MNESILOCHUS. That's a clever notion, thoroughly worthy of you. The prize for trickery is ours. EURIPIDES. Silence! MNESILOCHUS. What's the matter? EURIPIDES. Here comes Agathon. MNESILOCHUS. Where, where? EURIPIDES. That's the man they are bringing out yonder on the machine.[548] MNESILOCHUS. I am blind then! I see no man here, I only see Cyrené.[549] EURIPIDES. Be still! He is getting ready to sing. MNESILOCHUS. What subtle trill, I wonder, is he going to warble to us? AGATHON. Damsels, with the sacred torch[550] in hand, unite your dance to shouts of joy in honour of the nether goddesses; celebrate the freedom of your country. CHORUS. To what divinity is your homage addressed? I wish to mingle mine with it. AGATHON. Oh! Muse! glorify Phoebus with his golden bow, who erected the walls of the city of the Simois.[551] CHORUS. To thee, oh Phoebus, I dedicate my most beauteous songs; to thee, the sacred victor in the poetical contests. AGATHON. And praise Artemis too, the maiden huntress, who wanders on the mountains and through the woods.... CHORUS. I, in my turn, celebrate the everlasting happiness of the chaste Artemis, the mighty daughter of Latona! AGATHON. ... and Latona and the tones of the Asiatic lyre, which wed so well with the dances of the Phrygian Graces.[552] CHORUS. I do honour to the divine Latona and to the lyre, the mother of songs of male and noble strains. The eyes of the goddess sparkle while listening to our enthusiastic chants. Honour to the powerful Phoebus! Hail! thou blessed son of Latona! MNESILOCHUS. Oh! ye venerable Genetyllides,[553] what tender and voluptuous songs! They surpass the most lascivious kisses in sweetness; I feel a thrill of delight pass up my rectum as I listen to them. Young man, whoever you are, answer my questions, which I am borrowing from Aeschylus' 'Lycurgeia.'[554] Whence comes this effeminate? What is his country? his dress? What contradictions his life shows! A lyre and a hair-net! A wrestling school oil flask and a girdle![555] What could be more contradictory? What relation has a mirror to a sword? And you yourself, who are you? Do you pretend to be a man? Where is the sign of your manhood, your penis, pray? Where is the cloak, the footgear that belong to that sex? Are you a woman? Then where are your breasts? Answer me. But you keep silent. Oh! just as you choose; your songs display your character quite sufficiently. AGATHON. Old man, old man, I hear the shafts of jealousy whistling by my ears, but they do not hit me. My dress is in harmony with my thoughts. A poet must adopt the nature of his characters. Thus, if he is placing women on the stage, he must contract all their habits in his own person. MNESILOCHUS. Then you ride the high horse[556] when you are composing a Phaedra. AGATHON. If the heroes are men, everything in him will be manly. What we don't possess by nature, we must acquire by imitation.