TRYGAEUS 'Tis Hyperbolus, who now holds empire on the Pnyx. (TO PEACE) What now? you turn away your head!

HERMES She is vexed, that the people should give themselves a wretch of that kind for their chief.

TRYGAEUS Oh! we shall not employ him again; but the people, seeing themselves without a leader, took him haphazard, just as a man, who is naked, springs upon the first cloak he sees.

HERMES She asks, what will be the result of such a choice of the city?

TRYGAEUS We shall be more far-seeing in consequence.

HERMES And why?

TRYGAEUS Because he is a lamp-maker. Formerly we only directed our business by groping in the dark; now we shall only deliberate by lamplight.

HERMES Oh! oh! what questions she does order me to put to you!

TRYGAEUS What are they?

HERMES She wants to have news of a whole heap of old-fashioned things she left here. First of all, how is Sophocles?

TRYGAEUS Very well, but something very strange has happened to him.

HERMES What then?

TRYGAEUS He has turned from Sophocles into Simonides.(1)

f(1) Simonides was very avaricious, and sold his pen to the highest bidder. It seems that Sophocles had also started writing for gain.

HERMES Into Simonides? How so?

TRYGAEUS Because, though old and broken-down as he is, he would put to sea on a hurdle to gain an obolus.(1)

f(1) i.e. he would recoil from no risk to turn an honest penny.

HERMES And wise Cratinus,(1) is he still alive?

f(1) A comic poet as well known for his love of wine as for his writings; he died in 431 B.C., the first year of the war, at the age of ninety-seven.

TRYGAEUS He died about the time of the Laconian invasion.

HERMES How?

TRYGAEUS Of a swoon. He could not bear the shock of seeing one of his casks full of wine broken. Ah! what a number of other misfortunes our city has suffered! So, dearest mistress, nothing can now separate us from thee.

HERMES If that be so, receive Opora here for a wife; take her to the country, live with her, and grow fine grapes together.(1)

f(1) Opora was the G.o.ddess of fruits.

TRYGAEUS Come, my dear friend, come and accept my kisses. Tell me, Hermes, my master, do you think it would hurt me to love her a little, after so long an abstinence?

HERMES No, not if you swallow a potion of penny-royal afterwards.(1) But hasten to lead Theoria(2) to the Senate; 'twas there she lodged before.

f(1) The scholiast says fruit may be eaten with impunity in great quant.i.ties if care is taken to drink a decoction of this herb afterwards.

f(2) Theoria is confided to the care of the Senate, because it was this body who named the deputies appointed to go and consult the oracles beyond the Attic borders to be present at feats and games.

TRYGAEUS Oh! fortunate Senate! Thanks to Theoria, what soups you will swallow for the s.p.a.ce of three days!(1) how you will devour meats and cooked tripe! Come, farewell, friend Hermes!

f(1) The great festivals, e.g. the Dionysia, lasted three days. Those in honour of the return of Peace, which was so much desired, could not last a shorter time.

HERMES And to you also, my dear sir, may you have much happiness, and don't forget me.

TRYGAEUS Come, beetle, home, home, and let us fly on a swift wing.

HERMES Oh! he is no longer here.

TRYGAEUS Where has he gone to then?

HERMES He is harnessed to the chariot of Zeus and bears the thunder bolts.

TRYGAEUS But where will the poor wretch get his food?

HERMES He will eat Ganymede's ambrosia.

TRYGAEUS Very well then, but how am I going to descend?

HERMES Oh! never fear, there is nothing simpler; place yourself beside the G.o.ddess.

TRYGAEUS Come, my pretty maidens, follow me quickly; there are plenty of folk awaiting you with ready weapons.

CHORUS Farewell and good luck be yours! Let us begin by handing over all this gear to the care of our servants, for no place is less safe than a theatre; there is always a crowd of thieves prowling around it, seeking to find some mischief to do. Come, keep a good watch over all this.

As for ourselves, let us explain to the spectators what we have in our minds, the purpose of our play.

Undoubtedly the comic poet who mounted the stage to praise himself in the parabasis would deserve to be handed over to the sticks of the beadles. Nevertheless, oh Muse, if it be right to esteem the most honest and ill.u.s.trious of our comic writers at his proper value, permit our poet to say that he thinks he has deserved a glorious renown. First of all, 'tis he who has compelled his rivals no longer to scoff at rags or to war with lice; and as for those Heracles, always chewing and ever hungry, those poltroons and cheats who allow themselves to be beaten at will, he was the first to cover them with ridicule and to chase them from the stage;(1) he has also dismissed that slave, whom one never failed to set a-weeping before you, so that his comrade might have the chance of jeering at his stripes and might ask, "Wretch, what has happened to your hide? Has the lash rained an army of its thongs on you and laid your back waste?" After having delivered us from all these wearisome inept.i.tudes and these low buffooneries, he has built up for us a great art, like a palace with high towers, constructed of fine phrases, great thoughts and of jokes not common on the streets.

Moreover 'tis not obscure private persons or women that he stages in his comedies; but, bold as Heracles, 'tis the very greatest whom he attacks, undeterred by the fetid stink of leather or the threats of hearts of mud. He has the right to say, "I am the first ever dared to go straight for that beast with the sharp teeth and the terrible eyes that flashed lambent fire like those of Cynna,(2) surrounded by a hundred lewd flatterers, who spittle-licked him to his heart's content; it had a voice like a roaring torrent, the stench of a seal, a foul Lamia's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and the rump of a camel."(3)

I did not recoil in horror at the sight of such a monster, but fought him relentlessly to win your deliverance and that of the Islanders. Such are the services which should be graven in your recollection and ent.i.tle me to your thanks. Yet I have not been seen frequenting the wrestling school intoxicated with success and trying to tamper with young boys;(4) but I took all my theatrical gear(5) and returned straight home. I pained folk but little and caused them much amus.e.m.e.nt; my conscience rebuked me for nothing. Hence both grown men and youths should be on my side and I likewise invite the bald(6) to give me their votes; for, if I triumph, everyone will say, both at table and at festivals, "Carry this to the bald man, give these cakes to the bald one, do not grudge the poet whose talent shines as bright as his own bare skull the share he deserves."

Oh, Muse! drive the War far from our city and come to preside over our dances, if you love me; come and celebrate the nuptials of the G.o.ds, the banquets of us mortals and the festivals of the fortunate; these are the themes that inspire thy most poetic songs. And should Carcinus come to beg thee for admission with his sons to thy chorus, refuse all traffic with them; remember they are but gelded birds, stork-necked dancers, mannikins about as tall as a pat of goat dung, in fact machine-made poets.(7) Contrary to all expectation, the father has at last managed to finish a piece, but he owns himself that a cat strangled it one fine evening.(8)

Such are the songs(9) with which the Muse with the glorious hair inspires the able poet and which enchant the a.s.sembled populace, when the spring swallow twitters beneath the foliage;(10) but the G.o.d spare us from the chorus of Morsimus and that of Melanthius!(11) Oh! what a bitter discordancy grated upon my ears that day when the tragic chorus was directed by this same Melanthius and his brother, these two Gorgons,(12) these two harpies, the plague of the seas, whose gluttonous bellies devour the entire race of fishes, these followers of old women, these goats with their stinking arm-pits. Oh! Muse, spit upon them abundantly and keep the feast gaily with me.

f(1) In spite of what he says, Aristophanes has not always disdained this sort of low comedy--for instance, his Heracles in 'The Birds.'

f(2) A celebrated Athenian courtesan of Aristophanes' day.

f(3) Cleon. These four verses are here repeated from the parabasis of 'The Wasps,' produced 423 B.C., the year before this play.

f(4) Shafts aimed at certain poets, who used their renown as a means of seducing young men to grant them pederastic favours.