210 ARISTOPHANES.

Blep. “Well, what, pray, was the business that
brought all this crowd together?”

Chr. “The public safety. That was the question
which the magistrates had prepared. One said one
thing, and one another. The gentleman who seemed
to have nothing over his tunic, though he declared
himself that he had a cloak, proposed that the cloth-
iers should be compelled to furnish cloaks to all per-
sons in need. We should escape cold and pleurisy
in that way. Any one who should refuse, and shut
his door in the winter against an applicant, was to be
fined three blankets.”

Blep. “An excellent proposition; and if he had
added that the corn-chandlers were to supply every
poor man with three pecks of barley, under pain of
death, he would not have found any one to vote
against it.”

Chr. “After that a good-looking young fellow,
rather pale in the face, stood up and proposed that
the management of affairs should be handed over to
the women. At this all the artisans cried out, ‘Hear!
hear!’ while the country-folk shouted ‘Vo/ no!’”

Blep. “ And right they were, by Zeus!”

Chr. “Yes; but they were beaten. The young
fellow said all kinds of good things about the women.
They were choke-full of good sense; they made
money; they could keep a secret; they could lend
each other clothes, gold, silver, plate, and not cheat
each other — no, not though there were no witnesses :
whereas we were always defrauding each other.”