Cataplus

Megapenthes Listen, Klotho. There is something I should like to say to you in private without witnesses. You others step aside a moment. If you will give me a chance to run away I promise to give you this day a million dollars in coin of the realm.

Klotho You are absurd. Can you not get gold and dollars out of your head yet?

Megapenthes I will throw in the two bowls, if you like, that I got when I killed Kleakritos. kam

Klotho Drag him in, for apparently he will not embark of his own will.

Megapenthes I call you people to witness that my wall and my dockyards are unfinished. I could have completed them if I had lived five days longer.

Klotho Never mind. Some one else will build them.

Megapenthes Anyhow, this one thing it is perfectly reasonable to ask for.

Klotho What is that?

Megapenthes To come to life long enough to subdue the Persians, and impose taxes on the Lydians, and raise a huge monument to myself, inscribing on it how many great and warlike deeds I did in my lifetime.

Klotho My man, this is not asking for a single day any longer, but to spend about twenty years.

Megapenthes I am ready, moreover, to furnish sureties for my quickness and my reappearance. If you wish it, I will even provide you a substitute in my place in the person of my one beloved son.

Klotho You wretch, him whom you have often prayed you might leave behind you?

Megapenthes That used to be my prayer, but now I see the better course.

Klotho He, too, will join you soon, slain by the new king.

Megapenthes Well, but do not refuse me this thing at any rate, Fate.

Klotho What is it?

Megapenthes I wish to know what the course of events will be after me.

Klotho You shall, for your knowledge will be an added torment. Midas the slave will have your wife; he has been her lover this long time.

Megapenthes The villain! It was by her persuasion that I gave him his freedom.

Klotho Your daughter will be counted among the harem of the present monarch. Your portraits and statues, which the city erected for you in times past, will all be overturned, a laughingstock to the beholders.

Megapenthes Tell me, is not one of my friends moved to anger by these acts?

Klotho Why, who was a friend to you? What reason had any one to be? You know that all of them, those who bowed before you and those who extolled your every word and deed, acted from fear or hope, being friendly to your office and having an eye to the main chance.

Megapenthes And yet they used to pour out their libations at the banquets, and pray with a loud voice that many good things might befall me, saying that every one of them was ready to die

Klotho Accordingly, it was after dining with one of them that you died yesterday. For that last cup that was handed to you sent you here.

Megapenthes That is why I tasted something bitter! What was his object in doing it?

Klotho You ask too many questions when you ought to be embarking.

Megapenthes There is one thing that chokes me most of all, Klotho, and makes me long to rise to the light again, if but for a moment.

Klotho What is this? It must be something tremendous.

Megapenthes Karion, my slave, as soon as he saw I was dead, came late in the evening into the room where I was lying, without any trouble, for no one was so much as watching by me, and looked at me and said, "You wretched little creature, you gave me a blow many a time when I didn't deserve it." With these words he fell to plucking out my hair and beating me to his heart's content, and finally he spat upon me and went off, saying, "Go to the devil!" I was aflame with rage, but all the same I could not do anything to him, stiff and cold as I was. But if I could get hold of him—