Part 2

CHOR. Shall we all a merry joke At Archedemus poke, Who has not cut his guildsmen yet, though seven years old; Yet up among the dead He is demagogue and head, And contrives the topmost place of the rascaldom to hold? And Cleisthenes, they say, Is among the tombs all day, Bewailing for his lover with a lamentable whine. And Callias, I'm told, Has become a sailor bold, And casts a lion's hide o'er his members feminine.

DIO. Can any of you tell Where Pluto here may dwell, For we, sirs, are two strangers who were never here before?

CHOR. O, then no further stray, Nor again enquire the way, For know that ye have journeyed to his very entrance-door

DIO. Take up the wraps, my lad.

XAN. Now is not this too bad? Like "Zeus's Corinth," he "the wraps" keeps saying o'er and o'er.

CHOR. Now wheel your sacred dances through the glade with flowers bedight, All ye who are partakers of the holy festal rite; And I will with the women and the holy maidens go Where they keep the nightly vigil, an auspicious light to show.

(_The departure for the Thriasian Plain_)

Now haste we to the roses, And the meadows full of posies, Now haste we to the meadows In our own old way, In choral dances blending, In dances never ending, Which only for the holy The Destinies array. O happy mystic chorus, The blessed sunshine o'er us On us alone is smiling, In its soft sweet light: On us who strove for ever With holy, pure endeavour, Alike by friend and stranger To guide our steps aright.

DIO. What's the right way to knock? I wonder how The natives here are wont to knock at doors.

XAN. No dawdling: taste the door. You've got, remember, The lion-hide and pride of Heracles.

DIO. Boy! boy!

AEACUS. Who's there?

DIO. I, Heracles the strong!

AEAC. O, you most shameless desperate ruffian, you! O, villain, villain, arrant vilest villain! Who seized our Cerberus by the throat, and fled, And ran, and rushed, and bolted, haling off The dog, my charge! But now I've got thee fast. So close the Styx's inky-hearted rock, The blood-bedabbled peak of Acheron Shall hem thee in: the hell-hounds of Cocytus Prowl round thee; whilst the hundred-headed Asp Shall rive thy heart-strings: the Tartesian Lamprey, Prey on thy lungs: and those Tithrasian Gorgons Mangle and tear thy kidneys, mauling them, Entrails and all, into one bloody mash. I'll speed a running foot to fetch them hither.

XAN. Hallo! what now?

DIO. I've done it: call the god.

XAN. Get up, you laughing-stock; get up directly, Before you're seen.

DIO. What, _I_ get up? I'm fainting. Please dab a sponge of water on my heart.

XAN. Here!

DIO. Dab it, you.

XAN. Where? O, ye golden gods, Lies your heart THERE?

DIO. It got so terrified It fluttered down into my stomach's pit.

XAN. Cowardliest of gods and men!

DIO. The cowardliest? I? What I, who asked you for a sponge, a thing A coward never would have done!

XAN. What then?

DIO. A coward would have lain there wallowing; But I stood up, and wiped myself withal.

XAN. Poseidon! quite heroic.

DIO. 'Deed I think so. But weren't _you_ frightened at those dreadful threats And shoutings?

XAN, Frightened? Not a bit. I cared not.

DIO. Come then, if you're so _very_ brave a man, Will you be I, and take the hero's club And lion's skin, since you're so monstrous plucky? And I'll be now the slave, and bear the luggage.

XAN. Hand them across. I cannot choose but take them. And now observe the Xanthio-heracles If I'm a coward and a sneak like you.

DIO. Nay, you're the rogue from Melite's own self. And I'll pick up and carry on the traps.

MAID. O welcome, Heracles! come in, sweetheart. My Lady, when they told her, set to work, Baked mighty loaves, boiled two or three tureens Of lentil soup, roasted a prime ox whole, Made rolls and honey-cakes. So come along.

XAN. (Declining.) You are too kind.

MAID. I will not let you go. I will not LET you! Why, she's stewing slices Of juicy bird's-flesh, and she's making comfits, And tempering down her richest wine. Come, dear, Come along in.

XAN. (Still declining.) Pray thank her.

MAID. O you're jesting, I shall not let you off: there's such a lovely Flute-girl all ready, and we've two or three Dancing-girls also.

XAN. Eh! what! Dancing-girls?

MAID. Young budding virgins, freshly tired and trimmed. Come, dear, come in. The cook was dishing up The cutlets, and they are bringing in the tables.

XAN. Then go you in, and tell those dancing-girls Of whom you spake, I'm coming in Myself. Pick up the traps, my lad, and follow me.

DIO. Hi! stop! you're not in earnest, just because I dressed you up, in fun, as Heracles? Come, don't keep fooling, Xanthias, but lift And carry in the traps yourself.

XAN. Why! what! You are never going to strip me of these togs You gave me!

DIO. Going to? No, I'm doing it now. Off with that lion-skin.

XAN. Bear witness all The gods shall judge between us.

DIO. Gods indeed! Why how could _you_ (the vain and foolish thought!) A slave, a mortal, act Alcmena's son?

XAN. All right then, take them; maybe, if God will, You'll soon require my services again.

CHOR. This is the part of a dexterous clever Man with his wits about him ever, One who has travelled the world to see; Always to shift, and to keep through all Close to the sunny side of the wall; Not like a pictured block to be, Standing always in one position; Nay but to veer, with expedition, And ever to catch the favouring breeze, This is the part of a shrewd tactician, This is to be a--THERAMENES! DIO. Truly an exquisite joke 'twould be, Him with a dancing girl to see, Lolling at ease on Milesian rugs; Me, like a slave, beside him standing, Aught that he wants to his lordship handing; Then as the damsel fair he hugs, Seeing me all on fire to embrace her, He would perchance (for there's no man baser), Turning him round like a lazy lout, Straight on my mouth deliver a facer, Knocking my ivory choirmen out.

HOSTESS. O Plathane! Plathane! Here's that naughty man, That's he who got into our tavern once, And ate up sixteen loaves.

PLATHANE. O, so he is! The very man.

XAN. Bad luck for somebody!

HOS. O and, besides, those twenty bits of stew, Half-obol pieces.

XAN. Somebody's going to catch it!

HOS. That garlic too.

DIO. Woman, you're talking nonsense. You don't know what you're saying.

HOS. O, you thought I shouldn't know you with your buskins on! Ah, and I've not yet mentioned all that fish, No, nor the new-made cheese: he gulped it down, Baskets and all, unlucky that we were. And when I just alluded to the price, He looked so fierce, and bellowed like a bull.

XAN. Yes, that's his way: that's what he always does.

HOS. O, and he drew his sword, and seemed quite mad.

PLA. O, that he did.

HOS. And terrified us so We sprang up to the cockloft, she and I. Then out he hurled, decamping with the rugs.

XAN. That's his way too; but something must be done.

HOS. Quick, run and call my patron Cleon here!

PLA. O, if you meet him, call Hyperbolus! We'll pay you out to-day.

HOS. O filthy throat, O how I'd like to take a stone, and hack Those grinders out with which you chawed my wares.

PLA. I'd like to pitch you in the deadman's pit.

HOS. I'd like to get a reaping-hook and scoop That gullet out with which you gorged my tripe. But I'll to Cleon: he'll soon serve his writs; He'll twist it out of you to-day, he will.

DRO. Perdition seize me, if I don't love Xanthias.

XAN. Aye, aye, I know your drift: stop, stop that talking. I won't be Heracles.

DRO. O, don't say so, Dear, darling Xanthias.

XAN. Why, how can I, A slave, a mortal, act Alcmena's son!

DRO. Aye, aye, I know you are vexed, and I deserve it, And if you pummel me, I won't complain. But if I strip you of these togs again, Perdition seize myself, my wife, my children, And, most of all, that blear-eyed Archedemus.

XAN. That oath contents me: on those terms I take them.

CHOR. Now that at last you appear once more, Wearing the garb that at first you wore, Wielding the club and the tawny skin, Now it is yours to be up and doing, Glaring like mad, and your youth renewing, Mindful of him whose guise you are in. If, when caught in a bit of a scrape, you Suffer a word of alarm to escape you, Showing yourself but a feckless knave, Then will your master at once undrape you, Then you'll again be the toiling slave.

XAN. There, I admit, you have given to me a Capital hint, and the like idea, Friends, had occurred to myself before. Truly if anything good befell He would be wanting, I know full well, Wanting to take to the togs once more. Nevertheless, while in these I'm vested, Ne'er shall you find me craven-crested, No, for a dittany look I'll wear, Aye and methinks it will soon be tested, Hark! how the portals are rustling there.

AEAC. Seize the dog-stealer, bind him, pinion him, Drag him to justice!

DIO. Somebody's going to catch it.

XAN. (_Striking out_.) Hands off! get away! stand back!

ABAC. Eh? You're for fighting. Ho! Ditylas, Sceblyas, and Pardocas, Come hither, quick; fight me this sturdy knave.

DIO. Now isn't it a shame the man should strike And he a thief besides?

AEAC. A monstrous shame!

DIO. A regular burning shame!

XAN. By the Lord Zeus, If ever I was here before, if ever I stole one hair's-worth from you, let me die! And now I'll make you a right noble offer, Arrest my lad: torture him as you will, And if you find I'm guilty, take and kill me.

AEAC. Torture him, how?

XAN. In any mode you please. Pile bricks upon him: stuff his nose with acid: Flay, rack him, hoist him; flog him with a scourge Of prickly bristles: only not with this, A soft-leaved onion, or a tender leek.

AEAC. A fair proposal. If I strike too hard And maim the boy, I'll make you compensation.

XAN. I shan't require it. Take him out and flog him.

ABAC. Nay, but I'll do it here before your eyes. Now then, put down the traps, and mind you speak The truth, young fellow.

DIO. (_In agony_.) Man! don't torture ME! I am a god. You'll blame yourself hereafter If you touch ME.

AEAC. Hillo! What's that you are saying?

DIO. I say I'm Bacchus, son of Zeus, a god, Anid _he's_ the slave.

AEAC. You hear him?

XAN. Hear him? Yes. All the more reason you should flog him well. For if he is a god, he won't perceive it.

DIO. Well, but you say that you're a god yourself. So why not _you_ be flogged as well as I?

XAN. A fair proposal. And be this the test, Whichever of us two you first behold Flinching or crying out--he's not the god.

AEAC. Upon my word you're quite the gentleman, You're all for right and justice. Strip then, both.

XAN. How can you test us fairly?

AEAC. Easily, I'll give you blow for blow.

XAN. A good idea. We're ready! Now! (_Aeacus strikes him_), see if you catch me flinching.

AEAC. I struck you.

XAN. (_Incredulously_.) No!

ABAC Well, it seems "no," indeed. Now then I'll strike the other (_Strikes DIO_.).

DIO. Tell me when?

AEAC. I struck you.

DIO. Struck me? Then why didn't I sneeze?

AEAC. Don't know, I'm sure. I'll try the other again.

XAN. And quickly too. Good gracious!

AEAC. Why "good gracious"? Not hurt you, did I?

XAN. No, I merely thought of The Diomeian feast of Heracles.

AEAC. A holy man! 'Tis now the other's turn.

DIO. Hi! Hi!

AEAC. Hallo!

DIO. Look at those horsemen, look!

AEAC. But why these tears?

DIO. There's such a smell of onions.

AEAC. Then you don't mind it?

DIO. (_Cheerfully_.) Mind it? Not a bit.

AEAC. Well, I must go to the other one again.

XAN. O! O!

AEAC. Hallo!

XAN. Do pray pull out this thorn.

AEAC. What does it mean? 'Tis this one's turn again.

DIO. (_Shrieking_.) Apollo! Lord! (_Calmly_) of Delos and of Pytho.

XAN. He flinched! You heard him?

DIO. Not at all; a jolly Verse of Hipponax flashed across my mind.

XAN. You don't half do it: cut his flanks to pieces.

AEAC. By Zeus, well thought on. Turn your belly here.

DIO. (_Screaming_.) Poseidon!

XAN. There! he's flinching.

DIO. (Singing) who dost reign Amongst the Aegean peaks and creeks And o'er the deep blue main.

AEAC. No, by Demeter, still I can't find out Which is the god, but come ye both indoors; My lord himself and Persephassa there, Being gods themselves, will soon find out the truth.

DIO. Right! right! I only wish you had thought of that Before you gave me those tremendous whacks.

CHOR. Come, Muse, to our Mystical Chorus, O come to the joy of my song, O see on the benches before us that countless and wonderful throng, Where wits by the thousand abide, with more than a Cleophon's pride-- On the lips of that foreigner base, of Athens the bane and disgrace, There is shrieking, his kinsman by race, The garrulous swallow of Thrace; From that perch of exotic descent, Rejoicing her sorrow to vent, She pours to her spirit's content, a nightingale's woeful lament, That e'en though the voting be equal, his ruin will soon be the sequel.

Well it suits the holy Chorus evermore with counsel wise To exhort and teach the city: this we therefore now advise-- End the townsmen's apprehensions; equalize the rights of all; If by Phrynichus's wrestlings some perchance sustained a fall, Yet to these 'tis surely open, having put away their sin, For their slips and vacillations pardon at your hands to win. Give your brethren back their franchise. Sin and shame it were that slaves, Who have once with stern devotion fought your battle on the waves, Should be straightway lords and masters, yea Plataeans fully blown-- Not that this deserves our censure; there I praise you; there alone Has the city, in her anguish, policy and wisdom shown-- Nay but these, of old accustomed on our ships to fight and win, (They, their father too before them), these our very kith and kin, You should likewise, when they ask you, pardon for their single sin. O by nature best and wisest, O relax your jealous ire, Let us all the world as kinsfolk and as citizens acquire, All who on our ships will battle well and bravely by our side If we cocker up our city, narrowing her with senseless pride Now when she is rocked and reeling in the cradles of the sea, Here again will after ages deem we acted brainlessly.

And O if I'm able to scan the habits and life of a man Who shall rue his iniquities soon! not long shall that little baboon, That Cleigenes shifty and small, the wickedest bathman of all Who are lords of the earth--which is brought from the isle of Cimolus, and wrought With nitre and lye into soap-- Not long shall he vex us, I hope. And this the unlucky one knows, Yet ventures a peace to oppose, And being addicted to blows he carries a stick as he goes, Lest while he is tipsy and reeling, some robber his cloak should be stealing.

Often has it crossed my fancy, that the city loves to deal With the very best and noblest members of her commonweal, Just as with our ancient coinage, and the newly-minted gold. Yea for these, our sterling pieces, all of pure Athenian mould, All of perfect die and metal, all the fairest of the fair, All of workmanship unequalled, proved and valued every-where

Both amongst our own Hellenes and Barbarians far away, These we use not: but the worthless pinchbeck coins of yesterday, Vilest die and basest metal, now we always use instead. Even so, our sterling townsmen, nobly born and nobly bred, Men of worth and rank and metal, men of honourable fame, Trained in every liberal science, choral dance and manly game, These we treat with scorn and insult, but the strangers newliest come, Worthless sons of worthless fathers, pinchbeck townsmen, yellowy scum, Whom in earlier days the city hardly would have stooped to use Even for her scapegoat victims, these for every task we choose. O unwise and foolish people, yet to mend your ways begin; Use again the good and useful: so hereafter, if ye win 'Twill be due to this your wisdom: if ye fall, at least 'twill be Not a fall that brings dishonour, falling from a worthy tree.

AEAC. By Zeus the Saviour, quite the gentleman Your master is.

XAN. Gentleman? I believe you. He's all for wine and women, is my master.

AEAC. But not to have flogged you, when the truth came out That you, the slave, were passing off as master!

XAN. He'd get the worst of that.

AEAC. Bravo! that's spoken Like a true slave: that's what I love myself.

XAN. You love it, do you?

AEAC. Love it? I'm entranced When I can curse my lord behind his back.

XAN. How about grumbling, when you have felt the stick, And scurry out of doors?

AEAC. That's jolly too.

XAN. How about prying?

AEAC. That beats everything!

XAN. Great Kin-god Zeus! And what of overhearing Your master's secrets?

AEAC. What? I'm mad with joy.

XAN. And blabbing them abroad?

AEAC. O heaven and earth! When I do that, I can't contain myself.

XAN. Phoebus Apollo! clap your hand in mine, Kiss and be kissed: and prithee tell me this, Tell me by Zeus, our rascaldom's own god, What's all that noise within? What means this hubbub And row?

AEAC. That's Aeschylus and Euripides.

XAN. Eh?

AEAC. Wonderful, wonderful things are going on. The dead are rioting, taking different sides.

XAN. Why, what's the matter?

AEAC. There's a custom here With all the crafts, the good and noble crafts, That the chief master of his art in each Shall have his dinner in the assembly hall, And sit by Pluto's side.

XAN. I understand.

AEAC. Until another comes, more wise than he In the same art: then must the first give way.

XAN. And how has this disturbed our Aeschylus?

AEAC. 'Twas he that occupied the tragic chair, As, in his craft, the noblest.

XAN. Who does now?

AEAC. But when Euripides came down, he kept Flourishing off before the highwaymen, Thieves, burglars, parricides--these form our mob In Hades--till with listening to his twists And turns, and pleas and counterpleas, they went Mad on the man, and hailed him first and wisest: Elate with this, he claimed the tragic chair Where Aeschylus was seated.

XAN. Wasn't he pelted?

AEAC. Not he: the populace clamoured out to try Which of the twain was wiser in his art.

XAN. You mean the rascals?

AEAC. Aye, as high as heaven!

XAN. But were there none to side with Aeschylus?

AEAC. Scanty and sparse the good, (_Regards the audience_) the same as here.

XAN. And what does Pluto now propose to do?

AEAC. He means to hold a tournament, and bring Their tragedies to the proof.

XAN. But Sophocles, How came not he to claim the tragic chair?

AEAC. Claim it? Not he! When _he_ came down, he kissed With reverence Aeschylus, and clasped his hand, And yielded willingly the chair to him. But now he's going, says Cleidemides, To sit third-man: and then if Aeschylus win, He'll stay content: if not, for his art's sake, He'll fight to the death against Euripides.

XAN. Will it come off?

AEAC. O yes, by Zeus, directly. And then, I hear, will wonderful things be done, The art poetic will be weighed in scales.

XAN. What! weigh out tragedy, like butcher's meat?

AEAC. Levels they'll bring, and measuring-tapes for words, And moulded oblongs.

XAN. Is it bricks they are making?

AEAC. Wedges and compasses: for Euripides Vows that he'll test the dramas, word by word.

XAN. Aeschylus chafes at this, I fancy.

AEAC. Well, He lowered his brows, upglaring like a bull.

XAN. And who's to be the judge?

AEAC. There came the rub. Skilled men were hard to find: for with the Athenians Aeschylus, somehow, did not hit it off.

XAN. Too many burglars, I expect, he thought.

AEAC. And all the rest, he said, were trash and nonsense To judge poetic wits. So then at last They chose your lord, an expert in the art. But go we in: for when our lords are bent On urgent business, that means blows for us.

CHOR. O surely with terrible wrath will the thunder-voiced monarch be filled, When he sees his opponent beside him, the tonguester, the artifice-skilled, Stand, whetting his tusks for the fight! O surely, his eyes rolling-fell Will with terrible madness be fraught! O then will be charging of plume-waving words with their wild-floating mane, And then will be whirling of splinters, and phrases smoothed down with the plane, When the man would the grand-stepping maxims, the language gigantic, repel Of the hero-creator of thought. There will his shaggy-born crest upbristle for anger and woe, Horribly frowning and growling, his fury will launch at the foe Huge-clamped masses of words, with exertion Titanic up--tearing Great ship-timber planks for the fray. But here will the tongue be at work, uncoiling, word-testing refining, Sophist-creator of phrases, dissecting, detracting, maligning, Shaking the envious bits, and with subtle analysis paring The lung's large labour away.

EURIPIDES. Don't talk to me; I won't give up the chair, I say I am better in the art than he.

DIO. You hear him, Aeschylus: why don't you speak?

EUR. He'll do the grand at first, the juggling trick He used to play in all his tragedies.

DIO. Come, my fine fellow, pray don't talk too big.

EUR. I know the man, I've scanned him through and through, A savage-creating stubborn-pulling fellow, Uncurbed, unfettered, uncontrolled of speech, Unperiphrastic, bombastiloquent.

AESCHYLUS. Hah! sayest thou so, child of the garden quean! And this to ME, thou chattery-babble-collector, Thou pauper-creating rags-and-patches-stitcher? Thou shalt abye it dearly!

DIO. Pray, be still; Nor heat thy soul to fury, Aeschylus.

AESCH. Not till I've made you see the sort of man This cripple-maker is who crows so loudly.

DIO. Bring out a ewe, a black-fleeced ewe, my boys: Here's a typhoon about to burst upon us.

AESCH. Thou picker-up of Cretan monodies, Foisting thy tales of incest on the stage--

DIO. Forbear, forbear, most honoured Aeschylus; And you, my poor Euripides, begone If you are wise, out of this pitiless hail, Lest with some heady word he crack your scull And batter out your brain-less Telephus. And not with passion. Aeschylus, but calmly Test and be tested. 'Tis not meet for poets To scold each other, like two baking-girls. But you go roaring like an oak on fire.

EUR. I'm ready, I! I don't draw back one bit. I'll lash or, if he will, let him lash first The talk, the lays, the sinews of a play: Aye and my Peleus, aye and Aeolus, And Meleager, aye and Telephus.

DIO. And what do _you_ propose? Speak, Aeschylus.

AESCH. I could have wished to meet him otherwhere. We fight not here on equal terms.

DIO. Why not?