HKB
TRYGAEUS I am cooking the thrushes.
SICKLE-MAKER Trygaeus, my best of friends, what a fine stroke of business you have done for me by bringing back Peace! Formerly my sickles would not have sold at an obolus apiece; to-day I am being paid fifty drachmae for every one. And here is a neighbour who is selling his casks for the country at three drachmae each. So come, Trygaeus, take as many sickles and casks as you will for nothing. Accept them for nothing; 'tis because of our handsome profits on our sales that we offer you these wedding presents.
TRYGAEUS Thanks. Put them all down inside there, and come along quick to the banquet. Ah! do you see that armourer yonder coming with a wry face?
A CREST-MAKER Alas! alas! Trygaeus, you have ruined me utterly.
TRYGAEUS What! won't the crests go any more, friend?
CREST-MAKER You have killed my business, my livelihood, and that of this poor lance-maker too.
TRYGAEUS Come, come, what are you asking for these two crests?
CREST-MAKER What do you bid for them?
TRYGAEUS What do I bid? Oh! I am ashamed to say. Still, as the clasp is of good workmanship, I would give two, even three measures of dried figs; I could use 'em for dusting the table.
CREST-MAKER All right, tell them to bring me the dried figs; 'tis always better than nothing.
TRYGAEUS Take them away, be off with your crests and get you gone; they are moulting, they are losing all their hair; I would not give a single fig for them.
A BREASTPLATE-MAKER Good gods, what am I going to do with this fine ten-minae breastplate, which is so splendidly made?
TRYGAEUS Oh, you will lose nothing over it.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER I will sell it to you at cost price.
TRYGAEUS 'Twould be very useful as a night-stool...
BREASTPLATE-MAKER Cease your insults, both to me and my wares.
TRYGAEUS ...if propped on three stones. Look, 'tis admirable.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER But how can you wipe, idiot?
TRYGAEUS I can pass one hand through here, and the other there, and so...
BREASTPLATE-MAKER What! do you wipe with both hands?
TRYGAEUS Aye, so that I may not be accused of robbing the State, by blocking up an oar-hole in the galley.(1)
f(1) The trierarchs stopped up some of the holes made for the oars, in order to reduce the number of rowers they had to supply for the galleys; they thus saved the wages of the rowers they dispensed with.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER So you would pay ten minae(1) for a night-stool?
f(1) The mina was equivalent to about three pounds, ten shillings.
TRYGAEUS Undoubtedly, you rascal. Do you think I would sell my rump for a thousand drachmae?(1)
f(1) Which is the same thing, since a mina was worth a hundred drachmae.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER Come, have the money paid over to me.
TRYGAEUS No, friend; I find it hurts me to sit on. Take it away, I won't buy it.
A TRUMPET-MAKER What is to be done with this trumpet, for which I gave sixty drachmae the other day?
TRYGAEUS Pour lead into the hollow and fit a good, long stick to the top; and you will have a balanced cottabos.(1)
f(1) For 'cottabos' see note above.
TRUMPET-MAKER Ha! would you mock me?
TRYGAEUS Well, here's another notion. Pour in lead as I said, add here a dish hung on strings, and you will have a balance for weighing the figs which you give your slaves in the fields.
A HELMET-MAKER Cursed fate! I am ruined. Here are helmets, for which I gave a mina each. What I to do with them? who will buy them?
TRYGAEUS Go and sell them to the Egyptians; they will do for measuring loosening medicines.(1)
f(1) Syrmoea, a kind of purgative syrup much used by the Egyptians, made of antiscorbutic herbs, such as mustard, horse-radish, etc.
A SPEAR-MAKER Ah! poor helmet-maker, things are indeed in a bad way.
TRYGAEUS That man has no cause for complaint.
SPEAR-MAKER But helmets will be no more used.