EPOPS. But, after all, what sort of city would please you best?
EUELPIDES. A place where the following would be the most important
business transacted.--Some friend would come knocking at the door quite
early in the morning saying, "By Olympian Zeus, be at my house early, as
soon as you have bathed, and bring your children too. I am giving a
nuptial feast, so don't fail, or else don't cross my threshold when I am
in distress."
EPOPS. Ah! that's what may be called being fond of hardships. And what
say you?
PISTHETAERUS. My tastes are similar.
EPOPS. And they are?
PISTHETAERUS. I want a town where the father of a handsome lad will stop
in the street and say to me reproachfully as if I had failed him, "Ah! Is
this well done, Stilbonides! You met my son coming from the bath after
the gymnasium and you neither spoke to him, nor embraced him, nor took
him with you, nor ever once twitched his testicles. Would anyone call you
an old friend of mine?"
EPOPS. Ah! wag, I see you are fond of suffering. But there is a city of
delights, such as you want. 'Tis on the Red Sea.
EUELPIDES. Oh, no. Not a sea-port, where some fine morning the
Salaminian[193] galley can appear, bringing a writ-server along. Have you
no Greek town you can propose to us?
EPOPS. Why not choose Lepreum in Elis for your settlement?
EUELPIDES. By Zeus! I could not look at Lepreum without disgust, because
of Melanthius.[194]
EPOPS. Then, again, there is the Opuntian, where you could live.
EUELPIDES. I would not be Opuntian[195] for a talent. But come, what is
it like to live with the birds? You should know pretty well.
EPOPS. Why, 'tis not a disagreeable life. In the first place, one has no
purse.
EUELPIDES. That does away with much roguery.
EPOPS. For food the gardens yield us white sesame, myrtle-berries,
poppies and mint.