Aristophanes: The Complete Plays Read online

they want the poet.

  So, listen, I beg you. Don’t let him go,

  for he means to continue

  Concocting his comedies about what is right.

  And he promises never

  To stint in giving you goodly advice,

  so you’ll be blessed,

  And never to flatter you or deceive

  you by waving

  Phony inducements to bluff and beguile you

  and butter you up.

  He’ll furnish you always with the best

  guidance he can.

  Now that this is all in the open

  Let Cleon continue his weaving and dealing

  And setting his traps, hoping to catch me.

  The right and the good will be my champion.

  And towards our city, never

  Shall I behave the way he does:

  The creep of a coward and a howling bugger.

  STROPHE

  CHORUS:

  Come, you Muse, tempered in flame,

  Come with the energy of fire—

  Acharnian fire that leaps with a beam

  From oaken charcoal fanned to a blaze.

  And there on the side

  Lie the herrings to be fried,

  And someone mixes the Thracian sauce

  While someone fillets the gleaming fish.

  So come shouting a rustic song

  Like our folklore fathers sang.

  Celebrate with one

  Who is a fellow Acharnian.

  LEADER:

  We old men, we the oldsters must complain:

  We have been neglected grossly by the town

  In our dotage as if we’d never fought at sea:

  We’ve been treated callously:

  Old men embroiled in courts of law and all forlorn,

  Outsmarted by smart-alecky young men. . . .

  Us old dodderers reduced to silence, spent and done,

  Supported only by our walking sticks,

  Standing in the dock mumbling like some ancient relic,

  Seeing through a haze some whippersnapper who

  Has wangled the cushy job of dismantling him

  With a wrestler’s throw,

  Hits him with sophisticated oral vim

  And double-talk, to haul him up for questioning

  In a third degree of verbal traps till the poor old thing

  Struggles and flusters and fumbles, decrepit as Tithonus.62

  It’s no use.

  He ends

  Convicted and weeping and whining and saying to his

  friends:

  “The money I saved for my funeral

  Now goes to the greedy tribunal.”

  ANTISTROPHE

  CHORUS:

  How can it ever be right to wreck

  A man because he’s timed by the clock

  As an elderly man grizzled and gray,

  Who long ago struggled at your side

  Mopping the copious

  Manly sweat from his brow

  When he bravely fought at Marathon

  In defense of our city. Yes indeed,

  At Marathon we sent them scattering.

  But other enemies face us now,

  Out to scatter us.

  Can anyone deny this thing?

  LEADER:

  How can it ever be right that a bent old man

  of Thucydides’63 age

  Should be wiped out by that Scythian scum,64

  that creature here,

  That waffling litigant, Cephisodemus’ son.‡

  I had to brush away a tear

  and felt such shame

  For a noble veteran being undone

  by a bowman.

  In the days of Thucydides’ prime,

  this I swear,

  He would have taken on a champion

  like Artachaees§

  And terrified three thousand bowmen

  with a yell,

  And shot down in their tracks whole families

  of that mouthpiece,¶

  And thrown ten Euathluses. But if you won’t

  let us old men

  Sleep in peace, allow us please

  this at least,

  To have our writs made separate from the young.

  Let one

  Old toothless gaffer sue

  a toothless other,

  And the young men use that mincing sissy

  Cleinias’ son,

  Alcibiades;65 and from now on,

  when it comes

  To fines and exiles, only the old

  should ostracize

  The old, and young the young.

  [DICAEOPOLIS comes out of the house with stakes to mark out boundaries, leather straps, and a small table.]

  DICAEOPOLIS:

  These are for the boundaries of my trading.

  Within them all the people of Peloponnese,

  of Megara and Boeotia are free to trade

  and to sell to me: all except Lamachus.

  These three straps for flogging

  I appoint as market officers.

  I want no stool pigeon here

  or any sycophantic fraud.

  Now I’ll go and get the column for my truce

  and set it up for all to see in the market square.

  [He goes into the house as a MEGARIAN arrives with two small GIRLS aged about eight.]

  MEGARIAN:66

  Marketplace of Athens, how d’yer do!

  By Zeus god of friendship, we be friends of you.

  I’ve missed yer like a son his mother.

  [turning to the two GIRLS]

  And now yer twa miserable lasses of a feeble father,

  if you’d like some’at to eat,

  go up them steps and see what yer can find there.

  [He points to the steps outside DICAEOPOLIS’ front door.]

  But ’earken to me and give me yer complete

  tummy-rumbling atten-shun.

  Would yer rather starve or be put up for sale?

  GIRLS: [unanimously] Up for sale! Up for sale!

  MEGARIAN:

  Yeah, yeah—that’s the deal.

  And I ’ave a brain wave—Oh so Megarian!—

  I’ll dress ye up as twa wee swine.

  So now put on them piggy trotters

  and be the piglets of a real swinish mother.

  If yer come ’ome unsold, I swear by ’ermes,

  ye’ll ken what real famine is.

  Now put on them little snouts and get into the sack

  and start squealing an’ oinking just like—

  just like the piggies at the Eleusinian sacrifice.

  I’ll shout for Dicaeopolis. . . . Dicaeopolis!

  DICAEOPOLIS: [coming out of the house]

  Well I’m damned! A Megarian?

  MEGARIAN: We’re ’ere to sell.

  DICAEOPOLIS: How are you all doing?

  MEGARIAN: Just fine! As I started out

  our bigwigs were driving ’emselves silly

  trying ter figure out the best and quickest way

  of scuttling the State.

  DICAEOPOLIS: That’ll be a blessing, won’t it?

  MEGARIAN: Man, yer right!

  DICAEOPOLIS: Anything else going on in Megara? The price of

  grain?

  MEGARIAN: Where we are it’s ’igh as ’eaven.

  DICAEOPOLIS: What’s in the sack—salt?

  MEGARIAN: Salt? That’s what you control.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Garlic, then?

  MEGARIAN: [shaking his head] Garlic, na, and it’s yor fault.

  Ev’ry time ye raid us, yor people

  dig it up—more like mice than men!

  DICAEOPOLIS: Well, what do you have?

  MEGARIAN: Some Mystery piggies. DICAEOPOLIS: Good, let’s see them.

  MEGARIAN: [uncovering the sack] Beauties, eh? Like what yer see?

  Real plump an’ pretty.

  DICAEOPOLIS: [looking into the sack and seeing one of the GIRLS] God in heaven, what is this?r />
  MEGARIAN: A piggy, by Zeus.

  DICAEOPOLIS: A piggy? . . . Don’t be dotty!

  MEGARIAN: A reel Megarian piggy—no?

  DICAEOPOLIS: It doesn’t look like a piggy to me.

  MEGARIAN: [to the audience] Can yer beat it? The disbelieving jerk! ’e says this ain’t a little pork. Tell yer what: I bet yer some thyme-scented salt this ’ere’s a real piglet . . . in the Greek sense of the word.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Yes, but it takes after a human being.

  MEGARIAN: Of course it does—by Diocles!67

  It takes after me. . . . ’oo’s d’yer think it is?

  Like it to squeal?

  DICAEOPOLIS: I certainly would.

  MEGARIAN: Piggy sweet, let’s ’ave it right now—a squeal.

  [not a sound]

  Sod all! You perishing kiddo!

  It’s ’ome yer’ll go.

  FIRST GIRL: Grunt! Grunt!

  MEGARIAN: See—isn’t that a piggy?

  DICAEOPOLIS: Seems like a piggy now, but in a while

  once grown up it’ll be a cunt.

  MEGARIAN: Yer can be sure o’ that. She’ll be just like her mother.

  DICAEOPOLIS: This one’s not ripe for sacrifice.

  MEGARIAN: What d’ yer mean, not ripe for sacrifice?

  DICAEOPOLIS: She hasn’t got a tail.68

  MEGARIAN: She’s young yet, but when grown into full piggy’ood

  she’ll get ’erself a ruddy great thick ’un.

  [displaying the other sack]

  ’ere’s another nice

  piggy for yer to fatten up—if that’s what yer want.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Hers is the twin of the other—the cunt.

  MEGARIAN: Sure, she ’as the same mother an’ same father.

  When she fills out a bit and gets a little bush,

  she’ll be a choice piggy for sacrifice to Aphrodite.69

  DICAEOPOLIS: Pigs aren’t sacrificed to Aphrodite.

  MEGARIAN: Pigs not sacrificed to Aphrodite? Tush! They’re only sacrificed to ’er, and ’ow scrumptious they are spitted on a skewer!

  DICAEOPOLIS: Can they eat without their mother?

  MEGARIAN: Aye, by Poseidon, and without their father.

  DICAEOPOLIS: What do they like most?

  MEGARIAN: Whatever yer give ’em. Ask ’em.

  DICAEOPOLIS: [addressing FIRST GIRL] Piglet, oh piglet!

  FIRST GIRL: Wee wee!

  DICAEOPOLIS: Do you like chickpeas?

  FIRST GIRL: Wee wee!

  DICAEOPOLIS: And figs from Phibalis?‡

  FIRST GIRL: Wee wee!

  DICAEOPOLIS: [to SECOND GIRL] And you, too?

  SECOND GIRL: Wee wee wee!

  DICAEOPOLIS: How the word fig makes you squeal—both of you! Hey, someone in the house bring out some figs for the two wee pigs.

  [XANTHIAS comes on the double with some dry figs and DICAEOPOLIS tosses some into each sack.]

  Do they like figs?

  My word, how they guzzle! Holy Heracles,

  where are they from, these piggies?

  Probably from the Goatland town of Gobbleallia.70

  MEGARIAN: They ’aven’t eaten every single fig.

  ’ere’s one they’ve missed and that’s for me.

  DICAEOPOLIS: My God, what entertaining little rogues they are!

  How much are you asking for them, please?

  MEGARIAN: A rope of garlic for this one ’ere.

  For t’other a peck of salt, if yer like.

  DICAEOPOLIS: I’ll take them. Wait here.

  MEGARIAN: [as DICAEOPOLIS hurries into the house] Done! O ’ermes god of barter, can I sell me wife as well—and what about me mother?

  [An INFORMER enters and sidles up to the MEGARIAN.]

  INFORMER: Where yer from, fella?

  MEGARIAN: Megara—a pig dealer.

  INFORMER: [looking into the sacks] That’s it then: I’ll denounce them piglets as illegal—and you as well.

  MEGARIAN: ’ere we go again! This is ’ow the ’ole bloody show began.

  INFORMER: Megarian lip! You’ll be sorry for it. ’and over that sack.

  MEGARIAN: Dicaeopolis! Dicaeopolis! Quick,

  we have a rat.

  DICAEOPOLIS: [running out of the house and cracking his leather straps

  threateningly]

  Snooper, denouncer—where?

  You damn market police,

  aren’t you ever going to keep these informers out?

  [staring at the INFORMER insultingly]

  Where did you learn to expose yourself without a wick?71

  INFORMER: What? Yer mean expose my enemies?

  DICAEOPOLIS: You’d better not.

  Go and do your exposing somewhere else.

  [The INFORMER runs off.]

  MEGARIAN: In Athens they’re an absolute curse.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Cheer up, Megarian!

  Take this garlic and salt

  at the price we agreed for the piggies,

  and all good luck to you ahead.

  MEGARIAN: Luck’s not in our line.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Forgive me for meddling, then.

  MEGARIAN: [ruefully] Piggies, with no father to ’elp

  try to get some salt at least to nibble with yer bread.

  [MEGARIAN leaves and DICAEOPOLIS takes the GIRLS into the house.]

  CHORUS:

  How lucky he is, this man, did you

  See how beautifully his plan

  Is working out?

  In the market see him sit

  Amid the fruits of his design.

  If Ctesias72 comes sauntering through

  Or any other snooping creep

  He’ll kick him in the rump; no sneak

  Will come annoying you or jump

  The queue;

  Nor a man like Prepis73 wipe

  His smelly bottom off on you;

  Nor will you have to bump

  Into Cleonymus; you’ll stride

  Through your market brightly clad;

  And never will you come across

  A tiresome Hyperbolus74

  Armed with legal summonses;

  Nor in your mart will you collide

  With a Cratinus75 strolling through

  With his noodle neatly cut

  On his way to adultery. Note,

  You’ll never meet an Artemon76

  With his armpits smelling worse

  By far even than his verse:

  Verily his father’s son

  From the land of Billygoat.

  And in your market you will not

  Be ridiculed by Plaguey Pauson77

  Nor by Lysistratus, the awesome

  Shame of Cholargus,

  Who’s sozzled in self-loathing or

  Ravenously shivering for some

  Thirty days or more a moon.

  [A BOEOTIAN arrives from Thebes with his servant ISMENIAS. They are laden with baskets and sacks bursting with country produce. They are followed by a raucous group of young men playing bagpipes.]

  BOEOTIAN:78 ’oly ’eracles! Me shoulders are near raw.

  Ismenias, boy, ’andle them chamomiles with care.

  And ye piper fellas from Thebes,

  blow on them there bones and give us the tune

  of “ ’ow’s my doggie’s arse.”

  DICAEOPOLIS: [charging out of the house]

  Stop that wasp-sting din at once and go to hell!

  Whatever got them to my door,

  this murderous bunch of Chaeridian79 bumblebees?

  BOEOTIAN: By Iolaus,80 ye’ll ’ave done me a good turn there, pal. All the darn way down from Thebes these fellas ’ave followed puffin’ and blowin’ fit to blast the petals off me chamomile. But lookee, ’ow d’yer like to buy some’at the goodies I got . . . or some of them four wingers?81

  DICAEOPOLIS: Fine, dear Boeotian of the muffin eaters! So let’s see what you’ve got.

  BOEOTIAN:

  I got the tops

  of what my country ’as—just ab
out the lot:

  oregano, chamomile, lamp wicks, doormats,

  daws, ducks, cormorants, coots,

  plovers, snipe, quail. . . .

  DICAEOPOLIS: My word!

  You’ve hit the bird market like a fowl-weather squall.

  BOEOTIAN: Aye, but I’ve also got

  geese, hares, foxes, moles,

  hedgehogs, cats, badgers, weasels, Lake Copais eels.82

  DICAEOPOLIS: You gastronomic prince of men,

  if you have eels, will you deign

  to introduce them.

  BOEOTIAN: [fishing an eel out of a crate]

  O fairest of all Copais’ fifty daughters,

  show thyself to this ’ere gent.

  DICAEOPOLIS: [in mock grand manner]

  Come, darling, you most yearned for of creatures,

  here at last, you inspiration for the comic chorus to invent,

  come, you paramour of Morychus.83

  Servants, on the double,

  bring forth the brazier and the bellows.

  [A brazier and bellows are fetched and DICAEOPOLIS’ children gather round.]

  Behold, children, this splendid eel;

  we’ve waited six years for her,

  so, children, say how d’you do to the mademoiselle.

  Let us honor her with coals,

  and let her recline on her divan.

  Even in death on a bed of beets

  may I be parted from you never.84

  BOEOTIAN: ’ey, man, when do I get paid for ’er?

  DICAEOPOLIS: Shall we say she’s a substitute for the market tariff?

  And you can sell me some of your other stuff, right?

  BOEOTIAN: It’s all for sale.

  DICAEOPOLIS: Good. How much?

  Or would you rather swap for something here?

  BOEOTIAN: I would that: something Athens ’as

  and us Boeotians ’aven’t.

  DICAEOPOLIS: What about sardines from Phalernum?85

  Or would you rather pottery?

  BOEOTIAN: Mm! Sardines or pottery? It ain’t a match:

  we ’ave ’em both back ’ome.