Icaromenippus

However, if you are unwilling to do this, then bundle it out of the house quickly in another and a better way without leaving as much as a copper for yourself by distributing it to all the needy, five drachmas to this man, a mina to that one and half a talent to a third. If a philosopher should apply he ought to get a double or a triple portion. As for me, I do not ask for it on my own account but to share with those of my comrades who are needy, and it will be plenty if

you let me have the fill of this wallet, which holds not quite two bushels Aeginetan.[*](Aeginetan weights were heavier than the Attic, but Aeginetan measures were no larger than any others, One is tempted to write “two bushels Avoirdupois.”) A man in philosophy should be easily satisfied and temperate, and should limit his aspirations to his wallet.

TIMON Well said, Thrasycles! But instead of filling the wallet, please allow me to fill your head with lumps, measured out with my pick.

THRASYCLES Democracy and the Laws! The scoundrel is beating me, in a free city !

TIMON What are you angry about, my dear fellow? Surely I haven’t given you short measure ? Come, Pll throw in four pecks over the amount !

But what have we here? They are gathering in swarms; I see Blepsias yonder, Laches, Guipho and the whole crew of my intended victims. Why not climb this rock, give my long-wearied pick a little rest and handle the situation without it, collecting all the stones I can and raining them down on those fellows from a distance ?

BLEPSIAS Don’t throw at us, Timon; we are going away.

TIMON But not without bloodshed and wounds, I promise you!

contemporaries the life that he found in books. was more Interesting and_more réal than. that, in°which he lived and “moved. What his satire Toses in pungency on this account, it gains in universality of appeal.