Trygaeus: But tell me, Lady, why you are silent.
Hermes: But he could not say it to those watching, at least.
Hermes: For he has great anger against them for what he suffered.
Trygaeus: But let her say only a little to you.
660
Hermes: If you think anything against me, you dearest one.
Hermes: Come, most hateful of women.
Hermes: Very well, I hear. Do you call these things to mind? I understand.
Hermes: Listen, you, for what reason you are blamed.
Hermes: She says she came by herself after [the battle] at Pylos.
665
Hermes: carrying a full basket for the city
Hermes: to be dismissed by show of hands three times in the assembly.
Trygaeus: We made a mistake in this; but have forgiveness.
Trygaeus: for our mind was then in the potsherds.
Hermes: Come now, listen to what I was just asked,
670
Hermes: who was most of all hostile to her here,
Hermes: and whoever was a friend and tried to be one without wars.
Trygaeus: Cleonymus was by far the most eunuch-like.
Hermes: Who then does it seem to be the warlike things?
Hermes: Cleonymus?
675
Trygaeus: his soul is excellent, except that
Trygaeus: Was he not, then, in the place where he says he is his father's?
Trygaeus: for if a soldier were to come out at some time, immediately
Trygaeus: He was becoming a thrower of the weapons.
Hermes: Even now, listen to what he just asked me,
Hermes: Whoever now holds the stone that is in the trap.
680
Trygaeus: Hyperbolus now holds this spot.
Trygaeus: What are you doing with this? Where are you turning your head?
Hermes: He is turning the people away, being grieved, because
Hermes: he has enrolled for himself a villainous guardian.
Trygaeus: But we shall no longer use him at all, but now
685
Trygaeus: The demos, being perplexed about a guardian and being naked,
Trygaeus: He has girded this man up to now.
Hermes: So how will he reconcile these things, he asks the city.
Trygaeus: We shall be more prudent.
Hermes: In what way?
Trygaeus: because he happens to be a lamp-maker. So then, before...
690
Trygaeus: We are feeling our way in the dark about the matters,
Trygaeus: But now we will deliberate everything by the light of a lamp.
Hermes: 'Oh, oh!'
Hermes: 'The sort of thing he ordered me to find out from you.'
Trygaeus: What things?
Hermes: countless things and the old ones that he left behind at that time;
Hermes: First, he asked what Sophocles was doing.
695
Trygaeus: He is happy, but he is suffering something wonderful.
Hermes: What?
Trygaeus: From Sophocles, Simonides is made.
Hermes: Simonides? How?
Trygaeus: because, being old and rotten
Trygaeus: for the sake of profit, I would even sail on a dung beetle.
Peace. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.