Part 16

f(1) A lake in Boeotia.

DICAEOPOLIS Ah! my friend, you, who bring me the most delicious of fish, let me salute your eels.

BOEOTIAN Come, thou, the eldest of my fifty Copaic virgins, come and complete the joy of our host.

DICAEOPOLIS Oh! my well-beloved, thou object of my long regrets, thou art here at last then, thou, after whom the comic poets sigh, thou, who art dear to Morychus.(1) Slaves, hither with the stove and the bellows. Look at this charming eel, that returns to us after six long years of absence.(2) Salute it, my children; as for myself, I will supply coal to do honour to the stranger. Take it into my house; death itself could not separate me from her, if cooked with beet leaves.

f(1) He was the Lucullus of Athens.

f(2) This again fixes the date of the presentation of 'The Acharnians' to 436 B.C., the sixth year of the War, since the beginning of which Boeotia had been closed to the Athenians.

BOEOTIAN And what will you give me in return?

DICAEOPOLIS It will pay for your market dues. And as to the rest, what do you wish to sell me?

BOEOTIAN Why, everything.

DICAEOPOLIS On what terms? For ready-money or in wares from these parts?

BOEOTIAN I would take some Athenian produce, that we have not got in Boeotia.

DICAEOPOLIS Phaleric anchovies, pottery?

BOEOTIAN Anchovies, pottery? But these we have. I want produce that is wanting with us and that is plentiful here.

DICAEOPOLIS Ah! I have the very thing; take away an Informer, packed up carefully as crockery-ware.

BOEOTIAN By the twin gods! I should earn big money, if I took one; I would exhibit him as an ape full of spite.

DICAEOPOLIS Hah! here we have Nicarchus,(1) who comes to denounce you.

f(1) An informer.

BOEOTIAN How small he is!

DICAEOPOLIS But in his case the whole is one mass of ill-nature.

NICARCHUS Whose are these goods?

DICAEOPOLIS Mine; they come from Boeotia, I call Zeus to witness.

NICARCHUS I denounce them as coming from an enemy's country.

BOEOTIAN What! you declare war against birds?

NICARCHUS And I am going to denounce you too.

BOEOTIAN What harm have I done you?

NICARCHUS I will say it for the benefit of those that listen; you introduce lamp-wicks from an enemy's country.

DICAEOPOLIS Then you go as far as denouncing a wick.

NICARCHUS It needs but one to set an arsenal afire.