What do you mean? what bit? Hi! you woman! come here!
PHILOCLEON: Ah! ah! What do you want to do?
BDELYCLEON: To take her from you and lead her away. You are too much worn out and can do nothing.
PHILOCLEON: Hear me! One day, at Olympia, I saw Euphudion boxing bravely against Ascondas; he was already aged, and yet with a blow from his fist he knocked down his young opponent. So beware lest I blacken _your_ eyes.
By Zeus! you have Olympia at your finger-ends! A BAKER'S WIFE (_to Bdelycleon_). Come to my help, I beg you, in the name of the gods! This cursed man, when striking out right and left with his torch, knocked over ten loaves worth an obolus apiece, and then, to cap the deal, four others.
BDELYCLEON: Do you see what lawsuits you are drawing upon yourself with your drunkenness? You will have to plead.
Oh, no, no! a little pretty talk and pleasant tales will soon settle the matter and reconcile her with me.
BAKER'S WIFE: Not so, by the goddesses twain! It shall not be said that you have with impunity spoilt the wares of Myrtia, the daughter of Ancylion and Sostraté.
PHILOCLEON: Listen, woman, I wish to tell you a lovely anecdote.
BAKER'S WIFE: Oh! friend, no anecdotes for me, thank you.
One night Aesop was going out to supper. A drunken bitch had the impudence to bark near him. Aesop said to her, "Oh, bitch, bitch! you would do well to sell your wicked tongue and buy some wheat."
BAKER'S WIFE: You make a mock of me! Very well! Be you who you like, I shall summons you before the market inspectors for damage done to my business. Chaerephon here shall be my witness.
PHILOCLEON: But just listen, here's another will perhaps please you better. Lasus and Simonides were contesting against each other for the singing prize. Lasus said, "Damn me if I care."
Ah! really, did he now!
PHILOCLEON: As for you, Chaerephon, _can_ you be witness to this woman, who looks as pale and tragic as Ino when she throws herself from her rock ... at the feet of Euripides?
BDELYCLEON: Here, methinks, comes another to summons you; _he_ has his witness too. Ah! unhappy indeed we are!
ACCUSER: I summons you, old man, for outrage.
BDELYCLEON: For outrage? Oh! in the name of the gods, do not summons him! I will be answerable for him; name the penalty and I will be more grateful still.
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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