instructed? Tell me. About measures, or rhythms, or
verses?

Strep. I should prefer to learn about measures; for it
is but lately I was cheated out of two choenices by a
meal-huckster.

Soc. I do not ask you this, but which you account the
most beautiful measure; the trimetre or the tetrameter?

Strep. Make a wager then with me, if the semisextarius
be not a tetrameter.

Soc. Go to the devil! How boorish you are and dull of
learning. Perhaps you may be able to learn about
rhythms.

Strep. But what good will rhythms do me for a living?

Soc. In the first place, to be clever at an
entertainment, understanding what rhythm is for the
war-dance, and what, again, according to the dactyle.

Strep. According to the dactyle? By Jove, but I know it!

Soc. Tell me, pray.

Strep. What else but this finger? Formerly, indeed, when
I was yet a boy, this here!