Lines 1009–1138

EURIPIDES.
For his ready wit, and his counsels sage,
and because the citizen folk he trains
To be better townsmen and worthier men.

AESCHYLUS.
If then you have done the very reverse,
Found noble-hearted and virtuous men,
and altered them, each and all, for the worse,
Pray what is the meed you deserve to get?

DIONYSUS.
Nay, ask not him. He deserves to die.

AESCHYLUS.
For just consider what style of men
he received from me, great six-foot-high
Heroical souls, who never would blench
from a townsman’s duties in peace or war;
Not idle loafers, or low buffoons,
or rascally scamps such as now they are.
But men who were breathing spears and helms,
and the snow-white plume in its crested pride,
The greave, and the dart, and the warrior’s heart
in its sevenfold casing of tough bull-hide.

DIONYSUS.
He’ll stun me, I know, with his armoury-work;
this business is going from bad to worse.

EURIPIDES.
And how did you manage to make them so grand,
exalted, and brave with your wonderful verse?

DIONYSUS.
Come, Aeschylus, answer, and don’t stand mute
in your self-willed pride and arrogant spleen.

AESCHYLUS.
A drama I wrote with the War-god filled.

DIONYSUS.
Its name?

AESCHYLUS.
’Tis the Seven against Thebes that I mean.
Which whoso beheld, with eagerness swelled
to rush to the battlefield there and then.

DIONYSUS.
O that was a scandalous thing you did!
You have made the Thebans mightier men,
More eager by far for the business of war.
Now, therefore, receive this punch on the head.

AESCHYLUS.
Ah, ye might have practised the same yourselves,
but ye turned to other pursuits instead.
Then next the Persians I wrote, in praise
of the noblest deed that the world can show,
And each man longed for the victor’s wreath,
to fight and to vanquish his country’s foe.

DIONYSUS.
I was pleased, I own, when I heard their moan
for old Darius, their great king, dead;
When they smote together their hands, like this,
and Evir alake the Chorus said.

AESCHYLUS.
Aye, such are the poet’s appropriate works:
and just consider how all along
From the very first they have wrought you good,
the noble bards, the masters of song.
First, Orpheus taught you religious rites,
and from bloody murder to stay your hands:
Musaeus healing and oracle lore;
and Hesiod all the culture of lands,
The time to gather, the time to plough.
And gat not Homer his glory divine
By singing of valour, and honour, and right,
and the sheen of the battle-extended line,
The ranging of troops and the arming of men?

DIONYSUS.
O ay, but he didn’t teach that, I opine,
To Pantacles; when he was leading the show
I couldn’t imagine what he was at,
He had fastened his helm on the top of his head,
he was trying to fasten his plume upon that.

AESCHYLUS.
But others, many and brave, he taught,
of whom was Lamachus, hero true;
And thence my spirit the impress took,
and many a lion-heart chief I drew,
Patrocluses, Teucers, illustrious names;
for I fain the citizen-folk would spur
To stretch themselves to their measure and height,
whenever the trumpet of war they hear.
But Phaedras and Stheneboeas? No!
no harlotry business deformed my plays.
And none can say that ever I drew
a love-sick woman in all my days.

EURIPIDES.
For you no lot or portion had got
in Queen Aphrodite.

AESCHYLUS.
Thank Heaven for that.
But ever on you and yours, my friend,
the mighty goddess mightily sat;
Yourself she cast to the ground at last.

DIONYSUS.
O ay, that came uncommonly pat.
You showed how cuckolds are made, and lo,
you were struck yourself by the very same fate.

EURIPIDES.
But say, you cross-grained censor of mine,
how my Stheneboeas could harm the state.

AESCHYLUS.
Full many a noble dame, the wife
of a noble citizen, hemlock took,
And died, unable the shame and sin
of your Bellerophon-scenes to brook.

EURIPIDES.
Was then, I wonder, the tale I told
of Phaedra’s passionate love untrue?

AESCHYLUS.
Not so: but tales of incestuous vice
the sacred poet should hide from view,
Nor ever exhibit and blazon forth
on the public stage to the public ken.
For boys a teacher at school is found,
but we, the poets, are teachers of men.
We are BOUND things honest and pure to speak.

EURIPIDES.
And to speak great Lycabettuses, pray,
And massive blocks of Parnassian rocks,
is that things honest and pure to say?
In human fashion we ought to speak.

AESCHYLUS.
Alas, poor witling, and can’t you see
That for mighty thoughts and heroic aims,
the words themselves must appropriate be?
And grander belike on the ear should strike
the speech of heroes and godlike powers,
Since even the robes that invest their limbs
are statelier, grander robes than ours.
Such was my plan: but when you began,
you spoilt and degraded it all.

EURIPIDES.
How so?

AESCHYLUS.
Your kings in tatters and rags you dressed,
and brought them on, a beggarly show,
To move, forsooth, our pity and ruth.

EURIPIDES.
And what was the harm, I should like to know.

AESCHYLUS.
No more will a wealthy citizen now
equip for the state a galley of war
He wraps his limbs in tatters and rags,
and whines he is poor, too poor by far.

DIONYSUS.
But under his rags he is wearing a vest,
as woolly and soft as a man could wish.
Let him gull the state, and he’s off to the mart;
an eager, extravagant buyer of fish.

AESCHYLUS.
Moreover to prate, to harangue, to debate,
is now the ambition of all in the state.
Each exercise-ground is in consequence found
deserted and empty: to evil repute
Your lessons have brought our youngsters, and taught
our sailors to challenge, discuss, and refute
The orders they get from their captains and yet,
when I was alive, I protest that the knaves
Knew nothing at all, save for rations to call,
and to sing “Rhyppapae” as they pulled through the waves.

DIONYSUS.
And bedad to let fly from their sterns in the eye
of the fellow who tugged at the undermost oar,
And a jolly young messmate with filth to besmirch,
and to land for a filching adventure ashore;
But now they harangue, and dispute, and won’t row
And idly and aimlessly float to and fro.

AESCHYLUS.
Of what ills is he NOT the creator and cause?
Consider the scandalous scenes that he draws,
His bawds, and his panders, his women who give
Give birth in the sacredest shrine,
Whilst others with brothers are wedded and bedded,
And others opine
That “not to be living” is truly “to live.”
And therefore our city is swarming to-day
With clerks and with demagogue-monkeys, who play
Their jackanape tricks at all times, in all places,
Deluding the people of Athens; but none
Has training enough in athletics to run
With the torch in his hand at the races.

DIONYSUS.
By the Powers, you are right! At the Panathenaea
I laughed till I felt like a potsherd to see a
Pale, paunchy young gentleman pounding along,
With his head butting forward, the last of the throng,
In the direst of straits; and behold at the gates,
The Ceramites flapped him, and smacked him, and slapped him,
In the ribs, and the loin, and the flank, and the groin,
And still, as they spanked him, he puffed and he panted,
Till at one mighty cuff, he discharged such a puff
That he blew out his torch and levanted.

CHORUS.
Dread the battle, and stout the combat,
mighty and manifold looms the war.
Hard to decide is the fight they’re waging,
One like a stormy tempest raging,
One alert in the rally and skirmish,
clever to parry and foin and spar.
Nay but don’t be content to sit
Always in one position only:
many the fields for your keen-edged wit.
On then, wrangle in every way,
Argue, battle, be flayed and flay,
Old and new from your stores display,
Yea, and strive with venturesome daring
something subtle and neat to say.

Fear ye this, that to-day’s spectators
lack the grace of artistic lore,
Lack the knowledge they need for taking
All the points ye will soon be making?
Fear it not: the alarm is groundless:
that, be sure, is the case no more.
All have fought the campaign ere this:
Each a book of the words is holding;
never a single point they’ll miss.
Bright their natures, and now, I ween,
Newly whetted, and sharp, and keen.
Dread not any defect of wit,
Battle away without misgiving,
sure that the audience, at least, are fit.

EURIPIDES.
Well then I’ll turn me to your prologues now,
Beginning first to test the first beginning
Of this fine poet’s plays. Why he’s obscure
Even in the enunciation of the facts.

DIONYSUS.
Which of them will you test?

EURIPIDES.
Many: but first
Give us that famous one from the Oresteia.

DIONYSUS.
St! Silence all! Now, Aeschylus, begin.

AESCHYLUS.
Grave Hermes, witnessing a father’s power,
Be thou my saviour and mine aid to-day,
For here I come and hither I return.

DIONYSUS.
Any fault there?

EURIPIDES.
A dozen faults and more.

DIONYSUS.
Eh! why the lines are only three in all.

EURIPIDES.
But every one contains a score of faults.

DIONYSUS.
Now Aeschylus, keep silent; if you don’t
You won’t get off with three iambic lines.

AESCHYLUS.
Silent for him!

DIONYSUS.
If my advice you’ll take.

EURIPIDES.
Why, at first starting here’s a fault skyhigh.

AESCHYLUS.
(to Dio.) You see your folly?

DIONYSUS.
Have your way; I care not.

AESCHYLUS.
(to Eur.) What is my fault?

EURIPIDES.
Begin the lines again.

AESCHYLUS.
Grave Hermes, witnessing a father’s power—