Hierothes: O foolish mortals and infants,
Hierocles: those who, not understanding the mind of the gods through their folly,
Hierocles: You have made a treaty with grinning monkeys, men.
1065
Hieroclus: Why are you laughing?
Trygaeus: I was glad at the cheerful monkeys.
Hierocles: And you, the hole-drilling foxes, are persuaded.
Hieroclus: Wretched souls, wretched minds.
Trygaeus: if only you were!
Trygaeus: I wish the lung were as warm as a fool.
Hierotheus: for if the nymphs were not deceiving the goddess Bacchis,
1070
Hierocles: not even Bacis should prophesy to mortals, nor again the nymphs to Bacis himself—
Trygaeus: May you perish, if you don't stop your bacchic revels.
Hierocles: It was not yet time to release the bonds of Peace,
Hierothes: but this first—
Trygaeus: These things must indeed be salted for these men.
Hierocles: For this is not yet dear to the blessed gods,
1075
Hierocles: Cease from the battle before the wolf can weave his web.
Trygaeus: And how, you accursed wolf, could you ever have been married?
Hierocles: how the spinning top, as it flees, farts terribly.
Hierocles: †the bell†, uncastrated, in a hurry, gives birth to blind ones,
Hierothes: We ought to have made this peace a little while ago.
Trygaeus: But what should we have done? Should we not have ceased fighting?
1080
Trygaeus: Or shall we weep more intensely if we are completely burned?
Trygaeus: Is it possible for those who have sown together to rule all of Greece?
Hierocles: You will never make the crab walk straight.
Trygaeus: You will never dine again in the future in the Prytaneion,
Trygaeus: You will do nothing later on the basis of what has been done.
1085
Hieroclus: You would never make the rough hedgehog smooth.
Trygaeus: Will he still stop deceiving the Athenians?
Hieroclès: For which thigh did you sacrifice, according to an oracle, to the gods?
Trygaeus: whom indeed Homer made most beautiful;
Trygaeus: Thus, having driven away the hostile cloud of war,
1090
Trygaeus: They chose Peace and established her as a priestess.
Trygaeus: But when the thighs had been burned and the entrails eaten,
Trygaeus: I poured libations with cups; but I myself led the way.
Trygaeus: No one gave a bright cloak to the oracle-monger.
Hierocles: I have no part in these things; for the Sibyl did not say these things.
1095
Trygaeus: But the wise Homer, by Zeus, said the right thing;
Trygaeus: That man is unclean, lawless, and homeless,
Trygaeus: Whoever loves a bloody war that is present.
Hierothes: take care now that you are not deceived in your mind by a trick.
Hieroclès: A kite will snatch it.
1100
Trygaeus: but guard this.
Trygaeus: How terrible this oracle is for the entrails.
Trygaeus: Pour out the libation now and bring the entrails here.
Hierocles: But if this seems right, I will also bathe myself.
Trygaeus: a libation, a libation.
