CHORUS. Here is a man truly happy. See how everything succeeds to his wish. Peacefully seated in his market, he will earn his living; woe to Ctesias,[238] and all other informers, who dare to enter there! You will not be cheated as to the value of wares, you will not again see Prepis[239] wiping his foul rump, nor will Cleonymus[240] jostle you; you will take your walks, clothed in a fine tunic, without meeting Hyperbolus[241] and his unceasing quibblings, without being accosted on the public place by any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus,[242] shaven in the fashion of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who plagues us with his silly improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits stinking as foul as a goat, like his father before him. You will not be the butt of the villainous Pauson's[243] jeers, nor of Lysistratus,[244] the disgrace of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the vices, and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days in the month. A BOEOTIAN. By Heracles! my shoulder is quite black and blue. Ismenias, put the penny-royal down there very gently, and all of you, musicians from Thebes, pipe with your bone flutes into a dog's rump.[245] DICAEOPOLIS. Enough, enough, get you gone. Rascally hornets, away with you! Whence has sprung this accursed swarm of Cheris[246] fellows which comes assailing my door? BOEOTIAN. Ah! by Iolas![247] Drive them off, my dear host, you will please me immensely; all the way from Thebes, they were there piping behind me and have completely stripped my penny-royal of its blossom. But will you buy anything of me, some chickens or some locusts? DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! good day, Boeotian, eater of good round loaves.[248] What do you bring? BOEOTIAN. All that is good in Boeotia, marjoram, penny-royal, rush-mats, lamp-wicks, ducks, jays, woodcocks, waterfowl, wrens, divers. DICAEOPOLIS. 'Tis a very hail of birds that beats down on my market. BOEOTIAN. I also bring geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs, cats, lyres, martins, otters and eels from the Copaic lake.[249] DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! my friend, you, who bring me the most delicious of fish, let me salute your eels. BOEOTIAN. Come, thou, the eldest of my fifty Copaic virgins, come and complete the joy of our host. DICAEOPOLIS. Oh! my well-beloved, thou object of my long regrets, thou art here at last then, thou, after whom the comic poets sigh, thou, who art dear to Morychus.[250] Slaves, hither with the stove and the bellows. Look at this charming eel, that returns to us after six long years of absence.[251] Salute it, my children; as for myself, I will supply coal to do honour to the stranger. Take it into my house; death itself could not separate me from her, if cooked with beet leaves. BOEOTIAN. And what will you give me in return? DICAEOPOLIS. It will pay for your market dues. And as to the rest, what do you wish to sell me? BOEOTIAN. Why, everything. DICAEOPOLIS. On what terms? For ready-money or in wares from these parts?