POET. My Muse will gladly accept this gift; but engrave these verses of Pindar's on your mind. PISTHETAERUS. Oh! what a pest! 'Tis impossible then to be rid of him. POET. "Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic." Do you conceive my bent? PISTHETAERUS. I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (_to Euelpides_), take off yours; we must help the poet.... Come, you, take it and begone. POET. I am going, and these are the verses that I address to this city: "Phoebus of the golden throne, celebrate this shivery, freezing city; I have travelled through fruitful and snow-covered plains. Tralala! Tralala!"[288] PISTHETAERUS. What are you chanting us about frosts? Thanks to the tunic, you no longer fear them. Ah! by Zeus! I could not have believed this cursed fellow could so soon have learnt the way to our city. Come, priest, take the lustral water and circle the altar. PRIEST. Let all keep silence! A PROPHET. Let not the goat be sacrificed.[289] PISTHETAERUS. Who are you? PROPHET. Who am I? A prophet. PISTHETAERUS. Get you gone. PROPHET. Wretched man, insult not sacred things. For there is an oracle of Bacis, which exactly applies to Nephelococcygia. PISTHETAERUS. Why did you not reveal it to me before I founded my city? PROPHET. The divine spirit was against it. PISTHETAERUS. Well, 'tis best to know the terms of the oracle. PROPHET. "But when the wolves and the white crows shall dwell together between Corinth and Sicyon...."[290] PISTHETAERUS. But how do the Corinthians concern me? PROPHET. 'Tis the regions of the air that Bacis indicated in this manner. "They must first sacrifice a white-fleeced goat to Pandora, and give the prophet, who first reveals my words, a good cloak and new sandals." PISTHETAERUS. Are the sandals there? PROPHET. Read. "And besides this a goblet of wine and a good share of the entrails of the victim." PISTHETAERUS. Of the entrails--is it so written? PROPHET. Read. "If you do as I command, divine youth, you shall be an eagle among the clouds; if not, you shall be neither turtle-dove, nor eagle, nor woodpecker." PISTHETAERUS. Is all that there? PROPHET. Read. PISTHETAERUS. This oracle in no sort of way resembles the one Apollo dictated to me: "If an impostor comes without invitation to annoy you during the sacrifice and to demand a share of the victim, apply a stout stick to his ribs." PROPHET. You are drivelling. PISTHETAERUS. "And don't spare him, were he an eagle from out of the clouds, were it Lampon himself[291] or the great Diopithes."[292] PROPHET. Is all that there? PISTHETAERUS. Here, read it yourself, and go and hang yourself. PROPHET. Oh! unfortunate wretch that I am. PISTHETAERUS. Away with you, and take your prophecies elsewhere. METON.[293] I have come to you.