to punish[1] him for his misdeeds. Come, let us hasten, O companions in age, before it be day. Let us proceed, and at the same time let us look about with the lamp on every side, lest perchance some one in our way privily do us some mischief.
BOY.
Boy. Father, father, beware of this mud here.
Cho. Take you then a chip from the ground, and trim the lamp.
Boy. No; but methinks I'll trim it with this.
Cho. What has come into your head, pray, that you push up the wick with your finger, and that too when the oil is getting scarce, you dolt? for it gives you no uneasiness when one is obliged to buy it at a high price.
Boy. If, by Jove, you shall admonish, us again with your knuckles, we will extinguish the lamps, and go away home by ourselves; and then, perhaps, in the dark, deprived of this, you will stir up the mud as you walk, like a snipe.[2]
Cho. Assuredly[3] I punish even others greater than you. But this here, as I tread on it, seems to be mud; and it is certainly inevitable that the god rain within four days at the utmost. At any rate there are these here funguses[4] upon the lamps; and he is wont, when this is the case, to rain most of all. And whatever fruits are not early have need
- ↑ This is Porson's emendation adopted by Dindorf. It is a contraction of κολασομένους. See Krüger, Gr. Gr. p. 169, and § 31, 3, obs. 9. The old reading would be pres. part. mid. of κολούω. For ὧν ἠδίκησεν, see note on Nub. 589.
- ↑ Vide Athen. lib. ix. 388, F. Ἀλέξανδρος δ᾽ ὁ Μύνδιός φησιν ὅτι μικρῷ μὲν μείζων ἐστὶ πέρδικος, ὅλος δὲ κατάγραφος τὰ περὶ τὸ νῶτον, κεραμεοῦς τὴν χρόαν, ὑποπυῤῥίζων μᾶλλον. A few lines below we find it a granivorous (σπερμολόγος) bird. From lib. xiv. 652, C. we find it was a great delicacy:
κοὐδὲν ἦν τούτων ὅλως
πρὸς ἀτταγῆνα συμβαλεῖν τῶν βρωμάτων. - ↑ See Krüger, Gr. Gr. § 69, 28, obs. 1.
- ↑ Vide Virg. Georg. i. 393,
"Nec nocturna quidem carpentes pensa puellæ
Nescivêre hyemem: testâ cum ardente viderent
Scintillare oleum, et putres concrescere fungos."
Acharn. 197; Pac. 312, 716. It is said παρὰ προσδοκίαν for ἡμερῶν τριῶν σῖτον.
