Аристофан
The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1
THE ACHARNIANS
INTRODUCTION
This is the first of the series of three Comedies—'The Acharnians,' 'Peace' and 'Lysistrata'—produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth and twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the Athenian people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the scoundrels who by their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the consequent ruin of industry and, above all, agriculture, and the urgency of asking Peace. In date it is the earliest play brought out by the author in his own name and his first work of serious importance. It was acted at the Lenaean Festival, in January, 426 B.C., and gained the first prize, Cratinus being second.
Its diatribes against the War and fierce criticism of the general policy of the War party so enraged Cleon that, as already mentioned, he endeavoured to ruin the author, who in 'The Knights' retorted by a direct and savage personal attack on the leader of the democracy. The plot is of the simplest. Dicaeopolis, an Athenian citizen, but a native of Acharnae, one of the agricultural demes and one which had especially suffered in the Lacedaemonian invasions, sick and tired of the ill-success and miseries of the War, makes up his mind, if he fails to induce the people to adopt his policy of "peace at any price," to conclude a private and particular peace of his own to cover himself, his family, and his estate. The Athenians, momentarily elated by victory and over-persuaded by the demagogues of the day—Cleon and his henchmen, refuse to hear of such a thing as coming to terms. Accordingly Dicaeopolis dispatches an envoy to Sparta on his own account, who comes back presently with a selection of specimen treaties in his pocket. The old man tastes and tries, special terms are arranged, and the play concludes with a riotous and uproarious rustic feast in honour of the blessings of Peace and Plenty. Incidentally excellent fun is poked at Euripides and his dramatic methods, which supply matter for so much witty badinage in several others of our author's pieces.
Other specially comic incidents are: the scene where the two young daughters of the famished Megarian are sold in the market at Athens as sucking-pigs—a scene in which the convenient similarity of the Greek words signifying a pig and the 'pudendum muliebre' respectively is utilized in a whole string of ingenious and suggestive 'double entendres' and ludicrous jokes; another where the Informer, or Market-Spy, is packed up in a crate as crockery and carried off home by the Boeotian buyer.
The drama takes its title from the Chorus, composed of old men of Acharnae.
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THE ACHARNIANS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
DICAEOPOLIS.
HERALD.
AMPHITHEUS.
AMBASSADORS.
PSEUDARTABAS.
THEORUS.
WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS.
DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS.
EURIPIDES.
CEPHISOPHON, servant of Euripides.
LAMACHUS.
ATTENDANT OF LAMACHUS.
A MEGARIAN.
MAIDENS, daughters of the Megarian.
A BOEOTIAN.
NICARCHUS.
A HUSBANDMAN.
A BRIDESMAID.
AN INFORMER.
MESSENGERS.
CHORUS OF ACHARNIAN ELDERS.
SCENE: The Athenian Ecclesia on the Pnyx; afterwards Dicaeopolis' house in the country.
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THE ACHARNIANS
DICAEOPOLIS148 (alone). What cares have not gnawed at my heart and how few have been the pleasures in my life! Four, to be exact, while my troubles have been as countless as the grains of sand on the shore! Let me see of what value to me have been these few pleasures? Ah! I remember that I was delighted in soul when Cleon had to disgorge those five talents;149 I was in ecstasy and I love the Knights for this deed; 'it is an honour to Greece.'150 But the day when I was impatiently awaiting a piece by Aeschylus,151 what tragic despair it caused me when the herald called, "Theognis,152 introduce your Chorus!" Just imagine how this blow struck straight at my heart! On the other hand, what joy Dexitheus caused me at the musical competition, when he played a Boeotian melody on the lyre! But this year by contrast! Oh! what deadly torture to hear Chaeris153 perform the prelude in the Orthian mode!154—Never, however, since I began to bathe, has the dust hurt my eyes as it does to-day. Still it is the day of assembly; all should be here at daybreak, and yet the Pnyx155 is still deserted. They are gossiping in the market-place, slipping hither and thither to avoid the vermilioned rope.156 The Prytanes157 even do not come; they will be late, but when they come they will push and fight each other for a seat in the front row. They will never trouble themselves with the question of peace. Oh! Athens! Athens! As for myself, I do not fail to come here before all the rest, and now, finding myself alone, I groan, yawn, stretch, break wind, and know not what to do; I make sketches in the dust, pull out my loose hairs, muse, think of my fields, long for peace, curse town life and regret my dear country home,158 which never told me to 'buy fuel, vinegar or oil'; there the word 'buy,' which cuts me in two, was unknown; I harvested everything at will. Therefore I have come to the assembly fully prepared to bawl, interrupt and abuse the speakers, if they talk of aught but peace. But here come the Prytanes, and high time too, for it is midday! As I foretold, hah! is it not so? They are pushing and fighting for the front seats.
HERALD. Move on up, move on, move on, to get within the consecrated area.159
AMPHITHEUS. Has anyone spoken yet?
HERALD. Who asks to speak?
AMPHITHEUS. I do.
HERALD. Your name?
AMPHITHEUS. Amphitheus.
HERALD. You are no man.160
AMPHITHEUS. No! I am an immortal! Amphitheus was the son of Ceres and Triptolemus; of him was born Celeus. Celeus wedded Phaencreté, my grandmother, whose son was Lucinus, and, being born of him, I am an immortal; it is to me alone that the gods have entrusted the duty of treating with the Lacedaemonians. But, citizens, though I am immortal, I am dying of hunger; the Prytanes give me naught.161
A PRYTANIS. Guards!
AMPHITHEUS. Oh, Triptolemus and Ceres, do ye thus forsake your own blood?
DICAEOPOLIS. Prytanes, in expelling this citizen, you are offering an outrage to the Assembly. He only desired to secure peace for us and to sheathe the sword.
PRYTANIS. Sit down and keep silence!
DICAEOPOLIS. No, by Apollo, will I not, unless you are going to discuss the question of peace.
HERALD. The ambassadors, who are returned from the Court of the King!
DICAEOPOLIS. Of what King? I am sick of all those fine birds, the peacock ambassadors and their swagger.
HERALD. Silence!
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh! oh! by Ecbatana,162 what assumption!
AN AMBASSADOR. During the archonship of Euthymenes, you sent us to the Great King on a salary of two drachmae per diem.
DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! those poor drachmae!
AMBASSADOR. We suffered horribly on the plains of the Ca˙ster, sleeping under a tent, stretched deliciously on fine chariots, half dead with weariness.
DICAEOPOLIS. And I was very much at ease, lying on the straw along the battlements!163
AMBASSADOR. Everywhere we were well received and forced to drink delicious wine out of golden or crystal flagons….
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh, city of Cranaus,164 thy ambassadors are laughing at thee!
AMBASSADOR. For great feeders and heavy drinkers are alone esteemed as men by the barbarians.
DICAEOPOLIS. Just as here in Athens, we only esteem the most drunken debauchees.
AMBASSADOR. At the end of the fourth year we reached the King's Court, but he had left with his whole army to ease himself, and for the space of eight months he was thus easing himself in midst of the golden mountains.165
DICAEOPOLIS. And how long was he replacing his dress?
AMBASSADOR. The whole period of a full moon; after which he returned to his palace; then he entertained us and had us served with oxen roasted whole in an oven.
DICAEOPOLIS. Who ever saw an oxen baked in an oven? What a lie!
AMBASSADOR. On my honour, he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,166 and called the Boaster.
DICAEOPOLIS. And do we give you two drachmae, that you should treat us to all this humbug?
AMBASSADOR. We are bringing to you, Pseudartabas,167 the King's Eye.
DICAEOPOLIS. I would a crow might pluck out thine with his beak, thou cursed ambassador!
HERALD. The King's Eye!
DICAEOPOLIS. Eh! Great gods! Friend, with thy great eye, round like the hole through which the oarsman passes his sweep, you have the air of a galley doubling a cape to gain the port.
AMBASSADOR. Come, Pseudartabas, give forth the message for the Athenians with which you were charged by the Great King.
PSEUDARTABAS. Jartaman exarx 'anapissonnai satra.168
AMBASSADOR. Do you understand what he says?
DICAEOPOLIS. By Apollo, not I!
AMBASSADOR. He says, that the Great King will send you gold. Come, utter the word 'gold' louder and more distinctly.
DICAEOPOLIS. Thou shalt not have gold, thou gaping-arsed Ionian.169
DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! may the gods forgive me, but that is clear enough.
AMBASSADOR. What does he say?
DICAEOPOLIS. That the Ionians are debauchees and idiots, if they expect to receive gold from the barbarians.
AMBASSADOR. Not so, he speaks of medimni170 of gold.
DICAEOPOLIS. What medimni? Thou art but a great braggart; but get your way, I will find out the truth by myself. Come now, answer me clearly, if you do not wish me to dye your skin red. Will the Great King send us gold? (Pseudartabas makes a negative sign.) Then our ambassadors are seeking to deceive us? (Pseudartabas signs affirmatively.) These fellows make signs like any Greek; I am sure that they are nothing but Athenians. Oh, ho! I recognize one of these eunuchs; it is Clisthenes, the son of Sibyrtius.171 Behold the effrontery of this shaven rump! How! great baboon, with such a beard do you seek to play the eunuch to us? And this other one? Is it not Straton?
HERALD. Silence! Let all be seated. The Senate invites the King's Eye to the Prytaneum.172
DICAEOPOLIS. Is this not sufficient to drive one to hang oneself? Here I stand chilled to the bone, whilst the doors of the Prytaneum fly wide open to lodge such rascals. But I will do something great and bold. Where is Amphitheus? Come and speak with me.
AMPHITHEUS. Here I am.
DICAEOPOLIS. Take these eight drachmae and go and conclude a truce with the Lacedaemonians for me, my wife and my children; I leave you free, my dear citizens, to send out embassies and to stand gaping in the air.
HERALD. Bring in Theorus, who has returned from the Court of Sitalces.173
THEORUS. I am here.
DICAEOPOLIS. Another humbug!
THEORUS. We should not have remained long in Thrace….
DICAEOPOLIS. Forsooth, no, if you had not been well paid.
THEORUS. … If the country had not been covered with snow; the rivers were ice-bound at the time that Theognis174 brought out his tragedy here; during the whole of that time I was holding my own with Sitalces, cup in hand; and, in truth, he adored you to such a degree, that he wrote on the walls, "How beautiful are the Athenians!" His son, to whom we gave the freedom of the city, burned with desire to come here and eat chitterlings at the feast of the Apaturia;175 he prayed his father to come to the aid of his new country and Sitalces swore on his goblet that he would succour us with such a host that the Athenians would exclaim, "What a cloud of grasshoppers!"
DICAEOPOLIS. May I die if I believe a word of what you tell us! Excepting the grasshoppers, there is not a grain of truth in it all!
THEORUS. And he has sent you the most warlike soldiers of all Thrace.
DICAEOPOLIS. Now we shall begin to see clearly.
HERALD. Come hither, Thracians, whom Theorus brought.
DICAEOPOLIS. What plague have we here?
THEORUS. 'Tis the host of the Odomanti.176
DICAEOPOLIS. Of the Odomanti? Tell me what it means. Who has mutilated their tools like this?
THEORUS. If they are given a wage of two drachmae, they will put all Boeotia177 to fire and sword.
DICAEOPOLIS. Two drachmae to those circumcised hounds! Groan aloud, ye people of rowers, bulwark of Athens! Ah! great gods! I am undone; these Odomanti are robbing me of my garlic!178 Will you give me back my garlic?
THEORUS. Oh! wretched man! do not go near them; they have eaten garlic.179
DICAEOPOLIS. Prytanes, will you let me be treated in this manner, in my own country and by barbarians? But I oppose the discussion of paying a wage to the Thracians; I announce an omen; I have just felt a drop of rain.180
HERALD. Let the Thracians withdraw and return the day after to-morrow; the Prytanes declare the sitting at an end.
DICAEOPOLIS. Ye gods, what garlic I have lost! But here comes Amphitheus returned from Lacedaemon. Welcome, Amphitheus.
AMPHITHEUS. No, there is no welcome for me and I fly as fast as I can, for I am pursued by the Acharnians.
DICAEOPOLIS. Why, what has happened?
AMPHITHEUS. I was hurrying to bring your treaty of truce, but some old dotards from Acharnae181 got scent of the thing; they are veterans of Marathon, tough as oak or maple, of which they are made for sure—rough and ruthless. They all set to a-crying, "Wretch! you are the bearer of a treaty, and the enemy has only just cut our vines!" Meanwhile they were gathering stones in their cloaks, so I fled and they ran after me shouting.
DICAEOPOLIS. Let 'em shout as much as they please! But have you brought me a treaty?
AMPHITHEUS. Most certainly, here are three samples to select from,182 this one is five years old; take it and taste.
DICAEOPOLIS. Faugh!
AMPHITHEUS. Well?
DICAEOPOLIS. It does not please me; it smells of pitch and of the ships they are fitting out.183
AMPHITHEUS. Here is another, ten years old; taste it.
DICAEOPOLIS. It smells strongly of the delegates, who go round the towns to chide the allies for their slowness.184
AMPHITHEUS. This last is a truce of thirty years, both on sea and land.
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh! by Bacchus! what a bouquet! It has the aroma of nectar and ambrosia; this does not say to us, "Provision yourselves for three days." But it lisps the gentle numbers, "Go whither you will."185 I accept it, ratify it, drink it at one draught and consign the Acharnians to limbo. Freed from the war and its ills, I shall keep the Dionysia186 in the country.
AMPHITHEUS. And I shall run away, for I'm mortally afraid of the Acharnians.
CHORUS. This way all! Let us follow our man; we will demand him of everyone we meet; the public weal makes his seizure imperative. Ho, there! tell me which way the bearer of the truce has gone; he has escaped us, he has disappeared. Curse old age! When I was young, in the days when I followed Phayllus,187 running with a sack of coals on my back, this wretch would not have eluded my pursuit, let him be as swift as he will; but now my limbs are stiff; old Lacratides188 feels his legs are weighty and the traitor escapes me. No, no, let us follow him; old Acharnians like ourselves shall not be set at naught by a scoundrel, who has dared, great gods! to conclude a truce, when I wanted the war continued with double fury in order to avenge my ruined lands. No mercy for our foes until I have pierced their hearts like a sharp reed, so that they dare never again ravage my vineyards. Come, let us seek the rascal; let us look everywhere, carrying our stones in our hands; let us hunt him from place to place until we trap him; I could never, never tire of the delight of stoning him.
DICAEOPOLIS. Peace! profane men!189
CHORUS. Silence all! Friends, do you hear the sacred formula? Here is he, whom we seek! This way, all! Get out of his way, surely he comes to offer an oblation.
DICAEOPOLIS. Peace, profane men! Let the basket-bearer190 come forward, and thou, Xanthias, hold the phallus well upright.191
WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS. Daughter, set down the basket and let us begin the sacrifice.
DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS. Mother, hand me the ladle, that I may spread the sauce on the cake.
DICAEOPOLIS. It is well! Oh, mighty Bacchus, it is with joy that, freed from military duty, I and all mine perform this solemn rite and offer thee this sacrifice; grant, that I may keep the rural Dionysia without hindrance and that this truce of thirty years may be propitious for me.
WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS. Come, my child, carry the basket gracefully and with a grave, demure face. Happy he, who shall be your possessor and embrace you so firmly at dawn,192 that you belch wind like a weasel. Go forward, and have a care they don't snatch your jewels in the crowd.
DICAEOPOLIS. Xanthias, walk behind the basket-bearer and hold the phallus well erect; I will follow, singing the Phallic hymn; thou, wife, look on from the top of the terrace.193 Forward! Oh, Phales,194 companion of the orgies of Bacchus, night reveller, god of adultery, friend of young men, these past six195 years I have not been able to invoke thee. With what joy I return to my farmstead, thanks to the truce I have concluded, freed from cares, from fighting and from Lamachuses!196 How much sweeter, Phales, oh, Phales, is it to surprise Thratta, the pretty wood-maid, Strymodorus' slave, stealing wood from Mount Phelleus, to catch her under the arms, to throw her on the ground and possess her! Oh, Phales, Phales! If thou wilt drink and bemuse thyself with me, we will to-morrow consume some good dish in honour of the peace, and I will hang up my buckler over the smoking hearth.
CHORUS. It is he, he himself. Stone him, stone him, stone him, strike the wretch. All, all of you, pelt him, pelt him!
DICAEOPOLIS. What is this? By Heracles, you will smash my pot.197
CHORUS. It is you that we are stoning, you miserable scoundrel.
DICAEOPOLIS. And for what sin, Acharnian Elders, tell me that!
CHORUS. You ask that, you impudent rascal, traitor to your country; you alone amongst us all have concluded a truce, and you dare to look us in the face!
DICAEOPOLIS. But you do not know why I have treated for peace. Listen!
CHORUS. Listen to you? No, no, you are about to die, we will annihilate you with our stones.
DICAEOPOLIS. But first of all, listen. Stop, my friends.
CHORUS. I will hear nothing; do not address me; I hate you more than I do Cleon,198 whom one day I shall flay to make sandals for the Knights. Listen to your long speeches, after you have treated with the Laconians! No, I will punish you.
DICAEOPOLIS. Friends, leave the Laconians out of debate and consider only whether I have not done well to conclude my truce.
CHORUS. Done well! when you have treated with a people who know neither gods, nor truth, nor faith.
DICAEOPOLIS. We attribute too much to the Laconians; as for myself, I know that they are not the cause of all our troubles.
CHORUS. Oh, indeed, rascal! You dare to use such language to me and then expect me to spare you!
DICAEOPOLIS. No, no, they are not the cause of all our troubles, and I who address you claim to be able to prove that they have much to complain of in us.
CHORUS. This passes endurance; my heart bounds with fury. Thus you dare to defend our enemies.
DICAEOPOLIS. Were my head on the block I would uphold what I say and rely on the approval of the people.
CHORUS. Comrades, let us hurl our stones and dye this fellow purple.
DICAEOPOLIS. What black fire-brand has inflamed your heart! You will not hear me? You really will not, Acharnians?
CHORUS. No, a thousand times, no.
DICAEOPOLIS. This is a hateful injustice.
CHORUS. May I die, if I listen.
DICAEOPOLIS. Nay, nay! have mercy, have mercy, Acharnians.
CHORUS. You shall die.
DICAEOPOLIS. Well, blood for blood! I will kill your dearest friend. I have here the hostages of Acharnae;199 I shall disembowel them.
CHORUS. Acharnians, what means this threat? Has he got one of our children in his house? What gives him such audacity?
DICAEOPOLIS. Stone me, if it please you; I shall avenge myself on this. (Shows a basket.) Let us see whether you have any love for your coals.
CHORUS. Great gods! this basket is our fellow-citizen. Stop, stop, in heaven's name!
DICAEOPOLIS. I shall dismember it despite your cries; I will listen to nothing.
CHORUS. How! will you kill this coal-basket, my beloved comrade?
DICAEOPOLIS. Just now, you did not listen to me.
CHORUS. Well, speak now, if you will; tell us, tell us you have a weakness for the Lacedaemonians. I consent to anything; never will I forsake this dear little basket.
DICAEOPOLIS. First, throw down your stones.
CHORUS. There! 'tis done. And you, do you put away your sword.
DICAEOPOLIS. Let me see that no stones remain concealed in your cloaks.
CHORUS. They are all on the ground; see how we shake our garments. Come, no haggling, lay down your sword; we threw away everything while crossing from one side of the stage to the other.200
DICAEOPOLIS. What cries of anguish you would have uttered had these coals of Parnes201 been dismembered, and yet it came very near it; had they perished, their death would have been due to the folly of their fellow-citizens. The poor basket was so frightened, look, it has shed a thick black dust over me, the same as a cuttle-fish does. What an irritable temper! You shout and throw stones, you will not hear my arguments—not even when I propose to speak in favour of the Lacedaemonians with my head on the block; and yet I cling to my life.
CHORUS. Well then, bring out a block before your door, scoundrel, and let us hear the good grounds you can give us; I am curious to know them. Now mind, as you proposed yourself, place your head on the block and speak.
DICAEOPOLIS. Here is the block; and, though I am but a very sorry speaker, I wish nevertheless to talk freely of the Lacedaemonians and without the protection of my buckler. Yet I have many reasons for fear. I know our rustics; they are delighted if some braggart comes, and rightly or wrongly loads both them and their city with praise and flattery; they do not see that such toad-eaters202 are traitors, who sell them for gain. As for the old men, I know their weakness; they only seek to overwhelm the accused with their votes.203 Nor have I forgotten how Cleon treated me because of my comedy last year;204 he dragged me before the Senate and there he uttered endless slanders against me; 'twas a tempest of abuse, a deluge of lies. Through what a slough of mud he dragged me! I nigh perished. Permit me, therefore, before I speak, to dress in the manner most likely to draw pity.
CHORUS. What evasions, subterfuges and delays! Hold! here is the sombre helmet of Pluto with its thick bristling plume; Hieronymus205 lends it to you; then open Sisyphus'206 bag of wiles; but hurry, hurry, pray, for our discussion does not admit of delay.
DICAEOPOLIS. The time has come for me to manifest my courage, so I will go and seek Euripides. Ho! slave, slave!
SLAVE. Who's there?
DICAEOPOLIS. Is Euripides at home?
SLAVE. He is and he isn't; understand that, if you have wit for't.
DICAEOPOLIS. How? He is and he isn't!207
SLAVE. Certainly, old man; busy gathering subtle fancies here and there, his mind is not in the house, but he himself is; perched aloft, he is composing a tragedy.
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh, Euripides, you are indeed happy to have a slave so quick at repartee! Now, fellow, call your master.
SLAVE. Impossible!
DICAEOPOLIS. So much the worse. But I will not go. Come, let us knock at the door. Euripides, my little Euripides, my darling Euripides, listen; never had man greater right to your pity. It is Dicaeopolis of the Chollidan Deme who calls you. Do you hear?
EURIPIDES. I have no time to waste.
DICAEOPOLIS. Very well, have yourself wheeled out here.208
EURIPIDES. Impossible.
DICAEOPOLIS. Nevertheless….
EURIPIDES. Well, let them roll me out; as to coming down, I have not the time.
DICAEOPOLIS. Euripides….
EURIPIDES. What words strike my ear?
DICAEOPOLIS. You perch aloft to compose tragedies, when you might just as well do them on the ground. I am not astonished at your introducing cripples on the stage.209 And why dress in these miserable tragic rags? I do not wonder that your heroes are beggars. But, Euripides, on my knees I beseech you, give me the tatters of some old piece: for I have to treat the Chorus to a long speech, and if I do it ill it is all over with me.
EURIPIDES. What rags do you prefer? Those in which I rigged out Aeneus210 on the stage, that unhappy, miserable old man?
DICAEOPOLIS. No, I want those of some hero still more unfortunate.
EURIPIDES. Of Phoenix, the blind man?
DICAEOPOLIS. No, not of Phoenix, you have another hero more unfortunate than him.
EURIPIDES. Now, what tatters does he want? Do you mean those of the beggar Philoctetes?
DICAEOPOLIS. No, of another far more the mendicant.
EURIPIDES. Is it the filthy dress of the lame fellow, Bellerophon?
DICAEOPOLIS. No, 'tis not Bellerophon; he, whom I mean, was not only lame and a beggar, but boastful and a fine speaker.
EURIPIDES. Ah! I know, it is Telephus, the Mysian.
DICAEOPOLIS. Yes, Telephus. Give me his rags, I beg of you.
EURIPIDES. Slave! give him Telephus' tatters; they are on top of the rags of Thyestes and mixed with those of Ino.
SLAVE. Catch hold! here they are.
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh! Zeus, whose eye pierces everywhere and embraces all, permit me to assume the most wretched dress on earth. Euripides, cap your kindness by giving me the little Mysian hat, that goes so well with these tatters. I must to-day have the look of a beggar; "be what I am, but not appear to be";211 the audience will know well who I am, but the Chorus will be fools enough not to, and I shall dupe 'em with my subtle phrases.
EURIPIDES. I will give you the hat; I love the clever tricks of an ingenious brain like yours.
DICAEOPOLIS. Rest happy, and may it befall Telephus as I wish. Ah! I already feel myself filled with quibbles. But I must have a beggar's staff.
EURIPIDES. Here you are, and now get you gone from this porch.
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh, my soul! You see how you are driven from this house, when I still need so many accessories. But let us be pressing, obstinate, importunate. Euripides, give me a little basket with a lamp alight inside.
EURIPIDES. Whatever do you want such a thing as that for?
DICAEOPOLIS. I do not need it, but I want it all the same.
EURIPIDES. You importune me; get you gone!
DICAEOPOLIS. Alas! may the gods grant you a destiny as brilliant as your mother's.212
EURIPIDES. Leave me in peace.
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh! just a little broken cup.
EURIPIDES. Take it and go and hang yourself. What a tiresome fellow!
DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! you do not know all the pain you cause me. Dear, good Euripides, nothing beyond a small pipkin stoppered with a sponge.
EURIPIDES. Miserable man! You are robbing me of an entire tragedy.213 Here, take it and be off.
DICAEOPOLIS. I am going, but, great gods! I need one thing more; unless I have it, I am a dead man. Hearken, my little Euripides, only give me this and I go, never to return. For pity's sake, do give me a few small herbs for my basket.
EURIPIDES. You wish to ruin me then. Here, take what you want; but it is all over with my pieces!
DICAEOPOLIS. I won't ask another thing; I'm going. I am too importunate and forget that I rouse against me the hate of kings.—Ah! wretch that I am! I am lost! I have forgotten one thing, without which all the rest is as nothing. Euripides, my excellent Euripides, my dear little Euripides, may I die if I ask you again for the smallest present; only one, the last, absolutely the last; give me some of the chervil your mother left you in her will.
EURIPIDES. Insolent hound! Slave, lock the door.
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh, my soul! I must go away without the chervil. Art thou sensible of the dangerous battle we are about to engage upon in defending the Lacedaemonians? Courage, my soul, we must plunge into the midst of it. Dost thou hesitate and art thou fully steeped in Euripides? That's right! do not falter, my poor heart, and let us risk our head to say what we hold for truth. Courage and boldly to the front. I wonder I am so brave!
CHORUS. What do you purport doing? what are you going to say? What an impudent fellow! what a brazen heart! To dare to stake his head and uphold an opinion contrary to that of us all! And he does not tremble to face this peril! Come, it is you who desired it, speak!
DICAEOPOLIS. Spectators, be not angered if, although I am a beggar, I dare in a Comedy to speak before the people of Athens of the public weal; Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please, but I shall say what is true. Besides, Cleon shall not be able to accuse me of attacking Athens before strangers;214 we are by ourselves at the festival of the Lenaea; the period when our allies send us their tribute and their soldiers is not yet. Here is only the pure wheat without chaff; as to the resident strangers settled among us, they and the citizens are one, like the straw and the ear.
I detest the Lacedaemonians with all my heart, and may Posidon, the god of Taenarus,215 cause an earthquake and overturn their dwellings! My vines also have been cut. But come (there are only friends who hear me), why accuse the Laconians of all our woes? Some men (I do not say the city, note particularly, that I do not say the city), some wretches, lost in vices, bereft of honour, who were not even citizens of good stamp, but strangers, have accused the Megarians of introducing their produce fraudulently, and not a cucumber, a leveret, a sucking-pig, a clove of garlic, a lump of salt was seen without its being said, "Halloa! these come from Megara," and their being instantly confiscated. Thus far the evil was not serious, and we were the only sufferers. But now some young drunkards go to Megara and carry off the courtesan Simaetha; the Megarians, hurt to the quick, run off in turn with two harlots of the house of Aspasia; and so for three gay women Greece is set ablaze. Then Pericles, aflame with ire on his Olympian height, let loose the lightning, caused the thunder to roll, upset Greece and passed an edict, which ran like the song, "That the Megarians be banished both from our land and from our markets and from the sea and from the continent."216 Meanwhile the Megarians, who were beginning to die of hunger, begged the Lacedaemonians to bring about the abolition of the decree, of which those harlots were the cause; several times we refused their demand; and from that time there was a horrible clatter of arms everywhere. You will say that Sparta was wrong, but what should she have done? Answer that. Suppose that a Lacedaemonian had seized a little Seriphian217 dog on any pretext and had sold it, would you have endured it quietly? Far from it, you would at once have sent three hundred vessels to sea, and what an uproar there would have been through all the city! there 'tis a band of noisy soldiery, here a brawl about the election of a Trierarch; elsewhere pay is being distributed, the Pallas figure-heads are being regilded, crowds are surging under the market porticos, encumbered with wheat that is being measured, wine-skins, oar-leathers, garlic, olives, onions in nets; everywhere are chaplets, sprats, flute-girls, black eyes; in the arsenal bolts are being noisily driven home, sweeps are being made and fitted with leathers; we hear nothing but the sound of whistles, of flutes and fifes to encourage the work-folk. That is what you assuredly would have done, and would not Telephus have done the same? So I come to my general conclusion; we have no common sense.
