Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/163

Rh Peis. My fancy's much the same. Hoo. How so? Peis. To find a place of the same sort:

A kind of place, where a good jolly father

Meets and attacks me thus—"What's come to ye

With my young people? You don't take to 'em.

What! they're not reckoned ugly! You might treat 'em,

As an old friend, with a little attention surely,

And take a trifling civil freedom with 'em." Hoo. Ay! You're in love I see with difficulties

And miseries. Well, there's a city in fact

Much of this sort; one that I think might suit ye,

Near the Red Sea. Eu. No, no! not near the sea!

Lest I should have the Salaminian galley

Arriving some fine morning, with a summons

Sent after me, and a pursuivant to arrest me.

But could not you tell us of some Grecian city? Hoo. Why there's in Elis there, the town of Lepreum. Eu. No, no! No Lepreums: nor no lepers neither.

No leprosies for me. Melanthius

Has given me a disgust for leprosies. Hoo. Then there's Opuntius in the land of Locris. Eu. Opuntius? Me to be like Opuntius!

With his one eye! Not for a thousand drachmas.

But tell me among the birds here, how do ye find it?

What kind of an existence? Hoo. Pretty fair;

Not much amiss. Time passes smoothly enough;

And money is out of the question. We don't use it. Eu. You've freed yourselves from a great load of dross. Hoo. We've our field sports. We spend our idle mornings

With banqueting and collations in the gardens,