13–15
CHARON
How very funny! But now who would dare to look at them, so disdainful are they of the rest of the world? And who could believe that after a little the one will be a prisoner and the other will have his head in a sack of blood?
But who is that man, Hermes, with the purple mantle about him, the one with the crown, to whom the cook, who has just cut open the fish, is giving the ring, All in a sea-girt island; a king he would have us believe him The verse is composed of the beginning of Odyssey1, 50 and the end of Odyssey 1, 180.?Another allusion to a story in Herodotus (3, 39-43).
HERMES
You are good at parody, Charon. The man whom you see is Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, who considers himself wholly fortunate; yet the servant who stands at his elbow, Maeandrius, will betray him into the hands of the satrap Oroetes, and he will be crucified, poor man, after losing his good fortune inamoment’s time. This, too, I heard trom Clotho.
CHARON
Well done, Clotho, noble lady that you are! Burn them, gracious lady, cut off their heads and crucify them, so that they may know they are human. In the meantime let them be exalted, only to have a sorrier fall from a higher place. For my part I shall laugh when I recognize them aboard my skiff, stripped to the skin, taking with them neither purple mantle nor tiara nor throne of gold.
HERMES
That is the way their lives will end. But do you see the masses, Charon, the men voyaging, fighting, litigating, farming, lending money, and begging?
