First Stasimon
Χορός
καὶ μὴν ἡμεῖς ἐπὶ ταῖς σπονδαῖς
καὶ ταῖς εὐχαῖς
865 φήμην ἀγαθὴν λέξομεν ὑμῖν,
ὅτι γενναίως ἐκ τοῦ πολέμου
καὶ τοῦ νείκους ξυνεβήτην.
Βδελυκλέων
εὐφημία μὲν πρῶτα νῦν ὑπαρχέτω.
Χορός
Φοῖβʼ Ἄπολλον Πύθιʼ ἐπʼ ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ
870 τὸ πρᾶγμʼ μηχανᾶται
ἔμπροσθεν οὗτος τῶν θυρῶν,
ἅπασιν ἡμῖν ἁρμόσαι
παυσαμένοις πλάνων.
ἰήιε Παιάν.
Βδελυκλέων
875 δέσποτʼ ἄναξ γεῖτον ἀγυιεῦ προθύρου προπύλαιε,
δέξαι τελετὴν καινὴν ὦναξ, ἣν τῷ πατρὶ καινοτομοῦμεν,
παῦσόν τʼ αὐτοῦ τοῦτο τὸ λίαν στρυφνὸν καὶ πρίνινον ἦθος,
867–877

Hold! what do you say? I have brought you everything needful and much more into the bargain. See, here is an _article,_ should you want to piss; it shall be hung beside you on a nail.

PHILOCLEON: Good idea! Right useful at my age. You have found the true preventive of bladder troubles.

BDELYCLEON: Here is fire, and near to it are lentils, should you want to take a snack.

PHILOCLEON: 'Tis admirably arranged. For thus, even when feverish, I shall nevertheless receive my pay; and besides, I could eat my lentils without quitting my seat. But why this cock?

ἀντὶ σιραίου μέλιτος μικρὸν τῷ θυμιδίῳ παραμείξας·
ἤδη δʼ εἶναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις
ἤπιον αὐτόν,
880 τοὺς φεύγοντάς τʼ ἐλεεῖν μᾶλλον
τῶν γραψαμένων
κἀπιδακρύειν ἀντιβολούντων,
καὶ παυσάμενον τῆς δυσκολίας
ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς
τὴν ἀκαλήφην ἀφελέσθαι.
Χορός
885 ξυνευχόμεσθα ταὐτά σοι κἀπᾴδομεν
νέαισιν ἀρχαῖς ἕνεκα τῶν προλελεγμένων.
878–886

So that, should you doze during some pleading, he may awaken you by crowing up there.

PHILOCLEON: I want only for one thing more; all the rest is as good as can be.

BDELYCLEON: What is that?

PHILOCLEON: If only they could bring me an image of the hero Lycus.

BDELYCLEON: Here it is! Why, you might think it was the god himself!

PHILOCLEON: Oh! hero, my master! how repulsive you are to look at! 'Tis an exact portrait of Cleonymus!

εὖνοι γάρ ἐσμεν ἐξ οὗ
τὸν δῆμον ᾐσθόμεσθά σου
φιλοῦντος ὡς οὐδεὶς ἀνὴρ
890 τῶν γε νεωτέρων.
890 ἰήιε Παιάν.
887–896

That is why, hero though he be, he has no weapon.

BDELYCLEON: The sooner you take your seat, the sooner I shall call a case.

PHILOCLEON: Call it, for I have been seated ever so long.

BDELYCLEON: Let us see. What case shall we bring up first? Is there a slave who has done something wrong? Ah! you Thracian there, who burnt the stew-pot t'other day.

PHILOCLEON: Hold, hold! Here is a fine state of things! you had almost made me judge without a bar, and that is the thing of all others most sacred among us.

The Athenian Society, "The Eleven Comedies" (1912)
Tap any Greek word to look it up · Tap a line to reveal the English translation
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.

Tap any Greek word to look it up