Aristophanes: The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

  Or the lover whose success in love is based on lies

  And does not produce the gifts he promises;

  Or an aged crone who brings to her bed with bribes young

  men;

  Or the flirt accepting presents and cheating the presenter;

  Or the barman or the barmaid who serves short measure:

  Curse all suchlike with malediction and

  Pray that they and their kin come to a sticky end.

  But as to the rest of you, we beg the gods

  To bless you all and shower you with goods.

  So let us join your prayers with ours

  That these wishes come true for the people at large

  And true of course for the State as well.

  We pray that the wisest of you women

  Will be the one who’s put in charge.

  As to any who let us down,

  Break their solemn vows, or annul

  Our laws or dare to betray

  Our secrets to our enemies

  Or make overtures to the Medes

  And be in their pay—all these

  Act sacrilegiously

  And desecrate their city.

  Great Zeus Almighty,

  Confirm this our supplication

  And ensure the help of heaven

  Though we be only women.

  CRITYLLA: Attention please! The following motion has been passed

  by the Women’s Assembly, proposed by Sostrate

  with Timocleia in the chair, calling a special session

  for dawn on the second day of the Thesmophoria—

  that being the least pressured time—to ask

  what steps if any should be taken

  against Euripides, whom we all

  brand as criminal.

  Does anyone want to say anything?

  MICA: I do.

  CRITYLLA: [handing her the speaker’s garland] Don this garland first.

  LEADER: Attention! Quiet please! She’s clearing her throat

  like a professional.

  It looks as if a lengthy speech is coming.

  MICA: Ladies, by the Twin Goddesses, I’ve risen

  with no wish to promote myself. The reason

  is because I can no longer stand the way

  you’ve been besmirched by Euripides, the son

  of that cabbage seller, who’s subjected you

  to a whole litany of slanders. What mud and mire

  has he not plunged us in? Wherever there’s a theater,

  audience, tragic actors, and choruses

  has he not slammed us with his vilifications,

  making out we’re cock-teasers, procuresses,

  whiners, traitors, gossips, lost in machinations,

  essentially sick, and mankind’s greatest curse?

  So, of course, men come home from the theater

  and immediately start casting suspicious eyes at us,

  and looking into cupboards for a hidden lover.

  In no way can we behave the natural way we ought,

  so thoroughly has this fellow poisoned our men’s thoughts.

  If a woman so much as even plaits a wreath,

  it’s for a lover of course. And if she drops a pitcher,

  her husband barks: “Good grief! Got your mind on someone?

  I expect it’s on that young Corinthian lodger.”695

  And if a girl begins to look a little off-color,

  “Aha! What’s the minx been up to?” says her brother.696

  What’s more, say a childless woman wants

  to pretend a certain baby is her own. She can’t

  because our husbands insist they have to plant

  themselves right in the offing. He’s also queered the pitch

  of the doddering old gent who’s rich and has an itch to hitch

  himself up to a youthful bride but finds he daren’t

  because of Euripides’ sneer: “The elderly groom has gone

  and got himself a termagant.”697

  And if that were not enough, because of this man

  our rooms are made impregnable with locks and bolts,

  and trained Molossian hounds are reared to keep away

  any lad who’s ripe for a bit of fun.

  All that’s pardonable, I suppose, but now what jolts

  is that we’re not even allowed to carry out

  our old household jobs, like keeping stock of what

  foods we have and dispensing flour, oil, and wine,

  because our husbands’ keys are on them all the time—

  vicious-looking things with rows of teeth—from Sparta.

  In the old days all we needed to open the larder

  was a fitted signet ring that cost only three obols,

  but now that damn busybody Euripides

  has got them carrying nasty perforated seals.

  What I propose is that we set ourselves to concoct

  a recipe for getting rid of him either by poison

  or by some other instrument we can rely on that he dies on.

  What I’ve just said is the gist of this whole matter.

  I’ll work out a formal draft with the clerk later.

  STROPHE698

  CHORUS: No one’s ever heard the like Of a woman as smart as this: Everything she says Is on the ball, is right: Every aspect looked at, Every angle probed,

  With the total scanning of every episode

  Supported by sound argument.

  I really think that in a contest

  Between her and Xenocles699

  Carcinus’ son she’d come off best.

  There’s no doubt that he would lose.

  [The WREATH SELLER steps up to speak, taking the speaker’s garland from MICA and putting it on.]

  WREATH SELLER: I’m here to add a few words, and though this lady’s put the case most admirably I must needs speak about what I went through myself. My husband died in Cyprus, leaving me with five small children whom I struggled to maintain by weaving wreaths of myrtle for the market and have kept them all alive—at least half and half. But now this fellow in his tragedies has made people believe that the gods don’t exist and my sales in consequence have halved. That’s why I’m urging you all to punish this man for his numerous misdeeds. His treatment of us, dear ladies, has been disgraceful even though he himself was raised among the weeds.700 Well, I’m off to market for I’ve got a commission to fashion twenty wreaths for a group of twenty gentlemen.

  [Amid general applause, the WREATH SELLER takes off the garland, picks up her things, and departs.]

  CHORUS: This second indictment proves to be Even more telling than the first and her argument Very straightforward and to the point Presented extremely logically And making a most convincing case. Therefore this fellow deserves to be punished accordingly Without a flicker of remorse.

  [MNESILOCHUS steps forward to speak, putting on the speaker’s garland.]

  MNESILOCHUS: It’s obvious, ladies, that you’re very irritated

  by these accounts of Euripides’ criminal record:

  all the same, fair and open discussion should be our aim

  and since we’re all one family here

  nothing of what we say will find its way abroad.

  We have to ask ourselves why we’re so upset with him

  for homing in on a handful of our crimes

  when there are a thousand more

  he knows we’ve perpetrated.

  I myself have a lot of naughty things to answer for.

  Let me mention the first and perhaps the worst.

  I’d been married just three days

  and my hubby lay asleep beside me.

  It so happened that the boy who’d deflowered me

  when I was seven came tapping at the back door.

  I knew exactly who it was—

  you see, he was still turned on by me—

  so I edged out of bed and my husband said:

  “Where are you going? Downstairs?”
<
br />   “Where?” I said. “I’ve got a tummy ache, lovey.

  I’m going to the john.”

  “Go on, then,” and he starts pounding juniper berries

  with dill and sage while I

  pretend to flush the loo with water

  but run out to my boyfriend by Apollo’s pillar.701

  I bend over clinging to the laurel tree

  and get, oh, what a lovely fuck!

  Now Euripides doesn’t have anything that slick

  in a play—has he?

  I bet he doesn’t say anything either

  about the way we get a goodly humping

  from the slaves or stable lads

  if there’s no one else to be had.

  No mention of that!

  Or how when we’ve spent the night getting balled by somebody or

  other

  we chew garlic in the morning

  so when hubby comes home after a night of Wall duty

  he takes one sniff and thinks: “Well,

  she couldn’t have been misbehaving

  with a stink like that!”

  Euripides doesn’t say a thing about that, does he? . . .

  As to Phaedra, I don’t care a rap.

  Then there’s the wife who for ten days

  pretends to have labor pains

  while a search is being made for a baby she can buy.

  The husband chases around the city

  buying up drugs to speed the delivery.

  Meanwhile an old woman appears with a baby

  secreted in a bucket—

  its mouth plugged with a honeycomb to stop it crying.

  At the right moment, at a tip from the old crone,

  the wife hollers: “Off with you, hubby darling,

  it’s really happening.”

  (Indeed, there was a thumping coming from the bucket.)

  Off he ran, delirious with joy,

  while the baby has its mouth unplugged and sets up a racket.

  So the dirty old woman hurries after the husband all smiles.

  “Sir, you’ve got a real lion of a boy,” she calls.

  “And he’s the dead spit of you—

  right down to the snug little acorn of his toodley-oo.”

  Don’t we get up to such hanky-pankies?

  By Artemis, we certainly do!

  Yet we’re all worked up about Euripides,

  though he’s done nothing worse than these.

  ANTISTROPHE702

  CHORUS: [antagonistic and shocked by what they have heard] This is quite insufferable. Where was she unearthed, this female? What country gave her birth? The utter nerve she has Right before our eyes, The despicable old hag, Regaling us with such indecencies! It seems that nothing is impossible And the ancient saying is proven right: Look under every stone And you’ll find a charlatan. There’s no doubt that he will bite.

  LEADER: There’s nothing worse than a woman born disreputable—

  except perhaps another woman.

  [Everybody glares at MNESILOCHUS.]

  MICA: [springing to her feet]

  Ladies, you’re off your rockers—are you ill?

  Or are you under a spell?

  You simply can’t allow this harridan

  to get away with her abuse.

  Are there any volunteers out there who will . . .

  forget it . . . If there aren’t,

  I and my servants will ourselves apply hot coals to her cunt

  and singe the grass from the scumbag’s pussy.

  That’ll teach her, a woman,

  to be a little fussy before she ever again

  slanders women.

  [Three WOMEN advance threateningly as MNESILOCHUS clutches his crotch apprehensively.]

  MNESILOCHUS: For peace sake, dear ladies, not my precious hymen. All I did was use the privilege of free oration, which we all have here—every citizen—and I spoke up for Euripides. You can’t condemn me, surely, to defoliation?

  MICA: So you shouldn’t be punished, eh? The only woman brazen enough to go against us about a man who’s done us so much damage, going out of his way to dig up stories about notorious women—the baleful image of a Melanippe or a Phaedra,703 never has he created a Penelope.704 Oh no, she’s too virtuous a woman!

  MNESILOCHUS: And I can tell you why. There isn’t a single woman today who’s a Penelope. We’re all Phaedras.

  MICA: Just listen, ladies, to the way

  this shameless slattern taunts us over and over again.

  MNESILOCHUS: By God, I haven’t told you anything you weren’t

  itching to hear.

  MICA: There’s nothing more for you to say. You’ve emptied yourself to the last drop.

  MNESILOCHUS: Not a bit of it! Not even the thousandeth part. I haven’t said a word, for instance, about

  how we take those things you scratch your back with

  in the bath, you know, and use them to scoop up

  the grain from—705

  MICA: You should be rubbed out.

  MNESILOCHUS: Or how we whip the sacrificial lamb chops from

  the Apaturia706 festival table to give to our pimps

  and then say the cat got them.

  MICA: What rot!

  MNESILOCHUS: And Euripides says nothing about

  another woman who clumps

  her husband to the ground with an ax, or the one

  who sends her mate round the bend with drugs, or the

  Acharnian

  housewife who buried under the kitchen sink. . . .

  MICA: Lay off it!

  MNESILOCHUS: . . . her own father.

  MICA: Do we have to listen to this?

  MNESILOCHUS: Or how your maid produced a baby boy and you a

  girl,

  so you swapped them around because you’d rather—

  MICA: By the twin goddesses, you’ll not get away with this.

  I’ll pluck your fuzz from you with my own hands.

  MNESILOCHUS: Not with your little finger you won’t.

  MICA: Just watch me!

  MNESILOCHUS: Just watch me!

  MICA: Philiste707 dear, hold my jacket in your hands.

  MNESILOCHUS: Lay a finger on me, by Artemis, and you’ll—

  MICA: Yes, I’ll . . . ?

  MNESILOCHUS: Make you shit that sesame cake you ate.

  CRITYLLA: You two, stop slamming one another.

  I see a woman hurrying to our affair.

  This set-to must end. I want quiet

  so’s we can hear what she’s going to utter.

  [CLEISTHENES enters, smooth of chin, effeminately dressed, and bubbling with gossip.]

  CLEISTHENES: Ladies—oh my dears!—I feel so much at home with you, even to these smooth cheeks like yours. I think of you ladies all the time and I want to serve you. That’s why I’m here, because a little while ago I heard some gossip in the marketplace that affects you and I’ve come to put you on your guard and stop something too, too awful—a tragedy.

  CRITYLLA: What is it, laddie . . . Oh, sorry,

  but with those smooth cheeks of yours

  you do look like a little chap.

  CLEISTHENES: Rumor has it that Euripides today

  has sent an old man up here, a relative of his.

  CRITYLLA: To do what? I wonder what his purpose is?

  CLEISTHENES: To spy on you and find out what you women plan

  and what you have to say.

  CRITYLLA: But how can a man pass off as a woman?

  CLEISTHENES: Sheared and plucked by Euripides

  and everything possible done

  to make him female.

  MNESILOCHUS: D’you credit that? What man, pray tell, would stand and let himself be plucked? Twin holy Goddesses, I doubt it!

  CLEISTHENES: Nonsense! Do you think I would have come here to tell you if I hadn’t heard it from a reliable source?

  CRITYLLA: This is serious news. Ladies, we can’t just sit around. We’ve got to unearth this man and find out
where he’s been lurking in disguise. And you, Mr. Worldly-wise, must help us in our errand . . . and make us beholden to you twice.

  CLEISTHENES: The time has come to cross-examine.

  MNESILOCHUS: I’m through.

  CLEISTHENES: [to MICA] Let’s see: you first. Who are you?

  MNESILOCHUS: [to himself ] How the deuce can I get out of this?

  MICA: Want to know who I am? Wife of Cleonymus.

  CLEISTHENES: And this woman here? D’you all know her?

  CRITYLLA: We do. Get on with the rest.

  CLEISTHENES: This one here, then: the one with the brat.

  MICA: She’s my baby’s nurse. No doubt of that.

  MNESILOCHUS: [moving away] It’s getting too darn close.

  CLEISTHENES: You there, where are you off to? Something wrong?

  MNESILOCHUS: [with tremendous dignity] Kindly allow me to pass.

  I wish to make water. . . . Impertinent creature!708

  CLEISTHENES: Then get along. . . . I’ll wait here.

  CRITYLLA: Yes, and keep her well in your sights. She’s the only woman, sir, we can’t account for.

  CLEISTHENES: [calling out to MNESILOCHUS] You’re taking a long time to make your water.

  MNESILOCHUS: [calling back] Ah, my dear fellow, it’s after

  those cress seeds I ate yesterday. You know how it sits!

  CLEISTHENES: Cress seeds, if you please? Come here.

  [He goes into the bathroom and lays hands on MNESILOCHUS.]

  MNESILOCHUS: Unhandle me, sir. Can’t you see I’m not well?

  CLEISTHENES: All right! Who’s your husband?

  MNESILOCHUS: [thinking hard]

  You want to know who my husband is? . . . Well, now . . .

  you know the fellow right enough. . . . He’s the fellow

  from . . . er . . . Cocktown.

  CLEISTHENES: Which fellow?

  MNESILOCHUS: Why, the fellow who used to be, you know,

  son of the fellow who was the fellow who—

  CLEISTHENES: Oh stop gibbering! . . . Been here before?

  MNESILOCHUS: Sure, every year.

  CLEISTHENES: Your roommate? With whom d’you share?

  MNESILOCHUS: With whom? . . . A lass.

  CLEISTHENES: Lord above, this makes no sense!