4–6
TIMOLAUS
Oh, no, let us go on. He has probably already passed us, rushing off to the city, when he couldn’t find us again. In any case Adimantus knows the road, and there is no danger of his going astray if we desert him.
LYCINUS
Isn’t it rather churlish to go off and leave a friend? But let us walk on all the same, if Samippus agrees.
SAMIPPUS
Certainly; we may find the gymnasium still open. Incidentally, what a huge ship!
5
A hundred and twenty cubits long, the ship-wright said, and well over a quarter as wide, and from deck to bottom, where it is deepest, in the bilge, twenty-nine. Then, what a tall mast, what a yard to carry! What a fore-stay to hold it up! How gently the poop curves up, with a little golden goose below! And correspondingly at the opposite end, the prow juts right out in front, with figures of the goddess, Isis, after whom the ship is named, on either side. And the other decorations, the paintings and the topsail blazing like fire, anchors in front of them, and capstans, and windlasses, and the cabins on the poop—all very wonderful to me.
You could put the number of sailors at an army of soldiers. She was said to carry corn enough to feed all Attica for a year. And all this a little old man, a wee fellow, has kept from harm by turning the huge rudders with a tiny tiller. He was pointed out to me—a man with receding curly hair. Heron was his name, I believe.
TIMOLAUS
He was wonderful at his job, those aboard said: wiser than Proteus at things to do with the sea.
