Chorus: Go forward bravely. O Comedy, you are lagging.
230
Chorus: By Zeus, not indeed before that, but you were a hound's thong;
Chorus: But now Chirindas is better able to walk than you.
Chorus: O Stymodorus Condylos, best of the jurors,
Chorus: Is Euergetides here somewhere or is it Chabes the Phlyean?
Chorus: Come, then, what remains, alas! woe!
235
Chorus: when in that youth we were together in Byzantium.
Chorus: I and you, guarding; and then walking about by night
Chorus: We stole the pestle from the bread-seller without her knowing,
Chorus: And then we will touch the jar, having split it open.
Chorus: But let us dance, men, as it will be for Laches now;
240
Chorus: They say that he has a seal for all money.
Chorus: So yesterday Cleon, our guardian, told us to come at the right time.
Chorus: Having brought for three days a malicious anger.
Chorus: against him, as if he had wronged those who were angry. But
Chorus: Let us hasten, men of my age, before it becomes day.
245
Chorus: Let us go, and with the lamp let us search everywhere,
Chorus: Lest perhaps some stone hinder us from doing some evil.
Boy: Guard this lump of clay, father, father!
Chorus: taking a wisp of straw from the ground, now light the lamp with a snuffer.
Boy: No, but I think I will light the lamp in this way.
250
Chorus: What then have you learned, that you push the wick with your finger?
Chorus: And these things, when olive oil was scarce, did you perceive?
Chorus: for it will not sting you, when it is necessary to buy something valuable.
Boy: If, by Zeus, you are going to admonish us again with your knuckles,
Boy: Having extinguished the lamps, let us go home alone.
255
Boy: And then perhaps, having been deprived in this darkness,
Boy: you will stir up the clay as you walk, like a grasshopper.
Chorus: Indeed, I punish you and others more severely.
Chorus: but this fellow seems to me to be mud to the one treading.
Chorus: And there is no way, not even for four days at the very most.
260
Chorus: We must necessarily make the god water.
Chorus: At least, the mushrooms are coming with the torches.
Chorus: But when this is the case, he loves above all to make rain.
Chorus: And it needs the figs too, which are not yet ripe.
Chorus: to become water and blow a north wind upon them.
265
Chorus: What is this, then, that you are not the co-defendant of this household?
Chorus: Has he suffered something, as he does not appear here to the crowd?
Chorus: No, it was not before the flute-player, but was first among us.
Chorus: He would lead singing of Phrynichus; for indeed he is a man
Chorus: A lover of song. But it seems to me, men, to stand here now.
270
Chorus: To call him out singing, if perhaps he hears something.
Chorus: Let my song creep forth from pleasure.
Wasps. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.