SPEUSIPPUS.
Oh! that mass of barbarous absurdities, the Prometheus. But I
have framed it anew upon the model of Euripides. By Bacchus, I
shall make Sophocles and Agathon look about them. You would not
know the play again.

CALLIDEMUS.
By Jupiter, I believe not.

SPEUSIPPUS.
I have omitted the whole of the absurd dialogue between Vulcan
and Strength, at the beginning.

CALLIDEMUS.
That may be, on the whole, an improvement. The play will then
open with that grand soliloquy of Prometheus, when he is chained
to the rock.

"Oh! ye eternal heavens! ye rushing winds!
Ye fountains of great streams! Ye ocean waves,
That in ten thousand sparkling dimples wreathe
Your azure smiles! All-generating earth!
All-seeing sun! On you, on you, I call." (See Aeschylus;
Prometheus, 88.)

Well, I allow that will be striking; I did not think you capable
of that idea. Why do you laugh?

SPEUSIPPUS.