Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae
Eugene O'Neill, Jr., Ed.

Blepyrus
I am going to have a look too, when I have finished crapping; but I really think [355] there must be a wild pear obstructing my rectum.

Man
Is it the one which Thrasybulus spoke about to the Lacedaemonians?

Blepyrus
Oh! oh! oh! how stopped up I am! Whatever am I to do? It's not merely for the present that I am frightened; but when I have eaten, [360] where is my crap to find an outlet now? This damned McPear fellow has bolted the door. Call a doctor; but who is the cleverest in this branch of the science? [365] Amynon? Perhaps he would not come. Ah! Antisthenes! Let him be brought to me, cost what it will. To judge by his noisy sighs, that man knows what an arse wants, when it needs to crap. Oh! venerated Ilithyia! I shall burst unless [370] the door gives way. Have pity! pity! Let me not become a thunder-mug for the comic poets.

Enter Chremes, returning from the Assembly.

Chremes
Hi! friend, what are you doing there? You're not crapping, are you?

Blepyrus
Finding relief at last.
Oh! there! it is over and I can get up again.

Chremes
What's this? You have your wife's tunic on.

Blepyrus
[375] It was the first thing that came to my hand in the darkness. But where are you coming from?

Chremes
From the Assembly.

Blepyrus
Is it already over then?

Chremes
Certainly.

Blepyrus
Why, it is scarcely daylight.

Chremes
I did laugh, ye gods, at the vermilion rope-marks that were to be seen all about the Assembly.

Blepyrus
[380] Did you get the triobolus?

Chremes
Would it had so pleased the gods! but I arrived just too late, and am quite ashamed of it; I bring back nothing but this empty wallet.

Blepyrus
But why is that?

Chremes
There was a crowd, such as has never been seen at the Pnyx, [385] and the folk looked pale and wan, like so many shoemakers, so white were they in hue; both I and many another had to go without the triobolus.