68 ARISTOPHANES.

flus. “Yea, let him spend his days in peace, and sit,
His wife beside him, by a blazing hearth.”
“If any armourer, who would sell his arms,
Love battle more than peace, a curse upon him ! 1
ffus. “And whoso, greedy for a general’s pay,
Holds back and helps us not, a curse upon him !”
L, “ Again I pour to Hermes, to the Hours,
The sister Graces, and the Queen of Love,
And fond Desire.”
fTus. “And shall we say to Ares ?”
7. “To Ares? Heaven forbid it! Name him not.”
(Spits on the ground in disgust.)

sy

This ceremony ended, all set to work, and pulled
away at the rope with which the prisoners, that is, ~
Peace and her attendants, were to be hauled out of
their dungeon. Hermes encouraged them, and Try-
geeus watched to see that none shirked their task.
This, indeed, he soon found some inclined to do.
The Boeotians’ were very lukewarm, and made only
a show of working. Then some of his own country-
men, such as Lamachus,? did nothing but get in the
way, while the men of Argos made no effort at all,
but laughed at both sides, and took their profit from
each. As for the men of Megara, they seemed eager

1 The Boeotians were not anxious for peace. They had suffered
little by the war, and they had gained great’ credit by the crushing
defeat which they had inflicted on the Athenian army at Delium.
As a matter of fact, they refused to join in the Peace of Nicias,
and would do nothing more than make a truce of indefinite length,
which might be terminated at ten days’ notice, with their Athenian

neighbours,
2 The General Dobattle of the Charcoal-burners.