An Attic poet. Someone is mocking Carcinus’ sons[1] thus: "homebred quails, kitbag-gulleted dancers, dwarfish, bits of dung, inventers of artifices."[2] "For their father said that, one evening, a weasel had strangled [the drama which he unexpectedly possessed]."[3] He calls them quails because of their combativeness; for that [is] what quails are like. [And he calls them] "homebred" instead of effeminate, as if one were to say homebred birds. And “kitbag-gulleted”, that is long-necked; for a soldier's kitbag is an [item of] elongated wickerwork. So [it is] likely that their whole body was short but their neck long, or that they did not have a gullet, just like the kitbag; so he is mocking them for having small and round bodies. They also used to dance for their father. “Dwarfish” because very short people are called dwarfs; while very short horses [are called] naggies. And “dancers”; because their father introduced them as dancers in his dramas. And “bits of dung” instead of small and insignificant. “Dung” is the turd of goats and sheep, and the dung has the size of a broad bean. So he likens them to those, or rather not even to those, but to their bits and pieces. He humiliates them for being short. Because a part of something small is small itself or even less than small. And “inventers of artifices” from a part; because Xenocles,[4] the son of Carcinus, is supposed to have introduced devices and juggleries in his dramas; Plato calls him “twelve-machine”.[5] Or because as tragic poets they brought in machines, whenever they represented gods ascending to or descending from heaven. Their father composed a drama entitled Mice. “Unexpectedly”, that is to say with hard work.[6] And he says that “a weasel had strangled”, because weasels choke mice at night.