SERVANT OF AGATHON. Silence! oh, people! keep your mouths sedately shut! The chorus of the Muses is moulding songs at my master's hearth. Let the winds hold their breath in the silent Ether! Let the azure waves cease murmuring on the shore!... MNESILOCHUS. Brououou! brououou! (_Imitates the buzzing of a fly._) EURIPIDES. Keep quiet! what are you saying there? SERVANT. ... Take your rest, ye winged races, and you, ye savage inhabitants of the woods, cease from your erratic wandering ... MNESILOCHUS. Broum, broum, brououou. SERVANT. ... for Agathon, our master, the sweet-voiced poet, is going ... MNESILOCHUS. ... to be pedicated? SERVANT. Whose voice is that? MNESILOCHUS. 'Tis the silent Ether. SERVANT. ... is going to construct the framework of a drama. He is rounding fresh poetical forms, he is polishing them in the lathe and is welding them; he is hammering out sentences and metaphors; he is working up his subject like soft wax. First he models it and then he casts it in bronze ... MNESILOCHUS. ... and sways his buttocks amorously. SERVANT. Who is the rustic who approaches this sacred enclosure? MNESILOCHUS. Take care of yourself and of your sweet-voiced poet! I have a strong instrument here both well rounded and well polished, which will pierce your enclosure and penetrate your bottom. SERVANT. Old man, you must have been a very insolent fellow in your youth! EURIPIDES (_to the servant_). Let him be, friend, and, quick, go and call Agathon to me. SERVANT. 'Tis not worth the trouble, for he will soon be here himself. He has started to compose, and in winter[546] it is never possible to round off strophes without coming to the sun to excite the imagination. (_He departs._) MNESILOCHUS. And what am I to do? EURIPIDES. Wait till he comes.... Oh, Zeus! what hast thou in store for me to-day? MNESILOCHUS. But, great gods, what is the matter then? What are you grumbling and groaning for? Tell me; you must not conceal anything from your father-in-law. EURIPIDES. Some great misfortune is brewing against me. MNESILOCHUS. What is it? EURIPIDES. This day will decide whether it is all over with Euripides or not. MNESILOCHUS. But how? Neither the tribunals nor the Senate are sitting, for it is the third of the five days consecrated to Demeter.[547] EURIPIDES. That is precisely what makes me tremble; the women have plotted my ruin, and to-day they are to gather in the Temple of Demeter to execute their decision. MNESILOCHUS. Why are they against you? EURIPIDES. Because I mishandle them in my tragedies. MNESILOCHUS. By Posidon, you would seem to have thoroughly deserved your fate. But how are you going to get out of the mess? EURIPIDES. I am going to beg Agathon, the tragic poet, to go to the Thesmophoria. MNESILOCHUS. And what is he to do there? EURIPIDES. He would mingle with the women, and stand up for me, if needful. MNESILOCHUS. Would he be openly present or secretly? EURIPIDES. Secretly, dressed in woman's clothes.