[The point of the following selection lies in the monotony of both narrative style and metre in Euripides’s prologues, and especially his regular caesura after the fifth syllable of a line.  The burlesque tag used by Aristophanes to demonstrate this effect could not be applied in the same way to any of the fourteen extant plays of Sophocles and AEschylus.]

AEschylus—­And by Jove, I’ll not stop to cut up your verses
                 word by word, but if the gods are propitious I’ll spoil
                 all your prologues with a little flask of smelling-salts.

Euripides—­With a flask of smelling-salts?

AEsch.—­With a single one.  For you build your verses so that
              anything will fit into the metre,—­a leathern sack,
              or eider-down, or smelling-salts.  I’ll show you.

Eur.—­So, you’ll show me, will you?

AEsch.—­I will that.

Dionysus—­Pronounce.

Eur. [declaiming]—­
             AEgyptus, as broad-bruited fame reports,
             With fifty children voyaging the main
             To Argos came, and

AEsch.—­lost his smelling-salts.

Dion.—­What the mischief have the smelling-salts got to do with
              it?  Recite another prologue to him and let me see.

Eur.—­
             Dionysus, thyrsus-armed and faun-skin-clad,
             Amid the torchlights on Parnassus’s slope
             Dancing and prancing

AEsch.—­lost his smelling-salts.

Dion.—­Caught out again by the smelling-salts.

Eur.—­No matter.  Here’s a prologue that he can’t fit ’em to.

No lot of mortal man is wholly blest: 
The high-born youth hath lacked the means of life,
The lowly lout hath

AEsch.—­lost his smelling-salts.

Dion.—­Euripides—­

Eur.—­Well, what?

Dion.—­Best take in sail. 
              These smelling-salts, methinks, will blow a gale.

Eur.—­What do I care?  I’ll fix him next time.

Dion.—­Well, recite another, and steer clear of the smelling-salts.

Eur.—­
             Cadmus departing from the town of Tyre,
             Son of Agenor

AEsch.—­lost his smelling-salts.

Dion.—­My dear fellow, buy those smelling-salts, or there won’t
              be a rag left of all your prologues.

Eur.—­What?  I buy ’em of him?

Dion.—­If you’ll be advised by me.

Eur.—­Not a bit of it.  I’ve lots of prologues where he can’t
             work ’em in.

Pelops the Tantalid to Pisa coming
With speedy coursers

AEsch.—­lost his smelling-salts.

Dion.—­There they are again, you see.  Do let him have ’em,
              my good AEschylus.  You can replace ’em for a
              nickel.