CINESIAS. I have a better all ready for your service, darling. Come, you provoking creature, to bed with you, and don't bring another thing. MYRRHINÉ. Coming, coming; I'm just slipping off my shoes. Dear boy, will you vote for peace? CINESIAS. I'll think about it. (_Myrrhiné runs away._) I'm a dead man, she is killing me! She has gone, and left me in torment! I must have someone to fuck, I must! Ah me! the loveliest of women has choused and cheated me. Poor little lad (_addressing his penis_), how am I to give you what you want so badly? Where is Cynalopex? quick, man, get him a nurse, do![451] CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Poor, miserable wretch, baulked in your amorousness! what tortures are yours! Ah! you fill me with pity. Could any man's back and loins stand such a strain? His organ stands stiff and rigid, and there's never a wench to help him! CINESIAS. Ye gods in heaven, what pains I suffer! CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Well, there it is; 'tis her doing, that abandoned hussy! CINESIAS. Nay, nay! rather say that sweetest, dearest darling. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. That dearest darling? no, no, that hussy, say I! Zeus, thou god of the skies, canst not let loose a hurricane, to sweep them all up into the air, and whirl 'em round, then drop 'em down crash! and impale them on the point of his weapon! A HERALD. Say, where shall I find the Senate and the Prytanes? I am bearer of despatches. MAGISTRATE. But are you a man or a Priapus, pray?[452] HERALD. Oh! but he's mighty simple. I am a herald, of course, I swear I am, and I come from Sparta about making peace. MAGISTRATE. But look, you are hiding a lance under your clothes, surely. HERALD. No, nothing of the sort. MAGISTRATE. Then why do you turn away like that, and hold your cloak out from your body? Have you gotten swellings in the groin with your journey? HERALD. By the twin brethren! the man's an old maniac. MAGISTRATE. Ah, ha! my fine lad, why I can see it standing, oh fie! HERALD. I tell you no! but enough of this foolery. MAGISTRATE. Well, what is it you have there then? HERALD. A Lacedaemonian 'skytalé.'[453] MAGISTRATE. Oh, indeed, a 'skytalé,' is it? Well, well, speak out frankly; I know all about these matters. How are things going at Sparta now? HERALD. Why, everything is turned upside down at Sparta; and all the allies are half dead with lusting. We simply must have Pellené.[454] MAGISTRATE. What is the reason of it all? Is it the god Pan's doing? HERALD. No, but Lampito's and the Spartan women's, acting at her instigation; they have denied the men all access to their cunts. MAGISTRATE. But whatever do you do? HERALD. We are at our wits' end; we walk bent double, just as if we were carrying lanterns in a wind. The jades have sworn we shall not so much as touch their cunts till we have all agreed to conclude peace.