Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol1.djvu/200

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. And I too, verily, such a one as I never beheld before. But do you tell yours first.

. Methought an eagle, very large, flew down into the forum, and snatched up in its talons a shield covered with brass, and bore it aloft towards heaven. And then methought Cleonymus had thrown it away.

. Cleonymus, then, differs in no wise from a riddle. "How, pray," some one will say to his drinking companions, "happens it that the same beast on the earth, and in heaven, and in the sea, threw away his shield?"

. Ah me! What evil then will happen to me, who have seen such a vision?

. Do not be concerned, for nothing strange will happen; no, by the gods.

. Yet, in truth, a man who has cast away his arms, is a strange thing. Come, tell yours, in return.

. Why, it is important; for it relates to the whole of the hull of the state.

. Then tell me quickly the keel of the matter.

. About my first sleep, some sheep sitting together with staffs and cloaks, appeared to me to be holding an assembly in the Pnyx. And then, methought a whale, a receiveress-general, having the voice of a bloated sow, made a speech to these sheep.

. Faugh!

. What's the matter?