Lines 260–393

SEMICHORUS.
Aye, and we’ll help: we’ll bid the men let go.

FIRST WOMAN.
Then that we’ve settled, wonderfully well.
But this we’ve not considered, how to mind
We lift our hands, and not our feet, in voting.
We’re more for lifting feet than lifting hands.

PRAXAGORA.
A knotty point. However, we must each
Hold up one arm, bare from the shoulder, so.
Now then, my dears, tuck up your tunics neatly,
And slip your feet in those Laconian shoes,
Just as ye’ve seen your husbands do, whene’er
They’re going out, mayhap to attend the Assembly.
And next, so soon as everything is right
With shoes and tunics, fasten on your beards,
And when ye’ve got them neatly fitted on,
Then throw your husbands’ mantles over all,
Those which ye stole ; and leaning on your sticks
Off to the Meeting, piping as ye go
Some old man’s song, and mimicking the ways
Of country fellows.

FIRST WOMAN.
Good ! but let ourselves
Get on before them : other women soon
Will come I know from all the countryside
Straight for the Pnyx.

PRAXAGORA.
Be quick, for ’tis the rule
That whoso comes not with the early dawn
Must slink abashed, with never a doit, away.

SEMICHORUS.
Time to be moving, gentlemen !
’tis best we keep repeating
This name of ours, lest we forget
to use it at the Meeting
For terrible the risk would be, if any man detected
The great and daring scheme which we
in darkness have projected.

Song of the (town) Semichorus.
On to the Meeting, worthy sirs :
for now the magistrate avers
That whoever shall fail to
Arrive while the dusk of the
Morning is grey,
All dusty and smacking of
Pickle and acid, that
Man shall assuredly
Forfeit his pay.
Now Charitimides,
Draces, and Smicythus,
Hasten along :
See that there fall from you
Never a word or a
Note that is wrong.
Get we our tickets, and
Sit we together, and
Choose the front rows.
Vote we whatever our
Sisters propose.
Our sisters! My wits are gone gleaning !
Our “ brothers,” of course, was my meaning.

Song of the country Semichorus.
We’ll thrust aside this bothering throng
which from the city crowds along,
These men, who aforetime
When only an obol they
Got for their pay?
Would sit in the wreath-market,
Chatting away.
Ah well, in the days of our
Noble Myronides
None would have stooped
Money to take for
Attending the meetings, but
Hither they trooped,
Each with his own little
Goatskin of wine,
Each with three olives, two
Onions, one loaf, in his
Wallet, to dine.
But now they are set
The three-obol to get,
And whene’er the State business engages,
They clamour, like hodmen, for wages.

BLEPYRUS.
What’s up? Where’s my wife gone? Why, bless the woman,
It’s almost daybreak and she can’t be found.
Here am I, taken with the gripes abed,
Groping about to find my overcloak
And shoes i’ the dark ; but hang it, they’re gone too:
I could not find them anywhere. Meanwhile
Easums kept knocking hard at my back-door ;
So on I put this kirtle of my wife’s,
And shove my feet into her Persian slippers.
Where’s a convenient place ? or shall I say
All are alike convenient in the dark ?
No man can see me here, I am sure of that.
Fool that I was, worse luck, to take a wife
In my old age. Ought to be thrashed, I ought!
’Tis for no good, I warrant, that she’s out
This time of night. However, I can’t wait.

CITIZEN.
Hey-day! who’s this? Not neighbour Blepyrus?

BLEPYRUS.
Sure and it’s he himself.

CITIZEN.
Why, tell me, man,
What’s all that yellow? Do you mean to say
You’ve had Cinesias at his tricks again ?

BLEPYRUS.
No, no; I wanted to come out, and took
This little yellow kirtle of my wife’s.

CITIZEN.
But where’s your cloak?

BLEPYRUS.
I’ve not the least idea.
I searched amongst the clothes, and ’twasn’t there.

CITIZEN.
Did you not ask your wife to find the thing ?

BLEPYRUS.
I didn’t. No. For why? She wasn’t there.
She’s wormed herself away out of the house ;
Some revolution in the wind, I fear.

CITIZEN.
O by Poseidon, but your case is just
The same as mine. My wife has stolen away,
And carried off my cloak. And that’s not all,
Hang her, she’s carried off my shoes as well :
At least I could not find them anywhere.

BLEPYRUS.
No more can I: I could not anywhere
Find my Laconians: so, my case being urgent,
I shove her slippers on, and out I bolt
For fear I soil my blanket ; ’twas a clean one.

CITIZEN.
What can it be can any of her gossips
Have asked her out to breakfast ?

BLEPYRUS.
I expect so
She’s not a bad one: I don’t think she is.

CITIZEN.
Why, man, you are paying out a cable: I
Must to the Assembly, when I’ve found my cloak,
My missing cloak : the only one I’ve got.

BLEPYRUS.
I too, when eased ; but now an acrid pear
Is blocking up the passage of my food.
As Thrasybulus told the Spartans, eh?
By Dionysus, but it grips me tight,
And that’s not all: whatever shall I do?
For how the food I am going to eat hereafter
Will find a passage out, I can’t imagine ;
So firm and close this Acridusian chap
Has fastened up its pathway to the door.
Who’ll fetch a doctor, and what doctor, here ?
Which of the pathicks knows this business best ?

CITIZEN.
Amynon knows : but perhaps he won’t admit it.

BLEPYRUS.
Fetch, fetch Antisthenes, by all means fetch him.
He’s just the man (to judge from his complaints)
To know the pangs from which I’m suffering now,
Great Eileithyia, let me not remain
Thus plugged and barricaded, nor become
A public nightstool for the comic stage

CHREMES.
Taking your ease, good neighbour?

BLEPYRUS.
No, I’m not.
’Tis true I have been, but I’ve finished now.

CHREMES.
O, and you’ve got your lady’s kirtle on!

BLEPYRUS.
’Twas dark indoors : I caught it up by chance
But whence come you ?

CHREMES.
I’m coming from the Assembly.

BLEPYRUS.
What, is it over?

CHREMES.
Aye, betimes to-day.
And O, dear Zeus, the fun it was to see
The way they spattered the vermilion round.

BLEPYRUS.
Got your three-obol ?

CHREMES.
No, not I, worse luck.
I was too late: I’m carrying home, ashamed,
This empty wallet : nothing else at all.

BLEPYRUS.
Why, how was that?

CHREMES.
There gathered such a crowd
About the Pnyx, you never saw the like ;
Such pale-faced fellows ; just like shoemakers
We all declared ; and strange it was to see
How pallid-packed the whole Assembly looked.
So I and lots of us could get no pay.

BLEPYRUS.
Shall I get any if I run?

CHREMES.
Not you!
Not had you been there when the cock was giving
Its second crow.

BLEPYRUS.
O weep, Antilochus,
Rather for me, the living, than for him,
The loved and lost—three-obol. All is gone !