Aristophanes: The Complete Plays Read online

  [EURIPIDES is wheeled into view on a couch high above the ground.]

  DICAEOPOLIS: Euripides!

  EURIPIDES: What is it?

  DICAEOPOLIS:

  Why do you write up in the air

  when you could be down here?

  No wonder your characters walk on thin air! And why do you wear

  such pitiable tatters—is it for tragedies?

  It’s not surprising you make them all beggars.

  But seriously, I’m asking on bended knee37

  for the loan of a few rags from that old play of yours.

  I have to give a lengthy harangue to the Chorus presently

  and if I’m not effective it’s the end of me.

  EURIPIDES: What kind of rags?

  Like what pathetic old Oeneus38 wore when he came onstage?

  DICAEOPOLIS: No, not from Oeneus. Something more pathetic.

  EURIPIDES: From poor blind old Phoenix39 then?

  DICAEOPOLIS: No, not Phoenix. Someone even more of a drudge.

  EURIPIDES: What kind of shreds of clothing does the fellow mean?

  Does he mean what the tattered castaway Philoctetes40 had on?

  DICAEOPOLIS: No, someone much more down and out.

  EURIPIDES: What about the disgusting outfit

  the lame Bellerephon41 wore?

  DICAEOPOLIS: Not Bellerephon, though the man I mean

  was also a lame beggar and had the gift of the gab.

  EURIPIDES: Ah, you mean Telephus of Mysia?42

  DICAEOPOLIS: Yes, Telephus: that’s the geezer.

  I want the baby clothes from his crib.

  EURIPIDES: Hey, boy, go and fetch the remnants of Telephus.

  They’re on top of the remnants of Thyestes,

  between them and Ino’s.43

  [The SERVANT goes off and comes back immediately.]

  SERVANT: ’ere y’ are: take these.

  DICAEOPOLIS: [sorting through the remnants] O Zeus, who sees over and under all things, I want to be got up in the foulest way I can. . . . Euripides, you’ve been so generous in everything, will you give me what goes with it, that little Mysian cap? I’ve got to act the beggar today and be who I am, yet not be so. The audience, of course, must know who I am, but the Chorus—dumb clucks in the making—must stand there gaping, while I bamboozle them with irony and wordplay.

  EURIPIDES: Take it—you deserve it; you’re so full of subtlety.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Charming of you! Meanwhile I’m concentrating on

  Telephus.

  Honestly, I’m already chock-full of witty gags.

  But I do need a beggar’s staff.44

  EURIPIDES: Take this, and depart from this marbled house.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Sod all, Soul, that’s a bit stiff!

  Expelled from here when I don’t have nearly enough

  of the props I need for putting on a needy and pathetic show

  of being down to the dregs.

  Euripides, give me a little basket

  with a lamp shining through it.

  EURIPIDES: What d’you want a basket for, you bozo?

  DICAEOPOLIS: I simply don’t know

  but I’d like to have it.

  EURIPIDES: You’re being a nuisance. Please leave my house.

  DICAEOPOLIS: More’s the pity. . . . But God bless you and your mother.

  EURIPIDES: Go, please!

  DICAEOPOLIS: One other

  thing: give me a little cup with a chipped rim.

  EURIPIDES: Here, take this, and to hell with you. You’re an absolute pest, you bum.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Zeus be my witness, you still don’t know

  how much you’ll miss me.

  But, Euripides, sweetie pie,

  just hand me that little bottle plugged with a sponge.

  EURIPIDES: Fella, you’re filching my entire repertoire.

  DICAEOPOLIS:

  Hold on, what am I doing?

  There’s still an item I haven’t got,

  which if I haven’t got I’m lost.

  Listen, Euripides, you gooey darling,

  once I’ve got it I’ll be off and never bother you again:

  some withered leaves for my little basket.

  EURIPIDES: Here you are, but you’re doing me in: my plays have

  gone.

  DICAEOPOLIS: [pretending to leave]

  Enough! I’m really going. I’m such a nuisance, I know,

  though I never thought the grand protagonists would hate me

  so. . . .45

  Hang on, I’m buggered! I’ve forgotten one essential thing

  on which depends—everything.

  O sweetest, dearest Euripideekins,

  may I die the death if I ask anything of you again:

  but just one thing, one teeny-weeny item—

  some chervil from your mother’s stall.

  EURIPIDES: The man’s beyond the pale. . . . Batten down my home.

  [EURIPIDES is wheeled away.]

  DICAEOPOLIS:

  Brave heart, albeit chervilless, march forth

  and concentrate upon the coming challenge

  when you put the case for our Spartan enemies.

  Onward, my soul! You know your range.

  Why are you hanging back?

  You should be full of go and faith

  after that quaff of Euripides.

  Coraggio! Be a brick,

  my silly heart, and get me to where

  I have to lose my noodle, but not until

  I’ve made clear my whole position.

  Get moving then, be strong. . . .

  O heart, well done!

  CHORUS:

  What will you do and what will you say?

  Do you see

  What a man of iron you are?

  You have no common sense at all,

  Insisting on speaking, opposing us all:

  Without a quaver

  Offering your neck to the town—very well,

  Speak as you will.

  DICAEOPOLIS:

  Friends, I trust that none of you spectators

  will think ill of me dressed up as a beggar

  and having the nerve to address the Athenian people

  in a comedy, but even comedy writers

  can tell the truth, and the truth that I’ll relate

  is shocking but it is the truth. Moreover,

  this time Cleon no way can accuse

  me of blackening the city’s name when

  foreigners are present; there are none

  here today: we are on our own

  at the Lenaean competitions and no news

  arrives of troops from the city-states,

  nor of the officials who handle the rates

  of contributions;46 we are on our own.

  And if I may call our resident aliens bran

  we are at present winnowed from the chaff.

  So let me tell you bluntly, I abhor

  the Spartans, and I couldn’t rejoice enough

  if Poseidon of Taenarum47 sent

  a quake and shook their houses to the core.

  For I, like you, have had my vineyards rent.

  Nonetheless, since only friends are here

  listening to me, let me ask you: are

  we to blame the Spartans for everything?

  Some of our own people here—I’m not

  saying the city; please remember that—

  I do not say the city but a gang

  of spurious obnoxious hooligans

  who kept denouncing the Megarians

  for importing jackets without paying the tax.

  If they saw a cucumber or a rabbit,

  a piglet, clove of garlic, lump of salt,

  “Megarian!” they’d shout and confiscate the lot,

  then sell it off at a knockdown price—

  typical and trivial of us but the facts.

  And then a bunch of tipsy cottabus-throwing yobs48

  rollicks off to Megara and grabs

 
Simaetha the courtesan;49 then you

  Megarians, to even the odds,

  with garlic in your blood abduct two

  of Aspasia’s50 tarts. So all it takes to be the cause

  of plunging the whole of Hellas into wars

  are three whores.

  Then Pericles, from Olympian heights,

  rolling out his thunder and his lights,

  stirred up the whole of Greece with laws

  that sounded just like drinking songs: “Depart,

  Megarians, from earth and sea, depart;

  even from the mart, I say, depart.”

  The poor ravenous Megarians then

  betook themselves to Sparta, thinking them

  somehow able to get the decree of the three

  sluts repealed. And the Spartans actually

  asked several times for this, but we

  refused. That is how the clash of shields

  began. It shouldn’t have, someone’ll say.

  Then tell me, what should the Spartans have done?

  Let’s suppose some Spartan makes a deal:

  gets hold of a puppy from Seriphus51

  imported in a dinghy over the sea;

  says it’s a miserable cur but sells it,

  would you just sit at home and keep mum?52

  No, you would make an awful fuss:

  launch three hundred ships of war, I bet.

  And the city would be raucous with the shouts

  of soldiers; sailors milling round their skippers;

  pay disbursed; figureheads of Pallas

  gilded; hubbub in the Colonnade;

  rations meted out, wineskins filled,

  oarlocks checked, people buying jars

  of garlic, olives, netted onions, flowers;

  flute girls and . . . black eyes.

  The dockyard’d be alive with the sound of oars

  being planed, pegs hammered, row ports drilled,

  bosuns whistling, horns tooting, strains

  of pipes playing . . . you would have had the lot.

  So should we think that Telephus would not?

  Then we’re quite devoid of brains.

  -

  [The CHORUS splits in two, each with its own LEADER.]

  FIRST LEADER: So you say, you absolute scum, you villain!

  How dare you, a miserable beggar, whine

  at us because we have informers in our midst?

  SECOND LEADER: Holy Poseidon! The man is absolutely right.

  There’s not a single thing he’s missed.

  FIRST LEADER: Even so, who gave him leave to say it?

  He’ll regret he delivered that palaver.

  [FIRST LEADER leaps up and makes for DICAEOPOLIS.]

  SECOND LEADER: Hey, what are you doing? Stay where you are.

  If you touch that man you’re going to be hanged.

  [The two CHORUSES advance on each other and in struggle the SECOND CHORUS comes off best.]

  FIRST CHORUS:

  O General Lamachus,53 lightning banger,

  Come to our aid in your waving feathers:

  General Lamachus, friend and fella

  Clansman, or any storm trooper near,

  Or military man: come if you can

  And rescue us. It would be nice,

  And on the dot. I’m in a vise.

  [LAMACHUS in full battle dress appears with a platoon of SOLDIERS.]

  LAMACHUS: What’s all this battle din about?

  Charge! But in what direction?

  Ballyhoo! Ballyhoo! Who woke my Gorgon?54

  DICAEOPOLIS: O General Lamachus, my champion!

  What flying plumes! What platoons!

  FIRST LEADER: Lamachus, you ought to know this hothead

  has been ranting against our State.

  LAMACHUS: Has he, indeed?

  Wretch of a beggar, how dare you!

  DICAEOPOLIS: [eating humble pie]

  Oh, General Lamachus, my hero, don’t be irate

  if I said something out of place.

  LAMACHUS: About me? What?

  Speak up, man.

  DICAEOPOLIS: I don’t think I can.

  I come over all dizzy at the sight of armor.

  [pointing at the snake-haired Medusa on LAMACHUS’ shield]

  Please remove that horrible face.

  LAMACHUS: [covering his shield with his scarlet cloak]

  That better?

  DICAEOPOLIS: Put it upside down.

  LAMACHUS: There you are.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Now give me a helmet feather or two.

  LAMACHUS: Here’s a cluster.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Now hold my head while I puke.

  Helmet crests make me go all queer.

  LAMACHUS: Hey, you’re not going to vomit on my feathers, are

  you?

  DICAEOPOLIS: What bird are they from? A greater bragtale?

  LAMACHUS: Now you’re done for!

  DICAEOPOLIS: Lamachus, what the heck!

  I know you’re very strong, but strength isn’t the point—

  though with all your armory you could certainly dock

  my you-know-what.

  LAMACHUS: You creep! A beggar giving lip to a general!

  DICAEOPOLIS: Me, a beggar?

  LAMACHUS: Aren’t you? . . . Well?

  DICAEOPOLIS: Aren’t I? I’m an honest citizen, I grant,

  not a social climber, and since the war

  a simple soldier, not a profiteer,

  whereas you since the war began have been a well-paid

  cipher.

  LAMACHUS: I was appointed, you know.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Yes, by three cuckoos. . . . That’s what made me spew

  and fix up a truce when I saw old graybeards in the ranks

  drawing no pay, while young men like you

  were getting three drachmas a day—for being hunks:

  some on the shores of Thrace, like Horsey-faced Phainippus

  or Codswallop Hipparchides, and some with Mister-nice

  Chares.

  Others went to Chaeonia (Pie-in-the-Skyia),

  like Geretheodorous (God’s-favorite Dodderer)

  a phony from Diomeia (Blasphemia),

  and still others to Giggleton, Grincity, and Defunctia.55

  LAMACHUS: All by appointment.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Yes, and all drawing pay,

  whereas the rest of you wherever you are

  never get any.

  [turning to CHORUS]

  Tell me, Emberson,56 graybeard though you are,

  Have you ever served on embassies?

  What, never? Never, he says,

  though he’s steady and able-bodied.

  And you, Barbecue, Father Bird, and Oakenhearted,

  has any one of you had a glimpse of Ecbatana

  or the natives of Chaonia?57

  What, never?

  But Coisyra’s58 son has, and so has Lamachus,

  despite the fact that only yesterday,

  because of their unpaid bills and dues,

  their friends were advising them to keep out of reach—

  as if they had to dodge slops from open windows.

  LAMACHUS: Democracy! Democracy! This is too much!

  DICAEOPOLIS: Not as long as Lamachus gets his pay!

  LAMACHUS: That’s it then! I’ll damn well go after Spartans with ships and men—might and main.

  [LAMACHUS marches off with his SOLDIERS.]

  DICAEOPOLIS: And I for my part announce free trade between me and

  all Spartans, Megarians, and Boeotians—

  but not Lamachus.

  [DICAEOPOLIS retires.]

  LEADER: [speaking in the name of Aristophanes for the Parabasis]

  The man has excelled and changed the people’s

  minds on the peace.

  Let’s roll up our sleeves and tackle the anapests.59

  Never till now

  Since your Producer first began writing

  comedies, has he

  Come forw
ard and boasted to you the spectators

  that he was clever,

  But now that there’re those who have charged him before

  you the Athenians

  (Who jump to conclusions) of wanting to sneer

  at city and people,

  He’d like to petition you the Athenians

  to unjump conclusions.

  Our poet insists that he really deserves

  your accolade

  For having prevented your being hoodwinked

  by foreigners’ twaddle

  And being seduced by flattery till you

  are resident inmates

  Of insanity city. Before he did that

  what happened was this:

  The allied ambassadors out to deceive you

  began to salute you

  As “violet-crowned,” and that crown soon had you

  sitting all pretty.

  If anyone came gushing and saying,

  “O dazzling Athens!”

  That “dazzling” which was perfectly suited

  for a school of sardines,

  Would get him the best of everything.

  For telling you this,

  Your poet has brought you lavish rewards,

  and also by giving

  A good demonstration of how the allied

  States “democratically”

  Get to be managed. That is the reason

  the allied emissaries

  Continue to come, impatient to meet

  this brilliant poet

  Who had the nerve to steer the Athenians

  towards what’s right.

  Word of his courage has spread so wide

  that even the King,60

  During his interview with the delegates

  from Sparta, asked

  First of all, which of the fleets

  on either side

  Was the more powerful. Immediately next:

  which of the sides

  Had the poet most fiercely reviled?

  For they’d be the ones

  To be kept on their toes and succeed in the war,

  because of him.

  And this is the reason the Spartans offer you

  terms of peace;

  Demanding, however, the return of Aegina,61

  not that they really

  Care a damn for Aegina but only because