Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol1.djvu/163

723—742.

. Ho you! what are you about? Are you not meditating?

. I? Yea, by Neptune!

. And what, pray, have you thought?

. Whether any bit of me will be left by the bugs.

. You will perish most wretchedly.

. But, my good friend, I have already perished.

. You must not give in, but must wrap yourself up; for you have to discover a device for abstracting, and a means of cheating. [Walks up and down while Strepsiades wraps himself up in the blankets.]

. Ah me! would, pray, some one would throw over me a swindling contrivance from the sheep-skins.

. Come now; I will first see this fellow, what he is about. Ho you! are you asleep?

. No; by Apollo, I am not!

. Have you got any thing?

. No; by Jupiter, certainly not!

. Nothing at all?

. Nothing, except what I have in my right hand.

. Will you not quickly cover yourself up, and think of something?

. About what? for do you tell me this, O Socrates!

. Do you, yourself, first find out and state what you wish.

. You have heard a thousand times what I wish. About the interest; so that I may pay no one.

. Come then, wrap yourself up, and having given your mind play with subtilty, revolve your affairs by little and little, rightly distinguishing and examining.

. Ah me, unhappy man!