Aristophanes

“ TRYGAEUS If a lance-maker or a dealer in shields desires war for the sake of better trade, may he be taken by pirates and eat nothing but barley.
CHORUS If some ambitious man does not help us, because he wants to become a General, or if a slave is plotting to pass over to the enemy, let his limbs be broken on the wheel, may he be beaten to death with rods! As for us, may Fortune favour us! ”

“ TRYGAEUS Ah! what is to become of us, wretched mortals that we are? See the danger that threatens if he returns with the pestle, for War will quietly amuse himself with pounding all the towns of Hellas to pieces. Ah! Bacchus! cause this herald of evil to perish on his road!
WAR Well?
TUMULT (WHO HAS RETURNED) Well, what?
WAR You have brought back nothing?
TUMULT Alas! the Athenians have lost their pestle—the tanner, who ground Greece to powder. ”

“ CHORUS Ah! the left leg too will have its fling; well, 'tis but its right. I am so happy, so delighted at not having to carry my buckler any more. I sing and I laugh more than if I had cast my old age, as a serpent does its skin.
TRYGAEUS No, 'tis not time for joy yet, for you are not sure of success. But when you have got the goddess, then rejoice, shout and laugh; thenceforward you will be able to sail or stay at home, to make love or sleep, to attend festivals and processions, to play at cottabos, (1) live like true Sybarites and to shout, Io, io! ”

“ TRYGAEUS Come, who wishes to take the charge of her? No one? Come, Theoria, I am going to lead you into the midst of the spectators and confide you to their care.
SERVANT Ah! there is one who makes a sign to you.
TRYGAEUS Who is it?
SERVANT 'Tis Ariphrades. He wishes to take her home at once.
TRYGAEUS No, I'm sure he shan't. He would soon have her done for, absorbing all her life-force. Come, Theoria, put down all this gear. (1)
Senate, Prytanes, look upon Theoria and see what precious blessings I place in your hands. Hasten to raise its limbs and to immolate the victim. ”

“ Opora and Theoria come on the stage in the wake of Peace, clothed and decked out as courtesans.
HERMES Is it then a smell like a soldier's knapsack?
TRYGAEUS Oh! hateful soldier! your hideous satchel makes me sick! it stinks like the belching of onions, whereas this lovable deity has the odour of sweet fruits, of festivals, of the Dionysia, of the harmony of flutes, of the comic poets, of the verses of Sophocles, of the phrases of Euripides...
HERMES That's a foul calumny, you wretch! She detests that framer of subtleties and quibbles. ”

“ TRYGAEUS Let us offer our libations and our prayers, so that this day may begin an era of unalloyed happiness for Greece and that he who has bravely pulled at the rope with us may never resume his buckler.
CHORUS Aye, may we pass our lives in peace, caressing our mistresses and poking the fire.
TRYGAEUS May he who would prefer the war, oh Dionysus, be ever drawing barbed arrows out of his elbows.
HERMES If there be a citizen, greedy for military rank and honours who refuses, oh, divine Peace! to restore you to daylight, may he behave as cowardly as Cleonymus on the battlefield. ”

“ Oh! much desired Peace! thou art the sole support of those who spend their lives tilling the earth. Under thy rule we had a thousand delicious enjoyments at our beck; thou wert the husbandman's wheaten cake and his safeguard. So that our vineyards, our young fig-tree woods and all our plantations hail thee with delight and smile at thy coming. But where was she then, I wonder, all the long time she spent away from us? Hermes, thou benevolent god, tell us!
HERMES Wise husbandmen, hearken to my words, if you want to know why she was lost to you. ”

“ SERVANT And we shall all be lambs one toward the other, yea, and milder still toward the allies.
TRYGAEUS Then go for the sheep and haste to bring it back with you; I will prepare the altar for the sacrifice.
CHORUS How everything succeeds to our wish, when the gods are willing and Fortune favours us! how opportunely everything falls out. ”

“ Come, labourers, merchants, workmen, artisans, strangers, whether you be domiciled or not, islanders, come here, Greeks of all countries, come hurrying here with picks and levers and ropes! 'Tis the moment to drain a cup in honour of the Good Genius.
CHORUS Come hither all! quick, hasten to the rescue! All peoples of Greece, now is the time or never, for you to help each other. You see yourselves freed from battles and all their horrors of bloodshed. ”

“ SERVANT What were they doing up there?
TRYGAEUS They were seeking to catch some lyric exordia as they flew by immersed in the billows of the air.
SERVANT Is it true, what they tell us, that men are turned into stars after death? ”

“ HIEROCLES ...it does not please the blessed gods that we should stop the War until the wolf uniteth with the sheep.
TRYGAEUS How, you cursed animal, could the wolf ever unite with the sheep?
HIEROCLES As long as the wood-bug gives off a fetid odour, when it flies; as long as the noisy bitch is forced by nature to litter blind pups, so long shall peace be forbidden.
TRYGAEUS Then what should be done? Not to stop War would be to leave it to the decision of chance which of the two people should suffer the most, whereas by uniting under a treaty, we share the empire of Greece. ”

“ TRYGAEUS And why have the gods moved away?
HERMES Because of their wrath against the Greeks. They have located War in the house they occupied themselves and have given him full power to do with you exactly as he pleases ”

“ So therefore, Hermes, my friend, help us with your whole heart to find and deliver the captive and we will celebrate the great Panathenaea (1) in your honour as well as all the festivals of the other gods; for Hermes shall be the Mysteries, the Dipolia, the Adonia; everywhere the towns, freed from their miseries, will sacrifice to Hermes the Liberator; you will be loaded with benefits of every kind, and to start with, I offer you this cup for libations as your first present. ”

“ Trygaeus, a rustic patriot, finding no help in men, resolves to ascend to heaven to expostulate personally with Zeus for allowing this wretched state of things to continue. With this object he has fed and trained a gigantic dung-beetle, which he mounts, and is carried, like Bellerophon on Pegasus, on an aerial journey. Eventually he reaches Olympus, only to find that the gods have gone elsewhere, and that the heavenly abode is occupied solely by the demon of War, who is busy pounding up the Greek States in a huge mortar. ”

“ Then, when we have danced, clinked our cups and thrown Hyperbolus through the doorway we will carry back all our farming tools to the fields and shall pray the gods to give wealth to the Greeks and to cause us all to gather in an abundant barley harvest, enjoy a noble vintage, to grant that we may choke with good figs, that our wives may prove fruitful, that in fact we may recover all our lost blessings, and that the sparkling fire may be restored to the hearth. ”

“ Aristophanes has already shown us the husbandmen and workers in peaceful trades pulling at the rope the extricate Peace, while the armourers hindered them by pulling the other way.
TRYGAEUS And do you see with what pleasure this sickle-maker is making long noses at the spear-maker?
HERMES Now ask the husbandmen to be off.
TRYGAEUS Listen, good folk! Let the husbandmen take their farming tools and return to their fields as quick as possible, but without either sword, spear or javelin. All is as quiet as if Peace had been reigning for a century. ”

“ Come, pluck up a spirit; rush upwards from the earth, stretch out your speedy wings and make straight for the palace of Zeus; for once give up foraging in your daily food.—Hi! you down there, what are you after now? Oh! my god! 'tis a man emptying his belly in the Piraeus, close to the house where the bad girls are. ”

“ Nevertheless, oh Muse, if it be right to esteem the most honest and illustrious of our comic writers at his proper value, permit our poet to say that he thinks he has deserved a glorious renown. First of all, 'tis he who has compelled his rivals no longer to scoff at rags or to war with lice; and as for those Heracles, always chewing and ever hungry, those poltroons and cheats who allow themselves to be beaten at will, he was the first to cover them with ridicule and to chase them from the stage ”

“ HIEROCLES Pour out also for me and give me some of this meat.
TRYGAEUS No, the blessed gods won't allow it yet; let us drink; and as for you, get you gone, for 'tis their will. Mighty Peace! stay ever in our midst. ”

“ TRYGAEUS Don't talk, for 'tis divine Peace to whom we are sacrificing.
HIEROCLES Oh! wretched mortals, oh, you idiots!
TRYGAEUS Keep such ugly terms for yourself.
HIEROCLES What! you are so ignorant you don't understand the will of the gods and you make a treaty, you, who are men, with apes, who are full of malice? (1)
f (1) The Spartans.
TRYGAEUS Ha, ha, ha!
HIEROCLES What are you laughing at?
TRYGAEUS Ha, ha! your apes amuse me!
HIEROCLES You simple pigeons, you trust yourselves to foxes, who are all craft, both in mind and heart.
TRYGAEUS Oh, you trouble-maker! ”

“ CHORUS Be not pitiless toward our prayers; permit us to deliver the goddess. Oh! the most human, the most generous of the gods, be favourable toward us, if it be true that you detest the haughty crests and proud brows of Pisander ”

“ TRYGAEUS Come, come, what are you asking for these two crests?
CREST-MAKER What do you bid for them?
TRYGAEUS What do I bid? Oh! I am ashamed to say. Still, as the clasp is of good workmanship, I would give two, even three measures of dried figs; I could use 'em for dusting the table.
CREST-MAKER All right, tell them to bring me the dried figs; 'tis always better than nothing.
TRYGAEUS Take them away, be off with your crests and get you gone; they are moulting, they are losing all their hair ”

“ TRYGAEUS You, who yesterday were dying of hunger, come, stuff yourselves with this fine hare-stew; 'tis not every day that we find cakes lying neglected. Eat, eat, or I predict you will soon regret it. ”

“ Hence both grown men and youths should be on my side and I likewise invite the bald (6) to give me their votes; for, if I triumph, everyone will say, both at table and at festivals, "Carry this to the bald man, give these cakes to the bald one, do not grudge the poet whose talent shines as bright as his own bare skull the share he deserves."
Oh, Muse! drive the War far from our city and come to preside over our dances, if you love me; come and celebrate the nuptials of the gods, the banquets of us mortals and the festivals of the fortunate ”

“ Let us begin by handing over all this gear to the care of our servants, for no place is less safe than a theatre; there is always a crowd of thieves prowling around it, seeking to find some mischief to do. Come, keep a good watch over all this. As for ourselves, let us explain to the spectators what we have in our minds, the purpose of our play.
Undoubtedly the comic poet who mounted the stage to praise himself in the parabasis would deserve to be handed over to the sticks of the beadles. ”

“ Cause the Greeks once more to taste the pleasant beverage of friendship and temper all hearts with the gentle feeling of forgiveness. Make excellent commodities flow to our markets, fine heads of garlic, early cucumbers, apples, pomegranates and nice little cloaks for the slaves; make them bring geese, ducks, pigeons and larks from Boeotia and baskets of eels from Lake Copais; we shall all rush to buy them, disputing their possession with Morychus, Teleas, Glaucetes and every other glutton. ”

“ I am very certain, that being the son of such a father, you will never forget this song of the buckler. You, who remain to the feast, 'tis your duty to devour dish after dish and not to ply empty jaws. Come, put heart into the work and eat with your mouths full. For, believe me, poor friends, white teeth are useless furniture, if they chew nothing. ”

“ There are so many things that escape us.
HERMES Then, when the towns subject to you saw that you were angered one against the other and were showing each other your teeth like dogs, they hatched a thousand plots to pay you no more dues and gained over the chief citizens of Sparta at the price of gold. They, being as shamelessly greedy as they were faithless in diplomacy, chased off Peace with ignominy to let loose War. Though this was profitable to them, 'twas the ruin of the husbandmen, who were innocent of all blame; for, in revenge, your galleys went out to devour their figs. ”

“ Give your orders, direct us, for I swear to work this day without ceasing, until with the help of our levers and our engines we have drawn back into light the greatest of all goddesses, her to whom the olive is so dear. ”

“ Aesop tells us that the eagle and the beetle were at war; the eagle devoured the beetle's young and the latter got into its nest and tumbled out its eggs. On this the eagle complained to Zeus, who advised it to lay its eggs in his bosom; but the beetle flew up to the abode of Zeus, who, forgetful of the eagle's eggs, at once rose to chase off the objectionable insect. The eggs fell to earth and were smashed to bits.
LITTLE DAUGHTER Father, father, 'tis a tale nobody can believe! that such a stinking creature can have gone to the gods. ”

“ SICKLE-MAKER Trygaeus, my best of friends, what a fine stroke of business you have done for me by bringing back Peace! Formerly my sickles would not have sold at an obolus apiece; to-day I am being paid fifty drachmae for every one. And here is a neighbour who is selling his casks for the country at three drachmae each. So come, Trygaeus, take as many sickles and casks as you will for nothing. Accept them for nothing; 'tis because of our handsome profits on our sales that we offer you these wedding presents. ”