CHORUS. You have served your friends, but now it behoves you to apply your ability and your care to the welfare of the people. Devote the fecundity of your mind to the public weal; adorn the citizens' lives with a thousand enjoyments and teach them to seize every favourable opportunity. Devise some ingenious method to secure the much-needed salvation of Athens; but let neither your acts nor your words recall anything of the past, for 'tis only innovations that please. Don't delay the realization of your plans, for speedy execution is greatly esteemed by the public.
PRAXAGORA. I believe my ideas are good, but what I fear is, that the public will cling to the old customs and refuse to accept my reforms.
BLEPYRUS. Have no fear about that. Love of novelty and disdain for the past, these are the dominating principles among us.
PRAXAGORA. Let none contradict nor interrupt me until I have explained my plan. I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; no longer shall we see one man harvesting vast tracts of land, while another has not ground enough to be buried in, nor one man surround himself with a whole army of slaves, while another has not a single attendant; I intend that there shall only be one and the same condition of life for all.
BLEPYRUS. But how do you mean for all?
PRAXAGORA. Go and eat your excrements![696]
BLEPYRUS. Come, share and share alike!
PRAXAGORA. No, no, but you shall not interrupt me. This is what I was going to say: I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. Then we shall live on this common wealth, which we shall take care to administer with wise thrift.
BLEPYRUS. And how about the man who has no land, but only gold and silver coins, that cannot be seen?
PRAXAGORA. He must bring them to the common stock, and if he fails he will be a perjured man.