EPOPS. And they are?
PISTHETAERUS. I want a town where the father of a handsome lad will stop in the street and say to me reproachfully as if I had failed him, "Ah! Is this well done, Stilbonides! You met my son coming from the bath after the gymnasium and you neither spoke to him, nor embraced him, nor took him with you, nor ever once twitched his testicles. Would anyone call you an old friend of mine?"
EPOPS. Ah! wag, I see you are fond of suffering. But there is a city of delights, such as you want. 'Tis on the Red Sea.
EUELPIDES. Oh, no. Not a sea-port, where some fine morning the Salaminian[193] galley can appear, bringing a writ-server along. Have you no Greek town you can propose to us?
EPOPS. Why not choose Lepreum in Elis for your settlement?
EUELPIDES. By Zeus! I could not look at Lepreum without disgust, because of Melanthius.[194]
EPOPS. Then, again, there is the Opuntian, where you could live.
EUELPIDES. I would not be Opuntian[195] for a talent. But come, what is it like to live with the birds? You should know pretty well.
EPOPS. Why, 'tis not a disagreeable life. In the first place, one has no purse.
EUELPIDES. That does away with much roguery.