Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol1.djvu/154

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me, I have a very good memory; but if I owe, unhappy man, I am very forgetful.

. Is the power of speaking, pray, implanted in your nature?

. Speaking is not in me, but cheating is.

. How, then, will you be able to learn?

. Excellently, of course.

. Come, then, take care that, whenever I propound any clever dogma about abstruse matters, you catch it up immediately.

. What then? Am I to feed upon wisdom like a dog?

. This man is ignorant and brutish. I fear, old man, lest you win need blows. Come, let me see; what do you do if any one beat you?

. I take the beating; and then, when I have waited a little while, I call witnesses to prove it; then, again, after a short interval, I go to law.

. Come then, lay down your cloak.

. Have I done any wrong?

. No; but it is the rule to enter naked.

. But I do not enter to search for stolen goods.

. Lay it down. Why do you talk nonsense?

. Now tell me this, pray. If I be diligent and learn zealously, to which of your disciples shall I become like?

. You will no way differ from Chærephon in intellect.

. Ah me, unhappy! I shall become half-dead.

. Don't chatter; but quickly follow me hither with smartness.

. Then give me first into my hands a honeyed cake; for I am afraid of descending within, as if into the cave of Trophonius.