Over the Wine Dark Sea

'You're after another go with the fish merchant's wife!'   'I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, my dear fellow.' Menedemos could be most annoying when he tried to seem most innocent.   'Not much, you haven't,' Sostratos said.   'Oh, keep quiet,' his cousin said, and then, turning the tables on him, 'While you've been out buying trinkets for your mistress and screwing yourself silly, I've been doing business. Krates finally paid our price for a peahen.'   'That is good,' Sostratos said. 'We're down to two of the miserable things now, and all these chicks.' The little birds ran all over the courtyard, peeping and squawking and pecking at grain and at bugs and lizards and, every now and then, at one another.   'I bought a goose to help the peahens sit on the eggs that haven't hatched yet,' Menedemos said. 'From all I've seen, they don't make the best of mothers.'   'No, they don't,' Sostratos agreed. 'It's a good thing the chicks can take care of themselves almost as soon as they hatch, because they need to.' He glanced over to the goose, which indeed showed more interest in sitting on a nest than did either of the two remaining peahens. With a sigh, he went on, 'I am sorry that one stupid bird jumped into the sea.'   'So am I,' Menedemos replied, 'but neither one of us can do anything about it now.' He raised an eyebrow. 'Are you going to buy that little Kelt -  no, by the gods, she's not little: that big Kelt, I mean -  and take her along with you?'   'She wants me to,' Sostratos said.   'Of course she does,' Menedemos said. 'If you were stuck in a brothel, wouldn't you want to get out?'   'It'd be a pretty desperate brothelkeeper who put me in amongst his pretty boys,' Sostratos observed, and startled a laugh out of his cousin. He went on in more serious tones. 'She's very pretty - '   'If you say so,' Menedemos broke in.   'I think she is, which makes it true for me,' Sostratos said. 'She's pretty, and she has plenty of reason to treat me well, and - '   Menedemos interrupted again: 'What more do you want?'   'Someone who treats me that way even though she doesn't have any special reason to,' Sostratos answered. 'But we weren't talking about me. We were talking about you, at least till you changed the subject. You and this Phyllis . . .'   'Yes?' Menedemos said when he paused.