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A Literal Translation, with Notes.
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Aristophanes in Print69 pages - You are on Page 44
AN OLD MAN. You dear old woman, I would fain kiss you.
A WOMAN. I will set you crying without onions.
OLD MAN. ... And give you a sound kicking.
OLD WOMAN. Ah, ha! what a dense forest you have there! (Pointing.)
OLD MAN. So was Myronides one of the best-bearded of men o' this side; his backside was all black, and he terrified his enemies as much as Phormio.[446]
CHORUS OF WOMEN. I want to tell you a fable too, to match yours about Melanion. Once there was a certain man called Timon,[447] a tough customer, and a whimsical, a true son of the Furies, with a face that seemed to glare out of a thorn-bush. He withdrew from the world because he couldn't abide bad men, after vomiting a thousand curses at 'em. He had a holy horror of ill-conditioned fellows, but he was mighty tender towards women.
A WOMAN. Suppose I up and broke your jaw for you!
AN OLD MAN. I am not a bit afraid of you.
[446] Myronides and Phormio were famous Athenian generals. The former was celebrated for his conquest of all Boeotia, except Thebes, in 458 B.C.; the latter, with a fleet of twenty triremes, equipped at his own cost, defeated a Lacedaemonian fleet of forty-seven sail, in 429.
[447] Timon, the misanthrope; he was an Athenian and a contemporary of Aristophanes. Disgusted by the ingratitude of his fellow-citizens and sickened with repeated disappointments, he retired altogether from society, admitting no one, it is said, to his intimacy except the brilliant young statesman Alcibiades.
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