208 ARISTOPHANES.

We are all men to-day.

We must vote for, and mind

That the gain-hunting crowd

From the town be allowed

Not a sitting to find.

Ah! but once on a time,

In our fair golden prime,

Men had thought it a crime

To serve country for pelf;

But each brought for himself
Just a bottle of wine and a morsel to eat,
Bread with onions and olives may be for a treat;
But these fellows are patriots only for pay,
Like scavengers working for so much a day.”

Meanwhile there was much perplexity and con-
fusion in the houses which the women had left. —
“Where in the world is my wife?” said one poor
man, who was Praxagora’s husband. “I can’t find
my shoes or my cloak; so I have had to put on her
mantle, and make shift to get my feet as far as they
would go into her Persian slippers. Fool that I was
to marry a wife at my age! However, I must be
going, if I am to get to the Assembly in time.”

Just as he was outside the door, a friend met him.
“Can this be Blepyrus?” he cried. “Why have you
got that scarlet thing on?”

Blepyrus. “Tis my wife’s. I had to put it' on.”

friend. “ But where is your own cloak?”

Blep. “That I can’t say. I have been looking for
it everywhere.”

fr. “ But your wife — why did you not ask her?”