198 ARISTOPHANES.

Fur. “One only temple has Persuasion — Speech.”
sch. “ Alone among the gods Death loves not gifts.”

Bac. “There it is; down again.”

Eur. “J am sure that what I said about Persua-
sion was very fine.”

Bac. “ But Persuasion is a light thing, while Death
is the heaviest of all evils. Well, you shall have
one more trial, and this must be the last. Think,
Euripides, of something solid to weigh him down.”

Eur. “T have it: —

“¢His right hand grasped an iron-weighted spear.’”
sch. “Chariot on chariot piled, and corpse on corpse.”

Bac. “There, he has done you again!”

Eur. “How?” ,

Bac. “Why, by bringing in a couple of chariots
and two corpses, more than a hundred Egyptians
could lift.”

isch. “Come, no more single lines. Let him
put himself and his wife and his children and all
his books and his ghost! to boot into the scale, and
I will weigh them all down with a couple of verses.”

1A “ghost” in artistic and literary slang is an unacknowledged
assistant who does part or even the whole of an artist’s or writer’s
work. He visits the study or the studio unseen, and works at the
painting, the statue, or the book of which some one else is to get the
credit. Cephisophon, who is named in the text, was accustomed to
take the chief part in the plays of Euripides, and it was commonly
said in Athens that he assisted the poet in the composition of them.