Aristophanes

“ DICÆOPOLIS
No, no, he will get nothing, even though he gave me his buckler. Let him eat salt fish, while he shakes his plumes, and, if he comes here making any din, I shall call the inspectors. As for myself, I shall take away all these goods; I go home on thrushes' wings and blackbirds' pinions. [108]
CHORUS
You see, citizens, you see the good fortune which this man owes to his prudence, to his profound wisdom. You see how, since he has concluded peace, he buys what is useful in the household and good to eat hot. All good things flow towards him unsought. ”

“ DICÆOPOLIS
Pack the dinner well into the basket; personally I shall carry the cloak.
LAMACHUS
Slave, take up the buckler and let's be off. It is snowing! Ah! 'tis a question of facing the winter.
DICÆOPOLIS
Take up the basket, 'tis a question of getting to the feast.
CHORUS
We wish you both joy on your journeys, which differ so much. One goes to mount guard and freeze, while the other will drink, crowned with flowers, and then sleep with a young beauty, who will rub his tool for him.
I say it freely; may Zeus confound Antimachus, the poet-historian, the son of Psacas! ”

“ No, no, let us follow him; old Acharnians like ourselves shall not be set at naught by a scoundrel, who has dared, great gods! to conclude a truce, when I wanted the war continued with double fury in order to avenge my ruined lands. No mercy for our foes until I have pierced their hearts like a sharp reed, so that they dare never again ravage my vineyards. Come, let us seek the rascal; let us look everywhere, carrying our stones in our hands; let us hunt him from place to place until we trap him; I could never, never tire of the delight of stoning him.
DICÆOPOLIS
Peace! profane men! ”

“ DICÆOPOLIS
Ah! very well, show me them.
MEGARIAN
They are very fine; feel their weight. See! how fat and fine.
DICÆOPOLIS
But what is this?
MEGARIAN
A sow, for a certainty. [87]
DICÆOPOLIS
You say a sow! of what country, then?
MEGARIAN
From Megara. What! is that not a sow then?
DICÆOPOLIS
No, I don't believe it is.
MEGARIAN
This is too much! what an incredulous man! He says 'tis not a sow; but we will stake, an you will, a measure of salt ground up with thyme, that in good Greek this is called a sow and nothing else.
DICÆOPOLIS
But a sow of the human kind. ”

“ Freed from the war and its ills, I shall keep the Dionysia [39] in the country.
AMPHITHEUS
And I shall run away, for I'm mortally afraid of the Acharnians.
CHORUS
This way all! Let us follow our man; we will demand him of everyone we meet; the public weal makes his seizure imperative. Ho, there! tell me which way the bearer of the truce has gone; he has escaped us, he has disappeared. Curse old age! When I was young, in the days when I followed Phayllus, [40] running with a sack of coals on my back, this wretch would not have eluded my pursuit, let him be as swift as he will ”

“ LAMACHUS
A beggar dares thus address a general!
DICÆOPOLIS
How? Am I a beggar?
LAMACHUS
What are you then?
DICÆOPOLIS
Who am I? A good citizen, not ambitious; a soldier, who has fought well since the outbreak of the war, whereas you are but a vile mercenary.
LAMACHUS
They elected me....
DICÆOPOLIS
Yes, three cuckoos did! [72] If I have concluded peace, 'twas disgust that drove me; for I see men with hoary heads in the ranks and young fellows of your age shirking service. Some are in Thrace getting an allowance of three drachmæ, such fellows as Tisameophœnippus and Panurgipparchides. ”

“ DICÆOPOLIS
Friends, leave the Laconians out of debate and consider only whether I have not done well to conclude my truce.
CHORUS
Done well! when you have treated with a people who know neither gods, nor truth, nor faith.
DICÆOPOLIS
We attribute too much to the Laconians; as for myself, I know that they are not the cause of all our troubles. ”

“ Never, however, since I began to bathe, has the dust hurt my eyes as it does to-day. Still it is the day of assembly; all should be here at daybreak, and yet the Pnyx [8] is still deserted. They are gossiping in the market-place, slipping hither and thither to avoid the vermilioned rope. [9] The Prytanes [10] even do not come; they will be late, but when they come they will push and fight each other for a seat in the front row. They will never trouble themselves with the question of peace. Oh! Athens! Athens! ”

“ Thus, the strangers, who came to pay their tributes, wanted to see this great poet, who had dared to speak the truth to Athens. And so far has the fame of his boldness reached that one day the Great King, when questioning the Lacedæmonian delegates, first asked them which of the two rival cities was the superior at sea, and then immediately demanded at which it was that the comic poet directed his biting satire. "Happy that city," he added, "if it listens to his counsel; it will grow in power, and its victory is assured." ”

“ Besides, Cleon shall not be able to accuse me of attacking Athens before strangers; [67] we are by ourselves at the festival of the Lenæa; the period when our allies send us their tribute and their soldiers is not yet. Here is only the pure wheat without chaff; as to the resident strangers settled among us, they and the citizens are one, like the straw and the ear.
I detest the Lacedæmonians with all my heart, and may Posidon, the god of Tænarus, [68] cause an earthquake and overturn their dwellings! ”

“ This is why the Lacedæmonians offer you peace, if you will cede them Ægina; not that they care for the isle, but they wish to rob you of your poet. [76] As for you, never lose him, who will always fight for the cause of justice in his Comedies; he promises you that his precepts will lead you to happiness, though he uses neither flattery, nor bribery, nor intrigue, nor deceit; instead of loading you with praise, he will point you to the better way. I scoff at Cleon's tricks and plotting; honesty and justice shall fight my cause ”

“ DICÆOPOLIS
Oh, city of Cranaus, [17] thy ambassadors are laughing at thee!
AMBASSADOR
For great feeders and heavy drinkers are alone esteemed as men by the barbarians.
DICÆOPOLIS
Just as here in Athens, we only esteem the most drunken debauchees. ”

“ We others, now old men and heavy with years, we reproach the city; so many are the victories we have gained for the Athenian fleets that we well deserve to be cared for in our declining life; yet far from this, we are ill-used, harassed with law-suits, delivered over to the scorn of stripling orators. Our minds and bodies being ravaged with age, Posidon should protect us, yet we have no other support than a staff. ”

“ You are no man. [13]
AMPHITHEUS
No! I am an immortal! Amphitheus was the son of Ceres and Triptolemus; of him was born Celeus. Celeus wedded Phæncreté, my grandmother, whose son was Lucinus, and, being born of him, I am an immortal; it is to me alone that the gods have entrusted the duty of treating with the Lacedæmonians. But, citizens, though I am immortal, I am dying of hunger; the Prytanes give me naught. ”

“ DICÆOPOLIS
Here is the block; and, though I am but a very sorry speaker, I wish nevertheless to talk freely of the Lacedæmonians and without the protection of my buckler. Yet I have many reasons for fear. I know our rustics; they are delighted if some braggart comes, and rightly or wrongly loads both them and their city with praise and flattery; they do not see that such toad-eaters [55] are traitors, who sell them for gain. As for the old men, I know their weakness; they only seek to overwhelm the accused with their votes. ”

“ Ah! but if you will not leave the aged in peace, decree that the advocates be matched; thus the old man will only be confronted with a toothless greybeard, the young will fight with the braggart, the ignoble with the son of Clinias [82] ; make a law that in future, the old man can only be summoned and convicted at the courts by the aged and the young man by the youth.
DICÆOPOLIS
These are the confines of my market-place. All Peloponnesians, Megarians, Bœotians, have the right to come and trade here, provided they sell their wares to me and not to Lamachus. ”

“ Far from it, you would at once have sent three hundred vessels to sea, and what an uproar there would have been through all the city! there 'tis a band of noisy soldiery, here a brawl about the election of a Trierarch; elsewhere pay is being distributed, the Pallas figure-heads are being regilded, crowds are surging under the market porticos, encumbered with wheat that is being measured, wine-skins, oar-leathers, garlic, olives, onions in nets; everywhere are chaplets, sprats, flute-girls, black eyes ”

“ If they are given a wage of two drachmæ, they will put all Bœotia [30] to fire and sword.
DICÆOPOLIS
Two drachmæ to those circumcised hounds! Groan aloud, ye people of rowers, bulwark of Athens! Ah! great gods! I am undone; these Odomanti are robbing me of my garlic! [31] Will you give me back my garlic?
THEORUS
Oh! wretched man! do not go near them; they have eaten garlic. [32]
DICÆOPOLIS
Prytanes, will you let me be treated in this manner, in my own country and by barbarians? But I oppose the discussion of paying a wage to the Thracians; I announce an omen ”

“ The Athenians, momentarily elated by victory and over-persuaded by the demagogues of the day—Cleon and his henchmen, refuse to hear of such a thing as coming to terms. Accordingly Dicæopolis dispatches an envoy to Sparta on his own account, who comes back presently with a selection of specimen treaties in his pocket. The old man tastes and tries, special terms are arranged, and the play concludes with a riotous and uproarious rustic feast in honour of the blessings of Peace and Plenty. ”

“ When standing before the judge, we can scarcely stammer forth the fewest words, and of justice we see but its barest shadow, whereas the accuser, desirous of conciliating the younger men, overwhelms us with his ready rhetoric ”

“ Slaves of Lamachus! Water, water in a little pot! Make it warm, get ready cloths, cerate, greasy wool and bandages for his ankle. In leaping a ditch, the master has hurt himself against a stake; he has dislocated and twisted his ankle, broken his head by falling on a stone, while his Gorgon shot far away from his buckler. ”

“ You will not be cheated as to the value of wares, you will not again see Prepis [93] wiping his foul rump, nor will Cleonymus [94] jostle you; you will take your walks, clothed in a fine tunic, without meeting Hyperbolus [95] and his unceasing quibblings, without being accosted on the public place by any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus, [96] shaven in the fashion of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who plagues us with his silly improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits stinking as foul as a goat, like his father before him. ”

“ You will not be the butt of the villainous Pauson's [97] jeers, nor of Lysistratus, [98] the disgrace of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the vices, and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days in the month.
A BŒOTIAN
By Heracles! my shoulder is quite black and blue. Ismenias, put the penny-royal down there very gently, and all of you, musicians from Thebes, pipe with your bone flutes into a dog's rump. [99]
DICÆOPOLIS
Enough, enough, get you gone. Rascally hornets, away with you! ”

“ He maintains that he has done much that is good for you; if you no longer allow yourselves to be too much hoodwinked by strangers or seduced by flattery, if in politics you are no longer the ninnies you once were, it is thanks to him. ”

“ You triumph! you triumph!
DICÆOPOLIS
Again I have brimmed my cup with unmixed wine and drained it at a draught!
CHORUS
You triumph then, brave champion; thine is the wine-skin!
DICÆOPOLIS
Follow me, singing "Triumph! Triumph!"
CHORUS
Aye! we will sing of thee, thee and thy sacred wine-skin, and we all, as we follow thee, will repeat in thine honour, "Triumph, Triumph!"
Notes
↑ A name invented by Aristophanes and signifying 'a just citizen.'↑ Cleon had received five talents from the islanders subject to Athens, on condition that he should get the tribute payable by them reduced ”

“ Some men (I do not say the city, note particularly, that I do not say the city) , some wretches, lost in vices, bereft of honour, who were not even citizens of good stamp, but strangers, have accused the Megarians of introducing their produce fraudulently, and not a cucumber, a leveret, a sucking-pig, a clove of garlic, a lump of salt was seen without its being said, "Halloa! ”

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

“ They took place during the month Anthesterion (February) .↑ A celebrated athlete from Croton and a victor at Olympia; he was equally good as a runner and at the 'five exercises' (πένταθλον) .↑ He had been Archon at the time of the battle of Marathon.↑ A sacred formula, pronounced by the priest before offering the sacrifice (κανηφορία) .↑ The maiden who carried the basket filled with fruits at the Dionysia in honour of Bacchus.↑ The emblem of the fecundity of nature; it consisted of a representation, generally grotesquely exaggerated, of the male genital organs ”