Аристофан - Peace

CHORUS There! 'Tis over.

TRYGAEUS You say so, and nevertheless you go on.

CHORUS Yet one more figure and 'tis done.

TRYGAEUS Well, just this one; then you must dance no more.

CHORUS No, no more dancing, if we can help you.

TRYGAEUS But look, you are not stopping even now.

CHORUS By Zeus, I am only throwing up my right leg, that's all.

TRYGAEUS Come, I grant you that, but pray, annoy me no further.

CHORUS Ah! the left leg too will have its fling; well, 'tis but its right. I am so happy, so delighted at not having to carry my buckler any more. I sing and I laugh more than if I had cast my old age, as a serpent does its skin.

TRYGAEUS No, 'tis not time for joy yet, for you are not sure of success. But when you have got the goddess, then rejoice, shout and laugh; thenceforward you will be able to sail or stay at home, to make love or sleep, to attend festivals and processions, to play at cottabos 25 25 One of the most favourite games with the Greeks. A stick was set upright in the ground and to this the beam of a balance was attached by its centre. Two vessels were hung from the extremities of the beam so as to balance; beneath these two other and larger dishes were placed and filled with water, and in the middle of each a brazen figure, called Manes, was stood. The game consisted in throwing drops of wine from an agreed distance into one or the other vessel, so that, dragged downwards by the weight of the liquor, it bumped against Manes. , live like true Sybarites and to shout, Io, io!

CHORUS Ah! God grant we may see the blessed day. I have suffered so much; have so oft slept with Phormio 26 26 A general of austere habits; he disposed of all his property to pay the cost of a naval expedition, in which he beat the fleet of the foe off the promontory of Rhium in 429 B.C. on hard beds. You will no longer find me an acid, angry, hard judge as heretofore, but will find me turned indulgent and grown younger by twenty years through happiness. We have been killing ourselves long enough, tiring ourselves out with going to the Lyceum 27 27 The Lyceum was a portico ornamented with paintings and surrounded with gardens, in which military exercises took place. and returning laden with spear and buckler.—But what can we do to please you? Come, speak; for 'tis a good Fate that has named you our leader.

TRYGAEUS How shall we set about removing these stones?

HERMES Rash reprobate, what do you propose doing?

TRYGAEUS Nothing bad, as Cillicon said 28 28 A citizen of Miletus, who betrayed his country to the people of Pirene. When asked what he purposed, he replied, "Nothing bad," which expression had therefore passed into a proverb. .

HERMES You are undone, you wretch.

TRYGAEUS Yes, if the lot had to decide my life, for Hermes would know how to turn the chance. 29 29 Hermes was the god of chance.

HERMES You are lost, you are dead.

TRYGAEUS On what day?

HERMES This instant.

TRYGAEUS But I have not provided myself with flour and cheese yet 30 30 As the soldiers had to do when starting on an expedition. to start for death.

HERMES You ARE kneaded and ground already, I tell you. 31 31 That is, you are predicated.

TRYGAEUS Hah! I have not yet tasted that gentle pleasure.

HERMES Don't you know that Zeus has decreed death for him who is surprised exhuming Peace?

TRYGAEUS What! must I really and truly die?

HERMES You must.

TRYGAEUS Well then, lend me three drachmae to buy a young pig; I wish to have myself initiated before I die. 32 32 The initiated were thought to enjoy greater happiness after death.

HERMES Oh! Zeus, the Thunderer! 33 33 He summons Zeus to reveal Trygaeus' conspiracy.

TRYGAEUS I adjure you in the name of the gods, master, don't denounce us!

HERMES I may not, I cannot keep silent.

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'Peace' was no doubt produced at the festival of the Apaturia, which was kept at the end of October, a period when strangers were numerous in Athens.

The winged steed of Perseus—an allusion to a lost tragedy of Euripides, in which Bellerophon was introduced riding on Pegasus.

Fearing that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the highest heaven to satisfy itself.

The Persians and the Spartans were not then allied as the scholiast states, since a treaty between them was only concluded in 412 B.C., i.e. eight years after the production of 'Peace'; the great king, however, was trying to derive advantages out of the dissensions in Greece.

"Go to the crows," a proverbial expression equivalent to our "Go to the devil."

Aesop tells us that the eagle and the beetle were at war; the eagle devoured the beetle's young and the latter got into its nest and tumbled out its eggs. On this the eagle complained to Zeus, who advised it to lay its eggs in his bosom; but the beetle flew up to the abode of Zeus, who, forgetful of the eagle's eggs, at once rose to chase off the objectionable insect. The eggs fell to earth and were smashed to bits.

Pegasus is introduced by Euripides both in his 'Andromeda' and his 'Bellerophon.'

Boats, called 'beetles,' doubtless because in form they resembled these insects, were built at Naxos.

Nature had divided the Piraeus into three basins— Cantharos, Aphrodisium and Zea. (Cantharos) is Greek for dung-beetle.

In allusion to Euripides' fondness for introducing lame heroes in his plays.

An allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the Chians (in Greek)—'crapping Chian.' There is a further joke, of course, in connection with the hundred and one frivolous pretexts which the Athenians invented for exacting contributions from the maritime allies.

Masters of Pylos and Sphacteria, the Athenians had brought home the three hundred prisoners taken in the latter place in 425 B.C.; the Spartans had several times sent envoys to offer peace and to demand back both Pylos and the prisoners, but the Athenian pride had caused these proposals to be long refused. Finally the prisoners had been given up in 423 B.C., but the War was continued nevertheless.

An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, the root-word of the name Praisae, into his mortar.