Thesmophoriazusae

SERVANT OF AGATHON Let all the people keep holy silence, shutting their mouths; for the sacred band of the Muses is sojourning within the halls of my master, the maker of songs. Let the windless air hold its breath, and let the grey wave of the sea make no roar —

MNESILOCHUS Buzz-buzz!

EURIPIDES Hush!

MNESILOCHUS What is he saying?

SERVANT Let the tribes of winged things lie asleep, and let the feet of forest-roaming wild beasts not be loosed —

MNESILOCHUS Buzzle-buzz-buzz!

SERVANT For Agathon, our captain, the lord of lovely words, is about —

MNESILOCHUS To be buggered, you mean?

SERVANT Who is it that spoke?

MNESILOCHUS The windless air.

SERVANT — about to lay down the keel-blocks, the foundations of a drama. He bends the new curves of his verses, turns some on the lathe, glues the lines together, coins his maxims, makes his metaphors, melts down his wax, rounds it off, and casts it in the mould —

MNESILOCHUS And plays the catamite.

SERVANT What rustic is approaching the precinct?

MNESILOCHUS One ready, against you and your lord of lovely words, to take this prick of mine — bunch it up, twist it about, and cast it into the mould against the precinct wall.

SERVANT Surely you were an insolent fellow when you were young, old man.

EURIPIDES My good man, let this one be; only call out Agathon to me here by every means.

SERVANT No need to beg; for he will come out himself in a moment. For he is beginning to compose his songs; and it being winter, it is no easy thing to bend the strophes round unless he comes out of doors into the sun.

EURIPIDES What, then, am I to do?

SERVANT Wait, since he is coming out.

EURIPIDES O Zeus, what do you intend to do with me today?

MNESILOCHUS By the gods, I want to learn what this business is. Why do you groan? Why are you distressed? You ought not to hide it from me, being my kinsman by marriage.

EURIPIDES There is some great evil kneaded up for me.

MNESILOCHUS What sort of thing?

EURIPIDES This very day it will be decided whether Euripides is still living or is undone.

MNESILOCHUS And how? Since neither are the law-courts about to give judgment now, nor is there a sitting of the Council, since it is the third day of the Thesmophoria, the middle one.

EURIPIDES That is the very thing I expect will destroy me. For the women have plotted against me, and today at the Thesmophorium they mean to hold an assembly about me, to my ruin.

MNESILOCHUS Why, what for?

EURIPIDES Because I make tragedies about them and speak ill of them.

MNESILOCHUS By Poseidon, then you would suffer justly. But what scheme have you to deal with it?

EURIPIDES To persuade Agathon the tragic poet to go to the Thesmophorium.

MNESILOCHUS To do what? Tell me.

EURIPIDES To sit in the assembly among the women and, if need be, to speak on my behalf.

MNESILOCHUS Openly or in disguise?

EURIPIDES In disguise, clothed in a woman's dress.

MNESILOCHUS The thing is neat, and very much in your style; for in the trade of trickery we take the cake.

EURIPIDES Hush!

MNESILOCHUS What is it?

EURIPIDES Agathon is coming out.

MNESILOCHUS And which one is he?

EURIPIDES The one being wheeled out there.

MNESILOCHUS But I must be blind, then; for I see no man here at all — I see Cyrene.

EURIPIDES Hush; for he is making ready to sing.

MNESILOCHUS Ant-tracks, or what is he warbling?

AGATHON (singing as both leader and chorus) "Take up, girls, the sacred torch in honor of the goddesses below, and with free fatherland raise the festal cry of the dance."

"To which of the divinities is the revel? Tell me now. My spirit is ready to reverence the gods."

"Come now, glorify, O Muse, Phoebus, drawer of the golden bow, who founded the hollows of the land in the Simoïs country."

"Hail, Phoebus, in the fair contests of the Muses bearing the sacred prize of fairest song!"

"And sing too the maiden in the oak-bearing mountains, Artemis of the wilds."

"I follow, hymning and glorifying the holy child of Leto, Artemis who knows no bed."

"And Leto, and the strains of the Asian lyre that move the foot to the dance, beat out of measure yet in measure to the Phrygian sway of the Graces."

"I revere queen Leto, and the cithara, mother of hymns, famed for its manly cry, by which the light flashed forth in the god's divine eyes, and through our sudden song. Wherefore glorify lord Phoebus with honor. Hail, blessed child of Leto!"

MNESILOCHUS How sweet the song, O lady Genetyllides — how womanish and tongue-thrust and deep-kissing, that as I listened to it a tickle crept up under my very seat! And you, young man, whoever you are, I want to question you in the manner of Aeschylus, out of the Lycurgus play. Where is this woman-man from? What is his country? What is his dress? What is this confusion of his way of life? What does the lute say to the saffron gown? What the lyre to the snood? What the oil-flask and the breast-band? How ill they go together! And what fellowship is there between a mirror and a sword? And you yourself, child — are you brought up as a man? Then where is your prick? Where is your cloak? Where are your Laconian shoes? But as a woman, then? In that case, where are your breasts? What do you say? Why are you silent? Then must I guess you from your song, since you yourself will not tell?

AGATHON Old man, old man, I heard the rebuke of envy, but I felt no pain from it. I wear my dress in keeping with my mind. A poet must, for the dramas he has to compose, have his ways in keeping with them. For instance, if one composes women's dramas, his body must share in their ways.

MNESILOCHUS So you ride astride, then, when you compose a Phaedra?

AGATHON But if one composes manly dramas, that quality is present already in the body. What we do not possess, imitation hunts down for us.

MNESILOCHUS Whenever you compose a satyr-play, then, call me, so that I may help you make it, standing erect behind you.

AGATHON Besides, it is unmusical to see a poet who is boorish and shaggy. Consider that the famous Ibycus and Anacreon of Teos and Alcaeus, who seasoned harmony, wore headbands and minced in the Ionian fashion; and Phrynichus — him at least you have heard of — was himself handsome and handsomely dressed; and that is why his dramas too were beautiful. For one must necessarily compose in accordance with one's nature.

MNESILOCHUS So that is why Philocles, being ugly, composes uglily; and Xenocles, being bad, composes badly; and Theognis again, being frigid, composes frigidly.

AGATHON It is wholly necessary. And it was knowing this that I attended to myself.

MNESILOCHUS How, in the gods' name?

EURIPIDES Stop your yapping; for I too was such a one, of that age, when I began to compose.

MNESILOCHUS By Zeus, I do not envy you your education.

EURIPIDES But let me say what I came for.

AGATHON Speak.

EURIPIDES Agathon, it is the part of a wise man to be able to cut many words short within a brief compass. I, struck by a strange misfortune, have come to you as a suppliant.

AGATHON What is your need?

EURIPIDES The women mean to destroy me today at the Thesmophoria, because I speak ill of them.

AGATHON What help, then, can there be for you from us?

EURIPIDES All help. For if you, sitting secretly among the women, taken for a woman yourself, will answer for me, you will plainly save me. For you alone could speak worthily of me.

AGATHON Then why do you not defend yourself, being present in person?

EURIPIDES I will tell you. First, I am known; and then I am grey and have a beard, whereas you are fair-faced, white-skinned, smooth-shaven, woman-voiced, soft, and comely to look on.

AGATHON Euripides —

EURIPIDES What is it?

AGATHON You once wrote, "You rejoice to see the light; do you think your father does not rejoice?"

EURIPIDES I did.

AGATHON Do not hope, then, that we will bear your evil for you. For we should be mad. No, bear what is your own yourself, as is fitting. For it is just to bear misfortunes not by craft but by suffering.

MNESILOCHUS And indeed you, you wide-arsed bugger, were made wide not by words but by sufferings.

EURIPIDES But what is it that makes you afraid to go there?

AGATHON I should perish worse than you.

EURIPIDES How?

AGATHON How? By seeming to filch the women's nightly works and to snatch away their female Cyprian rite.

MNESILOCHUS Listen to that — "filch"! By Zeus, to be buggered, rather. And yet the excuse, by Zeus, is plausible enough.

EURIPIDES Well then, will you do this?

AGATHON Do not count on it.

EURIPIDES O thrice ill-starred, how Euripides is undone!

MNESILOCHUS My dearest, my kinsman, do not betray yourself.

EURIPIDES How then am I to act?

MNESILOCHUS Bid this fellow go and howl, and as for me, take me and use me however you wish.

EURIPIDES Come then, since you give yourself over to me, take off this cloak.

MNESILOCHUS There, it is on the ground. But what do you mean to do to me?

EURIPIDES To shave this off, and to singe off the lower parts.

MNESILOCHUS Well, do it, if you think best. Would that I had never given myself over.

EURIPIDES Agathon, you always carry a razor; lend us a razor now.

AGATHON Take one yourself from there, out of the razor-case.

EURIPIDES You are a noble fellow. Sit down; puff out your right cheek.

MNESILOCHUS Ouch!

EURIPIDES Why do you cry out? I will stick a peg in you, if you do not keep quiet.

MNESILOCHUS Attatai! Iattatai!

EURIPIDES You there, where are you running?

MNESILOCHUS To the shrine of the august goddesses; for by Demeter I will not stay here being carved up.

EURIPIDES Then will you not be a laughing-stock, with one half of your head bare?

MNESILOCHUS I care little.

EURIPIDES By the gods, do not betray me. Come here.

MNESILOCHUS Ill-starred me!

EURIPIDES Keep still, and hold up your head. Where do you twist away to?

MNESILOCHUS Mmm-mmm!

EURIPIDES Why do you mumble? It is all done finely.

MNESILOCHUS Alas, ill-starred me, I shall serve as a light-armed soldier now.

EURIPIDES Do not worry; you will look quite handsome. Do you want to look at yourself?

MNESILOCHUS If you think so, bring it.

EURIPIDES Do you see yourself?

MNESILOCHUS No, by Zeus — I see Cleisthenes!

EURIPIDES Stand up, that I may singe you, and bend over.

MNESILOCHUS Alas, ill-starred me, I shall become a piglet.

EURIPIDES Let someone bring out a torch or a lamp. Bend over; mind the tip of your tail now.

MNESILOCHUS I will see to it, by Zeus — except that I am being burned. Alas, wretched me! Water, water, neighbors, before the flame catches my backside!

EURIPIDES Take heart.

MNESILOCHUS Take heart, when I am being scorched to ashes?

EURIPIDES But you will have no more trouble now; for you have got through the worst of it.

MNESILOCHUS Phew, ugh, the soot! I have become charred all about the crotch.

EURIPIDES Do not worry; another will sponge it for you.

MNESILOCHUS He will howl, whoever washes my backside.

EURIPIDES Agathon, since you grudge to give yourself, at any rate lend us a gown for this fellow and a breast-band; for you cannot say you have not these.

AGATHON Take them and use them; I do not grudge.

MNESILOCHUS What, then, shall I take?

AGATHON What? Take the saffron gown first and put it on.

MNESILOCHUS By Aphrodite, it smells sweetly of prick. Gird me up, quickly. Hand me the breast-band now.

EURIPIDES There.

MNESILOCHUS Come now, arrange the parts about my legs.

EURIPIDES We need a snood and a headband.

AGATHON Here is a wig I wear at night.

EURIPIDES By Zeus, very suitable too.

MNESILOCHUS Will it fit me?

EURIPIDES By Zeus, it is excellent. Bring a wrap.

AGATHON Take this from the couch.

EURIPIDES We need shoes.

AGATHON Take these of mine.

MNESILOCHUS Will they fit me?

EURIPIDES You like wearing them loose, at any rate.

AGATHON You attend to that. But since you have what you need, let someone wheel me inside as quickly as possible.

EURIPIDES This man of ours is now a woman, in appearance at least. But if you talk, see that you play the woman well and convincingly with your voice.

MNESILOCHUS I will try.

EURIPIDES Off with you, then.

MNESILOCHUS By Apollo, no — not unless you swear to me —

EURIPIDES What thing?

MNESILOCHUS — to help save me by every device, if any mischief befalls me.

EURIPIDES I swear, then, by the air, the dwelling of Zeus.

MNESILOCHUS Why that rather than by the tenement-house of Hippocrates?

EURIPIDES I swear, then, by all the gods together.

MNESILOCHUS Remember this, then — that the mind swore, but the tongue swore not; nor did I make him take the oath.

EURIPIDES Make haste, quickly; for the signal of the assembly appears at the Thesmophorium. And I am off.

MNESILOCHUS This way now, Thratta, follow. Thratta, behold, as the torches burn, how great a cloud goes up from the smoke. But O most fair Thesmophoroi, receive me with good fortune both here and on my way home again. Thratta, set down the box, and then take out the cake, so that I may take it and sacrifice to the two goddesses. Lady most honored, dear Demeter, and Pherrephatta, grant that I may sacrifice often and much to you — or, if not, at least that I may now escape notice. And that my little daughter may get a husband who is rich, and otherwise a fool and a simpleton; and that my little son may have sense and wit. Where, where might I sit in a good place to hear the speakers? But you, Thratta, go off out of the way; for slaves are not allowed to hear this.

CRIER-WOMAN Keep holy silence, keep holy silence! Pray to the two Thesmophoroi, to Demeter and the Maiden, and to Plutus, and to Calligeneia, and to Earth the nurse of youth, and to Hermes, and to the Graces, that this assembly and present gathering may be conducted most fairly and best, with much profit to the city of the Athenians and good fortune for us ourselves. And may she who acts and speaks the best for the people of the Athenians and the people of the women — may she carry the day. Pray for these things, and for good things for yourselves. Hail Paean, hail Paean! Let us rejoice!

CHORUS We accept it, and we entreat the race of the gods to appear, rejoicing in these prayers. O Zeus of mighty name, and you of the golden lyre who hold holy Delos, and you, all-conquering grey-eyed Maiden of the golden spear who dwell in our embattled city — come hither. And you of many names, slayer of beasts, child of golden-faced Leto, scion of her; and you, holy Poseidon of the sea, ruler of the deep, leaving the fish-haunted depths stirred by the gadfly; and you daughters of Nereus of the sea, and you Nymphs that wander on the hills. And may the golden lyre ring out upon our prayers; and may we, the noble women of the Athenians, hold our assembly to good effect.

CRIER-WOMAN Pray to the Olympian gods and goddesses, and to the Pythian gods and goddesses, and to the Delian gods and goddesses, and to the other gods: if anyone plots any evil against the people of the women, or sends heralds to treat with Euripides and the Medes for any harm to the women; or aims at tyranny, or at bringing back the tyrant; or denounces a woman for substituting a baby; or if any slave-woman, acting as a procuress, whispers tales to her master; or if anyone sent on an errand carries false messages; or if any adulterer deceives with false words and does not give what he once promised; or if any old woman gives gifts to an adulterer; or if any courtesan receives them, betraying her lover; or if any tavern-keeper, man or woman, cheats on the measure of the pitcher or the cup — pray that he and his house may perish miserably; but for all you others, pray that the gods grant many good things.

CHORUS We join in praying that these prayers may be fulfilled, fulfilled for the city and for the people; and that the best things may go to those whose part it is to win by speaking well. But all those who deceive and transgress the established oaths, for gain, to do harm; or seek to overturn decrees and the law; or tell our secrets to our enemies; or bring the Medes against the land for gain, to do harm — these are impious and wrong the city. But, O all-powerful Zeus, ratify these things, so that the gods may stand by us, women though we are.

FIRST SEMICHORUS I have never yet heard a more cunning woman than this, nor one speaking more cleverly. For she says all things justly, and she examined every aspect, and weighed everything closely and shrewdly in her mind, and found out subtle arguments well thought out; so that if Xenocles the son of Carcinus were to speak beside her, he would seem, I think, to all of you, plainly to be saying nothing at all.

SECOND WOMAN For a few words I too have come forward. For the rest she has accused him well; but what I myself have suffered, this I wish to tell. For my husband died in Cyprus, leaving me five little children, whom I barely fed by weaving garlands in the myrtle-market. So for a time I made a living, half-badly; but now this man, by composing in his tragedies, has persuaded men that there are no gods; so that we no longer sell even to half our former trade. So now I exhort and tell you all to punish this man, for many reasons; for he does us savage evils, O women, having himself been brought up among the wild greens. But I am off to the market; for I have to plait twenty garlands for men on order.

SECOND SEMICHORUS Here is yet another spirit, even cleverer than the former, that has shown itself. What things she chattered out, not unseasonable, having wits and a subtle thought — not senseless, but all persuasive. We must, for this insolence, make the man plainly pay the penalty.

MNESILOCHUS That you should be very angry with Euripides, O women, hearing such evil things, is no wonder, nor that your gall should seethe. For I myself — so may I have joy of my children — hate that man, unless I am mad. Still, we ought to give one another an account among ourselves; for we are alone, and not one word will be carried out. Why, holding these grievances, do we accuse him and bear it ill, if, knowing two or three evils of us, he has told them, when we do ten thousand? For I myself, first of all — to speak of no other — am conscious of many dreadful things in myself; and the most dreadful of all was when I had been a bride three days, and my husband was sleeping beside me. Now I had a lover, who had deflowered me when I was seven years old. He, out of longing for me, came and scratched at the door; and at once I knew it; then I go down secretly. And my husband asks, "Where are you going down?" "Where? A cramp and a pain has hold of my belly, husband; so I am going to the privy." "Go, then." And he set to grinding juniper-berries, anise, and sage; while I poured water on the door-hinge and went out to my lover; then I was had, leaning against the Aguieus-pillar, bent over, holding the bay-tree. This, you see, Euripides never told; nor that we are mounted by the slaves and the muleteers, when we have no one else — that he does not say; nor that when we have been thoroughly banged all night, in the morning we chew garlic, so that the husband, smelling it as he comes in from the wall, may not suspect us of doing any wrong. This, you see, he never told. And if he abuses Phaedra, what is that to us? Nor has he yet told that, while the woman was showing her husband her wrap, holding it up to the light to see what it was like, she sent off the adulterer wrapped up inside it — that he has not yet told. And I know another woman who said she was in labor for ten days, until she bought a baby; and the husband ran round buying drugs to hasten the birth; and meanwhile an old woman brought the baby in a pot, its mouth stopped with a honeycomb so that it should not cry. Then, when the carrier nodded, the woman cries out at once, "Go away, go away, husband; I think I am now about to give birth." For the baby kicked against the belly of the pot; and he ran off rejoicing, while she drew out the wax from the child's mouth, and it cried out. Then the filthy old woman who brought the baby runs smiling to the husband and says, "A lion, a lion is born to you, your very image, like you in all other things, every one, and his little prick is like yours, curved like a pine-cone." Do we not do these evil things? Yes, by Artemis, we do. Then are we angry at Euripides, having suffered nothing greater than we have done?

FIRST SEMICHORUS This indeed is marvelous, from where the creature was found, and what land reared up so bold a woman as this. For that the villainess should say these things openly, so shamelessly, I would never have thought that any one of us would dare. But anything may happen now; and I commend the old proverb: under every stone we must look, lest an orator bite us.

CHORUS But there is nothing worse in all respects than shameless women by nature — except, of course, women.

FIRST WOMAN You are not in your right minds, by Aglaurus, O women; rather you are bewitched, or have suffered some other great evil, in letting this pest insult us all so outrageously. If, then, anyone will help — well; but if not, we ourselves and the slave-girls will get ashes from somewhere and depilate her bush, that she may learn, being a woman, not to speak ill of women for the future.

MNESILOCHUS Not my bush, at any rate, O women! For if, when there is freedom of speech and it is permitted to all of us citizen-women who are present to speak, I then said what I knew to be just on Euripides' behalf — for that must I be plucked and pay the penalty at your hands?

FIRST WOMAN Why, must you not pay the penalty? You who alone have dared to speak up for the man who has done us many evils, deliberately finding plots wherever some wicked woman occurred — composing his Melanippes and Phaedras — but Penelope he never composed, because she was reputed to be a chaste woman.

MNESILOCHUS I know the reason. For you could not name one Penelope among the women of today, but Phaedras every one.

FIRST WOMAN Do you hear, O women, what the villainess has said of us all again?

MNESILOCHUS And by Zeus I have not yet told all I know; for do you wish me to say more?

FIRST WOMAN But you could have no more; for all you knew you have poured out.

MNESILOCHUS By Zeus, not yet the ten-thousandth part of what we do. For this, you see, I have not told: how, taking flesh-scrapers, we then siphon out the wine.

FIRST WOMAN May you be crushed!

MNESILOCHUS And how, giving the meats from the Apaturia to our procuresses, we then say the weasel did it —

FIRST WOMAN Wretched me! You talk nonsense.

MNESILOCHUS Nor have I told how one woman struck down her husband with an axe; nor how another drove her husband mad with drugs; nor how the Acharnian woman once buried her father under the bathtub —

FIRST WOMAN May you perish!

MNESILOCHUS — her father.

FIRST WOMAN Are these things to be endured?

MNESILOCHUS Nor how you, when your slave-girl bore a male child, then substituted it for your own, and palmed off your own little daughter on her.

FIRST WOMAN By the two goddesses, you shall not get off scot-free for saying this; but I will pluck out your bristles!

MNESILOCHUS By Zeus, you shall not lay a hand on me.

FIRST WOMAN There, look! (striking)

MNESILOCHUS There, look! (striking back)

FIRST WOMAN Take my cloak, Philiste.

MNESILOCHUS Just lay a finger on me, and I, by Artemis —

FIRST WOMAN What will you do?

MNESILOCHUS — the sesame-cake you ate, I will make you shit it out.

CHORUS Stop your railing; for some woman comes running to us in haste. So before she joins us, be silent, that we may learn in good order what she is going to say.

CLEISTHENES Dear women, kindred to me in my ways: that I am your friend is plain from my cheeks; for I am woman-mad and am always your patron. And now, having heard a great matter concerning you, talked of a little while ago in the market-place, I have come to tell it and report it to you, so that you may watch and be on your guard, lest some terrible and great matter fall upon you unawares.

CHORUS What is it, my boy? For it is fitting to call you "boy," so long as you have your cheeks so smooth.

CLEISTHENES They say that Euripides sent up here today a man, a certain kinsman of his, an old man.

CHORUS For what work, or with what design?

CLEISTHENES So that, whatever you might be planning and about to do, he should be a spy on your discussions.

CHORUS And how has a man escaped notice, being among women?

CLEISTHENES Euripides singed and plucked him and got him up in all respects like a woman.

MNESILOCHUS Do you believe him in this? What man is so foolish as to endure being plucked? I do not think it, by the two honored goddesses.

CLEISTHENES You talk nonsense; for I would not have come to report it, had I not learned it from those who know for certain.

CHORUS This matter is reported as terrible. But, O women, we must not idle, but look for the man and seek out where he sits hidden, escaping our notice. And you, help us find him, so that you may have this favor and that one too, our patron.

CLEISTHENES Come, let me see; who are you, the first one?

MNESILOCHUS Where can one turn?

CLEISTHENES For you must be searched.

MNESILOCHUS Ill-starred me!

FIRST WOMAN You ask who I am? The wife of Cleonymus.

CLEISTHENES Do you know who this woman is?

CHORUS We know her, indeed. But examine the others.

CLEISTHENES And who is this one here, holding the baby?

FIRST WOMAN My nurse, by Zeus.

MNESILOCHUS I am undone.

CLEISTHENES You there, where do you turn? Stay there. What is the matter?

MNESILOCHUS Let me relieve myself.

CLEISTHENES You are a shameless creature. Well, do it then; for I will wait here.

CHORUS Wait, indeed, and watch her closely; for she is the only one, sir, we do not know.

CLEISTHENES You take a long time relieving yourself.

MNESILOCHUS By Zeus, friend; for I have a stoppage; yesterday I ate cress.

CLEISTHENES What, cress-talk? Will you not come over here to me?

MNESILOCHUS Why do you drag me when I am unwell?

CLEISTHENES Tell me, who is your husband?

MNESILOCHUS You ask about my husband? You know So-and-so, the one from Cothocidae?

CLEISTHENES So-and-so? Which one?

MNESILOCHUS There is a So-and-so, who once, the son of So-and-so —

CLEISTHENES You seem to me to be talking nonsense. Have you come up here before?

MNESILOCHUS Yes, by Zeus, every year.

CLEISTHENES And who is your tent-mate?

MNESILOCHUS So-and-so is mine.

CLEISTHENES Alas, you say nothing.

FIRST WOMAN Get away; for I will examine her well, from last year's rites. And you, stand off from me, so that you may not overhear, being a man. And you tell me: what was the first of the holy things shown to us?

MNESILOCHUS Come, let me see — what indeed was first? We drank.

FIRST WOMAN And what was second after this?

MNESILOCHUS We toasted one another.

FIRST WOMAN This you heard from someone. And what was third?

MNESILOCHUS Xenylla asked for a basin; for there was no chamber-pot.

FIRST WOMAN You say nothing. Come here, come here, Cleisthenes; this is the man you speak of.

CLEISTHENES What, then, am I to do?

FIRST WOMAN Strip him; for he says nothing sound.

MNESILOCHUS And then will you strip the mother of nine children?

CLEISTHENES Loosen the breast-band quickly, you shameless creature.

FIRST WOMAN How sturdy and tough she looks! And by Zeus she has no breasts as we have.

MNESILOCHUS For I am barren and never conceived.

FIRST WOMAN Now; but a while ago you were the mother of nine children.

CLEISTHENES Stand up straight. Where are you pushing your prick down to?

FIRST WOMAN It poked through here, and a fine ruddy color too, you wretch.

CLEISTHENES And where is it now?

FIRST WOMAN Off again to the front it has gone.

CLEISTHENES It is not there either.

FIRST WOMAN No, here it has come back again.

CLEISTHENES You have a kind of isthmus, fellow; up and down you draw your prick more often than the Corinthians.

FIRST WOMAN Oh, the foul creature! So that is why he abused us on Euripides' behalf.

MNESILOCHUS Ill-starred me, into what troubles have I rolled myself!

FIRST WOMAN Come now, what shall we do?

CLEISTHENES Guard this fellow well, so that he may not slip away and be gone; and I will report this to the presiding officers.

CHORUS Now, after this, we must light our torches and gird ourselves up well and manfully, and stripping off our cloaks, search whether some other man has come up; and run round the whole Pnyx, and scan the tents and the passages closely.

CHORUS Come now, first we must set forth on light foot and look all about in silence; only we must not be slow, for it is the moment to delay no longer, but to run round the first circuit as quickly as possible now.

CHORUS Come now, track and search out everything quickly, in case some other man too sits hidden in the places. Cast your eye everywhere; scan well both here and there, all of it. For if he escapes my notice in his unholy deeds, he shall pay the penalty, and besides that he shall be to all other men an example of insolence and unjust deeds and godless ways; and he shall declare plainly that there are gods, and shall show forthwith to all mankind that they must revere the divinities, justly attending upon holy and lawful things, and devise to do whatever is good. And if they do not do this, it shall be thus: when one of them is caught doing some unholy thing, blazing with madness, beside himself with frenzy, in whatever he does, he shall be a manifest sight for all women and mortals to see, that the god, being present, punishes lawless and unholy deeds. But it seems we have searched everything well; we see, at any rate, no other man sitting here.

FIRST WOMAN Ah, where are you fleeing? You there, you there, will you not stay? Wretched, wretched me! He has snatched my baby and is off with it from the breast!

MNESILOCHUS Scream away; but this you shall never feed again, unless you let me go. No — here, struck by this knife upon the thighs, it shall stain the altar with bloody veins.

FIRST WOMAN Wretched me! Women, will you not help? Will you not raise a great shout and a trophy, but look on while I am robbed of my only child?

CHORUS Aha, aha! O lady Fates, what new portent is this I behold? How everything is full of daring and shamelessness! What a deed again he has done, what a thing, dear friends!

MNESILOCHUS A deed that will knock your excessive insolence out of you.

CHORUS Are these not terrible matters, and worse than terrible?

FIRST WOMAN Terrible indeed, since he has snatched and holds my baby.

FIRST SEMICHORUS What, then, could one say to these things, when this man so shamelessly does such deeds?

MNESILOCHUS And yet I have not stopped even now.

CHORUS Well, at any rate you have come to a place from which you will not lightly run off and tell what a deed you did and got away with; rather you will get your deserts.

MNESILOCHUS May that, indeed, by no means come to pass — I pray it away.

CHORUS What ally, then, what ally from the immortal gods would come to you with your unjust deeds?

MNESILOCHUS You talk in vain; I will not let her go.

CHORUS But, by the two goddesses, you shall soon, to your sorrow perhaps, insult us and speak unholy words over godless deeds; for we will pay you back, as is fitting, in return for these. And soon, changing about, fortune lays hold on you to bring some evil of another sort. But you women ought to take these things and carry out wood, and burn the villain and set him ablaze as fast as possible.

MNESILOCHUS O my hands, I must set to a useful work. Come now, tablets of polished boards, receive the strokes of my knife, heralds of my labors. Alas, this "rho" is troublesome. On, on! What furrow is this? Go, hasten along all the roads, this way, that way; we must be quick. (He flings out wooden tablets, parodying the rescue of Palamedes.)

CHORUS (the parabasis) Now then, let us speak well of ourselves, coming forward; and yet every man speaks much evil of the female sex, that we are altogether an evil to mankind, and from us come all things — strifes, quarrels, grievous faction, grief, war. Come now, if we are an evil, why do you marry us, if indeed we are truly an evil — and forbid us either to go out or to be caught peeping out, but with such great zeal you wish to guard the evil? And if the little woman goes out somewhere, and then you find her out of doors, you rage with madness — you who ought to pour libations and rejoice, if indeed you truly found the evil gone from indoors and did not catch it within. And if we fall asleep in others' houses, playing and tired out, every man goes round searching for this evil about the couches. And if we peep out of a window, you all seek to gaze at the evil; and if in shame she withdraws, every man longs all the more to see the evil peep out again. So plainly are we much better than you, and the proof is there to be seen. Let us put the proof to the test, which of us is the worse. For we say it is you, and you say it is us. Let us consider, then, and set against each one, comparing the name of the woman and the man in each case. Charminus is inferior to Nausimache — the facts are clear. And surely, too, Cleophon is in every way worse than Salabaccho. Against Aristomache — her of long ago — and Stratonice of Marathon, none of you so much as attempts to make war. But is some councillor of last year better than Eubule, who handed over the office to another? Not even you yourself will say so. So we boast that we are much better than the men. Nor would a woman, having stolen fifty talents of the public funds, drive to the city with a team; but if she filches the greatest amount, stealing a basket of wheat from her husband, she gives it back the same day.

CHORUS But we could point out many of these men doing the very same things, and besides being greater gluttons than we, and cloak-stealers, and buffoons, and kidnappers. And surely too they are worse than we at keeping their patrimony safe; for with us the warp-beam, the wool-baskets, and the parasol are even now still safe; whereas with these husbands of ours the warp-beam in many cases has gone from the house, spear and all, and from many others the parasol has been flung from their shoulders on campaign.

CHORUS Many a thing might we women justly reproach the men with — and one most monstrous of all. For it would be right, if one of us bore a man useful to the city, a taxiarch or a general, that she should receive some honor, and that the front seat be given her at the Stenia and the Scira and in the other festivals which we keep; but if a woman bore a cowardly and worthless man, a bad trierarch or a bad helmsman, she ought to sit behind, her hair cropped close like a basin, behind the woman who bore the brave man. For with what justice, O city, should the mother of Hyperbolus sit clothed in white and with hair flowing loose near the mother of Lamachus, and lend out money — she who, if she lent money to anyone and charged interest, ought to get no interest from any man, but to have her money taken from her by force, with these words: "You deserve interest indeed, having borne such interest as that!"

MNESILOCHUS I have grown cross-eyed with watching; but he does not come yet. What, then, can be the hindrance? It cannot be that he is not ashamed of his Palamedes, frigid as it is. With what drama, then, might I draw him to me? I know — I will imitate his new Helen. At all events I have a woman's dress.

THIRD WOMAN What are you stirring up now? What are you gaping about for? You will soon have a bitter Helen, unless you keep yourself orderly, until one of the presiding officers appears.

MNESILOCHUS "These are the fair-virgin streams of the Nile, which, in place of heaven's rain, waters the plain of white Egypt and the black-purging folk."

THIRD WOMAN You are a rogue, by Hecate the light-bearer.

MNESILOCHUS "For me, my fatherland is not nameless — Sparta; and my father is Tyndareus."

THIRD WOMAN He your father, you pest? Phrynondas, rather.

MNESILOCHUS "And I was called Helen."

THIRD WOMAN Are you becoming a woman again, before you have paid the penalty for your former female impersonation?

MNESILOCHUS "And many souls on my account died at the streams of Scamander."

THIRD WOMAN Would that you had too.

MNESILOCHUS "And I am here; but my wretched husband Menelaus does not yet come. Why then do I still live?"

THIRD WOMAN Through the crows' negligence.

MNESILOCHUS "But somehow something soothes my heart. Do not, O Zeus, belie the hope that is coming."

EURIPIDES (entering as Menelaus) "Who holds power over these strong halls, who might receive strangers worn out in the storm and shipwrecks of the briny surge?"

MNESILOCHUS "These are the halls of Proteus."

EURIPIDES "What Proteus?"

THIRD WOMAN O thrice ill-starred, he lies, by the two goddesses, since Proteas has been dead these ten years.

EURIPIDES "To what land have we put in with our vessel?"

MNESILOCHUS "Egypt."

EURIPIDES "O wretched me, to where have I sailed!"

THIRD WOMAN Do you believe anything this fellow says, doomed to a vile end, babbling his nonsense? This is the Thesmophorium.

EURIPIDES "And is Proteus himself within, or out of doors?"

THIRD WOMAN You surely must still be seasick, stranger, who, having heard that Proteas is dead, then ask whether he is within or out of doors.

EURIPIDES "Alas! He is dead. And where was he buried in his tomb?"

MNESILOCHUS "This is his monument, on which we sit."

THIRD WOMAN Then may you perish miserably — and you shall, indeed — you who dare to call the altar a monument.

EURIPIDES "And why do you sit on these tomb-seats, veiled in a robe, O stranger lady?"

MNESILOCHUS "They are forcing me to join in marriage-bed with the son of Proteus."

THIRD WOMAN Why, you wretch, do you deceive the stranger again? This man came up here as a rogue, stranger, to the women, with intent to steal the gold.

MNESILOCHUS "Yap away, casting reproach at my body."

EURIPIDES "Stranger, who is the old woman that reviles you?"

MNESILOCHUS "This is Theonoe, daughter of Proteus."

THIRD WOMAN No, by the two goddesses, but Critylla, daughter of Antitheus, of Gargettus; and you are a rogue.

MNESILOCHUS "Say what you like. For I will never wed your brother, betraying Menelaus, my husband in Troy."

EURIPIDES "Woman, what have you said? Turn your shining eyes upon me."

MNESILOCHUS "I am ashamed before you, having been outraged about my cheeks."

EURIPIDES "What is this? Some speechlessness holds me. O gods, what sight do I behold? Who are you, woman?"

MNESILOCHUS "And who are you? For the same words hold both you and me."

EURIPIDES "Are you some Greek woman or a native of this land?"

MNESILOCHUS "A Greek. But I want to learn your kind too."

EURIPIDES "I see you most like to Helen, woman."

MNESILOCHUS "And I see you like Menelaus, so far as the pot-herbs let me judge."

EURIPIDES "Then you have rightly recognized a most ill-fated man."

MNESILOCHUS "O you who have come at last to your wife's hearth, take me, take me, husband, and throw your arms about me. Come, let me kiss you. Take me away, away, away with you, very quickly!"

THIRD WOMAN He shall weep for it, by the two goddesses, whoever takes you away, beaten with the torch.

EURIPIDES "Do you forbid me to lead away my own wife, the daughter of Tyndareus, to Sparta?"

THIRD WOMAN Alas, how you too seem to me to be a rogue, and in league with this fellow. No wonder you two were playing the Egyptian all this while. But this one shall pay the penalty; for here come the magistrate and the archer.

EURIPIDES This is bad; but I had better slip off.

MNESILOCHUS And I, ill-starred, what am I to do?

EURIPIDES Stay quiet. For I will never betray you, so long as I breathe, unless my ten thousand devices fail me.

MNESILOCHUS (aside) This line of bait has drawn up nothing.

MAGISTRATE Is this the rogue that Cleisthenes told us of? You there, why do you stoop? Take him inside, archer, and bind him in the stocks; and then stand him here and keep guard, and let no one come near him, but with your whip in hand strike anyone who approaches.

THIRD WOMAN Yes, by Zeus, since just now a sail-stitcher nearly took him from me.

MNESILOCHUS O magistrate, by your right hand — which you love to hold out hollowed if anyone offers silver — do me a small favor, even though I am to die.

MAGISTRATE What favor shall I do you?

MNESILOCHUS Bid the archer strip me naked and bind me to the plank, so that an old man in saffron gown and snood may not give the crows a laughing-stock to feast on.

MAGISTRATE The Council has decreed that you be bound with these things on, so that to the passers-by you may be manifest as a rogue.

MNESILOCHUS Iappapaiax! O saffron gown, what things you have wrought! And there is no longer any hope of safety.

CHORUS Come now, let us sport in the ways that are the custom here for women, whenever we hold up the holy mysteries of the two goddesses at the sacred seasons — those which Pauson too reveres and fasts at, often praying to them, from season to season, that such things may often be his care. On, advance; lead off lightly with your feet into the ring; join hand to hand; take up, every one, the rhythm of the dance; step with nimble feet. And one must watch on every side, wheeling the eye round to keep the chorus in order. And at the same time hymn and honor the race of the Olympian gods, every one, with voice, in dance-maddened style. And if anyone expects me, being a woman, to speak ill of men in the holy place, he is not right-minded. But we ought, as if at some new work, first to set the well-formed footing of the fair-ringed dance.

CHORUS Step forward with your feet, hymning the lyre-player and Artemis the archer-queen, the chaste. Hail, far-darter, and grant victory. And let us hymn Hera the goddess of fulfillment, as is fitting, who joins in all the dances and keeps the keys of marriage. And I entreat Hermes the god of the pastures, and Pan, and the dear Nymphs, to smile graciously on our dances, taking delight in them. Lift up eagerly the double grace of the dance. Let us sport, O women, as is the custom, and let us by all means fast. But come, leap and turn about with rhythmic foot, work out the whole song; and you yourself, lead the way thus, ivy-bearing Bacchus, lord; and I with revel-songs that love the dance will hymn you. Euhoe, O Dionysus, Bromius, child of Semele, delighting in dances on the mountains amid the lovely hymns of the Nymphs — euhoe, euhoe, euhoi! — dancing in answer. About you echoes the Cithaeronian sound; and the dark-leaved mountains, thick with shade, and the rocky glens, resound; and round about you the ivy, fair with leaves, flourishes with its tendrils.

EURIPIDES (as Echo, off) Dear maidens, dear, how then might I come upon him and escape the Scythian's notice? Do you hear? O by your reverence, you in the caves, nod assent, allow me to come to my wife.

MNESILOCHUS Pitiless was he who bound me, most groaning of mortals. Hardly having escaped a rotten old woman, I have perished all the same. For this Scythian here, set to guard me this long while, has hung me up, friendless and forlorn, a feast for crows. Do you see? Not amid dances, nor standing with girls of my own age holding the voting-urn, but tangled in tight bonds I am set out as fodder for the monster Glaucetes — not with a marriage hymn but with a bondage-song. Wail for me, O women, since I have suffered wretched things, wretch that I am — O wretched, wretched me! — and from my kinsmen lawless sufferings, while I implored a man, weeping the much-wept dirge of Hades, — alas, alas, eh, eh! — the man who first shaved me, who clothed me in the saffron gown, and besides this sent me up to this holy place where women are. O cruel power of my doom! O accursed me! Who will not look upon my unenviable suffering amid the presence of evils? Would that a fire-bearing star of the sky might destroy the barbarian! For it is no longer dear to me to behold the immortal flame, since I was hung up, my throat-cut anguish, the wavering grief of the divinities, to journey among the dead.

EURIPIDES (as Echo) Hail, dear child; but as for your father Cepheus, who set you out, may the gods destroy him.

MNESILOCHUS And who are you that have pitied my suffering?

EURIPIDES Echo, the mocking re-singer of words, who last year, in this very place, myself contended along with Euripides. But, O child, you must do your own part, and weep piteously.

MNESILOCHUS And you weep after me.

EURIPIDES That shall be my care. But begin your speech.

MNESILOCHUS "O holy night, how long a course you drive, riding over the star-spangled back of the sacred sky, through most majestic Olympus!"

EURIPIDES "Through Olympus."

MNESILOCHUS "Why ever has Andromeda got, beyond all others, her share of evils —"

EURIPIDES "Her share of evils —"

MNESILOCHUS "— wretched, marked for death?"

EURIPIDES "Wretched, marked for death?"

MNESILOCHUS You will be the death of me, old woman, with your chatter.

EURIPIDES "With your chatter."

MNESILOCHUS By Zeus, you have crept in altogether too tiresomely.

EURIPIDES "Too tiresomely."

MNESILOCHUS My good fellow, let me sing my solo, and you will please me. Stop.

EURIPIDES "Stop."

MNESILOCHUS Go to the crows!

EURIPIDES "Go to the crows!"

MNESILOCHUS What ails you?

EURIPIDES "What ails you?"

MNESILOCHUS You talk nonsense.

EURIPIDES "You talk nonsense."

MNESILOCHUS Howl!

EURIPIDES "Howl!"

MNESILOCHUS Wail!

EURIPIDES "Wail!"

ARCHER You there, what you babble?

EURIPIDES "You there, what you babble?"

ARCHER I call the magistrates?

EURIPIDES "I call the magistrates?"

ARCHER What's the matter?

EURIPIDES "What's the matter?"

ARCHER Where comes the voice?

EURIPIDES "Where comes the voice?"

ARCHER You babble?

EURIPIDES "You babble?"

ARCHER You'll weep!

EURIPIDES "You'll weep!"

ARCHER You laugh at me?

EURIPIDES "You laugh at me?"

MNESILOCHUS No, by Zeus, but it is this woman here close by.

EURIPIDES "Close by."

ARCHER Where's the wench? She's running off! Where, where you run?

EURIPIDES "Where, where you run?"

ARCHER You'll not get away!

EURIPIDES "You'll not get away!"

ARCHER Still you grumble?

EURIPIDES "Still you grumble?"

ARCHER Catch the wench!

EURIPIDES "Catch the wench!"

ARCHER A chattering, cursed woman!

EURIPIDES (entering as Perseus) "O gods, to what land of barbarians have we come with swift sandal? For cleaving my path through the midst of the air I set my winged foot, Perseus, sailing toward Argos, carrying the Gorgon's head."

ARCHER What you say? The Gorgo, the secretary's head you bring?

EURIPIDES "The Gorgon's, I say."

ARCHER Gorgo, yes, I say it too.

EURIPIDES "Ha! What crag is this I see, and a maiden like the goddesses, moored like a ship?"

MNESILOCHUS "O stranger, pity me, the all-wretched; loose me from my bonds."

ARCHER You not talk, you! Cursed thing, you dare to babble when you about to die?

EURIPIDES "O maiden, I pity you, seeing you hang there."

ARCHER Not a maiden it is, but a sinning old man, and a thief, and a rogue.

EURIPIDES "You talk nonsense, Scythian. For this is Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus."

ARCHER Look at the cunt — does it seem at all small?

EURIPIDES "Bring your hand here to me, that I may touch the maiden. Come, Scythian; for all men have their diseases; and as for me, a passion for this maiden has seized me."

ARCHER I not envy you. But if his arse was turned round this way, I'd not begrudge you taking him off to bugger.

EURIPIDES "Why do you not let me loose her, Scythian, that she may fall to bed and the marriage-couch?"

ARCHER If you so very much want to bugger the old man, bore through the plank and bugger him from behind.

EURIPIDES "No, by Zeus, but I will loose the bonds."

ARCHER Then I whip you.

EURIPIDES "And yet I will do this."

ARCHER Then this scimitar will cut off your head — this one here.

EURIPIDES (aside) Alas, what shall I do? To what arguments shall I turn? But this barbarian nature would not accept them. For bringing new and clever things to fools, you would spend your labor in vain. I must apply to this fellow some other device that suits him.

ARCHER The filthy fox, how he tricks me!

MNESILOCHUS Remember, Perseus, how you leave me wretched.

ARCHER Still you want to get the whip?

CHORUS Pallas, the lover of the dance, it is our custom to call hither to the chorus, the unwedded virgin maiden, who holds our city and alone has manifest power, and is called the key-holder. Appear, you who hate tyrants, as is fitting. The people of the women call you; come to me, holding peace that loves festivals. And come, gracious and kindly, ladies, to your grove, where it is not lawful for men to behold the holy mysteries of the two goddesses, where you reveal by torchlight your immortal face. Come, come, we entreat you, O most lady Thesmophoroi; if ever before you came to hear us, come now, we beseech you, here to us.

EURIPIDES (entering in his own person) Women, if you are willing to make a truce with me for the time to come, now is the chance — on condition that you hear no evil from me ever henceforth. This I propose as a herald.

CHORUS And with what need do you bring forward this proposal?

EURIPIDES This man on the plank is my kinsman. If, then, I get him back, you shall never have any evil spoken of you; but if you will not be persuaded by me, what you do secretly at home I will denounce to your husbands when they come back from the campaign.

CHORUS Know that, as far as we are concerned, you have persuaded us; but this barbarian — persuade him yourself.

EURIPIDES That is my task. And yours, little fawn, is to remember to do what I told you on the way. First, then, walk through and prance about. And you, Teredon, pipe up a Persian tune.

ARCHER What is this buzzing? Some revel-band wakes me?

EURIPIDES The girl was about to rehearse, archer. For she is going to dance before certain men.

ARCHER Let her dance and rehearse; I won't stop her. How nimble she is, like a flea on a fleece!

EURIPIDES Come, my child, take off this cloak from above; and sitting on the Scythian's knees, hold out your two feet, that I may unlace your shoes.

ARCHER Yes, yes, sit, sit, yes, yes, little daughter. Oh, how firm the little tit, like a turnip!

EURIPIDES Pipe up faster. Do you still fear the Scythian?

ARCHER A fine bottom! (to himself) You'll weep if you don't stay inside. There — good; a fine shape about the little prick.

EURIPIDES That is well. Take your cloak; it is time for us two to be going now.

ARCHER Won't she kiss me first?

EURIPIDES Certainly; kiss him.

ARCHER Oh, oh, oh, papapapai, how sweet the tongue, like Attic honey! Why doesn't she sleep with me?

EURIPIDES Farewell, archer; for this could not be.

ARCHER Yes, yes, old woman; do me this favor.

EURIPIDES Will you give a drachma, then?

ARCHER Yes, yes, I'll give it.

EURIPIDES Hand over the silver, then.

ARCHER But I haven't any; take my quiver-case.

EURIPIDES Then you will bring it back. Come, child.

ARCHER Follow, child. And you, old woman, guard this old man for me. And what is your name?

EURIPIDES Artemisia.

ARCHER I'll remember the name: Artamuxia.

EURIPIDES (aside) Hermes the trickster, you do this still finely. (to the dancing-girl) You run off, then, taking the boy; and I will loose this fellow. (to Mnesilochus) And you, see that manfully, when you are loosed, you flee at once with all speed and make for your wife and children at home.

MNESILOCHUS That shall be my care, once I am loosed.

EURIPIDES You are loosed. It is your task; flee, before the archer comes back and catches you.

MNESILOCHUS That is just what I am doing.

ARCHER (returning) Old woman, how charming your little daughter is, and not crabbed, but gentle. Where is the old woman? Alas, I am undone! Where is the old man from here? Old woman, hey, granny! I do not commend you, old woman. Artamuxia! She has tricked me, the old hag. Run off as fast as you can, you! And rightly is it called a quiver-case (subene) — for you've been "quivered." Alas, what shall I do? Where is the old woman? Artamuxia!

CHORUS You ask after the old woman who carried the lyres?

ARCHER Yes, yes. You saw her?

CHORUS She has gone off that way, herself and an old man following.

ARCHER Did the old man have on a saffron gown?

CHORUS I say so. You might still catch them, if you pursue this way.

ARCHER O filthy old woman! Which way did she run, the road? Artamuxia!

CHORUS Straight up, pursue. Where are you running? Will you not pursue back this way? You are running the opposite way.

ARCHER Wretched me! Still, I'll run. Artamuxia!

CHORUS Run now, off to the crows, with a fair wind, run! But our play has been moderate enough; so it is now time to be going home, each one. And may the two Thesmophoroi grant us in return a good reward for these things.