But there always is in my mind something at once ludicrous and mournful in a crowd congregated for the purpose of amusement. What discontent, what vanity, move the complicated wheels of the social machine!

The fox went out on a chase one night, / he prayed to the Moon to give him light, / for he had many a mile to go that night / before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o. / He had many a mile to go that night / before he reached the town-o.

The parting of the way.

The larger metropoleis were sizeable communities: Hermopolis had perhaps as many as 40,000 inhabitants, Oxyrhynchos maybe around 25,000.