This also applies to the speaker bailing out with "I was just kidding." If you have to put a disclaimer on your sarcasm, don't use it. People aren't stupid.
Leda observed, under the entrance (1) of her divine abode, the laborious maids that here and there flocked in and out of palace laden with beautiful wick and gold baskets (2), as the dark earth (3) had turned purple the fields after Zeus's rains over deep Laconia.