Poverty: for I will utterly destroy you, wicked men, in a wicked way;
Poverty: for daring is not to be endured.
Poverty: But never has anyone been like anyone else.
420
Poverty: neither a god nor a human; so I am destroyed.
Chremylus: And who are you? For you seem to me to be pale.
Blepsidemus: Perhaps she is an Erinys from a tragedy;
Blepsydemus: It does indeed look something mad and tragic.
Chremylus: But he does not have torches, for he has none.
425
Blepsidemus: So he will cry.
Poverty: Do you think that I am someone?
Chremylus: a landlady
Chremylus: Or a leek-seller? For he would not have been so much
Chremylus: You shouted at us as though we had been wronged.
Poverty: Is it true? For I have not done the most terrible things.
Poverty: [Do you think that] seeking to expel [you] from every land?
430
Chremylus: So then, isn't the abyss becoming a remainder for you?
Chremylus: But what should you have said immediately?
Poverty: I will make you two pay the penalty today.
Poverty: for these things they were seeking to destroy me from here.
Blepsidemus: Is the shopkeeper one of the neighbors?
435
Blepsydemus: Does it always make me dizzy with its jugs?
Poverty: Poverty, then, who has lived with you both for many years.
Blepsidemus: Lord Apollo and gods, where can one flee?
Chremylus: What is this one doing? O most cowardly beast of a man;
Chremylus: Are you not staying with me?
440
Blepsidemus: By far the least of all.
Chremylus: Will you not stay?
Chremylus: But do we two men flee from one woman?
Blepsydemus: For it is Poverty, you wretch, from whom [one gets] nowhere.
Blepsidemus: No creature has a nature more wretched.
Chremylus: Stand still, I beg you, stand still.
Blepsydemus: By Zeus, I certainly do not.
Chremylus: Yes, I say, by far the most amazing thing.
445
Chremylus: We shall undertake all tasks, if [we have] the god
Chremylus: Having left a deserted place, where shall we flee?
Chremylus: I am afraid of this, and let us not argue.
Blepsydemus: On what weapons or power do you rely?
Blepsydemus: For which breastplate is not [his], and which shield is not [his]?
450
Blepsydemus: Does that most filthy one not put up a pledge?
Chremylus: Courage; for only this god knows that
Chremylus: He would set up a trophy of these tricks.
Poverty: but even you, you scum, dare to hiss!
Poverty: Caught in the very act of doing terrible things?
455
Chremylus: But you, most wretched woman, why are you reviling me as you wash?
Chremylus: Has she come over to us without being wronged in the least?
Poverty: for you do not believe anything, I beg you, by the gods
Poverty: [she says that] Poverty tries to make me commit injustice against Wealth.
Poverty: to look again?
460
Chremylus: So what wrong are we doing to you,
Chremylus: if we provide for all men
Chremylus: "Good?"
Poverty: What good could you discover?
Chremylus: What?
Chremylus: after having first expelled you from Greece.
Poverty: Having thrown me out? And what would you suppose?
Poverty: Is it worse for humans to work?
465
Chremylus: What?
Chremylus: if, while intending to do this, we were to forget.
Wealth. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.