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Title: The Acharnians

Author: Aristophanes

Release date: January 1, 2002 [eBook #3012]
Most recently updated: January 24, 2013

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Derek Davis, and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ACHARNIANS ***

THE ACHARNIANS

By Aristophanes

[Translator uncredited. Footnotes have been retained because they provide the meanings of Greek names, terms and ceremonies and explain puns and references otherwise lost in translation. Occasional Greek words in the footnotes have not been included. Footnote numbers, in brackets, start anew at (1) for each piece of dialogue, and each footnote follows immediately the dialogue to which it refers, labeled thus: f(1).]

INTRODUCTION

THE ACHARNIANS

INTRODUCTION

This is the first of the series of three Comedies—'The Acharnians,' 'Peace' and 'Lysistrata'—produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth and twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the Athenian people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the scoundrels who by their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the consequent ruin of industry and, above all, agriculture, and the urgency of asking Peace. In date it is the earliest play brought out by the author in his own name and his first work of serious importance. It was acted at the Lenaean Festival, in January, 426 B.C., and gained the first prize, Cratinus being second.

Its diatribes against the War and fierce criticism of the general policy of the War party so enraged Cleon that, as already mentioned, he endeavoured to ruin the author, who in 'The Knights' retorted by a direct and savage personal attack on the leader of the democracy.

The plot is of the simplest. Dicaeopolis, an Athenian citizen, but a native of Acharnae, one of the agricultural demes and one which had especially suffered in the Lacedaemonian invasions, sick and tired of the ill-success and miseries of the War, makes up his mind, if he fails to induce the people to adopt his policy of "peace at any price," to conclude a private and particular peace of his own to cover himself, his family, and his estate. The Athenians, momentarily elated by victory and over-persuaded by the demagogues of the day—Cleon and his henchmen, refuse to hear of such a thing as coming to terms. Accordingly Dicaeopolis dispatches an envoy to Sparta on his own account, who comes back presently with a selection of specimen treaties in his pocket. The old man tastes and tries, special terms are arranged, and the play concludes with a riotous and uproarious rustic feast in honour of the blessings of Peace and Plenty.

Incidentally excellent fun is poked at Euripides and his dramatic methods, which supply matter for so much witty badinage in several others of our author's pieces.

Other specially comic incidents are: the scene where the two young daughters of the famished Megarian are sold in the market at Athens as suck(l)ing-pigs—a scene in which the convenient similarity of the Greek words signifying a pig and the 'pudendum muliebre' respectively is utilized in a whole string of ingenious and suggestive 'double entendres' and ludicrous jokes; another where the Informer, or Market-Spy, is packed up in a crate as crockery and carried off home by the Boeotian buyer.

The drama takes its title from the Chorus, composed of old men of Acharnae.

THE ACHARNIANS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

     DICAEOPOLIS
     HERALD
     AMPHITHEUS
     AMBASSADORS
     PSEUDARTABAS
     THEORUS
     WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS
     DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS
     EURIPIDES
     CEPHISOPHON, servant of Euripides
     LAMACHUS
     ATTENDANT OF LAMACHUS
     A MEGARIAN
     MAIDENS, daughters of the Megarian
     A BOEOTIAN
     NICARCHUS
     A HUSBANDMAN
     A BRIDESMAID
     AN INFORMER
     MESSENGERS
     CHORUS OF ACHARNIAN ELDERS

SCENE: The Athenian Ecclesia on the Pnyx; afterwards Dicaeopolis' house in the country.

 DICAEOPOLIS(1) (alone)
 What cares have not gnawed at my heart and how few have been the
 pleasures in my life!  Four, to be exact, while my troubles have been
 as countless as the grains of sand on the shore!  Let me see! of what
 value to me have been these few pleasures?  Ah! I remember that I was
 delighted in soul when Cleon had to disgorge those five talents;(2) I was
 in ecstasy and I love the Knights for this deed; 'it is an honour to
 Greece.'(3) But the day when I was impatiently awaiting a piece by
 Aeschylus,(4) what tragic despair it caused me when the herald called,
 "Theognis,(5) introduce your Chorus!" Just imagine how this blow struck
 straight at my heart!  On the other hand, what joy Dexitheus caused
 me at the musical competition, when he played a Boeotian melody
 on the lyre!  But this year by contrast! Oh! what deadly torture
 to hear Chaeris(6) perform the prelude in the Orthian mode!(7)
 —Never, however, since I began to bathe, has the dust hurt my
 eyes as it does to-day.  Still it is the day of assembly; all should be
 here at daybreak, and yet the Pnyx(8) is still deserted.  They are
 gossiping in the marketplace, slipping hither and thither to avoid
 the vermilioned rope.(9) The Prytanes(10) even do not come; they will be
 late, but when they come they will push and fight each other for a
 seat in the front row.  They will never trouble themselves with the
 question of peace.  Oh!  Athens! Athens! As for myself, I do not fail to
 come here before all the rest, and now, finding myself alone, I groan,
 yawn, stretch, break wind, and know not what to do; I make sketches in
 the dust, pull out my loose hairs, muse, think of my fields, long for
 peace, curse town life and regret my dear country home,(11) which never
 told me to 'buy fuel, vinegar or oil'; there the word 'buy,' which
 cuts me in two, was unknown; I harvested everything at will.  Therefore
 I have come to the assembly fully prepared to bawl, interrupt and
 abuse the speakers, if they talk of anything but peace.  But here come the
 Prytanes, and high time too, for it is midday!  As I foretold, hah! is it
 not so?  They are pushing and fighting for the front seats.

 f(1) A name invented by Aristophanes and signifying 'a just citizen.'

 f(2) Clean had received five talents from the islanders subject to Athens,
 on condition that he should get the tribute payable by them reduced; when
 informed of this transaction, the knights compelled him to return
 the money.

 f(3) A hemistich borrowed from Euripides' 'Telephus.'

 f(4) The tragedies of Aeschylus continued to be played even after the
 poet's death, which occurred in 436 B.C., ten years before the production
 of 'The Acharnians.'

 f(5) A tragic poet, whose pieces were so devoid of warmth and life that he
 was nicknamed (the Greek for) 'snow.'

 f(6) A bad musician, frequently ridiculed by Aristophanes; he played both
 the lyre and the flute.

 f(7) A lively and elevated method.

 f(8) A hill near the Acropolis, where the Assemblies were held.

 f(9) Several means were used to force citizens to attend the assemblies;
 the shops were closed; circulation was only permitted in those streets which
 led to the Pnyx; finally, a rope covered with vermilion was drawn round those
 who dallied in the Agora (the market-place), and the late-comers,
 ear-marked by the imprint of the rope, were fined.

 f(10) Magistrates who, with the Archons and the Epistatae, shared the care
 of holding and directing the assemblies of the people; they were fifty
 in number.

 f(11) The Peloponnesian War had already, at the date of the representation
 of 'The Acharnians,' lasted five years, 431-426 B.C.; driven from their lands
 by the successive Lacedaemonian invasions, the people throughout the
 country had been compelled to seek shelter behind the walls of Athens.

 HERALD
 Move on up, move on, move on, to get within the consecrated area.(1)

 f(1) Shortly before the meeting of the Assembly, a number of young pigs
 were immolated and a few drops of their blood were sprinkled on the
 seats of the Prytanes; this sacrifice was in honour of Ceres.

 AMPHITHEUS
 Has anyone spoken yet?

 HERALD
 Who asks to speak?

 AMPHITHEUS
 I do.

 HERALD
 Your name?

 AMPHITHEUS
 Amphitheus.

 HERALD
 You are no man.(1)

 f(1) The name, Amphitheus, contains (the Greek) word (for) 'god.'

 AMPHITHEUS
 No!  I am an immortal!  Amphitheus was the son of Ceres and
 Triptolemus; of him was born Celeus.  Celeus wedded Phaenerete, my
 grandmother, whose son was Lucinus, and, being born of him I am an
 immortal; it is to me alone that the gods have entrusted the duty of
 treating with the Lacedaemonians.  But, citizens, though I am immortal,
 I am dying of hunger; the Prytanes give me naught.(1)

 f(1) Amongst other duties, it was the office of the Prytanes to look after
 the wants of the poor.

 A PRYTANIS
 Guards!

 AMPHITHEUS
 Oh, Triptolemus and Ceres, do ye thus forsake your own blood?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Prytanes, in expelling this citizen, you are offering an outrage
 to the Assembly.  He only desired to secure peace for us and to sheathe
 the sword.

 PRYTANIS
 Sit down and keep silence!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 No, by Apollo, I will not, unless you are going to discuss the
 question of peace.

 HERALD
 The ambassadors, who are returned from the Court of the King!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Of what King?  I am sick of all those fine birds, the peacock
 ambassadors and their swagger.

 HERALD
 Silence!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Oh! oh! by Ecbatana,(1) what a costume!

 f(1) The summer residence of the Great King.

 AN AMBASSADOR
 During the archonship of Euthymenes, you sent us to the Great King
 on a salary of two drachmae per diem.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! those poor drachmae!

 AMBASSADOR
 We suffered horribly on the plains of the Cayster, sleeping under a tent,
 stretched deliciously on fine chariots, half dead with weariness.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And I was very much at ease, lying on the straw along the
 battlements!(1)

 f(1) Referring to the hardships he had endured garrisoning the walls of
 Athens during the Lacedaemonian invasions early in the War.

 AMBASSADOR
 Everywhere we were well received and forced to drink delicious
 wine out of golden or crystal flagons....

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Oh, city of Cranaus,(1) thy ambassadors are laughing at thee!

 f(1) Cranaus, the second king of Athens, the successor of Cecrops.

 AMBASSADOR
 For great feeders and heavy drinkers are alone esteemed as men
 by the barbarians.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Just as here in Athens, we only esteem the most drunken debauchees.

 AMBASSADOR
 At the end of the fourth year we reached the King's Court, but
 he had left with his whole army to ease himself, and for the space of
 eight months he was thus easing himself in the midst of the golden
 mountains.(1)

 f(1) Lucian, in his 'Hermotimus,' speaks of these golden mountains as an
 apocryphal land of wonders and prodigies.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And how long was he replacing his dress?

 AMBASSADOR
 The whole period of a full moon; after which he returned to his palace;
 then he entertained us and had us served with oxen roasted whole
 in an oven.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Who ever saw an oxen baked in an oven?  What a lie!

 AMBASSADOR
 On my honour, he also had us served with a bird three
 times as large as Cleonymus,(1) and called the Boaster.

 f(1) Cleonymus was an Athenian general of exceptionally tall stature;
 Aristophanes incessantly rallies him for his cowardice; he had cast away
 his buckler in a fight.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And do we give you two drachmae, that you should treat us to all
 this humbug?

 AMBASSADOR
 We are bringing to you Pseudartabas(1), the King's Eye.

 f(1) A name borne by certain officials of the King of Persia.  The actor of
 this part wore a mask, fitted with a single eye of great size.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 I would a crow might pluck out thine with his beak, you cursed
 ambassador!

 HERALD
 The King's Eye!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Eh!  Great Gods!  Friend, with thy great eye, round like the hole through
 which the oarsman passes his sweep, you have the air of a galley
 doubling a cape to gain port.

 AMBASSADOR
 Come, Pseudartabas, give forth the message for the Athenians
 with which you were charged by the Great King.

 PSEUDARTABAS
 Jartaman exarx 'anapissonia satra.(1)

 f(1) Jargon, no doubt meaningless in all languages.

 AMBASSADOR
 Do you understand what he says?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 By Apollo, not I!

 AMBASSADOR (TO THE PRYTANES)
 He says that the Great King will send you gold.  Come, utter the word
 'gold' louder and more distinctly.

 PSEUDARTABAS
 Thou shalt not have gold, thou gaping-arsed Ionian.(1)

 f(1) The Persians styled all Greeks 'Ionians' without distinction; here
 the Athenians are intended.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! may the gods forgive me, but that is clear enough!

 AMBASSADOR
 What does he say?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 That the Ionians are debauchees and idiots, if they expect to receive
 gold from the barbarians.

 AMBASSADOR
 Not so, he speaks of medimni(1) of gold.

 f(1) A Greek measure, containing about six modii.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What medimni?  Thou are but a great braggart; but get your way; I
 will find out the truth by myself.  Come now, answer me clearly, if you
 do not wish me to dye your skin red.  Will the Great King send us gold?
 (PSEUDARTABAS MAKES A NEGATIVE SIGN.) Then our ambassadors
 are seeking to deceive us?  (PSEUDARTABAS SIGNS AFFIRMATIVELY.)
 These fellows make signs like any Greek; I am sure that they are
 nothing but Athenians.  Oh! ho! I recognize one of these eunuchs; it is
 Clisthenes, the son of Sibyrtius.(1) Behold the effrontery of this shaven
 rump!  How! great baboon, with such a beard do you seek to play the
 eunuch to us?  And this other one?  Is it not Straton?

 f(1) Noted for his extreme ugliness and his obscenity.  Aristophanes
 frequently holds him to scorn in his comedies.

 HERALD
 Silence!  Let all be seated.  The Senate invites the King's Eye to the
 Prytaneum.(1)

 f(1) Ambassadors were entertained there at the public expense.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Is this not sufficient to drive one to hang oneself?  Here I
 stand chilled to the bone, whilst the doors of the Prytaneum fly
 wide open to lodge such rascals.  But I will do something great and
 bold.  Where is Amphitheus?  Come and speak with me.

 AMPHITHEUS
 Here I am.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Take these eight drachmae and go and conclude a truce with the
 Lacedaemonians for me, my wife and my children; I leave you free,
 my dear citizens, to send out embassies and to stand gaping in the air.

 HERALD
 Bring in Theorus, who has returned from the Court of Sitalces.(1)

 f(1) King of Thrace.

 THEORUS
 I am here.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Another humbug!

 THEORUS
 We should not have remained long in Thrace...

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Forsooth, no, if you had not been well paid.

 THEORUS
 ...if the country had not been covered with snow; the rivers were
 ice-bound at the time that Theognis(1) brought out his tragedy here;
 during the whole of that time I was holding my own with
 Sitalces, cup in hand; and, in truth, he adored you to such a degree,
 that he wrote on the walls, "How beautiful are the Athenians!" His
 son, to whom we gave the freedom of the city, burned with desire to
 come here and eat chitterlings at the feast of the Apaturia;(2) he prayed
 his father to come to the aid of his new country and Sitalces swore on
 his goblet that he would succour us with such a host that the Athenians
 would exclaim, "What a cloud of grasshoppers!"

 f(1) The tragic poet.

 f(2) A feast lasting three days and celebrated during the month Pyanepsion
 (November).  The Greek word contains the suggestion of fraud.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 May I die if I believe a word of what you tell us!  Excepting the
 grasshoppers, there is not a grain of truth in it all!

 THEORUS
 And he has sent you the most warlike soldiers of all Thrace.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Now we shall begin to see clearly.

 HERALD
 Come hither, Thracians, whom Theorus brought.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What plague have we here?

 THEORUS
 'Tis the host of the Odomanti.(1)

 f(1) A Thracian tribe from the right bank of the Strymon.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Of the Odomanti?  Tell me what it means.  Who has mutilated them
 like this?

 THEORUS
 If they are given a wage of two drachmae, they will put all
 Boeotia(1) to fire and sword.

 f(1) The Boeotians were the allies of Sparta.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Two drachmae to those circumcised hounds!  Groan aloud, ye people
 of rowers, bulwark of Athens!  Ah! great gods! I am undone; these
 Odomanti are robbing me of my garlic!(1) Will you give me back
 my garlic?

 f(1) Dicaeopolis had brought a clove of garlic with him to eat during
 the Assembly.

 THEORUS
 Oh! wretched man! do not go near them; they have eaten garlic(1).

 f(1) Garlic was given to game-cocks, before setting them at each other,
 to give them pluck for the fight.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Prytanes, will you let me be treated in this manner, in my own
 country and by barbarians?  But I oppose the discussion of paying
 a wage to the Thracians; I announce an omen; I have just felt a drop
 of rain.(1)

 f(1) At the lest unfavourable omen, the sitting of the Assembly was
 declared at an end.

 HERALD
 Let the Thracians withdraw and return the day after tomorrow;
 the Prytanes declare the sitting at an end.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ye gods, what garlic I have lost!  But here comes Amphitheus
 returned from Lacedaemon.  Welcome, Amphitheus.

 AMPHITHEUS
 No, there is no welcome for me and I fly as fast as I can, for I
 am pursued by the Acharnians.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Why, what has happened?

 AMPHITHEUS
 I was hurrying to bring your treaty of truce, but some old dotards
 from Acharnae(1) got scent of the thing; they are veterans of Marathon,
 tough as oak or maple, of which they are made for sure—rough and
 ruthless.  They all started a-crying: "Wretch!  you are the bearer of
 a treaty, and the enemy has only just cut our vines!" Meanwhile they
 were gathering stones in their cloaks, so I fled and they ran after
 me shouting.

 f(1) The deme of Acharnae was largely inhabited by charcoal-burners,
 who supplied the city with fuel.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Let 'em shout as much as they please!  But HAVE you brought me
 a treaty?

 AMPHITHEUS
 Most certainly, here are three samples to select from,(1) this one is
 five years old; take it and taste.

 f(1) He presents them in the form of wines contained in three separate
 skins.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Faugh!

 AMPHITHEUS
 Well?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 It does not please me; it smells of pitch and of the ships they are
 fitting out.(1)

 f(1) Meaning, preparations for war.

 AMPHITHEUS
 Here is another, ten years old; taste it.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 It smells strongly of the delegates, who go around the towns
 to chide the allies for their slowness.(1)

 f(1) Meaning, securing allies for the continuance of the war.

 AMPHITHEUS
 This last is a truce of thirty years, both on sea and land.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Oh! by Bacchus! what a bouquet!  It has the aroma of nectar and
 ambrosia; this does not say to us, "Provision yourselves for three
 days." But it lisps the gentle numbers, "Go whither you will."(1)
 I accept it, ratify it, drink it at one draught and consign the
 Acharnians to limbo.  Freed from the war and its ills, I shall
 keep the Dionysia(2) in the country.

 f(1) When Athens sent forth an army, the soldiers were usually ordered
 to assemble at some particular spot with provisions for three days.

 f(2) These feasts were also called the Anthesteria or Lenaea; the Lenaem
 was a temple to Bacchus, erected outside the city.  They took place
 during the month Anthesterion (February).

 AMPHITHEUS
 And I shall run away, for I'm mortally afraid of the Acharnians.

 CHORUS
 This way all!  Let us follow our man; we will demand him of
 everyone we meet; the public weal makes his seizure imperative.  Ho,
 there!  tell me which way the bearer of the truce has gone; he has escaped
 us, he has disappeared.  Curse old age!  When I was young, in the days
 when I followed Phayllus,(1) running with a sack of coals on my back, this
 wretch would not have eluded my pursuit, let him be as swift as he will;
 but now my limbs are stiff; old Lacratides(2) feels his legs are
 weighty and the traitor escapes me.  No, no, let us follow him; old
 Acharnians like ourselves shall not be set at naught by a
 scoundrel, who has dared, great gods!  to conclude a truce, when I wanted
 the war continued with double fury in order to avenge my ruined lands.
 No mercy for our foes until I have pierced their hearts like sharp
 reed, so that they dare never again ravage my vineyards.
 Come, let us seek the rascal; let us look everywhere, carrying our
 stones in our hands; let us hunt him from place to place until we trap
 him; I could never, never tire of the delight of stoning him.

 f(1) A celebrated athlete from Croton and a victor at Olympia; he was
 equally good as a runner and at the 'five exercises.'

 f(2) He had been Archon at the time of the battle of Marathon.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Peace! profane men!(1)

 f(1) A sacred formula, pronounced by the priest before offering
 the sacrifice.

 CHORUS
 Silence all!  Friends, do you hear the sacred formula?  Here is he,
 whom we seek!  This way, all!  Get out of his way, surely he comes
 to offer an oblation.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Peace, profane men!  Let the basket-bearer(1) come forward, and thou
 Xanthias, hold the phallus well upright.(2)

 f(1) The maiden who carried the basket filled with fruits at the Dionysia
 in honour of Bacchus.

 f(2) The emblem of the fecundity of nature; it consisted of a representation,
 generally grotesquely exaggerated, of the male genital organs;
 the phallophori crowned with violets and ivy and their faces shaded
 with green foliage, sang improvised airs, call 'Phallics,' full of obscenity
 and suggestive 'double entendres.'

 WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS
 Daughter, set down the basket and let us begin the sacrifice.

 DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS
 Mother, hand me the ladle, that I may spread the sauce on the
 cake.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 It is well! Oh, mighty Bacchus, it is with joy that, freed from
 military duty, I and all mine perform this solemn rite and offer
 thee this sacrifice; grant that I may keep the rural Dionysia
 without hindrance and that this truce of thirty years may be
 propitious for me.

 WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS
 Come, my child, carry the basket gracefully and with a grave, demure
 face.  Happy he, who shall be your possessor and embrace you so firmly
 at dawn,(1) that you belch wind like a weasel.  Go forward, and have a care
 they don't snatch your jewels in the crowd.

 f(1) The most propitious moment for Love's gambols, observes the
 scholiast.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Xanthias, walk behind the basket-bearer and hold the phallus well
 erect; I will follow, singing the Phallic hymn; thou, wife, look on from
 the top of the terrace.(1) Forward! Oh, Phales,(2) companion of the orgies
 of Bacchus, night reveller, god of adultery, friend of young men, these
 past six(3) years I have not been able to invoke thee.  With what joy I
 return to my farmstead, thanks to the truce I have concluded, freed
 from cares, from fighting and from Lamachuses!(4) How much sweeter,
 oh Phales, oh, Phales, is it to surprise Thratta, the pretty woodmaid,
 Strymodorus' slave, stealing wood from Mount Phelleus, to catch her
 under the arms, to throw her on the ground and possess her, Oh, Phales,
 Phales! If thou wilt drink and bemuse thyself with me, we shall
 to-morrow consume some good dish in honour of the peace, and I will
 hang up my buckler over the smoking hearth.

 f(1) Married women did not join in the processions.

 f(2) The god of generation, worshipped in the form of a phallus.

 f(3) A remark which fixes the date of the production of 'The Acharnians,'
 viz. the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War, 426 B.C.

 f(4) Lamachus was an Athenian general, who figures later in this comedy.

 CHORUS
 It is he, he himself.  Stone him, stone him, stone him, strike
 the wretch.  All, all of you, pelt him, pelt him!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What is this?  By Heracles, you will smash my pot.(1)

 f(1) At the rural Dionysia a pot of kitchen vegetables was borne in
 the procession along with other emblems.

 CHORUS
 It is you that we are stoning, you miserable scoundrel.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And for what sin, Acharnian Elders, tell me that!

 CHORUS
 You ask that, you impudent rascal, traitor to your country; you
 alone amongst us all have concluded a truce, and you dare to look us
 in the face!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But you do not know WHY I have treated for peace.  Listen!

 CHORUS
 Listen to you?  No, no, you are about to die, we will annihilate
 you with our stones.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But first of all, listen.  Stop, my friends.

 CHORUS
 I will hear nothing; do not address me; I hate you more than I
 do Cleon,(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.

 I invoke thee, Acharnian Muse, fierce and fell as the devouring fire;
 sudden as the spark that bursts from the crackling oaken coal when
 roused by the quickening fan to fry little fishes, while others knead
 the dough or whip the sharp Thasian pickle with rapid hand, so break
 forth, my Muse, and inspire thy tribesmen with rough, vigorous,
 stirring strains.

 We others, now old men and heavy with years, we reproach the city;
 so many are the victories we have gained for the Athenian fleets
 that we well deserve to be cared for in our declining life; yet far
 from this, we are ill-used, harassed with law-suits, delivered over to
 the scorn of stripling orators.  Our minds and bodies being ravaged
 with age, Posidon should protect us, yet we have no other support than
 a staff.  When standing before the judge, we can scarcely stammer forth
 the fewest words, and of justice we see but its barest shadow, whereas
 the accuser, desirous of conciliating the younger men, overwhelms us
 with his ready rhetoric; he drags us before the judge, presses us with
 questions, lays traps for us; the onslaught troubles, upsets and ruins
 poor old Tithonus, who, crushed with age, stands tongue-tied;
 sentenced to a fine,(3) he weeps, he sobs and says to his friend,
 "This fine robs me of the last trifle that was to have bought my coffin."

 Is this not a scandal?  What! the clepsydra(4) is to kill the
 white-haired veteran, who, in fierce fighting, has so oft covered
 himself with glorious sweat, whose valour at Marathon saved the
 country!  'Twas we who pursued on the field of Marathon,
 whereas now 'tis wretches who pursue us to the death and crush us!
 What would Marpsias reply to this?(5) What an injustice that a man,
 bent with age like Thucydides, should be brow-beaten by this braggart
 advocate, Cephisodemus,(6) who is as savage as the Scythian desert
 he was born in! Is it not to convict him from the outset?  I wept tears
 of pity when I saw an Archer(7) maltreat this old man, who, by Ceres,
 when he was young and the true Thucydides, would not have permitted
 an insult from Ceres herself!  At that date he would have floored
 ten orators, he would have terrified three thousand Archers with his
 shouts; he would have pierced the whole line of the enemy with his shafts.
 Ah!  but if you will not leave the aged in peace, decree that the advocates
 be matched; thus the old man will only be confronted with a toothless
 greybeard, the young will fight with the braggart, the ignoble
 with the son of Clinias;(8) make a law that in the future, the old man
 can only be summoned and convicted at the courts by the aged
 and the young man by the youth.

 f(1) The 'parabasis' in the Old Comedy was a sort of address or topical
 harangue addressed directly by the poet, speaking by the Chorus,
 to the audience.  It was nearly always political in bearing, and the subject
 of the particular piece was for the time being set aside altogether.

 f(2) It will be remembered that Aristophanes owned land in Aegina.

 f(3) Everything was made the object of a law-suit in Athens.  The old
 soldiers, inexpert at speaking, often lost the day.

 f(4) A water-clock used to limit the length of speeches in the courts.

 f(5) A braggart speaker, fiery and pugnacious.

 f(6) Cephisodemus was an Athenian, but through his mother possessed
 Scythian blood.

 f(7) The city of Athens was policed by Scythian archers.

 f(8) Alcibiades.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 These are the confines of my market-place.  All Peloponnesians,
 Megarians, Boeotians, have the right to come and trade here,
 provided they sell their wares to me and not to Lamachus.  As
 market-inspectors I appoint these three whips of Leprean(1) leather,
 chosen by lot.  Warned away are all informers and all men of Phasis.(2)
 They are bringing me the pillar on which the treaty is inscribed(3) and
 I shall erect it in the centre of the market, well in sight of all.

 f(1) The leather market was held in Lepros, outside the city.

 f(2) Mean an informer ((from the Greek) 'to denounce').

 f(3) According to the Athenian custom.

 A MEGARIAN
 Hail! market of Athens, beloved of Megarians.  Let Zeus, the patron
 of friendship, witness, I regretted you as a mother mourns her son.
 Come, poor little daughters of an unfortunate father, try to find
 something to eat; listen to me with the full heed of an empty belly.
 Which would you prefer?  To be sold or to cry with hunger?

 DAUGHTERS
 To be sold, to be sold!

 MEGARIAN
 That is my opinion too.  But who would make so sorry a deal as to
 buy you?  Ah! I recall me a Megarian trick; I am going to disguise
 you as little porkers, that I am offering for sale.  Fit your hands
 with these hoofs and take care to appear the issue of a sow of good
 breed, for, if I am forced to take you back to the house, by Hermes!
 you will suffer cruelly of hunger!  Then fix on these snouts and cram
 yourselves into this sack.  Forget not to grunt and to say wee-wee like
 the little pigs that are sacrificed in the Mysteries.  I must summon
 Dicaeopolis.  Where is be?  Dicaeopolis, do you want to buy
 some nice little porkers?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Who are you?  a Megarian?

 MEGARIAN
 I have come to your market.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Well, how are things at Megara?(1)

 f(1) Megara was allied to Sparta and suffered during the war more than
 any other city because of its proximity to Athens.

 MEGARIAN
 We are crying with hunger at our firesides.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 The fireside is jolly enough with a piper.  But what else is
 doing at Megara, eh?

 MEGARIAN
 What else?  When I left for the market, the authorities were taking
 steps to let us die in the quickest manner.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 That is the best way to get you out of all your troubles.

 MEGARIAN
 True.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What other news of Megara?  What is wheat selling at?

 MEGARIAN
 With us it is valued as highly as the very gods in heaven!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Is it salt that you are bringing?

 MEGARIAN
 Are you not holding back the salt?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 'Tis garlic then?

 MEGARIAN
 What! garlic!  do you not at every raid grub up the ground with your
 pikes to pull out every single head?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What DO you bring then?

 MEGARIAN
 Little sows, like those they immolate at the Mysteries.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! very well, show me them.

 MEGARIAN
 They are very fine; feel their weight.  See! how fat and fine.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But what is this?

 MEGARIAN
 A SOW, for a certainty.(1)

 f(1) Throughout this whole scene there is an obscene play upon (a) word
 which means in Greek both 'sow' and 'a woman's organs of generation.'

 DICAEOPOLIS
 You say a sow!  Of what country, then?

 MEGARIAN
  From Megara.  What! is it not a sow then?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 No, I don't believe it is.

 MEGARIAN
 This is too much!  what an incredulous man!  He says 'tis not a sow;
 but we will stake, an you will, a measure of salt ground up with
 thyme, that in good Greek this is called a sow and nothing else.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But a sow of the human kind.

 MEGARIAN
 Without question, by Diocles! of my own breed!  Well! What think
 you?  will you hear them squeal?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Well, yes, I' faith, I will.

 MEGARIAN
 Cry quickly, wee sowlet; squeak up, hussy, or by Hermes! I take you
 back to the house.

 GIRL
 Wee-wee, wee-wee!

 MEGARIAN
 Is that a little sow, or not?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Yes, it seems so; but let it grow up, and it will be a fine fat bitch.

 MEGARIAN
 In five years it will be just like its mother.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But it cannot be sacrificed.

 MEGARIAN
 And why not?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 It has no tail.(1)

 f(1) Sacrificial victims were bound to be perfect in every part; an animal,
 therefore, without a tail could not be offered.

 MEGARIAN
 Because it is quite young, but in good time it will have a big one,
 thick and red.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 The two are as like as two peas.

 MEGARIAN
 They are born of the same father and mother; let them be fattened,
 let them grow their bristles, and they will be the finest sows you can
 offer to Aphrodite.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But sows are not immolated to Aphrodite.

 MEGARIAN
 Not sows to Aphrodite!  Why, 'tis the only goddess to whom they
 are offered!  the flesh of my sows will be excellent on the spit.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Can they eat alone?  They no longer need their mother!

 MEGARIAN
 Certainly not, nor their father.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What do they like most?

 MEGARIAN
 Whatever is given them; but ask for yourself.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Speak! little sow.

 DAUGHTER
 Wee-wee, wee-wee!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Can you eat chick-pease?

 DAUGHTER
 Wee-wee, wee-wee, wee-wee!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And Attic figs?

 DAUGHTER
 Wee-wee, wee-wee!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What sharp squeaks at the name of figs.  Come, let some figs be
 brought for these little pigs.  Will they eat them?  Goodness! how
 they munch them, what a grinding of teeth, mighty Heracles! I
 believe those pigs hail from the land of the Voracians.  But surely
 'tis impossible they have bolted all the figs!

 MEGARIAN
 Yes, certainly, bar this one that I took from them.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! what funny creatures!  For what sum will you sell them?

 MEGARIAN
 I will give you one for a bunch of garlic, and the other, if you
 like, for a quart measure of salt.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 I buy them of you.  Wait for me here.

 MEGARIAN
 The deal is done.  Hermes, god of good traders, grant I may sell
 both my wife and my mother in the same way!

 AN INFORMER
 Hi! fellow, what countryman are you?

 MEGARIAN
 I am a pig-merchant from Megara.

 INFORMER
 I shall denounce both your pigs and yourself as public enemies.

 MEGARIAN
 Ah! here our troubles begin afresh!

 INFORMER
 Let go that sack.  I will punish your Megarian lingo!(1)

 f(1) The Megarians used the Doric dialect.

 MEGARIAN
 Dicaeopolis, Dicaeopolis, they want to denounce me.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Who dares do this thing?  Inspectors, drive out the informers.
 Ah! you offer to enlighten us without a lamp!(1)

 f(1) A play upon (a) word which both means 'to light' and 'to denounce.'

 INFORMER
 What! I may not denounce our enemies?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Have a care for yourself, if you don't go off pretty quick to denounce
 elsewhere.

 MEGARIAN
 What a plague to Athens!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Be reassured, Megarian.  Here is the price for your two swine,
 the garlic and the salt.  Farewell and much happiness!

 MEGARIAN
 Ah! we never have that amongst us.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Well! may the inopportune wish apply to myself.

 MEGARIAN
 Farewell, dear little sows, and seek, far from your father, to
 munch your bread with salt, if they give you any.

 CHORUS
 Here is a man truly happy.  See how everything succeeds to his
 wish.  Peacefully seated in his market, he will earn his living; woe to
 Ctesias,(1) and all other informers who dare to enter there!  You will not
 be cheated as to the value of wares, you will not again see Prepis(2)
 wiping his foul rump, nor will Cleonymus(3) jostle you; you will take your
 walks, clothed in a fine tunic, without meeting Hyperbolus(4) and his
 unceasing quibblings, without being accosted on the public place by
 any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus,(5) shaven in the fashion
 of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who plagues us with his silly
 improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits stinking as foul as a goat,
 like his father before him.  You will not be the butt of the villainous
 Pauson's(6) jeers, nor of Lysistratus,(7) the disgrace
 of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the vices,
 and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days in the month.

 f(1) An informer (sycophant), otherwise unknown.

 f(2) A debauchee of vile habits; a pathic.

 f(3) Mentioned above; he was as proud as he was cowardly.

 f(4) An Athenian general, quarrelsome and litigious, and an Informer
 into the bargain.

 f(5) A comic poet of vile habits.

 f(6) A painter.

 f(7) A debauchee, a gambler, and always in extreme poverty.

 A BOEOTIAN
 By Heracles! my shoulder is quite black and blue.  Ismenias, put
 the penny-royal down there very gently, and all of you, musicians
 from Thebes, pipe with your bone flutes into a dog's rump.(1)

 f(1) This kind of flute had a bellows, made of dog-skin, much like
 the bagpipes of to-day.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Enough, enough, get you gone.  Rascally hornets, away with you!
 Whence has sprung this accursed swarm of Charis(1) fellows which comes
 assailing my door?

 f(1) A flute-player, mentioned above.

 BOEOTIAN
 Ah!  by Iolas!(1) Drive them off, my dear host, you will please me
 immensely; all the way from Thebes, they were there piping behind me
 and have completely stripped my penny-royal of its blossom.
 But will you buy anything of me, some chickens or some locusts?

 f(1) A hero, much honoured in Thebes; nephew of Heracles.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! good day, Boeotian, eater of good round loaves.(1) What do you
 bring?

 f(1) A form of bread peculiar to Boeotia.

 BOEOTIAN
 All that is good in Boeotia, marjoram, penny-royal, rush-mats,
 lamp-wicks, ducks, jays, woodcocks, water-fowl, wrens, divers.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 'Tis a very hail of birds that beats down on my market.

 BOEOTIAN
 I also bring geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs, cats, lyres,
 martins, otters and eels from the Copaic lake.(1)

 f(1) A lake in Boeotia.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! my friend, you, who bring me the most delicious of fish,
 let me salute your eels.

 BOEOTIAN
 Come, thou, the eldest of my fifty Copaic virgins, come and
 complete the joy of our host.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Oh! my well-beloved, thou object of my long regrets, thou art here
 at last then, thou, after whom the comic poets sigh, thou, who art
 dear to Morychus.(1)  Slaves, hither with the stove and the bellows.
 Look at this charming eel, that returns to us after six long years
 of absence.(2)  Salute it, my children; as for myself, I will supply
 coal to do honour to the stranger.  Take it into my house; death itself
 could not separate me from her, if cooked with beet leaves.

 f(1) He was the Lucullus of Athens.

 f(2) This again fixes the date of the presentation of 'The
 Acharnians' to 436 B.C., the sixth  year of the War, since the
 beginning of which Boeotia had been closed to the Athenians.

 BOEOTIAN
 And what will you give me in return?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 It will pay for your market dues.  And as to the rest, what do
 you wish to sell me?

 BOEOTIAN
 Why, everything.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 On what terms?  For ready-money or in wares from these parts?

 BOEOTIAN
 I would take some Athenian produce, that we have not got
 in Boeotia.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Phaleric anchovies, pottery?

 BOEOTIAN
 Anchovies, pottery?  But these we have.  I want produce that is
 wanting with us and that is plentiful here.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! I have the very thing; take away an Informer, packed up
 carefully as crockery-ware.

 BOEOTIAN
 By the twin gods!  I should earn big money, if I took one; I
 would exhibit him as an ape full of spite.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Hah! here we have Nicarchus,(1) who comes to denounce you.

 f(1) An informer.

 BOEOTIAN
 How small he is!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But in his case the whole is one mass of ill-nature.

 NICARCHUS
 Whose are these goods?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Mine; they come from Boeotia, I call Zeus to witness.

 NICARCHUS
 I denounce them as coming from an enemy's country.

 BOEOTIAN
 What! you declare war against birds?

 NICARCHUS
 And I am going to denounce you too.

 BOEOTIAN
 What harm have I done you?

 NICARCHUS
 I will say it for the benefit of those that listen; you introduce lamp-wicks
 from an enemy's country.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Then you go as far as denouncing a wick.

 NICARCHUS
 It needs but one to set an arsenal afire.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 A wick set an arsenal ablaze!  But how, great gods?

 NICARCHUS
 Should a Boeotian attach it to an insect's wing, and, taking
 advantage of a violent north wind, throw it by means of a tube into
 the arsenal and the fire once get hold of the vessels, everything
 would soon be devoured by the flames.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! wretch! an insect and a wick devour everything!
 (HE STRIKES HIM.)

 NICARCHUS (TO THE CHORUS)
 You will bear witness, that he mishandles me.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Shut his mouth.  Give me some hay; I am going to pack him up like
 a vase, that he may not get broken on the road.

 CHORUS
 Pack up your goods carefully, friend; that the stranger may not
 break it when taking it away.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 I shall take great care with it, for one would say he is cracked already;
 he rings with a false note, which the gods abhor.

 CHORUS
 But what will be done with him?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 This is a vase good for all purposes; it will be used as a vessel for holding
 all foul things, a mortar for pounding together law-suits, a lamp
 for spying upon accounts, and as a cup for the mixing up and poisoning
 of everything.

 CHORUS
 None could ever trust a vessel for domestic use that has such a
 ring about it.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Oh! it is strong, my friend, and will never get broken, if care is
 taken to hang it head downwards.

 CHORUS
 There! it is well packed now!

 BOEOTIAN
 Marry, I will proceed to carry off my bundle.

 CHORUS
 Farewell, worthiest of strangers, take this informer, good for
 anything, and fling him where you like.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Bah! this rogue has given me enough trouble to pack!  Here!
 Boeotian, pick up your pottery.

 BOEOTIAN
 Stoop, Ismenias, that I may put it on your shoulder, and be very
 careful with it.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 You carry nothing worth having; however, take it, for you will
 profit by your bargain; the Informers will bring you luck.

 A SERVANT OF LAMACHUS
 Dicaeopolis!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What do you want crying this gait?

 SERVANT
 Lamachus wants to keep the Feast of Cups,(1) and I come by his order
 to bid you one drachma for some thrushes and three more for a Copaic eel.

 f(1) The second day of the Dionysia or feasts of Bacchus, kept in the month
 Anthesterion (February), and called the Anthesteria.  They lasted three
 days; the second being the Feast of Cups, the third the Feast of Pans.
 Vases, filled with grain of all kinds, were borne in procession and
 dedicated to Hermes.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And who is this Lamachus, who demands an eel?

 SERVANT
 'Tis the terrible, indefatigable Lamachus, who is always brandishing
 his fearful Gorgon's head and the three plumes which o'ershadow
 his helmet.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 No, no, he will get nothing, even though he gave me his buckler.
 Let him eat salt fish, while he shakes his plumes, and, if he comes
 here making any din, I shall call the inspectors.  As for myself,
 I shall take away all these goods; I go home on thrushes' wings
 and black-birds' pinions.(1)

 f(1) A parody on some verses from a lost poet.

 CHORUS
 You see, citizens, you see the good fortune which this man owes to
 his prudence, to his profound wisdom.  You see how, since he has
 concluded peace, he buys what is useful in the household and good to
 eat hot.  All good things flow towards him unsought.  Never will I welcome
 the god of war in my house; never shall he chant the "Harmodius" at
 my table;(1) he is a sot, who comes feasting with those who are
 overflowing with good things and brings all manner of mischief at his
 heels. He overthrows, ruins, rips open; 'tis vain to make him a
 thousand offers, "be seated, pray, drink this cup, proffered in all
 friendship," he burns our vine-stocks and brutally pours out the wine
 from our vineyards
 on the ground.  This man, on the other hand, covers his table with
 a thousand dishes; proud of his good fortunes, he has had these feathers
 cast before his door to show us how he lives.

 f(1) A feasting song in honour of Harmodius, the assassin of Hipparchus
 the Tyrant, son of Pisistratus.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Oh, Peace! companion of fair Aphrodite and of the sweet Graces,
 how charming are thy features and yet I never knew it!  Would that Eros
 might join me to thee, Eros, crowned with roses as Zeuxis(1) shows him to
 us!  Perhaps I seem somewhat old to you, but I am yet able to make you a
 threefold offering; despite my age I could plant a long row of vines for you;
 then beside these some tender cuttings from the fig; finally a young
 vine-stock, loaded with fruit and all around the field olive trees, which
 would furnish us with oil, wherewith to anoint us both at the New Moons.

 f(1) The celebrated painter, born in Heraclea, a contemporary
 of Aristophanes.

 HERALD
 List, ye people!  As was the custom of your forebears, empty a full
 pitcher of wine at the call of the trumpet; he, who first sees the
 bottom, shall get a wine-skin as round and plump as Ctesiphon's belly.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Women, children, have you not heard?  Faith! do you not heed the
 herald?  Quick! let the hares boil and roast merrily; keep them
 a-turning; withdraw them from the flame; prepare the chaplets;
 reach me the skewers that I may spit the thrushes.

 CHORUS
 I envy you your wisdom and even more your good cheer.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What then will you say when you see the thrushes roasting?

 CHORUS
 Ah! true indeed!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Slave! stir up the fire.

 CHORUS
 See, how he knows his business, what a perfect cook!  How well
 he understands the way to prepare a good dinner!

 A HUSBANDMAN
 Ah! woe is me!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Heracles! What have we here?

 HUSBANDMAN
 A most miserable man.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Keep your misery for yourself.

 HUSBANDMAN
 Ah! friend! since you alone are enjoying peace, grant me a part
 of your truce, were it but five years.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What has happened to you?

 HUSBANDMAN
 I am ruined; I have lost a pair of steers.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 How?

 HUSBANDMAN
 The Boeotians seized them at Phyle.(1)

 f(1) A deme and frontier fortress of Attica, near the Boeotian border.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! poor wretch! and yet you have not left off white?

 HUSBANDMAN
 Their dung made my wealth.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What can I do in the matter?

 HUSBANDMAN
 Crying for my beasts has lost me my eyesight.  Ah! if you care for poor
 Dercetes of Phyle, anoint mine eyes quickly with your balm of peace.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But, my poor fellow, I do not practise medicine.

 HUSBANDMAN
 Come, I adjure you; perhaps I shall recover my steers.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 'Tis impossible; away, go and whine to the disciples of Pittalus.(1)

 f(1) An Athenian physician of the day.

 HUSBANDMAN
 Grant me but one drop of peace; pour it into this reedlet.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 No, not a particle; go a-weeping elsewhere.

 HUSBANDMAN
 Oh! oh! oh! my poor beasts!

 CHORUS
 This man has discovered the sweetest enjoyment in peace; he will share it
 with none.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Pour honey over this tripe; set it before the fire to dry.

 CHORUS
 What lofty tones he uses!  Did you hear him?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Get the eels on the gridiron!

 CHORUS
 You are killing me with hunger; your smoke is choking your
 neighbours, and you split our ears with your bawling.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Have this fried and let it be nicely browned.

 A BRIDESMAID
 Dicaeopolis!  Dicaeopolis!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Who are you?

 BRIDESMAID
 A young bridegroom sends you these viands from the marriage feast.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Whoever he be, I thank him.

 BRIDESMAID
 And in return, he prays you to pour a glass of peace into this vase,
 that he may not have to go to the front and may stay at home
 to do his duty to his young wife.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Take back, take back your viands; for a thousand drachmae I
 would not give a drop of peace; but who are you, pray?

 BRIDESMAID
 I am the bridesmaid; she wants to say something to you
 from the bride privately.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Come, what do you wish to say?  (THE BRIDESMAID WHISPERS IN
 HIS EAR.)  Ah! what a ridiculous demand!  The bride burns with longing
 to keep by her her husband's weapon.  Come! \bring hither my truce; to
 her alone will I give some of it, for she is a woman, and, as such,
 should not suffer under the war.  Here, friend, reach hither your vial.
 And as to the manner of applying this balm, tell the bride, when a
 levy of soldiers is made to rub some in bed on her husband, where
 most needed.  There, slave, take away my truce!  Now, quick, bring me
 the wine-flagon, that I may fill up the drinking bowls!

 CHORUS
 I see a man, striding along apace, with knitted brows; he seems
 to us the bearer of terrible tidings.

 HERALD
 Oh! toils and battles, 'tis Lamachus!

 LAMACHUS
 What noise resounds around my dwelling, where shines the glint
 of arms.

 HERALD
 The Generals order you forthwith to take your battalions and
 your plumes, and, despite the snow, to go and guard our borders.
 They have learnt that a band of Boeotians intend taking advantage
 of the Feast of Cups to invade our country.

 LAMACHUS
 Ah! the Generals! they are numerous, but not good for much!
 It's cruel, not to be able to enjoy the feast!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Oh! warlike host of Lamachus!

 LAMACHUS
 Wretch! do you dare to jeer me?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Do you want to fight this four-winged Geryon?

 LAMACHUS
 Oh! oh! what fearful tidings!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! ah! I see another herald running up; what news does he bring me?

 HERALD
 Dicaeopolis!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What is the matter?

 HERALD
 Come quickly to the feast and bring your basket and your cup;
 'tis the priest of Bacchus who invites you.  But hasten, the guests
 have been waiting for you a long while.  All is ready—couches,
 tables, cushions, chaplets, perfumes, dainties and courtesans to boot;
 biscuits, cakes, sesame-bread, tarts, lovely dancing women, the sweetest
 charm of the festivity.  But come with all haste.

 LAMACHUS
 Oh! hostile gods!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 This is not astounding; you have chosen this huge, great ugly Gorgon's head
 for your patron.  You, shut the door, and let someone get ready the meal.

 LAMACHUS
 Slave! slave! my knapsack!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Slave! slave! a basket!

 LAMACHUS
 Take salt and thyme, slave, and don't forget the onions.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Get some fish for me; I cannot bear onions.

 LAMACHUS
 Slave, wrap me up a little stale salt meat in a fig-leaf.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And for me some good greasy tripe in a fig-leaf; I will have it cooked here.

 LAMACHUS
 Bring me the plumes for my helmet.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Bring me wild pigeons and thrushes.

 LAMACHUS
 How white and beautiful are these ostrich feathers!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 How fat and well browned is the flesh of this wood-pigeon!

 LAMACHUS
 Bring me the case for my triple plume.

 DICAEOPOLIS

 Pass me over that dish of hare.

 LAMACHUS
 OH! the moths have eaten the hair of my crest.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 I shall always eat hare before dinner.

 LAMACHUS
 Hi! friend! try not to scoff at my armor?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Hi! friend! will you kindly not stare at my thrushes.

 LAMACHUS
 Hi! friend! will you kindly not address me.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 I do not address you; I am scolding my slave.  Shall we wager and submit
 the matter to Lamachus, which of the two is the best to eat, a locust or
 a thrush?

 LAMACHUS
 Insolent hound!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 He much prefers the locusts.

 LAMACHUS
 Slave, unhook my spear and bring it to me.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Slave, slave, take the sausage from the fire and bring it to me.

 LAMACHUS
 Come, let me draw my spear from its sheath.  Hold it, slave, hold it tight.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And you, slave, grip, grip well hold of the skewer.

 LAMACHUS
 Slave, the bracings for my shield.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Pull the loaves out of the oven and bring me these bracings of my stomach.

 LAMACHUS
 My round buckler with the Gorgon's head.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 My round cheese-cake.

 LAMACHUS
 What clumsy wit!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 What delicious cheese-cake!

 LAMACHUS
 Pour oil on the buckler.  Hah! hah! I can see reflected there an old
 man who will be accused of cowardice.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Pour honey on the cake.  Hah! hah! I can see an old man who makes
 Lamachus of the Gorgon's head weep with rage.

 LAMACHUS
 Slave, full war armour.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Slave, my beaker; that is MY armour.

 LAMACHUS
 With this I hold my ground with any foe.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And I with this with any tosspot.

 LAMACHUS
 Fasten the strappings to the buckler; personally I shall carry the knapsack

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Pack the dinner well into the basket; personally I shall carry the cloak.

 LAMACHUS
 Slave, take up the buckler and let's be off.  It is snowing!  Ah!
 'tis a question of facing the winter.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Take up the basket, 'tis a question of getting to the feast.

 CHORUS
 We wish you both joy on your journeys, which differ so much.  One goes
 to mount guard and freeze, while the other will drink, crowned
 with flowers, and then sleep with a young beauty, who will excite
 him readily.

 I say it freely; may Zeus confound Antimachus, the poet-historian,
 the son of Psacas!  When Choregus at the Lenaea, alas! alas! he
 dismissed me dinnerless.  May I see him devouring with his eyes a
 cuttle-fish, just served, well cooked, hot and properly salted; and
 the moment that he stretches his hand to help himself, may a dog seize
 it and run off with it.  Such is my first wish.  I also hope for him a
 misfortune at night.  That returning all-fevered from horse practice,
 he may meet an Orestes,(1) mad with drink, who breaks open his head;
 that wishing to seize a stone, he, in the dark, may pick up a fresh stool,
 hurl his missile, miss aim and hit Cratinus.(2)

 f(1) An allusion to the paroxysms of rage, as represented in many tragedies
 familiar to an Athenian audience, of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon,
 after he had killed his mother.

 f(2) No doubt the comic poet, rival of Aristophanes.

 SLAVE OF LAMACHUS
 Slaves of Lamachus!  Water, water in a little pot!  Make it warm, get ready
 cloths, cerate greasy wool and bandages for his ankle.  In leaping a ditch,
 the master has hurt himself against a stake; he has dislocated and twisted
 his ankle, broken his head by falling on a stone, while his Gorgon shot far
 away from his buckler.  His mighty braggadocio plume rolled on the
 ground; at this sight he uttered these doleful words, "Radiant star, I gaze
 on thee for the last time; my eyes close to all light, I die." Having
 said this,
 he falls into the water, gets out again, meets some runaways and pursues
 the robbers with his spear at their backsides.(1) But here he comes,
 himself. Get the door open.

 f(1) Unexpected wind-up of the story.  Aristophanes intends to deride
 the boasting of Lamachus, who was always ascribing to himself most
 unlikely exploits.

 LAMACHUS
 Oh! heavens! oh! heavens! What cruel pain!  I faint, I tremble!  Alas!
 I die!  the foe's lance has struck me!  But what would hurt me most
 would be for Dicaeopolis to see me wounded thus and laugh
 at my ill-fortune.

 DICAEOPOLIS (ENTERS WITH TWO COURTESANS)
 Oh!  my gods!  what bosoms!  Hard as a quince!  Come, my treasures, give
 me voluptuous kisses!  Glue your lips to mine.  Haha! I was the first to
 empty my cup.

 LAMACHUS
 Oh! cruel fate! how I suffer!  accursed wounds!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Hah! hah! hail! Knight Lamachus!  (EMBRACES LAMACHUS.)

 LAMACHUS
 By the hostile gods!  (BITES DICAEOPOLIS.)

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Ah! Great gods!

 LAMACHUS
 Why do you embrace me?

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And why do you bite me?

 LAMACHUS
 'Twas a cruel score I was paying back!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Scores are not evened at the Feast of Cups!

 LAMACHUS
 Oh! Paean, Paean!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 But to-day is not the feast of Paean.

 LAMACHUS
 Oh! support my leg, do; ah! hold it tenderly, my friends!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 And you, my darlings, take hold of this, both of you!

 LAMACHUS
 This blow with the stone makes me dizzy; my sight grows dim.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 For myself, I want to get to bed; I am bursting with lustfulness,
 I want to be bundling in the dark.

 LAMACHUS
 Carry me to the surgeon Pittalus.

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Take me to the judges.  Where is the king of the feast?
 The wine-skin is mine!

 LAMACHUS
 That spear has pierced my bones; what torture I endure!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 You see this empty cup!  I triumph! I triumph!

 CHORUS
 Old man, I come at your bidding!  You triumph! you triumph!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Again I have brimmed my cup with unmixed wine and drained it at
 a draught!

 CHORUS
 You triumph then, brave champion; thine is the wine-skin!

 DICAEOPOLIS
 Follow me, singing "Triumph! Triumph!"

 CHORUS
 Aye!  we will sing of thee, thee and thy sacred wine-skin, and we all,
 as we follow thee, will repeat in thine honour, "Triumph, Triumph!"

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