Philocleon: So he is a thief and a conspirator.
Bdelycleon: By Zeus, but he is the best of the dogs of today.
Bdelycleon: able to stand over many sheep.
955
Philokleon: So what is the point, if he eats the cheese?
Bdelycleon: What? He fights in front and guards the door for you.
Bdelycleon: and as for everything else he is excellent; but if he stole,
Bdelycleon: Forgive me. For he does not know how to play the cithara.
Philocleon: But I should not even want to write letters,
960
Philocleon: so that, while doing evil, you might not enroll this speech among us.
Bdelycleon: Listen, my dear friend, to the witnesses.
Bdelycleon: climb up the cheese-stick and lie down loudly;
Bdelycleon: for you happened to be acting as steward. Answer clearly,
Bdelycleon: if you had not caught the soldiers in a net.
965
Bdelyclēon: He says to crush him.
Philocleon: By Zeus, but he is lying.
Bdelucléon: O wretched man, have pity on those who are suffering!
Bdelycleon: for this Labes also eats his neck.
Bdelycleon: And even the thorns, and never stays in the same place.
Bdelycleon: but the other is only a housekeeper.
970
Bdelycleon: for staying there, whatever someone brings in
Bdelycleon: He begs a share of these; but if not, he bites.
Philokleon: Alas! What evil is there for whom I am softening?
Philocleon: a bad thing is happening to me, and yet I am persuaded.
Bdelycleon: Come, I beg you, have pity on him, father.
975
Bdelycleon: And do not corrupt them. Where are the children?
Bdelukleon: Get up, you wretched and squirming one!
Bdelucleon: beg, plead, and weep.
Philocleon: Come down, come down, come down, come down.
Bdelycleon: I shall come down.
Bdelycleon: Yet this going down is indeed very much disliked.
980
Bdelucléon: He was deceived. Nevertheless, I shall go down.
Philocleon: To hell with it! For sucking is not a good thing.
Philocleon: For I have shed tears over my opinion now.
Philokleon: never anything but full of lentils.
Bdelycléon: 'Then he surely will not escape?'
985
Philocleon: It is difficult to know.
Bdelycleon: Come, turn your mind to better things.
Bdelycleon: taking this ballot [and placing it] on the later one
Bdelycleon: cut off the fetters and release him, father.
Philocleon: Not at all; for I do not know how to play the lyre.
Bdelucleon: come now, I will take you around here as quickly as possible.
990
Philocleon: Is this the first one?
Philocleon: This is here.
Bdelucleon: He has been deceived and has escaped, not willingly.
Bdelycleon: Come, let us get rid of him.
Philocleon: How, then, did we contend?
Bdelycleon: He seems about to show it. You have escaped, O Labes.
Bdelyclēon: Father, father, what have you suffered? Alas! Where is the water?
995
Bdelycleon: Lift yourself up.
Philocleon: tell me that now,
Philocleon: Did he really escape?
Philocleon: Then I am nothing.
Bdelycleon: Do not worry, O wretch; but get up.
Philocleon: How then will I persuade myself of this?
Philocleon: Having sent away a man while he was fleeing, what am I to suffer, then?
1000
Philocleon: But, O most highly honored gods, forgive me;
Philocleon: For I did it unwillingly, and it is not in my nature.
Bdelucleon: And don't be annoyed, then. For I, father, ...
Bdelycleon: I will rear him well, taking him with me everywhere,
Bdelycleon: to dinner, to a drinking party, to a spectacle,
1005
Bdelycleon: so that you may live happily for the rest of your life;
Bdelycleon: And Hyperbolus will not bore you by deceiving you.
Bdelycléon: but let us go inside.
Philokleon: These things, then, if it seems good.
