See how everything
succeeds
to his
wish.
wish.
Aristophanes
What a plague to Athens!
DICAEOPOLIS. Be reassured, Megarian. Here is the value of your two swine,
the garlic and the salt. Farewell and much happiness!
MEGARIAN. Ah! we never have that amongst us.
DICAEOPOLIS. Well! may the inopportune wish apply to myself.
MEGARIAN. Farewell, dear little sows, and seek, far from your father, to
munch your bread with salt, if they give you any.
CHORUS. Here is a man truly happy.
See how everything succeeds to his
wish. Peacefully seated in his market, he will earn his living; woe to
Ctesias,[238] and all other informers, who dare to enter there! You will
not be cheated as to the value of wares, you will not again see
Prepis[239] wiping his foul rump, nor will Cleonymus[240] jostle you; you
will take your walks, clothed in a fine tunic, without meeting
Hyperbolus[241] and his unceasing quibblings, without being accosted on
the public place by any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus,[242]
shaven in the fashion of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who
plagues us with his silly improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits
stinking as foul as a goat, like his father before him. You will not be
the butt of the villainous Pauson's[243] jeers, nor of Lysistratus,[244]
the disgrace of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the
vices, and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days in the month.
A BOEOTIAN. By Heracles! my shoulder is quite black and blue. Ismenias,
put the penny-royal down there very gently, and all of you, musicians
from Thebes, pipe with your bone flutes into a dog's rump. [245]
DICAEOPOLIS. Enough, enough, get you gone. Rascally hornets, away with
you! Whence has sprung this accursed swarm of Cheris[246] fellows which
comes assailing my door?
BOEOTIAN. Ah! by Iolas! [247] Drive them off, my dear host, you will
please me immensely; all the way from Thebes, they were there piping
behind me and have completely stripped my penny-royal of its blossom.
DICAEOPOLIS. Be reassured, Megarian. Here is the value of your two swine,
the garlic and the salt. Farewell and much happiness!
MEGARIAN. Ah! we never have that amongst us.
DICAEOPOLIS. Well! may the inopportune wish apply to myself.
MEGARIAN. Farewell, dear little sows, and seek, far from your father, to
munch your bread with salt, if they give you any.
CHORUS. Here is a man truly happy.
See how everything succeeds to his
wish. Peacefully seated in his market, he will earn his living; woe to
Ctesias,[238] and all other informers, who dare to enter there! You will
not be cheated as to the value of wares, you will not again see
Prepis[239] wiping his foul rump, nor will Cleonymus[240] jostle you; you
will take your walks, clothed in a fine tunic, without meeting
Hyperbolus[241] and his unceasing quibblings, without being accosted on
the public place by any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus,[242]
shaven in the fashion of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who
plagues us with his silly improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits
stinking as foul as a goat, like his father before him. You will not be
the butt of the villainous Pauson's[243] jeers, nor of Lysistratus,[244]
the disgrace of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the
vices, and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days in the month.
A BOEOTIAN. By Heracles! my shoulder is quite black and blue. Ismenias,
put the penny-royal down there very gently, and all of you, musicians
from Thebes, pipe with your bone flutes into a dog's rump. [245]
DICAEOPOLIS. Enough, enough, get you gone. Rascally hornets, away with
you! Whence has sprung this accursed swarm of Cheris[246] fellows which
comes assailing my door?
BOEOTIAN. Ah! by Iolas! [247] Drive them off, my dear host, you will
please me immensely; all the way from Thebes, they were there piping
behind me and have completely stripped my penny-royal of its blossom.
