The Consonants at Law Sigma Vs. Tau, in the Court of the Seven Vowels (1-5)

[In the year that Aristarchus of Phalerum was archon, on the seventh day of the month Pyanepsion, Sigma brought suit against Tau before the seven Vowels for assault and robbery, alleging that he had stolen all the words that are pronounced mith double tau.]

Vowels of the jury, as long as the wrongs that I underwent at the hands of this fellow Tau through his misusing my property and establishing himself where he had no business were but slight, I did not take the injury to heart, and I ignored some of the things that I heard because of the equable temper which, as you know, I maintain toward you and the other letters. But now that he has come to such a pitch of self-seeking and lawlessness that, not content with what I have repeatedly let pass in silence, he is trying to wrest still more from me, I am compelled to call him to account before you, who know both sides. Besides all this, I am more than a little afraid of my own ejection; for by making greater and

It is fitting, then, that you who are now on the jury and all the other letters, too, should be on your guard against his pernicious activity, for if anyone who wants to may work his way out of his own place into someone else’s, and if you Vowels, without whom nothing can be written that means anything, are going to permit this, I do not see how society is to keep the orthodox distinctions of rank which were fixed for it in the beginning. But I do not think you will ever reach such a pitch of negligence and carelessness as to permit anything unjust, and even if you do shirk your duty I cannot overlook my wrongs. If only the others had been thwarted in their audacity long ago, when they first began to be law-breakers!

In that case, Lambda would not be at war with Rho, disputing the possession of pumice-stone (κίσηλις—κίσηρις) and headaches (κεφαλαλγάα—κεφαλαργία), nor would Gamma be quarreiling with Kappa and again and again almost coming to blows with him at the fuller’s (γναφεῖον—κναφεῖον) over pillows (γνάφαλλα—κνάφαλλα), and he would have been prevented from fighting with Lambda, too, openly stealing from him with some difficulty (μόλις—μόγις) and slyly filching without any doubt (μάλιστα— μάγιστα[*]); and the rest would also have refrained from beginning illegal confusion. Surely it is best for each of us to stay in the place which belongs to

one has no right is the act of a law-breaker.