Persian slippers. But where shall I find a place where I can take a

crap? Bah! One place is as good as another at night-time; no one
will see me. Ah! what a damned fool I was to take a wife at my age,

and how I could thrash myself for having acted so stupidly! It's
certainty she's not gone out for any honest purpose. But the thing

to do now is to take a crap.
(He squats.)

A MAN (looking out of the window of the house next door)
Who's that? Is that not my neighbour Blepyrus? Why, yes, it's 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; 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.
MAN

But, by Posidon, it's the same with myself. My wife has
disappeared with my cloak, and what is still worse, with my shoes as

well; I cannot find them anywhere.
BLEPYRUS

Nor can I my Laconian ones; but as I urgently needed to crap, I
popped my feet into these slippers, so as not to soil my blanket,

which is brand 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.

MAN
What are you doing, making well-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 I've got to find my cloak; I have only one.

BLEPYRUS
I am going to have a look too, when I have finished crapping;

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?
BLEPYRUS

Oh! oh! oh! stopped up I am! Whatever am I to do? It's not
merely for the present that I am frightened; but when I have eaten,

where is my crap to find an outlet now? This damned McPear fellow
has bolted the door. Call a doctor; but who is the cleverest in this

branch of the science? Amynon? Perhaps he would not come. Ah!
Antisthenes! Let him be brought to me, cost what it will. To judge

by his noisy sighs, that man knows what an arse wants, when it needs
to crap. Oh! venerated Ilithyia! I shall burst unless the door gives

way. Have pity! pity! Let me not become a thunder-mug for the comic
poets.

(Enter CHREMES, returning from the Assembly.)
CHREMES

Hi! friend, what are you doing there? You're not crapping, are
you?

BLEPYRUS (finding relief at last)
Oh! there! it is over and I can get up again.

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

BLEPYRUS
It was the first thing that came to my hand in the darkness. But

where are you coming from?
CHREMES

From the Assembly.
BLEPYRUS

Is it already over then?
CHREMES

Certainly.
BLEPYRUS

Why, it is scarcely daylight.
CHREMES

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.
BLEPYRUS

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 closely 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 all of them, and looking at them asked, "Why, what ought I
to have done?"

BLEPYRUS
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."

BLEPYRUS
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; this is the only way Nausicydes can
be of any use to us.

CHREMES
Then we saw a handsome young man rush into the tribune, be 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.

BLEPYRUS
And, indeed, 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 (eagerly)

And what did he say?
CHREMES

First he said you were a rogue...
BLEPYRUS

And you?
CHREMES

Wait a minute!...and a thief...
BLEPYRUS

I alone?
CHREMES

And an informer.
BLEPYRUS

I alone?
CHREMES

Why, no, by the gods! this whole crowd here.
(He points to the audience.)

BLEPYRUS
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.

BLEPYRUS
Yes, 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; it's the one and only

innovation that has not yet been tried at Athens.
BLEPYRUS

And it was voted?
CHREMES

Yes.
BLEPYRUS

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

CHREMES
You express it exactly.

BLEPYRUS
Thus it will 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 stay at home and
amuse yourself with farting the whole day through.

BLEPYRUS
Well, what I fear for us fellows now is, that, holding the reins

• persian [´pə:ʃən] a.波斯的 n.波斯人 (初中英语单词)
• assembly [ə´sembli] n.集会；装配；与会者 (初中英语单词)
• whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
• relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
• ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
• discussion [di´skʌʃən] n.讨论；辩论 (初中英语单词)
• platform [´plætfɔ:m] n.(平)台；讲台；站台 (初中英语单词)
• nevertheless [,nevəðə´les] conj.&ad.然而；不过 (初中英语单词)
• whereas [weər´æz] conj.鉴于；因此；而 (初中英语单词)
• damned [dæmd] a.该死的 ad.非常，极 (高中英语单词)
• thrash [θræʃ] v.打(谷)；(用棍)痛打 (高中英语单词)
• vainly [´veinli] ad.虚荣地；自负地 (高中英语单词)
• outlet [´autlet] n.出口；出路；通风口 (高中英语单词)
• concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
• rascal [´rɑ:skəl] n.流氓 (高中英语单词)
• saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
• confide [kən´faid] v.委托；吐露；信任 (高中英语单词)
• orator [´ɔrətə] n.演说者；雄辩家 (英语四级单词)
• garlic [´gɑ:lik] n.蒜，大蒜 (英语六级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
• tribune [´tribju:n] n.<<论坛报>> (英语六级单词)
• thrifty [´θrifti] a.节俭的；兴旺的 (英语六级单词)
• incessantly [in´sesntli] ad.不断地，不停地 (英语六级单词)
• holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)