Lines 565–700

PHILOCLEON.
And reckon up hardships, false and true,
till he makes them out to be equal to mine.
Some tell us a legend of days gone by,
or a joke from Aesop witty and sage,
Or jest and banter, to make me laugh,
that so I may doff my terrible rage.
And if all this fails, and I stand unmoved,
he leads by the hand his little ones near,
He brings his girls and he brings his boys;
and I, the Judge, am composed to hear.
They huddle together with piteous bleats:
while trembling above them he prays to me,
Prays as to a God his accounts to pass,
to give him a quittance, and leave him free.
If thou lovest a bleating male of the flock,
O lend thine ear to this boy of mine:
Or pity this sweet little delicate girl,
if thy soul delights in the squeaking of swine.
So then we relax the pitch of our wrath,
and screw it down to a peg more low.
Is this not a fine dominion of mine,
a derision of wealth with its pride and show?

BDELYCLEON.
[Writing] A second point for my note-book that,
a derision of wealth with its show and its pride.
Go on to mention the good you get
by your empire of Hellas so vast and wide.

PHILOCLEON.
’Tis ours to inspect the Athenian youths,
when we enter their names on the rolls of men.
And if ever Oeagrus gets into a suit,
be sure that he’ll never get out again
Till he give us a speech from his Niobe part,
selecting the best and the liveliest one.
And then if a piper gain his cause,
he pays us our price for the kindness done,
By piping a tune with his mouth-band on,
quick march as out of the Court we go.
And what if a father by will to a friend
his daughter and heiress bequeath and bestow,
We care not a rap for the Will, or the cap
which is there on the seal so grand and sedate,
We bid them begone, and be hanged, and ourselves
take charge of the girl and her worthy estate;
And we give her away to whoever we choose,
to whoever may chance to persuade us: yet we,
Whilst other officials must pass an account,
alone from control and accounting are free.

BDELYCLEON.
Ay that, and that only, of all you have said,
I own is a privilege lucky and rare,
But uncapping the seal of the heiress’s will
seems rather a shabby and doubtful affair.

PHILOCLEON.
And if ever the Council or People have got
a knotty and difficult case to decide,
They pass a decree for the culprits to go
to the able and popular Courts to be tried:
Evathlus, and He! the loser of shields,
the fawning, the great Cowardonymus say
“They’ll always be fighting away for the mob,”
“the people of Athens they’ll never betray.”
And none in the People a measure can pass,
unless he propose that the Courts shall be free,
Dismissed and discharged for the rest of the day
when once we have settled a single decree.
Yea, Cleon the Bawler and Brawler himself,
at us, and us only, to nibble forbears,
And sweeps off the flies that annoy us, and still
with a vigilant hand for our dignity cares.
You never have shown such attention as this,
or displayed such a zeal in your father’s affairs.
Yet Theorus, a statesman as noble and grand
as lordly Euphemius, runs at our call
And whips out a sponge from his bottle, and stoops,
to black and to polish the shoes of us all.
Such, such is the glory, the joy, the renown,
from which you desire to retain and withhold me,
And thus you will show, this Empire of mine,
to be bondage and slavery merely, you told me.

BDELYCLEON.
Ay, chatter your fill, you will cease before long:
and then I will show that your boasted success
Is just the success of a tail that is washed,
going back to its filth and its slovenliness.

PHILOCLEON.
But the nicest and pleasantest part of it all
is this, which I’d wholly forgotten to say,
’Tis when with my fee in my wallet I come,
returning home at the close of the day,
O then what a welcome I get for its sake;
my daughter, the darling, is foremost of all,
And she washes my feet and anoints them with care,
and above them she stoops, and a kiss lets fall,
Till at last by the pretty Papas of her tongue
she angles withal my three-obol away.
Then my dear little wife, she sets on the board
nice manchets of bread in a tempting array,
And cosily taking a seat by my side,
with loving entreaty constrains me to feed;
I beseech you taste this, I implore you try that.
This, this I delight in, and ne’er may I need
To look to yourself and your pantler, a scrub
who, whenever I ask him my breakfast to set,
Keeps grumbling and murmuring under his breath.
No! no! if he haste not a manchet to get,
Lo here my defence from the evils of life,
my armour of proof, my impregnable shield.
And what if you pour me no liquor to drink,
yet here’s an old Ass, full of wine, that I wield,
And I tilt him, and pour for myself, and imbibe;
whilst sturdy old Jack, as a bumper I drain,
Lets fly at your goblet a bray of contempt,
a mighty and masterful snort of disdain.
Is this not a fine dominion of mine?
Is it less than the empire of Zeus?
Why the very same phrases, so grand and divine,
For me, as for Him, are in use.
For when we are raging loud and high
In stormy, tumultuous din,
O Lord! O Zeus! say the passers-by,
How thunders the Court within!
The wealthy and great, when my lightnings glare,
Turn pale and sick, and mutter a prayer.
You fear me too: I protest you do:
Yes, yes, by Demeter I vow ’tis true.
But hang me if I am afraid of you.

CHORUS.
I never, no, I never
Have heard so clear and clever
And eloquent a speech—

PHILOCLEON.
Ay, ay, he thought he’d steal my grapes,
and pluck them undefended,
For well he knew that I’m in this
particularly splendid.

CHORUS.
No topic he omitted,
But he duly went through each.
I waxed in size to hear him
Till with ecstasy possessed
Methought I sat a-judging
In the Islands of the Blest.

PHILOCLEON.
See how uneasily he stands,
and gapes, and shifts his ground.
I warrant, sir, before I’ve done,
you’ll look like a beaten hound.

CHORUS.
You must now, young man, be seeking
Every turn and every twist
Which can your defence assist.
To a youth against me speaking
Mine’s a heart ’tis hard to render
(So you’ll find it) soft and tender.
And therefore unless you can speak to the point,
you must look for a millstone handy and good,
Fresh hewn from the rock, to shiver and shock
the unyielding grit of my resolute mood.

BDELYCLEON.
Hard were the task, and shrewd the intent,
for a Comedy-poet all too great
To attempt to heal an inveterate, old
disease engrained in the heart of the state.
Yet, O dread Cronides, Father and Lord,

PHILOCLEON.
Stop, stop, don’t talk in that father-me way,
Convince me at once that I’m only a slave,
or else I protest you shall die this day
Albeit I then must ever abstain
from the holy flesh of the victims slain.

BDELYCLEON.
Then listen my own little pet Papa,
and smooth your brow from its frowns again.
And not with pebbles precisely ranged,
but roughly thus on your fingers count
The tribute paid by the subject States,
and just consider its whole amount;
And then, in addition to this, compute
the many taxes and one-per-cents,
The fees and the fines, and the silver mines,
the markets and harbours and sales and rents.
If you take the total result of the lot,
twill reach two thousand talents or near.
And next put down the Justices’ pay,
and reckon the sums they receive a year:
Six thousand Justices, count them through,
there dwell no more in the land as yet,
One hundred and fifty talents a year
I think you will find is all they get.

PHILOCLEON.
Then not one tithe of our income goes
to furnish forth the Justices’ pay.

BDELYCLEON.
No, certainly not.

PHILOCLEON.
And what becomes
of all the rest of the revenue, pray?

BDELYCLEON.
Why, bless you, it goes to the pockets of those,
“To the rabble of Athens I’ll ever be true,
I’ll always battle away for the mob.”
O father, my father, ’tis owing to you:
By such small phrases as these cajoled,
you lift them over yourselves to reign.
And then, believe me, they soon contrive
some fifty talents in bribes to gain,
Extorting them out of the subject states,
by hostile menace and angry frown:
Hand over, they say, the tribute-pay,
or else my thunders shall crush your town.
You joy the while at the remnants vile,
the trotters and tips of your power to gnaw.
So when our knowing, acute allies
the rest, the scum of the Populace, saw
On a vote-box pine, and on nothingness dine,
and marked how lanky and lean ye grow,
They count you all as a Connas’s vote,
and ever and ever on these bestow
Wines, cheeses, necklaces, sesamé fruit,
and jars of pickle and pots of honey,
Rugs, cushions, and mantles, and cups, and crowns,
and health, and vigour, and lots of money.
Whilst you! from out of the broad domain
for which on the land and the wave you toiled,
None gives you so much as a garlic head,
to flavour the dish when your sprats are boiled.

PHILOCLEON.
That’s true no doubt, for I just sent out,
and bought, myself, from Eucharides three;
But you wear me away by your long delay
in proving my bondage and slavery.

BDELYCLEON.
Why is it not slavery pure and neat,
when these (themselves and their parasites too)
Are all in receipt of their pay, God wots,
as high officials of state: whilst you
Must thankful be for your obols three,
those obols which ye yourselves have won
In the battle’s roar, by sea and by shore,
mid sieges and miseries many a one.
But O what throttles me most of all,
is this, that under constraint you go,
When some young dissolute spark comes in,
some son of a Chaereas, straddling—so,
With his legs apart, and his body poised,
and a mincing, soft, effeminate air,
And bids you Justices, one and all,
betimes in the morn to the Court repair,
For that any who after the signal come
shall lose and forfeit their obols three.
Yet come as late as he choose himself,
he pockets his drachma, “Counsel’s fee.”
And then if a culprit give him a bribe,
he gets his fellow the job to share,
And into each other’s hands they play,
and manage together the suit to square.
Just like two men at a saw they work,
and one keeps pulling, and one gives way.
While you at the Treasurer stare and gape,
and never observe the tricks they play.

PHILOCLEON.
Is THAT what they do! O can it be true!
Ah me, the depths of my being are stirred,
Your statements shake my soul, and I feel
I know not how, at the things I’ve heard.

BDELYCLEON.
And just consider when you and all
might revel in affluence, free as air,
How these same demagogues wheel you round,
and cabin and coop you I know not where.