PRIEST. It is imperative that I sing another sacred chant for the rite of the lustral water, and that I invoke the immortals, or at least one of them, provided always that you have some suitable food to offer him; from what I see here, in the shape of gifts, there is naught whatever but horn and hair.
PISTHETAERUS. Let us address our sacrifices and our prayers to the winged gods.
A POET. Oh, Muse! celebrate happy Nephelococcygia in your hymns.
PISTHETAERUS. What have we here? Where do you come from, tell me? Who are you?
POET. I am he whose language is sweeter than honey, the zealous slave of the Muses, as Homer has it.
PISTHETAERUS. You a slave! and yet you wear your hair long?
POET. No, but the fact is all we poets are the assiduous slaves of the Muses according to Homer.
PISTHETAERUS. In truth your little cloak is quite holy too through zeal! But, poet, what ill wind drove you here?
POET. I have composed verses in honour of your Nephelococcygia, a host of splendid dithyrambs and parthenians,[284] worthy of Simonides himself.
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