The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2. Аристофан
you would not have put them to flight so easily if they had fed on the verses of Philocles.
CHORUS. It is clear to all the poor that tyranny has attacked us sorely. Proud emulator of Amynias, you, who only take pleasure in doing ill, see how you are preventing us from obeying the laws of the city; you do not even seek a pretext or any plausible excuse, but claim to rule alone.
BDELYCLEON. Hold! A truce to all blows and brawling! Had we not better confer together and come to some understanding?
CHORUS. Confer with you, the people's foe! with you, a royalist, the accomplice of Brasidas!61 with you, who wear woollen fringes on your cloak and let your beard grow!
BDELYCLEON. Ah! it were better to separate altogether from my father than to steer my boat daily through such stormy seas!
CHORUS. Oh! you have but reached the parsley and the rue, to use the common saying.62 What you are suffering is nothing! but welcome the hour when the advocate shall adduce all these same arguments against you and shall summon your accomplices to give witness.
BDELYCLEON. In the name of the gods! withdraw or we shall fight you the whole day long.
CHORUS. No, not as long as I retain an atom of breath. Ha! your desire is to tyrannize over us!
BDELYCLEON. Everything is now tyranny with us, no matter what is concerned, whether it be large or small. Tyranny! I have not heard the word mentioned once in fifty years, and now it is more common than salt-fish, the word is even current on the market. If you are buying gurnards and don't want anchovies, the huckster next door, who is selling the latter, at once exclaims, "That is a man, whose kitchen savours of tyranny!" If you ask for onions to season your fish, the green-stuff woman winks one eye and asks, "Ha! you ask for onions! are you seeking to tyrannize, or do you think that Athens must pay you your seasonings as a tribute?"
XANTHIAS. Yesterday I went to see a gay girl about noon and suggested she should mount and ride me; she flew into a rage, pretending I wanted to restore the tyranny of Hippias.63
BDELYCLEON. That's the talk that pleases the people! As for myself, I want my father to lead a joyous life like Morychus64 instead of going away before dawn to basely calumniate and condemn; and for this I am accused of conspiracy and tyrannical practice!
PHILOCLEON. And quite right too, by Zeus! The most exquisite dishes do not make up to me for the life of which you deprive me. I scorn your red mullet and your eels, and would far rather eat a nice little law suitlet cooked in the pot.
BDELYCLEON. 'Tis because you have got used to seeking your pleasure in it; but if you will agree to keep silence and hear me, I think I could persuade you that you deceive yourself altogether.
PHILOCLEON. I deceive myself, when I am judging?
BDELYCLEON. You do not see that you are the laughing-stock of these men, whom you are ready to worship. You are their slave and do not know it.
PHILOCLEON. I a slave, I, who lord it over all!
BDELYCLEON. Not at all, you think you are ruling when you are only obeying. Tell me, father, what do you get out of the tribute paid by so many Greek towns?
PHILOCLEON. Much, and I appoint my colleagues jurymen.
BDELYCLEON. And I also. Release him, all of you, and bring me a sword. If my arguments do not prevail I will fall upon this blade. As for you, tell me whether you accept the verdict of the Court.
PHILOCLEON. May I never drink my Heliast's pay in honour of the good Genius, if I do not.
CHORUS. Tis now we have to draw upon our arsenal for some fresh weapon; above all do not side with this youth in his opinions. You see how serious the question has become; 'twill be all over with us, which the gods forfend, if he should prevail.
BDELYCLEON. Let someone bring me my tablets with all speed!
CHORUS. Your tablets? Ha, ha! what an importance you would fain assume!
BDELYCLEON. I merely wish to note down my father's points.
PHILOCLEON. But what will you say of it, if he should triumph in the debate?
CHORUS. That old men are no longer good for anything; we shall be perpetually laughed at in the streets, shall be called thallophores,65 mere brief-bags. You are to be the champion of all our rights and sovereignty. Come, take courage! Bring into action all the resources of your wit.
PHILOCLEON. At the outset I will prove to you that there exists no king whose might is greater than ours. Is there a pleasure, a blessing comparable with that of a juryman? Is there a being who lives more in the midst of delights, who is more feared, aged though he be? From the moment I leave my bed, men of power, the most illustrious in the city, await me at the bar of the tribunal; the moment I am seen from the greatest distance, they come forward to offer me a gentle hand,—that has pilfered the public funds; they entreat me, bowing right low and with a piteous voice, "Oh! father," they say, "pity me, I adjure you by the profit you were able to make in the public service or in the army, when dealing with the victuals." Why, the man who thus speaks would not know of my existence, had I not let him off on some former occasion.
BDELYCLEON. Let us note this first point, the supplicants.
PHILOCLEON. These entreaties have appeased my wrath, and I enter—firmly resolved to do nothing that I have promised. Nevertheless I listen to the accused. Oh! what tricks to secure acquittal! Ah! there is no form of flattery that is not addressed to the heliast! Some groan over their poverty and they exaggerate the truth in order to make their troubles equal to my own. Others tell us anecdotes or some comic story from Aesop. Others, again, cut jokes; they fancy I shall be appeased if I laugh. If we are not even then won over, why, then they drag forward their young children by the hand, both boys and girls, who prostrate themselves and whine with one accord, and then the father, trembling as if before a god, beseeches me not to condemn him out of pity for them, "If you love the voice of the lamb, have pity on my son's"; and because I am fond of little sows,66 I must yield to his daughter's prayers. Then we relax the heat of our wrath a little for him. Is not this great power indeed, which allows even wealth to be disdained?
BDELYCLEON. A second point to note, the disdain of wealth. And now recall to me what are the advantages you enjoy, you, who pretend to rule over Greece?
PHILOCLEON. Being entrusted with the inspection of the young men, we have a right to examine their organs. Is Aeagrus67 accused, he is not acquitted before he has recited a passage from 'Niobe'68 and he chooses the finest. If a flute-player gains his case, he adjusts his mouth-strap69 in return and plays us the final air while we are leaving. A father on his death-bed names some husband for his daughter, who is his sole heir; but we care little for his will or for the shell so solemnly placed over the seal;70 we give the young maiden to him who has best known how to secure our favour. Name me another duty that is so important and so irresponsible.
BDELYCLEON. Aye, 'tis a fine privilege, and the only one on which I can congratulate you; but surely to violate the will is to act badly towards the heiress.
PHILOCLEON. And if the Senate and the people have trouble in deciding some important case, it is decreed to send the culprits before the heliasts; then Euathlus71 and the illustrious Colaconymus,72 who cast away his shield, swear not to betray us and to fight for the people. Did ever an orator carry the day with his opinion if he had not first declared that the jury should be dismissed for the day as soon as they had given their first verdict? We are the only ones whom Cleon, the great bawler, does not badger. On the contrary, he protects and caresses us; he keeps off the flies, which is what you have never done for your father. Theorus, who is a man not
A Spartan general, who perished in the same battle as Cleon, before Amphipolis, in 422 B.C.
Meaning, the mere beginnings of any matter.
This 'figure of love'—woman atop of the man—is known in Greek as [Greek: hippos] (Latin
A tragic poet, who was a great lover of good cheer, it appears.
Old men, who carried olive branches in the processions of the Panathenaea. Those whose great age or infirmity forbade their being used for any other purpose were thus employed.
An obscene pun. [Greek: Choiros] means both
A celebrated actor.
There were two tragedies named 'Niobé,' one by Aeschylus and the other by Sophocles, both now lost.
A double strap, which flute-players applied to their lips and was said to give softness to the tones.
The shell was fixed over the seal to protect it.
A calumniator and a traitor (see 'The Acharnians').
Cleonymus, whose name the poet modifies, so as to introduce the idea of a flatterer ([Greek: kolax]).