Greek Texts & Translations

14.44 Let me see, ‘twas the twentieth o’ the month. Eight, nine, ten; to-day’s the eleventh. You’ve only to add ten days and ‘twill be two months ^note since we parted; and I may be Thracian-cropped ^note for aught she knows. Ah! ‘tis all Wolf nowadays; Wolf hath the door left open for him o’ nights; as for me, I forsooth am altogether beside the reckoning, like miserable Megara, ^note last i' the list. ‘Tis true, if I would but take my love off the wench, all would go well. But alack! how can that be? When mouse tastes pitch, ^note Thyonichus – ; and what may be the medicine for love there’s no getting away from, ‘faith, I know not – sae that Simus that fell in love, as the saying is, with Mistress Brassbound ^note and went overseas, he came home whole; a mate of mine he was. Suppose I cross the water, like him; your soldier’s life, as ‘tis not maybe o’ the highest, so is it not o’ the lowest, but ‘tis e’en as good as another.

THYONICHUS
14.56 I would indeed thy desire had run smooth, Aeschinas. But if so be thy mind is made up to go thy ways abroad, I’ll e’en tell thee the best paymaster a freeman can have; King Ptolemy.

AESCHINAS
14.59 And what sort of man is he in other ways.

THYONICHUS
14.60 This pick o’ the best: a kind heart, man of parts, a true gallant, and the top o’ good-fellowship; knows well the colour of a friend, and still better the look of a foe; like a true king, gives far and wide and says no man nay – albeit one should not be for ever asking, Aeschians. (in mock-heroic strain) So an thou be’st minded to clasp the warrior’s cloak about thee, and legs astride to abide the onset of the hardy foeman, to Egypt with thee. To judge by our noddles we’re all waxing old, and old Time comes us grizzling line by line down the cheek. We must fain be up and doing while there’s sap in our legs.