Frogs

FROGS Brekekekex koax koax, brekekekex koax koax! Children of the marsh and springs, let us raise the tuneful cry of our hymns, my sweet-voiced song, koax koax, which around the Nysaean Dionysus, son of Zeus, in the Marshes we shrieked, when the hung-over revel-crowd of the people streams through my sacred precinct on the holy Feast of Pots. Brekekekex koax koax!

DIONYSUS But I'm beginning to ache in the rump, O koax koax; to you, no doubt, it's no concern.

FROGS Brekekekex koax koax!

DIONYSUS But to ruin with you and your koax! For there's nothing in you but koax.

FROGS Naturally, you busy-meddler! For the lyre-loving Muses have loved me, and horn-footed Pan who plays his piping reed; and the harper Apollo takes delight in me too, for the sake of the reed that I nourish underwater in the marshes as a bridge for the lyre. Brekekekex koax koax!

DIONYSUS But I've got blisters, and my arse has been sweating this long while, and any moment now it'll peep out and say—

FROGS Brekekekex koax koax!

DIONYSUS But O song-loving tribe, stop.

FROGS No — rather we'll cry the louder, if ever on sunny days we leapt through the galingale and the rushes, delighting in song with our many-diving strains, or, fleeing the rain of Zeus, in the depths underwater we sang our dappled dancing-tune with bubble-bursting plashings.

DIONYSUS Brekekekex koax koax! That I take from you.

FROGS Then we'll suffer something dreadful.

DIONYSUS And I something more dreadful, rowing, if I'm to burst.

FROGS Brekekekex koax koax!

DIONYSUS Go howl — it's no concern of mine.

FROGS But indeed we'll keep on croaking, as loud as our throat can gape, all day long.

DIONYSUS Brekekekex koax koax! With this you'll never beat me.

FROGS Nor will you us, in any way.

DIONYSUS Nor will you me, ever — for I'll keep on croaking, even if I must all day, brekekekex koax koax, until I master you with my koax. Brekekekex koax koax!

DIONYSUS I was bound to put a stop to your koax at last!

CHARON Whoa, stop, stop! Pull her in with the oars. Step out; pay the fare.

DIONYSUS Here, then — the two obols. Xanthias! Where's Xanthias? Hey, Xanthias!

XANTHIAS Halloo!

DIONYSUS Come here.

XANTHIAS Greetings, master.

DIONYSUS What's it like over there?

XANTHIAS Darkness and mud.

DIONYSUS Did you see anywhere over there the father-beaters and perjurers that he told us about?

XANTHIAS Didn't you?

DIONYSUS By Poseidon, I did — and I see them now. Come, what shall we do?

XANTHIAS Best for us to go forward, since this is the place where the dreadful beasts are, he said.

DIONYSUS He'll be sorry. He was bragging to make me afraid, knowing I'm a fighting-man, out of jealousy. For nothing's so swaggering as Heracles. But I'd pray to meet some creature and win a contest worthy of the journey.

XANTHIAS By Zeus, and in fact I hear some noise.

DIONYSUS Where, where is it?

XANTHIAS Behind.

DIONYSUS Get behind, then.

XANTHIAS No, it's in front.

DIONYSUS Then get in front.

XANTHIAS And now I see, by Zeus, a great beast.

DIONYSUS What sort?

XANTHIAS A dreadful one. At any rate it keeps changing into all shapes: now an ox, now a mule, now again a woman, a most lovely one.

DIONYSUS Where is she? Let me go at her.

XANTHIAS But she's no longer a woman — now she's a dog.

DIONYSUS Then it's Empusa.

XANTHIAS At any rate her whole face is ablaze with fire.

DIONYSUS And has she a leg of bronze?

XANTHIAS By Poseidon, yes — and the other of cow-dung, be sure of it.

DIONYSUS Where, then, can I turn?

XANTHIAS Where can I?

DIONYSUS Priest, protect me, so I may be your drinking-companion!

XANTHIAS We're done for, lord Heracles!

DIONYSUS Don't call me that, man, I beg you — don't pronounce that name.

XANTHIAS Dionysus, then.

DIONYSUS That's even worse than the other.

XANTHIAS Go on, the way you're going.

DIONYSUS Here, here, master!

XANTHIAS What is it?

DIONYSUS Take heart — all's gone well with us, and we can say, as Hegelochus did, "For out of the storm I see again a fine-weather — weasel." Empusa's gone.

DIONYSUS Swear it.

XANTHIAS By Zeus.

DIONYSUS Swear it again.

XANTHIAS By Zeus.

DIONYSUS Swear.

XANTHIAS By Zeus.

DIONYSUS Oh dear, how I went pale at the sight of her.

XANTHIAS And he here, in his fright, went red on your behalf.

DIONYSUS Oh, where did these evils fall on me from? What god shall I blame for destroying me? "The aether, abode of Zeus," or "the foot of time"?

XANTHIAS Hey, you!

DIONYSUS What is it?

XANTHIAS Didn't you hear?

DIONYSUS What?

XANTHIAS The breath of flutes.

DIONYSUS I did — and a breath of torches wafted over me, most mystic.

XANTHIAS Then let's crouch quietly and listen.

CHORUS Iacchus, O Iacchus! Iacchus, O Iacchus!

XANTHIAS That's it, master — the initiates are sporting somewhere here, the ones he told us of. At any rate they're singing the Iacchus of Diagoras.

DIONYSUS I think so too. Best, then, to keep quiet, until we know for sure.

CHORUS Iacchus, O greatly-honoured, dwelling here in your seats, Iacchus, O Iacchus, come dance across this meadow to your holy worshippers, shaking about your head the fruit-laden, blossoming wreath of myrtle, and with bold foot beating out the unbridled, frolic-loving rite, that holds the greatest share of grace, the pure and sacred dance for the holy initiates.

XANTHIAS O honoured lady, daughter of Demeter, how sweetly there breathed over me a smell of roast pork!

DIONYSUS Won't you keep quiet, then, in case you get a bit of sausage too?

CHORUS Wake the blazing torches, for in your hands he comes brandishing, Iacchus, O Iacchus, the light-bringing star of the nocturnal rite. The meadow shines with flame; the old men's knees leap up; they shake off their griefs and the long years of ancient time, beneath the sacred worship. And you, blazing with your torch, lead forth, stepping on, to the flowery marshy floor, the dance-rousing, blessed throng of youth.

CHORUS There must be holy silence, and let him stand aside from our dances, whoever is unversed in such words, or unclean in mind, or has neither seen nor danced the rites of the noble Muses, nor was initiated in the Bacchic mysteries of the bull-eating Cratinus's tongue, or delights in clownish verses made at the wrong moment, or does not put an end to hateful faction nor is gracious to his fellow-citizens, but stirs it up and fans it, lusting after his own private gains, or, when the city is storm-tossed, takes bribes as a magistrate, or betrays a fort or ships, or sends out forbidden goods from Aegina, being a wretched two-percent-collector like Thorycion, shipping packing-stuffs and linen and pitch across to Epidaurus, or persuades someone to provide money for the enemy's ships, or befouls the shrines of Hecate while singing in the circular choruses, or, being a politician, nibbles away the poets' pay, having been lampooned in the ancestral rites of Dionysus — to these I proclaim, and again proclaim against, and a third time again proclaim, to stand aside from the initiates' choruses; but you, rouse up the song and our all-night festivals, which befit this feast.

CHORUS Go now, every man, boldly into the flowery folds of the meadows, stamping and joking and playing and mocking; and a sufficient breakfast has been eaten.

CHORUS But come on, and see that you nobly extol the Saviour-goddess with your voice in song, who declares she'll keep the land safe through the seasons, even if Thorycion doesn't want it.

CHORUS Come now, raise another kind of hymn, the fruit-bearing queen, the goddess Demeter, adorning her, and sing in sacred strains.

CHORUS Demeter, mistress of the pure rites, queen, stand by us, and keep your own chorus safe, and let me safely all day long play and dance;

CHORUS and let me, having said many funny things and many serious, and having played and mocked worthily of your feast, win and be crowned with the ribbon.

CHORUS Come, on now, call hither too the comely god with songs, the fellow-traveller of this dancing.

CHORUS Iacchus, greatly honoured, who found the sweetest song of the feast, come along with us to the goddess, and show how without toil you make your way over the long road. Iacchus, lover of the dance, escort me.

CHORUS For you it was who tore, for laughter and for cheapness' sake, this little sandal and this rag, and found a way for us to play and dance unpunished. Iacchus, lover of the dance, escort me.

CHORUS For just now I caught sight, with a sidelong glance, of the lovely-faced face of a young girl, a playmate of mine, with her little tunic torn, and a little breast peeping out. Iacchus, lover of the dance, escort me.

DIONYSUS And I'm always somehow fond of following, and I want to play and dance along with her.

XANTHIAS And so do I.

CHORUS Do you want us, then, together to mock Archedemus, who at seven years old hadn't yet grown his clansmen-teeth?

CHORUS But now he's a demagogue among the corpses up above, and is the chief of the rascality there.

CHORUS And Cleisthenes' son I hear in the graveyard plucking his backside and tearing his cheeks;

CHORUS and he beat himself, bent over, and wept and screamed for Sebinus, whoever he is, of Anaphlystus.

CHORUS And they say Callias too, that son of Hippobinus, fights at sea wearing a lion-skin of pussy.

DIONYSUS Could you tell us, then, where Pluto lives hereabouts? For we're strangers just arrived.

CHORUS Don't go far off, and don't ask me again, but know you've come right to his door.

DIONYSUS Pick up the bags again, boy.

XANTHIAS What was all this business? It's nothing but "Zeus's Corinth" over and over with the bedding.

CHORUS Go now round the sacred circle of the goddess, through the flowery grove, sporting, you who share in the god-loved feast; and I'll go with the girls and women, to where they keep the all-night vigil for the goddess, to bear the holy light.

CHORUS Let us go to the rosy meadows, full of flowers, in our own manner, the loveliest in the dance, sporting — the manner the blessed Fates bring together.

CHORUS For on us alone the sun and the cheerful light shine, all of us who've been initiated and led a pious life toward strangers and ordinary folk.

CHORUS That's the part of a man with sense and wits about him, and much travelled, to keep rolling himself always toward the side that's doing well, rather than to stand like a painted figure, fixed in one posture; and to shift round toward the softer course is the part of a clever man and of a natural Theramenes.

DIONYSUS For wouldn't it be funny if Xanthias, a slave, on Milesian blankets sprawled, were kissing a dancing-girl and then asked for a chamber-pot, while I, looking on at him, were fingering my own privates, and he, being himself a rascal, saw it, and then from my jaw with his fist gave me a blow and knocked out my front teeth — my chorus-row?

INNKEEPER Plathane, Plathane, come here! Here's the rascal, the one who once came into our inn and ate up sixteen loaves of ours.

PLATHANE By Zeus, that's the very man.

XANTHIAS Trouble's coming to somebody.

INNKEEPER And besides these, twenty pieces of boiled meat too, at a half-obol apiece.

XANTHIAS Someone's going to pay for it.

INNKEEPER And the garlic, lots of it.

DIONYSUS You're raving, woman, and don't know what you're saying.

INNKEEPER Didn't you expect me, because you've got those high boots on, to recognize you still? What now? I haven't even mentioned the heaps of salt-fish.

PLATHANE By Zeus, no — nor the fresh green cheese, poor me, which this fellow ate up, baskets and all.

INNKEEPER And then, when I tried to collect the money, he looked fiercely at me and bellowed too.

XANTHIAS That's just his work — that's his way everywhere.

INNKEEPER And he drew his sword, pretending to be mad.

PLATHANE By Zeus, poor wretch.

INNKEEPER And the two of us, in our fright, jumped up at once onto the loft; and he made off, snatching up the rush-mats.

XANTHIAS That's his work too.

PLATHANE But we ought to do something.

INNKEEPER Go and call my champion Cleon for me.

PLATHANE And you call me Hyperbolus, if you happen to meet him, so we can grind this fellow down.

INNKEEPER O you filthy gullet, how gladly I'd smash your grinders with a stone, the ones you devoured my wares with!

PLATHANE And I'd toss you into the pit.

INNKEEPER And I'd cut out your gullet with a sickle, the one you gulped down my tripe with.

PLATHANE But I'll go for Cleon, who today will summons this fellow and reel these charges out of him.

DIONYSUS May I perish most wretchedly if I don't love Xanthias.

XANTHIAS I know, I know your meaning. Stop, stop your talk. I will not become Heracles.

DIONYSUS Don't say so, dear little Xanthias.

XANTHIAS And how could I, being a slave and a mortal too, become the son of Alcmene?

DIONYSUS I know, I know you're angry, and you do it justly; and even if you struck me, I wouldn't answer back. But if ever in time to come I take it from you, may I be uprooted, myself, my wife, my children, and perish most wretchedly — and Archedemus the blear-eyed too.

XANTHIAS I accept the oath and take it on these terms.

CHORUS Now it's your task, since you've taken back the costume you had at first, to grow young again . . . and look the dreadful look once more, remembering the god whom you make yourself resemble. But if you're caught babbling and let fall anything soft, you'll have to take up the bedding again, and that's that.

XANTHIAS You don't advise badly, men, but I happen to be working that out myself just now. That if there's anything good in it, he'll try to take this away again, I know well. But all the same I'll show myself manly in spirit and looking sharp as marjoram. And it seems I must, for I already hear a noise at the door.

AEACUS Tie up this dog-thief, quick, so he can pay the penalty. Get on with it.

DIONYSUS Trouble's come to someone.

XANTHIAS Go to the ravens! Keep off!

AEACUS Aha, will you fight too? Ditylas and Sceblyas and Pardocas, come here and fight this fellow.

DIONYSUS Isn't it dreadful, that this man should hit you when he's the thief, and stealing others' goods besides?

AEACUS No — it's monstrous.

DIONYSUS Outrageous and dreadful, in fact.

XANTHIAS And indeed, by Zeus, if I ever came here before, may I be dead, or if I stole anything of yours worth even a hair. And I'll do you a very noble thing: take this slave of mine here and torture him, and if you ever catch me doing wrong, lead me off and kill me.

AEACUS And how shall I torture him?

XANTHIAS Every way: tying him on a ladder, hanging him up, flogging him with a bristle-whip, flaying him, racking him, and pouring vinegar up his nose besides, piling bricks on him, everything else — only don't beat this man with a leek or a fresh green onion.

AEACUS A fair offer. And if I cripple your slave by beating him, the money's to be set aside for you.

XANTHIAS Not for me, indeed. Just take him off and torture him.

AEACUS Right here, rather, so he may speak before your eyes. Put down your baggage quickly, and mind you tell no lie here.

DIONYSUS I forbid anyone to torture me, since I'm immortal; or if you do, blame yourself.

AEACUS What do you say?

DIONYSUS I say I'm immortal, Dionysus son of Zeus, and this one's the slave.

AEACUS Do you hear that?

XANTHIAS I do. And so much the more is he to be whipped; for if he's a god, he won't feel it.

DIONYSUS Then, since you too claim to be a god, why don't you take the same blows as I?

XANTHIAS A fair offer. And whichever of us two you see crying first, or minding at all when he's beaten, reckon him to be no god.

AEACUS There's no way you're not a gentlemanly fellow; for you proceed to what's just. Strip, then.

XANTHIAS How will you torture us fairly?

AEACUS Easily — blow for blow, each of you.

XANTHIAS Well said.

AEACUS There.

XANTHIAS Watch now, in case you see me flinch.

AEACUS I've already hit you.

XANTHIAS By Zeus, you haven't.

AEACUS I don't think I have either. But I'll go to this one and hit him.

DIONYSUS When?

AEACUS There, I've hit you.

DIONYSUS Then how come I didn't even sneeze?

AEACUS I don't know. I'll have another go at this one.

XANTHIAS Won't you get on with it, then? Attataî!

AEACUS Why the "attataî"? You weren't hurt, were you?

XANTHIAS By Zeus, no — but I was thinking when the Festival of Heracles at Diomeia comes round.

AEACUS A holy man. I must go back to this one.

DIONYSUS Ow, ow!

AEACUS What is it?

DIONYSUS I see horsemen.

AEACUS Then why are you crying?

DIONYSUS I smell onions.

AEACUS Since you mind not at all.

DIONYSUS It's nothing to me.

AEACUS Then I must go to this one again.

XANTHIAS Oh no.

AEACUS What is it?

XANTHIAS Take out the thorn.

AEACUS What's this business? Back to this one again.

DIONYSUS "Apollo — who hold Delos or Pytho somewhere—"

XANTHIAS He was hurt — didn't you hear?

DIONYSUS Not I — for I was calling to mind an iambic line of Hipponax.

XANTHIAS You're getting nowhere. Pound his flanks.

AEACUS By Zeus, no — come, hold out your belly.

DIONYSUS "Poseidon—"

XANTHIAS Someone was hurt.

DIONYSUS "—who rule the Aegean headlands or the depths of the grey sea."

AEACUS By Demeter, I can't make out at all which of you is the god. But go inside; for the master himself will recognize you, and Persephone too, since they're gods as well.

DIONYSUS You're right. But I could have wished you'd thought of that sooner, before I took the blows.

CHORUS Muse of the sacred dances, step here and come for the delight of my song, to see the great crowd of people, where wits beyond number are sitting, greedier for fame than Cleophon, on whose ever-babbling lips there roars terribly a Thracian swallow, perched on a barbarous leaf, and shrills a tearful nightingale-tune, that he'll perish, even if the votes come out equal.

CHORUS It is right for the sacred chorus to share in counselling the city toward good and in teaching it. First, then, it seems good to us to make the citizens equal and to take away their fears, and if anyone tripped, brought down by Phrynichus's wrestling-tricks, I say there should be allowed to those who slipped then the chance, on stating their case, to undo their former faults. Next, I say no one in the city should be without rights; for it's shameful that men who fought a single sea-battle and Plataeans should at once be masters instead of slaves. And this I couldn't say isn't well done — no, I praise it: it's the only sensible thing you've done. And besides this, it's fitting that you, with whom and whose fathers many a time fought at sea and who are kindred by birth, should grant this one favour to those who ask it. But, relaxing your anger, you who are wisest by nature, let us willingly make all men our kinsmen and citizens with full rights, whoever fights at sea with us. But if we puff ourselves up and stand on our dignity over this, with our city in the very arms of the waves, in some later time we'll be thought to have no sense.

CHORUS And if I'm right in judging the life or character of a man who'll yet be sorry, not for long will this ape who now troubles us, little Cleigenes, the most rascally bath-attendant of all who rule over the cinder-mixing adulterated lye-ash and Cimolian earth, linger out his time; and seeing this, he's not peaceful, for fear he might some day be stripped, drunk, walking without a stick.

CHORUS Often it has seemed to us the city has been affected the same way toward the fine, good citizens as toward the old coinage and the new gold. For these, which are not debased, but the finest of all, as it seems, of coins, and the only ones rightly struck and ringing true among Greeks and barbarians everywhere, we make no use of, but use these wretched coppers, struck yesterday and the day before with the basest stamp. And of the citizens, those whom we know to be well-born and prudent men, and just, and fine and good, and bred in wrestling-schools and choruses and music, we abuse; while the coppers and foreigners and red-heads and rascals and sons of rascals, all of them, we employ for everything, the latest comers, whom the city in former times would not readily have used even for scapegoats at random. But even now, you fools, change your ways, use the good men again. For if you succeed, it's reasonable; and if you stumble, at least, if you suffer anything, you'll seem to the wise to suffer from a worthy tree.

AEACUS By Zeus the Saviour, a gentleman is this master of yours.

XANTHIAS Of course he's a gentleman — he who knows only how to drink and screw.

AEACUS But that he didn't hit you, when you were plainly proved wrong, that you, being a slave, claimed to be the master.

XANTHIAS He'd have been sorry if he had.

AEACUS Now that's a proper slave's trick you've done at once, the very thing I delight in doing.

XANTHIAS You delight in it, do you?

AEACUS No — I feel I'm in heaven whenever I curse my master in secret.

XANTHIAS And what about muttering, when, after getting many blows, you go out the door?

AEACUS That pleases me too.

XANTHIAS And what about meddling?

AEACUS By Zeus, I know nothing finer.

XANTHIAS Zeus of kinship! And eavesdropping on the masters whatever they chatter about?

AEACUS No — I'm more than mad about it.

XANTHIAS And blabbing it to those outside?

AEACUS Me? By Zeus, when I do that, I positively come off.

XANTHIAS O Phoebus Apollo, give me your right hand, and let me kiss you, and you kiss me too, and tell me, by Zeus, who is our god of common floggings, what's this uproar inside, and the shouting and the abuse?

AEACUS Aeschylus's and Euripides's.

XANTHIAS Ah.

AEACUS A great, great business has been stirred up among the corpses, and a very great faction.

XANTHIAS From what cause?

AEACUS There's a law established here, that among all the arts that are great and clever, the man who's best of his own craftsmen should get free meals in the Prytaneum and a throne next to Pluto's—

XANTHIAS I understand.

AEACUS —until someone else more skilled in the art than he should arrive; and then he must give way.

XANTHIAS Why, then, has this upset Aeschylus?

AEACUS He held the tragic throne, as being supreme in the art.

XANTHIAS And now who?

AEACUS When Euripides came down, he kept showing off to the cloak-snatchers and the cut-purses and the father-beaters and the burglars, which is the multitude there in Hades; and they, hearing his counter-pleadings and twists and turns, went wild and reckoned him the cleverest; and then, puffed up, he laid claim to the throne where Aeschylus sat.

XANTHIAS And wasn't he pelted?

AEACUS By Zeus, no — but the people cried out to hold a trial of which of the two was the more skilled in the art.

XANTHIAS The people of the rascals?

AEACUS By Zeus, sky-high in number.

XANTHIAS And weren't there others as allies of Aeschylus?

AEACUS The good is scarce — just as it is here.

XANTHIAS What, then, is Pluto preparing to do?

AEACUS To hold a contest at once and a trial and a test of their art.

XANTHIAS And then how is it that Sophocles didn't lay claim to the throne too?

AEACUS By Zeus, not he — but he kissed Aeschylus when he came down, and held out his right hand, and Aeschylus yielded the throne to him; but now he meant, as Cleidemides said, to sit as a reserve. And if Aeschylus wins, he'll stay in his place; but if not, he said he'd contend over the art against Euripides.

XANTHIAS So it's going to happen?

AEACUS By Zeus, a little later. And then the dreadful things will be stirred up. For poetry will be weighed in the balance—

XANTHIAS What? They'll weigh tragedy like sacrificial meat?

AEACUS And they'll bring out rulers and measuring-rods of verses and folding frames—

XANTHIAS Are they going to make bricks?

AEACUS —and diameters and wedges. For Euripides says he'll test the tragedies word by word.

XANTHIAS Aeschylus, I imagine, takes it hard.

AEACUS At any rate he glowered bull-like, ducking his head down.

XANTHIAS And who will judge all this?

AEACUS That was the difficulty; for both of them found a scarcity of clever men. For Aeschylus didn't get on with the Athenians—

XANTHIAS Perhaps he thought the burglars were many.

AEACUS —and he reckoned the rest mere nonsense for judging the natures of poets. So in the end they entrusted it to your master, since he was experienced in the art. But let's go in; for whenever the masters are in earnest, beatings fall to us.

CHORUS Surely the loud-thunderer will feel a dreadful anger within, when he sees his sharp-tongued rival whetting his tooth; then, under a dreadful madness, his eyes will roll.

CHORUS There will be helmet-tossing strife of horse-plumed words, and splinterings of axle-pegs and chisel-work of deeds, as a man wards off the horse-prancing phrases of a mind-building man.

CHORUS Bristling the shaggy-necked mane of his self-grown crest, knitting a dreadful frown, roaring, he'll hurl bolt-fastened phrases, tearing them off plank by plank with earth-born blast;

CHORUS and from there the mouth-working, word-testing, smooth tongue, unrolling itself, moving its envious reins, splitting hairs over the phrases, will whittle down a great labour of the lungs.

CHORUS O nine holy maiden Muses of Zeus, who look upon the subtle, shrewd minds of sentence-coining men, when into strife with sharp-witted twisting wrestling-tricks they come, contending, come and behold the power of two most dreadful mouths to furnish phrases and shavings of words. For now the great contest of wisdom moves to its work at last.

DIONYSUS You two, pray something also, before you speak your lines.

AESCHYLUS Demeter, you who nourished my mind, let me be worthy of your mysteries.

DIONYSUS And you too, take the frankincense and put it on.

EURIPIDES No, thanks; for there are other gods to whom I pray.

DIONYSUS Private ones of your own, a new minting?

EURIPIDES Just so.

DIONYSUS Go on, then, pray to your private gods.

EURIPIDES Aether, my pasture, and you, pivot of the tongue, and wit, and nostrils that scent things out, grant that I rightly refute whatever arguments I touch.

CHORUS And indeed we long to hear from these two clever men what eloquence of words you'll set on its hostile road. For the tongue is wild, and the spirit of both not without daring, nor are their minds unmoved. So it's reasonable to expect the one will say something witty and finely polished, the other, tearing up his arguments roots and all, falling on him, will scatter many tumbling-grounds of words.

DIONYSUS But you must speak as quick as you can; and so see that you both say witty things, and no comparisons, nor such as another might say.

EURIPIDES Well, as for myself and what sort of poet I am, I'll explain at the very end; but him I'll refute first, showing how he was a braggart and a cheat, and with what tricks he deceived the spectators, taking them as fools, bred on Phrynichus. First of all he'd seat some single character, veiled, an Achilles or a Niobe, not showing the face, a mere figurehead of tragedy, not grunting even this much.

DIONYSUS By Zeus, that's true.

EURIPIDES And the chorus would drive home strings of songs, four in a row, right on end; and the characters were silent.

DIONYSUS But I enjoyed the silence, and it pleased me no less than the chatterers do now.

EURIPIDES For you were a simpleton, be sure of it.

DIONYSUS I think so myself. But why did the fellow do this?

EURIPIDES Out of charlatanry, so the spectator would sit expecting when Niobe would say something; and the play would drag on.

DIONYSUS Oh, the utter villain — how I was hoaxed by him! Why do you fidget and fret?

EURIPIDES Because I'm refuting him. And then, when he'd babbled that sort of thing and the play was already halfway through, he'd say a dozen ox-sized words, with eyebrows and crests, dreadful bogey-faced things, unknown to the audience.

AESCHYLUS Poor wretched me!

DIONYSUS Be quiet.

EURIPIDES And he'd say nothing clear, not one thing—

DIONYSUS Don't grind your teeth.

EURIPIDES —but Scamanders, or trenches, or eagle-griffins of beaten bronze on shields, and horse-cliff phrases, which weren't easy to make out.

DIONYSUS By the gods, I at any rate once lay awake a long while in the night trying to figure out what kind of bird his tawny horse-cock is.

AESCHYLUS It was a device painted on the ships, you utter ignoramus.

DIONYSUS And I thought it was Eryxis, Philoxenus's son.

EURIPIDES And then was it right to put a cock into tragedies?

AESCHYLUS And you, god-forsaken man, what sort of things did you write?

EURIPIDES Not horse-cocks, by Zeus, nor goat-stags, like you, the things they paint on the Persian tapestries; but as soon as I first took over the art from you, swollen with bombast and burdensome phrases, I first of all slimmed it down and took off the weight with little verses and walks and white beets, giving it a juice of chatter strained from books; then I nourished it up with solo-songs—

DIONYSUS Mixing in Cephisophon.

EURIPIDES —and then I didn't babble whatever came, nor plunge in and confuse things, but the first character to come on would tell me at once the lineage of the play.

DIONYSUS For that, by Zeus, was better than telling your own.

EURIPIDES Then from the very first lines I'd leave nothing idle, but the woman would speak to me, and the slave no less, and the master, and the maiden, and the old woman.

AESCHYLUS And then, indeed, shouldn't you have died for daring such things?

EURIPIDES By Apollo, no; for I did it for democracy's sake.

DIONYSUS Let that go, my friend; for that's not your finest stroll-and-talk topic.

EURIPIDES Then I taught these people here to chatter—

AESCHYLUS So I say too. And before you taught them, you should have burst in two.

EURIPIDES —and to apply subtle rules and squarings of verses, to think, to see, to understand, to twist, to love, to scheme, to suspect mischief, to consider everything all round—

AESCHYLUS So I say too.

EURIPIDES —bringing in household matters, the ones we deal with, that we live among, which I could be tested on; for these people, being in the know, could examine my art. But I didn't talk big, dragging them away from thinking, nor did I astound them by making Cycnuses and Memnons with bells on their horses' cheek-pieces. And you'll know his pupils and mine, each lot. His are Phormisius and Megaenetus the Mane, trumpet-spear-and-beard men, sneer-and-pine-tree-benders; but mine are Cleitophon and the smart Theramenes.

DIONYSUS Theramenes? A clever man, and shrewd in everything, who, if he falls in with troubles somewhere and stands close beside them, comes out clear of the troubles — no Chian but a Ceian.

EURIPIDES Such things, indeed, I taught these people to consider, putting reasoning into the art and reflection, so that now they conceive everything and discern it, all else, and how to manage their houses better than before, and to look closely — "How does this stand? Where's this of mine? Who took that?"

DIONYSUS By the gods, yes — now at any rate every Athenian, when he comes in, bawls at his servants and asks, "Where's the pot? Who's eaten the head off this sprat? The bowl from last year's dead and gone. Where's yesterday's garlic? Who's nibbled the olive?" Whereas before, the most utterly witless, gaping Mammacythus-dolts, Melitides-simpletons, used to sit there.

CHORUS You see all this, glorious Achilles; but come, what will you say to it? Only see . . . that your spirit doesn't snatch you and carry you outside the olives; for he's accused you dreadfully. But see, noble sir, that you don't answer in anger, but reefing your sails, using only the tips of them, and then gradually bear on and watch, when you find the breeze smooth and steady.

DIONYSUS But O first of the Greeks to tower up stately phrases and adorn tragic balderdash, take heart and let your stream flow.

AESCHYLUS I'm angry at the encounter, and my innards are vexed, that I should have to answer this man; but so he can't say I'm at a loss, answer me — for what reason should one admire a poet?

EURIPIDES For cleverness and good counsel, because we make better the people in the cities.

AESCHYLUS So if you haven't done that, but instead from good and noble men have turned out the basest, what penalty will you say you deserve to suffer?

DIONYSUS Death — don't ask him.

AESCHYLUS Consider, then, what sort of men he received from me at first, whether noble and four cubits tall, and not city-shirkers, nor loungers about the market nor knaves as now, nor villains, but breathing spear and lance and white-crested helmets and casques and greaves and seven-oxhide-thick courage.

DIONYSUS And now this trouble's coming on; he'll wear me out with his helmet-making.

EURIPIDES And what did you do to teach them to be so noble?

DIONYSUS Aeschylus, speak, and don't grow vexed, standing on your dignity so stubbornly.

AESCHYLUS By making a play full of Ares.

DIONYSUS What sort?

AESCHYLUS The Seven Against Thebes; seeing which, every man longed to be warlike.

DIONYSUS That's a bad thing you've done, then; for you've made the Thebans braver for war — and for that, take a beating.

AESCHYLUS But you could have practised it yourselves; you just didn't turn to that. Then, producing the Persians after this, I taught them to long to conquer their enemies always, adorning a most excellent deed.

DIONYSUS I delighted, at any rate, when I heard of the dead Darius, and the chorus at once clapped their hands like this and cried, "Iauoî!"

AESCHYLUS For these are the things poets should practise. Consider, from the start, how useful the noble poets have been. For Orpheus revealed to us the mysteries and abstinence from murder; Musaeus, cures of diseases and oracles; Hesiod, the working of the land, the seasons of crops, ploughings; and the divine Homer — from what did he get honour and glory, except that he taught useful things, formations, virtues, the arming of men?

DIONYSUS And yet he didn't teach Pantacles, clumsiest of men; for the other day, when he was marching in a procession, he'd first tied on his helmet and then was going to tie on the crest.

AESCHYLUS But many other good men, of whom Lamachus the hero was one; from these my mind took the impress and made many men of valour, Patrocluses, lion-hearted Teucers, so I might rouse a citizen to stretch himself to match these men, whenever he hears the trumpet. But, by Zeus, I didn't make Phaedras into whores, nor Stheneboeas, nor does anyone know of any woman in love that I ever put on stage.

EURIPIDES By Zeus, no — for there was nothing of Aphrodite in you.

AESCHYLUS Nor may there be. But on you and yours she sat heavily, in great force, so that she knocked you down yourself.

DIONYSUS By Zeus, yes, that's true. For the things you did to other men's wives, you yourself were struck with.

EURIPIDES And what harm, you wretch, do my Stheneboeas do the city?

AESCHYLUS Because you persuaded noble wives of noble men to drink hemlock, in shame over your Bellerophons.

EURIPIDES But did I make up a tale that wasn't true about Phaedra?

AESCHYLUS By Zeus, no, it was true; but the poet should hide what's base, and not bring it forward nor teach it. For little children have a teacher who instructs them, but grown men have poets. So we must say good things, surely.

EURIPIDES So if you speak of Lycabettuses and the bulk of Parnassuses to us, is that teaching good things, when you ought to speak in human terms?

AESCHYLUS But, you wretch, of necessity great thoughts and ideas must give birth to phrases their equal. And besides, it's fitting that demigods should use grander phrases; for they wear far statelier garments than ours, too. Where I set a good example, you spoiled it.

EURIPIDES By doing what?

AESCHYLUS First, by dressing kings in rags, so they'd seem pitiable to men.

EURIPIDES And what harm did I do by that?

AESCHYLUS Because of it no rich man is willing to serve as trierarch, but he wraps himself in rags and weeps and says he's poor.

DIONYSUS By Demeter, yes — with a tunic of soft wool underneath. And if he deceives them by saying this, he bobs up among the fishmongers.

AESCHYLUS Then again you taught the practice of chatter and prating, which emptied the wrestling-schools and wore down the backsides of the prating young men, and persuaded the Paralus crew to talk back to their officers. And yet in those days, when I was alive, they knew nothing but to call for barley-cake and to cry "yo-heave-ho."

DIONYSUS By Apollo, yes — and to fart into the mouth of the man at the lower oar, and to befoul his messmate, and going ashore to mug somebody. But now he argues back and rows no more, and sails this way and that.

AESCHYLUS Of what evils is he not the cause? Didn't he show procuresses, and women giving birth in the temples, and mingling with their brothers, and saying that living is not living? And then, from these, our city was filled to the brim with under-clerks and clownish demagogue-apes forever deceiving the people, and no one can carry the torch any more through lack of training, even now.

DIONYSUS By Zeus, no indeed — so that I shrivelled up laughing at the Panathenaea, when some slow fellow ran along bent over, pale and fat, falling behind and in a dreadful state; and then the Potters at the gates beat his belly, ribs, flanks, rump, and he, struck with the flats of their hands, farting a little, blew on his torch and fled.

CHORUS Great is the matter, much the strife, mighty the war that comes. A hard task, then, to decide, when one strains violently, and the other can turn round and bear down keenly. But don't stay sitting in the same spot; for there are many openings, and other clever tricks besides. Whatever, then, you have to wrangle over, speak, go at it, lay bare the old and the new, and risk saying something subtle and clever.

CHORUS And if you're afraid of this, that some ignorance may attend the spectators, so they won't grasp the subtleties as you speak, have no dread of that; for it's no longer so. For they're veterans of campaigns, and each one has a book and learns the clever points; their natures are excellent anyway, and now they're whetted besides. So fear nothing, but go through everything — for the spectators' sakes, since they're wise.

CHORUS Whatever will come of it? For I, for one, am full of worry, what fault he'll find with the man who has made by far the most and finest songs of all up to now. For I wonder how he'll ever find fault with this one, the Bacchic lord, and I fear for him.

EURIPIDES Marvellous songs indeed — it'll soon be shown. For I'll cut down all his songs into one.

DIONYSUS And I'll keep count, taking these pebbles. (Someone plays a little flute-interlude.)

EURIPIDES "Phthian Achilles, why, hearing the man-slaying — alas, the blow! — do you not draw near to the rescue? Hermes our ancestor we honour, we of the lake. Alas, the blow! Do you not draw near to the rescue?"

DIONYSUS That's two blows for you, Aeschylus.

EURIPIDES "Most glorious of the Achaeans, far-ruling son of Atreus, learn from me. Alas, the blow! Do you not draw near to the rescue?"

DIONYSUS That's a third blow for you, Aeschylus.

EURIPIDES "Keep holy silence; the bee-keepers are near to open the house of Artemis. Alas, the blow! Do you not draw near to the rescue? I have authority to proclaim the auspicious power of men on the road. Alas, the blow! Do you not draw near to the rescue?"

DIONYSUS O King Zeus, what a quantity of blows! For my part, then, I want to go to the bath-house; for from the blows my kidneys are swollen.

EURIPIDES Not before you hear another batch of songs worked up from the lyre-singing modes.

DIONYSUS Get on, then, finish; and don't add any more blows.

EURIPIDES "How the twin-throned power of the Achaeans, of the youth of Hellas, tophlattothrat, tophlattothrat, sends the Sphinx, presiding bitch of evil days, tophlattothrat, tophlattothrat, with spear and avenging hand, a rushing bird, tophlattothrat, tophlattothrat, granting it to meet the bold air-roving hounds, tophlattothrat, tophlattothrat, and the host that leans against Ajax, tophlattothrat, tophlattothrat."

DIONYSUS What's this "phlattothrat"? From Marathon, or where did you collect these well-rope-twister's songs?

AESCHYLUS But at least I brought them from a fair source to a fair end, so I shouldn't be seen plucking the same sacred meadow of the Muses as Phrynichus; but he brings his from everywhere — whores' tunes, Meletus's drinking-songs, Carian flute-pieces, dirges, dance-songs. It'll soon be shown. Someone bring me the little lyre. And yet what need of a lyre for these? Where's the girl who beats time with the castanets? Come here, Muse of Euripides, the one fit to sing such songs to.

DIONYSUS This Muse, I'm sure, never went whoring on Lesbos, no.

AESCHYLUS "Halcyons, who beside the ever-flowing waves of the sea babble on, wetting the skin of your wings with watery drops, dewed with spray; and you spiders under the roof, along the corners, twirl-i-i-irl with your fingers the loom-wrought weavings, the labours of the singing shuttle, where the flute-loving dolphin leaped about the dark-prowed beaks, oracles and race-courses, the gladness of the vine-blossom, the pain-stilling tendril of the grape. Throw your arms about me, child." You see this foot?

DIONYSUS I see it.

AESCHYLUS What about this one? Do you see it?

DIONYSUS I see it.

AESCHYLUS And you, doing such stuff, dare to find fault with my songs, you who make your songs in the twelve-postured manner of Cyrene? Those are your lyric songs. But I still want to go through the manner of your solo-songs. "O dark-gleaming gloom of the night, what ill-starred dream do you send me from the unseen, a servant of Hades, having a lifeless life, child of black Night, a shuddering, dreadful sight, clad in black corpse-shrouds, glaring murder, murder, with great talons. But, handmaids, light me a lamp, and in pitchers draw dew from the rivers, and heat water, that I may wash away the god-sent dream. Ho, sea-spirit! There it is! Ho, housemates, behold these portents! Glyce has snatched my cock and is gone. O mountain-born Nymphs! O Mania, seize her! And I, poor wretch, happened to be busy at my own work, twirl-i-i-irling in my hands a spindle full of flax, making a thread, so that in the dim dawn to the market I might carry it and sell it; but he flew up, flew up to the aether on the lightest tips of his wings, and to me left woes, woes, and tears, tears from my eyes I shed, I shed, the wretched one. But O Cretans, children of Ida, take up your bows and come to my aid, and ply your limbs, circling the house. And together let Dictynna, the fair child Artemis, come with her hound-bitches all through the house, everywhere; and you, daughter of Zeus, holding aloft the double-fired torches, sharpest in your hands, Hecate, light my way to Glyce's, so that going in I may search out the theft."

DIONYSUS Stop now, the two of you, with the songs.

AESCHYLUS I've had enough too. For I want to bring him to the scales themselves, which alone will test our poetry. For the weight of the phrases will put us to the test.

DIONYSUS Come here, then, if I really must also peddle the art of poets like cheese.

CHORUS Toilsome, these clever men! For here's yet another marvel, a new one, full of strangeness; who else would have thought of it? . . . By heaven, if anyone of the men I chanced to meet had told me of it, I'd not have believed him, but would have thought he was talking nonsense.

DIONYSUS Come now, stand beside the pans of the scales,

AESCHYLUS and EURIPIDES There.

DIONYSUS And each of you, taking hold, speak your line, and don't let go before I cuckoo at you.

AESCHYLUS and EURIPIDES We're holding on.

DIONYSUS Now each speak your line into the scale.

EURIPIDES "Would that the Argo's hull had not winged its way across—"

AESCHYLUS "River Spercheius, and you cattle-grazing haunts—"

DIONYSUS Cuckoo — let go. And this one's pan goes far the lower.

EURIPIDES And what's the reason for it?

DIONYSUS Because he put in a river, dampening his line wool-merchant-style, like the wool, while you put in a winged line.

EURIPIDES But let him speak another and set it against mine.

DIONYSUS Take hold again, then.

AESCHYLUS and EURIPIDES There.

DIONYSUS Speak.

EURIPIDES "There is no other shrine of Persuasion but Speech."

AESCHYLUS "For Death alone of the gods loves not gifts."

DIONYSUS Let go, let go. And this one's again sinks down; for he put in Death, the heaviest of evils.

EURIPIDES And I put in Persuasion, a line most finely said.

DIONYSUS But Persuasion is light and has no sense. Look for something else, then, of the heavy-weighted kind, something that'll drag the scale down for you, strong and great.

EURIPIDES Come, where have I anything like that? Where?

DIONYSUS I'll tell you: "Achilles has thrown two dice and a four." Speak, then, since this is your last bout.

EURIPIDES "And in his right hand he took the iron-laden club."

AESCHYLUS "For chariot upon chariot, and corpse on corpse."

DIONYSUS He's tricked you again, even now.

EURIPIDES How?

DIONYSUS He put in two chariots and two corpses, which not even a hundred Egyptians could lift.

AESCHYLUS And let him no longer match me line by line, but let him himself, his children, his wife, Cephisophon, get into the scale, taking up his books; while I'll say just two lines of mine.

DIONYSUS The men are my friends, and I won't judge them. For I won't make myself an enemy to either. For one I think clever, and in the other I delight.

PLUTO Then you'll accomplish nothing of what you came for?

DIONYSUS And if I do judge?

PLUTO Take whichever you judge and go off, so you won't have come in vain.

DIONYSUS Bless you. Come, hear this from me. I came down for a poet. To what end? So the city, saved, might keep up its choruses. So whichever of you gives the city more useful counsel — that one, I think, I'll bring back. First, then, what opinion does each of you hold about Alcibiades? For the city is in hard labour over him.

EURIPIDES And what opinion does it hold about him?

DIONYSUS What? It longs for him, and hates him, and wants to have him. But say what you both think about this.

EURIPIDES I hate a citizen who is by nature slow to help his country and swift to harm it greatly, resourceful for himself but helpless for the city.

DIONYSUS Well said, by Poseidon. And you, what opinion do you hold?

AESCHYLUS One should not rear a lion's cub in a city, but if someone does rear one, he must serve its ways.

DIONYSUS By Zeus the Saviour, I'm hard put to decide; for the one spoke cleverly, the other clearly. But let each of you speak one more opinion about the city — what salvation you each have for it.

EURIPIDES If someone gave Cleocritus wings of Cinesias, and the breezes lifted them over the level of the sea—

DIONYSUS It would look funny; but what sense is in it?

EURIPIDES If, in a sea-battle, they then held vinegar-cruets and sprinkled it into the enemy's eyes. I know, and I'm willing to tell.

DIONYSUS Speak.

EURIPIDES When we consider trustworthy what is now untrusted, and what's trusted, untrustworthy—

DIONYSUS How? I don't understand. Speak somewhat less learnedly and more clearly.

EURIPIDES If, in the citizens we now trust, we put no trust, and those we don't use, those we used, perhaps we'd be saved. If now we fare ill with these men, how could we, doing the opposite, not be saved?

DIONYSUS Well said, Palamedes, O cleverest of natures. Did you find this out yourself, or Cephisophon?

EURIPIDES I alone; the vinegar-cruets were Cephisophon.

DIONYSUS What about you? What do you say?

AESCHYLUS Tell me first whom the city employs: is it the good men?

DIONYSUS How could it? It hates them most.

AESCHYLUS And delights in the bad?

DIONYSUS Not it, indeed, but it uses them under compulsion.

AESCHYLUS How then could anyone save such a city, which neither a fine cloak nor a coarse one suits?

DIONYSUS Find a way, by Zeus, if you're to come up again.

AESCHYLUS I'd say it there; here I don't want to.

DIONYSUS Don't, then; but send up your good things from here.

AESCHYLUS When they reckon the enemy's land to be their own, and their own the enemy's, and the ships their resource, and their resource a want of resource.

DIONYSUS Good — except that the juror swallows it all alone.

PLUTO Make your judgment, then.

DIONYSUS This shall be my judgment of you two: I'll choose the one my soul desires.

EURIPIDES Then, remembering the gods by whom you swore you'd take me home, choose your friends.

DIONYSUS "My tongue has sworn" — but I'll choose Aeschylus.

EURIPIDES What have you done, you filthiest of men?

DIONYSUS Me? I've judged Aeschylus the winner. Why not?

EURIPIDES You look me in the face after the foulest deed?

DIONYSUS What's foul, if it doesn't seem so to the spectators?

EURIPIDES You wretch, will you really leave me dead?

DIONYSUS Who knows if living is dying, and breathing is dining, and sleeping a coverlet?

PLUTO Come inside, then, Dionysus.

DIONYSUS What for?

PLUTO So I may entertain you both before you sail off.

DIONYSUS Well said, by Zeus; for I've no quarrel with the business.

CHORUS Blessed is the man who has keen understanding perfected. There's much to learn from many cases. For this man, thought to have good sense, goes back home again, for the good of his fellow-citizens, and for the good of his own kinsmen and friends, through his being shrewd.

CHORUS So it's a fine thing not to sit beside Socrates and chatter, casting off music and neglecting the greatest things of the tragic art. And to idle away one's time on solemn-seeming words and the scratchings of trifles, is the part of a man out of his wits.

PLUTO Go now with joy, Aeschylus, on your way, and save our city with good counsels, and educate the senseless — there are many of them. And take this and carry it to Cleophon, and this to the revenue-collectors, Myrmex and Nicomachus together, and this to Archenomus; and tell them to come quickly to me here and not to delay; and if they don't come quickly, I, by Apollo, will brand them and tie them up together with Adeimantus, son of Leucolophus, and send them quickly underground.

AESCHYLUS I'll do this; and you hand over my seat to Sophocles to keep and preserve, in case I should ever come here again. For I judge him to be second in wisdom. And remember that the rascal, the false-speaker and the buffoon, never sits on my seat, not even against his will.

PLUTO Light him on his way, then, with the sacred torches, and escort him with his own songs and chants, singing aloud.

CHORUS First, good speed on the road give to the poet departing, rising into the light, you gods beneath the earth, and to the city good thoughts of great blessings. For so we'd be wholly freed from great griefs and from grievous armed encounters. And let Cleophon do the fighting, and any other of these who wishes, in his ancestral fields.