DICAEOPOLIS
Who are you? a Megarian?
MEGARIAN
I have come to your market.
DICAEOPOLIS
Well, how are things at Megara?[1]
f[1] Megara was allied to Sparta and suffered during the war more than
any other city because of its proximity to Athens.
MEGARIAN
We are crying with hunger at our firesides.
DICAEOPOLIS
The fireside is jolly enough with a piper. But what else is
doing at Megara, eh?
MEGARIAN
What else? When I left for the market, the authorities were taking
steps to let us die in the quickest manner.
DICAEOPOLIS
That is the best way to get you out of all your troubles.
MEGARIAN
True.
DICAEOPOLIS
What other news of Megara? What is wheat selling at?
MEGARIAN
With us it is valued as highly as the very gods in heaven!
DICAEOPOLIS
Is it salt that you are bringing?
MEGARIAN
Are you not holding back the salt?
DICAEOPOLIS
'Tis garlic then?
MEGARIAN
What! garlic! do you not at every raid grub up the ground with your
pikes to pull out every single head?
DICAEOPOLIS
What DO you bring then?
MEGARIAN
Little sows, like those they immolate at the Mysteries.
DICAEOPOLIS
Ah! very well, show me them.
MEGARIAN
They are very fine; feel their weight. See! how fat and fine.
DICAEOPOLIS
But what is this?
MEGARIAN
A SOW, for a certainty.[1]
f[1] Throughout this whole scene there is an obscene play upon [a] word
which means in Greek both 'sow' and 'a woman's organs of generation.'
DICAEOPOLIS
You say a sow! Of what country, then?
MEGARIAN
From Megara. What! is it not a sow then?
DICAEOPOLIS
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.
DICAEOPOLIS
But a sow of the human kind.
MEGARIAN
Without question, by Diocles! of my own breed! Well! What think
you? will you hear them squeal?
DICAEOPOLIS
Well, yes, I' faith, I will.
MEGARIAN
Cry quickly, wee sowlet; squeak up, hussy, or by Hermes! I take you
back to the house.
GIRL
Wee-wee, wee-wee!
MEGARIAN
Is that a little sow, or not?
DICAEOPOLIS
Yes, it seems so; but let it grow up, and it will be a fine fat bitch.
MEGARIAN
In five years it will be just like its mother.
DICAEOPOLIS
But it cannot be sacrificed.
MEGARIAN
And why not?
DICAEOPOLIS
It has no tail.[1]
f[1] Sacrificial victims were bound to be perfect in every part; an animal,
therefore, without a tail could not be offered.
MEGARIAN
Because it is quite young, but in good time it will have a big one,
thick and red.
DICAEOPOLIS
The two are as like as two peas.
MEGARIAN
They are born of the same father and mother; let them be fattened,
let them grow their bristles, and they will be the finest sows you can
offer to Aphrodite.
DICAEOPOLIS
But sows are not immolated to Aphrodite.
MEGARIAN
Not sows to Aphrodite! Why, 'tis the only goddess to whom they
are offered! the flesh of my sows will be excellent on the spit.
DICAEOPOLIS
Can they eat alone? They no longer need their mother!
MEGARIAN
Certainly not, nor their father.
DICAEOPOLIS
What do they like most?
MEGARIAN
Whatever is given them; but ask for yourself.
DICAEOPOLIS
Speak! little sow.
DAUGHTER
Wee-wee, wee-wee!
DICAEOPOLIS
Can you eat chick-pease?
DAUGHTER
Wee-wee, wee-wee, wee-wee!
DICAEOPOLIS
And Attic figs?
DAUGHTER
Wee-wee, wee-wee!
DICAEOPOLIS
What sharp squeaks at the name of figs. Come, let some figs be
brought for these little pigs. Will they eat them? Goodness! how
they munch them, what a grinding of teeth, mighty Heracles! I
believe those pigs hail from the land of the Voracians. But surely
'tis impossible they have bolted all the figs!
MEGARIAN
Yes, certainly, bar this one that I took from them.
DICAEOPOLIS
Ah! what funny creatures! For what sum will you sell them?
MEGARIAN
I will give you one for a bunch of garlic, and the other, if you
like, for a quart measure of salt.
DICAEOPOLIS
I buy them of you. Wait for me here.
MEGARIAN
The deal is done. Hermes, god of good traders, grant I may sell
both my wife and my mother in the same way!
AN INFORMER
Hi! fellow, what countryman are you?
MEGARIAN
I am a pig-merchant from Megara.
INFORMER
I shall denounce both your pigs and yourself as public enemies.
MEGARIAN
Ah! here our troubles begin afresh!
INFORMER
Let go that sack. I will punish your Megarian lingo![1]
f[1] The Megarians used the Doric dialect.
MEGARIAN
Dicaeopolis, Dicaeopolis, they want to denounce me.
DICAEOPOLIS
Who dares do this thing? Inspectors, drive out the informers.
Ah! you offer to enlighten us without a lamp![1]
f[1] A play upon [a] word which both means 'to light' and 'to denounce.'
INFORMER
What! I may not denounce our enemies?
DICAEOPOLIS
Have a care for yourself, if you don't go off pretty quick to denounce
elsewhere.
MEGARIAN
What a plague to Athens!
DICAEOPOLIS
Be reassured, Megarian. Here is the price for your two swine,
the garlic and the salt. Farewell and much happiness!
MEGARIAN
Ah! we never have that amongst us.
DICAEOPOLIS
Well! may the inopportune wish apply to myself.
MEGARIAN
Farewell, dear little sows, and seek, far from your father, to
munch your bread with salt, if they give you any.
CHORUS
Here is a man truly happy. See how everything succeeds to his
wish. Peacefully seated in his market, he will earn his living; woe to
Ctesias,[1] and all other informers who dare to enter there! You will not
be cheated as to the value of wares, you will not again see Prepis[2]
wiping his foul rump, nor will Cleonymus[3] jostle you; you will take your
walks, clothed in a fine tunic, without meeting Hyperbolus[4] and his
unceasing quibblings, without being accosted on the public place by
any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus,[5] 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[6] jeers, nor of Lysistratus,[7] 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.
f[1] An informer (sycophant), otherwise unknown.
f[2] A debauchee of vile habits; a pathic.
f[3] Mentioned above; he was as proud as he was cowardly.
f[4] An Athenian general, quarrelsome and litigious, and an Informer
into the bargain.
f[5] A comic poet of vile habits.
f[6] A painter.
f[7] A debauchee, a gambler, and always in extreme poverty.
A BOEOTIAN
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.[1]
f[1] This kind of flute had a bellows, made of dog-skin, much like
the bagpipes of to-day.
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