Good heavens! what a crowd of people!  How on earth are we ever to get through all this?  They are like ants—­you can’t count them.  My dearest Gorgo, what will become of us?  Here are the Royal Horse Guards.  My good man, don’t ride over me!  Look at that bay horse rearing bolt upright; what a vicious one!  Eunoe, you mad girl, do take care!—­that horse will certainly be the death of the man on his back.  How glad I am now that I left the child at home!

G. All right, Praxinoe, we are safe behind them, and they have gone on to where they are stationed.

P. Well, yes, I begin to revive again.  From the time I was a little girl I have had more horror of horses and snakes than of anything in the world.  Let us get on; here’s a great crowd coming this way upon us.

G. (to an old woman).  Mother, are you from the palace?

Old Woman.  Yes, my dears.

G. Has one a tolerable chance of getting there?

O.W.  My pretty young lady, the Greeks got to Troy by dint of trying hard; trying will do anything in this world.

G. The old creature has delivered herself of an oracle and departed.

P. Women can tell you everything about everything.  Jupiter’s marriage with Juno not excepted.

G. Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates!

P. Tremendous!  Take hold of me, Gorgo, and you, Eunoe, take hold of Eutychis!—­tight hold, or you’ll be lost.  Here we go in all together.  Hold tight to us, Eunoe.  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  Gorgo, there’s my scarf torn right in two.  For heaven’s sake, my good man, as you hope to be saved, take care of my dress!

Stranger.  I’ll do what I can, but it doesn’t depend upon me.

P. What heaps of people!  They push like a drove of pigs.

Str.  Don’t be frightened, ma’am; we are all right.

P. May you be all right, my dear sir, to the last day you live, for the care you have taken of us!  What a kind, considerate man!  There is Eunoe jammed in a squeeze.  Push, you goose, push!  Capital!  We are all of us the right side of the door, as the bridegroom said when he had locked himself in with the bride.

G. Praxinoe, come this way.  Do but look at that work, how delicate it is! how exquisite!  Why, they might wear it in heaven!

P. Heavenly patroness of needle-women, what hands we hired to do that work?  Who designed those beautiful patterns?  They seem to stand up and move about, as if they were real—­as if they were living things and not needlework.  Well, man is a wonderful creature!  And look, look, how charming he lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his cheeks, that beloved Adonis—­Adonis, whom one loves, even though he is dead!

Another Stranger.  You wretched woman, do stop your incessant chatter.  Like turtles, you go on forever.  They are enough to kill one with their broad lingo—­nothing but a, a, a.

G. Lord, where does the man come from?  What is it to you if we are chatterboxes?  Order about your own servants.  Do you give orders to Syracusan women?  If you want to know, we came originally from Corinth, as Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian.  I suppose Dorian women may be allowed to have a Dorian accent.