PEACE. 77

unsuitable, and packed the man off. A trumpeter
followed, wanting to sell a trumpet, which had cost
him, he said, two pounds ten. Trygzeus could only
suggest that he should fill it with lead, fasten a pair
of scales at the-top, and use it for weighing out
rations of figs for the labourers at the farm. A
helmet-maker was advised to take his helmets, which
had cost him, he said, four pounds, to Egypt, where
they might be used to measure medicines with, while
the man that burnished spears had an offer made
to him that if he would lop off the heads, and saw
the shafts in two, Trygzeus would buy them for vine
poles, at twelve a penny. The men went off greatly
insulted. Trygeeus now espied some singing boys,
whom the guests had brought with them by way of
contribution to the feast.  “ Come,” he said to one
of them, “stand here by me, and let me hear you
practise what you are going to sing.”

The boy began : —

“Sing of heroes, sing the younger.”

T. “None of that, boy; have done with your
heroes. -There is. peace, and I want to hear nothing
about them.” 4

1The word that excited Trygzeus’s wrath was that which stands for
“younger.” This is hoploteroi. It reminded him of hopla, the word
for arms, and the association of ideas is odious to him. The words
which the boy sings are the beginning of one of the poems of what is
called the epic cycle (poems relating in heroic verse the events begin-
ning with the Voyage of the Argo and ending with the Capture of
Thebes). This last was the subject of the LEpigont.