8
But impunity emboldened him; κασσίτερος became καττίτερος, κάσσυμα and πίσσα shared its fate; and then he cast off all shame and assaulted βασίλισσα. I found myself losing the society in which I had been born and bredFor the probably corrupt passage § 7 fin.—§ 8 init. I accept Dindorf's rearrangement as follows: μέχρι μὲν γὰρ ὀλίγοις ἐπεχείρει, τετταράκοντα λέγειν ἀξιοῦν, ἔτι δὲ τήμερον καὶ τὰ ὅμοια ἐπισπώμενον, συνήθειαν ᾤμην ἴδια ταυτὶ λέγειν, καὶ οἰστὸν ἦν μοι τὸ ἄκουσμα καὶ οὐ πάνν τι ἐδακνόμην ἐπ' αὐτοῖς. 8. ὁπότε δ᾽ ἐκ τούτων ἀρξάμενον ἐτόλμησε καττίτερον εἰπεῖν καὶ κάττυμα καὶ πίτταν, εἶτα ἀπερυθριᾶσαν καὶ βασίλιτταν ὀνομάζειν, ἀποστεροῦν με τῶν συγγεγενημένων μοι καὶ συντεθραμμένων γραμμάτων, οὐ μετρίως ἐπὶ τούτοις ἀγανακτῶ.; at such a time equanimity is out of place; I am tortured with apprehension; how long will it be before σῦκα is τῦκα? Bear with me, I beseech you; I despair and have none to help me; do I not well to be angry? It is no petty everyday peril, this threatened separation from my long-tried familiars. My κίσσα, my talking bird that nestled in my breast, he has torn away and named anew; my φάσσα, my νῆσσαι, my κόσσυφοι —all gone; and I had Aristarchus’s own word that they were mine; half my μέλισσαι he has lured: to strange hives; Attica itself he has invaded, and wrongfully annexed its Hymettus (as he calls it); and you and the rest looked on at the seizure.
