dom!

[Turning to the audience.]

Spectators, I will freely declare to you the truth, by
Bacchus, who nurtured me! So may I conquer, and be
accounted skillful, as that, deeming you to be clever
spectators, and this to be the cleverest of my comedies,
I thought proper to let you first taste that comedy,
which gave me the greatest labour. And then I retired
from the contest defeated by vulgar fellows, though I
did not deserve it. These things, therefore, I object to
you, a learned audience, for whose sake I was expending
this labour. But not even thus will I ever willingly
desert the discerning portion of you. For since what
time my Modest Man and my Rake were very highly praised
here by an audience, with whom it is a pleasure even to
hold converse, and I (for I was still a virgin, and it
was not lawful for me as yet to have children) exposed
my offspring, and another girl took it up, and owned it,
and you generously reared and educated it, from this
time I have had sure pledges of your good will toward
me. Now, therefore, like that well-known Electra, has
this comedy come seeking, if haply it meet with an
audience so clever, for it will recognize, if it should
see, the lock of its brother. But see how modest she is
by nature, who, in the first place, has come, having
stitched to her no leathern phallus hanging down, red at
the top, and thick, to set the boys a laughing; nor yet
jeered the bald-headed, nor danced the cordax; nor does
the old man who speaks the verses beat the person near
him with his staff, keeping out of sight wretched
ribaldry; nor has she rushed in with torches, nor does
she shout iou, iou; but has come relying on herself and
her verses. And I, although so excellent a poet, do not
give myself airs, nor do I seek to deceive you by twice
and thrice bringing forward the same pieces; but I am
always clever at introducing new fashions, not at all
resembling each other, and all of them clever; who
struck Cleon in the belly when at the height of his
power, and could not bear to attack him afterward when
he was down. But these scribblers, when once Hyperbolus
has given them a handle, keep ever trampling on this
wretched man and his mother. Eupolis, indeed, first of
all craftily introduced h