DICAEOPOLIS
Spectators, be not angered if, although I am a beggar, I dare in
a Comedy to speak before the people of Athens of the public weal;
Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please,
but I shall say what is true. Besides, Cleon shall not be able to accuse
me of attacking Athens before strangers;[1] we are by ourselves at the
festival of the Lenaea; 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 Lacedaemonians with all my heart, and may Posidon,
the god of Taenarus,[2] cause an earthquake and overturn their dwellings!
My vines also have been cut. But come (there are only friends who
hear me), why accuse the Laconians of all our woes? 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 suck[l]ing pig, a clove of garlic, a lump of salt was seen without its
being said, "Halloa! these come from Megara," and their being
instantly confiscated. Thus far the evil was not serious and we were
the only sufferers. But now some young drunkards go to Megara and
carry off the courtesan Simaetha; the Megarians, hurt to the quick, run
off in turn with two harlots of the house of Aspasia; and so for three
gay women Greece is set ablaze. Then Pericles, aflame with ire on his
Olympian height, let loose the lightning, caused the thunder to
roll, upset Greece and passed an edict, which ran like the song, "That
the Megarians be banished both from our land and from our markets
and from the sea and from the continent."[3] Meanwhile the Megarians,
who were beginning to die of hunger, begged the Lacedaemonians to bring
about the abolition of the decree, of which those harlots were the
cause; several times we refused their demand; and from that time there
was horrible clatter of arms everywhere. You will say that Sparta
was wrong, but what should she have done? Answer that. Suppose that
a Lacedaemonian had seized a little Seriphian[4] dog on any pretext and
had sold it, would you have endured it quietly? 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; in the arsenal bolts are being
noisily driven home, sweeps are being made and fitted with leathers;
we hear nothing but the sound of whistles, of flutes and fifes to
encourage the work-folk. That is what you assuredly would have done,
and would not Telephus have done the same? So I come to my general
conclusion; we have no common sense.
f[1] 'The Babylonians' had been produced at a time of year when Athens
was crowded with strangers; 'The Acharnians,' on the contrary, was played
in December.
f[2] Sparta had been menaced with an earthquake in 427 B.C. Posidon
was 'The Earthshaker,' god of earthquakes, as well as of the sea.
f[3] A song by Timocreon the Rhodian, the words of which were practically
identical with Pericles' decree.
f[4] A small and insignificant island, one of the Cyclades, allied with
the Athenians, like months of these islands previous to and during
the first part of the Peloponnesian War.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS
Oh! wretch! oh! infamous man! You are naught but a beggar and
yet you dare to talk to us like this! you insult their worships
the informers!
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS
By Posidon! he speaks the truth; he has not lied in a single detail.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS
But though it be true, need he say it? But you'll have no great
cause to be proud of your insolence!
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS
Where are you running to? Don't you move; if you strike this man,
I shall be at you.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS
Lamachus, whose glance flashes lightning, whose plume
petrifies thy foes, help! Oh! Lamachus, my friend, the hero of my
tribe and all of you, both officers and soldiers, defenders of our
walls, come to my aid; else is it all over with me!
LAMACHUS
Whence comes this cry of battle? where must I bring my aid?
where must I sow dread? who wants me to uncase my dreadful Gorgon's
head?[1]
f[1] A figure of Medusa's head, forming the centre of Lamachus' shield.
DICAEOPOLIS
Oh, Lamachus, great hero! Your plumes and your cohorts terrify me.
CHORUS
This man, Lamachus, incessantly abuses Athens.
LAMACHUS
You are but a mendicant and you dare to use language of this sort?
DICAEOPOLIS
Oh, brave Lamachus, forgive a beggar who speaks at hazard.
LAMACHUS
But what have you said? Let us hear.
DICAEOPOLIS
I know nothing about it; the sight of weapons makes me dizzy.
Oh! I adjure you, take that fearful Gorgon somewhat farther away.
LAMACHUS
There.
DICAEOPOLIS
Now place it face downwards on the ground.
LAMACHUS
It is done.
DICAEOPOLIS
Give me a plume out of your helmet.
LAMACHUS
Here is a feather.
DICAEOPOLIS
And hold my head while I vomit; the plumes have turned my stomach.
LAMACHUS
Hah! what are you proposing to do? do you want to make yourself
vomit with this feather?
DICAEOPOLIS
Is it a feather? what bird's? a braggart's?
LAMACHUS
Ah! ah! I will rip you open.
DICAEOPOLIS
No, no, Lamachus! Violence is out of place here! But as you are so
strong, why did you not circumcise me? You have all the tools you want
for the operation there.
LAMACHUS
A beggar dares thus address a general!
DICAEOPOLIS
How? Am I a beggar?
LAMACHUS
What are you then?
DICAEOPOLIS
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...
DICAEOPOLIS
Yes, three cuckoos did![1] 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 drachmae, such fellows as Tisamenophoenippus
and Panurgipparchides. The others are with Chares or in Chaonia, men
like Geretotheodorus and Diomialazon; there are some of the same
kidney, too, at Camarina and at Gela,[2] the laughing-stock of all and sundry.
f[1] Indicates the character of his election, which was arranged, so
Aristophanes implies, by his partisans.
f[2] Town in Sicily. There is a pun on the name Gela and 'ridiculous'
which it is impossible to keep in English. Apparently the Athenians
had sent embassies to all parts of the Greek world to arrange treaties
of alliance in view of the struggle with the Lacedaemonians; but only
young debauchees of aristocratic connections had been chosen as envoys.
LAMACHUS
They were elected.
DICAEOPOLIS
And why do you always receive your pay, when none of these
others ever gets any? Speak, Marilades, you have grey hair; well then,
have you ever been entrusted with a mission? See! he shakes his
head. Yet he is an active as well as a prudent man. And you, Dracyllus,
Euphorides or Prinides, have you knowledge of Ecbatana or
Chaonia? You say no, do you not? Such offices are good for the son
of Caesyra[1] and Lamachus, who, but yesterday ruined with debt, never
pay their shot, and whom all their friends avoid as foot passengers
dodge the folks who empty their slops out of window.
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