Aristophanes' ECCLESIAZUSAE (Women In Council) Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

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BLEPYRUS. Oh! oh! oh! how the obstruction holds! Whatever am I to do? 'Tis not merely for the present that I am frightened; but when I have eaten, where is it to find an outlet now? This cursed Achradusian fellow[683] has bolted the door. Let a doctor be fetched; but which is the cleverest in this branch of the science? Amynon?[684] Perhaps he would not come. Ah! Antithenes![685] Let him be brought to me, cost what it will. To judge by his noisy sighs, that man knows what a rump wants, when in urgent need. Oh! venerated Ilithyia![686] I shall burst unless the door gives way. Have pity! pity! Let me not become the night-stool of the comic poets.[687]

CHREMES. Hi! friend, what are you after there? Easing yourself!

BLEPYRUS. Oh! there! it is over and I can get up again at last.

CHREMES. What's this? You have your wife's tunic on.

BLEPYRUS. Aye, 'twas the first thing that came to my hand in the darkness. But where do you hail from?

[683] A coined word, derived from [Greek: achras], a wild pear.

[684] Amynon was not a physician, according to the Scholiast, but one of those orators called [Greek: europroktoi] (laticuli) 'wide-arsed,' because addicted to habits of pathic vice, and was invoked by Blepyrus for that reason.

[685] A doctor notorious for his dissolute life.

[686] The Grecian goddess who presided over child-birth.

[687] He is afraid lest some comic poet should surprise him in his ridiculous position and might cause a laugh at his expense upon the stage.

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