Chapter 3
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 goddess 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 quantities 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 space 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 goddess.
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 illustrious 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 ineptitudes 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 testicles 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 entitle 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 amusement; 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 gods, 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 assembled populace, when the spring swallow twitters beneath the foliage;(10) but the god 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.
f(5) The poet supplied everything needful for the production of his piece--vases, dresses, masks, etc.
f(6) Aristophanes was bald himself, it would seem.
f(7) Carcinus and his three sons were both poets and dancers. (See the closing scene of 'The Wasps.') Perhaps relying little on the literary value of their work, it seems that they sought to please the people by the magnificence of its staging.
f(8) He had written a piece called 'The Mice,' which he succeeded with great difficulty in getting played, but it met with no success.
f(9) This passage really follows on the invocation, "Oh, Muse! drive the War," etc., from which indeed it is only divided by the interpolated criticism aimed at Carcinus.
f(10) The scholiast informs us that these verses are borrowed from a poet of the sixth century B.C.
f(11) Sons of Philocles, of the family of Aeschylus, tragic writers, derided by Aristophanes as bad poets and notorious gluttons.
f(12) The Gorgons were represented with great teeth, and therefore the same name was given to gluttons. The Harpies, to whom the two voracious poets are also compared, were monsters with the face of a woman, the body of a vulture and hooked beak and claws.
TRYGAEUS Ah! 'tis a rough job getting to the gods! my legs are as good as broken through it. How small you were, to be sure, when seen from heaven! you had all the appearance too of being great rascals; but seen close, you look even worse.
SERVANT Is that you, master?
TRYGAEUS So I've been told.
SERVANT What has happened to you?
TRYGAEUS My legs pain me; it is such a plaguey long journey.
SERVANT Oh! tell me...
TRYGAEUS What?
SERVANT Did you see any other man besides yourself strolling about in heaven?
TRYGAEUS No, only the souls of two or three dithyrambic poets.
SERVANT What were they doing up there?
TRYGAEUS They were seeking to catch some lyric exordia as they flew by immersed in the billows of the air.
SERVANT Is it true, what they tell us, that men are turned into stars after death?
TRYGAEUS Quite true.
SERVANT Then who is that star I see over yonder?
TRYGAEUS That is Ion of Chios,(1) the author of an ode beginning "Morning"; as soon as ever he got to heaven, they called him "the Morning Star."
f(1) A tragic and dithyrambic poet, who had written many pieces, which had met with great success at Athens.
SERVANT And those stars like sparks, that plough up the air as they dart across the sky?(1)
f(1) The shooting stars.
TRYGAEUS They are the rich leaving the feast with a lantern and a light inside it.--But hurry up, show this young girl into my house, clean out the bath, heat some water and prepare the nuptial couch for herself and me. When 'tis done, come back here; meanwhile I am off to present this one to the Senate.
SERVANT But where then did you get these pretty chattels?
TRYGAEUS Where? why in heaven.
SERVANT I would not give more than an obolus for gods who have got to keeping brothels like us mere mortals.
TRYGAEUS They are not all so, but there are some up there too who live by this trade.
SERVANT Come, that's rich! But I bethink me, shall I give her something to eat?
TRYGAEUS No, for she would neither touch bread nor cake; she is used to licking ambrosia at the table of the gods.
SERVANT Well, we can give her something to lick down here too.
CHORUS Here is a truly happy old man, as far as I can judge.
TRYGAEUS Ah! but what shall I be, when you see me presently dressed for the wedding?
CHORUS Made young again by love and scented with perfumes, your lot will be one we all shall envy.
TRYGAEUS And when I lie beside her and caress her bosoms?
CHORUS Oh! then you will be happier than those spinning-tops who call Carcinus their father.(1)
f(1) It has already been mentioned that the sons of Carcinus were dancers.
TRYGAEUS And I well deserve it; have I not bestridden a beetle to save the Greeks, who now, thanks to me, can make love at their ease and sleep peacefully on their farms?
SERVANT The girl has quitted the bath; she is charming from head to foot, both belly and buttocks; the cake is baked and they are kneading the sesame-biscuit;(1) nothing is lacking but the bridegroom's virility.
f(1) It was customary at weddings, says Menander, to give the bride a sesame-caked as an emblem of fruitfulness, because sesame is the most fruitful of all seeds.
TRYGAEUS Let us first hasten to lodge Theoria in the hands of the Senate.
SERVANT But tell me, who is this woman?
TRYGAEUS Why, 'tis Theoria, with whom we used formerly to go to Brauron,(1) to get tipsy and frolic. I had the greatest trouble to get hold of her.
f(1) An Attic town on the east coast, noted for a magnificent temple, in which stood the statue of Artemis, which Orestes and Iphigenia had brought from the Tauric Chersonese and also for the Brauronia, festivals that were celebrated every four years in honour of the goddess. This was one of the festivals which the Attic people kept with the greatest pomp, and was an occasion for debauchery.
SERVANT Ah! you charmer! what pleasure your pretty bottom will afford me every four years!
TRYGAEUS Let us see, who of you is steady enough to be trusted by the Senate with the care of this charming wench? Hi! you, friend! what are you drawing there?
SERVANT I am drawing the plan of the tent I wish to erect for myself on the isthmus.(1)
f(1) Competitors intending to take part in the great Olympic, Isthmian and other games took with them a tent, wherein to camp in the open. Further, there is an obscene allusion which the actor indicates by a gesture.
TRYGAEUS Come, who wishes to take the charge of her? No one? Come, Theoria, I am going to lead you into the midst of the spectators and confide you to their care.
SERVANT Ah! there is one who makes a sign to you.
TRYGAEUS Who is it?
SERVANT 'Tis Ariphrades. He wishes to take her home at once.
TRYGAEUS No, I'm sure he shan't. He would soon have her done for, absorbing all her life-force. Come, Theoria, put down all this gear.(1)
Senate, Prytanes, look upon Theoria and see what precious blessings I place in your hands. Hasten to raise its limbs and to immolate the victim. Admire the fine chimney,(2) it is quite black with smoke, for 'twas here that the Senate did their cooking before the war. Now that you have found Theoria again, you can start the most charming games from to-morrow, wrestling with her on the ground, either on your hands and feet, or you can lay her on her side, or stand before her with bent knees, or, well rubbed with oil, you can boldly enter the lists, as in the Pancratium, belabouring your foe with blows from your fist or otherwise. The next day you will celebrate equestrian games, in which the riders will ride side by side, or else the chariot teams, thrown one on top of another, panting and whinnying, will roll and knock against each other on the ground, while other rivals, thrown out of their seats, will fall before reaching the goal, utterly exhausted by their efforts.--Come, Prytanes, take Theoria. Oh! look how graciously yonder fellow has received her; you would not have been in such a hurry to introduce her to the Senate, if nothing were coming to you through it;(3) you would not have failed to plead some holiday as an excuse.
f(1) Doubtless the vessels and other sacrificial objects and implements with which Theoria was laden in her character of presiding deity at religious ceremonies.
f(2) Where the meats were cooked after sacrifice; this also marks the secondary obscene sense he means to convey.
f(3) One of the offices of the Prytanes was to introduce those who asked admission to the Senate, but it would seem that none could obtain this favour without payment. Without this, a thousand excuses would be made; for instance, it would be a public holiday, and consequently the Senate could receive no one. As there was some festival nearly every day, he whose purse would not open might have to wait a very long while.
CHORUS Such a man as you assures the happiness of all his fellow-citizens.
TRYGAEUS When you are gathering your vintages you will prize me even better.
CHORUS E'en from to-day we hail you as the deliverer of mankind.
TRYGAEUS Wait until you have drunk a beaker of new wine, before you appraise my true merits.
CHORUS Excepting the gods, there is none greater than yourself, and that will ever be our opinion.
TRYGAEUS Yea, Trygaeus of Athmonia has deserved well of you, he has freed both husbandman and craftsman from the most cruel ills; he has vanquished Hyberbolus.
SERVANT Well then, what must be done now?
TRYGAEUS You must offer pots of green-stuff to the goddess to consecrate her altars.
SERVANT Pots of green-stuff(1) as we do to poor Hermes--and even he thinks the fare but mean?
f(1) This was only offered to lesser deities.
TRYGAEUS What will you offer them? A fatted bull?
SERVANT Oh no! I don't want to start bellowing the battle-cry.(1)
f(1) In the Greek we have a play upon the similarity of the words (for) a bull, and to shout the battle-cry.
TRYGAEUS A great fat swine then?
SERVANT No, no.
TRYGAEUS Why not?
SERVANT We don't want any of the swinishness of Theagenes.(1)
f(1) Theagenes, of the Piraeus, a hideous, coarse, debauched and evil-living character of the day.
TRYGAEUS What other victim do you prefer then?
SERVANT A sheep.
TRYGAEUS A sheep?
SERVANT Yes.
TRYGAEUS But you must give the word the Ionic form.
SERVANT Purposely. So that if anyone in the assembly says, "We must go to war," all may start bleating in alarm, "Oi, oi."(1)
f(1) That is the vocative of the Ionic form of the word; in Attic Greek it is contracted throughout.
TRYGAEUS A brilliant idea.
SERVANT And we shall all be lambs one toward the other, yea, and milder still toward the allies.
TRYGAEUS Then go for the sheep and haste to bring it back with you; I will prepare the altar for the sacrifice.
CHORUS How everything succeeds to our wish, when the gods are willing and Fortune favours us! how opportunely everything falls out.
TRYGAEUS Nothing could be truer, for look! here stands the altar all ready at my door.
CHORUS Hurry, hurry, for the winds are fickle; make haste, while the divine will is set on stopping this cruel war and is showering on us the most striking benefits.
TRYGAEUS Here is the basket of barley-seed mingled with salt, the chaplet and the sacred knife; and there is the fire; so we are only waiting for the sheep.
CHORUS Hasten, hasten, for, if Chaeris sees you, he will come without bidding, he and his flute; and when you see him puffing and panting and out of breath, you will have to give him something.
TRYGAEUS Come, seize the basket and take the lustral water and hurry to circle round the altar to the right.
SERVANT There! 'tis done. What is your next bidding?
TRYGAEUS Hold! I take this fire-brand first and plunge it into the water.
SERVANT Be quick! be quick! Sprinkle the altar.
TRYGAEUS Give me some barley-seed, purify yourself and hand me the basin; then scatter the rest of the barley among the audience.
SERVANT 'Tis done.
TRYGAEUS You have thrown it?
SERVANT Yes, by Hermes! and all the spectators have had their share.
TRYGAEUS But not the women?
SERVANT Oh! their husbands will give it them this evening.(1)
f(1) An obscene jest.
TRYGAEUS Let us pray! Who is here? Are there any good men?(1)
f(1) Before sacrificing, the officiating person asked, "Who is here?" and those present answered, "Many good men."
SERVANT Come, give, so that I may sprinkle these. Faith! they are indeed good, brave men.
TRYGAEUS You believe so?
SERVANT I am sure, and the proof of it is that we have flooded them with lustral water and they have not budged an inch.(1)
f(1) The actors forming the chorus are meant here.
TRYGAEUS Come, then, to prayers; to prayers, quick!--Oh! Peace, mighty queen, venerated goddess, thou, who presidest over choruses and at nuptials, deign to accept the sacrifices we offer thee.
SERVANT Receive it, greatly honoured mistress, and behave not like the coquettes, who half open the door to entice the gallants, draw back when they are stared at, to return once more if a man passes on. But do not act like this to us.
TRYGAEUS No, but like an honest woman, show thyself to thy worshippers, who are worn with regretting thee all these thirteen years. Hush the noise of battle, be a true Lysimacha to us.(1) Put an end to this tittle-tattle, to this idle babble, that set us defying one another. Cause the Greeks once more to taste the pleasant beverage of friendship and temper all hearts with the gentle feeling of forgiveness. Make excellent commodities flow to our markets, fine heads of garlic, early cucumbers, apples, pomegranates and nice little cloaks for the slaves; make them bring geese, ducks, pigeons and larks from Boeotia and baskets of eels from Lake Copais; we shall all rush to buy them, disputing their possession with Morychus, Teleas, Glaucetes and every other glutton. Melanthius(2) will arrive on the market last of all; 'twill be, "no more eels, all sold!" and then he'll start a-groaning and exclaiming as in his monologue of Medea,(3) "I am dying, I am dying! Alas! I have let those hidden in the beet escape me!"(4) And won't we laugh? These are the wishes, mighty goddess, which we pray thee to grant.
f(1) Lysimacha is derived from (the Greek for) put an end to, and (the Greek for) fight.
f(2) A tragic poet, reputed a great gourmand.
f(3) A tragedy by Melanthius.
f(4) Eels were cooked with beet.--A parody on some verses in the 'Medea' of Melanthius.
SERVANT Take the knife and slaughter the sheep like a finished cook.
TRYGAEUS No, the goddess does not wish it.(1)
f(1) As a matter of fact, the Sicyonians, who celebrated the festival of Peace on the sixteenth day of the month of Hecatombeon (July), spilled no blood upon her altar.
SERVANT And why not?
TRYGAEUS Blood cannot please Peace, so let us spill none upon her altar. Therefore go and sacrifice the sheep in the house, cut off the legs and bring them here; thus the carcase will be saved for the choregus.
CHORUS You, who remain here, get chopped wood and everything needed for the sacrifice ready.
TRYGAEUS Don't I look like a diviner preparing his mystic fire?
CHORUS Undoubtedly. Will anything that it behooves a wise man to know escape you? Don't you know all that a man should know, who is distinguished for his wisdom and inventive daring?
TRYGAEUS There! the wood catches. Its smoke blinds poor Stilbides.(1) I am now going to bring the table and thus be my own slave.
f(1) A celebrated diviner, who had accompanied the Athenians on their expedition to Sicily. Thus the War was necessary to make his calling pay and the smoke of the sacrifice offered to Peace must therefore be unpleasant to him.
CHORUS You have braved a thousand dangers to save your sacred town. All honour to you! your glory will be ever envied.
SERVANT Hold! Here are the legs, place them upon the altar. For myself, I mean to go back to the entrails and the cakes.
TRYGAEUS I'll see to those; I want you here.
SERVANT Well then, here I am. Do you think I have been long?
TRYGAEUS Just get this roasted. Ah! who is this man, crowned with laurel, who is coming to me?
SERVANT He has a self-important look; is he some diviner?
TRYGAEUS No, I' faith! 'tis Hierocles.
SERVANT Ah! that oracle-monger from Oreus.(1) What is he going to tell us?
f(1) A town in Euboea on the channel which separated that island from Thessaly.
TRYGAEUS Evidently he is coming to oppose the peace.
SERVANT No, 'tis the odour of the fat that attracts him.
TRYGAEUS Let us appear not to see him.
SERVANT Very well.
HIEROCLES What sacrifice is this? to what god are you offering it?
TRYGAEUS (TO THE SERVANT) Silence!--(ALOUD.) Look after the roasting and keep your hands off the meat.
HIEROCLES To whom are you sacrificing? Answer me. Ah! the tail(1) is showing favourable omens.
f(1) When sacrificing, the tail was cut off the victim and thrown into the fire. From the way in which it burnt the inference was drawn as to whether or not the sacrifice was agreeable to the deity.
SERVANT Aye, very favourable, oh, loved and mighty Peace!
HIEROCLES Come, cut off the first offering(1) and make the oblation.
f(1) This was the part that belonged to the priests and diviners. As one of the latter class, Hierocles is in haste to see this piece cut off.
TRYGAEUS 'Tis not roasted enough.
HIEROCLES Yea, truly, 'tis done to a turn.