CARIO. Ah! what a pleasant fellow and what a delightful prophecy the G.o.d has given you!

CHREMYLUS. By Demeter, you'll have no reason to laugh presently.

CARIO. If you don't speak, you wretch, I will surely do you an ill turn.

PLUTUS. Friends, take yourselves off and leave me.

CHREMYLUS. That we very certainly shan't.

CARIO. This, master, is the best thing to do. I'll undertake to secure him the most frightful death; I will lead him to the verge of a precipice and then leave him there, so that he'll break his neck when he pitches over.

CHREMYLUS. Well then, I leave him to you, and do the thing quickly.

PLUTUS. Oh, no! Have mercy!

CHREMYLUS. Will you speak then?

PLUTUS. But if you learn who I am, I know well that you will ill-use me and will not let me go again.

CHREMYLUS. I call the G.o.ds to witness that you have naught to fear if you will only speak.

PLUTUS. Well then, first unhand me.

CHREMYLUS. There! we set you free.

PLUTUS. Listen then, since I must reveal what I had intended to keep a secret. I am Plutus.[739]

CHREMYLUS. Oh! you wretched rascal! You Plutus all the while, and you never said so!

CARIO. You, Plutus, and in this piteous guise!

CHREMYLUS. Oh, Phoebus Apollo! oh, ye G.o.ds of heaven and h.e.l.l! Oh, Zeus!

is it really and truly as you say?

PLUTUS. Aye.

CHREMYLUS. Plutus' very own self?

PLUTUS. His own very self and none other.

CHREMYLUS. But tell me, whence come you to be so squalid?

PLUTUS. I have just left Patrocles' house, who has not had a bath since his birth.[740]

CHREMYLUS. But your infirmity; how did that happen? Tell me.

PLUTUS. Zeus inflicted it on me, because of his jealousy of mankind. When I was young, I threatened him that I would only go to the just, the wise, the men of ordered life; to prevent my distinguishing these, he struck me with blindness! so much does he envy the good!

CHREMYLUS. And yet, 'tis only the upright and just who honour him.

PLUTUS. Quite true.

CHREMYLUS. Therefore, if ever you recovered your sight, you would shun the wicked?

PLUTUS. Undoubtedly.

CHREMYLUS. You would visit the good?

PLUTUS. a.s.suredly. It is a very long time since I saw them.

CHREMYLUS. That's not astonishing. I, who see clearly, don't see a single one.

PLUTUS. Now let me leave you, for I have told you everything.

CHREMYLUS. No, certainly not! we shall fasten ourselves on to you faster than ever.

PLUTUS. Did I not tell you, you were going to plague me?

CHREMYLUS. Oh! I adjure you, believe what I say and don't leave me; for you will seek in vain for a more honest man than myself.

CARIO. There is only one man more worthy; and that is I.

PLUTUS. All talk like this, but as soon as they secure my favours and grow rich, their wickedness knows no bounds.

CHREMYLUS. And yet all men are not wicked.

PLUTUS. All. There's no exception.

CARIO. You shall pay for that opinion.

CHREMYLUS. Listen to what happiness there is in store for you, if you but stay with us. I have hope; aye, I have good hope with the G.o.d's help to deliver you from that blindness, in fact to restore your sight.

PLUTUS. Oh! do nothing of the kind, for I don't wish to recover it.

CHREMYLUS. What's that you say?

CARIO. This fellow hugs his own misery.

PLUTUS. If you were mad enough to cure me, and Zeus heard of it, he would overwhelm me with his anger.

CHREMYLUS. And is he not doing this now by leaving you to grope your wandering way?

PLUTUS. I don't know; but I'm horribly afraid of him.

CHREMYLUS. Indeed? Ah! you are the biggest poltroon of all the G.o.ds! Why, Zeus with his throne and his lightnings would not be worth an obolus if you recovered your sight, were it but for a few instants.

PLUTUS. Impious man, don't talk like that.

CHREMYLUS. Fear nothing! I will prove to you that you are far more powerful and mightier than he.