To look another way when I accost them,
Lest if I saw the fish they ask so much for,
I should at once grow marble.[[582]]
Amphis, another comic poet, supplies us with further details respecting the hardships encountered by those who had to deal with fishmongers at Athens. Much of his wit is, I fear, intransferable, depending in a great measure on the vernacular clipping of Greek common in the market-place. But the sense, at least, may perhaps be given:
“Ten thousand times more easy ’tis to gain
Admission to a haughty general’s tent,
And have discourse of him, than in the market
Audience to get of a cursed fishmonger.
If you draw near and say, How much, my[, my] friend,
Costs this or that?—No answer. Deaf you think