4–1
Terpsion
Too true! The luxuries that Thucritus has enjoyed at my expense! He always looked as if he were at the point of death. I never went to see him, but he would groan and squeak like a chicken barely out of the shell: I considered that he might step into his coffin at any moment, and heaped gift upon gift, for fear of being outdone in generosity by my rivals; I passed anxious, sleepless nights, reckoning and arranging all; ’twas this, the sleeplessness and the anxiety, that brought me to my death. And he swallows my bait whole, and attends my funeral chuckling.
Pluto
Well done, Thucritus! Long may you live to enjoy your wealth,—and your joke at the youngsters’ expense; many a toady may you send hither before your own time comes!
Terpsion
Now I think of it, it would be a satisfaction if Charoeades were to die before him.
Pluto
Charoeades! My dear Terpsion, Phido, Melanthus,— every one of them will be here before Thucritus,—all victims of this same anxiety!
Terpsion
That is as it should be. Hold on, Thucritus!
Zenophantus. Callidemides
Zenophantus
Ah, Callidemides, and how did you come by your end? As for me, I was free of Dinias’s table, and there died of a surfeit; but that is stale news; you were there, of course.
Callidemides
Yes, I was. Now there was an element of surprise about my fate. I suppose you know that old Ptoeodorus?
Zenophantus
The rich man with no children, to whom you gave most of your company?
