POSIDON.[360] This is the city of Nephelococcygia, Cloud-cuckoo-town, whither we come as ambassadors. (To Triballus.) Hi! what are you up to? you are throwing your cloak over the left shoulder. Come, fling it quick over the right! And why, pray, does it draggle this fashion? Have you ulcers to hide like Laespodias?[361] Oh! democracy![362] whither, oh! whither are you leading us? Is it possible that the gods have chosen such an envoy?
TRIBALLUS. Leave me alone.
POSIDON. Ugh! the cursed savage! you are by far the most barbarous of all the gods.--Tell me, Heracles, what are we going to do?
HERACLES. I have already told you that I want to strangle the fellow who has dared to block us in.
POSIDON. But, my friend, we are envoys of peace.
HERACLES. All the more reason why I wish to strangle him.
[360] Posidon appears on the stage accompanied by Heracles and a Triballian god.
[361] An Athenian general.--Neptune is trying to give Triballus some notions of elegance and good behaviour.
[362] Aristophanes supposes that democracy is in the ascendant in Olympus as it is in Athens.
Studies
