Page:Comedies of Aristophanes (Hickie 1853) vol2.djvu/249

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153—166.
THE ECCLESIAZUSÆ.
625

I might have been sitting quiet. But now,[1] according to my motion, I will not suffer a single hostess to make cisterns of water in the taverns.[2] I don't approve of it, by the two goddesses![3]

Prax. "By the two goddesses!" "Wretch, where have you your senses?

9th Wom. What's the matter? for indeed I did not ask you for drink.

Prax. No, by Jove; but you swore by the two goddesses, being a man. And yet you spoke[4] the rest most cleverly.

9th Wom. (correcting herself). Oh!—by Apollo!

Prax. (snatching the chaplet from her). Have done then! for I would[5] not put forward one foot to hold an assembly, unless[6] this shall be arranged precisely.

9th Wom. Give me the chaplet! I will speak again. For now I think I have gone over it properly in my mind. "To me, O women,[7] who are sitting here"——

Prax. Again you are calling the men "women," you wretch.

  1. "So kann Ich's, falls ihr was auf meine Meinung gebt,
    Nicht leiden, dass sich die Frau in der Schenke Keller gräbt
    Zu Wasser; dagegen stimm' Ich bei den Göttinnen!" Droysen.
    For κατὰ γε τὴν ἐμὴν, see Bernhardy, W. S. p. 186.
  2. "She means, perhaps, there shall be no water at all in the taverns." Droysen.
  3. "She swears by 'the two goddesses,' i. e. by Demeter and Persephone, an oath which only women use." Droysen.
  4. "The participle is made clear by καὶ, also, even, (negative, οὐδὲ, μηδὲ,) and καίπερ, which in Attic writers scarcely ever occurs otherwise than with a participle or a participial construction, whilst καίτοι is found only with an independent clause (with a finite verb). The later writers have been the first to use these vice versâ. Yet also in Plato, Symp. 219; Rep. 511; Lysias, 31, 34, if the text be not corrupt." Krüger. In the present instance the departure from the statutable construction is very remarkable.
  5. "Um keinen Preis
    Auch einen Schritt nur möcht' Ich zur Ekklesie thun,
    Bevor wir nicht mit diesen Dingen im Reinen sind." Droysen.
  6. "εἰ is rightly construed with a future indicative, although there be an optative with ἂν in the other member of the sentence. Eur. Hippol. 484,
    ἧ τἄρ᾽ ἂν ὀψέ γ᾽ ἄνδρες ἐξεύροιεν ἂν,
    εἰ μὴ γυναῖκες μηχανὰς εὑρήσομεν." Brunck.
    Cf. Ran. 10. Æsch. Theb. 196. Eur. Hippol. 484. Tro. 736.
  7. See Krüger, Gr. Gr. §45, 2, obs. 7. Cf. Pax, 466. Ach. 491.