PHILOCLEON
No! No! I’ll never put this off alive.
PHILOCLEON With this I was arrayed, and found my safety, In the invasion of the great north wind.
BDELYCLEON You seem unwilling to accept a good.
PHILOCLEON ’Tis not expedient: no by Zeus it is not. ’Twas but the other day I gorged on sprats And had to pay three obols to the fuller.
BDELYCLEON Try it at all events: since once for all Into my hands you have placed yourself for good.
PHILOCLEON What would you have me do?
BDELYCLEON Put off that cloak. And wear this mantle in a cloak-like way.
PHILOCLEON Should we beget and bring up children then, When here my son is bent on smothering me?
BDELYCLEON Come, take and put it on, and don’t keep chattering.
PHILOCLEON Good heavens! and what’s this misery of a thing?
BDELYCLEON Some call it Persian, others Caunacés.
PHILOCLEON There! and I thought it a Thymaetian rug.
BDELYCLEON No wonder: for you’ve never been to Sardis, Else you’d have known it: now you don’t.
PHILOCLEON Who? I? No more I do by Zeus: it seemed to me Most like an overwrap of Morychus.
BDELYCLEON Nay, in Ecbatana they weave this stuff.
PHILOCLEON What! have they wool-guts in Ecbatana?
BDELYCLEON Tut, man: they weave it in their foreign looms At wondrous cost: this very article Absorbed with ease a talent’s weight of wool.
PHILOCLEON Why, then, WOOL-GATHERER were its proper name Instead of Caunacés.
BDELYCLEON Come, take it, take it, Stand still and put it on.
PHILOCLEON O dear, O dear, O what a sultry puff the brute breathed o’er me!
BDELYCLEON Quick, wrap it round you.
PHILOCLEON No, I won’t, that’s flat, You had better wrap me in a stove at once.
BDELYCLEON Come then, I’ll throw it round you. (To the cloak) You, begone.
PHILOCLEON Do keep a flesh-hook near.
BDELYCLEON A flesh-hook! why?
PHILOCLEON To pull me out before I melt away.
BDELYCLEON Now off at once with those confounded shoes, And on with these Laconians, instantly.
PHILOCLEON What I, my boy! I bring myself to wear The hated foe’s insufferable—cloutings!
BDELYCLEON Come, sir, insert your foot, and step out firmly In this Laconian.
PHILOCLEON ’Tis too bad, it is, To make a man set foot on hostile—leather.
BDELYCLEON Now for the other.
PHILOCLEON O no, pray not that, I’ve a toe there, a regular Lacon-hater.
BDELYCLEON There is no way but this.
PHILOCLEON O luckless I, Why I shan’t have, to bless my age, one—chilblain.
BDELYCLEON Quick, father, get them on: and then move forward Thus; in an opulent swaggering sort of way.
PHILOCLEON Look then! observe my attitudes: think which Of all your opulent friends I walk most like.
BDELYCLEON Most like a pimple bandaged round with garlic.
PHILOCLEON Ay, ay, I warrant I’ve a mind for wriggling.
BDELYCLEON Come, if you get with clever well-read men Could you tell tales, good gentlemanly tales?
PHILOCLEON Ay, that I could.
BDELYCLEON What sort of tales?
PHILOCLEON Why, lots, As, first, how Lamia spluttered when they caught her, And, next, Cardopion, how he swinged his mother.
BDELYCLEON Pooh, pooh, no legends: give us something human, Some what we call domestic incident.
PHILOCLEON O, ay, I know a rare domestic tale, How once upon a time a cat and mouse—
BDELYCLEON O fool and clown, Theogenes replied Rating the scavenger, what! would you tell Tales of a cat and mouse, in company!?
PHILOCLEON What, then?
BDELYCLEON Some stylish thing, as how you went With Androcles and Cleisthenes, surveying.
PHILOCLEON Why, bless the boy, I never went surveying, Save once to Paros, at two obols a day.
BDELYCLEON Still you must tell how splendidly, for instance, Ephudion fought the pancratiastic fight With young Ascondas: how the game old man
BDELYCLEON Though grey, had ample sides, strong hands, firm flanks, An iron chest.
PHILOCLEON What humbug! could a man Fight the pancratium with an iron chest!
BDELYCLEON This is the way our clever fellows talk. But try another tack: suppose you sat Drinking with strangers, what’s the pluckiest feat, Of all your young adventures, you could tell them?
PHILOCLEON My pluckiest feat? O much my pluckiest, much, Was when I stole away Ergasion’s vine-poles.
BDELYCLEON Tcha! poles indeed! Tell how you slew the boar, Or coursed the hare, or ran the torch-race, tell Your gayest, youthfullest act.
PHILOCLEON My youthfullest action? ’Twas that I had, when quite a hobbledehoy, With fleet Phayllus: and I caught him too: Won by two—votes. ’Twas for abuse, that action.
BDELYCLEON No more of that: but lie down there, and learn To be convivial and companionable.
PHILOCLEON Yes; how lie down?
BDELYCLEON In an elegant graceful way.
PHILOCLEON Like this, do you mean?
BDELYCLEON No, not in the least like that.
PHILOCLEON How then?
BDELYCLEON Extend your knees, and let yourself With practised ease subside along the cushions; Then praise some piece of plate: inspect the ceiling; Admire the woven hangings of the hall. Ho! water for our hands! bring in the tables!
BDELYCLEON Dinner! the after-wash! now the libation.
PHILOCLEON Good heavens! then is it in a dream we are feasting?
BDELYCLEON The flute-girl has performed! our fellow-guests Are Phanus, Aeschines, Theorus, Cleon, Another stranger at Acestor’s head. Could you with these cap verses properly?
PHILOCLEON Could I? Ay, truly; no Diacrian better.
BDELYCLEON I’ll put you to the proof. Suppose I’m Cleon. I’ll start the catch Harmodius. You’re to cap it. (Singing) “Truly Athens never knew”
PHILOCLEON (Singing) “Such a rascally thief as you.”
BDELYCLEON Will you do that? You’ll perish in your noise. He’ll swear he’ll fell you, quell you, and expel you Out of this realm.
PHILOCLEON Ay, truly, will he so? And if he threaten, I’ve another strain. Mon, lustin’ for power supreme, ye’ll mak’ The city capseeze; she’s noo on the shak’.”
BDELYCLEON What if Theorus, lying at his feet, Should grasp the hand of Cleon, and begin, “From the story of Admetus learn, my friend, to love the good.” How will you take that on?
PHILOCLEON I, very neatly,
BDELYCLEON Next comes that son of Sellus, Aeschines, Clever, accomplished fellow, and he’ll sing “O the money, O the might, How Cleitagora and I, With the men of Thessaly”—
PHILOCLEON “How we boasted, you and I.”
BDELYCLEON Well, that will do: you’re fairly up to that: So come along: we’ll dine at Philoctemon’s, Boy! Chrysus! pack our dinner up; and now For a rare drinking-bout at last.
PHILOCLEON No, no, Drinking ain’t good: I know what comes of drinking, Breaking of doors, assault, and battery, And then, a headache and a fine to pay.
BDELYCLEON Not if you drink with gentlemen, you know. They’ll go to the injured man, and beg you off, Or you yourself will tell some merry tale, A jest from Sybaris, or one of Aesop’s, Learned at the feast. And so the matter turns Into a joke, and off he goes contented.
PHILOCLEON O I’ll learn plenty of those tales, if so I can get off, whatever wrong I do. Come, go we in: let nothing stop us now.
Cite This Text