Laudator Temporis Acti

Aristophanes, fragment 402 (tr. Jeffrey Henderson):

You fool, you fool! All of it's in this life of peace:
to live in the country on his small plot of land,
free of the rat-race of the market,
owning his very own yoke of oxen,
and hearing the bleating of his flocks        5
and the sound of new wine being bottled up,
snacking on little finches and thrushes,
no hanging around the market waiting for smallfry
days old, overpriced, weighed out for him
by a crooked fishmonger with a thumb on the scales.        10

ὦ μῶρε, μῶρε, ταῦτα πάντ᾿ ἐν τῇδ᾿ ἔνι·
οἰκεῖν μὲν ἐν ἀγρῷ τοῦτον ἐν τῷ γηδίῳ
ἀπαλλαγέντα τῶν κατ᾿ ἀγορὰν πραγμάτων,
κεκτημένον ζευγάριον οἰκεῖον βοοῖν,
ἔπειτ᾿ ἀκούειν προβατίων βληχωμένων        5
τρυγός τε φωνὴν εἰς λεκάνην ὠθουμένης,
ὄψῳ δὲ χρῆσθαι σπινιδίοις τε καὶ κίχλαις,
καὶ μὴ περιμένειν ἐξ ἀγορᾶς ἰχθύδια
τριταῖα, πολυτίμητα, βεβασανισμένα
ἐπ᾿ ἰχθυοπώλου χειρὶ παρανομωτάτῃ.        10

Thanks to Joel Eidsath for pointing out a mistake in the Digital Loeb Classical Library version of line 7 (πσινιδίοις for σπινιδίοις):


Poetae Comici Graeci, edd. R. Kassel and C. Austin, Vol. III 2: Aristophanes, Testimonia et Fragmenta (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 220-221:

Labels: typographical and other errors