f[1] The Chorus insist on the conventional choric dance.
TRYGAEUS
You will work my death if you don't subdue your shouts. War will
come running out and trample everything beneath his feet.
CHORUS
Well then! LET him confound, let him trample, let him overturn
everything! We cannot help giving vent to our joy.
TRYGAEUS
Oh! cruel fate! My friends! in the name of the gods, what possesses
you? Your dancing will wreck the success of a fine undertaking.
CHORUS
'Tis not I who want to dance; 'tis my legs that bound with delight.
TRYGAEUS
Enough, an you love me, cease your gambols.
CHORUS
There! 'Tis over.
TRYGAEUS
You say so, and nevertheless you go on.
CHORUS
Yet one more figure and 'tis done.
TRYGAEUS
Well, just this one; then you must dance no more.
CHORUS
No, no more dancing, if we can help you.
TRYGAEUS
But look, you are not stopping even now.
CHORUS
By Zeus, I am only throwing up my right leg, that's all.
TRYGAEUS
Come, I grant you that, but pray, annoy me no further.
CHORUS
Ah! the left leg too will have its fling; well, 'tis but its right.
I am so happy,
so delighted at not having to carry my buckler any more. I sing and
I laugh more than if I had cast my old age, as a serpent does its skin.
TRYGAEUS
No, 'tis not time for joy yet, for you are not sure of success.
But when you have got the goddess, then rejoice, shout and laugh;
thenceforward you will be able to sail or stay at home, to make love
or sleep, to attend festivals and processions, to play at cottabos,[1]
live like true Sybarites and to shout, Io, io!
f[1] One of the most favourite games with the Greeks. A stick was set
upright in the ground and to this the beam of a balance was attached
by its centre. Two vessels were hung from the extremities of the beam
so as to balance; beneath these two other and larger dishes were placed
and filled with water, and in the middle of each a brazen figure, called
Manes, was stood. The game consisted in throwing drops of wine from
an agreed distance into one or the other vessel, so that, dragged
downwards by the weight of the liquor, it bumped against Manes.
CHORUS
Ah! God grant we may see the blessed day. I have suffered so much;
have so oft slept with Phormio[1] on hard beds. You will no longer find
me an acid, angry, hard judge as heretofore, but will find me turned
indulgent and grown younger by twenty years through happiness.
We have been killing ourselves long enough, tiring ourselves out
with going to the Lyceum[2] and returning laden with spear and buckler.
--But what can we do to please you? Come, speak; for 'tis a good Fate
that has named you our leader.
f[1] A general of austere habits; he disposed of all his property to pay
the cost of a naval expedition, in which he beat the fleet of the foe off
the promontory of Rhium in 429 B.C.
f[2] The Lyceum was a portico ornamented with paintings and surrounded
with gardens, in which military exercises took place.
TRYGAEUS
How shall we set about removing these stones?
HERMES
Rash reprobate, what do you propose doing?
TRYGAEUS
Nothing bad, as Cillicon said.[1]
f[1] A citizen of Miletus, who betrayed his country to the people of Pirene.
When asked what he purposed, he replied, "Nothing bad," which expression
had therefore passed into a proverb.
HERMES
You are undone, you wretch.
TRYGAEUS
Yes, if the lot had to decide my life, for Hermes would know how
to turn the chance.[1]
f[1] Hermes was the god of chance.
HERMES
You are lost, you are dead.
TRYGAEUS
On what day?
HERMES
This instant.
TRYGAEUS
But I have not provided myself with flour and cheese yet[1] to
start for death.
f[1] As the soldiers had to do when starting on an expedition.
HERMES
You ARE kneaded and ground already, I tell you.[1]
f[1] That is, you are predicated.
TRYGAEUS
Hah! I have not yet tasted that gentle pleasure.
HERMES
Don't you know that Zeus has decreed death for him who is surprised
exhuming Peace?
TRYGAEUS
What! must I really and truly die?
HERMES
You must.
TRYGAEUS
Well then, lend me three drachmae to buy a young pig; I wish to
have myself initiated before I die.[1]
f[1] The initiated were thought to enjoy greater happiness after death.
HERMES
Oh! Zeus, the Thunderer![1]
f[1] He summons Zeus to reveal Trygaeus' conspiracy.
TRYGAEUS
I adjure you in the name of the gods, master, don't denounce us!
HERMES
I may not, I cannot keep silent.
TRYGAEUS
In the name of the meats which I brought you so good-naturedly.
HERMES
Why, wretched man, Zeus will annihilate me, if I do not shout
out at the top of my voice, to inform him what you are plotting.
TRYGAEUS
Oh, no! don't shout, I beg you, dear little Hermes.... And what
are you doing, comrades? You stand there as though you were stocks
and stones. Wretched men, speak, entreat him at once; otherwise he
will be shouting.
CHORUS
Oh! mighty Hermes! don't do it; no, don't do it! If ever you
have eaten some young pig, sacrificed by us on your altars, with
pleasure, may this offering not be without value in your sight to-day.
TRYGAEUS
Do you not hear them wheedling you, mighty god?
CHORUS
Be not pitiless toward our prayers; permit us to deliver the goddess.
Oh! the most human, the most generous of the gods, be favourable
toward us, if it be true that you detest the haughty crests and proud brows
of Pisander;[1] we shall never cease, oh master, offering you sacred victims
and solemn prayers.
f[1] An Athenian captain who later had the recall of Alcibiades decreed by
the Athenian people; in 'The Birds' Aristophanes represents him as a
cowardly beggar. He was the reactionary leader who estalbished the
Oligarchical Government of the Four Hundred, 411 B.C., after the failure of
the Syracusan expedition.
TRYGAEUS
Have mercy, mercy, let yourself be touched by their words; never was
your worship so dear to them as to-day.
HERMES
I' truth, never have you been greater thieves.[1]
f[1] Among other attributes, Hermes was the god of theieves.
TRYGAEUS
I will reveal a great, a terrible conspiracy against the gods to you.
HERMES
Hah! speak and perchance I shall let myself be softened.
TRYGAEUS
Know then, that the Moon and that infamous Sun are plotting against you,
and want to deliver Greece into the hands of the Barbarians.
HERMES
What for?
TRYGAEUS
Because it is to you that we sacrifice, whereas the barbarians
worship them; hence they would like to see you destroyed, that they
alone might receive the offerings.
HERMES
'Tis then for this reason that these untrustworthy charioteers
have for so long been defrauding us, one of them robbing us
of daylight and the other nibbling away at the other's disk.[1]
f[1] Alluding to the eclipses of the sun and the moon.
TRYGAEUS
Yes, certainly. So therefore, Hermes, my friend, help us with your
whole heart to find and deliver the captive and we will celebrate
the great Panathenaea[1] in your honour as well as all the festivals of
the other gods; for Hermes shall be the Mysteries, the Dipolia, the
Adonia; everywhere the towns, freed from their miseries, will
sacrifice to Hermes the Liberator; you will be loaded with benefits of
every kind, and to start with, I offer you this cup for libations as
your first present.
f[1] The Panathenaea were dedicated to Athene, the Mysteries
to Demeter, the Dipolia to Zeus, the Adonia to Aphrodite and Adonis.
Trygaeus promises Hermes that he shall be worshipped in the place
of the other gods.
|