Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/21

Rh creates no sensation. The King's Eye is invited with the usual honours to a Banquet in the Prytaneum; but when Dicæopolis sees these impostors and enemies of his country upon the point of being rewarded with a good dinner, the indignation which is excited in his independent spirit decides at once his future destinies and the conduct of all the scenes which follow. In that tone which a person is apt to employ when he fancies that the zeal of his friends gives him a right to command their services, he calls out very peremptorily for Amphitheus, and without any preamble or prefatory request, directs him to proceed to Sparta without loss of time, and to conclude a separate peace for him (Dicæopolis), his wife and family, advancing to him at the same time the principal sum of eight drachmas for that purpose.

Another Envoy now appears, returned from a Court of a different description. He has not, like the former, any complaints to make of having been overwhelmed with an excess of ostentation and profusion from the Grand Monarque of those times; he has resided with a sort of contemporary Czar Peter, the Autocrat of Thrace, having lived (of course according to his own account) in a most jolly barbarous intimacy with that rising potentate, and inspiring him with the sincerest hearty zeal in favour of the polished state of Athens. His son, the heir apparent, had been admitted by the Athenians to the freedom of their City, an honour which, in their opinion (as well as in that of Mr. Peter Putty in Foote's farce), any prince ought to be proud of; and the Assembly are accordingly informed of the delight and enthusiasm with which the compliment had been accepted. They are presented moreover with a specimen of the auxiliary troops, somewhat singularly equipped, which their new ally is willing to employ in their service, but at a rate of pay which Dicæopolis exclaims against as scandalous. He has soon other causes of complaint; for attracted by the passion for garlic, which it seems is predominant amongst them, the Odomantians (for that is the name of the tribe to which the new warriors belong) begin their operations by plundering the store which Dicæopolis had provided for his own luncheon; outrageous at this injury, after reproaching the Magistrates with their apathy in suffering it, he takes, what it seems was an effectual mode of dissolving the Assembly, by declaring that a storm is coming on, and affirming that he has felt a drop of rain.