Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol1.djvu/182

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. Cannot it?

. Certainly not; unless the same woman can be both old and young at the same time.

. And yet it is the law.

. For they do not, I think, rightly understand what the law means.

. And what does it mean?

. The ancient Solon was by nature the commons' friend.

. This surely is nothing whatever to the Old and New.

. He therefore made the summons for two days, for the Old and New, that the deposits might be made on the first of the month.

. Why, pray, did he add the old day?

. In order, my good sir, that the defendants, being present a day before, might compromise the matter of their own accord; but if not, that they might be worried on the morning of the new moon.

. Why, then, do the magistrates not receive the deposits on the new moon, but on the Old and New?

. They seem to me to do what the forestallers do: in order that they may appropriate the deposits as soon as possible, on this account they have the first pick by one day.

. (turning to the audience). Bravo! ye wretches, why do you sit senseless, the gain of us wise men, being blocks, ciphers, mere sheep, jars heaped together? Wherefore I must sing an encomium upon myself and this my son,