Ancient Greek wakes up to find his younger wife has stolen his clothes and disappeared but he can't focus on that as he desperately needs to take a shit. Does so in the street.

A scene from Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen, lines 311–375.

Translation by Eugene O’Neill Jr. 1938,

Scene: a street in Athens before dawn. The wives of Athens have stolen their husbands’ clothing so they can sneak into the Assembly and vote in the men’s place.

Blepyrus: What does this mean? My wife has vanished! it is nearly daybreak and she does not return! I had to take a crap! I woke up and hunted in the darkness for my shoes and my cloak; but grope where I would, I couldn't find them. Meanwhile Mr. O'Shit was already knocking on the door and I had only just time to seize my wife's little mantle and her Persian slippers. But where shall I find a place where I can take a crap? Bah! One place is as good as another at night-time; no one will see me. Ah! what a darned fool I was to take a wife at my age, and how I could thrash myself for having acted so stupidly! It's certainty she's not gone out for any honest purpose. But the thing to do now is to take a crap.

[I’ll head to the Assembly] when I have finished crapping; but I really think there must be a wild pear obstructing my rectum…Oh! oh! oh! how stopped up I am! Whatever am I to do? It's not merely for the present that I am frightened; but when I have eaten, where is my crap to find an outlet now? This darned McPear fellow has bolted the door. …Ah! Antisthenes! Let him be brought to me, cost what it will. To judge by his noisy sighs, that man knows what an arse wants, when it needs to crap. Oh! venerated Ilithyia! I shall burst unless the door gives way. Have pity! pity! Let me not become a thunder-mug for the comic poets.

Chremes: Hi! friend, what are you doing there? You're not crapping, are you?

Blepyrus: Finding relief at last.

Oh! there! it is over and I can get up again.