Lines 396–565

BDELYCLEON.
No, by Zeus, but he lets himself down to the ground
Tied on to the rope.

SOSIAS.
You infamous wretch!
what, won’t you be quiet and not come down?

BDELYCLEON.
Climb up by the other window-sill,
and wallop him well with the harvest crown.
I warrant he’ll speedily back stern first,
when he’s thrashed with the branch of autumnal fruits.

PHILOCLEON.
Help! help! all those whoever propose
this year to busy themselves with suits.
Smicythion, help! Tisiades, help!
Pheredeipnus, Chremon, the fray begin:
O now or never assist your friend,
before I’m carried away within.

CHORUS.
Wherefore slumbers, wherefore slumbers,
that resentment in our breast,
Such as when a rash assailant
dares provoke our hornets-nest?
Now protruding, now protruding,
Comes the fierce and dreadful sting,
Which we wield for punishing.
Children, hold these garments for us:
then away with all your speed,
Shout and run and bawl to Cleon,
tell him of this direful deed;
Bid him quickly hither fly
As against a city-hater,
And a traitor doomed to die,
One who actually proposes
That we should no lawsuits try.

BDELYCLEON.
Listen, worthy sirs, to reason:
goodness! don’t keep screaming so.

CHORUS.
Scream! we’ll scream as high as heaven.

BDELYCLEON.
I don’t intend to let him go.

CHORUS.
These be frightful things to see!
This is open TYRANNY!
Rouse the State! Rouse the great
God-abhorred Sneak Theorus!
And whoe’er Else is there,
Fawning lord Ruling o’er us.

XANTHIAS.
Heracles! they’ve stings beside them!
Master master, don’t you see?

BDELYCLEON.
Ay, which slew the son of Gorgias,
Philip, with their sharp decree.

CHORUS.
You we’ll also slay directly!
Wheel about him, every one,
Draw your stings, and, all together,
in upon the fellow run.
Close your ranks, collect your forces,
brimming full of rage and hate,
He shall know the sort of wasps-nest
he has dared to irritate.

XANTHIAS.
Now with such as these to combat
is, by Zeus, a serious thing:
Verily I quake and tremble,
but to look upon their sting.

CHORUS.
Let him go! Loose your hold!
If you don’t I declare
You shall bless Tortoise-backs
For the shells Which they wear.

PHILOCLEON.
On then, on, my fellow-dicasts,
brother wasps of heart severe,
Some fly in with angry buzzings,
and attack them in the rear,
Some surround them in a ring, and
both their eyes and fingers sting.

BDELYCLEON.
Ho there! Midas! Phryx! Masyntias!
hither! hither! haste to me!
Take my father, guard him safely:
suffer none to set him free;
Else you both shall lunch off nothing,
clapped in fetters strong and stout.
There’s a sound of many fig-leaves
(well I know it) buzzed about.

CHORUS.
This shall stand infixed within you
if you will not let him go.

PHILOCLEON.
Mighty Cecrops! King and hero!
Dragon-born and -shaped below,
Wilt thou let these rude barbarians
vex and maul me at their pleasure,
Me who heretofore have made them
weep in full imperial measure?

CHORUS.
Truly, of abundant evils,
age is evermore the source:
Only see how these two scoundrels
hold their ancient lord perforce,
Clean forgetting how, aforetime,
he their daily wants supplied,
Bought them little sleeveless jackets,
bought them caps and coats of hide,
Clean forgetting all the kindness
shown their feet in wintry weather,
How from chill and cold he kept them:
ah! but these have altogether
Banished from their eyes the reverence
owing to those dear old brogues.

PHILOCLEON.
Won’t you even now unhand me,
shameless villain, worst of rogues?
When the grapes I caught you stealing,
O remember, if you can,
How I tied you to the olive,
and I flogged you like a man,
So that all beheld with envy:
but a grateful soul you lack!
Oh, unhand me, you, and you,
at once, before my son come back.

CHORUS.
But a famous retribution
ye for this shall undergo,
One that will not lag nor linger;
so that ye betimes shall know,
Know the mood of angry-tempered,
righteous, mustard-glancing men.

BDELYCLEON.
Beat them, Xanthias, from the door-way;
beat the wasps away again.

XANTHIAS.
That I will, sir.

BDELYCLEON.
Fume them, Sosias,
drive the smoke in dense and thick.
Shoo there, shoo! be off, confound you.
At them, Xanthias, with the stick!
Smoke them, Sosias, smoke, infusing
Aeschines, Selartius’ son.

SOSIAS.
So then we at last were going,
as it seems, to make you run.

BDELYCLEON.
But you never would have managed
thus to beat them off with ease,
Had it chanced that they had eaten
of the songs of Philocles.

CHORUS.
Creeping o’er us, creeping o’er us,
Here at least the poor can see
Stealthy-creeping TYRANNY!
If you from the laws debar us,
which the city has ordained,
You, a curly-haired Amynias,
you, a rascal double-grained,
Not by words of wit persuading,
Not for weighty reasons shown,
But because, forsooth, you will it,
Like an autocrat, alone.

BDELYCLEON.
Can’t we now, without this outcry,
and this fierce denunciation,
Come to peaceful terms together,
terms of reconciliation?

CHORUS.
Terms with thee, thou people-hater,
and with Brasidas, thou traitor,
Hand and glove! You who dare
Woolly-fringed Clothes to wear,
Yes, and show Beard and hair
Left to grow Everywhere.

BDELYCLEON.
O, by Zeus, I’d really liefer
drop my father altogether
Than endure these daily conflicts,
buffeting with waves and weather.

CHORUS.
Why, as yet you’ve hardly entered
on the parsley and the rue?:
(That we’ll just throw in, a sample
of our three-quart words for you.)
Now you care not, wait a little,
till the prosecutor trounce you,
Sluicing out these selfsame charges,
and CONSPIRATOR denounce you.

BDELYCLEON.
O by all the gods I ask you,
will ye never go away?
Are ye quite resolved to linger,
thwacked and thwacking all the day?

CHORUS.
Never more Will I while
There’s a grain Left of me
Leave your door, Traitor vile
Bent to gain TYRANNY.

BDELYCLEON.
Ay “Conspiracy” and “Tyrant,”
These with you are all in all,
Whatsoe’er is brought before you,
be the matter great or small.
Everywhere the name of Tyrant,
now for fifty years unknown,
Is than cheap salt-fish at Athens
commoner and cheaper grown.
Everywhere about the market
it is bandied to and fro:
If you wish a basse to purchase,
and without a pilchard go,
Straight the man who sells the pilchards
grumbles from his stall hard by,
Here is plainly one that caters
with a view to Tyranny.
If a leek, besides, you order,
relish for your sprats perchance,
Says the potherb-girl directly,
eyeing you with looks askance,
Leeks indeed! and leeks I prithee!
what, with Tyranny in view?
Athens must be taxed, you fancy,
relish to supply for you!
Even so a naughty damsel
yesternoon observed to me,
Just because I said her manners
were a little bit too free,
She supposed that I was wishing
Hippias’s Tyranny.

XANTHIAS.
Ay, by charges such as these
our litigious friends they please.

BDELYCLEON.
Now because I’d have my father
(quitting all this toil and strife,
This up-early-false-informing-
troublesome-litigious life)
Live a life of ease and splendour,
live like Morychus, you see
Straight I’m charged with Tyrant leanings,
charged with foul conspiracy.

PHILOCLEON.
Yes, by Zeus, and very justly.
Not for pigeon’s milk in store
I the pleasant life would barter
which you let me lead no more.
Nought I care for eels and rayfish:
daintier food to me would seem
Just a little, tiny lawsuit,
dished and stifled in its steam.

BDELYCLEON.
Yes, for that’s the sort of dainty
you, by Zeus, have loved so long.
Yet I think I’ll soon convince you
that your mode of life is wrong,
If you can but once be silent,
and to what I say give heed

PHILOCLEON.
I am wrong to be a dicast!

BDELYCLEON.
Laughed to utter scorn indeed,
Mocked by men you all but worship,
for you can’t their treachery see,
You’re a slave, and yet don’t know it.

PHILOCLEON.
Name not slavery to me:
I am lord of all, I tell you.

BDELYCLEON.
You’re the veriest drudge, I vow,
Thinking that you’re lord of all. For
come, my father, teach us now,
If you reap the fruits of Hellas,
what’s the benefit to you?

PHILOCLEON.
Willingly. Let these be umpires.
I’ll accept their judgement too.

BDELYCLEON.
Now then all at once release him.

PHILOCLEON.
And besides a sword supply,
If in this dispute I’m worsted,
here upon this sword I’ll die.

BDELYCLEON.
But suppose you won’t their final
(what’s the phrase) award obey?

PHILOCLEON.
May I never drink thereafter,
pure and neat, good fortune’s—pay.

CHORUS.
Now must the champion, going
Out of our school, be showing
Keen wit and genius new,

BDELYCLEON.
Bring forth my memorandum-book:
bring forth my desk to write in.
I’ll quickly show you what you’re like,
if that’s your style of fighting.

CHORUS.
In quite another fashion
To aught this youth can do.
Stern is the strife and anxious
For all our earthly good,
If he intends to conquer,
Which Heaven forfend he should.

BDELYCLEON.
Now I’ll observe his arguments,
and take a note of each.

PHILOCLEON.
What would you say, if he to-day
should make the conquering speech?

CHORUS.
Ah! should that mischance befall us,
Our old troop were nothing worth:
In the streets with ribald mirth
Idle boys would dotards call us,
Fit for nought but olive-bearing,
Shrivelled husks of counter swearing.
O friend upon whom it devolves to plead
the cause of our Sovereign Power to-day,
Now show us your best; now bring to the test
each trick that an eloquent tongue can play.

PHILOCLEON.
Away, away, like a racer gay,
I start at once from the head of the lists,
To prove that no kinglier power than ours
in any part of the world exists.
Is there any creature on earth more blest,
more feared and petted from day to day,
Or that leads a happier, pleasanter life,
than a Justice of Athens, though old and grey?
For first when rising from bed in the morn,
to the criminal Court betimes I trudge,
Great six-foot fellows are there at the rails,
in anxious haste to salute their Judge.
And the delicate hand, which has dipped so deep
in the public purse, he claps into mine,
And he bows before me, and makes his prayer,
and softens his voice to a pitiful whine:
O pity me, pity me, Sire, he cries,
if you ever indulged your longing for pelf,
When you managed the mess on a far campaign,
or served some office of state yourself.
The man would never have heard my name,
if he had not been tried and acquitted before.

BDELYCLEON.
[Writing] I’ll take a note of the point you make,
that suppliant fellows your grace implore.

PHILOCLEON.
So when they have begged and implored me enough,
and my angry temper is wiped away,
I enter in and I take my seat,
and then I do none of the things I say.
I hear them utter all sorts of cries
design’d expressly to win my grace,
What won’t they utter, what don’t they urge,
to coax a Justice who tries their case?
Some vow they are needy and friendless men,
and over their poverty wail and whine,