32–33
SECOND SLAVE-OWNER And you, scoundrel! are you not Pomander, who ran away from me? Nobody else! O how you make me laugh! After that, what cannot happen? Even Pomander a philosopher!
HERMES This third fellow—has he no master among you? THIRD SLAVE-OWNER Yes, I am his master, but even so, I gladly consign him to perdition! Why?
HERMES THIRD SLAVE-OWNER Because he is a fearful sort of rotter. The name we used to call him was Stinkadore.
HERMES Heracles, deliver us! do you hear that? And then wallet and staff! Here, you! (to HusBaNpD) Take away your wife, yourself! HUSBAND Never in the world! I don’t care to take her away with an old book under her apron.
HERMES Book? What do you mean?
5
HUSBAND My dear fellow, there is a book called Tricipitine.The book called Three-Headed was an attack on Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, attributed to Theopompus (cf. below, p. 409) but probably written by Anaximenes. HERMES Nothing surprising in that, as there is one called Triphallic.The Triphales of Aristophanes, supposed to have been a scurrilous satire on Alcibiades.
PHILOSOPHY It is for you, Hermes, to give judgement now.
