CHREMYLUS To bid you “welcome,” fellow-burghers, now Is old and musty; so I—“clasp” you all. Ye who have come in this stout-hearted way, This strenuous way, this unrelaxing way, Stand by me now, and prove yourselves to-day In very truth the Saviours of the God.
CHORUS Fear not: I’ll bear me like the God of War. What, shall we push and hustle in the Assembly To gain our three poor obols, and to-day Let Wealth himself be wrested from our grasp?
CHREMYLUS And here, I see, comes Blepsidemus too. Look! by his speed and bearing you can tell He has heard a rumour of what’s happening here.
BLEPSIDEMUS What can it mean? Old Chremylus grown wealthy! Then whence and how? I don’t believe that story. And yet by Heracles ’twas bruited wide Amongst the loungers in the barbers’ shops That Chremylus had all at once grown rich. And if he has, ’tis passing wonderful That he should call his neighbours in to share. That’s not our country’s fashion, anyhow.
CHREMYLUS I’ll tell him everything. O Blepsidemus, We’re better off to-day than yesterday. You are my friend, and you shall share in all.
BLEPSIDEMUS What, are you really wealthy, as men say?
CHREMYLUS Well, if God will, I shall be presently. But there’s some risk, some risk, about it yet.
BLEPSIDEMUS What sort of risk?
CHREMYLUS Such as—
BLEPSIDEMUS Pray, pray go on.
CHREMYLUS If we succeed, we’re prosperous all our lives: But if we fail, we perish utterly.
BLEPSIDEMUS I like not this; there’s something wrong behind, Some evil venture. To become, off-hand, So over-wealthy, and to fear such risks, Smacks of a man who has done some rotten thing,
CHREMYLUS Rotten! what mean you?
BLEPSIDEMUS If you’ve stolen aught, Or gold or silver, from the God out there, And now perchance repent you of your sin,—
CHREMYLUS Apollo shield us! no, I’ve not done that.
BLEPSIDEMUS O don’t tell me. I see it plainly now.
CHREMYLUS Pray don’t suspect me of such crimes.
BLEPSIDEMUS Alas! There’s nothing sound or honest in the world, The love of money overcomes us all.
CHREMYLUS Now by Demeter, friend, you have lost your wits.
BLEPSIDEMUS O how unlike the man he used to be!
CHREMYLUS Poor chap, you’re moody-mad: I vow you are.
BLEPSIDEMUS His very eye’s grown shifty: he can’t look you Straight in the face: I warrant he’s turned rogue.
CHREMYLUS I understand. You think I’ve stolen something, And want a share.
BLEPSIDEMUS I want a share? in what?
CHREMYLUS But ’tis not so: the thing’s quite otherwise.
BLEPSIDEMUS Not stol’n, but robbed outright?
CHREMYLUS The man’s possessed.
BLEPSIDEMUS Have you embezzled someone else’s cash?
CHREMYLUS I haven’t: no.
BLEPSIDEMUS O Heracles, where now Can a man turn! you won’t confess the truth.
CHREMYLUS You bring your charge before you have heard the facts.
BLEPSIDEMUS Now prithee let me hush the matter up For a mere trifle, ere it all leaks out. A few small coins will stop the speakers’ mouths.
CHREMYLUS You’d like, I warrant, in your friendly way, To spend three minas, and to charge me twelve.
BLEPSIDEMUS I see an old man pleading for his life With olive-branch in hand, and at his side His weeping wife and children, shrewdly like The suppliant Heracleids of Pamphilus.
CHREMYLUS Nay, luckless idiot, ’tis the good alone And right- and sober-minded that I’m going At once to make so wealthy.
BLEPSIDEMUS Heaven and earth! What, have you stol’n so largely?
CHREMYLUS O confound it, You’ll be my death.
BLEPSIDEMUS You’ll be your own, I fancy.
CHREMYLUS Not so, you reprobate; ’tis WEALTH I’ve got.
BLEPSIDEMUS You, Wealth! What sort of wealth?
CHREMYLUS The God himself.
BLEPSIDEMUS Where? where?
CHREMYLUS Within.
BLEPSIDEMUS Where?
CHREMYLUS In my house.
BLEPSIDEMUS In yours?
CHREMYLUS Yes.
BLEPSIDEMUS You be hanged! Wealth in your house?
CHREMYLUS I swear it.
BLEPSIDEMUS Is this the truth?
CHREMYLUS It is.
BLEPSIDEMUS By Hestia?
CHREMYLUS Aye; by Poseidon.
BLEPSIDEMUS Him that rules the sea?
CHREMYLUS If there’s another, by that other too.
BLEPSIDEMUS Then don’t you send him round for friends to share?
CHREMYLUS Not yet; things haven’t reached that stage.
BLEPSIDEMUS What stage? The stage of sharing?
CHREMYLUS Aye, we’ve first to—
BLEPSIDEMUS What?
CHREMYLUS Restore the sight—
BLEPSIDEMUS Restore the sight of whom?
CHREMYLUS The sight of Wealth, by any means we can.
BLEPSIDEMUS What, is he really blind?
CHREMYLUS He really is.
BLEPSIDEMUS O that is why he never came to me.
CHREMYLUS But now he’ll come, if such the will of Heaven.
BLEPSIDEMUS Had we not better call a doctor in?
CHREMYLUS Is there a doctor now in all the town? There are no fees, and therefore there’s no skill.
BLEPSIDEMUS Let’s think awhile.
CHREMYLUS There’s none.
BLEPSIDEMUS No more there is.
CHREMYLUS Why then, ’tis best to do what I intended, To let him lie inside Asclepius’ temple A whole night long.
BLEPSIDEMUS That’s far the best, I swear it. So don’t be dawdling: quick; get something done.
CHREMYLUS I’m going.
BLEPSIDEMUS Make you haste.
CHREMYLUS I’m doing that.
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