Alas! I shall become a Procrustes.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: Obey the law.
YOUNG MAN: But if a fellow-citizen, a friend, came to pay my ransom?
FIRST OLD WOMAN: No man may dispose of anything above a medimnus.
YOUNG MAN: But may I not enter an excuse?
FIRST OLD WOMAN: There's no evasion.
YOUNG MAN: I shall declare myself a merchant and so escape service.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: Beware what you do!
YOUNG MAN: Well! what is to be done?
Follow me.
YOUNG MAN: Is it absolutely necessary?
FIRST OLD WOMAN: Yes, as surely as if Diomedes had commanded it.
YOUNG MAN: Well then, first spread out a layer of origanum upon four pieces of wood; bind fillets round your head, bring phials of scent and place a bowl filled with lustral water before your door.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: Will you buy a chaplet for me too?
YOUNG MAN: Aye, if you outlast the tapers; for I expect to see you fall down dead as you go in.
Where are you dragging this unfortunate man to?
FIRST OLD WOMAN: 'Tis my very own property that I am leading in.
YOUNG GIRL: You do ill. A young fellow like him is not of the age to suit you. You ought to be his mother rather than his wife. With these laws in force, the earth will be filled with Oedipuses.
FIRST OLD WOMAN: Oh! you cursed pest! 'tis envy that makes you say this; but I will be revenged.
By Zeus the Deliverer, what a service you have done me, by freeing me of this old wretch! with what ardour I will show you my gratitude in a form both long and thick!
SECOND OLD WOMAN: Hi! you there! where are you taking that young man to, in spite of the law? The decree ordains that he must first sleep with me.
YOUNG MAN: Oh! what a misfortune! Where does _this_ hag come from? 'Tis a more frightful monster than the other even.
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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