ECCLESIAZUSAE

 
 

WOMEN IN Parliament,” as Mr. Lindsay aptly renders Ecclesiazusae, was

presented in 392 B.C., when Athens was fallen and impoverished.
Aristophanes’ ebullience, like his city’s, appears to be fading. The
introduction of communism, which only an impossible assembly of women
could enact, is symptomatic of despair in more orthodox measures for
improvement. The parody of the communist ideas later to be set forth in the
fifth book of Plato’s Republic shows that these ideas, including a better
position for women, were being discussed. Aristophanes’ characteristic
counter is that human nature is incapable of the necessary altruism. The
absence of the old sparkle tends to reduce much of the humor to mere
nastiness, as in the picture of the three hags who, following the new law that
the least favored must come first, quarrel over and maul a young man who is
trying to make his way to his sweetheart in a balcony, with whom he sings
pretty duets.
  

CHARACTERS
 
 

 
PRAXAGORA BLEPYROS
FIRST WOMAN NEIGHBOR
SECOND WOMAN HUSBAND OF SECOND
WOMAN CRIER    WOMAN
YOUNG GIRL CHREMES
HAG CITIZEN
SECOND HAG CHORUS OF WOMEN
THIRD HAG EPIGENES
SERVANT TO PRAXAGORA
 

Translated by Jack Lindsay

 
  

(Before dawn PRAXAGORA, wearing her husband’s clothes, is seen

apostrophizing the lantern which is to serve as signal to her friends.)

PRAXAGORA. O glittering face of earth made into a lantern!

   Fitly raised up to swing in this high place
   And beacon them to me … fitly, I say,
   As thy thumbed birth and fortunes soon disclose:
   For when the scraping potter’s wheel revolves
   With thy last curve, then dost thou straight assume
   With thy wick’s spout the sun’s flaming office—
   So launch the symbol of conspiring fire!
   Thou art our trust, and naturally art,
   Since in our bedrooms thou alone stand’st by
   While we try various means of tangling kisses
   And then untying the sweet knot of flesh:
   Umpire of our bodies suavely vying,
   Sole eye that no one wants kickt out of doors,
   Thou alone pokest light in secret places
   Darkened with warmth, mysterious, when we singe
   Hair that is amorously superfluous.
   Thou art our help when furtively we go
   To raid the cellars for their store of fruit
   And bubbles of Bacchos. And thou wink’st at it,
   And not one prattle of flame gives us away.
   Therefore shalt thou be our confidante
   In the conspiracy my friends and I
   Hatched at the Festival of the Parasol.
   But none of them is here although it’s time,
   And dawn is softening there already. Soon
   The Assembly will have met; and we, my women,
   Must squat in the seats Phyromachos allotted us
   (Is the allusion too recondite?) looking discreet….
   What can have happened? Perhaps they find it hard
   To stitch their beards on as our edict insisted.
   Perhaps they couldn’t get hold of their husbands’ clothes

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    And abscond with them…. Ah ha, I spy a lamp
   Floating this way. I had better stand aside
   In case some man is straggling in the street.
   (A woman enters, PRAXAGORA goes to meet her.)
WOMAN. It’s time. Let’s go. As I was coming along
   I heard the herald’s second cockadoodle.
PRAXAGORA. I have been waiting, I have been watching here
   All of the night for you. But now you’ve come,
   Let’s wake my neighbor. See, I’ll scratch with my nail,
   Gently, on the door, gently, and so
   Won’t wake her husband.
   (As she is scratching, the door opens and another woman appears.)
SECOND WOMAN.     It’s all right, Praxagora.
   I caught your nail’s soft screekle on the wood,
   For I was up and almost ready, just
   Knotting my shoes on, for my husband, you know,
   Is a Salaminian, dear, and keeps on rowing
   Even in his sleep—I simply can’t stop him—
   He thinks I’m a boat; and mixed up with the bedclothes,
   It’s a wonder I got off even as late as I did.
PRAXAGORA. Oh, here they are. There is Cleinarete,
   And Sostrata too, and there’s Philainite.
SEMICHORUS. Hurry, my girls, Glyke has made a vow
   The last one that arrives shall pay as fine
   One quart of chickpease and nine quarts of wine.
FIRST WOMAN. Look at Melistiche, Smicythion’s wife,
   She has managed to get her husband’s shoes.
PRAXAGORA. And looks
   The only one untousled by pointed dreams.
SECOND WOMAN. And there’s Geusistrata, the innkeeper’s wife,
   Waggling in her hand a—yes, a torch.
PRAXAGORA. Look, Philodoretos’ wife, Chairetades’,
   And scores of others scampering along,
   The finest women whose faces honor the town.
SEMICHORUS. O sweetheart, I have had such an awful time.
   I couldn’t get away, I’ll tell you about it,
   My husband stuffed himself up with anchovies
   And tossed and wheezed and coughed over me all night.

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PRAXAGORA. Well, take your seats that I may make inquiry
   If you have done that which at Scira we
   Determined we would do.
FIRST WOMAN.     I have, and if
   I lifted my arm you’d see it; in my armpits
   Thick ringlets darkly shrubbed to fit our compact.
   And when my husband lounged off to the market place
   I oiled my body and stood as long as I could
   Tanned daily naked in the sweat of the sun.
SECOND WOMAN. And so have I. As soon as I reached home,
   I went and pitched the razor out of the window
   So that hairiness unfeminine should patch
   My sprouting body.
PRAXAGORA.     But have you all got beards,
   As we decided should be worn today?
FIRST WOMAN. By Hecate, I have, and such a sweet one.
SECOND WOMAN. And I have, one much prettier than Epicrates’.
PRAXAGORA. What of you others?
FIRST WOMAN.     They nod to say they have them.
PRAXAGORA. The other details are carried out, I see.
   You have red Laconian shoes and walking sticks
   And the men’s overcoats as you were ordered.
FIRST WOMAN. Look at this fine stick that I stole from Lamias
   As he was snoring.
PRAXAGORA.     O we’ve heard of that,
   The club which Lamia fartingly doth wield.
FIRST WOMAN. By Savior Zeus, no better man than he
   To don the leathern cloak heaven’s herdsman wore
   With all those hundred eyes, and sit on guard
   Over the public hangman.
PRAXAGORA.     But now the time
   Comes to conclude what we have all begun,
   While yet the stars are ruffled in the sky—
   For the Parliament for which we now prepare
   Our going forth, must open with the dawn.
FIRST WOMAN. O yes, by Zeus, and we’re to seat ourselves
   Opposite the Prytanes, underneath the Bema.
SECOND WOMAN. See what I’ve brought with me, my dear. I intend
   To do some carding while they’re mustering.

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PRAXAGORA. Mustering, poor fool?
SECOND WOMAN.     Why not, by Artemis?
   Can’t I card wool and listen at the same time?
   And I might tell you, my children badly need clothes.
PRAXAGORA. Carding indeed! you who must sit gravely
   Displaying not one flush of nakedness!
   We’d be in a nice mess, wouldn’t we? if when
   The place was crowded out, some woman came
   Scrambling over the seats so that her cloak
   Got twisted back and showed her sex’s mat.
   But if we push in first, in the front lines,
   Safely wrapped up in our husband’s clothes,
   None will suspect us. And when we’re sitting there,
   Having attached our beards emphatically,
   Who that looks at us will smell out what we are?
   Did not Agyrrhios win masculinity
   By putting on the beard of Pronomos?
   And yet he who was a woman for the asking
   Now struts a man, and more, a politician,
   A strutting politician; and it’s for that,
   By yonder dawn burning softly over the roofs,
   We dare to do this daring deed and see
   If we can get our fingers in the affairs
   Of the commonwealth and knead it to more health.
   For otherwise wreck’s certain—both oar and sail
   Fail the stranded boat.
FIRST WOMAN.     But tell me this:
   How can women, who are clearly feminine,
   Harangue the Parliament?
PRAXAGORA. Extremely well.
   Boys who were girls whenever convenient
   Are those from whom the best orators are recruited,
   And so we’ve gossiped into natural speakers.
FIRST WOMAN. Perhaps you’re right; but when a thing’s so new
   One’s liable to make mistakes.
PRAXAGORA.                     Of course.
   Isn’t that why this rehearsal was convened?
   Now slip your beards on and grow hairy suddenly,
   And all who have practiced talking, talk.

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FIRST WOMAN. Who practiced? We don’t need it, we knew before.
PRAXAGORA. Come don your beard and bristle into a man.
   I’ll drop these garlands and also beard myself,
   And probably add a few remarks of my own.
SECOND WOMAN. O isn’t it funny, darling Praxagora?
   It tickles, and it’s funny, isn’t it?
PRAXAGORA. What are you giggling at?
SECOND WOMAN. All those half-tanned faces….
   They look just like cuttlefish browning by the fire
   With big beards pinned on.
PRAXAGORA.                     Here, O Purifier!
   Begin at once and carry round the Pussy.
   Enter the lustral line—Ariphrades,
   Stop chattering—ho, enter and sit down.
   Who wishes to address the Parliament?
FIRST WOMAN. I do.
PRAXAGORA. Good luck be yours then, and this garland.
FIRST WOMAN. Thank you.
PRAXAGORA.     So speak.
FIRST WOMAN. But I haven’t had a drink.
PRAXAGORA. Drink, did you say?
FIRST WOMAN.     Well, what’s the garland for?
PRAXAGORA. That’s enough of you. Would you have spoken thus
   In the real assembly?
FIRST WOMAN. Don’t men drink in Parliament?
PRAXAGORA. Still with your drinking!
FIRST WOMAN.                     But I’m sure they do,
   By Artemis, I am! and strong stuff too.
   Only look at the laws they pass and it’s obvious
   They’d never pass such things unless very drunk.
   And then they spill libations, don’t they? or tell me
   Why would they spend such a long time in prayers
   Unless they had some wine bottles going round?
   And then they’re all as rowdy as squabbling drunkards,
   And when one of them gets outrageously drunk
   The rest call Order and the Archers lug him out.
PRAXAGORA. You are no use at all, go back to your seat.
FIRST WOMAN. Good Lord, I wish I’d never worn a beard.
   I wouldn’t have if I’d known there’d be nothing to drink—

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    I’m absolutely parched.
PRAXAGORA.     Who else would speak?
SECOND WOMAN. I would.
PRAXAGORA.     Then put this garland on your head,
   Make a concise address, for time throbs nearer.
   Now gruff your voice and hem just like a man
   And lean convincingly upon your stick.
SECOND WOMAN. I wish some member of an older standing
   Than I had risen on this serious matter
   And spared me from personally taking up
   The question of exposing this gross abuse,
   Which, since no other has protested, I
   Must raise my voice against. It must be stopped.
   You know the tanks dug in the taverns? Well,
   Some men have actually filled them up
   With water. Shall this be allowed? By the Goddesses—
PRAXAGORA. By the Goddesses! Now, have you lost your head?
SECOND WOMAN. What’s wrong? I didn’t ask anyone for a drink.
PRAXAGORA. You’re a fine man, swearing by the Goddesses!
   Though, for the rest, you did it very well.
SECOND WOMAN. By Apollo, I meant.
PRAXAGORA.     Let this be understood:
   I shall withdraw from this Parliamentary Plot
   Unless each detail is studied and exact.
SECOND WOMAN. Give me the garland and another try.
   I have a good idea, and I’ll take such care:
   Listen to me, all you assembled women—
PRAXAGORA. All wrong again. We’re men and you say women.
SECOND WOMAN. I’m sorry, but it’s all Epigonos’ fault,
   He caught my eye and I thought I was lecturing women.
PRAXAGORA. That’ll do now, go also to your seat
   And on my own head will I place the garland
   On behalf of your great cause; and now I pray
   The gods to add their voices to our voices.

I am a citizen as deeply involved

As any of you in this our country’s fate,
And I am sadly stricken to behold
The darkness hurrying over our state.

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 For I behold the city lifting up
Base men to walk upon its broken face;
And if one day a man advocates wisdom,
The next ten times he leads you into disgrace.
And then you try another, only to find
One ten times worse. Ah, very hard it is
To counsel men so rash … your wits desert you,
Always suspecting those that most do love you,
Always smiling on those that smile to hurt you.
Once on a time we did not flock to assemblies—
For Agyrrhios then we did not care a rap—
But now we bustle along, because the man
Whose palm takes money uses it to clap,
And he who gets no dole we hear fiercely railing
That those who got it deserve instant jailing.
 
FIRST WOMAN. By Aphrodite, isn’t it a wonderful speech!
PRAXAGORA. By Aphrodite! you silly swearer, think
   How sweetly that would sound in Parliament.
FIRST WOMAN. O but I won’t say it there.
PRAXAGORA.                     Well, don’t get the habit.
   When we deliberated in the League
   It was agreed that nothing else could save
   The ruining state; but once the pact was signed,
   It was the worst prick galling the state’s flesh.
   The sponsor of the vote took to his heels,
   He had to. Then there are the navy-estimates:
   We must have ships—the poorer classes assent,
   The capitalists and landowners disagree.
   You used to hate Corinth, Corinth used to hate you….
   Now she is making overtures, be friendly.
   Wisdom’s a babbler, and the biggest fool
   The state’s philosopher … for then we saw
   A peep of safety flutter past; but now
   Thrasybulos’ advice is no longer asked.
FIRST WOMAN. This is a very clever fellow.
PRAXAGORA.                     That’s right.
   But you, people of Athens, are to blame.
   You draw your doles out of the public store,

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    Yet each man’s care for the state ends precisely
   Where that salary ends; and so the city
   Staggers shamefully, like Aisimos.
   But trust my counsels and you may yet be saved,
   For I propose this law: that we put at once
   The city’s entire rule in the women’s hands.
   Do they not manage households efficiently?
FIRST WOMAN. Hear, hear! by the Lord Zeus, speak on, my man!
PRAXAGORA. That they’re superior in everything to us
   I soon shall demonstrate to you. Now firstly:
   They are wont to dye their wools in tinctures brought
   To boiling—that’s the old way, and the modern;
   And you won’t find them changing methods merely
   To have a change, and wouldn’t Athens yet
   Boast the serene stones of her power
   If she had kept to projects proved quite sound
   Instead of any faddy substitute?
   Just think of women’s sound tradition of life:
   They roast barley, sitting, as of old.
   They carry baskets on their heads, as of old.
   They keep the Thesmophoria, as of old.
   They bake their honey-cheesecakes, as of old.
   They nag their husbands biddable, as of old.
   They hide lovers under their beds, as of old.
   They buy sweets to eat on the sly, as of old.
   They don’t like wine in water, as of old.
   They like being ravished kindly, as of old.
   Consequently, sirs, let us abandon
   The city up to their tenacious rule;
   And not worry ourselves or ask a single question
   Or be curious whatever they’ll do with it,
   But let them govern wholly, of one thing
   Being certain: that the politician-mother
   Will not be callous to the fate of her son
   Gone off to be a soldier. And then the rations!
   Who like the woman who bare the boy is fitted
   To understand the commissariat?
   For finding a way there’s no one like a woman,
   And there’s no danger now that they’ll be fooled

8
    Once they’re in charge, being adepts at that game
   Themselves. No need for more words! merely pass
   This law and lie back happy the rest of your lives.
FIRST WOMAN. O you’re wonderful, you sweet Praxagora.
   Where did you learn to talk so beautifully?
PRAXAGORA. When everyone fled into Athens, my husband and I
   Put up in the Pnyx and there heard the orators.
FIRST WOMAN. No wonder you know it so well, you sweet smart thing.
   And if we get that vote passed, then at once
   We shall elect you dictatress of the city.
   But what if Cephalos grows obstreperous?
   How will you answer in front of all those men?
PRAXAGORA. I’ll say he is demented.
FIRST WOMAN.                     But that’s true.
PRAXAGORA. I’ll say that he is broody-moody mad.
FIRST WOMAN. But everyone knows that too.
PRAXAGORA.                     That he’s more suited
   To solder the state up than a leaking pot.
FIRST WOMAN. And if Neocleides, the bleary-faced fool, insults you?
PRAXAGORA. I’ll simply tell him to squint up a dog’s behind.
FIRST WOMAN. What if they try to pull you down?
PRAXAGORA.                     Don’t fret.
   I’m used to that, it often happens to me,
   So I know what to do.
FIRST WOMAN.                     But we’ve no precautions
   In case the Archers try to throw you out.
PRAXAGORA. Once I get my arms akimbo thus, I’d like
   To see the man who caught me in the middle.
SEMICHORUS. We’ll help you too, we’ll tell him not to be rude.
FIRST WOMAN. Then it is all arranged, and very neatly ….
   But there’s another point. We’ll have to be careful.
   One puts up arms to vote; if we don’t think
   We’ll do the wrong thing—we’re so much more used
   To hold our legs up.
PRAXAGORA.                     An important point.
   Let everyone remember the right procedure:
   Lift up one arm, naked to the shoulder, thus.
   Now catch your tunics up so they won’t drag
   And hurry into your Laconian shoes,

9
    As you have seen your husbands dressing when
   They meant to go out of doors, or to the assembly.
   And then, when shoes and tunic don’t flop loosely,
   Gird on your beards, and see they are not attached
   Askew or insecurely; the stolen cloaks
   Take and throw on over the whole disguise,
   And leaning negligently on your sticks
   Off to Parliament! in a quavering whistle
   Trying some old-man catch and gesturing
   With rustic ways to hide any gawkiness.
FIRST WOMAN. Splendid! but let us go along ahead.
   Other women, I know, will be coming straightaway
   From outer suburbs to the Pnyx.
PRAXAGORA.                     O hasten!
   Only early birds who reach the Pnyx by dawn
   Make sure of seats and not slinking penniless off.
   (They go out. CHORUS OF WOMEN enter.)
CHORUS. Move on, men—the more we use that word the better, or
perplexed
   In the Parliament we’ll forget the way we’re temporarily sexed—
   For we’d be in a sad case if some shrewd-eyed fellow peered
   And saw through our plans in darkness brewed and each impostor-
beard.
      Here move on, men, the meeting waits, and we must mind the
magistrate’s

Stern utterance that

   The man who’s unable to
   Tread flat the morning dew
   In the early light’s pearly dust,
   Gobbling his breakfast snack
   Of garlick, and so comes late—
   Doleless must turn back,
   Turn back he must.

So Charitemides,
   Smicythos, Draces, now
   Hurry with us and please

10
    See you allow
   No word to escape you
   The plot to betray,
   But in everything ape you
   Men’s ways to-day.
   So come on, be quick, it’s
   Time to rush away!
   Let’s get our tickets
   And fill the front rows
   And vote for whatever
   Our sisters propose—
Our sisters! where do my wits stray?
Brothers, I meant to say.
 
Tread on their toes, and jostle too this irritating city-crew,

These men who of old

   When a mere obol they,
   All told, received for pay,
   Lazily gazed time by—
   Chatter and idle stare …
   Nought else to do—
   There in the Garland Fair
   Useles they’d lie.
   But when Myronides
   Kept us so bravely afloat,
   To have expected fees
   For a mere vote
   Would have been held a shame—
   Eagerly then
   To the assembly came
   Each citizen,
   And a goatskin of wine he
   Brought—bread, two onions and
   Three olives … tiny
   Patriot feast.
   But now they first demand
   Three obols at least.

11
 And ere they’ll lift a hand
Their full price must understand.
 
(Enter BLEPYROS dressed in his wife’s petticoat and shoes.)
BLEPYROS. What’s wrong with the world? Where’s my wife disappeared?
   It’s almost morning and she’s nowhere at all.
   Here was I taken short in my own bed,
   And I groped about to find my cloak and shoes
   In the darkness, for I wanted to ease myself.
   But I couldn’t find a stitch, and all the while
   The pain kept banging hard at my back door,
   And so I wriggled into this chemise
   And stuck my toes into these flapping slippers.
   O where O where is a good nook? or is
   Any spot in the dark a good enough one?
   No man could see me if I squatted here,
   I’m sure. O what a damned and utter fool
   I was to go and get married in my old age;
   I ought to be walloped, I ought. For it’s not likely
   She’s gallivanting at this time of night
   Out of pure goodness O but I can’t wait!
   (The NEIGHBOR enters.)
NEIGHBOR. Who is this here? Surely not neighbor Blepyros!
   Good Lord, it is. What’s all this smeary yellow?
   Did Cinesias mistake you for an altar
   And start befouling you?
BLEPYROS.                     No, I merely wanted
   To take the air and happened to put on
   This little yellow chemisette of my wife’s.
NEIGHBOR. But where’s your own shirt?
BLEPYROS.                     That I cannot tell you.
   I looked for it, but it wasn’t in the bedclothes.
NEIGHBOR. Didn’t you ask your wife to look for it?
BLEPYROS. I didn’t ask her and I’ll tell you why.
   She wasn’t there to ask. She’s sliddered out,
   Somehow, I don’t know how, I never saw her,
   And I’m afraid some revolution’s muttering.
NEIGHBOR. Why, by Poseidon, exactly the same thing
   Has happened to me. My wife’s flown out of the window;

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    And so have the clothes I was wearing. And more than that:
   The plaguey wretch has vanished with my shoes.
   Anyhow, I looked for them and couldn’t find them.
BLEPYROS. By Dionysus, it’s the same with me.
   I couldn’t find my Laconian shoes anywhere,
   And so as I was a bad case of the gripes
   I kicked her slippers on and out I tumbled.
   I didn’t want to dirty the sheets, you see.
   They’d just been washt.
NEIGHBOR.                     I wonder what’s afoot.
   Can one of her friends have invited her to breakfast?
BLEPYROS. I think you’re right, she’s not a wicked girl….
   At least, I think she isn’t.
NEIGHBOR.                     But good God,
   What’s this? it’s not a turd, man, it’s a rope.
   But I must dash off to the assembly as soon
   As I have found the cloak I couldn’t find—
   It’s the only one I have.
BLEPYROS.                     And I’ll go with you
   As soon as I reach the end of this—O Lord,
   I think a prickly pear has blocked the way.
NEIGHBOR. The kind of wild pear that shut Thrasybulos up?
                     (Goes out.)
BLEPYROS. By the Lord in Heaven, whatever kind it is,
   It’s stuck for ever in my hinder parts.
   O what’ll I do? the pain … it’s hard as a brick.
   But I don’t mind that so much; what worries me
   Is what will happen now to the food I eat.
   The bung-hole’s stopped forever. What’ll I do?
   I’ll never dung again. This prickly slab
   Has plugged the venthole up, and nevermore
   Shall I evacuate deliciously.
   Bring me a doctor! … but what sort of doctor?
   Perhaps a pathic knows this business best
   And could dislodge it. Bring me a pathic then!
   Bring me Amynon! he knows … but perhaps
   He won’t admit it … so fetch Antisthenes.
   O fetch Antisthenes that fellow sufferer.
   He’ll understand and he’ll know what to do.

13
    He knows well an insatiate itching breech.
   O midwife Ilythia, grant me ease—
   Deliver me of this tremendous turd!
   Don’t let me burst or stay forever sealed
   A common night stool on the comic stage.
(CHREMES enters.)
CHREMES. Hullo there! What are you doing? Not diarrhea?
BLEPYROS. I? well, I was. But I have finished now.
CHREMES. And are you wearing your wife’s chemise?
BLEPYROS.                     You see,
   It was so dark inside I didn’t know
   What I was taking; I picked it up in the dark.
   But where do you come from?
CHREMES.                     I come from Parliament.
BLEPYROS. Is it dismissed already?
CHREMES.                     Yes, today
   It ended almost before it had begun.
   And ha, my dear Zeus, you should have heard the laughter
   And seen the way they lavished vermilion around.
BLEPYROS. Did you get your three obols?
CHREMES.                     No, I didn’t, damn it.
   I arrived too late, and I’m ashamed to say
   A bare wallet is my pay for the day.
BLEPYROS. How did that come about?
CHREMES.                     It was like this:
   You never saw such a crush about the Pnyx …
   Pale-faced fellows all like shoemakers,
   That’s what we said: a pale blur of faces—
   Queer it looked, a hubbub of white faces
   Packing Parliament; so I and lots of us
   Were turned away and didn’t get our obols.
BLEPYROS. Do you think that I’d get mine if I did a sprint?
CHREMES. Not a hope. You couldn’t have squeezed in
   If you’d been there by the second crow of the morning.
BLEPYROS. Weep, weep, Antilochos, O weep for me
   Who live to mourn, rather than weep for death,
   The perished, lost three obols. The game’s up.
   But how was it such a mob got there so early?

14
CHREMES. I suppose it was because the Prytanes
   Decided to have the assembled people vote
   The best safety for the state. Out pushed Neocleides,
   Trying to slip through and make the first speech.
   Then what do you think? The people all bawled out:
   Shame that this bleary-eyed idiot who can’t see
   Even the way that he is stumbling himself,
   Should seek to guide the slippery fate of Athens!
   And so he stopped, and glaring round roared out
   What’s to be done then?
BLEPYROS.                     I’d have recommended
   Some garlic pounded with verjuice and then mixed up
   With some Laconian splurge: sore eyes to be
   Anointed with it before going to bed.
CHREMES. Next that astute Euaion trotted out,
   Quite naked, or so it looked to us from a distance,
   But he insisted he was fully clad,
   And made a loud speech in the popular style.
   Look on me, citizens, he says, and you’ll see
   I too am in need of saving—to be precise,
   Four staters. Yet I know the very way
   To save the state and all its citizens.
   Let every draper give thick woolen cloaks
   To any man who wants one when the sun
   Swings backward into winter. Immediately
   There will be no more pleurisy anywhere.
   And let those who have no blankets and no bed,
   After they’ve had a good dinner, be permitted
   To enter furriers’ shops and make themselves snug.
   And whoever shuts his door in chilly weather
   Against them, shall be mulcted three blankets a time.
BLEPYROS. That was a good speech; and there’s not a man
   Who would have dared to raise one knuckle against him
   If he’d gone on: Let those who trade in grain
   Give three quarts gratis to the poor; or else
   Be strung up…. Then that benefit at least
   They’d wring from Nausicydes.
CHREMES.                     And after him
   Up skipped a spruce young fellow pale as Nicias

15
    And made a speech declaring we should deliver
   The state over to the control of women.
   Then the whole wheyfaced pack of shoemakers
   Cheered and cheered, while all the country people
   Boohooed back at them.
BLEPYROS.                     And very sensible.
CHREMES. But far too few, and so the boy continued
   With an eloquent catalogue of women’s virtues
   And of your villainies.
BLEPYROS.                     What’s that?
CHREMES.                     He said
   First of all you were an abject scoundrel.
BLEPYROS. And you?
CHREMES.                     I’ll come to that soon. Next he called you
   A thief.
BLEPYROS.                     And only me?
CHREMES. And then he added
   A sycophant.
BLEPYROS.   But only me?
CHREMES.                     And added
   The same remarks about the rest of us.
BLEPYROS. Well, I don’t suppose anyone contradicted.
CHREMES. And then he went on saying how woman is
   A witty and inventive piece of flesh,
   Smiling mum over her Thesmophorian secrets
   While you and I blurt out anything about the state’s.
BLEPYROS. Well, by Hermes, that is more or less true.
CHREMES. And women, he said, are always ready to lend
   Dresses, jewelry, cash or drinking cups
   To one another, when they’re quite alone
   And not a witness by; and yet they always
   Redeem their word and make a full repayment.
   But men are always quarreling over deals.
BLEPYROS. That’s true enough … even though there were witnesses.
CHREMES. Women don’t inform, and they don’t go to law,
   Or suppress the people, but their own business
   Quietly do; and a lot more, all praises.
BLEPYROS. What was the decision then?

16
CHREMES.                     You’re to surrender
   The state to them. For this it was concluded
   The only revolution not yet tried.
BLEPYROS. It was decreed then?
CHREMES. It was.
BLEPYROS.                     And now the women
   Must be the administrating citizens?
CHREMES. Exactly.
BLEPYROS.                     Then my wife’s the dicast now,
   Not I?
CHREMES. And she supports the house, not you.
BLEPYROS. Now she’s the one to get grumbling up in the morning?
CHREMES. Yes, from now on that is the woman’s job.
   You’ll stay at home and surrender your morning grumble.
BLEPYROS. But it’s just struck me, we’ll have a hard time,
   We older men, if now the women are over us
   They decide to try to force us on to—
CHREMES.                     What?
BLEPYROS. Fornicate.
CHREMES.                     But if we can’t?
BLEPYROS. Well, then
   They won’t give us any breakfast.
CHREMES. So it seems
   We’ll have to fornicate to earn our breakfast.
BLEPYROS. But forced! … I wouldn’t.
CHREMES.                     No, we must obey.
   If it’s concluded for the public good
   That we should do it, do it like a man.
   There is a saying blown from antique times
   That all our silly and fantastic plans
   Heaven warps awry to suit the public weal….
   So be it now, Lady Pallas and all you gods!
   But I must go. Good-by.
BLEPYROS.                     Chremes, good-by.
     (They part. The CHORUS OF WOMEN returning from the Pnyx come
forward.)
CHORUS.   Forward, step bolder ….

17
Look over your shoulder
     Every now and then
     To see if some men
     Are following us.

Hurry, but no flurry!

And take good care there’s no one there who might unbare
   Our sex by getting behind and upsetting our plot by petting—I can’t
help fretting,
The rogues are so numerous.

Stamp on the ground

A flat-footed sound!
A pretty disgrace
We’d have to face
If the men found us out.

Look at ease if you please:

Hide your fright, tuck your clothes in tight, look to left and right,
Or some disaster will overmaster Praxagora and blast her  …  and so
move faster,
And stare well round about.

In a moment or two
We’ll have won through,
And be back once more
At the very door
From which we started when we departed
Courageous-hearted to Parliament.
This is the place full in your face
From which we proceeded on empire bent,
Where she dwells who pleaded our cause and succeeded, the leader we
needed,
By heaven sent!

18
 It’s dangerous
Any longer for us
To continue to wear
This spurious hair.
Every idling minute has peril in it,
Some man that knows us may expose us….
Closer I call!—beneath this wall—
Peep from side to side, and change dresses here….
Ah, that head of pride, that beautiful stride, I am sure I spied our queen
and guide,
And lo! she comes near.

Doff beards now—O dear,

Didn’t it feel queer!
That fringe of tickles, these rays of prickles
Smarting from ear to ear:
I’m glad it’s off my chin….
so, girls, we win.
 
PRAXAGORA. O women, you behold how happily
   Has fortune turned our hopes to acclaimed facts.
   Therefore before an eye betrays our game
   Off with your cloaks, kick your shoes off, undo
   The knotted rein of your Laconian shoes,
   Drop your sticks.
   (To LEADER OF CHORUS.)
                        But no, I’ll leave this section
   To you, my dear. See they do everything rightly,
   And I myself shall now tiptoe indoors
   And before my husband notices I’ll lay
   His overcloak back where I found it thrown,
   And any other borrowed article.
CHORUS.   We have doffed our male array;
     And forever, from this day,
     Only speak—we obey.
     For sincerely I can say
     There’s no woman in any way

19
      I admire so … none so gay
     And resourceful at bay.
PRAXAGORA. Then henceforth you’ll stay
     At my side, and, I pray,
     The part of counselors play,
     For there in the fray
     Hullabalooing away
     You proved yourself gay
     Manly women at bay.
   (As PRAXAGORA is going in BLEPYROS comes out.)
BLEPYROS. Hullo, Praxagora, where did you spring from?
PRAXAGORA.                     Sir,
   What’s that to you?
BLEPYROS.     What’s that to me? Are you mad?
PRAXAGORA. At any rate you can’t say it’s from a lover.
BLEPYROS. No, probably from more than one.
PRAXAGORA.     Well, then
   Test for yourself and find I’m innocent.
BLEPYROS. And how can I test it?
PRAXAGORA.     Smell my hair, of course.
   Is it scented?
BLEPYROS.     Can’t a woman be embraced
   Unless there is some scent curling her hair?
PRAXAGORA. I don’t choose to be, anyhow.
BLEPYROS.                     Then tell me why
   You stole away so early in my overcloak.
PRAXAGORA. Before dawn I was summoned to a friend
   Whose pangs had just begun.
BLEPYROS.                     Why didn’t you tell me
   Before you went off?
PRAXAGORA.                     And not hasten to her
   To help her in her throes, my husband, eh?
BLEPYROS. Yes, after having told me. Why didn’t you?
   There’s something underhand here.
PRAXAGORA.                     By the two goddesses!
   I went straight off, just as I was; the girl
   Who came for me, begged me not to dillydally.
BLEPYROS. And so that’s why you left your chemise behind?
   You threw it over my bed and took my cloak

20
    And left me stretched out like a snoring corpse—
   A corpse all but the wreath and bottle of oil.
PRAXAGORA. The early air was frosty; and I’m so delicate,
   Only a weak little thing, and so I took
   Your overcloak to snuggle me from the cold.
   And you, my dear, I left cozily slumbering
   Under rugs of huddled warmth.
BLEPYROS.
   Then will you inform me
   How it was that my stick and my Laconians
   Went out walking with you also?
PRAXAGORA. If you’ll listen.
   I put on your shoes to save your cloak, ungrateful!
   Tramping like you, slapping with my feet
   And sturdily clattering the stick on the stones.
BLEPYROS. It’s all your fault that I’ve lost eight quarts of wheat,
   Which I’d have got by going to the assembly.
PRAXAGORA. Well, cheer up. All went well, she was safely delivered.
BLEPYROS. Who was? the assembly was?
PRAXAGORA.                     No, no, you blockhead;
   My friend. But has the assembly met?
BLEPYROS. Yes, blockhead.
   I told you yesterday that it was to meet.
PRAXAGORA. O I remember.
BLEPYROS.                     But you haven’t heard
   About the decree that was passed?
PRAXAGORA.                     No, what was it?
BLEPYROS. O sit down munching cuttlefish with your friends!
   This is the news: the state is in your hands.
PRAXAGORA. What for? weaving?
BLEPYROS.                     That you may govern.
PRAXAGORA.                     What?
BLEPYROS. All the executive business of the state.
PRAXAGORA. O what a happy state this is going to be!
   By Aphrodite!
BLEPYROS. How? tell me.
PRAXAGORA.                     For several reasons.
   For instance, swaggerers shan’t lord it now
   Over the city’s shame; and in a twinkling

21
    There’ll be no trade in witnesses; no longer
   Shall the informers thrive.
BLEPYROS.                     Don’t go too far.
   Don’t rob me of my only livelihood.
CHREMES. Here, my good man, let the lady have her say.
PRAXAGORA. No stealing overcloaks, no coveting now,
   No more poor and no more ragged people,
   No more mud throwing, no distraining property—
CHREMES. By Poseidon, marvelous if it’s truly true.
PRAXAGORA. It’s true. I’ll prove it so that I’ll gain you over
   And stop this foolish fellow’s antagonism.
CHORUS. Gather your brave thoughts, let them shine,
   And as you speak to these two,
   Loose that clear lovely anger of yours
   That never yet we knew
   Fail when its strength was called to fight
   For Athens and our dark distress.
   Speak then, and all the torches light,
   That darkness sweetly to bless.
   Yes, speak your projects—now or never ….
   To gain the populace we need
   Some plan extravagantly clever;
   And you must do the deed.
   The audience is rather sick
   Of plots antiquely patterned: so
   Produce one new and striking—quick,
   Before they go.
PRAXAGORA. I’ve a splendid conception, but feel rather scared
   What my friends there would think of me if I once dared
   To propound it…. I want to, but still fear to speak …
   This new type of political dramatic technique.
BLEPYROS. If that’s why you hesitate, don’t get unnerved.
   We’ve one steadfast principle, I have observed;
   New things are good, old things bad.
PRAXAGORA.                     Let no man
   Interrupt the speaker till he’s heard the whole plan.
   Don’t get excited and try to reply
   Before you have grasped all the how, when, and why.
   Briefly my scheme is: mankind should possess

22
    In common the instruments of happiness.
   Henceforth private property comes to an end—
   It’s all wrong for a man to have too much to spend,
   While others moan, starving; another we see
   Has acres of land tilled prosperously,
   While this man has not enough earth for his grave.
   You’ll find men who haven’t a single lean slave
   While others have hundreds to run at their call….
   That’s over: all things are owned henceforth by all.
BLEPYROS. But stop! … explain how that can be.
PRAXAGORA. You’ll eat dung ahead of me!
BLEPYROS. Does your scheme then involve, to our indigestion,
   A community of turds?
PRAXAGORA. No, you annoyed me intruding a question
   To be answered in my next words.
   All the titles to land being revoked, understand
   Each equally now has a right to the land;
   As to silver, to all things, the big things, the small things!
   We’ll declare there’s no personal property first;
   Then, taking charge of the wealth disembursed,
   We’ll maintain you by farming the whole vast estate
   And working each branch at a sensible rate.
BLEPYROS. As to land it seems easy; but will you explain
   What will happen where wealth is not tree, grass, or grain,
   But bullion: not farms one can’t put in one’s pocket—
   Can your scheme touch the man rich in coin? Can’t he block it?
PRAXAGORA. He must hand gold all in.
BLEPYROS.   But suppose that he lies,
   And hoards it away from the state’s prying eyes?
   Lies and cheating! … Admitted; but what other feat
   Gains money in commerce if not skill to cheat?
PRAXAGORA. You’re right. So we take all the value from cash.
BLEPYROS. But how is that done?
PRAXAGORA.                     Of itself it turns trash:
   When all a man wants is set free to his hand,
   What becomes of the law of supply and demand?
   Cakes, barley loaves, chestnuts, warm clothes, wreaths, wine, fish,
   Blossom out of the air at his ripening wish….

23
    Why then should he cling to his ill-gotten gains?
   Tell me why if you please?
BLEPYROS.     Those who take the most pains
   To thieve money are those who already have most.
PRAXAGORA. That has been so till now; but I make it my boast
   That my scheme must destroy capitalistic morality.
   Why cheat for a shadow? Here’s free the reality.
BLEPYROS. But if a man’s yearning to insinuate
   His kisses abed with some wench, where’s the bait?
   He gets a mere share of the common estate….
   A fraction of kisses, a ration of legs
   Deducted from breakfast—desire’s dirty dregs!
PRAXAGORA. Don’t forget how much easier henceforth to mate is.
   The whole city of girls are your wives now, and gratis!
   Whoever’s inclined to make mothers of any
   Just catches them up, and it costs not a penny.
BLEPYROS. Then all you will see will be restless relays
   Of lovers that stand in the long file for days
   To get at the lovely ones … that’s all you’ll see.
PRAXAGORA. No, each beautiful girl, so runs my decree,
   With a scraggy slut simpering flat-nosed is paired—
   Rape the slut first, or else is the other not shared.
BLEPYROS. All very well for the lusty young men!
   Think of us elders—one trial, and then
   We’ll be useless; don’t make us make love, I beseech,
   To old hags to reach girls we can never once reach.
PRAXAGORA. They won’t fight.
BLEPYROS.     But what for?
PRAXAGORA.                     Don’t be scared or look blue.
   They won’t fight.
BLEPYROS.     But what for?
PRAXAGORA.                     For embraces from you.
   That’s the point of the law: it is meant to exclude
   From the lovely ones’ arms you old men who’re still lewd.
BLEPYROS. I confess that there’s sense in all that: a good trap
   For enclosing some man in each woman’s wide lap.
   But won’t it cut both ways? The girls, cuddled snugly,
   Will want all the nice men and none of the ugly.

24
PRAXAGORA. The uglier men shall all keep a good eye
   On their rivals, when rising from dinner, and spy
   How they chance to behave in the more public places;
   And if they once find them sprawled out in embraces
   They may stop them and take their turn first. The decree
   Says: Ugly men, little ones, first hugged must be.
BLEPYROS. Then Lysicrates now may carry his nose
   As high as the best, though so snubly it shows.
PRAXAGORA. Yes, by Apollo; and also please note
   How democratic the plan is, a fine antidote
   To false pride and snobbery, when a swell fellow
   Is stopped halfway through by a villainous bellow,
   Looks up, sees a hobnailed lout fumbling, and hears
   I’m first in; I’ll lift you right off by the ears
   Unless you stand by. I am uglier than you,
   And so the first cut’s mine, sir … howdoyedo?
BLEPYROS. But where love has run wild who will know his own child?
PRAXAGORA. He won’t; and why should he? Now children will say
   Father to any man older than they.
BLEPYROS. And therefore will now very properly throttle
   Each old man, or hit his old head with a bottle,
   For henceforth they’ll never know which one is he.
   Even now fathers kicked by their sons’ feet we see;
   After this they will use him to piss on at least.
PRAXAGORA. You’re mistaken. Such actions will not be increased.
   For then those who stand near will all interfere,
   Since he might be the father of anyone—now,
   Shoulders they shrug, any conduct allow,
   Because they are sure he’s not theirs … but our plan
   Makes your possible father every old man.
BLEPYROS. It sounds fairly well … but think of my shame
   If Epicuros should rush to me, call on my name,
   And assert I’m his father. Leucolophas too!
   If they called me father, O what should I do!
CHREMES. I know something worse.
BLEPYROS.                     What?
CHREMES.                     If Aristyllos
   Should kiss us as fathers and probably kill us.
BLEPYROS. I’d soon make him howl.

25
CHREMES.                     Ifyou spanked him, I fear
   Your fingers would smell most dis-as-trously queer.
PRAXAGORA. But, sirs, this is fooling. He was born long ago,
   Ere this law; so you’re safe.
BLEPYROS.     Well, thank heavens, that’s so.
   But who is to cultivate land?
PRAXAGORA.                     That’s the task
   Of the slaves; the whole duty the state now will ask
   From men such as you is to be well anointed
   With oil, and then go, in the manner appointed,
   When dials slant, ten-foot, the evening shade,
   Sauntering to dinner.
BLEPYROS.                     But our clothes’ll get frayed.
PRAXAGORA. There’s the wardrobe you own, and when that is worn out
   We’ll weave you another supply, don’t you doubt.
BLEPYROS. A further point yet—if a man goes to law,
   Where funds for expenses and fines will he draw?
   Surely the exchequer won’t pay for them too.
PRAXAGORA. A fine from a lawsuit! When things start anew,
   There won’t be any law.
BLEPYROS.     O but isn’t that wrong!
   How earn money? what to do with oneself all day long?
CHREMES. That’s true, there’ll be many eyes tearful today.
PRAXAGORA. I know. But why go to law? Answer, I pray.
BLEPYROS. For hundreds of reasons. I’ll give you one case:
   If a man owing money refuses to pay?
PRAXAGORA. Won’t pay! Will you tell me how in the first place
   The creditor had money to lend—for we said
   As the symbol of value the coin was quite dead.
   The state makes all value, the state owns all coin….
   Before you are rooked, you must clearly purloin.
CHREMES. There’s a well-turned dilemma.
BLEPYROS.                     But then let’s suppose
   A fellow gets drunk, roaring drunk, and he goes
   Knocking down all he sees in the street—what’s the fine?
   I’ve caught you with that one.
PRAXAGORA.                     His food and his wine
   Will be cut down awhile when he comes in to dine;

26
    And I’m sure he’ll remember his stomach’s sharp pain
   More than the old fine, and not do it again.
BLEPYROS. And won’t there be thieves?
PRAXAGORA.                     But why should you abstract
   What is partly your own—a most imbecile act!
BLEPYROS. And so we won’t meet in the streets late at night
   A brigand who’ll tweak off our cloaks and take flight?
PRAXAGORA. Not if you’re sleeping at home … aye, not though
   Down the streets after midnight you choose still to go.
   Why take trouble to steal? there’s enough now for all;
   And if someone should try it, don’t struggle or bawl.
   What’s the use of a fuss? you just go to the store,
   Say: my cloak has been taken—they’ll fetch you some more.
BLEPYROS. And shan’t we now gamble?
PRAXAGORA.                     What stakes will you give?
BLEPYROS. In what kind of a household henceforth will we live?
PRAXAGORA. In one common to all—easy and free,
   Mingling with beautiful liberty:
   All family restrictions abolished.
BLEPYROS. I see.
   And where will the tables be laid?
PRAXAGORA.                     I suggest
   In the courts and arcades of the law would be best.
   There shall we revel and banquet.
BLEPYROS.                     That’s grand.
   But what of the pulpit where orators stand?
PRAXAGORA. That I shall turn to a buffet I think
   For winecups and goblets, and from it we’ll drink;
   And a squad of young lads shall be grouped round the stone
   Singing deeds of the heroes, the wild laughter blown
   Through the clang of the swords, then the coward’s pale shame,
   So nobly, each coward will feel his own name
   Cried in the music—hot-cheeked off he’ll crawl—
BLEPYROS. Ho, very good! and each balloting stall?—
PRAXAGORA. I shall send to the top of the marketing square
   To be stuck in a row … and I’ll govern from there,
   By Harmodios’ statue distributing round
   Tickets assigning the feeding ground:
   One for each person explaining what section’s

27
    Alloted to him, with his dining directions,
   The man who draws A will be shown on the way
   To Arcade A, to Portico P the P’s, X’s
   Separated to go—
BLEPYROS.                     Won’t you mix up the sexes?
PRAXAGORA. Of course I will, fool.
BLEPYROS.                     Well, it seems fairly good….
   But who misses his letter, is given no food.
PRAXAGORA. Don’t brood over that. You’ll have all you can swallow.
   Luxurious plenty’s the menu we’ll follow.

You’ll totter home each night,

Your belly warm and tight,
Drunk and happy: that’s our plan
To send home a contented man.
Get him drunk till he can’t stand,
Put a brave torch in his hand,
Stick some flowers on his head,
And so send him home to bed.

And then as he on staggering feet

Rollicks roundly down the street,
Women will come mysteriously
Hemming him in with whispers sweet….
Come O come with me.
Come to my lodgings, they’ll repeat,
I’ve a lovely girl for you.
I’ve a lovelier softer one,
Softly made for kisses, come
And have a private view.

From each window, from each shadow,

Whispers drifting break,
I’ve a girl who’s white all over
But before she takes a lover
Love to me he must make.
And then a squinty blunt-faced fellow

28
 To his younger calls,
My pretty boy, hey, not so fast,
Your kisses climb in last;
My lot earlier falls.

This box of beauty it’s my luck

To open first and find
What’s warmly inside. Wait at the door,
Twiddle your thumbs, you can’t do more.
I’m going in … d’ye mind?
So; what’s your opinion now of my device?
 
BLEPYROS. Magnificent.
PRAXAGORA.     I must go to the market place,
Choosing some shrill-voiced girl as Crieress,
And there I’ll stand as Public Receiver, taking
   All of the confiscated property
   As people bring it in. This is my office,
   Since I have been elected Governess
   To control the state and manage all the dinners,
   That we may start our banqueting today.
BLEPYROS. What, are we all to eat at once?
PRAXAGORA.     You are.
   And next I’ll round in all the whores pellmell,
   Thrown together in a flouncing babble of flesh.
BLEPYROS. But why?
PRAXAGORA.     Because it’s clearly necessary
   To have them out of the way and give us others
   A decent chance in our communal lechery.
   Till now they’ve taken the first freshness from
   The tips of all our sprouting youth, and we
   Have had but the mauled stalk. But now we’re rulers
   Nevermore shall these vendible gawds of flesh
   With their poor flaunts of laughter tap the stores
   Of running kisses broached for our delight.
   No, let them lie with slaves, being slaves to them,
   Their frizzled hair all shaved away to match.

29
BLEPYROS. Onward, my dear; and I’ll come close behind you.
   I want the men to point at me and murmur:
   There goes the husband of our Governess.
CHREMES. And I’ll collect and detail my belongings
   And bring them along to surrender to the state.
     [Chorus lost.]
      (CHREMES commences to bring out all his possessions and arrange
them in processional order, mimicking the elements of the Panathenaic
pageant)
CHREMES. Beloved bran sifter, lovelily appear!
   Step forth the first of all my household chattels,
   Neatly powdered like some young basket bearer—
   Many a sackful of mine have you gobbled down.
   Then where’s the chair girl? Briskly forth, my pot.
   You black-faced thing … you couldn’t be blacker even
   If you had boiled Lysicrates’ hair dye.
   Forth to your place by her. Ho, there, tire maiden!
   And you, pitch bearer, pitch your pitcher there!
   And you my trumpet squawker, halt you there!
   Who with your screech have scratched me often awake
   To get up cursing in time for the assembly.
   You with the dish, move forward, take with you
   The honeycombs, and put the olive branches
   Beside them, and fetch out the bottle of oil,
   And then the tripod—all of the burnt saucepans
   And the rubbishy odds and ends you can leave behind.
   (Another citizen comes out of the neighboring house.)
CITIZEN. Am I to dump my belongings out for anyone?
   I would be a shiftless ninny if I did.
   I won’t. I won’t, I say. No, by Poseidon.
   I want to see how things are going first.
   The others can test it; I’ll join afterward.
   I’m not the kind to throw away for nothing
   What gains I’ve sweated from my thrifty pores.
   No, I must get the hang of this thing first.
   Hi, you! what’s all this pile of furniture?
   Are you moving out? or are you just hard up
   And off to pawn them?
CHREMES.                     Neither.

30
CITIZEN.                     Then explain
   Why they’re all mustered if you do not mean
   To march them off to Hiero the auctioneer.
CHREMES. Certainly. You find me sorting out
   The contributions to the public stock;
   That’s the new law. Haven’t you heard of it?
CITIZEN. You’re going to give them up?
CHREMES.     I am.
CITIZEN.     By God,
   What an unfortunate idiot you are.
CHREMES. How?
CITIZEN.     How? Look at yourself in the mirror.
CHREMES. But oughtn’t I to obey the law?
CITIZEN.                     The law!
   You’re mad. What law?
CHREMES.                     The law that’s just been made.
CITIZEN. That newfangled law! I thought that you were mad; And you
are.
CHREMES.     Mad?
CITIZEN. Now, aren’t you? answer frankly.
   You happen to be the worst fool in Athens.
CHREMES. Because I obey the law?
CITIZEN.                     Is it the part
   Of a wise man to follow laws like a sheep?—
CHREMES. Yes, of course; isn’t it?
CITIZEN.                     Bah, no! you fool;
   That’s what fools do.
CHREMES.                     Then you’re not giving yours?
CITIZEN. I’m going to do nothing for a while.
   I’ll see how things go and what the others do.
CHREMES. What can they do except deliver up
   Their property to the state?
CITIZEN.                     When I see it done,
   Then I’ll believe it.
CHREMES.                     Listen to them talking
   Anywhere in the streets.
CITIZEN.                     O I know they’ll talk.
CHREMES. But they say they’ll bring their goods.
CITIZEN.                     O so they say.

31
CHREMES. Hell, you doubt everything.
CITIZEN.                     Yes, they’ll soon doubt.
CHREMES. God damn you.
CITIZEN.                     O yes, they will soon be damning.
   Surely you don’t think men in their right senses
   Will all so easily discard their goods?
   No, that is not the way we are born—rather
   To take than give is the way our hands are made….
   Just like the palms of the gods. Look at their statues,
   Stretching out their inexorable hands;
   And we pray up to them for prosperity,
   And they are hollowing hands of greedy stone
   Explaining that they mean to take not give.
CHREMES. Here now, my friend, let me be; I’ve work to do.
   Where is that strap? I want to fasten these.
CITIZEN. You really intend to do it?
CHREMES.                     Therefore you see
   That I am knotting these tripods here together.
CITIZEN. But this is lunatic. Why don’t you wait
   And see what all the other people will do.
   And then—
CHREMES. And then?
CITIZEN.     Then wait a little longer,
   And look before you leap.
CHREMES. And why?
CITIZEN.                     Because
   An earthquake might come splitting up the town,
   Or else a shatter of lightning, or a cat
   Might cross the street, and then there’d be bad luck,
   And nobody bring anything more in—
   You dotard!
CHREMES.                     And a pleasing jest it’d be
   If I could find no room to bring my goods.
CITIZEN. To take away, you mean. Let two days pass
   And then there will be time to cart them off.
CHREMES. But why?
CITIZEN.                     I know these fellows, their rash heads,
   Voting for any measure when excited
   And then forgetting it by the time they’re home.

32
CHREMES. They’ll fetch their things.
CITIZEN.                     And if they don’t, what then?
CHREMES. O but they will.
CITIZEN. And if they don’t, what then?
CHREMES. We’ll force them.
CITIZEN.     And if they’re stronger than you, what then?
CHREMES. I’ll run away.
CITIZEN.                     If they knock you down, what then?
CHREMES. Go and be hanged.
CITIZEN.                     And if I do, what then?
CHREMES. Why, then you’d do a charitable deed.
CITIZEN. You really intend to continue?
CHREMES.                     At last I find
   You grasp my meaning. I see my neighbors taking
   Their pots and pans along.
CITIZEN.                     And whom do you see?
   Anisthenes, I bet. He’d rather sit
   For thirty days acquiring piles on the stool.
CHREMES. Get out.
CITIZEN.                     Then it’s Callimachos the poet.
   What will he fetch?
CHREMES. Far more than Callias can.
CITIZEN. Well, there’s a spendthrift silly prodigal.
CHREMES. You’re a hard man.
CITIZEN.                     Hard! when every day
   We see a hill of rocky resolutions
   Reared up for citizens to bark their shins on.
   Do you remember the vote on the salt question?
CHREMES. I do.
CITIZEN.                     And then the vote on the copper coinage?
CHREMES. I do; and it hit me badly, I can tell you.
   I sold some grapes I had and stuffed my gob
   With coppers and went off to buy some barley.
   I got to the market and as far as holding
   My sack out open, when up blurts a herald;
   And what did he cry? All copper coins illegal,
   Nothing but silver now must circulate.
CITIZEN. And what about the recent tax Euripides
   Persuaded us to impose? He promised us

33
    That two and a half per cent would yield the state
   Five hundred talents at the least; so we
   Wanted one and all to gild the man
   In flaming gold from head to foot, until
   We started doing the arithmetic
   And found the scheme a dunce’s palace of clouds
   Gone when the wind unpicks the mortised sun.
   And then we all wanted to tar Euripides.
CHREMES. But things are not the same now, my good sir.
   All that was during the men’s empire; here
   We enter on the women’s.
CITIZEN.                     And by heaven!
   I’ll give them a wide berth, too. I won’t have them
   Piddling over me.
CHREMES.                     But this is balderdash.
   Boy, there, take up the yoke.
   (A woman CRIER enters.)
CRIER.                     O all you citizens,
   Not a few chosen ones, but all of you
   By the new ordinance, hurry to your Mistress.
   There draw your lots, and luck will tell each one
   What neighbors are his elbows to be given
   At dinner time; for the tables are made ready.
   With dainty luxury the food is heaped
   Beside the couches softly rich with furs
   And riotous cushions; and they’re mixing wine.
   The scent girls have been shown where they’re to stand;
   And slices brightly feed the sizzling fire,
   The spits hold hares, and the ovens little cakes,
   And girls are plaiting garlands for your head.
   Sweetmeats are parching lusciously; more girls,
   The youngest girls, are stirring the pea soup.
   And Simous sidling in his riding suit
   Licks all the women’s platters he can find.
   And Geron too, cloaked gallantly and shod
   With dancing pumps, laughs with another lad,
   Laughing loudly and preens about, forgetting now
   His cracking shoes and his old tattered coat.

34
    Come then, and quickly come—bread in his hand
   The butler stands—and open wide your mouth!
CITIZEN. I’m going. Of course I am. Why linger here
   When you have heard the state’s decreed these things?
CHREMES. Where are you going? You’ve not sent in your goods.
CITIZEN. To dinner.
CHREMES.                     Not, if they have any sense,
   Till you’ve contributed your property.
CITIZEN. O I’ll give it up.
CHREMES.                     And when?
CITIZEN.                     What does it matter?
   My being a bit late won’t hold up the nation.
CHREMES. Why not?
CITIZEN.                     Won’t there be others later still?
CHREMES. And yet you’re off to the dinner.
CITIZEN.                     What am I to do?
   Good citizens must all stand by the state
   In such important matters loyally—
   Good-by!
CHREMES.   But if they turn you back, what then?
CITIZEN. I’ll go in headfirst.
CHREMES.                     If they kick, what then?
CITIZEN. I’ll summons them.
CHREMES.                     And if they mock, what then?
CITIZEN. Ho, then I’ll stand up by the door and—
CHREMES.                     Eh?
CITIZEN. Snatch at the victuals as they’re carried in.
CHREMES. Come later then. Here, Parmeno and Sicon,
   Up with my goods on your shoulders and be off.
CITIZEN. I’ll help you along with them.
CHREMES.                     O no you won’t.
   I’ve a shrewd fear that if we so arrive
   And you are helping the goods to find their places
   You’ll tell the Governess that they are yours.
   (Goes with his slaves.)
CITIZEN. Now I must find some really good excuse
   For stowing my things away and at the same time
   Getting a share of these here public dinners….

35
    Ho, ho, I’ve got it. That’ll take them in,
   So now we’ll go and have a bit of dinner.

(Goes off.)

[Chorus lost.]
 
(An old woman appears loitering at the door of one of the houses next to
PRAXAGORA’s.)
 
HAG. What’s keeping all the men? They’re long since due,
   And here I’m posturing most obviously.
   My skin I’ve stained with beauty and thick ceruse
   To seem the skin of roses: dressed in yellow,
   Looking lazy, singing red-lipped to myself
   Softly and lewdly, and shifting every time
   Into a poise of more fidgetty desire
   To catch the eye of someone, anyone.
   O Muses, curl the redness of my mouth
   Into some pretty, obscene Ionian song.
   (A young girl comes out of the same house.)
GIRL. So for once, old Ugly, you’ve pushed in
   Ahead of me, and put your face out first.
   I know. You thought your face painted on the darkness
   Would get a man, my man, if I was away.
   Fancy! and murmuring songs like rustling kisses
   As if you could suck a lover from the air.
   Don’t let me stop you, certainly not, sing on;
   And I shall sing against you if you do—
   For though our duet bores the audience
   It’s in the true tradition of stage humor.
HAG (tossing her a phallus). Here, talk to this, the best part of a man.
   Go inside and converse with it. But, hey, you there,
   My piper with a tone like honey melting,
   Play up! a song that’s worthy you, and me.

Ah do you long at last to win

Love’s beautiful whimper of delight?
Then come in.

36
 Ah do you long for love’s smooth night
Of kisses dying endlessly?
Come to my arms, and come with me
To bed, to bed, to bed.

For there’s not much that I don’t know,

And sweet love is a difficult art,
Decidedly so.
The young girl doesn’t know her part,
Gadding about, a fool of kisses;
No man can know the joy he misses
Till with us he’s been to bed.
 
GIRL. Don’t grudge the young their merriness.
   Wondering in beauty each lies….
   And delicately the plump light
   Dimples her long thighs,
   And flowers drink with soft rich petals
   Where her breasts rise.

But you, your eyebrows’ hairiness

With tweezers you’ve attacked.
You’ve filled your faces’ cracks with white
Where time has roughly hacked,
Until you look a plaster corpse,
Death’s whore, in fact.
 
HAG. I hope the cords that hold your bed
   Grow rotten, and you fall on your head.
   I hope next time you love in bed,
   The mattress tears and you fall through
   Whack on the floor, and get up dead—
   That’s what I hope for you.

And if a lover ever you take

I hope he’s frigid as a snake,
Only a snake that you can’t wake,
Though stroked and tossed that way and this,

37
 A boneless snake that will not wake,
Not even with the longest kiss.
 
GIRL. I am so sad, what shall I do?
   My lover is not come….
   And lonely I, lonely,
   Wait here at home.

My mother has gone out, my mother

Has left me lonely here
With no one to protect me….
No one, I fear.

Ah nurse, take pity on your child,

Bring my lover to me
And happy for the rest of your life
I’ll pray that you may be.
How may you my true love tell?
O he is so proud
And so erectly always standing
He towers over the crowd.
 
HAG. It’s clear to me that you must be
   An ordinary whore;
   But not only do you haggle
   As they use for a man—
   From the manner that you waggle
   Your posterior,
   I think that you’re more:
   Yes, a Lesbian!
GIRL. All this abuse is not much use,
   And I will tell you why.
   It cannot render pale
   One blush of the beauty here
   And so must ever fail
   To steal my lover—I
   Merrily defy
   Your sweetest leer.

38
HAG. Sing on, sing on until you choke yourself.
   Stick out your face, you kitten, your cat’s face,
   It’s only luring the men in for me.
GIRL. Why? You’re not dead yet, and your funeral
   Alone could bring them in to lay you out.
   That is a new joke isn’t it?
HAG.     No, old.
GIRL. Stale jokes then for stale ears.
HAG.     O my old age
   Won’t distress you.
GIRL.     What will then? unless you mean
   Your cheeks embossed with rouge and flaking whitewash?
HAG. Why do you talk to me?
GIRL.     Why are you peeping?
HAG. I? O I am singing to myself
   A song of sighs to dear Epigenes.
GIRL. I thought old lecher Geres was your dear.
HAG. You’ll soon observe your error. The dear lad
   Will come to me. And here he is in person.
GIRL. Not wanting anything from you, old Shrivel.
HAG. O yes he is, you poor anemic thing.
GIRL. His acts will show. Now I am going in.
HAG. And so am I. You’ll see that I spoke truly.
   (They go inside; EPIGENES enters)
EPIGENES. O that I could freely lie
   Down by my darling’s kisses in bed,
   And not be cursed
   To take a filthy bitch there first,
   Some harridan with but one eye,
   Or else already half-blowsy-dead….
   I won’t submit. Why should I, why?
   O I think I’d rather die.
HAG (appearing in the background). Ah my boy, you’ll soon discover
   That there’s no such scot-free lover;
   Now no more
   Can you idle with your whore,
   Love’s not set to a slow song
   Warbling anyhow along:
   No longer foolish fondling beauty—

39
    Strenuous duty
   Must you show ….
   So I’ll watch where it is you go.
EPIGENES. If I could only find her in alone,
   To whom I hurry, all my body flushed
   With a new skin of radiant love and wine.
GIRL (appearing above). Ah, I have fooled that nasty bad old thing.
   She thinks I’m safely shut indoors, and so
   She’s waddled off somewhere. O and now I see
   The very one that we were squabbling about.
   Here I am, my lover ….
   Look up and see

Where I bend warmly over,

And come, dear, to me.

I love you, I love you,

I shall love till the end,
And I bend here above you,
Toward kisses I bend.

Tonight naked beside me

Your body must lie
And with kisses hide me
Naked too, or I die.

Ah you hurt me, each dimple

Twists my mouth, my head whirls,
And I choke at each simple
Toss of your curls.

Strangely, slowly,
Love aches sigh by sigh
Through me till wholly
Love’s I lie.

40
 Ah I would not be dead!
Love, pitiful be….
Cold is my bed,
Send my lover to me.
 
EPIGENES.Come down, come down, my lovely one,
Come down, I implore.
Jump from your bed and lovingly run
To open the door.

Do you refuse? Then I shall fall

And moan here in despite.
Ah let me come in after all
And lie on your breasts tonight.
Ah let me lie there sweetly attacking
Your embattled hips,
Besieging your slapped buttocks, and sacking
Surrendered lips.
O Cypris, why must you have me mad?
O Love, more kindly be….
Show how her kisses may be had,
And send her down to me.

I have sung enough to show

How sadly I stand
Singing here below,
Singing my sorrow—
You must understand.

And if you do, you’ll come,

I know, to me,
Leaving your dark room,
Coming downstairs through the gloom
Silently.

Open, open: I cry.

If you could feel

41
 How sadly I sadly sigh
Down you would steal;
And Love, O Love, you statue of light
Swimming golden through the night,
Child of Venus, honeybee
Of the Muses, milkily
O the Graces suckled thee—
Those beauties open, please, to me!

Open, open: I cry.

If you could feel
How sadly I sadly sigh
Down you would steal.
 
HAG. Who’s this knocking? Hey, is it me you want?
EPIGENES. How?
HAG.     Well, you were rapping on my door.
EPIGENES. Damned if I was.
HAG.     Then why that spluttering torch?
   What do you want?
EPIGENES.     An Anaphlystian burgher,
   A self-lover, hands-and-fist man, no use to you.
HAG. What’s his name?
EPIGENES.     If Sebinos—
HAG.     O zebb in us!
EPIGENES. Not if I can help it anyway.
HAG. But you can’t help it, you simply have to do it.
EPIGENES. There is no need to delve in cases which
   Reach sixty years back; they’re not to be entered.
   They are adjourned indefinitely. The only
   Ones we are probing are those under twenty.
HAG. That’s how it was before the revolution.
   But now you have to put us through the first.
EPIGENES. Yes, if I want to. Appetite has no law.
HAG. And did you take your dinner by that law?
EPIGENES. I don’t understand you. There’s the girl I want.
HAG. Yes, but you must enter through my door
   To get at her.

42
EPIGENES.     But I have no desire
   To try a big bag lined with moldy linen.
HAG. I know I’m loved. I suppose you’re wondering
   How a weak little thing like me is here unprotected….
   So kiss me quick.
EPIGENES.     I’m afraid of your lover. I won’t.
HAG. Who’s that?
EPIGENES.     The finest of our painters.
HAG. Who?
EPIGENES. He paints life studies from the bottles of the dead.
   So go away, stand at the door that he may see you.
HAG. You can’t fool me, I know what you’re after.
EPIGENES. And that’s exactly what I know of you.
HAG. By Aphrodite, my spirit’s angel, I
   Will never let you go.
EPIGENES.     You rave, old lady.
HAG. You babble. So I am taking you to bed.
EPIGENES. O why do we waste our money buying hooks
   When this damned hag, let neatly upside down
   Into a well, could claw the buckets up,
   Using her crooked fingers for grappling irons.
HAG. Sarcasm’s no good. I am taking you to bed.
EPIGENES. It’s not your privilege unless you’ve paid
   Your taxes to the state: a fifth per cent
   Of all your years.
HAG.     I am taking you to bed,
   Because I like a cozy lad like you
   For bedclothes.
EPIGENES.     I object peremptorily
   To being bedclothes for a hag like you.
   I won’t.
HAG.     O yes you will. This says you will.
EPIGENES. What is it?
HAG.     The decree that makes you mine.
EPIGENES. Well, read it out.
HAG.     Then listen to me, dearie.
   We lady legislators here enact:
   If a boy wishes for a girl’s embraces,
   Ere he’s permitted to perform the act

43
    He must exercise himself, rehearse his paces
   In an old woman; and if he refuses
   To do so and essays with the girl to lie,
   The old woman can do with him whatever she chooses,
   Catching him by the best lever she can spy.
EPIGENES. Procrustean law! to procreate for a crust
   Of measly after-kisses, racked to fit—
HAG. Now don’t get agitated, you must obey.
EPIGENES. But couldn’t some other man, a friend who knows me,
   Come and bail me from your arms?
HAG. What’s that? A man!
   Man’s credit is not worth one bushel now.
EPIGENES. Won’t any pleas hold?
HAG.     No chicanery!
EPIGENES. I’ll say that I’m a merchant, exempt from service.
HAG. Do so and be sorry.
EPIGENES.     Then must I come?
HAG. You must.
EPIGENES.     It’s absolutely necessary?
HAG. Diomedean! a rape of destiny.
EPIGENES. Then sprinkle dittany about your bed
   And break some vine twigs off and put them under,
   Tie on the fillets, get a bottle of oil,
   And place the water jar beside the door.
HAG. O you will buy me a garland yet, my sweetie.
EPIGENES. Yes, one of wax to smoke upon your death,
   For I am sure that you’re so crackly old
   You’ll be pitchforked into bits of flying flesh.
   (The GIRL comes out.)
GIRL. Where are you pulling him?
HAG.     To bed. He’s mine.
GIRL. I think you’re wrong; he’s far too young, just look!
   He couldn’t do a thing, no, not an inch;
   And you are old enough to be his mother,
   Not his woman. If this law’s to work,
   There’ll be an Oedipus under every sheet.
HAG. You horrid vicious little thing! you thought
   That argument out only from spite and envy.
   I’ll pay you for it. (Rushes away.)

44
EPIGENES.     O by Zeus the Savior,
   How can I speak my gratitude, my darling,
   For being rescued from that ancient maw.
   Tonight you’ll find how large, how thick and pressing
   And how recurrent are my piercing thanks.
   (Another OLD WOMAN enters.)
SECOND HAG. Hullo, young woman, what’s this you’ve got there?
   Haven’t you any respect for law? you know
   That you can’t have him till I’ve done with him.
EPIGENES. My God, damnation, O where did you pop from?
   You horrible old woman, go to hell.
   She’s worse than the other, worse by a hundred wrinkles!
SECOND HAG. Come quietly, my lamb.
EPIGENES.     Dear girl, please help me!
   Can you stand by and see me ravished, help!
SECOND HAG. It’s not me, it’s the law, that leads you in.
EPIGENES. She’s a vampire belched from hell and clothed with blood
   And festering blisters.
SECOND HAG.     Come on, duckie, come;
   And don’t have so much to say for yourself either.
EPIGENES. O let me go to a privy for a while
   If you have any pity; if you refuse
   There’ll be an addition of yellow to the landscape.
   I am so frightened.
SECOND HAG.     Come quietly along.
   You can do it with me inside if you still wish.
EPIGENES. More than I wish, I fear. But let me go.
   I’ll give you two good sureties as bail.
SECOND HAG. Bail me no bails.
   (Another OLD WOMAN appears.)
THIRD HAG. Hullo, where are you going,
   Boy, with that woman?
EPIGENES.     Going? I’m being dragged.
   But heaven bless you whosoever you are
   For stepping thus between me and my death.
   (He turns.) O Heracles, O all you Pans, and O
   You Corybantes and you Dioscuri!
   She’s worse again, worse trebly, worse than worse.
   What is she? Language can’t exude such horror.

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    A monkey clotted with cosmetics? or
   A dirty ghost coughed up from hell’s vast stench?
THIRD HAG. No funny business there; come quietly.
SECOND HAG. No, this way!
THIRD HAG.     I shall never let you go.
SECOND HAG. Nor I.
EPIGENES.     You bitches, stop, you’ll have me in halves.
SECOND HAG. Obey the law and come into my bed.
THIRD HAG. I’m older, and I’m uglier; consequently
   This boy belongs to me.
EPIGENES.     And if I die
   Between the pits of your decaying loves
   How shall I come to her that I adore?
SECOND HAG. That’s for you to discover. This you must do.
EPIGENES. Well, then the quicker the better. Let’s get it over.
   Which first?
SECOND HAG.   You know, come here.
EPIGENES.     Then make her release me.
THIRD HAG. No, come with me.
EPIGENES.     I will if she’ll let go.
SECOND HAG. Ho, but I won’t.
THIRD HAG.     And that’s my answer also.
EPIGENES.     You’d do a lot of damage as ferrymen.
SECOND HAG. And why?
EPIGENES.     You’d tear the passengers to pieces
   If this is how you compete.
SECOND HAG.     Shut up, come here.
THIRD HAG. Come here, I tell you.
EPIGENES.     O this game reminds me
   Of that Canonos law: the way I’m fettered
   With ropes of women skinnily hanging round me.
   Can a man embrace two women when in halves?
   Can I row the pair of you doubled-handed?
SECOND HAG. Eat onions, they’ll make you strong enough.
EPIGENES.     Good Lord,
   I’ve been dragged to the very door.
THIRD HAG.     But it’s no use,
   I’ll come in too and wrestle abed for him.

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EPIGENES. Heaven forbid! it’s better far to grapple
   With but one squirming evil than with two.
THIRD HAG. Yet now you will, by Hecate, and willy-nilly.
EPIGENES. O thrice unhappy am I who must lie
   Upon an animated corpse all night
   And all next day; and when at last shook off,
   Will find another Phryne grinning at me,
   A bottle of oil beside her deathy jaw.
   Aren’t I unlucky? O by God I am,
   By Savior Zeus, a miserable man,
   Who must swim through such a choppy stretch of flesh
   Such a dank weedy ocean—very like
   I shall go under and be drowned therein.
   Ah if my sturdy breast stroke fails me at last
   When I am forced to wade out of my depth
   And swim through flotsam of love t’ward receding shores
   Of beauty, and I sink sucked out of sight,
   Bury my body at the harbor’s mouth,
   And take the upper hag, the sole survivor,
   Black her with pitch and clamp her to the spot
   With lead poured molten round her ankles: let
   Her carcass stand memorial on my tomb,
   A grimy substitute for the bottle of oil.
   (They pull him inside. Enter a SERVANT GIRL, drunk.)
SERVANT. O all the blessed people and blessed myself
   And my mistress the most blessed of us all
   And O you blessed citizens who lounge
   About our doors and all you blessed neighbors
   And the whole town in short, in me you see
   The blessed servant girl whose head just now
   Was in a drench of precious unguents scented,
   But the best perfume’s certainly the wine,
   Fragrant flagons full of Thasian vintage,
   Yes, wine’s the finest scent, the way it fumes
   Inside instead of out with wreathing sweetness,
   But all the others stalely evaporate
   And thin away sickly, while the wine inside
   Churns up a smoke of warmth and keeps on doing it.
   It’s the best thing in the world, easily the best,

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    O gods, isn’t it? I’ll tell you how:
   Take the biggest jar and mix it neat without water,
   Then pour it carefully down your throat and then
   It makes you feel chirpy and snugglish all the night.
   But, ladies, can you tell me where my master is?
   The husband of my mistress of course I mean.
CHORUS. Wait here, he’ll be along now any time.
SERVANT. Yes, here he comes. He’s going off to dine.
   O master, O you lucky man, aren’t you happy?
BLEPYROS. Me?
SERVANT. Yes, you, by Zeus, you should be happy.
   What greater luck could pinnacle a man
   High on a crag of bliss than that he only
   Out of a city of some thirty thousand
   Should go without his dinner?
CHORUS.     Felicitously
   You phrase a happy man.
SERVANT.     Here, where are you going?
BLEPYROS. I’m off to have my dinner.
SERVANT.     The last of all,
   By Aphrodite! Still, your wife’s instructions
   Were that I was to find you and fetch you in,
   You and these little girls. And I can promise
   There are gallons of Chian wine there yet undrunk,
   And other dainties not yet guzzled. Come,
   Don’t waste more time; and let the audience
   (That is, those of them who think our play’s a good one)
   And any judge who’s going to vote for us,
   Come along too. There’s room enough for all.
BLEPYROS. No, let’s have no omissions. Ask them all,
   Be generously rash, invite the whole crowd,
   Grandfather, lad, and child; freely proclaim
   That every one of them will find a table
   Provided with the sustenance they need,
   In their own homes. But ah, it’s time I went.
   I must rush away, and here’s a handy torch.
CHORUS. Then why do you keep delaying on and on?
   Your daughters there are famished. Take them along,
   We’ll make a din and sing a dinner song

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    While you are going. But you judges, first
   I want a word with you, to put you all right—
   Let the serious wiseheads choose me because of my serious side,
   The jokes being mere additions not too profuse for them.
   Let the wags also choose me for the witticisms I provide,
   The other part being but a mere excuse for them.
   Then clearly I must win the suffrages of one and all.
   Don’t let the impression made by us begin at length to pall
   Because our play is acted first and others get between
   That seem better plays for no other reason than that they were later
seen.
   But keep your oaths and judge the plays as justly as you can:
   Don’t be like harlots who can’t tell
   Very well
   Which lover truly is the man
   They want, because they always cast
   Their vote of kisses on the last.

But ho! ho!

It’s time to go.
Stop your song and come along: if you mean to come be dumb.
Dinner’s ready, left right left!
Here steady, clumsy, take more care.
First your right leg: put it there,
Then the left leg, stuck out so….
Time to go!
A Cretan measure.
 
BLEPYROS. Yes, with pleasure.
CHORUS. Come swing your bellies
   Not yet filled with lazy jellies,
   Give your legs to the rhythm, show
   Appetite twisting head and toe
   To and fro.
   Soon there will appear a dish
   Smoking with oysters and saltfish shark and lark and little bits in a
jar with vinegar on sharp spits and leeks with honey thrush blackbird
dove pigeons roasted with cock’s brain above throstle jostling cushat
flush at top with hare in wine stewed fine hued syrupy and fricassee—

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    Chirruping we’ll eat it quick
   Until we’re sick.
   So now you know your way about,
   Snatch an omelet and get out,
   Find a corner where you can sit
   And immediately swallow it.
BLEPYROS. They’re at it now already, hark!
CHORUS. Then up and off, away, hooray!
   Iai, euai,
   Dinner! euoi, euai, euai
   And may our play be the winner!
   Euai, euai, euai, euai!

(Exeunt.)
 

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