INTRODUCTION
The 'Peace' was brought out four years after 'The Acharnians' (422 B.C.),
when the War had already lasted ten years. The leading motive is the
same as in the former play--the intense desire of the less excitable and
more moderate-minded citizens for relief from the miseries of war.
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. However, his benevolent purpose is not in
vain; for learning from Hermes that the goddess Peace has been cast into
a pit, where she is kept a fast prisoner, he calls upon the different peoples
of Hellas to make a united effort and rescue her, and with their help drags
her out and brings her back in triumph to earth. The play concludes
with the restoration of the goddess to her ancient honours, the festivities
of the rustic population and the nuptials of Trygaeus with Opora (Harvest),
handmaiden of Peace, represented as a pretty courtesan.
Such references as there are to Cleon in this play are noteworthy.
The great Demagogue was now dead, having fallen in the same action as
the rival Spartan general, the renowned Brasidas, before Amphipolis,
and whatever Aristophanes says here of his old enemy is conceived in
the spirit of 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum.' In one scene Hermes is descanting
on the evils which had nearly ruined Athens and declares that
'The Tanner' was the cause of them all. But Trygaeus interrupts him
with the words:
"Hold-say not so, good master Hermes;
Let the man rest in peace where now he lies.
He is no longer of our world, but yours."
Here surely we have a trait of magnanimity on the author's part as
admirable in its way as the wit and boldness of his former attacks
had been in theirs.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
TRYGAEUS
TWO SERVANTS OF TRYGAEUS
MAIDENS, DAUGHTERS OF TRYGAEUS
HERMES
WAR
TUMULT
HIEROCLES, a Soothsayer
A SICKLE-MAKER
A CREST-MAKER
A TRUMPET-MAKER
A HELMET-MAKER
A SPEAR-MAKER
SON OF LAMACHUS
SON OF CLEONYMUS
CHORUS OF HUSBANDMEN
SCENE: A farmyard, two slaves busy beside a dungheap; afterwards,
in Olympus.
FIRST SERVANT
Quick, quick, bring the dung-beetle his cake.
SECOND SERVANT
Coming, coming.
FIRST SERVANT
Give it to him, and may it kill him!
SECOND SERVANT
May he never eat a better.
FIRST SERVANT
Now give him this other one kneaded up with ass's dung.
SECOND SERVANT
There! I've done that too.
FIRST SERVANT
And where's what you gave him just now; surely he can't have devoured
it yet!
SECOND SERVANT
Indeed he has; he snatched it, rolled it between his feet and
bolted it.
FIRST SERVANT
Come, hurry up, knead up a lot and knead them stiffly.
SECOND SERVANT
Oh, scavengers, help me in the name of the gods, if you do not
wish to see me fall down choked.
FIRST SERVANT
Come, come, another made from the stool of a young scapegrace catamite.
'Twill be to the beetle's taste; he likes it well ground.
SECOND SERVANT
There! I am free at least from suspicion; none will accuse me of
tasting what I mix.
FIRST SERVANT
Faugh! come, now another! keep on mixing with all your might.
SECOND SERVANT
I' faith, no. I can stand this awful cesspool stench no longer, so I
bring you the whole ill-smelling gear.
FIRST SERVANT
Pitch it down the sewer sooner, and yourself with it.
SECOND SERVANT
Maybe, one of you can tell me where I can buy a stopped-up nose,
for there is no work more disgusting than to mix food for a
beetle and to carry it to him. A pig or a dog will at least pounce
upon our excrement without more ado, but this foul wretch
affects the disdainful, the spoilt mistress, and won't eat unless I
offer him a cake that has been kneaded for an entire day.... But let
us open the door a bit ajar without his seeing it. Has he done eating?
Come, pluck up courage, cram yourself till you burst! The cursed
creature! It wallows in its food! It grips it between its claws like a
wrestler clutching his opponent, and with head and feet together rolls
up its paste like a rope-maker twisting a hawser. What an indecent,
stinking, gluttonous beast! I know not what angry god let this
monster loose upon us, but of a certainty it was neither Aphrodite nor
the Graces.
FIRST SERVANT
Who was it then?
SECOND SERVANT
No doubt the Thunderer, Zeus.
FIRST SERVANT
But perhaps some spectator, some beardless youth, who thinks
himself a sage, will say, "What is this? What does the beetle mean?"
And then an Ionian,[1] sitting next him, will add, "I think 'tis an
allusion to Cleon, who so shamelessly feeds on filth all by
himself."--But now I'm going indoors to fetch the beetle a drink.
f[1] 'Peace' was no doubt produced at the festival of the Apaturia, which
was kept at the end of October, a period when strangers were numerous in
Athens.
SECOND SERVANT
As for me, I will explain the matter to you all, children, youths,
grownups and old men, aye, even to the decrepit dotards. My master
is mad, not as you are, but with another sort of madness, quite a
new kind. The livelong day he looks open-mouthed towards heaven and
never stops addressing Zeus. "Ah! Zeus," he cries, "what are thy
intentions? Lay aside thy besom; do not sweep Greece away!"
TRYGAEUS
Ah! ah! ah!
SECOND SERVANT
Hush, hush! Mehinks I hear his voice!
TRYGAEUS
Oh! Zeus, what art thou going to do for our people? Dost thou
not see this, that our cities will soon be but empty husks?
SECOND SERVANT
As I told you, that is his form of madness. There you have a
sample of his follies. When his trouble first began to seize him, he
said to himself, "By what means could I go straight to Zeus?" Then he
made himself very slender little ladders and so clambered up towards
heaven; but he soon came hurtling down again and broke his head.
Yesterday, to our misfortune, he went out and brought us back this
thoroughbred, but from where I know not, this great beetle, whose
groom he has forced me to become. He himself caresses it as though
it were a horse, saying, "Oh! my little Pegasus,[1] my noble aerial
steed, may your wings soon bear me straight to Zeus!" But what is my
master doing? I must stoop down to look through this hole. Oh! great
gods! Here! neighbours, run here quick! here is my master flying off
mounted on his beetle as if on horseback.
f[1] The winged steed of Perseus--an allusion to a lost tragedy of Euripides,
in which Bellerophon was introduced riding on Pegasus.
TRYGAEUS
Gently, gently, go easy, beetle; don't start off so proudly, or
trust at first too greatly to your powers; wait till you have sweated,
till the beating of your wings shall make your limb joints supple.
Above all things, don't let off some foul smell, I adjure you; else
I would rather have you stop in the stable altogether.
SECOND SERVANT
Poor master! Is he crazy?
TRYGAEUS
Silence! silence!
SECOND SERVANT (TO TRYGAEUS)
But why start up into the air on chance?
TRYGAEUS
'Tis for the weal of all the Greeks; I am attempting a daring
and novel feat.
SECOND SERVANT
But what is your purpose? What useless folly!
TRYGAEUS
No words of ill omen! Give vent to joy and command all men to keep
silence, to close down their drains and privies with new tiles and
to stop up their own vent-holes.[1]
|