SOSIAS. Enough, enough, spare me. Your dream stinks vilely of old leather.[5]
XANTHIAS. Then this scoundrelly whale seized a balance and set to weighing ox-fat.[6]
SOSIAS. Alas! 'tis our poor Athenian people, whom this accursed beast wished to cut up and despoil of their fat.
XANTHIAS. Seated on the ground close to it, I saw Theorus,[7] who had the head of a crow. The Alcibiades said to me in his lisping way, "Do you thee? Theoruth hath a crow'th head."[8]
SOSIAS. Ah! 'twas very well lisped indeed!
XANTHIAS. This is might strange; Theorus turning into a crow!
SOSIAS. No, it is glorious.
XANTHIAS. Why?
[5] An allusion to Cleon, who was a tanner.
[6] In Greek, [Greek: demos] ([Greek: demós], fat; [Greek: dêmos], people) means both fat and people.
[7] A tool of Cleon's; he had been sent on an embassy to Persia (vide 'The Acharnians'). The crow is a thief and rapacious, just as Theorus was.
[8] In his life of Alcibiades, Plutarch mentions this defect in his speech; or it may have been a 'fine gentleman' affectation.
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