The City
Ἔποψ
435 ἄγε δὴ σὺ καὶ σὺ τὴν πανοπλίαν μὲν πάλιν
ταύτην λαβόντε κρεμάσατον τύχἀγαθῇ
ἐς τὸν ἰπνὸν εἴσω πλησίον τοὐπιστάτου·
σὺ δὲ τούσδʼ ἐφʼ οἷσπερ τοῖς λόγοις συνέλεξʼ ἐγὼ
φράσον, δίδαξον.
μὰ τὸν Ἀπόλλω ʼγὼ μὲν οὔ,
Πισθέταιρος
440 ἢν μὴ διάθωνταί γʼ οἵδε διαθήκην ἐμοὶ
ἥνπερ πίθηκος τῇ γυναικὶ διέθετο,
μαχαιροποιός, μήτε δάκνειν τούτους ἐμὲ
μήτʼ ὀρχίπεδʼ ἕλκειν μήτʼ ὀρύττειν
οὔτι που
Χορός
τόν —; οὐδαμῶς.
οὔκ, ἀλλὰ τὠφθαλμὼ λέγω.
διατίθεμαι ʼγώ.
κατόμοσόν νυν ταῦτά μοι.
445 ὄμνυμʼ ἐπὶ τούτοις, πᾶσι νικᾶν τοῖς κριταῖς
καὶ τοῖς θεαταῖς πᾶσιν.
ἔσται ταυταγί.
εἰ δὲ παραβαίην, ἑνὶ κριτῇ νικᾶν μόνον.
Κῆρυξ
ἀκούετε λεῴ· τοὺς ὁπλίτας νυνμενὶ
ἀνελομένους θὤπλʼ ἀπιέναι πάλιν οἴκαδε,
440–449

who makes our knives, had his wife swear to him— not to bite or pull my balls or poke me.

CHORUS LEADER

You mean up your . . .

PISTHETAIROS

No, not there. I mean the eyes.

CHORUS LEADER

Oh, I’ll agree to that.

PISTHETAIROS

Then swear an oath on it.

CHORUS LEADER

I swear on this condition—that I get all the judges’ and spectators’ votes and win.

PISTHETAIROS

Oh, you’ll win!

CHORUS LEADER

And if I break the oath then let me win by just a single vote. Listen all of you! The armed infantry can now pick up their weapons and go home. Keep an eye out for any bulletins we put up on our notice boards.

450 σκοπεῖν δʼ τι ἂν προγράφωμεν ἐν τοῖς πινακίοις.
450–459
CHORUS [singing]

Man’s by nature’s born to lie. But state your case. Give it a try.

There’s a chance you have observed some useful things inside this bird, some greater power I possess, which my dull brain has never guessed. So tell all here just what you see. If there’s a benefit to me, we’ll share in it communally.

CHORUS LEADER

Tell us the business that’s brings you here.

Translation by Ian Johnston, Vancouver Island University
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An open-access project
Hall 1906
OCT
Hall & Geldart, OCT, 1906 · 1906
The Editor

Frederick William Hall (1865–1948) was a classical scholar and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Together with William Martin Geldart, he produced the Oxford Classical Text of several authors. Hall was a careful editor known for his thorough collation of manuscripts and his conservative approach to textual criticism.

About This Edition

The Hall–Geldart editions in the Oxford Classical Texts series provide reliable critical texts with selective apparatus criticus. The OCT series, established in 1894 as the Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, aims to present the best available Greek and Latin texts in a format suitable for both scholarly use and teaching. Each volume provides a clean text with the most significant manuscript variants recorded at the foot of each page.

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