That is how things go on board your ship, sir wiseacre; and who shall count the wrecks? If there had been a captain supervising and directing, in the first place he would have known the difference between good and bad passengers, and in the second he would have given them their deserts; the better would have had the better accommodation above by his side, and the worse gone below; with some of the better he would have shared his meals and his counsels. So too for the crew: the keen sailor would have been made look-out man or captain of the watch, or given some sort of precedence, and the lazy shirker have tasted the rope’s end half a dozen times a day. The metaphorical ship, your worship, is likely to be capsized by its captain’s incompetence. Mo_. He is sweeping on to victory, with wind and tide. _Zeus_. Too probable, Momus. And Timocles never gets hold of an effective idea; he can only ladle out trite commonplaces higgledy-piggledy—no sooner heard than refuted. _Ti. Well, well; my ship leaves you unconvinced; I must drop my sheet-anchor, then; that at least is unbreakable. Zeus_. I wonder what it is. _Ti. See whether this is a sound syllogism; can you upset it?—If there are altars, there are Gods: there_ are _altars; therefore, there are Gods. Now then. Da. Ha, ha, ha! I will answer as soon as I can get done with laughing. Ti. Will you never stop? At least tell me what the joke is. Da. Why, you don’t see that your anchor (sheet-anchor, too) hangs by a mere thread. You defend on connexion between the existence of Gods and the existence of altars, and fancy yourself safe at anchor! As you admit that this was your sheet-anchor, there is nothing further to detain us. Ti. You retire; you confess yourself beaten, then? Da. Yes; we have seen you take sanctuary at the altars under persecution. At those altars I am ready (the sheet-anchor be my witness) to swear peace and cease from strife. Ti. Tou are playing with me, are you, you vile body-snatcher, you loathsome well-whipped scum! As if we didn’t know who your father was, how your mother was a harlot! You strangled your own brother, you live in fornication, you debauch the young, you unabashed lecher! Don’t be in such a hurry; here is something for you to take with you; this broken pot will serve me to cut your foul throat. Zeus_. Damis makes off with a laugh, and the other after him, calling him names, mad at his insolence. He will get him on the head with that pottery, I know. And now, what are we to do? _Herm_. Why, the man in the comedy was not far out: Put a good face on ‘t, and thou hast no harm. It is no such terrible disaster, if a few people go away infected. There are plenty who take the other view—a majority of Greeks, the body and dregs of the people, and the barbarians to a man. _Zeus_. Ah, Hermes, but there is a great deal in Darius’s remark about Zopyrus—I would rather have had one ally like Damis than be the lord of a thousand Babylons. THE COCK