What’s that? By god, are you assaulting me?
No—I want to learn some things from you. What about your memory?
To tell the truth it works two ways. If someone owes me something,
I remember really well. But if it’s poor me that owes the money, I forget a lot.
Do you have any natural gift for speech?
Not for speaking—only for evading debt.
So how will you be capable of learning?
Easily—that shouldn’t be your worry.
All right. When I throw out something wise about celestial matters, you make sure you snatch it right away.
What’s that about? Am I to eat up wisdom like a dog?
This man’s an ignorant barbarian! Old man, I fear you may need a beating.
Now, what do you do if someone hits you?
If I get hit, I wait around a while, then find witnesses, hang around some more, then go to court.
All right, take off your cloak.
Have I done something wrong?
No. It’s our custom to go inside without a cloak.
But I don’t want to search your house for stolen stuff.
What are you going on about? Take it off.
So tell me this—if I pay attention
and put some effort into learning, which of your students will I look like?
In appearance there’ll be no difference between yourself and Chaerephon.
Oh, that’s bad. You mean I’ll be only half alive?
Don’t talk such rubbish! Get a move on and follow me inside. Hurry up!
First, put a honey cake here in my hands.
I’m scared of going down in there. It’s like entering Trophonios’ cave.
Go inside. Why keep hanging round this doorway?
Go. And may you enjoy good fortune,
and put some effort into learning, which of your students will I look like?
In appearance there’ll be no difference between yourself and Chaerephon.
Oh, that’s bad. You mean I’ll be only half alive?
Don’t talk such rubbish! Get a move on and follow me inside. Hurry up!
First, put a honey cake here in my hands.
I’m scared of going down in there. It’s like entering Trophonios’ cave.
Go inside. Why keep hanging round this doorway?
Go. And may you enjoy good fortune,
and put some effort into learning, which of your students will I look like?
In appearance there’ll be no difference between yourself and Chaerephon.
Oh, that’s bad. You mean I’ll be only half alive?
Don’t talk such rubbish! Get a move on and follow me inside. Hurry up!
First, put a honey cake here in my hands.
I’m scared of going down in there. It’s like entering Trophonios’ cave.
Go inside. Why keep hanging round this doorway?
Go. And may you enjoy good fortune,
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.
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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