to call my comrades, the other husbandmen, that each of them may come here to take his share of the gifts of Plutus.
I'm off. But let someone come from the house to take this morsel of meat.
CHREMYLUS: I'll see to that; you run your hardest. As for you, Plutus, the most excellent of all the gods, come in here with me; this is the house you must fill with riches today, by fair means or foul.
I don't like at all going into other folks' houses in this manner; I have never got any good from it. If I got inside a miser's house, straightway he would bury me deep underground; if some honest fellow among his friends came to ask him for the smallest coin, he would deny ever having seen me. Then if I went to a fool's house, he would sacrifice me as a prey to gaming and to girls, and very soon I should be completely stripped and pitched out of doors.
That's because you have never met a man who knew how to avoid the two extremes; moderation is the strong point in my character. I love saving as much as anybody, and I know how to spend, when 'tis needed. But let us go in; I want to make you known to my wife and to my only son, whom I love most of all after yourself.
Aye, after myself, I'm very sure of that.
CHREMYLUS: Why should I hide the truth from you?
CARIO: Come, you active workers, who, like my master, eat nothing but garlic and the poorest food, you who are his friends and his neighbours, hasten your steps, hurry yourselves; there's not a moment to lose; this is the critical hour, when your presence and your support is needed by him.
Why, don't you see we are speeding as fast as men can, who are already enfeebled by age? But do you deem it fitting to make us run like this before ever telling us why your master has called us?
I've grown hoarse with the telling, but you won't listen. My master is going to drag you all out of the stupid, sapless life you are leading and ensure you one full of all delights.
And how is he going to manage that?
CARIO: My poor friends, he has brought with him a disgusting old fellow, all bent and wrinkled, with a most pitiful appearance, bald and toothless; upon my word, I even believe he is circumcised like some vile barbarian.
These are news worth their weight in gold! What are you saying? Repeat it to me; no doubt it means he is bringing back a heap of wealth.
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.
Tap any Greek word to look it up