Аристофан
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1
CHORUS. Tell us boldly then what you want of us; you cannot fail to succeed, if you honour and revere us and if you are resolved to become a clever man.
STREPSIADES. Oh, sovereign goddesses, 'tis but a very small favour that I ask of you; grant that I may distance all the Greeks by a hundred stadia in the art of speaking.
CHORUS. We grant you this, and henceforward no eloquence shall more often succeed with the people than your own.
STREPSIADES. May the god shield me from possessing great eloquence! 'Tis not what I want. I want to be able to turn bad lawsuits to my own advantage and to slip through the fingers of my creditors.
CHORUS. It shall be as you wish, for your ambitions are modest. Commit yourself fearlessly to our ministers, the sophists.
STREPSIADES. This will I do, for I trust in you. Moreover there is no drawing back, what with these cursed horses and this marriage, which has eaten up my vitals. So let them do with me as they will; I yield my body to them. Come blows, come hunger, thirst, heat or cold, little matters it to me; they may flay me, if I only escape my debts, if only I win the reputation of being a bold rascal, a fine speaker, impudent, shameless, a braggart, and adept at stringing lies, an old stager at quibbles, a complete table of the laws, a thorough rattle, a fox to slip through any hole; supple as a leathern strap, slippery as an eel, an artful fellow, a blusterer, a villain; a knave with a hundred faces, cunning, intolerable, a gluttonous dog. With such epithets do I seek to be greeted; on these terms, they can treat me as they choose, and, if they wish, by Demeter! they can turn me into sausages and serve me up to the philosophers.
CHORUS. Here have we a bold and well-disposed pupil indeed. When we shall have taught you, your glory among the mortals will reach even to the skies.
STREPSIADES. Wherein will that profit me?
CHORUS. You will pass your whole life among us and will be the most envied of men.
STREPSIADES. Shall I really ever see such happiness?
CHORUS. Clients will be everlastingly besieging your door in crowds, burning to get at you, to explain their business to you and to consult you about their suits, which, in return for your ability, will bring you in great sums. But, Socrates, begin the lessons you want to teach this old man; rouse his mind, try the strength of his intelligence.
SOCRATES. Come, tell me the kind of mind you have; 'tis important I know this, that I may order my batteries against you in a new fashion.
STREPSIADES. Eh, what! in the name of the gods, are you purposing to assault me then?
SOCRATES. No. I only wish to ask you some questions. Have you any memory?
STREPSIADES. That depends: if anything is owed me, my memory is excellent, but if I owe, alas! I have none whatever.
SOCRATES. Have you a natural gift for speaking?
STREPSIADES. For speaking, no; for cheating, yes.
SOCRATES. How will you be able to learn then?
STREPSIADES. Very easily, have no fear.
SOCRATES. Thus, when I throw forth some philosophical thought anent things celestial, you will seize it in its very flight?
STREPSIADES. Then I am to snap up wisdom much as a dog snaps up a morsel?
SOCRATES. Oh! the ignoramus! the barbarian! I greatly fear, old man, 'twill be needful for me to have recourse to blows. Now, let me hear what you do when you are beaten.
STREPSIADES. I receive the blow, then wait a moment, take my witnesses and finally summon my assailant at law.
SOCRATES. Come, take off your cloak.
STREPSIADES. Have I robbed you of anything?
SOCRATES. No, but 'tis usual to enter the school without your cloak.
STREPSIADES. But I am not come here to look for stolen goods.
SOCRATES. Off with it, fool!
STREPSIADES. Tell me, if I prove thoroughly attentive and learn with zeal, which of your disciples shall I resemble, do you think?
SOCRATES. You will be the image of Chaerephon.
STREPSIADES. Ah! unhappy me! I shall then be but half alive?
SOCRATES. A truce to this chatter! follow me and no more of it.
STREPSIADES. First give me a honey-cake, for to descend down there sets me all a-tremble; meseems 'tis the cave of Trophonius.
SOCRATES. But get in with you! What reason have you for thus dallying at the door?
CHORUS. Good luck! you have courage; may you succeed, you, who, though already so advanced in years, wish to instruct your mind with new studies and practise it in wisdom!
CHORUS (Parabasis). Spectators! By Bacchus, whose servant I am, I will frankly tell you the truth. May I secure both victory and renown as certainly as I hold you for adept critics and as I regard this comedy as my best. I wished to give you the first view of a work, which had cost me much trouble, but I withdrew, unjustly beaten by unskilful rivals.514 'Tis you, oh, enlightened public, for whom I have prepared my piece, that I reproach with this. Nevertheless I shall never willingly cease to seek the approval of the discerning. I have not forgotten the day, when men, whom one is happy to have for an audience, received my 'Young Man' and my 'Debauchee'515 with so much favour in this very place. Then as yet virgin, my Muse had not attained the legal age for maternity;516 she had to expose her first-born for another to adopt, and it has since grown up under your generous patronage. Ever since you have as good as sworn me your faithful alliance. Thus, like Electra517 of the poets, my comedy has come to seek you to-day, hoping again to encounter such enlightened spectators. As far away as she can discern her Orestes, she will be able to recognize him by his curly head. And note her modest demeanour! She has not sewn on a piece of hanging leather, thick and reddened at the end,518 to cause laughter among the children; she does not rail at the bald, neither does she dance the cordax;519 no old man is seen, who, while uttering his lines, batters his questioner with a stick to make his poor jests pass muster.520 She does not rush upon the scene carrying a torch and screaming, 'La, la! la, la!' No, she relies upon herself and her verses…. My value is so well known, that I take no further pride in it. I do not seek to deceive you, by reproducing the same subjects two or three times; I always invent fresh themes to present before you, themes that have no relation to each other and that are all clever. I attacked Cleon521 to his face and when he was all-powerful; but he has fallen, and now I have no desire to kick him when he is down. My rivals, on the contrary, once that this wretched Hyperbolus has given them the cue, have never ceased setting upon both him and his mother. First Eupolis presented his 'Maricas';522 this was simply my 'Knights,' whom this plagiarist had clumsily furbished up again by adding to the piece an old drunken woman, so that she might dance the cordax. 'Twas an old idea, taken from Phrynichus, who caused his old hag to be devoured by a monster of the deep.523 Then Hermippus524 fell foul of Hyperbolus and now all the others fall upon him and repeat my comparison of the eels. May those who find amusement in their pieces not be pleased with mine, but as for you, who love and applaud my inventions, why, posterity will praise your good taste.
Oh, ruler of Olympus, all-powerful king of the gods, great Zeus, it is thou whom I first invoke; protect this chorus; and thou too, Posidon, whose dread trident upheaves at the will of thy anger both the bowels of the earth and the salty waves of the ocean. I invoke my illustrious father, the divine Aether, the universal sustainer of life, and Phoebus, who, from the summit of his chariot, sets the world aflame with his dazzling rays, Phoebus, a mighty deity amongst the gods and adored amongst mortals.
Most wise spectators, lend us all your attention. Give heed to our just reproaches. There exist no gods to whom this city owes more than it does to us, whom alone you forget. Not a sacrifice, not a libation is there for those who protect you! Have you decreed some mad expedition? Well! we thunder or we fall down in rain. When you chose that enemy of heaven, the Paphlagonian tanner,525 for a general, we knitted our brow, we caused our wrath to break out; the lightning shot forth, the thunder pealed, the moon deserted her course and the sun at once veiled his beam threatening no longer to give you light, if Cleon became general. Nevertheless you elected him; 'tis said, Athens never resolves upon some fatal step but the gods turn these errors into her greatest gain. Do you wish that this election should even now be a success for you? 'Tis a very simple thing to do; condemn this rapacious gull named Cleon526 for bribery and extortion, fit a wooden collar tight round his neck, and your error will be rectified and the commonweal will at once regain its old prosperity.
Aid me also, Phoebus, god of Delos, who reignest on the cragged peaks of Cynthia;527 and thou, happy virgin,528 to whom the Lydian damsels offer pompous sacrifice in a temple of gold; and thou, goddess of our country, Athené, armed with the aegis, the protectress of Athens; and thou, who, surrounded by the Bacchanals of Delphi, roamest over the rocks of Parnassus shaking the flame of thy resinous torch, thou, Bacchus, the god of revel and joy.
As we were preparing to come here, we were hailed by the Moon and were charged to wish joy and happiness both to the Athenians and to their allies; further, she said that she was enraged and that you treated her very shamefully, her, who does not pay you in words alone, but who renders you all real benefits. Firstly, thanks to her, you save at least a drachma each month for lights, for each, as he is leaving home at night, says, "Slave, buy no torches, for the moonlight is beautiful,"—not to name a thousand other benefits. Nevertheless you do not reckon the days correctly and your calendar is naught but confusion.529 Consequently the gods load her with threats each time they get home and are disappointed of their meal, because the festival has not been kept in the regular order of time. When you should be sacrificing, you are putting to the torture or administering justice. And often, we others, the gods, are fasting in token of mourning for the death of Memnon or Sarpedon,530 while you are devoting yourselves to joyous libations. 'Tis for this, that last year, when the lot would have invested Hyperbolus531 with the duty of Amphictyon, we took his crown from him, to teach him that time must be divided according to the phases of the moon.
SOCRATES. By Respiration, the Breath of Life! By Chaos! By the Air! I have never seen a man so gross, so inept, so stupid, so forgetful. All the little quibbles, which I teach him, he forgets even before he has learnt them. Yet I will not give it up, I will make him come out here into the open air. Where are you, Strepsiades? Come, bring your couch out here.
STREPSIADES. But the bugs will not allow me to bring it.
SOCRATES. Have done with such nonsense! place it there and pay attention.
STREPSIADES. Well, here I am.
SOCRATES. Good! Which science of all those you have never been taught, do you wish to learn first? The measures, the rhythms or the verses?
STREPSIADES. Why, the measures; the flour dealer cheated me out of two choenixes the other day.
SOCRATES. 'Tis not about that I ask you, but which, according to you, is the best measure, the trimeter or the tetrameter?532
STREPSIADES. The one I prefer is the semisextarius.
SOCRATES. You talk nonsense, my good fellow.
STREPSIADES. I will wager your tetrameter is the semisextarius.533
SOCRATES. Plague seize the dunce and the fool! Come, perchance you will learn the rhythms quicker.
STREPSIADES. Will the rhythms supply me with food?
SOCRATES. First they will help you to be pleasant in company, then to know what is meant by oenoplian rhythm534 and what by the dactylic.535
STREPSIADES. Of the dactyl? I know that quite well.
SOCRATES. What is it then?
STREPSIADES. Why, 'tis this finger; formerly, when a child, I used this one.536
SOCRATES. You are as low-minded as you are stupid.
STREPSIADES. But, wretched man, I do not want to learn all this.
SOCRATES. Then what do you want to know?
STREPSIADES. Not that, not that, but the art of false reasoning.
SOCRATES. But you must first learn other things. Come, what are the male quadrupeds?
STREPSIADES. Oh! I know the males thoroughly. Do you take me for a fool then? The ram, the buck, the bull, the dog, the pigeon.
SOCRATES. Do you see what you are doing; is not the female pigeon called the same as the male?
STREPSIADES. How else? Come now?
SOCRATES. How else? With you then 'tis pigeon and pigeon!
STREPSIADES. 'Tis true, by Posidon! but what names do you want me to give them?
SOCRATES. Term the female pigeonnette and the male pigeon.
STREPSIADES. Pigeonnette! hah! by the Air! That's splendid! for that lesson bring out your kneading-trough and I will fill him with flour to the brim.
SOCRATES. There you are wrong again; you make trough masculine and it should be feminine.
STREPSIADES. What? if I say him, do I make the trough masculine?
SOCRATES. Assuredly! would you not say him for Cleonymus?
STREPSIADES. Well?
SOCRATES. Then trough is of the same gender as Cleonymus?
STREPSIADES. Oh! good sir! Cleonymus never had a kneading-trough;537 he used a round mortar for the purpose. But come, tell me what I should say?
SOCRATES. For trough you should say her as you would for Sostraté.538
STREPSIADES. Her?
SOCRATES. In this manner you make it truly female.
STREPSIADES. That's it! Her for trough and her for Cleonymus.539
SOCRATES. Now I must teach you to distinguish the masculine proper names from those that are feminine.
STREPSIADES. Ah! I know the female names well.
SOCRATES. Name some then.
STREPSIADES. Lysilla, Philinna, Clitagora, Demetria.
SOCRATES. And what are masculine names?
STREPSIADES. They are countless—Philoxenus, Melesias, Amynias.
SOCRATES. But, wretched man, the last two are not masculine.
STREPSIADES. You do not reckon them masculine?
SOCRATES. Not at all. If you met Amynias, how would you hail him?
STREPSIADES. How? Why, I should shout, "Hi! hither, Amyni_a_!"540
SOCRATES. Do you see? 'tis a female name that you give him.
STREPSIADES. And is it not rightly done, since he refuses military service? But what use is there in learning what we all know?
SOCRATES. You know nothing about it. Come, lie down there.
STREPSIADES. What for?
SOCRATES. Ponder awhile over matters that interest you.
STREPSIADES. Oh! I pray you, not there! but, if I must lie down and ponder, let me lie on the ground.
SOCRATES. 'Tis out of the question. Come! on to the couch!
STREPSIADES. What cruel fate! What a torture the bugs will this day put me to!
SOCRATES. Ponder and examine closely, gather your thoughts together, let your mind turn to every side of things; if you meet with a difficulty, spring quickly to some other idea; above all, keep your eyes away from all gentle sleep.
STREPSIADES. Oh, woe, woe! oh, woe, woe!
SOCRATES. What ails you? why do you cry so?
STREPSIADES. Oh! I am a dead man! Here are these cursed Corinthians541 advancing upon me from all corners of the couch; they are biting me, they are gnawing at my sides, they are drinking all my blood, they are twitching off my testicles, they are exploring all up my back, they are killing me!
SOCRATES. Not so much wailing and clamour, if you please.
STREPSIADES. How can I obey? I have lost my money and my complexion, my blood and my slippers, and to cap my misery, I must keep awake on this couch, when scarce a breath of life is left in me.
SOCRATES. Well now! what are you doing? are you reflecting?
STREPSIADES. Yes, by Posidon!
SOCRATES. What about?
STREPSIADES. Whether the bugs will not entirely devour me.
SOCRATES. May death seize you, accursed man!
STREPSIADES. Ah! it has already.
SOCRATES. Come, no giving way! Cover up your head; the thing to do is to find an ingenious alternative.
STREPSIADES. An alternative! ah! I only wish one would come to me from within these coverlets!
SOCRATES. Hold! let us see what our fellow is doing. Ho! you! are you asleep?
STREPSIADES. No, by Apollo!
SOCRATES. Have you got hold of anything?
STREPSIADES. No, nothing whatever.
SOCRATES. Nothing at all!
STREPSIADES. No, nothing but my tool, which I've got in my hand.
SOCRATES. Are you not going to cover your head immediately and ponder?
STREPSIADES. Over what? Come, Socrates, tell me.
SOCRATES. Think first what you want, and then tell me.
STREPSIADES. But I have told you a thousand times what I want. 'Tis not to pay any of my creditors.
SOCRATES. Come, wrap yourself up; concentrate your mind, which wanders too lightly, study every detail, scheme and examine thoroughly.
STREPSIADES. Oh, woe! woe! oh dear! oh dear!
SOCRATES. Keep yourself quiet, and if any notion troubles you, put it quickly aside, then resume it and think over it again.
STREPSIADES. My dear little Socrates!
SOCRATES. What is it, old greybeard?
STREPSIADES. I have a scheme for not paying my debts.
SOCRATES. Let us hear it.
STREPSIADES. Tell me, if I purchased a Thessalian witch, I could make the moon descend during the night and shut it, like a mirror, into a round box and there keep it carefully….
SOCRATES. How would you gain by that?
STREPSIADES. How? Why, if the moon did not rise, I would have no interest to pay.
SOCRATES. Why so?
STREPSIADES. Because money is lent by the month.
SOCRATES. Good! but I am going to propose another trick to you. If you were condemned to pay five talents, how would you manage to quash that verdict? Tell me.
STREPSIADES. How? how? I don't know, I must think.
SOCRATES. Do you always shut your thoughts within yourself. Let your ideas fly in the air, like a may-bug, tied by the foot with a thread.
STREPSIADES. I have found a very clever way to annul that conviction; you will admit that much yourself.
SOCRATES. What is it?
STREPSIADES. Have you ever seen a beautiful, transparent stone at the druggists, with which you may kindle fire?
SOCRATES. You mean a crystal lens.542
STREPSIADES. Yes.
SOCRATES. Well, what then?
STREPSIADES. If I placed myself with this stone in the sun and a long way off from the clerk, while he was writing out the conviction, I could make all the wax, upon which the words were written, melt.
SOCRATES. Well thought out, by the Graces!
STREPSIADES. Ah! I am delighted to have annulled the decree that was to cost me five talents.
SOCRATES. Come, take up this next question quickly.
STREPSIADES. Which?
SOCRATES. If, when summoned to court, you were in danger of losing your case for want of witnesses, how would you make the conviction fall upon your opponent?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis very simple and most easy.
SOCRATES. Let me hear.
STREPSIADES. This way. If another case had to be pleaded before mine was called, I should run and hang myself.
SOCRATES. You talk rubbish!
STREPSIADES. Not so, by the gods! if I was dead, no action could lie against me.
SOCRATES. You are merely beating the air. Begone! I will give you no more lessons.
STREPSIADES. Why not? Oh! Socrates! in the name of the gods!
SOCRATES. But you forget as fast as you learn. Come, what was the thing I taught you first? Tell me.
STREPSIADES. Ah! let me see. What was the first thing? What was it then? Ah! that thing in which we knead the bread, oh! my god! what do you call it?
SOCRATES. Plague take the most forgetful and silliest of old addlepates!
STREPSIADES. Alas! what a calamity! what will become of me? I am undone if I do not learn how to ply my tongue. Oh! Clouds! give me good advice.
CHORUS. Old man, we counsel you, if you have brought up a son, to send him to learn in your stead.
STREPSIADES. Undoubtedly I have a son, as well endowed as the best, but he is unwilling to learn. What will become of me?
CHORUS. And you don't make him obey you?
STREPSIADES. You see, he is big and strong; moreover, through his mother he is a descendant of those fine birds, the race of Coesyra.543 Nevertheless, I will go and find him, and if he refuses, I will turn him out of the house. Go in, Socrates, and wait for me awhile.
CHORUS (to Socrates). Do you understand, that, thanks to us, you will be loaded with benefits? Here is a man, ready to obey you in all things. You see how he is carried away with admiration and enthusiasm. Profit by it to clip him as short as possible; fine chances are all too quickly gone.
STREPSIADES. No, by the Clouds! you stay no longer here; go and devour the ruins of your uncle Megacles' fortune.
PHIDIPPIDES. Oh! my poor father! what has happened to you? By the Olympian Zeus! you are no longer in your senses!
STREPSIADES. See! see! "the Olympian Zeus." Oh! the fool! to believe in Zeus at your age!
PHIDIPPIDES. What is there in that to make you laugh?
STREPSIADES. You are then a tiny little child, if you credit such antiquated rubbish! But come here, that I may teach you; I will tell you something very necessary to know to be a man; but you will not repeat it to anybody.
PHIDIPPIDES. Come, what is it?
STREPSIADES. Just now you swore by Zeus.
PHIDIPPIDES. Aye, that I did.
STREPSIADES. Do you see how good it is to learn? Phidippides, there is no Zeus.
PHIDIPPIDES. What is there then?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis the Whirlwind, that has driven out Jupiter and is King now.
PHIDIPPIDES. Go to! what drivel!
STREPSIADES. Know it to be the truth.
PHIDIPPIDES. And who says so?
STREPSIADES. 'Tis Socrates, the Melian,544 and Chaerephon, who knows how to measure the jump of a flea.
PHIDIPPIDES. Have you reached such a pitch of madness that you believe those bilious fellows?
STREPSIADES. Use better language, and do not insult men who are clever and full of wisdom, who, to economize, are never shaved, shun the gymnasia and never go to the baths, while you, you only await my death to eat up my wealth. But come, come as quickly as you can to learn in my stead.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what good can be learnt of them?
STREPSIADES. What good indeed? Why, all human knowledge. Firstly, you will know yourself grossly ignorant. But await me here awhile.
PHIDIPPIDES. Alas! what is to be done? My father has lost his wits. Must I have him certificated for lunacy, or must I order his coffin?
STREPSIADES. Come! what kind of bird is this? tell me.
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeon.
STREPSIADES. Good! And this female?
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeon.
STREPSIADES. The same for both? You make me laugh! For the future you will call this one a pigeonnette and the other a pigeon.
PHIDIPPIDES. A pigeonnette! These then are the fine things you have just learnt at the school of these sons of the Earth!545
STREPSIADES. And many others; but what I learnt I forgot at once, because I am too old.
PHIDIPPIDES. So this is why you have lost your cloak?
STREPSIADES. I have not lost it, I have consecrated it to Philosophy.
PHIDIPPIDES. And what have you done with your sandals, you poor fool?
STREPSIADES. If I have lost them, it is for what was necessary, just as Pericles did.546 But come, move yourself, let us go in; if necessary, do wrong to obey your father. When you were six years old and still lisped, 'twas I who obeyed you. I remember at the feasts of Zeus you had a consuming wish for a little chariot and I bought it for you with the first obolus which I received as a juryman in the Courts.
PHIDIPPIDES. You will soon repent of what you ask me to do.
STREPSIADES. Oh! now I am happy! He obeys. Here, Socrates, here! Come out quick! Here I am bringing you my son; he refused, but I have persuaded him.
SOCRATES. Why, he is but a child yet. He is not used to these baskets, in which we suspend our minds.547
PHIDIPPIDES. To make you better used to them, I would you were hung.
STREPSIADES. A curse upon you! you insult your master!
SOCRATES. "I would you were hung!" What a stupid speech! and so emphatically spoken! How can one ever get out of an accusation with such a tone, summon witnesses or touch or convince? And yet when we think, Hyperbolus learnt all this for one talent!
STREPSIADES. Rest undisturbed and teach him. 'Tis a most intelligent nature. Even when quite little he amused himself at home with making houses, carving boats, constructing little chariots of leather, and understood wonderfully how to make frogs out of pomegranate rinds. Teach him both methods of reasoning, the strong and also the weak, which by false arguments triumphs over the strong; if not the two, at least the false, and that in every possible way.
SOCRATES. 'Tis Just and Unjust Discourse themselves that shall instruct him.548
STREPSIADES. I go, but forget it not, he must always, always be able to confound the true.
JUST DISCOURSE. Come here! Shameless as you may be, will you dare to show your face to the spectators?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Take me where you list. I seek a throng, so that I may the better annihilate you.
JUST DISCOURSE. Annihilate me! Do you forget who you are?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I am Reasoning.
JUST DISCOURSE. Yes, the weaker Reasoning.549
UNJUST DISCOURSE. But I triumph over you, who claim to be the stronger.
JUST DISCOURSE. By what cunning shifts, pray?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. By the invention of new maxims.
JUST DISCOURSE. … which are received with favour by these fools.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Say rather, by these wiseacres.
JUST DISCOURSE. I am going to destroy you mercilessly.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How pray? Let us see you do it.
JUST DISCOURSE. By saying what is true.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I shall retort and shall very soon have the better of you. First, I maintain that justice has no existence.
JUST DISCOURSE. Has no existence?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. No existence! Why, where are they?
JUST DISCOURSE. With the gods.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. How then, if justice exists, was Zeus not put to death for having put his father in chains?
JUST DISCOURSE. Bah! this is enough to turn my stomach! A basin, quick!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are an old driveller and stupid withal.
JUST DISCOURSE. And you a debauchee and a shameless fellow.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Hah! What sweet expressions!
JUST DISCOURSE. An impious buffoon!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You crown me with roses and with lilies.
JUST DISCOURSE. A parricide.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Why, you shower gold upon me.
JUST DISCOURSE. Formerly, 'twas a hailstorm of blows.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. I deck myself with your abuse.
JUST DISCOURSE. What impudence!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. What tomfoolery!
JUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis because of you that the youth no longer attends the schools. The Athenians will soon recognize what lessons you teach those who are fools enough to believe you.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are overwhelmed with wretchedness.
JUST DISCOURSE. And you, you prosper. Yet you were poor when you said, "I am the Mysian Telephus,"550 and used to stuff your wallet with maxims of Pandeletus551 to nibble at.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Oh! the beautiful wisdom, of which you are now boasting!
JUST DISCOURSE. Madman! But yet madder the city that keeps you, you, the corrupter of its youth!
UNJUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis not you who will teach this young man; you are as old and out of date as Saturn.
JUST DISCOURSE. Nay, it will certainly be I, if he does not wish to be lost and to practise verbosity only.
UNJUST DISCOURSE (to Phidippides). Come hither and leave him to beat the air.
JUST DISCOURSE (to Unjust Discourse). Evil be unto you, if you touch him.
CHORUS. A truce to your quarrellings and abuse! But expound, you, what you taught us formerly, and you, your new doctrine. Thus, after hearing each of you argue, he will be able to choose betwixt the two schools.
JUST DISCOURSE. I am quite agreeable.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. And I too.
CHORUS. Who is to speak first?
UNJUST DISCOURSE. Let it be my opponent, he has my full consent; then I will follow upon the very ground he shall have chosen and shall shatter him with a hail of new ideas and subtle fancies; if after that he dares to breathe another word, I shall sting him in the face and in the eyes with our maxims, which are as keen as the sting of a wasp, and he will die.
CHORUS. Here are two rivals confident in their powers of oratory and in the thoughts over which they have pondered so long. Let us see which will come triumphant out of the contest. This wisdom, for which my friends maintain such a persistent fight, is in great danger. Come then, you, who crowned men of other days with so many virtues, plead the cause dear to you, make yourself known to us.
JUST DISCOURSE. Very well, I will tell you what was the old education, when I used to teach justice with so much success and when modesty was held in veneration. Firstly, it was required of a child, that it should not utter a word. In the street, when they went to the music-school, all the youths of the same district marched lightly clad and ranged in good order, even when the snow was falling in great flakes. At the master's house they had to stand, their legs apart, and they were taught to sing either, "Pallas, the Terrible, who overturneth cities," or "A noise resounded from afar"552 in the solemn tones of the ancient harmony. If anyone indulged in buffoonery or lent his voice any of the soft inflexions, like those which to-day the disciples of Phrynis553 take so much pains to form, he was treated as an enemy of the Muses and belaboured with blows. In the wrestling school they would sit with outstretched legs and without display of any indecency to the curious. When they rose, they would smooth over the sand, so as to leave no trace to excite obscene thoughts. Never was a child rubbed with oil below the belt; the rest of their bodies thus retained its fresh bloom and down, like a velvety peach. They were not to be seen approaching a lover and themselves rousing his passion by soft modulation of the voice and lustful gaze. At table, they would not have dared, before those older than themselves, to have taken a radish, an aniseed or a leaf of parsley, and much less eat fish or thrushes or cross their legs.
UNJUST DISCOURSE. What antiquated rubbish! Have we got back to the days of the festivals of Zeus Polieus,554 to the Buphonia, to the time of the poet Cecydes555 and the golden cicadas?556
JUST DISCOURSE. 'Tis nevertheless by suchlike teaching I built up the men of Marathon. But you, you teach the children of to-day to bundle themselves quickly into their clothes, and I am enraged when I see them at the Panathenaea forgetting Athené while they dance, and covering themselves with their bucklers. Hence, young man, dare to range yourself beside me, who follow justice and truth; you will then be able to shun the public place, to refrain from the baths, to blush at all that is shameful, to fire up if your virtue is mocked at, to give place to your elders, to honour your parents, in short, to avoid all that is evil. Be modesty itself, and do not run to applaud the dancing girls; if you delight in such scenes, some courtesan will cast you her apple and your reputation will be done for. Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.
