Who's there? Is that not my neighbour Blepyrus? Why, yes, 'tis himself and no other. Tell me, what's all that yellow about you? Can it be Cinesias who has befouled you so?

BLEPYRUS: No, no, I only slipped on my wife's tunic to come out in.

MAN: And where is your cloak?

BLEPYRUS: I cannot tell you, for I hunted for it vainly on the bed.

MAN: And why did you not ask your wife for it?

BLEPYRUS: Ah! why indeed! because she is not in the house; she has run away, and I greatly fear that she may be doing me an ill turn.

But, by Posidon, 'tis the same with myself. My wife has disappeared with my cloak, and what is still worse, with my shoes as well, for I cannot find them anywhere.

BLEPYRUS: Nor can I my Laconian shoes; but as I had urgent need, I popped my feet into these slippers, so as not to soil my blanket, which is quite new.

MAN: What does it mean? Can some friend have invited her to a feast?

BLEPYRUS: I expect so, for she does not generally misconduct herself, as far as I know.

But, by Posidon, 'tis the same with myself. My wife has disappeared with my cloak, and what is still worse, with my shoes as well, for I cannot find them anywhere.

BLEPYRUS: Nor can I my Laconian shoes; but as I had urgent need, I popped my feet into these slippers, so as not to soil my blanket, which is quite new.

MAN: What does it mean? Can some friend have invited her to a feast?

BLEPYRUS: I expect so, for she does not generally misconduct herself, as far as I know.

Come, I say, you seem to be making ropes. Are you never going to be done? As for myself, I would like to go to the Assembly, and it is time to start, but the thing is to find my cloak, for I have only one.

BLEPYRUS: I am going to have a look too, when I have done; but I really think there must be a wild pear obstructing my rectum.

MAN: Is it the one which Thrasybulus spoke about to the Lacedaemonians?

Oh! oh! oh! how the obstruction holds! Whatever am I to do? 'Tis not merely for the present that I am frightened; but when I have eaten, where is it to find an outlet now? This cursed Achradusian fellow has bolted the door. Let a doctor be fetched; but which is the cleverest in this branch of the science? Amynon? Perhaps he would not come. Ah! Antithenes! Let him be brought to me, cost what it will. To judge by his noisy sighs, that man knows what a rump wants, when in urgent need. Oh! venerated Ilithyia! I shall burst unless the door gives way. Have pity! pity! Let me not become the night-stool of the comic poets.

Hi! friend, what are you after there? Easing yourself!

BLEPYRUS: Oh! there! it is over and I can get up again at last.

CHREMES: What's this? You have your wife's tunic on.

BLEPYRUS: Aye, 'twas the first thing that came to my hand in the darkness. But where do you hail from?

CHREMES: From the Assembly.

BLEPYRUS: Is it already over then?

CHREMES: Certainly.

BLEPYRUS: Why, it is scarcely daylight.

Hi! friend, what are you after there? Easing yourself!

BLEPYRUS: Oh! there! it is over and I can get up again at last.

CHREMES: What's this? You have your wife's tunic on.

BLEPYRUS: Aye, 'twas the first thing that came to my hand in the darkness. But where do you hail from?

CHREMES: From the Assembly.

BLEPYRUS: Is it already over then?

CHREMES: Certainly.

BLEPYRUS: Why, it is scarcely daylight.

I did laugh, ye gods, at the vermilion rope-marks that were to be seen all about the Assembly.

BLEPYRUS: Did you get the triobolus?

CHREMES: Would it had so pleased the gods! but I arrived just too late, and am quite ashamed of it; I bring back nothing but this empty wallet.

BLEPYRUS: But why is that?

CHREMES: There was a crowd, such as has never been seen at the Pnyx, and the folk looked pale and wan, like so many shoemakers, so white were they in hue; both I and many another had to go without the triobolus.

Then if I went now, I should get nothing.

CHREMES: No, certainly not, nor even had you gone at the second cock-crow.

BLEPYRUS: Oh! what a misfortune! Oh, Antilochus! no triobolus! Even death would be better! I am undone! But what can have attracted such a crowd at that early hour?

CHREMES: The Prytanes started the discussion of measures nearly concerning the safety of the State; immediately, that blear-eyed fellow, the son of Neoclides, was the first to mount the platform. Then the folk shouted with their loudest voice, "What! he dares to speak, and that, too, when the safety of the State is concerned, and he a man who has not known how to save even his own eyebrows!" He, however, shouted louder than they all, and looking at them asked, "Why, what ought I to have done?"

Pound together garlic and laserpitium juice, add to this mixture some Laconian spurge, and rub it well into the eyelids at night. That's what I should have answered, had I been there.

CHREMES: After him that clever rascal Evaeon began to speak; he was naked, so far as we all could see, but he declared he had a cloak; he propounded the most popular, the most democratic, doctrines. "You see," he said, "I have the greatest need of sixteen drachmae, the cost of a new cloak, my health demands it; nevertheless I wish first to care for that of my fellow-citizens and of my country. If the fullers were to supply tunics to the indigent at the approach of winter, none would be exposed to pleurisy. Let him who has neither beds nor coverlets go to sleep at the tanners' after taking a bath; and if they shut the door in winter, let them be condemned to give him three goat-skins."

By Dionysus, a fine, a very fine notion! Not a soul will vote against his proposal, especially if he adds that the flour-sellers must supply the poor with three measures of corn, or else suffer the severest penalties of the law; 'tis only in this way that Nausicydes can be of any use to us.

CHREMES: Then we saw a handsome young man rush into the tribune, he was all pink and white like young Nicias, and he began to say that the direction of matters should be entrusted to the women; this the crowd of shoemakers began applauding with all their might, while the country-folk assailed him with groans.

And, 'faith, they did well.

CHREMES: But they were outnumbered, and the orator shouted louder than they, saying much good of the women and much ill of you.

BLEPYRUS: And what did he say?

CHREMES: First he said you were a rogue...

BLEPYRUS: And you?

CHREMES: Let me speak ... and a thief....

BLEPYRUS: I alone?

CHREMES: And an informer.

BLEPYRUS: I alone?

CHREMES: Why, no, by the gods! all of us.

And who avers the contrary?

CHREMES: He maintained that women were both clever and thrifty, that they never divulged the Mysteries of Demeter, while you and I go about babbling incessantly about whatever happens at the Senate.

BLEPYRUS: By Hermes, he was not lying!

CHREMES: Then he added, that the women lend each other clothes, trinkets of gold and silver, drinking-cups, and not before witnesses too, but all by themselves, and that they return everything with exactitude without ever cheating each other; whereas, according to him, we are ever ready to deny the loans we have effected.

Aye, by Posidon, and in spite of witnesses.

CHREMES: Again, he said that women were not informers, nor did they bring lawsuits, nor hatch conspiracies; in short, he praised the women in every possible manner.

BLEPYRUS: And what was decided?

CHREMES: To confide the direction of affairs to them; 'tis the one and only innovation that has not yet been tried at Athens.

BLEPYRUS: And it was voted?

And everything that used to be the men's concern has been given over to the women?

CHREMES: You express it exactly.

BLEPYRUS: Thus 'twill be my wife who will go to the Courts now in my stead.

CHREMES: And it will be she who will keep your children in your place.

BLEPYRUS: I shall no longer have to tire myself out with work from daybreak onwards?

CHREMES: No, 'twill be the women's business, and you can stop at home and take your ease.