WAR (_enters carrying a mortar_). Oh! mortals, mortals, wretched mortals, how your jaws will snap! TRYGAEUS. Oh! divine Apollo! what a prodigious big mortar! Oh, what misery the very sight of War causes me! This then is the foe from whom I fly, who is so cruel, so formidable, so stalwart, so solid on his legs! WAR. Oh! Prasiae![275] thrice wretched, five times, aye, a thousand times wretched! for thou shalt be destroyed this day. TRYGAEUS. This does not yet concern us over much; 'tis only so much the worse for the Laconians. WAR. Oh! Megara! Megara! how utterly are you going to be ground up! what fine mincemeat[276] are you to be made into! TRYGAEUS. Alas! alas! what bitter tears there will be among the Megarians![277] WAR. Oh, Sicily! you too must perish! Your wretched towns shall be grated like this cheese.[278] Now let us pour some Attic honey[279] into the mortar. TRYGAEUS. Oh! I beseech you! use some other honey; this kind is worth four obols; be careful, oh! be careful of our Attic honey. WAR. Hi! Tumult, you slave there! TUMULT. What do you want? WAR. Out upon you! You stand there with folded arms. Take this cuff o' the head for your pains. TUMULT. Oh! how it stings! Master, have you got garlic in your fist, I wonder? WAR. Run and fetch me a pestle. TUMULT. But we haven't got one; 'twas only yesterday 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.