When I married her I went to bed beside her smelling of new wine, drying figs, wool, plenty; and she smelled of perfume, saffron, tongue-kisses, spending, gorging, Colias, Genetyllis. I will not say she was idle, though. She worked the loom, all right. And I would hold up this cloak of mine and use it as my excuse: "Wife, you beat the weft too hard."

Two lists share one bed. His is the farm: new wine, figs drying on the rack, wool, plenty. Hers is the city: perfume, saffron, kisses with tongues, money spent, food gorged, and two goddesses of women's love-festivals. Aristophanes piles the nouns up without a single "and", and the smells crowd the line the way they crowded the bedroom. Then the old man is careful to be fair: she was not idle. The verb he picks, spathan, is a weaving word, to beat the threads tight with the weaver's blade, and also everyday slang for throwing money around. When he holds up his cloak and says "wife, you beat it too hard", he is complaining about the wool and about the money in one breath.