Chapter 2
CHORUS You ask that, you impudent rascal, traitor to your country; you alone amongst us all have concluded a truce, and you dare to look us in the face!
DICAEOPOLIS But you do not know WHY I have treated for peace. Listen!
CHORUS Listen to you? No, no, you are about to die, we will annihilate you with our stones.
DICAEOPOLIS But first of all, listen. Stop, my friends.
CHORUS I will hear nothing; do not address me; I hate you more than I do Cleon,(1) whom one day I shall flay to make sandals for the Knights. Listen to your long speeches, after you have treated with the Laconians? No, I will punish you.
f(1) Cleon the Demagogue was a currier originally by trade. He was the sworn foe and particular detestation of the Knights or aristocratic party generally.
DICAEOPOLIS Friends, leave the Laconians out of debate and consider only whether I have not done well to conclude my truce.
CHORUS Done well! when you have treated with a people who know neither gods, nor truth, nor faith.
DICAEOPOLIS We attribute too much to the Laconians; as for myself, I know that they are not the cause of all our troubles.
CHORUS Oh, indeed, rascal! You dare to use such language to me and then expect me to spare you!
DICAEOPOLIS No, no, they are not the cause of all our troubles, and I who address you claim to be able to prove that they have much to complain of in us.
CHORUS This passes endurance; my heart bounds with fury. Thus you dare to defend our enemies.
DICAEOPOLIS Were my head on the block I would uphold what I say and rely on the approval of the people.
CHORUS Comrades, let us hurl our stones and dye this fellow purple.
DICAEOPOLIS What black fire-brand has inflamed your heart! You will not hear me? You really will not, Acharnians?
CHORUS No, a thousand times, no.
DICAEOPOLIS This is a hateful injustice.
CHORUS May I die, if I listen.
DICAEOPOLIS Nay, nay! have mercy, have mercy, Acharnians.
CHORUS You shall die.
DICAEOPOLIS Well, blood for blood! I will kill your dearest friend. I have here the hostages of Acharnae;(1) I shall disembowel them.
f(1) That is, the baskets of charcoal.
CHORUS Acharnians, what means this threat? Has he got one of our children in his house? What gives him such audacity?
DICAEOPOLIS Stone me, if it please you; I shall avenge myself on this. (SHOWS A BASKET.) Let us see whether you have any love for your coals.
CHORUS Great Gods! this basket is our fellow-citizen. Stop, stop, in heaven's name!
DICAEOPOLIS I shall dismember it despite your cries; I will listen to nothing.
CHORUS How! will you kill this coal-basket, my beloved comrade?
DICAEOPOLIS Just now, you would not listen to me.
CHORUS Well, speak now, if you will; tell us, tell us you have a weakness for the Lacedaemonians. I consent to anything; never will I forsake this dear little basket.
DICAEOPOLIS First, throw down your stones.
CHORUS There! 'tis done. And you, do put away your sword.
DICAEOPOLIS Let me see that no stones remain concealed in your cloaks.
CHORUS They are all on the ground; see how we shake our garments. Come, no haggling, lay down your sword; we threw away everything while crossing from one side of the stage to the other.(1)
f(1) The stage of the Greek theatre was much broader, and at the same time shallower, than in a modern playhouse.
DICAEOPOLIS What cries of anguish you would have uttered had these coals of Parnes(1) been dismembered, and yet it came very near it; had they perished, their death would have been due to the folly of their fellow-citizens. The poor basket was so frightened, look, it has shed a thick black dust over me, the same as a cuttle-fish does. What an irritable temper! You shout and throw stones, you will not hear my arguments--not even when I propose to speak in favour of the Lacedaemonians with my head on the block; and yet I cling to life.
f(1) A mountain in Attica, in the neighbourhood of Acharnae.
CHORUS Well then, bring out a block before your door, scoundrel, and let us hear the good grounds you can give us; I am curious to know them. Now mind, as you proposed yourself, place your head on the block and speak.
DICAEOPOLIS Here is the block; and, though I am but a very sorry speaker, I wish nevertheless to talk freely of the Lacedaemonians and without the protection of my buckler. Yet I have many reasons for fear. I know our rustics; they are delighted if some braggart comes, and rightly or wrongly, loads both them and their city with praise and flattery; they do not see that such toad-eaters(1) are traitors, who sell them for gain. As for the old men, I know their weakness; they only seek to overwhelm the accused with their votes.(2) Nor have I forgotten how Cleon treated me because of my comedy last year;(3) he dragged me before the Senate and there he uttered endless slanders against me; 'twas a tempest of abuse, a deluge of lies. Through what a slough of mud he dragged me! I almost perished. Permit me, therefore, before I speak, to dress in the manner most likely to draw pity.
f(1) Orators in the pay of the enemy.
f(2) Satire on the Athenians' addiction to law-suits.
f(3) 'The Babylonians.' Cleon had denounced Aristophanes to the Senate for having scoffed at Athens before strangers, many of whom were present at the performance. The play is now lost.
CHORUS What evasions, subterfuges and delays! Hold! here is the sombre helmet of Pluto with its thick bristling plume; Hieronymus(1) lends it to you; then open Sisyphus'(2) bag of wiles; but hurry, hurry, pray, for discussion does not admit of delay.
f(1) A tragic poet; we know next to nothing of him or his works.
f(2) Son of Aeolus, renowned in fable for his robberies, and for the tortures to which he was put by Pluto. He was cunning enough to break loose out of hell, but Hermes brought him back again.
DICAEOPOLIS The time has come for me to manifest my courage, so I will go and seek Euripides. Ho! slave, slave!
SLAVE Who's there?
DICAEOPOLIS Is Euripides at home?
SLAVE He is and he isn't; understand that, if you have wit for't.
DICAEOPOLIS How? He is and he isn't!(1)
f(1) This whole scene is directed at Euripides; Aristophanes ridicules the subtleties of his poetry and the trickeries of his staging, which, according to him, he only used to attract the less refined among his audience.
SLAVE Certainly, old man; busy gathering subtle fancies here and there, his mind is not in the house, but he himself is; perched aloft, he is composing a tragedy.
DICAEOPOLIS Oh, Euripides, you are indeed happy to have a slave so quick at repartee! Now, fellow, call your master.
SLAVE Impossible!
DICAEOPOLIS So much the worse. But I will not go. Come, let us knock at the door. Euripides, my little Euripides, my darling Euripides, listen; never had man greater right to your pity. It is Dicaeopolis of the Chollidan Deme who calls you. Do you hear?
EURIPIDES I have no time to waste.
DICAEOPOLIS Very well, have yourself wheeled out here.(1)
f(1) "Wheeled out"--that is, by means of a mechanical contrivance of the Greek stage, by which an interior was shown, the set scene with performers, etc., all complete, being in some way, which cannot be clearly made out from the descriptions, swung out or wheeled out on to the main stage.
EURIPIDES Impossible.
DICAEOPOLIS Nevertheless...
EURIPIDES Well, let them roll me out; as to coming down, I have not the time.
DICAEOPOLIS Euripides....
EURIPIDES What words strike my ear?
DICAEOPOLIS You perch aloft to compose tragedies, when you might just as well do them on the ground. I am not astonished at your introducing cripples on the stage.(1) And why dress in these miserable tragic rags? I do not wonder that your heroes are beggars. But, Euripides, on my knees I beseech you, give me the tatters of some old piece; for I have to treat the Chorus to a long speech, and if I do it ill it is all over with me.
f(1) Having been lamed, it is of course implied, by tumbling from the lofty apparatus on which the Author sat perched to write his tragedies.
EURIPIDES What rags do you prefer? Those in which I rigged out Aeneus(1) on the stage, that unhappy, miserable old man?
f(1) Euripides delighted, or was supposed by his critic Aristophanes to delight, in the representation of misery and wretchedness on the stage. 'Aeneus,' 'Phoenix,' 'Philoctetes,' 'Bellerophon,' 'Telephus,' Ino' are titles of six tragedies of his in this genre of which fragments are extant.
DICAEOPOLIS No, I want those of some hero still more unfortunate.
EURIPIDES Of Phoenix, the blind man?
DICAEOPOLIS No, not of Phoenix, you have another hero more unfortunate than him.
EURIPIDES Now, what tatters DOES he want? Do you mean those of the beggar Philoctetes?
DICAEOPOLIS No, of another far more the mendicant.
EURIPIDES Is it the filthy dress of the lame fellow, Bellerophon?
DICAEOPOLIS No, 'tis not Bellerophon; he, whom I mean, was not only lame and a beggar, but boastful and a fine speaker.
EURIPIDES Ah! I know, it is Telephus, the Mysian.
DICAEOPOLIS Yes, Telephus. Give me his rags, I beg of you.
EURIPIDES Slave! give him Telephus' tatters; they are on top of the rags of Thyestes and mixed with those of Ino.
SLAVE Catch hold! here they are.
DICAEOPOLIS Oh! Zeus, whose eye pierces everywhere and embraces all, permit me to assume the most wretched dress on earth. Euripides, cap your kindness by giving me the little Mysian hat, that goes so well with these tatters. I must to-day have the look of a beggar; "be what I am, but not appear to be";(1) the audience will know well who I am, but the Chorus will be fools enough not to, and I shall dupe 'em with my subtle phrases.
f(1) Line borrowed from Euripides. A great number of verses are similarly parodied in this scene.
EURIPIDES I will give you the hat; I love the clever tricks of an ingenious brain like yours.
DICAEOPOLIS Rest happy, and may it befall Telephus as I wish. Ah! I already feel myself filled with quibbles. But I must have a beggar's staff.
EURIPIDES Here you are, and now get you gone from this porch.
DICAEOPOLIS Oh, my soul! You see how you are driven from this house, when I still need so many accessories. But let us be pressing, obstinate, importunate. Euripides, give me a little basket with a lamp alight inside.
EURIPIDES Whatever do you want such a thing as that for?
DICAEOPOLIS I do not need it, but I want it all the same.
EURIPIDES You importune me; get you gone!
DICAEOPOLIS Alas! may the gods grant you a destiny as brilliant as your mother's.(1)
f(1) Report said that Euripides' mother had sold vegetables on the market.
EURIPIDES Leave me in peace.
DICAEOPOLIS Oh, just a little broken cup.
EURIPIDES Take it and go and hang yourself. What a tiresome fellow!
DICAEOPOLIS Ah! you do not know all the pain you cause me. Dear, good Euripides, nothing beyond a small pipkin stoppered with a sponge.
EURIPIDES Miserable man! You are robbing me of an entire tragedy.(1) Here, take it and be off.
f(1) Aristophanes means, of course, to imply that the whole talent of Euripides lay in these petty details of stage property.
DICAEOPOLIS I am going, but, great gods! I need one thing more; unless I have it, I am a dead man. Hearken, my little Euripides, only give me this and I go, never to return. For pity's sake, do give me a few small herbs for my basket.
EURIPIDES You wish to ruin me then. Here, take what you want; but it is all over with my pieces!
DICAEOPOLIS I won't ask another thing; I'm going. I am too importunate and forget that I rouse against me the hate of kings.--Ah! wretch that I am! I am lost! I have forgotten one thing, without which all the rest is as nothing. Euripides, my excellent Euripides, my dear little Euripides, may I die if I ask you again for the smallest present; only one, the last, absolutely the last; give me some of the chervil your mother left you in her will.
EURIPIDES Insolent hound! Slave, lock the door!
DICAEOPOLIS Oh, my soul! I must go away without the chervil. Art thou sensible of the dangerous battle we are about to engage upon in defending the Lacedaemonians? Courage, my soul, we must plunge into the midst of it. Dost thou hesitate and art thou fully steeped in Euripides? That's right! do not falter, my poor heart, and let us risk our head to say what we hold for truth. Courage and boldly to the front. I wonder I am so brave.
CHORUS What do you purport doing? what are you going to say? What an impudent fellow! what a brazen heart! to dare to stake his head and uphold an opinion contrary to that of us all! And he does not tremble to face this peril. Come, it is you who desired it, speak!
DICAEOPOLIS Spectators, be not angered if, although I am a beggar, I dare in a Comedy to speak before the people of Athens of the public weal; Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please, but I shall say what is true. Besides, Cleon shall not be able to accuse me of attacking Athens before strangers;(1) we are by ourselves at the festival of the Lenaea; the period when our allies send us their tribute and their soldiers is not yet. Here is only the pure wheat without chaff; as to the resident strangers settled among us, they and the citizens are one, like the straw and the ear.
I detest the Lacedaemonians with all my heart, and may Posidon, the god of Taenarus,(2) cause an earthquake and overturn their dwellings! My vines also have been cut. But come (there are only friends who hear me), why accuse the Laconians of all our woes? Some men (I do not say the city, note particularly that I do not say the city), some wretches, lost in vices, bereft of honour, who were not even citizens of good stamp, but strangers, have accused the Megarians of introducing their produce fraudulently, and not a cucumber, a leveret, a suck(l)ing pig, a clove of garlic, a lump of salt was seen without its being said, "Halloa! these come from Megara," and their being instantly confiscated. Thus far the evil was not serious and we were the only sufferers. But now some young drunkards go to Megara and carry off the courtesan Simaetha; the Megarians, hurt to the quick, run off in turn with two harlots of the house of Aspasia; and so for three gay women Greece is set ablaze. Then Pericles, aflame with ire on his Olympian height, let loose the lightning, caused the thunder to roll, upset Greece and passed an edict, which ran like the song, "That the Megarians be banished both from our land and from our markets and from the sea and from the continent."(3) Meanwhile the Megarians, who were beginning to die of hunger, begged the Lacedaemonians to bring about the abolition of the decree, of which those harlots were the cause; several times we refused their demand; and from that time there was horrible clatter of arms everywhere. You will say that Sparta was wrong, but what should she have done? Answer that. Suppose that a Lacedaemonian had seized a little Seriphian(4) dog on any pretext and had sold it, would you have endured it quietly? Far from it, you would at once have sent three hundred vessels to sea, and what an uproar there would have been through all the city! there 'tis a band of noisy soldiery, here a brawl about the election of a Trierarch; elsewhere pay is being distributed, the Pallas figure-heads are being regilded, crowds are surging under the market porticos, encumbered with wheat that is being measured, wine-skins, oar-leathers, garlic, olives, onions in nets; everywhere are chaplets, sprats, flute-girls, black eyes; in the arsenal bolts are being noisily driven home, sweeps are being made and fitted with leathers; we hear nothing but the sound of whistles, of flutes and fifes to encourage the work-folk. That is what you assuredly would have done, and would not Telephus have done the same? So I come to my general conclusion; we have no common sense.
f(1) 'The Babylonians' had been produced at a time of year when Athens was crowded with strangers; 'The Acharnians,' on the contrary, was played in December.
f(2) Sparta had been menaced with an earthquake in 427 B.C. Posidon was 'The Earthshaker,' god of earthquakes, as well as of the sea.
f(3) A song by Timocreon the Rhodian, the words of which were practically identical with Pericles' decree.
f(4) A small and insignificant island, one of the Cyclades, allied with the Athenians, like months of these islands previous to and during the first part of the Peloponnesian War.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS Oh! wretch! oh! infamous man! You are naught but a beggar and yet you dare to talk to us like this! you insult their worships the informers!
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS By Posidon! he speaks the truth; he has not lied in a single detail.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS But though it be true, need he say it? But you'll have no great cause to be proud of your insolence!
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS Where are you running to? Don't you move; if you strike this man, I shall be at you.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS Lamachus, whose glance flashes lightning, whose plume petrifies thy foes, help! Oh! Lamachus, my friend, the hero of my tribe and all of you, both officers and soldiers, defenders of our walls, come to my aid; else is it all over with me!
LAMACHUS Whence comes this cry of battle? where must I bring my aid? where must I sow dread? who wants me to uncase my dreadful Gorgon's head?(1)
f(1) A figure of Medusa's head, forming the centre of Lamachus' shield.
DICAEOPOLIS Oh, Lamachus, great hero! Your plumes and your cohorts terrify me.
CHORUS This man, Lamachus, incessantly abuses Athens.
LAMACHUS You are but a mendicant and you dare to use language of this sort?
DICAEOPOLIS Oh, brave Lamachus, forgive a beggar who speaks at hazard.
LAMACHUS But what have you said? Let us hear.
DICAEOPOLIS I know nothing about it; the sight of weapons makes me dizzy. Oh! I adjure you, take that fearful Gorgon somewhat farther away.
LAMACHUS There.
DICAEOPOLIS Now place it face downwards on the ground.
LAMACHUS It is done.
DICAEOPOLIS Give me a plume out of your helmet.
LAMACHUS Here is a feather.
DICAEOPOLIS And hold my head while I vomit; the plumes have turned my stomach.
LAMACHUS Hah! what are you proposing to do? do you want to make yourself vomit with this feather?
DICAEOPOLIS Is it a feather? what bird's? a braggart's?
LAMACHUS Ah! ah! I will rip you open.
DICAEOPOLIS No, no, Lamachus! Violence is out of place here! But as you are so strong, why did you not circumcise me? You have all the tools you want for the operation there.
LAMACHUS A beggar dares thus address a general!
DICAEOPOLIS How? Am I a beggar?
LAMACHUS What are you then?
DICAEOPOLIS Who am I? A good citizen, not ambitious; a soldier, who has fought well since the outbreak of the war, whereas you are but a vile mercenary.
LAMACHUS They elected me...
DICAEOPOLIS Yes, three cuckoos did!(1) If I have concluded peace, 'twas disgust that drove me; for I see men with hoary heads in the ranks and young fellows of your age shirking service. Some are in Thrace getting an allowance of three drachmae, such fellows as Tisamenophoenippus and Panurgipparchides. The others are with Chares or in Chaonia, men like Geretotheodorus and Diomialazon; there are some of the same kidney, too, at Camarina and at Gela,(2) the laughing-stock of all and sundry.
f(1) Indicates the character of his election, which was arranged, so Aristophanes implies, by his partisans.
f(2) Town in Sicily. There is a pun on the name Gela and 'ridiculous' which it is impossible to keep in English. Apparently the Athenians had sent embassies to all parts of the Greek world to arrange treaties of alliance in view of the struggle with the Lacedaemonians; but only young debauchees of aristocratic connections had been chosen as envoys.
LAMACHUS They were elected.
DICAEOPOLIS And why do you always receive your pay, when none of these others ever gets any? Speak, Marilades, you have grey hair; well then, have you ever been entrusted with a mission? See! he shakes his head. Yet he is an active as well as a prudent man. And you, Dracyllus, Euphorides or Prinides, have you knowledge of Ecbatana or Chaonia? You say no, do you not? Such offices are good for the son of Caesyra(1) and Lamachus, who, but yesterday ruined with debt, never pay their shot, and whom all their friends avoid as foot passengers dodge the folks who empty their slops out of window.
f(1) A contemporary orator apparently, otherwise unknown.
LAMACHUS Oh! in freedom's name! are such exaggerations to be borne?
DICAEOPOLIS Lamachus is well content; no doubt he is well paid, you know.
LAMACHUS But I propose always to war with the Peloponnesians, both at sea, on land and everywhere to make them tremble, and trounce them soundly.
DICAEOPOLIS For my own part, I make proclamation to all Peloponnesians, Megarians and Boeotians, that to them my markets are open; but I debar Lamachus from entering them.
CHORUS Convinced by this man's speech, the folk have changed their view and approve him for having concluded peace. But let us prepare for the recital of the parabasis.(1)
Never since our poet presented Comedies, has he praised himself upon the stage; but, having been slandered by his enemies amongst the volatile Athenians, accused of scoffing at his country and of insulting the people, to-day he wishes to reply and regain for himself the inconstant Athenians. He maintains that he has done much that is good for you; if you no longer allow yourselves to be too much hoodwinked by strangers or seduced by flattery, if in politics you are no longer the ninnies you once were, it is thanks to him. Formerly, when delegates from other cities wanted to deceive you, they had but to style you, "the people crowned with violets," and at the word "violets" you at once sat erect on the tips of your bums. Or if, to tickle your vanity, someone spoke of "rich and sleek Athens," in return for that "sleekness" he would get all, because he spoke of you as he would have of anchovies in oil. In cautioning you against such wiles, the poet has done you great service as well as in forcing you to understand what is really the democratic principle. Thus, the strangers, who came to pay their tributes, wanted to see this great poet, who had dared to speak the truth to Athens. And so far has the fame of his boldness reached that one day the Great King, when questioning the Lacedaemonian delegates, first asked them which of the two rival cities was the superior at sea, and then immediately demanded at which it was that the comic poet directed his biting satire. "Happy that city," he added, "if it listens to his counsel; it will grow in power, and its victory is assured." This is why the Lacedaemonians offer you peace, if you will cede them Aegina; not that they care for the isle, but they wish to rob you of your poet.(2) As for you, never lose him, who will always fight for the cause of justice in his Comedies; he promises you that his precepts will lead you to happiness, though he uses neither flattery, nor bribery, nor intrigue, nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause; never will you find me a political poltroon, a prostitute to the highest bidder.