PLUTUS, 227

Chrem. “Our slaves would do all this for us.” "
Pov. “But where would you get your slaves?”
Chrem. “ Buy them, to be sure.”

Pov. “But who would take the trouble to sell
them if he had money already?”

Chrem. “The slave-dealer, I suppose.”

Pov. “Not a bit of it. Who would risk his life
for money, when he could get it without? No; you
will have to do all these things for yourselves. No
more lying on couches, for couches there won’t be;
no more fine robes, for who will care to weave? no
more perfumes, not even on your wedding day. And
what will be the good of your riches without these
things? But stick to me, and you will have the nec-
essaries of life in plenty. It is I who stand by and
drive men to work by my strong compulsion.”

Chrem. “Oh, I know the sort of life you will give
us, — bawling children, and cross old women, and
buzzing gnats, and biting fleas, all bidding us get up
and work; and rags instead of clothes, and rushes
for feather beds, and a mat for a carpet, and a stone
for a pillow.”

Pov. “This is the way in which beggars live.”

Chrem,. “Well, is not Poverty sister to Beggary ?”

Pov. “So you say; but then, you don’t know the
difference, I suppose, between Dionysius the tyrant,
and Thrasybulus the patriot.! A beggar may live

1 Thrasybulus restored a free constitution to Athens by upsetting the

tyranny of the Four Hundred, which had been established after the
capture of the city by the Spartans,