Lines 1316–1537

XANTHIAS.
And pray, the old man asked him, what makes you
Give yourself airs, and think yourself so grand,
You grinning flatterer of the well-to-do?
Thus he kept bantering every guest in turn,
Making rude jokes, and telling idle tales,
In clownish fashion, relevant to nothing.
At last, well drunk, homeward he turns once more,
Aiming a blow at every one he meets.
Ah! here he’s coming; stumbling, staggering on.
Methinks I’ll vanish ere I’m slapped again.

PHILOCLEON.
Up ahoy! out ahoy!
Some of you that follow me
Shall ere long be crying.
If they don’t shog off, I swear
I’ll frizzle ’em all with the torch I bear,
I’ll set the rogues a-frying

GUEST.
Zounds! we’ll all make you pay for this to-morrow,
You vile old rake, however young you are!
We’ll come and cite and summon you all together.

PHILOCLEON.
Yah! hah! summon and cite!!
The obsolete notion! don’t you know
I’m sick of the names of your suits and claims.
Faugh! Faugh! Pheugh!
Here’s my delight!
Away with the verdict-box! Won’t he go?
Where’s the Heliast? out of my sight!
My little golden chafer, come up here,
Hold by this rope, a rotten one perchance,
But strong enough for you. Mount up, my dear.
See now, how cleverly I filched you off,
A wanton hussy, flirting with the guests.
You owe me, child, some gratitude for that.
But you’re not one to pay your debts, I know.
O no! you’ll laugh and chaff and slip away,
That’s what you always do. But listen now,
Be a good girl, and don’t be disobliging,
And when my son is dead, I’ll ransom you,
And make you an honest woman. For indeed
I’m not yet master of my own affairs.
I am so young, and kept so very strict.
My son’s my guardian, such a cross-grained man,
A cummin-splitting, mustard-scraping fellow.
He’s so afraid that I should turn out badly,
For I’m in truth his only father now.
But here he runs. Belike he’s after us.
Quick, little lady, hold these links an instant;
And won’t I quiz him boyishly and well,
As he did me before the initiation.

BDELYCLEON.
You there! you there! you old lascivious dotard!
Enamoured, eh? ay of a fine ripe coffin.
Oh, by Apollo, you shall smart for this!

PHILOCLEON.
Dear, dear, how keen to taste a suit in pickle!

BDELYCLEON.
No quizzing, sir, when you have filched away
The flute-girl from our party.

PHILOCLEON.
Eh? what? flute-girl?
You’re out of your mind, or out of your grave, or something.

BDELYCLEON.
Why, bless the fool, here’s Dardanis beside you!

PHILOCLEON.
What, this? why, this? is a torch in the market-place!

BDELYCLEON.
A torch, man?

PHILOCLEON.
Clearly; pray observe the punctures.

BDELYCLEON.
Then what’s this black here, on the top of her head?

PHILOCLEON.
Oh, that’s the rosin, oozing while it burns.

BDELYCLEON.
Then this of course is not a woman’s arm?

PHILOCLEON.
Of course not; that’s a sprouting of the pine.

BDELYCLEON.
Sprouting be hanged.
[To Dard.] You come along with me.

PHILOCLEON.
Hi! hi! what are you at?

BDELYCLEON.
Marching her off
Out of your reach; a rotten, as I think,
And impotent old man.

PHILOCLEON.
Now look ye here:
Once, when surveying at the Olympian games,
I saw how splendidly Ephudion fought
With young Ascondas: saw the game old man
Up with his fist, and knock the youngster down.
So mind your eye, or you’ll be pummelled too.

BDELYCLEON.
Troth, you have learned Olympia to some purpose.

BAKING-GIRL.
BAKING-GIRL. Oh, there he is! Oh, pray stand by me now!
There’s the old rascal who misused me so,
Banged with his torch, and toppled down from here
Bread worth ten obols, and four loaves to boot.

BDELYCLEON.
There now, you see; troubles and suits once more
Your wine will bring us.

PHILOCLEON.
Troubles? Not at all.
A merry tale or two sets these things right.
I’ll soon set matters right with this young woman.

BAKING-GIRL.
No, by the Twain! you shan’t escape scot-free,
Doing such damage to the goods of Myrtia,
Sostrata’s daughter, and Anchylion’s, sir!

PHILOCLEON.
Listen, good woman: I am going to tell you
A pleasant tale.

BAKING-GIRL.
Not me, by Zeus, sir, no!

PHILOCLEON.
At Aesop, as he walked one eve from supper,
There yapped an impudent and drunken bitch.
Then Aesop answered, O you bitch! you bitch!
If in the stead of that ungodly tongue
You’d buy some wheat, methinks you’d have more sense.

BAKING-GIRL.
Insult me too? I summon you before
The Market Court for damage done my goods,
And for my sompnour have this Chaerephon.

PHILOCLEON.
Nay, nay, but listen if I speak not fair.
Simonides and Lasus once were rivals.
Then Lasus says, Pish, I don’t care, says he.

BAKING-GIRL.
You will, sir, will you?

PHILOCLEON.
And you, Chaerephon,
Are you her sompnour, you, like fear-blanched Ino
Pendent before Euripides’s feet?

BDELYCLEON.
See, here’s another coming, as I live,
To summon you: at least he has got his sompnour.

COMPLAINANT.
COMPLAINANT. O dear! O dear! Old man, I summon you
For outrage.

BDELYCLEON.
Outrage? no, by the Gods, pray don’t.
I’ll make amends for everything he has done
(Ask what you will), and thank you kindly too.

PHILOCLEON.
Nay, I’ll make friends myself without compulsion.
I quite admit the assault and battery.
So tell me which you’ll do; leave it to me
To name the compensation I must pay
To make us friends, or will you fix the sum?

COMPLAINANT.
Name it yourself: I want no suits nor troubles.

PHILOCLEON.
There was a man of Sybaris, do you know,
Thrown from his carriage, and he cracked his skull,
Quite badly too. Fact was, he could not drive.
There was a friend of his stood by, and said,
Let each man exercise the art he knows.
So you, run off to Doctor Pittalus.

BDELYCLEON.
Ay, this is like the rest of your behaviour.

COMPLAINANT.
[To Bdelycleon.] You, sir, yourself, remember what he says.

PHILOCLEON.
Stop, listen. Once in Sybaris a girl
Fractured a jug.

COMPLAINANT.
I call you, friend, to witness.

PHILOCLEON.
Just so the jug: it called a friend to witness.
Then said the girl of Sybaris, By’r Lady,
If you would leave off calling friends to witness,
And buy a rivet, you would show more brains.

COMPLAINANT.
Jeer, till the Magistrate call on my case.

BDELYCLEON.
No, by Demeter, but you shan’t stop here,
I’ll take and carry you—

PHILOCLEON.
What now!

BDELYCLEON.
What now?
Carry you in: or soon there won’t be sompnours
Enough for all your summoning complainants.

PHILOCLEON.
The Delphians once charged Aesop—

BDELYCLEON.
I don’t care.

PHILOCLEON.
With having filched a vessel of their God.
But Aesop up and told them that a beetle—

BDELYCLEON.
Zounds! but I’ll finish you, beetles and all.

CHORUS.
I envy much his fortune
As he changes from his dry
Ungenial life and manners,
Another path to try.
Now all to soft indulgence
His eager soul will take,
And yet perchance it will not,
For, ah! ’tis hard to break
From all your lifelong habits;
Yet some the change have made,
With other minds consorting,
By other counsels swayed.
With us and all good people
Great praise Philocleon’s son
For filial love and genius
In this affair has won.
Such sweet and gracious manners
I never saw before,
Nor ever with such fondness
My doting heart gushed o’er.
Where proved he not the victor
In all this wordy strife,
Seeking to raise his father
To higher paths of life?

XANTHIAS.
O Dionysus! here’s a pretty mess
Into our house some power has whirligigged.
Soon as the old man heard the pipe, and drank
The long untasted wine, he grew so merry
He won’t stop dancing all the whole night through
Those strange old dances such as Thespis taught;
And your new bards he’ll prove old fools, he says,
Dancing against them in the lists directly.

PHILOCLEON.
Who sits, who waits at the entrance gates?

XANTHIAS.
More and more is this evil advancing!

PHILOCLEON.
Be the bolts undone, we have just begun;
This, this is the first evolution of dancing.

XANTHIAS.
First evolution of madness, I think.

PHILOCLEON.
With the strong contortion the ribs twist round,
And the nostril snorts, and the joints resound,
And the tendons crack.

XANTHIAS.
O, hellebore drink!

PHILOCLEON.
Cocklike, Phrynichus crouches and cowers,

XANTHIAS.
You’ll strike by and by.

PHILOCLEON.
Then he kicks his leg to the wondering sky,

XANTHIAS.
O look to yourself, look out, look out.

PHILOCLEON.
For now in these sinewy joints of ours
The cup-like socket is twirled about.

BDELYCLEON.
’Twon’t do, by Zeus: ’twon’t do: ’tis downright madness.

PHILOCLEON.
Come on, I challenge all the world to dance.
Now what tragedian thinks he dances well,
Let him come in and dance a match with me.
Well, is there one, or none?

BDELYCLEON.
Here’s only one.

PHILOCLEON.
Who’s he, poor devil?

BDELYCLEON.
’Tis the midmost son
Of poet Carcinus, the Crabbe.

PHILOCLEON.
Ill eat him.
’Sdeath! I’ll destroy him with a knuckle-dance.
He’s a born fool at rhythm.

BDELYCLEON.
Nay, but look here!
Here comes a brother crab, another son
Of Carcinus.

PHILOCLEON.
Faith, I’ve got crab enough.

BDELYCLEON.
Nothing but crabs! ’fore Zeus, nothing but crabs!
Here creeps a third of Carcinus’s brood.

PHILOCLEON.
Heyday! what’s this? a vinaigrette, or spider?

BDELYCLEON.
This is the Pinnoteer, of all the tribe
The tiniest crab: a tragic poet too!

PHILOCLEON.
O Carcinus! O proud and happy father!
Here’s a fine troop of wrynecks settling down.
Well, I must gird me to the fight: and you,
Mix pickles for these crabs, in case I beat them.

CHORUS.
Come draw we aside, and leave them a wide,
a roomy and peaceable exercise-ground,
That before us therein like tops they may spin,
revolving and whirling and twirling around.
O lofty-titled sons of the ocean-roving sire,
Ye brethren of the shrimps, come and leap
On the sand and on the strand
of the salt and barren deep.
Whisk nimble feet around you;
kick out, till all admire,
The Phrynichean kick to the sky;
That the audience may applaud,
as they view your leg on high.
On, on, in mazy circles; hit your stomach with your heel
Fling legs aloft to heaven,
as like spinning-tops you wheel.
Your Sire is creeping onward, the Ruler of the Sea,
He gazes with delight at his hobby-dancers three.
Come, dancing as you are, if you like it, lead away,
For never yet, I warrant, has an actor till to-day
Led out a chorus, dancing, at the ending of the Play.