XANTHIAS. And how has this law disturbed Aeschylus?

AEACUS. He held the chair for tragedy, as being the greatest in his art.

XANTHIAS. And who has it now?

AEACUS. When Euripides descended here, he started reciting his verses to the cheats, cut-purses, parricides, and brigands, who abound in Hades; his supple and tortuous reasonings filled them with enthusiasm, and they pronounced him the cleverest by far. So Euripides, elated with pride, took possession of the throne on which Aeschylus was installed.

XANTHIAS. And did he not get stoned?

AEACUS. No, but the folk demanded loudly that a regular trial should decide to which of the two the highest place belonged.

XANTHIAS. What folk? this mob of rascals? (Points to the spectators.)

AEACUS. Their clamour reached right up to heaven.

XANTHIAS. And had Aeschylus not his friends too?

AEACUS. Good people are very scarce here, just the same as on earth.

XANTHIAS. What does Pluto reckon to do?

AEACUS. To open a contest as soon as possible; the two rivals will show their skill, and finally a verdict will be given.

XANTHIAS. What! has not Sophocles also claimed the chair then?

AEACUS. No, no! he embraced Aeschylus and shook his hand, when he came down; he could have taken the seat, for Aeschylus vacated it for him; but according to Clidemides,[459] he prefers to act as his second; if Aeschylus triumphs, he will stay modestly where he is, but if not, he has declared that he will contest the prize with Euripides.

XANTHIAS. When is the contest to begin?

AEACUS. Directly! the battle royal is to take place on this very spot. Poetry is to be weighed in the scales.

XANTHIAS. What? How can tragedy be weighed?

AEACUS. They will bring rulers and compasses to measure the words, and those forms which are used for moulding bricks, also diameter measures and wedges, for Euripides says he wishes to torture every verse of his rival's tragedies.

XANTHIAS. If I mistake not, Aeschylus must be in a rage.

AEACUS. With lowered head he glares fiercely like a bull.

XANTHIAS. And who will be the judge?

AEACUS. The choice was difficult; it was seen that there was a dearth of able men. Aeschylus took exception to the Athenians ...

XANTHIAS. No doubt he thought there were too many thieves among them.

AEACUS. ... and moreover believed them too light-minded to judge of a poet's merits. Finally they fell back upon your master, because he understands tragic poetry.[460] But let us go in; when the masters are busy, we must look out for blows!

CHORUS. Ah! what fearful wrath will be surging in his heart! what a roar there'll be when he sees the babbler who challenges him sharpening his teeth! how savagely his eyes will roll! What a battle of words like plumed helmets and waving crests hurling themselves against fragile outbursts and wretched parings! We shall see the ingenious architect of style defending himself against immense periods. Then, the close hairs of his thick mane all a-bristle, the giant will knit his terrible brow; he will pull out verses as solidly bolted together as the framework of a ship and will hurl them forth with a roar, while the pretty speaker with the supple and sharpened tongue, who weighs each syllable and submits everything to the lash of his envy, will cut this grand style to mincemeat and reduce to ruins this edifice erected by one good sturdy puff of breath.[461]

EURIPIDES (to Dionysus). Your advice is in vain, I shall not vacate the chair, for I contend I am superior to him.

DIONYSUS. Aeschylus, why do you keep silent? You understand what he says.

EURIPIDES. He is going to stand on his dignity first; 'tis a trick he never failed to use in his tragedies.

DIONYSUS. My dear fellow, a little less arrogance, please.

EURIPIDES. Oh! I know him for many a day. I have long had a thorough hold of his ferocious heroes, for his high-flown language and of the monstrous blustering words which his great, gaping mouth hurls forth thick and close without curb or measure.

AESCHYLUS. It is indeed you, the son of a rustic goddess,[462] who dare to treat me thus, you, who only know how to collect together stupid sayings and to stitch the rags of your beggars?[463] I shall make you rue your insults.

DIONYSUS. Enough said, Aeschylus, calm the wild wrath that is turning your heart into a furnace.

AESCHYLUS. No, not until I have clearly shown the true value of this impudent fellow with his lame men.[464]

DIONYSUS. A lamb, a black lamb! Slaves, bring it quickly, the storm-cloud is about to burst.[465]

AESCHYLUS. Shame on your Cretan monologues![466] Shame on the infamous nuptials[467] that you introduce into the tragic art!

DIONYSUS. Curb yourself, noble Aeschylus, and as for you, my poor Euripides, be prudent, protect yourself from this hailstorm, or he may easily in his rage hit you full in the temple with some terrible word, that would let out your Telephus.[468] Come, Aeschylus, no flying into a temper! discuss the question coolly; poets must not revile each other like market wenches. Why, you shout at the very outset and burst out like a pine that catches fire in the forest.

EURIPIDES. I am ready for the contest and don't flinch; let him choose the attack or the defence; let him discuss everything, the dialogue, the choruses, the tragic genius, Peleus, Aeolus, Meleager[469] and especially Telephus.

DIONYSUS. And what do you propose to do, Aeschylus? Speak!

AESCHYLUS. I should have wished not to maintain a contest that is not equal or fair.

DIONYSUS. Why not fair?

AESCHYLUS. Because my poetry has outlived me, whilst his died with him and he can use it against me. However, I submit to your ruling.

DIONYSUS. Let incense and a brazier be brought, for I want to offer a prayer to the gods. Thanks to their favour, may I be able to decide between these ingenious rivals as a clever expert should! And do you sing a hymn in honour of the Muses.

CHORUS. Oh! ye chaste Muses, the daughters of Zeus, you who read the fine and subtle minds of thought-makers when they enter upon a contest of quibbles and tricks, look down on these two powerful athletes; inspire them, one with mighty words and the other with odds and ends of verses. Now the great mind contest is beginning.

DIONYSUS. And do you likewise make supplication to the gods before entering the lists.

AESCHYLUS. Oh, Demeter! who hast formed my mind, may I be able to prove myself worthy of thy Mysteries![470]

DIONYSUS. And you, Euripides, prove yourself meet to sprinkle incense on the brazier.

EURIPIDES. Thanks, but I sacrifice to other gods.[471]

DIONYSUS. To private gods of your own, which you have made after your own image?

EURIPIDES. Why, certainly!

DIONYSUS. Well then, invoke your gods.

EURIPIDES. Oh! thou Aether, on which I feed, oh! thou Volubility of Speech, oh! Craftiness, oh! Subtle Scent! enable me to crush the arguments of my opponent.

CHORUS. We are curious to see upon what ground these clever tilters are going to measure each other. Their tongue is keen, their wit is ready, their heart is full of audacity. From the one we must expect both elegance and polish of language, whereas the other, armed with his ponderous words, will fall hip and thigh upon his foe and with a single blow tear down and scatter all his vain devices.

DIONYSUS. Come, be quick and speak and let your words be elegant, but without false imagery or platitude.

EURIPIDES. I shall speak later of my poetry, but I want first to prove that Aeschylus is merely a wretched impostor; I shall relate by what means he tricked a coarse audience, trained in the school of Phrynichus.[472] First one saw some seated figure, who was veiled, some Achilles or Niob,[473] who then strutted about the stage, but neither uncovered their face nor uttered a syllable.

DIONYSUS. I' faith! that's true!

EURIPIDES. Meanwhile, the Chorus would pour forth as many as four tirades one after the other, without stopping, and the characters would still maintain their stony silence.

DIONYSUS. I liked their silence, and these mutes pleased me no less than those characters that have such a heap to say nowadays.

EURIPIDES. 'Tis because you were a fool, understand that well.

DIONYSUS. Possibly; but what was his object?

EURIPIDES. 'Twas pure quackery; in this way the spectator would sit motionless, waiting, waiting for Niob to say something, and the piece would go running on.

DIONYSUS. Oh! the rogue! how he deceived me! Well, Aeschylus, why are you so restless? Why this impatience, eh?

EURIPIDES. 'Tis because he sees himself beaten. Then when he had rambled on well, and got half-way through the piece, he would spout some dozen big, blustering, winged words, tall as mountains, terrible scarers, which the spectator admired without understanding what they meant.

DIONYSUS. Oh! great gods!

AESCHYLUS. Silence!

EURIPIDES. There was no comprehending one word.

DIONYSUS (to Aeschylus). Don't grind your teeth.

EURIPIDES. There were Scamanders, abysses, griffins with eagles' beaks chiselled upon brazen bucklers, all words with frowning crests and hard, hard to understand.

DIONYSUS. 'Faith, I was kept awake almost an entire night, trying to think out his yellow bird, half cock and half horse.[474]

AESCHYLUS. Why, fool, 'tis a device that is painted on the prow of a vessel.

DIONYSUS. Ah! I actually thought 'twas Eryxis, the son of Philoxenus.[475]

EURIPIDES. But what did you want with a cock in tragedy?

AESCHYLUS. But you, you foe of the gods, what have you done that is so good?

EURIPIDES. Oh! I have not made horses with cocks' heads like you, nor goats with deer's horns, as you may see 'em on Persian tapestries; but, when I received tragedy from your hands, it was quite bloated with enormous, ponderous words, and I began by lightening it of its heavy baggage and treated it with little verses, with subtle arguments, with the sap of white beet and decoctions of philosophical folly, the whole being well filtered together;[476] then I fed it with monologues, mixing in some Cephisophon;[477] but I did not chatter at random nor mix in any ingredients that first came to hand; from the outset I made my subject clear, and told the origin of the piece.

AESCHYLUS. Well, that was better than telling your own.[478]

EURIPIDES. Then, starting with the very first verse, each character played his part; all spoke, both woman and slave and master, young girl and old hag.[479]

AESCHYLUS. And was not such daring deserving of death?

EURIPIDES. No, by Apollo! 'twas to please the people.

DIONYSUS. Oh! leave that alone, do; 'tis not the best side of your case.

EURIPIDES. Furthermore, I taught the spectators the art of speech ...

AESCHYLUS. 'Tis true indeed! Would that you had burst before you did it!

EURIPIDES. ... the use of the straight lines and of the corners of language, the science of thinking, of reading, of understanding, plotting, loving deceit, of suspecting evil, of thinking of everything....

AESCHYLUS. Oh! true, true again!

EURIPIDES. I introduced our private life upon the stage, our common habits; and 'twas bold of me, for everyone was at home with these and could be my critic; I did not burst out into big noisy words to prevent their comprehension; nor did I terrify the audience by showing them Cycni[480] and Memnons[481] on chariots harnessed with steeds and jingling bells. Look at his disciples and look at mine. His are Phormisius and Megaenetus of Magnesia[482], all a-bristle with long beards, spears and trumpets, and grinning with sardonic and ferocious laughter, while my disciples are Clitophon and the graceful Theramenes.[483]

DIONYSUS. Theramenes? An able man and ready for anything; a man, who in imminent dangers knew well how to get out of the scrape by saying he was from Chios and not from Ceos.[484]

EURIPIDES. 'Tis thus that I taught my audience how to judge, namely, by introducing the art of reasoning and considering into tragedy. Thanks to me, they understand everything, discern all things, conduct their households better and ask themselves, "What is to be thought of this? Where is that? Who has taken the other thing?"

DIONYSUS. Yes, certainly, and now every Athenian who returns home, bawls to his slaves, "Where is the stew-pot? Who has eaten off the sprat's head? Where is the clove of garlic that was left over from yesterday? Who has been nibbling at my olives?" Whereas formerly they kept their seats with mouths agape like fools and idiots.

CHORUS. You hear him, illustrious Achilles,[485] and what are you going to reply? Only take care that your rage does not lead you astray, for he has handled you brutally. My noble friend, don't get carried away; furl all your sails, except the top-gallants, so that your ship may only advance slowly, until you feel yourself driven forward by a soft and favourable wind. Come then, you who were the first of the Greeks to construct imposing monuments of words and to raise the old tragedy above childish trifling, open a free course to the torrent of your words.

AESCHYLUS. This contest rouses my gall; my heart is boiling over with wrath. Am I bound to dispute with this fellow? But I will not let him think me unarmed and helpless. So, answer me! what is it in a poet one admires?

EURIPIDES. Wise counsels, which make the citizens better.

AESCHYLUS. And if you have failed in this duty, if out of honest and pure-minded men you have made rogues, what punishment do you think is your meet?

DIONYSUS. Death. I will reply for him.

AESCHYLUS. Behold then what great and brave men I bequeathed to him! They did not shirk the public burdens; they were not idlers, rogues and cheats, as they are to-day; their very breath was spears, pikes, helmets with white crests, breastplates and greaves; they were gallant souls encased in seven folds of ox-leather.

EURIPIDES. I must beware! he will crush me beneath the sheer weight of his hail of armour.

DIONYSUS. And how did you teach them this bravery? Speak, Aeschylus, and don't display so much haughty swagger.

AESCHYLUS. By composing a drama full of the spirit of Ares.

DIONYSUS. Which one?

AESCHYLUS. The Seven Chiefs before Thebes. Every man who had once seen it longed to be marching to battle.

DIONYSUS. And you did very wrongly; through you the Thebans have become more warlike; for this misdeed you deserve to be well beaten.

AESCHYLUS. You too might have trained yourself, but you were not willing. Then, by producing 'The Persae,' I have taught you to conquer all your enemies; 'twas my greatest work.

DIONYSUS. Aye, I shook with joy at the announcement of the death of Darius; and the Chorus immediately clapped their hands and shouted, "Triumph!"[486]

AESCHYLUS. Those are the subjects that poets should use. Note how useful, even from remotest times, the poets of noble thought have been! Orpheus taught us the mystic rites and the horrid nature of murder; Musaeus, the healing of ailments and the oracles; Hesiod, the tilling of the soil and the times for delving and harvest. And does not divine Homer owe his immortal glory to his noble teachings? Is it not he who taught the warlike virtues, the art of fighting and of carrying arms?

DIONYSUS. At all events he has not taught it to Pantacles,[487] the most awkward of all men; t'other day, when he was directing a procession, 'twas only after he had put on his helmet that he thought of fixing in the crest.

AESCHYLUS. But he has taught a crowd of brave warriors, such as Lamachus,[488] the hero of Athens. 'Tis from Homer that I borrowed the Patrocli and the lion-hearted Teucers,[489] whom I revived to the citizens, to incite them to show themselves worthy of these illustrious examples when the trumpets sounded. But I showed them neither Sthenoboea[490] nor shameless Phaedra; and I don't remember ever having placed an amorous woman on the stage.

EURIPIDES. No, no, you have never known Aphrodit.

AESCHYLUS. And I am proud of it. Whereas with you and those like you, she appears everywhere and in every shape; so that even you yourself were ruined and undone by her.[491]

DIONYSUS. That's true; the crimes you imputed to the wives of others, you suffered from in turn.

EURIPIDES. But, cursed man, what harm have my Sthenoboeas done to Athens?

AESCHYLUS. You are the cause of honest wives of honest citizens drinking hemlock, so greatly have your Bellerophons made them blush.[492]

EURIPIDES. Why, did I invent the story of Phaedra?

AESCHYLUS. No, the story is true enough; but the poet should hide what is vile and not produce nor represent it on the stage. The schoolmaster teaches little children and the poet men of riper age. We must only display what is good.

EURIPIDES. And when you talk to us of towering mountains—Lycabettus and of the frowning Parnes[493]—is that teaching us what is good? Why not use human language?

AESCHYLUS. Why, miserable man, the expression must always rise to the height of great maxims and of noble thoughts. Thus as the garment of the demi-gods is more magnificent, so also is their language more sublime. I ennobled the stage, while you have degraded it.

EURIPIDES. And how so, pray?

AESCHYLUS. Firstly you have dressed the kings in rags,[494] so that they might inspire pity.

EURIPIDES. Where's the harm?

AESCHYLUS. You are the cause why no rich man will now equip the galleys, they dress themselves in tatters, groan and say they are poor.

DIONYSUS. Aye, by Demeter! and he wears a tunic of fine wool underneath; and when he has deceived us with his lies, he may be seen turning up on the fish-market.[495]

AESCHYLUS. Moreover, you have taught boasting and quibbling; the wrestling schools are deserted and the young fellows have submitted their arses to outrage,[496] in order that they might learn to reel off idle chatter, and the sailors have dared to bandy words with their officers.[497] In my day they only knew how to ask for their ship's-biscuit and to shout "Yo ho! heave ho!"

DIONYSUS. ... and to let wind under the nose of the rower below them, to befoul their mate with filth and to steal when they went ashore. Nowadays they argue instead of rowing and the ship can travel as slow as she likes.

AESCHYLUS. Of what crimes is he not the author? Has he not shown us procurers, women who get delivered in the temples, have traffic with their brothers,[498] and say that life is not life.[499] 'Tis thanks to him that our city is full of scribes and buffoons, veritable apes, whose grimaces are incessantly deceiving the people; but there is no one left who knows how to carry a torch,[500] so little is it practised.

DIONYSUS. I' faith, that's true! I almost died of laughter at the last Panathenaea at seeing a slow, fat, pale-faced fellow, who ran well behind all the rest, bent completely double and evidently in horrible pain. At the gate of the Ceramicus the spectators started beating his belly, sides, flanks and thighs; these slaps knocked so much wind out of him that it extinguished his torch and he hurried away.

CHORUS. 'Tis a serious issue and an important debate; the fight is proceeding hotly and its decision will be difficult; for, as violently as the one attacks, as cleverly and as subtly does the other reply. But don't keep always to the same ground; you are not at the end of your specious artifices. Make use of every trick you have, no matter whether it be old or new! Out with everything boldly, blunt though it be; risk anything—that is smart and to the point. Perchance you fear that the audience is too stupid to grasp your subtleties, but be reassured, for that is no longer the case. They are all well-trained folk; each has his book, from which he learns the art of quibbling; such wits as they are happily endowed with have been rendered still keener through study. So have no fear! Attack everything, for you face an enlightened audience.

EURIPIDES. Let's take your prologues; 'tis the beginnings of this able poet's tragedies that I wish to examine at the outset. He was obscure in the description of his subjects.

DIONYSUS. And which prologue are you going to examine?

EURIPIDES. A lot of them. Give me first of all that of the 'Orestes.'[501]

DIONYSUS. All keep silent, Aeschylus, recite.

AESCHYLUS. "Oh! Hermes of the nether world, whose watchful power executes the paternal bidding, be my deliverer, assist me, I pray thee. I come, I return to this land."[502]

DIONYSUS. Is there a single word to condemn in that?

EURIPIDES. More than a dozen.

DIONYSUS. But there are but three verses in all.

EURIPIDES. And there are twenty faults in each.

DIONYSUS. Aeschylus, I beg you to keep silent; otherwise, besides these three iambics, there will be many more attacked.

AESCHYLUS. What? Keep silent before this fellow?

DIONYSUS. If you will take my advice.

EURIPIDES. He begins with a fearful blunder. Do you see the stupid thing?

DIONYSUS. Faith! I don't care if I don't.

AESCHYLUS. A blunder? In what way?

EURIPIDES. Repeat the first verse.

AESCHYLUS. "Oh! Hermes of the nether world, whose watchful power executes the paternal bidding."

EURIPIDES. Is not Orestes speaking in this fashion before his father's tomb?

AESCHYLUS. Agreed.

EURIPIDES. Does he mean to say that Hermes had watched, only that Agamemnon should perish at the hands of a woman and be the victim of a criminal intrigue?

AESCHYLUS. 'Tis not to the god of trickery, but to Hermes the benevolent, that he gives the name of god of the nether world, and this he proves by adding that Hermes is accomplishing the mission given him by his father.

EURIPIDES. The blunder is even worse than I had thought to make it out; for if he holds his office in the nether world from his father....

DIONYSUS. It means his father has made him a grave-digger.

AESCHYLUS. Dionysus, your wine is not redolent of perfume.[503]

DIONYSUS. Continue, Aeschylus, and you, Euripides, spy out the faults as he proceeds.

AESCHYLUS. "Be my deliverer, assist me, I pray thee. I come, I return to this land."

EURIPIDES. Our clever Aeschylus says the very same thing twice over.

AESCHYLUS. How twice over?

EURIPIDES. Examine your expressions, for I am going to show you the repetition. "I come, I return to this land." But I come is the same thing as I return.

DIONYSUS. Undoubtedly. 'Tis as though I said to my neighbour, "Lend me either your kneading-trough or your trough to knead in."

AESCHYLUS. No, you babbler, no, 'tis not the same thing, and the verse is excellent.

DIONYSUS. Indeed! then prove it.

AESCHYLUS. To come is the act of a citizen who has suffered no misfortune; but the exile both comes and returns.

DIONYSUS. Excellent! by Apollo! What do you say to that, Euripides?

EURIPIDES. I say that Orestes did not return to his country, for he came there secretly, without the consent of those in power.

DIONYSUS. Very good indeed! by Hermes! only I have not a notion what it is you mean.

EURIPIDES. Go on.

DIONYSUS. Come, be quick, Aeschylus, continue; and you look out for the faults.

AESCHYLUS. "At the foot of this tomb I invoke my father and beseech him to hearken to me and to hear."

EURIPIDES. Again a repetition, to hearken and to hear are obviously the same thing.

DIONYSUS. Why, wretched man, he's addressing the dead, whom to call thrice even is not sufficient.

AESCHYLUS. And you, how do you form your prologues?

EURIPIDES. I am going to tell you, and if you find a repetition, an idle word or inappropriate, let me be scouted!

DIONYSUS. Come, speak; 'tis my turn to listen. Let us hear the beauty of your prologues,

EURIPIDES. "Oedipus was a fortunate man at first ..."

AESCHYLUS. Not at all; he was destined to misfortune before he even existed, since Apollo predicted he would kill his father before ever he was born. How can one say he was fortunate at first?

EURIPIDES. "... and he became the most unfortunate of mortals afterwards."

AESCHYLUS. No, he did not become so, for he never ceased being so. Look at the facts! First of all, when scarcely born, he is exposed in the middle of winter in an earthenware vessel, for fear he might become the murderer of his father, if brought up; then he came to Polybus with his feet swollen; furthermore, while young, he marries an old woman, who is also his mother, and finally he blinds himself.

DIONYSUS. 'Faith! I think he could not have done worse to have been a colleague of Erasinidas.[504]

EURIPIDES. You can chatter as you will, my prologues are very fine.

AESCHYLUS. I will take care not to carp at them verse by verse and word for word;[505] but, an it please the gods, a simple little bottle will suffice me for withering every one of your prologues.

EURIPIDES. You will wither my prologues with a little bottle?[506]

AESCHYLUS. With only one. You make verses of such a kind, that one can adapt what one will to your iambics: a little bit of fluff, a little bottle, a little bag. I am going to prove it.

EURIPIDES. You will prove it?

AESCHYLUS. Yes.

DIONYSUS. Come, recite.

EURIPIDES. "Aegyptus, according to the most widely spread reports, having landed at Argos with his fifty daughters[507] ..."

AESCHYLUS. ... lost his little bottle.

EURIPIDES. What little bottle? May the plague seize you!

DIONYSUS. Recite another prologue to him. We shall see.

EURIPIDES. "Dionysus, who leads the choral dance on Parnassus with the thyrsus in his hand and clothed in skins of fawns[508] ..."

AESCHYLUS. ... lost his little bottle.

DIONYSUS. There again his little bottle upsets us.

EURIPIDES. He won't bother us much longer. I have a certain prologue to which he cannot adapt his tag: "There is no perfect happiness; this one is of noble origin, but poor; another of humble birth[509] ..."

AESCHYLUS. ... lost his little bottle.

DIONYSUS. Euripides!

EURIPIDES. What's the matter?

DIONYSUS. Clue up your sails, for this damned little bottle is going to blow a gale.

EURIPIDES. Little I care, by Demeter! I am going to make it burst in his hands.

DIONYSUS. Then out with it; recite another prologue, but beware, beware of the little bottle.

EURIPIDES. "Cadmus, the son of Agenor, while leaving the city of Sidon[510] ..."

AESCHYLUS. ... lost his little bottle.

DIONYSUS. Oh! my poor friend; buy that bottle, do, for it is going to tear all your prologues to ribbons.

EURIPIDES. What? Am I to buy it of him?

DIONYSUS. If you take my advice.

EURIPIDES. No, not I, for I have many prologues to which he cannot possibly fit his catchword: "Pelops, the son of Tantalus, having started for Pisa on his swift chariot[511] ..."

AESCHYLUS. ... lost his little bottle.

DIONYSUS. D'ye see? Again he has popped in his little bottle. Come, Aeschylus, he is going to buy it of you at any price, and you can have a splendid one for an obolus.

EURIPIDES. By Zeus, no, not yet! I have plenty of other prologues. "Oeneus in the fields one day[512] ..."

AESCHYLUS. ... lost his little bottle.

EURIPIDES. Let me first finish the opening verse: "Oeneus in the fields one day, having made an abundant harvest and sacrificed the first-fruits to the gods ..."

AESCHYLUS. ... lost his little bottle.

DIONYSUS. During the sacrifice? And who was the thief?

EURIPIDES. Allow him to try with this one: "Zeus, as even Truth has said[513] ..."

DIONYSUS (to Euripides). You have lost again; he is going to say, "lost his little bottle," for that bottle sticks to your prologues like a ringworm. But, in the name of the gods, turn now to his choruses.

EURIPIDES. I will prove that he knows nothing of lyric poetry, and that he repeats himself incessantly.

CHORUS. What's he going to say now? I am itching to know what criticisms he is going to make on the poet, whose sublime songs so far outclass those of his contemporaries. I cannot imagine with what he is going to reproach the king of the Dionysia, and I tremble for the aggressor.

EURIPIDES. Oh! those wonderful songs! But watch carefully, for I am going to condense them all into a single one.

DIONYSUS. And I am going to take pebbles to count the fragments.

EURIPIDES. "Oh, Achilles, King of Phthiotis, hearken to the shout of the conquering foe and haste to sustain the assault. We dwellers in the marshes do honour to Hermes, the author of our race. Haste to sustain the assault."

DIONYSUS. There, Aeschylus, you have already two assaults against you.

EURIPIDES. "Oh, son of Atreus, the most illustrious of the Greeks, thou, who rulest so many nations, hearken to me. Haste to the assault."

DIONYSUS. A third assault. Beware, Aeschylus.

EURIPIDES. "Keep silent, for the inspired priestesses are opening the temple of Artemis. Haste to sustain the assault. I have the right to proclaim that our warriors are leaving under propitious auspices. Haste to sustain the assault."[514]

DIONYSUS. Great gods, what a number of assaults! my kidneys are quite swollen with fatigue; I shall have to go to the bath after all these assaults.

EURIPIDES. Not before you have heard this other song arranged for the music of the cithara.

DIONYSUS. Come then, continue; but, prithee, no more "assaults."

EURIPIDES. "What! the two powerful monarchs, who reign over the Grecian youth, phlattothrattophlattothrat, are sending the Sphinx, that terrible harbinger of death, phlattothrattophlattothrat. With his avenging arm bearing a spear, phlattothrattophlattothrat, the impetuous bird delivers those who lean to the side of Ajax, phlattothrattophlattothrat, to the dogs who roam in the clouds, phlattothrattophlattothrat."[515]

DIONYSUS (to Aeschylus). What is this 'phlattothrat'? Does it come from Marathon or have you picked it out of some labourer's chanty?

AESCHYLUS. I took what was good and improved it still more, so that I might not be accused of gathering the same flowers as Phrynichus in the meadow of the Muse. But this man borrows from everybody, from the suggestions of prostitutes, from the sons of Melitus,[516] from the Carian flute-music, from wailing women, from dancing-girls. I am going to prove it, so let a lyre be brought. But what need of a lyre in his case? Where is the girl with the castanets? Come, thou Muse of Euripides; 'tis quite thy business to accompany songs of this sort.

DIONYSUS. This Muse has surely done fellation in her day, like a Lesbian wanton.[517]

AESCHYLUS. "Ye halcyons, who twitter over the ever-flowing billows of the sea, the damp dew of the waves glistens on your wings; and you spiders, who we-we-we-we-we-weave the long woofs of your webs in the corners of our houses with your nimble feet like the noisy shuttle, there where the dolphin by bounding in the billows, under the influence of the flute, predicts a favourable voyage; thou glorious ornaments of the vine, the slender tendrils that support the grape. Child, throw thine arms about my neck."[518] Do you note the harmonious rhythm?

DIONYSUS. Yes.

AESCHYLUS. Do you note it?

DIONYSUS. Yes, undoubtedly.

AESCHYLUS. And does the author of such rubbish dare to criticize my songs? he, who imitates the twelve postures of Cyren in his poetry?[519] There you have his lyric melodies, but I still want to give you a sample of his monologues. "Oh! dark shadows of the night! what horrible dream are you sending me from the depths of your sombre abysses! Oh! dream, thou bondsman of Pluto, thou inanimate soul, child of the dark night, thou dread phantom in long black garments, how bloodthirsty, bloodthirsty is thy glance! how sharp are thy claws! Handmaidens, kindle the lamp, draw up the dew of the rivers in your vases and make the water hot; I wish to purify myself of this dream sent me by the gods. Oh! king of the ocean, that's right, that's right! Oh! my comrades, behold this wonder. Glyc has robbed me of my cock and has fled. Oh, Nymphs of the mountains! oh! Mania! seize her! How unhappy I am! I was full busy with my work, I was sp-sp-sp-sp-spinning the flax that was on my spindle, I was rounding off the clew that I was to go and sell in the market at dawn; and he flew off, flew off, cleaving the air with his swift wings; he left to me nothing but pain, pain! What tears, tears, poured, poured from my unfortunate eyes! Oh! Cretans, children of Ida, take your bows; help me, haste hither, surround the house. And thou, divine huntress, beautiful Artemis, come with thy hounds and search through the house. And thou also, daughter of Zeus, seize the torches in thy ready hands and go before me to Glyc's home, for I propose to go there and rummage everywhere."[520]

DIONYSUS. That's enough of choruses.

AESCHYLUS. Yes, faith, enough indeed! I wish now to see my verses weighed in the scales; 'tis the only way to end this poetic struggle.

DIONYSUS. Well then, come, I am going to sell the poet's genius the same way cheese is sold in the market.

CHORUS. Truly clever men are possessed of an inventive mind. Here again is a new idea that is marvellous and strange, and which another would not have thought of; as for myself I would not have believed anyone who had told me of it, I would have treated him as a driveller.

DIONYSUS. Come, hither to the scales.

AESCHYLUS AND EURIPIDES. Here we are.

DIONYSUS. Let each one hold one of the scales, recite a verse, and not let go until I have cried, "Cuckoo!"

AESCHYLUS AND EURIPIDES. We understand.

DIONYSUS. Well then, recite and keep your hands on the scales.

EURIPIDES. "Would it had pleased the gods that the vessel Argo had never unfurled the wings of her sails!"[521]

AESCHYLUS. "Oh! river Sperchius! oh! meadows, where the oxen graze!"[522]

DIONYSUS. Cuckoo! let go! Oh! the verse of Aeschylus sinks far the lower of the two.

EURIPIDES. And why?

DIONYSUS. Because, like the wool-merchants, who moisten their wares, he has thrown a river into his verse and has made it quite wet, whereas yours was winged and flew away.

EURIPIDES. Come, another verse! You recite, Aeschylus, and you, weigh.

DIONYSUS. Hold the scales again.

AESCHYLUS AND EURIPIDES. Ready.

DIONYSUS (to Euripides). You begin.

EURIPIDES. "Eloquence is Persuasion's only sanctuary."[523]

AESCHYLUS. "Death is the only god whom gifts cannot bribe."[524]

DIONYSUS. Let go! let go! Here again our friend Aeschylus' verse drags down the scale; 'tis because he has thrown in Death, the weightiest of all ills.

EURIPIDES. And I Persuasion; my verse is excellent.

DIONYSUS. Persuasion has both little weight and little sense. But hunt again for a big weighty verse and solid withal, that it may assure you the victory.

EURIPIDES. But where am I to find one—where?

DIONYSUS. I'll tell you one: "Achilles has thrown two and four."[525] Come, recite! 'tis the last trial.

EURIPIDES. "With his arm he seized a mace, studded with iron."[526]

AESCHYLUS. "Chariot upon chariot and corpse upon corpse."[527]

DIONYSUS (to Euripides) There you're foiled again.

EURIPIDES. Why?

DIONYSUS. There are two chariots and two corpses in the verse; why, 'tis a weight a hundred Egyptians could not lift.[528]

AESCHYLUS. 'Tis no longer verse against verse that I wish to weigh, but let him clamber into the scale himself, he, his children, his wife, Cephisophon[529] and all his works; against all these I will place but two of my verses on the other side.

DIONYSUS. I will not be their umpire, for they are dear to me and I will not have a foe in either of them; meseems the one is mighty clever, while the other simply delights me.

PLUTO. Then you are foiled in the object of your voyage.

DIONYSUS. And if I do decide?

PLUTO. You shall take with you whichever of the twain you declare the victor; thus you will not have come in vain.

DIONYSUS. That's all right! Well then, listen; I have come down to find a poet.

EURIPIDES. And with what intent?

DIONYSUS. So that the city, when once it has escaped the imminent dangers of the war, may have tragedies produced. I have resolved to take back whichever of the two is prepared to give good advice to the citizens. So first of all, what think you of Alcibiades? For the city is in most difficult labour over this question.

EURIPIDES. And what does it think about it?

DIONYSUS. What does it think? It regrets him, hates him, and yet wishes to have him, all at the same time. But tell me your opinion, both of you.

EURIPIDES. I hate the citizen who is slow to serve his country, quick to involve it in the greatest troubles, ever alert to his own interests, and a bungler where those of the State are at stake.

DIONYSUS. That's good, by Posidon! And you, what is your opinion?

AESCHYLUS. A lion's whelp should not be reared within the city. No doubt that's best; but if the lion has been reared, one must submit to his ways.

DIONYSUS. Zeus, the Deliverer! this puzzles me greatly. The one is clever, the other clear and precise. Now each of you tell me your idea of the best way to save the State.

EURIPIDES. If Cinesias were fitted to Cleocritus as a pair of wings, and the wind were to carry the two of them across the waves of the sea ...

DIONYSUS. 'Twould be funny. But what is he driving at?

EURIPIDES. ... they could throw vinegar into the eyes of the foe in the event of a sea-fight. But I know something else I want to tell you.

DIONYSUS. Go on.

EURIPIDES. When we put trust in what we mistrust and mistrust what we trust....

DIONYSUS. What? I don't understand. Tell us something less profound, but clearer.

EURIPIDES. If we were to mistrust the citizens, whom we trust, and to employ those whom we to-day neglect, we should be saved. Nothing succeeds with us; very well then, let's do the opposite thing, and our deliverance will be assured.

DIONYSUS. Very well spoken. You are the most ingenious of men, a true Palamedes![530] Is this fine idea your own or is it Cephisophon's?

EURIPIDES. My very own,—bar the vinegar, which is Cephisophon's.

DIONYSUS (to Aeschylus). And you, what have you to say?

AESCHYLUS. Tell me first who the commonwealth employs. Are they the just?

DIONYSUS. Oh! she holds them in abhorrence.

AESCHYLUS. What, are then the wicked those she loves?

DIONYSUS. Not at all, but she employs them against her will.

AESCHYLUS. Then what deliverance can there be for a city that will neither have cape nor cloak?[531]

DIONYSUS. Discover, I adjure you, discover a way to save her from shipwreck.

AESCHYLUS. I will tell you the way on earth, but I won't here.

DIONYSUS. No, send her this blessing from here.

AESCHYLUS. They will be saved when they have learnt that the land of the foe is theirs and their own land belongs to the foe; that their vessels are their true wealth, the only one upon which they can rely.[532]

DIONYSUS. That's true, but the dicasts devour everything.[533]

PLUTO (to Dionysus). Now decide.

DIONYSUS. 'Tis for you to decide, but I choose him whom my heart prefers.

EURIPIDES. You called the gods to witness that you would bear me through; remember your oath and choose your friends.

DIONYSUS. Yes, "my tongue has sworn."[534] ... But I choose Aeschylus.

EURIPIDES. What have you done, you wretch?

DIONYSUS. I? I have decided that Aeschylus is the victor. What then?

EURIPIDES. And you dare to look me in the face after such a shameful deed?

DIONYSUS. "Why shameful, if the spectators do not think so?"[535]

EURIPIDES. Cruel wretch, will you leave me pitilessly among the dead?

DIONYSUS. "Who knows if living be not dying,[536] if breathing be not feasting, if sleep be not a fleece?"[537]

PLUTO. Enter my halls. Come, Dionysus.

DIONYSUS. What shall we do there?

PLUTO. I want to entertain my guests before they leave.

DIONYSUS. Well said, by Zeus; 'tis the very thing to please me best.

CHORUS. Blessed the man who has perfected wisdom! Everything is happiness for him. Behold Aeschylus; thanks to the talent, to the cleverness he has shown, he returns to his country; and his fellow-citizens, his relations, his friends will all hail his return with joy. Let us beware of jabbering with Socrates and of disdaining the sublime notes of the tragic Muse. To pass an idle life reeling off grandiloquent speeches and foolish quibbles, is the part of a madman.

PLUTO. Farewell, Aeschylus! Go back to earth and may your noble precepts both save our city[538] and cure the mad; there are such, a many of them! Carry this rope from me to Cleophon, this one to Myrmex and Nichomachus, the public receivers, and this other one to Archenomous.[539] Bid them come here at once and without delay; if not, by Apollo, I will brand them with the hot iron.[540] I will make one bundle of them and Adimantus,[541] the son of Leucolophus,[542] and despatch the lot into hell with all possible speed.

AESCHYLUS. I will do your bidding, and do you make Sophocles occupy my seat. Let him take and keep it for me, against I should ever return here. In fact I award him the second place among the tragic poets. As for this impostor, watch that he never usurps my throne, even should he be placed there in spite of himself.

PLUTO (to the Chorus of the Initiate). Escort him with your sacred torches, singing to him as you go his own hymns and choruses.

CHORUS. Ye deities of the nether world, grant a pleasant journey to the poet who is leaving us to return to the light of day; grant likewise wise and healthy thoughts to our city. Put an end to the fearful calamities that overwhelm us, to the awful clatter of arms. As for Cleophon and the likes of him, let them go, an it please them, and fight in their own land.[543]

* * * * *

FINIS OF "THE FROGS"

* * * * *

Footnotes:

[382] These were comic poets contemporary with Aristophanes. Phrynichus, the best known, gained the second prize with his 'Muses' when the present comedy was put upon the stage. Amipsias had gained the first prize over our author's first edition of 'The Clouds' and again over his 'Birds.' Aristophanes is ridiculing vulgar and coarse jests, which, however, he does not always avoid himself.

[383] Instead of the expected "son of Zeus," he calls himself the "son of a wine-jar."

[384] At the sea-fight at Arginusae the slaves who had distinguished themselves by their bravery were presented with their freedom. This battle had taken place only a few months before the production of 'The Frogs.' Had Xanthias been one of these slaves he could then have treated his master as he says, for he would have been his equal.

[385] The door of the Temple of Heracles, situated in the deme of Melit, close to Athens. This temple contained a very remarkable statue of the god, the work of Eleas, the master of Phidias.

[386] A fabulous monster, half man and half horse.

[387] So also, in 'The Thesmophoriazusae,' Agathon is described as wearing a saffron robe, which was a mark of effeminacy.

[388] A woman's foot-gear.

[389] He speaks of him as though he were a vessel. Clisthenes, who was scoffed at for his ugliness, was completely beardless, which fact gave him the look of a eunuch. He was accused of prostituting himself.

[390] Heracles cannot believe it. Dionysus had no repute for bravery. His cowardice is one of the subjects for jesting which we shall most often come upon in 'The Frogs.'

[391] A tragedy by Euripides, produced some years earlier, some fragments of which are quoted by Aristophanes in his 'Thesmophoriazusae.'

[392] An actor of immense stature.

[393] The gluttony of Heracles was a byword. See 'The Birds.'

[394] Euripides, weary, it is said, of the ridicule and envy with which he was assailed in Athens, had retired in his old age to the court of Archelaus, King of Macedonia, where he had met with the utmost hospitality. We are assured that he perished through being torn to pieces by dogs, which set upon him in a lonely spot. His death occurred in 407 B.C., the year before the production of 'The Frogs.'

[395] This is a hemistich, the Scholiast says, from Euripides.

[396] The son of Sophocles. Once, during his father's lifetime, he gained the prize for tragedy, but it was suspected that the piece itself was largely the work of Sophocles himself. It is for this reason that Dionysus wishes to try him when he is dependent on his own resources, now that his father is dead. The death of the latter was quite recent at the time of the production of 'The Frogs,' and the fact lent all the greater interest to this piece.

[397] Agathon was a contemporary of Euripides, and is mentioned in terms of praise by Aristotle for his delineation of the character of Achilles, presumably in his tragedy of 'Telephus.' From the fragments which remain of this author it appears that his style was replete with ornament, particularly antithesis.

[398] Son of Caminus, an inferior poet, often made the butt of Aristophanes' jeers.

[399] A poet apparently, unknown.

[400] Expressions used by Euripides in different tragedies.

[401] Parody of a verse in Euripides' 'Andromeda,' a lost play.

[402] Heracles, being such a glutton, must be a past master in matters of cookery, but this does not justify him in posing as a dramatic critic.

[403] Xanthias, bent double beneath his load, gets more and more out of patience with his master's endless talk with Heracles.

[404] The mortar in which hemlock was pounded.

[405] An allusion to the effect of hemlock.

[406] A quarter of Athens where the Lampadephoria was held in honour of Athen, Hephaestus, and Prometheus, because the first had given the mortals oil, the second had invented the lamp, and the third had stolen fire from heaven. The principal part of this festival consisted in the lampadedromia, or torch-race. This name was given to a race in which the competitors for the prize ran with a torch in their hand; it was essential that the goal should be reached with the torch still alight. The signal for starting was given by throwing a torch from the top of the tower mentioned a few verses later on.

[407] Theseus had descended into Hades with Pirithous to fetch away Persephon. Aristophanes doubtless wishes to say that in consequence of this descent Pluto established a toll across Acheron, in order to render access to his kingdom less easy, and so that the poor and the greedy, who could not or would not pay, might be kept out.

[408] Morsimus was a minor poet, who is also mentioned with disdain in 'The Knights,' and is there called the son of Philocles. Aristophanes jestingly likens anyone who helps to disseminate his verses to the worst of criminals.

[409] The Pyrrhic dance was a lively and quick-step dance. Cinesias was not a dancer, but a dithyrambic poet, who declaimed with much gesticulation and movement that one might almost think he was performing this dance.

[410] Those initiated into the Mysteries of Demeter, who, according to the belief of the ancients, enjoyed a kind of beatitude after death.

[411] Xanthias, his strength exhausted and his patience gone, prepares to lay down his load. Asses were used for the conveyance from Athens to Eleusis of everything that was necessary for the celebration of the Mysteries. They were often overladen, and from this fact arose the proverb here used by Xanthias, as indicating any heavy burden.

[412] The Ancients believed that meeting this or that person or thing at the outset of a journey was of good or bad omen. The superstition is not entirely dead even to-day.

[413] Dionysus had seated himself on instead of at the oar.

[414] One of the titles given to Dionysus, because of the worship accorded him at Nysa, a town in Ethiopia, where he was brought up by the nymphs.

[415] This was the third day of the Anthesteria or feasts of Dionysus. All kinds of vegetables were cooked in pots and offered to Dionysus and Athen. It was also the day of the dramatic contests.

[416] Dionysus' temple, the Lenaeum, was situated in the district of Athens known as the Linnae, or Marshes, on the south side of the Acropolis.

[417] He points to the audience.

[418] A spectre, which Hecat sent to frighten men. It took all kinds of hideous shapes. It was exorcised by abuse.

[419] This was one of the monstrosities which credulity attributed to the Empusa.

[420] He is addressing a priest of Bacchus, who occupied a seat reserved for him in the first row of the audience.

[421] A verse from the Orestes of Euripides.—Hegelochus was an actor who, in a recent representation, had spoken the line in such a manner as to lend it an absurd meaning; instead of saying, [Greek: gal_en_en], which means _calm_, he had pronounced it [Greek: gal_en], which means _a cat_.

[422] The priest of Bacchus, mentioned several verses back.

[423] High-flown expressions from Euripides' Tragedies.

[424] A second Chorus, comprised of Initiates into the Mysteries of Demeter and Dionysus.

[425] A philosopher, a native of Melos, and originally a dithyrambic poet. He was prosecuted on a charge of atheism.

[426] A comic and dithyrambic poet.

[427] This Thorycion, a toll collector at Aegina, which then belonged to Athens, had taken advantage of his position to send goods to Epidaurus, an Argolian town, thereby defrauding the treasury of the duty of 5 per cent, which was levied on every import and export.

[428] An allusion to Alcibiades, who is said to have obtained a subsidy for the Spartan fleet from Cyrus, satrap of Asia Minor.

[429] An allusion to the dithyrambic poet, Cinesias, who was accused of having sullied, by stooling against it, the pedestal of a statue of Hecat at one of the street corners of Athens.

[430] Athen.

[431] The route of the procession of the Initiate was from the Ceramicus (a district of Athens) to Eleusis, a distance of twenty-five stadia.

[432] A shaft shot at the choragi by the poet, because they had failed to have new dresses made for the actors on this occasion.

[433] It was at the age of seven that children were entered on the registers of their father's tribe. Aristophanes is accusing Archidemus, who at that time was the head of the popular party, of being no citizen, because his name is not entered upon the registers of any tribe.

[434] At funerals women tore their hair, rent their garments, and beat their bosoms. Aristophanes parodies these demonstrations of grief and attributes them to the effeminate Clisthenes. Sebinus the Anaphlystian is a coined name containing an obscene allusion, implying he was in the habit of allowing connexion with himself a posteriori, and being masturbated by the other in turn.

[435] Callias, the son of Hipponicus, which the poet turns into Hippobinus, i.e. one who treads a mare, was an Athenian general, who had distinguished himself at the battle of Arginusae; he was notorious for his debauched habits, which he doubtless practised even on board his galleys. He is called a new Heracles, because of the legend that Heracles triumphed over fifty virgins in a single night; no doubt the poet alludes to some exploit of the kind here.

[436] A proverb applied to silly boasters. The Corinthians had sent an envoy to Megara, who, in order to enhance the importance of his city, incessantly repeated the phrase, "The Corinth of Zeus."

[437] Demeter.

[438] Tartessus was an Iberian town, near the Avernian marshes, which were said to be tenanted by reptiles, the progeny of vipers and muraenae, a kind of fish.

[439] Tithrasios was a part of Libya, fabled to be peopled by Gorgons.

[440] "Invoke the god" was the usual formula which immediately followed the offering of the libation in the festival of Dionysus. Here he uses the words after a libation of a new kind and induced by fear.

[441] That is, Heracles, whose temple was at Melit, a suburban deme of Athens.

[442] Whose statues were placed to make the boundaries of land.

[443] One of the Thirty Tyrants, noted for his versatility.

[444] Celon and Hyperbolus were both dead, and are therefore supposed to have become the leaders and patrons of the populace in Hades, the same as they had been on earth.

[445] Already mentioned; one of the chiefs of the popular party in 406 B.C.

[446] Heracles had carried of Cerberus.

[447] Names of Thracian slaves.

[448] As was done to unruly children; he allows every kind of torture with the exception of the mildest.

[449] A deme of Attica, where there was a temple to Heracles. No doubt those present uttered the cry "Oh! oh!" in honour of the god.

[450] He pretends it was not a cry of pain at all, but of astonishment and admiration.

[451] Pretending that it was the thorn causing him pain, and not the lash of the whip.

[452] According to the Scholiast this is a quotation from the 'Laocoon,' a lost play of Sophocles.

[453] A general known for his cowardice; he was accused of not being a citizen, but of Thracian origin; in 406 B.C. he was in disfavour, and he perished shortly after in a popular tumult.

[454] According to Athenian law, the accused was acquitted when the voting was equal.

[455] He had helped to establish the oligarchical government of the Four Hundred, who had just been overthrown.

[456] The fight of Arginusae; the slaves who had fought there had been accorded their freedom.—The Plataeans had had the title of citizens since the battle of Marathon.

[457] Things were not going well for Athens at the time; it was only two years later, 404 B.C., that Lysander took the city.

[458] A demagogue; because he deceived the people, Aristophanes compares him with the washermen who cheated their clients by using some mixture that was cheaper than potash.

[459] Callistrates says that Clidemides was one of Sophocles' sons; Apollonius states him to have been an actor.

[460] Dionysus was, of course, the patron god of the drama and dramatic contests.

[461] The majestic grandeur of Aeschylus' periods, coupled with a touch of parody, is to be recognized in this piece.

[462] It is said that Euripides was the son of a fruit-seller.

[463] Euripides is constantly twitted by Aristophanes with his predilection for ragged beggars and vagabonds as characters in his plays.

[464] Bellerophon, Philoctetes, and Telephus, were all characters in different Tragedies of Euripides.

[465] Sailors, when in danger, sacrificed a black lamb to Typhon, the god of storms.

[466] An allusion to a long monologue of Icarus in the tragedy called 'The Cretans.'

[467] In 'Aeolus,' Macareus violates his own sister; in 'The Clouds,' this incest, which Euripides introduced upon the stage, is also mentioned.

[468] The title of one of Euripides' pieces.

[469] The titles of three lost Tragedies of Euripides.

[470] A verse from one of the lost Tragedies of Euripides; the poet was born at Eleusis.

[471] Aristophanes often makes this accusation of religious heterodoxy against Euripides.

[472] A dramatic poet, who lived about the end of the sixth century B.C., and a disciple of Thespis; the scenic art was then comparatively in its infancy.

[473] The Scholiast tells us that Achilles remained mute in the tragedy entitled 'The Phrygians' or 'The Ransom of Hector,' and that his face was veiled; he only spoke a few words at the beginning of the drama during a dialogue with Hermes.—We have no information about the Niob mentioned here.

[474] The Scholiast tells us that this expression ([Greek: hippalektru_on]) was used in 'The Myrmidons' of Aeschylus; Aristophanes ridicules it again both in the 'Peace' and in 'The Birds.'

[475] An individual apparently noted for his uncouth ugliness.

[476] The beet and the decoctions are intended to indicate the insipidity of Euripides' style.

[477] An intimate friend of Euripides, who is said to have worked with him on his Tragedies, to have been 'ghost' to him in fact.

[478] An allusion to Euripides' obscure birth; his mother had been, so it was said, a vegetable-seller in the public market.

[479] Euripides had introduced every variety of character into his pieces, whereas Aeschylus only staged divinities or heroes.

[480] There are two Cycni, one, the son of Ares, was killed by Heracles according to the testimony of Hesiod in his description of the "Shield of Heracles"; the other, the son of Posidon, who, according to Pindar, perished under the blows of Achilles. It is not known in which Tragedy of Aeschylus this character was introduced.

[481] Memnon, the son of Aurora, was killed by Achilles; in the list of the Tragedies of Aeschylus there is one entitled 'Memnon.'

[482] These two were not poets, but Euripides supposes them disciples of Aeschylus, because of their rude and antiquated manners.

[483] Clitophon and Theramenes were elegants of effeminate habits and adept talkers.

[484] A proverb which was applied to versatile people; the two Greek names [Greek: Chios] and [Greek: Keios] might easily be mistaken for one another. Both, of course, are islands of the Cyclades.

[485] A verse from the 'Myrmidons' of Aeschylus; here Achilles is Aeschylus himself.

[486] The 'Persae' of Aeschylus (produced 472 B.C.) was received with transports of enthusiasm, reviving as it did memories of the glorious defeat of Xerxes at Salamis, where the poet had fought, only a few years before, 480 B.C.

[487] Nothing is known of this Pantacles, whom Eupolis, in his 'Golden Age,' also describes as awkward ([Greek: skaios]).

[488] Aristophanes had by this time modified his opinion of this general, whom he had so flouted in 'The Acharnians.'

[489] Son of Telamon, the King of Salamis and brother of Ajax.

[490] The wife of Proetus, King of Argos. Bellerophon, who had sought refuge at the court of this king after the accidental murder of his brother Bellerus, had disdained her amorous overtures. Therefore she denounced him to her husband as having wanted to attempt her virtue and urged him to cause his death. She killed herself immediately after the departure of the young hero.

[491] Cephisophon, Euripides' friend, is said to have seduced his wife.

[492] Meaning, they have imitated Sthenoboea in everything; like her, they have conceived adulterous passions and, again like her, they have poisoned themselves.

[493] Lycabettus, a mountain of Attica, just outside the walls of Athens, the "Arthur's Seat" of the city. Parnassus, the famous mountain of Phocis, the seat of the temple and oracle of Delphi and the home of the Muses. The whole passage is, of course, in parody of the grandiloquent style of Aeschylus.

[494] An allusion to Oeneus, King of Aetolia, and to Telephus, King of Mysia; characters put upon the stage by Euripides.

[495] It was only the rich Athenians who could afford fresh fish, because of their high price; we know how highly the gourmands prized the eels from the Copaic lake.

[496] If Aristophanes is to be believed, the orators were of depraved habits, and exacted infamous complaisances as payment for their lessons in rhetoric.

[497] Aristophanes attributes the general dissoluteness to the influence of Euripides; he suggests that the subtlety of his poetry, by sharpening the wits of the vulgar and even of the coarsest, has instigated them to insubordination.

[498] Aug, who was seduced by Heracles, was delivered in the temple of Athen (Scholiast); it is unknown in what piece this fact is mentioned.—Macareus violates his sister Canac in the 'Aeolus.'

[499] i.e. they busy themselves with philosophic subtleties. This line is taken from 'The Phryxus,' of which some fragments have come down to us.

[500] In the torch-race the victor was the runner who attained the goal first without having allowed his torch to go out. This race was a very ancient institution. Aristophanes means to say that the old habits had fallen into disuse.

[501] A tetralogy composed of three tragedies, the 'Agamemnon,' the 'Chophorae,' the 'Eumenides,' together with a satirical drama, the 'Proteus.'

[502] This is the opening of the 'Chophorae.' Aeschylus puts the words in the mouth of Orestes, who is returning to his native land and visiting his father's tomb.

[503] i.e. your jokes are very coarse.

[504] He was one of the Athenian generals in command at Arginusae; he and his colleagues were condemned to death for not having given burial to the men who fell in that naval fight.

[505] As Euripides had done to those of Aeschylus; that sort of criticism was too low for him.

[506] [Greek: Dekuthion apolesa], oleum perdidi, I have lost my labour, was a proverbial expression, which was also possibly the refrain of some song. Aeschylus means to say that all Euripides' phrases are cast in the same mould, and that his style is so poor and insipid that one can adapt to it any foolery one wishes; as for the phrase he adds to every one of the phrases his rival recites, he chooses it to insinuate that the work of Euripides is labour lost, and that he would have done just as well not to meddle with tragedy. The joke is mediocre at its best and is kept up far too long.

[507] Prologue of the 'Archelaus' of Euripides, a tragedy now lost.

[508] From prologue of the 'Hypsipil' of Euripides, a play now lost.

[509] From prologue of the 'Sthenoboea' of Euripides, a play now lost.

[510] From prologue of the 'Phryxus' of Euripides, a play now lost.

[511] From prologue of the 'Iphigeneia in Tauris' of Euripides.

[512] Prologue of 'The Meleager' by Euripides, lost.

[513] Prologue of 'The Menalipp Sapiens,' by Euripides, lost.

[514] The whole of these fragments are quoted at random and have no meaning. Euripides, no doubt, wants to show that the choruses of Aeschylus are void of interest or coherence. As to the refrain, "haste to sustain the assault," Euripides possibly wants to insinuate that Aeschylus incessantly repeats himself and that a wearying monotony pervades his choruses. However, all these criticisms are in the main devoid of foundation.

[515] This ridiculous couplet pretends to imitate the redundancy and nonsensicality of Aeschylus' language; it can be seen how superficial and unfair the criticism of Euripides is; probably this is just what Aristophanes wanted to convey by this long and wearisome scene.

[516] The Scholiast conjectures this Melitus to be the same individual who later accused Socrates.

[517] The most infamous practices were attributed to the Lesbian women, amongst others, that of fellation, that is the vile trick of taking a man's penis in the mouth, to give him gratification by sucking and licking it with the tongue. Dionysus means to say that Euripides takes pleasure in describing shameful passions.

[518] Here the criticism only concerns the rhythm and not either the meaning or the style. This passage was sung to one of the airs that Euripides had adopted for his choruses and which have not come down to us; we are therefore absolutely without any data that would enable us to understand and judge a criticism of this kind.

[519] A celebrated courtesan, who was skilled in twelve different postures of Venus. Aeschylus returns to his idea, which he has so often indicated, that Euripides' poetry is low and impure; he at the same time scoffs at the artifices to which Euripides had recourse when inspiration and animation failed him.

[520] No monologue of Euripides that has been preserved bears the faintest resemblance to this specimen which. Aeschylus pretends to be giving here.

[521] Beginning of Euripides' 'Medea.'

[522] Fragment from Aeschylus 'Philoctetes.' The Sperchius is a river in Thessaly, which has its source in the Pindus range and its mouth in the Maliac gulf.

[523] A verse from Euripides' 'Antigon.' Its meaning is, that it is better to speak well than to speak the truth, if you want to persuade.

[524] From the 'Niobe,' a lost play, of Aeschylus.

[525] From the 'Telephus' of Euripides, in which he introduces Achilles playing at dice. This line was also ridiculed by Eupolis.

[526] From Euripides' 'Meleager.' All these plays, with the one exception of the 'Medea,' are lost.

[527] From the 'Glaucus Potniensis,' a lost play of Aeschylus.

[528] i.e. one hundred porters, either because many of the Athenian porters were Egyptians, or as an allusion to the Pyramids and other great works, which had habituated them to carrying heavy burdens.

[529] Euripides' friend and collaborator.

[530] The invention of weights and measures, of dice, and of the game of chess are attributed to him, also that of four additional letters of the alphabet.

[531] i.e. that cannot decide for either party.

[532] i.e. that a country can always be invaded and that the fleet alone is a safe refuge. This is the same advice as that given by Pericles, and which Thucydides expresses thus, "Let your country be devastated, or even devastate it yourself, and set sail for Laconia with your fleet."

[533] An allusion to the fees of the dicasts, or jurymen; we have already seen that at this period it was two obols, and later three.

[534] A half-line from Euripides' 'Hippolytus.' The full line is: [Greek: he glott' omomok', he de phren anomotos,] "my tongue has taken an oath, but my mind is unsworn," a bit of casuistry which the critics were never tired of bringing up against the author.

[535] A verse from the 'Aeolus' of Euripides, but slightly altered. Euripides said, "Why is is shameful, if the spectators, who enjoy it, do not think so?"

[536] A verse from the 'Phrixus' of Euripides; what follows is a parody.

[537] We have already seen Aeschylus pretending that it was possible to adapt any foolish expression one liked to the verses of Euripides: "a little bottle, a little bag, a little fleece."

[538] Pluto speaks as though he were an Athenian himself.

[539] That they should hang themselves. Cleophon is said to have been an influential alien resident who was opposed to concluding peace; Myrmex and Nicomachus were two officials guilty of peculation of public funds; Archenomus is unknown.

[540] He would brand them as fugitive slaves, if, despite his orders, they refused to come down.

[541] An Athenian admiral.

[542] The real name of the father of Adimantus was Leucolophides, which Aristophanes jestingly turns into Leucolophus, i.e. White Crest.

[543] i.e. in a foreign country; Cleophon, as we have just seen, was not an Athenian.



THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE

or

The Women's Festival



INTRODUCTION

Like the 'Lysistrata,' the 'Thesmophoriazusae, or Women's Festival,' and the next following play, the 'Ecclesiazusae, or Women in Council' are comedies in which the fair sex play a great part, and also resemble that extremely scabreux production in the plentiful crop of doubtful 'double entendres' and highly suggestive situations they contain.

The play has more of a proper intrigue and formal dnouement than is general with our Author's pieces, which, like modern extravaganzas and musical comedies, are often strung on a very slender thread of plot. The idea of the 'Thesmophoriazusae' is as follows.

Euripides is summoned as a notorious woman-hater and detractor of the female sex to appear for trial and judgment before the women of Athens assembled to celebrate the Thesmophoria, a festival held in honour of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, from which men were rigidly excluded. The poet is terror-stricken, and endeavours to persuade his confrre, the tragedian Agathon, to attend the meeting in the guise of a woman to plead his cause, Agathon's notorious effeminacy of costume and way of life lending itself to the deception; but the latter refuses point-blank. He then prevails on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, to do him this favour, and shaves, depilates, and dresses him up accordingly. But so far from throwing oil on the troubled waters, Mnesilochus indulges in a long harangue full of violent abuse of the whole sex, and relates some scandalous stories of the naughty ways of peccant wives. The assembly suspects at once there is a man amongst them, and on examination of the old fellow's person, this is proved to be the case. He flies for sanctuary to the altar, snatching a child from the arms of one of the women as a hostage, vowing to kill it if they molest him further. On investigation, however, the infant turns out to be a wine-skin dressed in baby's clothes.

In despair Mnesilochus sends urgent messages to Euripides to come and rescue him from his perilous predicament. The latter then appears, and in successive characters selected from his different Tragedies—now Menelaus meeting Helen again in Egypt, now Echo sympathising with the chained Andromeda, presently Perseus about to release the heroine from her rock—pleads for his unhappy father-in-law. At length he succeeds in getting him away in the temporary absence of the guard, a Scythian archer, whom he entices from his post by the charms of a dancing-girl.

As may be supposed, the appearance of Mnesilochus among the women dressed in women's clothes, the examination of his person to discover his true sex and his final detection, afford fine opportunities for a display of the broadest Aristophanic humour. The latter part of the play also, where various pieces of Euripides are burlesqued, is extremely funny; and must have been still more so when represented before an audience familiar with every piece and almost every line parodied, and played by actors trained and got up to imitate every trick and mannerism of appearance and delivery of the tragic actors who originally took the parts.

The 'Thesmophoriazusae' was produced in the year 412 B.C., six years before the death of Euripides, who is held up to ridicule in it, as he is in 'The Wasps' and several other of our Author's comedies.

* * * * *

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE

or

The Women's Festival

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

EURIPIDES. MNESILOCHUS, Father-in-law of Euripides. AGATHON. SERVANT OF AGATHON. CHORUS attending AGATHON. HERALD. WOMEN. CLISTHENES. A PRYTANIS or Member of the Council. A SCYTHIAN or Police Officer. CHORUS OF THESMOPHORIAZUSAE—women keeping the Feast of Demeter.

SCENE: In front of Agathon's house; afterwards in the precincts of the Temple of Demeter.

* * * * *

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE

or

The Women's Festival

MNESILOCHUS. Great Zeus! will the swallow never appear to end the winter of my discontent? Why the fellow has kept me on the run ever since early this morning; he wants to kill me, that's certain. Before I lose my spleen entirely, Euripides, can you at least tell me whither you are leading me?

EURIPIDES. What need for you to hear what you are going to see?

MNESILOCHUS. How is that? Repeat it. No need for me to hear....

EURIPIDES. What you are going to see.

MNESILOCHUS. Nor consequently to see....

EURIPIDES. What you have to hear.[544]

MNESILOCHUS. What is this wiseacre stuff you are telling me? I must neither see nor hear.

EURIPIDES. Ah! but you have two things there that are essentially distinct.

MNESILOCHUS. Seeing and hearing.

EURIPIDES. Undoubtedly.

MNESILOCHUS. In what way distinct?

EURIPIDES. In this way. Formerly, when Ether separated the elements and bore the animals that were moving in her bosom, she wished to endow them with sight, and so made the eye round like the sun's disc and bored ears in the form of a funnel.

MNESILOCHUS. And because of this funnel I neither see nor hear. Ah! great gods! I am delighted to know it. What a fine thing it is to talk with wise men!

EURIPIDES. I will teach you many another thing of the sort.

MNESILOCHUS. That's well to know; but first of all I should like to find out how to grow lame, so that I need not have to follow you all about.

EURIPIDES. Come, hear and give heed!

MNESILOCHUS. I'm here and waiting.

EURIPIDES. Do you see that little door?

MNESILOCHUS. Yes, certainly.

EURIPIDES. Silence!

MNESILOCHUS. Silence about what? About the door?

EURIPIDES. Pay attention!

MNESILOCHUS. Pay attention and be silent about the door? Very well.

EURIPIDES. 'Tis there that Agathon, the celebrated tragic poet, dwells.[545]

MNESILOCHUS. Who is this Agathon?

EURIPIDES. 'Tis a certain Agathon....

MNESILOCHUS. Swarthy, robust of build?

EURIPIDES. No, another. You have never seen him?

MNESILOCHUS. He has a big beard?

EURIPIDES. No, no, evidently you have never seen him.

MNESILOCHUS. Never, so far as I know.

EURIPIDES. And yet you have pedicated him. Well, it must have been without knowing who he was. Ah! let us step aside; here is one of his slaves bringing a brazier and some myrtle branches; no doubt he is going to offer a sacrifice and pray for a happy poetical inspiration for Agathon.

SERVANT OF AGATHON. Silence! oh, people! keep your mouths sedately shut! The chorus of the Muses is moulding songs at my master's hearth. Let the winds hold their breath in the silent Ether! Let the azure waves cease murmuring on the shore!...

MNESILOCHUS. Brououou! brououou! (Imitates the buzzing of a fly.)

EURIPIDES. Keep quiet! what are you saying there?

SERVANT. ... Take your rest, ye winged races, and you, ye savage inhabitants of the woods, cease from your erratic wandering ...

MNESILOCHUS. Broum, broum, brououou.

SERVANT. ... for Agathon, our master, the sweet-voiced poet, is going ...

MNESILOCHUS. ... to be pedicated?

SERVANT. Whose voice is that?

MNESILOCHUS. 'Tis the silent Ether.

SERVANT. ... is going to construct the framework of a drama. He is rounding fresh poetical forms, he is polishing them in the lathe and is welding them; he is hammering out sentences and metaphors; he is working up his subject like soft wax. First he models it and then he casts it in bronze ...

MNESILOCHUS. ... and sways his buttocks amorously.

SERVANT. Who is the rustic who approaches this sacred enclosure?

MNESILOCHUS. Take care of yourself and of your sweet-voiced poet! I have a strong instrument here both well rounded and well polished, which will pierce your enclosure and penetrate your bottom.

SERVANT. Old man, you must have been a very insolent fellow in your youth!

EURIPIDES (to the servant). Let him be, friend, and, quick, go and call Agathon to me.

SERVANT. 'Tis not worth the trouble, for he will soon be here himself. He has started to compose, and in winter[546] it is never possible to round off strophes without coming to the sun to excite the imagination. (He departs.)

MNESILOCHUS. And what am I to do?

EURIPIDES. Wait till he comes.... Oh, Zeus! what hast thou in store for me to-day?

MNESILOCHUS. But, great gods, what is the matter then? What are you grumbling and groaning for? Tell me; you must not conceal anything from your father-in-law.

EURIPIDES. Some great misfortune is brewing against me.

MNESILOCHUS. What is it?

EURIPIDES. This day will decide whether it is all over with Euripides or not.

MNESILOCHUS. But how? Neither the tribunals nor the Senate are sitting, for it is the third of the five days consecrated to Demeter.[547]

EURIPIDES. That is precisely what makes me tremble; the women have plotted my ruin, and to-day they are to gather in the Temple of Demeter to execute their decision.

MNESILOCHUS. Why are they against you?

EURIPIDES. Because I mishandle them in my tragedies.

MNESILOCHUS. By Posidon, you would seem to have thoroughly deserved your fate. But how are you going to get out of the mess?

EURIPIDES. I am going to beg Agathon, the tragic poet, to go to the Thesmophoria.

MNESILOCHUS. And what is he to do there?

EURIPIDES. He would mingle with the women, and stand up for me, if needful.

MNESILOCHUS. Would he be openly present or secretly?

EURIPIDES. Secretly, dressed in woman's clothes.

MNESILOCHUS. That's a clever notion, thoroughly worthy of you. The prize for trickery is ours.

EURIPIDES. Silence!

MNESILOCHUS. What's the matter?

EURIPIDES. Here comes Agathon.

MNESILOCHUS. Where, where?

EURIPIDES. That's the man they are bringing out yonder on the machine.[548]

MNESILOCHUS. I am blind then! I see no man here, I only see Cyren.[549]

EURIPIDES. Be still! He is getting ready to sing.

MNESILOCHUS. What subtle trill, I wonder, is he going to warble to us?

AGATHON. Damsels, with the sacred torch[550] in hand, unite your dance to shouts of joy in honour of the nether goddesses; celebrate the freedom of your country.

CHORUS. To what divinity is your homage addressed? I wish to mingle mine with it.

AGATHON. Oh! Muse! glorify Phoebus with his golden bow, who erected the walls of the city of the Simois.[551]

CHORUS. To thee, oh Phoebus, I dedicate my most beauteous songs; to thee, the sacred victor in the poetical contests.

AGATHON. And praise Artemis too, the maiden huntress, who wanders on the mountains and through the woods....

CHORUS. I, in my turn, celebrate the everlasting happiness of the chaste Artemis, the mighty daughter of Latona!

AGATHON. ... and Latona and the tones of the Asiatic lyre, which wed so well with the dances of the Phrygian Graces.[552]

CHORUS. I do honour to the divine Latona and to the lyre, the mother of songs of male and noble strains. The eyes of the goddess sparkle while listening to our enthusiastic chants. Honour to the powerful Phoebus! Hail! thou blessed son of Latona!

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! ye venerable Genetyllides,[553] what tender and voluptuous songs! They surpass the most lascivious kisses in sweetness; I feel a thrill of delight pass up my rectum as I listen to them. Young man, whoever you are, answer my questions, which I am borrowing from Aeschylus' 'Lycurgeia.'[554] Whence comes this effeminate? What is his country? his dress? What contradictions his life shows! A lyre and a hair-net! A wrestling school oil flask and a girdle![555] What could be more contradictory? What relation has a mirror to a sword? And you yourself, who are you? Do you pretend to be a man? Where is the sign of your manhood, your penis, pray? Where is the cloak, the footgear that belong to that sex? Are you a woman? Then where are your breasts? Answer me. But you keep silent. Oh! just as you choose; your songs display your character quite sufficiently.

AGATHON. Old man, old man, I hear the shafts of jealousy whistling by my ears, but they do not hit me. My dress is in harmony with my thoughts. A poet must adopt the nature of his characters. Thus, if he is placing women on the stage, he must contract all their habits in his own person.

MNESILOCHUS. Then you ride the high horse[556] when you are composing a Phaedra.

AGATHON. If the heroes are men, everything in him will be manly. What we don't possess by nature, we must acquire by imitation.

MNESILOCHUS. When you are staging Satyrs, call me; I will do my best to help you from behind with standing tool.

AGATHON. Besides, it is bad taste for a poet to be coarse and hairy. Look at the famous Ibycus, at Anacreon of Teos, and at Alcaeus,[557] who handled music so well; they wore headbands and found pleasure in the lascivious dances of Ionia. And have you not heard what a dandy Phrynichus was[558] and how careful in his dress? For this reason his pieces were also beautiful, for the works of a poet are copied from himself.

MNESILOCHUS. Ah! so it is for this reason that Philocles, who is so hideous, writes hideous pieces; Xenocles, who is malicious, malicious ones, and Theognis,[559] who is cold, such cold ones?

AGATHON. Yes, necessarily and unavoidably; and 'tis because I knew this that I have so well cared for my person.

MNESILOCHUS. How, in the gods' name?

EURIPIDES. Come, leave off badgering him; I was just the same at his age, when I began to write.

MNESILOCHUS. At! then, by Zeus! I don't envy you your fine manners.

EURIPIDES (to Agathon). But listen to the cause that brings me here.

AGATHON. Say on.

EURIPIDES. Agathon, wise is he who can compress many thoughts into few words.[560] Struck by a most cruel misfortune, I come to you as a suppliant.

AGATHON. What are you asking?

EURIPIDES. The women purpose killing me to-day during the Thesmophoria, because I have dared to speak ill of them.

AGATHON. And what can I do for you in the matter?

EURIPIDES. Everything. Mingle secretly with the women by making yourself pass as one of themselves; then do you plead my cause with your own lips, and I am saved. You, and you alone, are capable of speaking of me worthily.

AGATHON. But why not go and defend yourself?

EURIPIDES. 'Tis impossible. First of all, I am known; further, I have white hair and a long beard; whereas you, you are good-looking, charming, and are close-shaven; you are fair, delicate, and have a woman's voice.

AGATHON. Euripides!

EURIPIDES. Well?

AGATHON. Have you not said in one of your pieces, "You love to see the light, and don't you believe your father loves it too?"[561]

EURIPIDES. Yes.

AGATHON. Then never you think I am going to expose myself in your stead; 'twould be madness. 'Tis for you to submit to the fate that overtakes you; one must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace.

MNESILOCHUS. This is why you, you wretch, offer your posterior with a good grace to lovers, not in words, but in actual fact.

EURIPIDES. But what prevents your going there?

AGATHON. I should run more risk than you would.

EURIPIDES. Why?

AGATHON. Why? I should look as if I were wanting to trespass on secret nightly pleasures of the women and to ravish their Aphrodit.[562]

MNESILOCHUS. Of wanting to ravish indeed! you mean wanting to be ravished—in the rearward mode. Ah! great gods! a fine excuse truly!

EURIPIDES. Well then, do you agree?

AGATHON. Don't count upon it.

EURIPIDES. Oh! I am unfortunate indeed! I am undone!

MNESILOCHUS. Euripides, my friend, my son-in-law, never despair.

EURIPIDES. What can be done?

MNESILOCHUS. Send him to the devil and do with me as you like.

EURIPIDES. Very well then, since you devote yourself to my safety, take off your cloak first.

MNESILOCHUS. There, it lies on the ground. But what do you want to do with me?

EURIPIDES. To shave off this beard of yours, and to remove your hair below as well.

MNESILOCHUS. Do what you think fit; I yield myself entirely to you.

EURIPIDES. Agathon, you have always razors about you; lend me one.

AGATHON. Take if yourself, there, out of that case.

EURIPIDES. Thanks. Sit down and puff out the right cheek.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! oh! oh!

EURIPIDES. What are you shouting for? I'll cram a spit down your gullet, if you're not quiet.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! (He springs up and starts running away.)

EURIPIDES. Where are you running to now?

MNESILOCHUS. To the temple of the Eumenides.[563] No, by Demeter I won't let myself be gashed like that.

EURIPIDES. But you will get laughed at, with your face half-shaven like that.

MNESILOCHUS. Little care I.

EURIPIDES. In the gods' names, don't leave me in the lurch. Come here.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! by the gods! (Resumes his seat.)

EURIPIDES. Keep still and hold up your head. Why do you want to fidget about like this?

MNESILOCHUS. Mu, mu.

EURIPIDES. Well! why, mu, mu? There! 'tis done and well done too!

MNESILOCHUS Ah! great god! It makes me feel quite light.

EURIPIDES. Don't worry yourself; you look charming. Do you want to see yourself?

MNESILOCHUS. Aye, that I do; hand the mirror here.

EURIPIDES. Do you see yourself?

MNESILOCHUS. But this is not I, it is Clisthenes![564]

EURIPIDES. Stand up; I am now going to remove your hair. Bend down.

MNESILOCHUS. Alas! alas! they are going to grill me like a pig.

EURIPIDES. Come now, a torch or a lamp! Bend down and take care of the tender end of your tail!

MNESILOCHUS. Aye, aye! but I'm afire! oh! oh! Water, water, neighbour, or my rump will be alight!

EURIPIDES. Keep up your courage!

MNESILOCHUS. Keep my courage, when I'm being burnt up?

EURIPIDES. Come, cease your whining, the worst is over.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! it's quite black, all burnt below there all about the hole!

EURIPIDES. Don't worry! that will be washed off with a sponge.

MNESILOCHUS. Woe to him who dares to wash my rump!

EURIPIDES. Agathon, you refuse to devote yourself to helping me; but at any rate lend me a tunic and a belt. You cannot say you have not got them.

AGATHON. Take them and use them as you like; I consent.

MNESILOCHUS. What must be taken?

EURIPIDES. What must be taken? First put on this long saffron-coloured robe.

MNESILOCHUS. By Aphrodit! what a sweet odour! how it smells of a man's genitals![565] Hand it me quickly. And the belt?

EURIPIDES. Here it is.

MNESILOCHUS. Now some rings for my legs.

EURIPIDES. You still want a hair-net and a head-dress.

AGATHON. Here is my night-cap.

EURIPIDES. Ah! that's capital.

MNESILOCHUS. Does it suit me?

AGATHON. It could not be better.

EURIPIDES. And a short mantle?

AGATHON. There's one on the couch; take it.

EURIPIDES. He wants slippers.