62 ARISTOPHANES.

T. “Yes, yes; that is exactly what we said.”

Ao. “The end, of it al is that yous will peeb ayy
never see Peace again.”

T. “What? Where is she gone, then?”

H. “War has thrown her into a deep pit.”

ZT. “What pit?”

_H. “The one you see down there. Just look at
the heap of stones he has piled on the top to prevent
you from getting her out.”

T. “And what does he mean to do with us?”

H. “That I can’t say. I only know that last
night he brought a monstrously large mortar into the
house.”

T. “What can he want with a mortar! » %

H. “He is thinking of pounding the cities up in
it. But I must be going. I hear him making a
noise inside, and I think that he is coming out.”

The next moment, War, a fully armed figure, with
a great nodding plume, came out of the palace of the
gods, carrying in his hands a huge mortar, and mut-
tering, as he went, about a bad time coming for men.
He set the mortar on the ground, and began throw-
ing in the ingredients for a salad. First came leeks.
“Yow'll be nicely pounded up, my friends,” said he,
as he threw them in.!

1The. joke cannot be translated. The explanation is this: The
Greek word for a leek is gvason. War accordingly throws in a town
called Prasie. This was on the Spartan coast, and had been taken by
Pericles early in the war. Hence the remark of Trygzeus that follows.