies are arrived as yet with tribute, No strangers or allies; but here we sit, A chosen sample, clean as sifted corn, With our own denizens as a kind of chaff. First, I detest the Spartans most extremely; And wish that Neptune, the Tænarian deity, Would bury them and their houses with his earthquakes. For I’ve had losses--losses, let me tell ye, Like other people: vines cut down and ruined. But, among friends (for only friends are here), Why should we blame the Spartans for all this? For people of ours, some people of our own,-- Some people from amongst us here, I mean; But not The PEOPLE--pray remember that-- I never said The PEOPLE--but a pack Of paltry people, mere pretended citizens, Base counterfeits, went laying informations, And making confiscation of the jerkins Imported here from Megara; pigs, moreover, Pumpkins, and pecks of salt, and ropes of onions, Were voted to be merchandise from Megara, Denounced, and seized, and sold upon the spot.”--(F.) He goes on to mention other aggressions on the part of his own countrymen--to wit, the carrying off from Megara a young woman, no great loss to any community in point of personal character, but still a Megarian--aggressions not of much importance in themselves, but such as he feels sure no high-spirited nation could be expected to put up with:-- “Just make it your own case; suppose the Spartans Had manned a boat, and landed on your islands, And stolen a pug puppy-dog from Seriphos”-- why, as he says, the whole nation would have flown to arms at once to avenge the insult.