Lines 402–593

CEPHISOPHON.
But it can’t be done.

DICAEOPOLIS.
But still—
For go I won’t. I’ll hammer at the door.
Euripides, my sweet one!
O if you ever hearkened, hearken now.
’Tis I, Cholleidian Dicaeopolis.

EURIPIDES.
But I’ve no time.

DICAEOPOLIS.
But pivot.

EURIPIDES.
But it can’t be done.

DICAEOPOLIS.
But still—

EURIPIDES.
Well then, I’ll pivot, but I can’t come down.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Euripides!

EURIPIDES.
Aye.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Why do you write up there,
And not down here? That’s why you make lame heroes.
And wherefore sit you robed in tragic rags,
A pitiful garb? That’s why you make them beggars.
But by your knees, Euripides, I pray,
Lend me some rags from that old play of yours;
For to the Chorus I to-day must speak
A lengthy speech; and if I fail, ’tis DEATH.

EURIPIDES.
Rags! Rags! what rags? Mean you the rags wherein
This poor old Oeneus came upon the stage?

DICAEOPOLIS.
Not Oeneus, no; a wretcheder man than he.

EURIPIDES.
Those that blind Phoenix wore?

DICAEOPOLIS.
Not Phoenix, no;
Some other man still wretcheder than Phoenix.

EURIPIDES.
What shreds of raiment can the fellow mean?
Can it be those of beggarly Philoctetes?

DICAEOPOLIS.
One far, far, far, more beggarly than he.

EURIPIDES.
Can it be then the loathly gaberdine
Wherein the lame Bellerophon was clad?

DICAEOPOLIS.
Bellerophon? no; yet mine too limped and begged,
A terrible chap to talk.

EURIPIDES.
I know the man.
The Mysian Telephus.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Telephus it is!
Lend me, I pray, that hero’s swaddling-clothes.

EURIPIDES.
Boy, fetch him out the rags of Telephus.

CEPHISOPHON.
They lie above the Thyesteian rags,
Twixt those and Ino’s.
(To Di.) Take them; here they are.

DICAEOPOLIS.
(Holding up the tattered garment against the light)
Lord Zeus, whose eyes can pierce through everywhere,
Let me be dressed the loathliest way I can.
Euripides, you have freely given the rags,
Now give, I pray you, what pertains to these,
The Mysian cap to set upon my head.
For I’ve to-day to act a beggar’s part,
To be myself, yet not to seem myself;
The audience there will know me who I am,
Whilst all the Chorus stand like idiots by,
The while I fillip them with cunning words.

EURIPIDES.
Take it; you subtly plan ingenious schemes.

DICAEOPOLIS.
To thee, good luck; to Telephus—what I wish him!
Yah! why I’m full of cunning words already.
But now, methinks, I need a beggar’s staff.

EURIPIDES.
Take this, and get thee from the marble halls.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O Soul, thou seest me from the mansion thrust,
Still wanting many a boon. Now in thy prayer
Be close and instant. Give, Euripides,
A little basket with a hole burnt through it.

EURIPIDES.
What need you, hapless one, of this poor wicker?

DICAEOPOLIS.
No need perchance; but O I want it so.

EURIPIDES.
Know that you’re wearisome, and get you gone.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Alas! Heaven bless you, as it blessed your mother.

EURIPIDES.
Leave me in peace.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Just one thing more, but one,
A little tankard with a broken rim.

EURIPIDES.
Now be off. You trouble us; begone.

DICAEOPOLIS.
You know not yet what ill you do yourself.
Sweet, dear Euripides, but one thing more,
Give me a little pitcher, plugged with sponge.

EURIPIDES.
Fellow, you’re taking the whole tragedy.
Here, take it and begone.

DICAEOPOLIS.
I’m going now.
And yet! there’s one thing more, which if I get not
I’m ruined. Sweetest, best Euripides,
With this I’ll go, and never come again;
Give me some withered leaves to fill my basket.

EURIPIDES.
You’ll slay me! Here! My plays are disappearing.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Enough! I go. Too troublesome by far
Am I, not witting that the chieftains hate me!
Good Heavens! I’m ruined. I had clean forgotten
The thing whereon my whole success depends.
My own Euripides, my best and sweetest,
Perdition seize me if I ask aught else
Save this one thing, this only, only this,
Give me some chervil, borrowing from your mother.

EURIPIDES.
The man insults us. Shut the palace up.

DICAEOPOLIS.
O Soul, without our chervil we must go.
Knowest thou the perilous strife thou hast to strive,
Speaking in favour of Laconian men?
On, on, my Soul! Here is the line. How? What?
Swallow Euripides, and yet not budge?
Oh, good! Advance, O long-enduring heart,
Go thither, lay thine head upon the block,
And say whatever to thyself seems good.
Take courage! Forward! March! O well done, heart!

CHORUS.
What will you say? What will you do?
Man, is it true
You are made up of iron and of shamelessness too?
You who will, one against us all, debate,
Offering your neck a hostage to the State!
Nought does he fear.
Since you will have it so, speak, we will hear

DICAEOPOLIS.
Bear me no grudge, spectators, if, a beggar,
I dare to speak before the Athenian people
About the city in a comic play.
For what is true even comedy can tell.
And I shall utter startling things but true.
Nor now can Cleon slander me because,
With strangers present, I defame the State.
’Tis the Lenaea, and we’re all alone;
No strangers yet have come; nor from the states
Have yet arrived the tribute and allies.
We’re quite alone clean-winnowed; for I count
Our alien residents the civic bran.
The Lacedaemonians I detest entirely;
And may Poseidon, Lord of Taenarum,
Shake all their houses down about their ears;
For I, like you, have had my vines cut down.
But after all—for none but friends are here—
Why the Laconians do we blame for this?
For men of ours, I do not say the State,
Remember this, I do not say the State,
But worthless fellows of a worthless stamp,
Ill-coined, ill-minted, spurious little chaps,
Kept on denouncing Megara’s little coats.
And if a cucumber or hare they saw,
Or sucking-pig, or garlic, or lump-salt,
All were Megarian, and were sold off-hand.
Still these were trifles, and our country’s way.
But some young tipsy cottabus-players went
And stole from Megara-town the fair Simaetha.
Then the Megarians, garlicked with the smart,
Stole, in return, two of Aspasia’s hussies.
From these three Wantons o’er the Hellenic race
Burst forth the first beginnings of the War.
For then, in wrath, the Olympian Pericles
Thundered and lightened, and confounded Hellas,
Enacting laws which ran like drinking-songs,
That the Megarians presently depart
From earth and sea, the mainland, and the mart.
Then the Megarians, slowly famishing,
Besought their Spartan friends to get the Law
Of the three Wantons cancelled and withdrawn.
And oft they asked us, but we yielded not.
Then followed instantly the clash of shields.
Ye’ll say They should not; but what should they, then?
Come now, had some Laconian, sailing out,
Denounced and sold a small Seriphian dog,
Would you have sat unmoved? Far, far from that!
Ye would have launched three hundred ships of war,
And all the City had at once been full
Of shouting troops, of fuss with trierarchs,
Of paying wages, gilding Pallases,
Of rations measured, roaring colonnades,
Of wineskins, oarloops, bargaining for casks,
Of nets of onions, olives, garlic-heads,
Of chaplets, pilchards, flute-girls, and black eyes.
And all the arsenal had rung with noise
Of oar-spars planed, pegs hammered, oar-loops fitted,
Of boatswains’ calls, and flutes, and trills, and whistles.
This had ye done; and shall not Telephus,
Think we, do this? we’ve got no brains at all.

SEMICHORUS I.
Aye, say you so, you rascally villain you?
And this from you, a beggar? Dare you blame us
Because, perchance, we’ve got informers here?

SEMICHORUS II.
Aye, by Poseidon, every word he says
Is true and right; he tells no lies at all.

SEMICHORUS I.
True or untrue, is he the man to say it?
I’ll pay him out, though, for his insolent speech.

SEMICHORUS II.
Whither away? I pray you stay. If him you hurt,
You’ll find your own self hoisted up directly.

SEMICHORUS I.
Lamachus! Help! with thy glances of lightning;
Terrible-crested, appear in thy pride,
Come, O Lamachus, tribesman and friend to us;
Is there a stormer of cities beside?
Is there a captain? O come ye in haste,
Help me, O help! I am caught by the waist.

LAMACHUS.
Whence came the cry of battle to my ears?
Where shall I charge? where cast the battle-din?
Who roused the sleeping Gorgon from its case?

DICAEOPOLIS.
O Lamachus hero; O those crests and cohorts!

SEMICHORUS I.
O Lamachus, here has this fellow been
With frothy words abusing all the State.

LAMACHUS.
You dare, you beggar, say such things as those?

DICAEOPOLIS.
O Lamachus hero, grant me pardon true
If I, a beggar, spake or chattered aught.

LAMACHUS.
What said you? Hey?

DICAEOPOLIS.
I can’t remember yet.
I get so dizzy at the sight of arms.
I pray you lay that terrible shield aside.

LAMACHUS.
There then.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Now set it upside down before me.

LAMACHUS.
’Tis done.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Now give me from your crest that plume.

LAMACHUS.
Here; take the feather.

DICAEOPOLIS.
Now then, hold my head,
And let me vomit. I so loathe those crests.

LAMACHUS.
What! use my feather, rogue, to make you vomit?

DICAEOPOLIS.
A feather is it, Lamachus? Pray what bird
Produced it? Is it a Great Boastard’s plume?

LAMACHUS.
Death and Destruction!

DICAEOPOLIS.
No, no, Lamachus.
That’s not for strength like yours. If strong you are
Why don’t you circumcise me? You’re well armed.

LAMACHUS.
What! you, a beggar, beard the general so?