THE FROGS. ‘197

Bac. “No, no; you can’t get rid of the flask. It
sticks to your verses just like a sty on a man’s eye-
lid! We will go to something else.”

isch. “1 am for the balance and elite Let
that decide between us.”

Bac. “Well, if you will have it so, though it seems
odd to deal with the work of a couple of poets as
a cheesemonger with his cheeses. Boy, bring out
a pair of scales. Now, then, stand each of you by
one of the scales, take a verse, but don’t drop it till
I say ‘cuckoo.’ ”

Jiscth.and Eur. “We are ready.”

Bac. “Now, then!”

Fur. Would that the good ship Argon e’er had sped —”
sch. “Stream of Spercheius, and ye pasturing herds !”

Bac. “Now, then, ‘cuckoo’! See, Aéschylus’s
scale is much lower.”

Eur. “What is the reason of that?”

Bac. “Why, he did what the wool-sellers do with
their wool: he damped his verse with a whole river,
while yours was a very airy affair.”

Eur. “Let us have another trial.”

Bac. “Very good. Are you ready? :

Asch, and Eur. “Yes.”

Bac. “Go on, then.”

1 Aristophanes may be supposed to be ridiculing the monotonous
cadences and unvarying pauses of Euripides’s verse, as well as the
commonplace character of his subjects.