SOSIAS. Why, Xanthias! what are you doing, wretched man?

XANTHIAS. I am teaching myself how to rest; I have been awake and on
watch the whole night.

SOSIAS. So you want to earn trouble for your ribs,[1] eh? Don't you know
what sort of an animal we are guarding here?

XANTHIAS. Aye indeed! but I want to put my cares to sleep for a while.

SOSIAS. Beware what you do. I too feel soft sleep spreading over my eyes.
Resist it, for you must be as mad as a Corybant if you fall asleep.[2]

XANTHIAS. No! 'Tis Bacchus who lulls me off.

SOSIAS. Then you serve the same god as myself. Just now a heavy slumber
settled on my eyelids like a hostile Mede; A nodded and, faith! I had a
wondrous dream.

XANTHIAS. Indeed! and so had I. A dream such as I never had before. But
first tell me yours.

SOSIAS. Methinks I saw an eagle, a gigantic bird, descend upon the
market-place; it seized a brazen buckler with its talons and bore it away
into the highest heavens; then I saw 'twas Cleonymus had thrown it away.

XANTHIAS. This Cleonymus is a riddle worth propounding among guests. How
can one and the same animal have cast away his buckler both on land, in
the sky and at sea?[3]