Lines 1–202

DICAEOPOLIS.
What heaps of things have bitten me to the heart!
A small few pleased me, very few, just four;
But those that vexed were sand-dune-hundredfold.
Let’s see: what pleased me, worth my gladfulness?
I know a thing it cheered my heart to see;
’Twas those five talents vomited up by Cleon.
At that I brightened; and I love the Knights
For that performance; ’twas of price to Hellas.
Then I’d a tragic sorrow, when I looked
With open mouth for Aeschylus, and lo,
The Crier called, Bring on your play, Theognis.
Judge what an icy shock that gave my heart!
Next; pleased I was when Moschus left, and in
Dexitheus came with his Boeotian song.
But oh this year I nearly cracked my neck,
When in slipped Chaeris for the Orthian Nome.
But never yet since first I washed my face
Was I so bitten—in my brows with soap,
As now, when here’s the fixed Assembly Day,
And morning come, and no one in the Pnyx.
They’re in the Agora chattering, up and down
Scurrying to dodge the vermeil-tinctured cord.
Why even the Prytanes are not here! They’ll come
Long after time, elbowing each other, jostling
For the front bench, streaming down all together
You can’t think how. But as for making Peace
They do not care one jot. O City! City!
But I am always first of all to come,
And here I take my seat; then, all alone,
I pass the time complaining, yawning, stretching,
I fidget, write, twitch hairs out, do my sums,
Gaze fondly country-wards, longing for Peace,
Loathing the town, sick for my village-home,
Which never cried, Come, buy my charcoal, or
My vinegar, my oil, my anything;
But freely gave us all; no buy-word there.
So here I’m waiting, thoroughly prepared
To riot, wrangle, interrupt the speakers
Whene’er they speak of anything but Peace.
But here they come, our noon-day Prytanes!
Aye, there they go! I told you how ’twould be;
Every one jostling for the foremost place.

CRIER.
Move forward all,
Move up, within the consecrated line.

AMPHITHEUS.
Speaking begun?

CRIER.
Who will address the meeting?

AMPHITHEUS.
I.

CRIER.
Who are you?

AMPHITHEUS.
Amphitheus.

CRIER.
Not a man?

AMPHITHEUS.
No, an immortal. For the first Amphitheus
Was of Demeter and Triptolemus
The son: his son was Celeus; Celeus married
Phaenarete, who bare my sire Lycinus.
Hence I’m immortal; and the gods committed
To me alone the making peace with Sparta.
But, though immortal, I’ve no journey-money;
The Prytanes won’t provide it.

CRIER.
Archers, there!

AMPHITHEUS.
O help me, Celeus! help, Triptolemus!

DICAEOPOLIS.
Ye wrong the Assembly, Prytanes, ye do wrong it,
Haling away a man who only wants
To give us Peace, and hanging up of shields.

CRIER.
St! Take your seat.

DICAEOPOLIS.
By Apollo, no, not I,
Unless ye prytanize about the Peace.

CRIER.
O yes! The Ambassadors from the Great King!

DICAEOPOLIS.
What King! I’m sick to death of embassies,
And all their peacocks and their impositions.

CRIER.
Keep silence!

DICAEOPOLIS.
Hey!!! Ecbatana, here’s a show.

AMBASSADOR.
Ye sent us, envoys to the Great King’s Court,
Receiving each two drachmas daily, when
Euthymenes was Archon.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O me, the drachmas!

AMBASSADOR.
And weary work we found it, sauntering on,
Supinely stretched in our luxurious litters
With awnings o’er us, through Caystrian plains.
Twas a bad time.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Aye, the good time was mine,
Stretched in the litter on the ramparts here!

AMBASSADOR.
And oft they féted us, and we perforce
Out of their gold and crystal cups must drink
The pure sweet wine.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O Cranaan city, mark you
The insolent airs of these ambassadors?

AMBASSADOR.
For only those are there accounted MEN
Who drink the hardest, and who eat the most.

DICAEOPOLIS.
As here the most debauched and dissolute.

AMBASSADOR.
In the fourth year we reached the Great King’s Court.
But he, with all his troops, had gone to sit
An eight-months’ session on the Golden Hills!

DICAEOPOLIS.
Pray, at what time did he conclude his session?

AMBASSADOR.
At the full moon; and so came home again.
Then he too féted us, and set before us
Whole pot-baked oxen—

DICAEOPOLIS.
And who ever heard
Of pot-baked oxen? Out upon your lies!

AMBASSADOR.
And an enormous bird, three times the size
Of our Cleonymus: its name was—Gull.

DICAEOPOLIS.
That’s why you gulled us out of all those drachmas!

AMBASSADOR.
And now we bring you Pseudo-Artabas
The Great King’s Eye.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O how I wish some raven
Would come and strike out yours, the Ambassador’s.

CRIER.
O yes! the Great King’s Eye!

DICAEOPOLIS.
O Heracles!
By Heaven, my man, you wear a war-ship look!
What! Do you round the point, and spy the docks?
Is that an oar-pad underneath your eye?

AMBASSADOR.
Now tell the Athenians, Pseudo-Artabas,
What the Great King commissioned you to say.

PSEUDO-ARTABAS.
Ijisti boutti furbiss upde rotti.

AMBASSADOR.
Do you understand?

DICAEOPOLIS.
By Apollo, no not I.

AMBASSADOR.
He says the King is going to send you gold.
(To Pseudo.) Be more distinct and clear about the gold.

PSEUDO-ARTABAS.
No getti goldi, nincompoop Iawny.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Wow, but that’s clear enough!

AMBASSADOR.
What does he say?

DICAEOPOLIS.
He says the Ionians must be nincompoops
If they’re expecting any gold from Persia.

AMBASSADOR.
No, no: he spoke of golden income-coupons.

DICAEOPOLIS.
What income-coupons? You’re a great big liar!
You, get away; I’ll test the man myself.
(To Pseudo.)
Now look at this (showing his fist): and answer
Yes, or No!
Or else I’ll dye you with a Sardian dye.
Does the Great King intend to send us gold?
(Pseudo-Artabas nods dissent.)
Then are our envoys here bamboozling us?
(He nods assent.)
These fellows nod in pure Hellenic style;
I do believe they come from hereabouts.
Aye, to be sure; why, one of these two eunuchs
Is Cleisthenes, Sibyrtius’s son!
O thou young shaver of the hot-souled rump,
With such a beard, thou monkey, dost thou come
Tricked out amongst us in a eunuch’s guise?
And who’s this other chap? Not Straton, surely?

CRIER.
St! Take your seat! O yes!
The Council ask the Great King’s Eye to dinner
At the Town Hall.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Now is not that a throttler?
Here must I drudge at soldiering; while these rogues,
The Town-Hall door is never closed to them.
Now then, I’ll do a great and startling deed.
Amphitheus! Where’s Amphitheus?

AMPHITHEUS.
Here am I.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Here be eight drachmas; take them; and with all
The Lacedaemonians make a private peace
For me, my wife and children: none besides.
(To the Prytanes and citizens)
Stick to your embassies and befoolings, you.

CRIER.
O yes! Theorus from Sitalces!

THEORUS.
Here!

DICAEOPOLIS.
O here’s another humbug introduced.

THEORUS.
We should not, sirs, have tarried long in Thrace—

DICAEOPOLIS.
But for the salary you kept on drawing.

THEORUS.
But for the storms, which covered Thrace with snow
And froze the rivers. ’Twas about the season
At which Theognis was performing here.
I all that time was drinking with Sitalces;
A most prodigious Athens-lover he,
Yea such a true admirer, he would scribble
On every wall My beautiful Athenians!
His son, our newly-made Athenian, longed
To taste his Apaturian sausages,
And bade his father help his fatherland.
And he, with deep libations, vowed to help us
With such an host that every one would say
Heavens! what a swarm of locusts comes this way!

DICAEOPOLIS.
Hang me, if I believe a single word
Of all that speech, except about the locusts.

THEORUS.
And here he sends you the most warlike tribe
Of all in Thrace.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Come, here’s proof positive.

CRIER.
The Thracians whom Theorus brought, come forward!

DICAEOPOLIS.
What the plague’s this?

THEORUS.
The Odomantian host.

DICAEOPOLIS.
The Odomantians, pho! Hallo, look here.
Are Odomantians all equipped like this?

THEORUS.
Give them two drachmas each a day, and these
Will targeteer Boeotia all to bits.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Two drachmas for THESE scarecrows! Oh, our tars,
Our noble tars, the safeguard of our state,
Well may they groan at this. O! Murder! O!
These Odomantian thieves have sacked my garlic.

THEORUS.
Put down the garlic! drop it!
You rapscallion,
How dare you touch them, when they’re garlic-primed.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O will you let them, Prytanes, use me thus,
Barbarians too, in this my fatherland?
But stop! I warn you not to hold the Assembly
About the Thracians’ pay. I tell you there’s
A portent come; I felt a drop of rain!

CRIER.
The Thracians are to go, and two days hence
Come here again. The Assembly is dissolved.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O me, the salad I have lost this day!
But here’s Amphitheus, back from Lacedaemon.
Well met, Amphitheus!

AMPHITHEUS.
Not till I’ve done running.
I needs must flee the Acharnians, clean away.

DICAEOPOLIS.
What mean you?

AMPHITHEUS.
I was bringing back in haste
The treaties, when some veterans smelt them out,
Acharnians, men of Marathon, hard in grain
As their own oak and maple, rough and tough;
And all at once they cried, O villain, dare you
Bring treaties when our vineyards are cut down?
Then in their lappets up they gathered stones;
I fled away: they followed roaring after.

DICAEOPOLIS.
So let them roar. But have you got the treaties?

AMPHITHEUS.
O yes, I have. Three samples; here they are.
These are the five-year treaties; take and taste them.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Pheugh!

AMPHITHEUS.
What’s the matter?

DICAEOPOLIS.
I don’t like the things,
They smell of tar and naval preparations.

AMPHITHEUS.
Then taste the ten-year samples; here they are.

DICAEOPOLIS.
These smell of embassies to all the states,
Urgent, as if the Allies are hanging back.

AMPHITHEUS.
Then here are treaties both by land and sea
For thirty years.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O Feast of Dionysus!
These have a smell of nectar and ambrosia,
And never mind about the three days’ rations,
And in your mouth they say, Go where you please.
These do I welcome, these I pour, and drain,
Nor care a hang about your old Acharnians.
But I, released from War and War’s alarms,
Will hold, within, the Rural Dionysia.