FIRST OLD WOMAN. A decree, which orders you to enter my house.
YOUNG MAN. Read it out then, and let's hear.
FIRST OLD WOMAN. Listen. "The women have decreed, that if a young man desires a young girl, he can only possess her after having satisfied an old woman; and if he refuses and goes to seek the maiden, the old women are authorized to seize him by his privates and so drag him in."
YOUNG MAN. Alas! I shall become a Procrustes.[723]
FIRST OLD WOMAN. Obey the law.
YOUNG MAN. But if a fellow-citizen, a friend, came to pay my ransom?
FIRST OLD WOMAN. No man may dispose of anything above a medimnus.[724]
YOUNG MAN. But may I not enter an excuse?
FIRST OLD WOMAN. There's no evasion.
YOUNG MAN. I shall declare myself a merchant and so escape service.[725]