EURIPIDES. "And why remain sitting on this tomb, wrapped in this long veil, oh, stranger lady?"[630]
MNESILOCHUS. "They want to force me to marry a son of Proteus."
SEVENTH WOMAN. Ah! wretch, why tell such shameful lies? Stranger, this is a rascal who has slipped in amongst us women to rob us of our trinkets.
MNESILOCHUS (to Seventh Woman) "Shout! load me with your insults, for little care I."
EURIPIDES. "Who is the old woman who reviles you, stranger lady?"
MNESILOCHUS. "'Tis Theonoe, the daughter of Proteus."
SEVENTH WOMAN. I! Why, my name's Critylla, the daughter of Antitheus,[631] of the deme of Gargettus;[632] as for you, you are a rogue.
MNESILOCHUS. "Your entreaties are vain. Never shall I wed your brother; never shall I betray the faith I owe my husband Menelaus, who is fighting before Troy."
[630] Aristophanes invents this in order to give coherence to what follows.
[631] An Athenian general whom Thucydides mentions.
Studies
