AESCHYLUS. I will do your bidding, and do you make Sophocles occupy my seat. Let him take and keep it for me, against I should ever return here. In fact I award him the second place among the tragic poets. As for this impostor, watch that he never usurps my throne, even should he be placed there in spite of himself.
PLUTO (to the Chorus of the Initiate). Escort him with your sacred torches, singing to him as you go his own hymns and choruses.
CHORUS. Ye deities of the nether world, grant a pleasant journey to the poet who is leaving us to return to the light of day; grant likewise wise and healthy thoughts to our city. Put an end to the fearful calamities that overwhelm us, to the awful clatter of arms. As for Cleophon and the likes of him, let them go, an it please them, and fight in their own land.[543]
[543] i.e. in a foreign country; Cleophon, as we have just seen, was not an Athenian.
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