by Aristophanes
Or ever been brought to completion.
No one wants the same old hoary
Endlessly repeated story.
LEADER: No more lingering. Act on your scheme at once.
What our audience wants is speed—so advance.
PRAXAGORA: I’m confident my scheme is sound. Nevertheless
I’ve got a gnawing fear about the audience:
is it ready to mine an undiscovered vein
and not just cling to some old-fashioned boring thing?
NEIGHBOR: Don’t be anxious about mining a new vein.
To act differently from what’s been always done
makes all the difference to the way we govern.
PRAXAGORA: Let no one, then, presume to contradict or criticize
until he’s heard me speak and knows the whole design.
Very well, this is what I now propose:
let everyone have everything there is and share
in common. Let everyone enjoy an equal living—
no more rich men here, poor men there;
no more farmer with a huge extensive farm
and some impoverished farmer with absolutely nothing,
not even a patch to bury his body in;
no more someone with a regiment of servants
while another has not a soul to serve his wants.
You see, I’ll make one level of life for everyone.
BLEPYRUS: How exactly would you make all in common?
PRAXAGORA: You won’t get your serving of turds before mine.
BLEPYRUS: So even dung’s going to be shared in common?
PRAXAGORA: Don’t be silly. I was just about to explain
what I meant, when you came butting in.
The very first thing I’ll do is make all land,
valuables, and money, public property:
all of which is now retained severally.
We women will undertake to manage money
with thrift and shrewdness, and take you men in hand.
NEIGHBOR: How would you deal with someone who doesn’t own any
land
but has invisible assets like silver-edged stocks and bonds?
PRAXAGORA: He’d add whatever they were worth to the common funds.
BLEPYRUS: Otherwise he’s going to find himself in trouble, eh?
Not to mention that he got it by embezzlement.
PRAXAGORA: In any case, it won’t be any use to him.
BLEPYRUS: In what way, pray tell?
PRAXAGORA: Because there’ll be no motive or vestige of inducement:
poverty will have lost every ounce of vim
because everyone will have all that’s necessary:
bread, salt, fish, buns of barley,
coats, wine, wreaths, chickpeas. Tell me, please,
what good would it do him not to be contributing?
BLEPYRUS: Meanwhile, those who already have all these
will be seen, surely, as the bigger thieves.
NEIGHBOR: That was different, pal, from what it’s going to be
now that life’ll be lived from a common capital.
So what will he gain by donating nothing?
BLEPYRUS: Say a fella comes on hard when he spots a girl
whom he’d like to sap. He’ll find the required fee
from the common purse and enjoy what’s on offer
and go to bed with her.
PRAXAGORA: But he’s not going to have to pay a fee:
these girls, too, I’m making common property
for men to sleep with as they will and make a baby.
BLEPYRUS: Yes, but everyone’s going to pounce on the prettiest girl
and she’s the one they’ll all try to ball.
PRAXAGORA: Ah, but the ugly and the pug-nosed will
be sitting cheek by jowl with the desirable,
and if a man wants to hump one of these,
he’ll first have to service one of the ugly ones.
BLEPYRUS: What about us older men? If we plug
the plain ones first, our pricks won’t have stuff enough
to screw along the lines that you propose.
PRAXAGORA: Cheer up! They’re not going to squabble over you. There’ll be no squabbling, I assure you.
BLEPYRUS: Squabble over what?
PRAXAGORA: About not going to bed with you. As it is, your problem is exactly that.
BLEPYRUS: Your arrangement on the whole is not entirely wrong:
there’ll be no female socket without a manly prong;
but what do you propose to do for us poor men?
Surely the ugly are the ones the women are going to shun
and make a beeline for the handsome ones.
PRAXAGORA: Well, the ugly ones will tag along behind
the good-looking ones after dinner parties
and make quite sure in all the public places
that the tall and handsome don’t go off to bed
with any female unless first he’s done
something for the puny and the gruesome.
BLEPYRUS: So Lysicrates will go about with his nose in the air911
among the beauties!
NEIGHBOR: God, yes, and this gives a chance to the mediocre.
It’ll be a laugh when some oaf wearing clogs
sidles up to Mr. Big wearing rings
and blurts out: “Have to wait till I am done.
Then I’ll let you have your whack for seconds.
BLEPYRUS: That’s all very well but how’s a man to tell
which are his own brats?
PRAXAGORA: Why should he need to? The children will take for
granted
that older men of maturer age are their dads.
BLEPYRUS: Yes, but won’t this lead to sons all over the place
throttling every older man they come across?
Even now the throttling of fathers by sons is gross,
and these are recognized fathers. What happens when they’re not?
Won’t they make it complete and top them up with shit?
PRAXAGORA: No, the people around are not going to allow it.
They used not to mind who was beating up
someone else’s father, but now if there’s a racket
and someone’s being whacked, they’ll wonder if it’s not
their own dad that’s being attacked, and they’ll fight.
BLEPYRUS: There’s a lot of sense in your conclusion, but
if someone, say, like Epicurus or Leucolophas,912
starts to follow me around bleating, “Daddy,”
I hate to think how awful that will be.
NEIGHBOR: I can think of something infinitely worse.
BLEPYRUS: Such as?
NEIGHBOR: Being kissed by Aristyllus,913 saying he’s my father.
BLEPYRUS: If he ever does that, he’ll be mighty sorry.
NEIGHBOR: And you won’t exactly smell of eau de cologne.
PRAXAGORA: But he was born long before the date of our decree,
so worrying about his kissing you’s a nonstarter.
BLEPYRUS: All the same, he’d still be sorry. . . . But on
the question of cultivating the land, who’ll there be?
PRAXAGORA: Servants. Your only job’ll be sprucing up for dinner
when the shadow on the sundial points to ten.914
BLEPYRUS: Here’s another question that needs to be asked:
when it comes to cloaks, who’s to be the supplier?
This is a serious question, so don’t be aghast.
PRAXAGORA: You’ll have to make do with what you’ve got, for now. Eventually a cloak will be woven and given to you later.
BLEPYRUS: One thing more: suppose in a suit before the archon
a fellow loses his case and has to pay—how?
It wouldn’t be right to take it from the communal chest.
PRAXAGORA: There won’t be any lawsuits for a start.
BLEPYRUS: That remark will spell your downfall.
PRAXAGORA: What’ll there be for them to sue for, dumbo?
BLEPYRUS: A lot, in my opinion, by Apollo,
especially when a debtor won’t pay anything at all.
PRAXAGORA: But where would the creditor get the money to lend the
debtor?
Funds are held in common. He’d obviously be a robber.
NEIGHBOR: Spot on, Praxagora!
BLEPYRUS: Then let her answer this: after a dinner party,
when people become rambunctious and get themselves in fisticuffs,
how will they pay the fines for assault and battery?
That’s a tough one for you to rebuff.
PRAXAGORA: He’ll pay out of his bread allowance—his loaf. That’ll hit him hard in the belly and he won’t get uppity again in much of a hurry.
BLEPYRUS: And you mean no one’s going to be a thief?
PRAXAGORA: How can you thieve what you already have?
BLEPYRUS: And no more cutthroats at night?
NEIGHBOR: Not if you’re asleep at home.
PRAXAGORA: Not even if you do wander out as usual,
because every person’ll be content.
If someone wants to pinch a coat
the owner will simply give it to him.
What would make him want to fight?
He’ll go to the communal store and get another—
a better one to boot.
BLEPYRUS: And there’ll be no gambling at dice?
PRAXAGORA: What would be the point when there are no stakes?
BLEPYRUS: What standard of living would you set?
PRAXAGORA: The same for everyone. I’m going to make the town
into a single home: all barriers would be down.
It’ll be like one sole edifice
and people can wander in and out of one another’s space.
BLEPYRUS: For dinners where will you set your site?
PRAXAGORA: I’ll turn the halls and courts of law into clubs.
BLEPYRUS: What will you use the Speaker’s rostrum for?
PRAXAGORA: I’ll make it into a locker for basins and mugs,
and youngsters can declaim poetry from it
about heroes in battle, about cowards as well,
which will make any coward around
ashamed to share the meal.
BLEPYRUS: By Apollo, how absolutely sweet!
But what will you do with those urns in which one casts a vote?
PRAXAGORA: I’ll set them up in the marketplace a little beyond
Harmodius’ statue, and people will dip their hands inside
and pull out the dining club to which they are assigned.
The usher, for instance, will tell someone who’s drawn a Beta
to make his way to the Royal Portico for his dinner.
Another will go to the one next to it with a Theta,
and someone else to the Barley Market with a Gamma.915
BLEPYRUS: Gamma as in gobble?
PRAXAGORA: No, as in greedy.
BLEPYRUS: But say someone doesn’t draw a ticket. Will he
be driven by others from the table?
PRAXAGORA: [in a change of meter and mocklike chant]
That’s not the sort of thing we do.
We lavish everything on everyone.
Every man will leave as drunk as hell
With torch in hand and garlanded as well.
The women will say as they come from dinner, “You
Really ought to go along with us.
We’ve got a pretty girl waiting to be done.”
From a second-story window someone else
Will call: “Oh, do step inside.
I’ve got a lovely lass, as fair as fair.
She really is my pride,
But you’ll have to sleep with me before
You sleep with her.”
Meanwhile, among the wanking men,
Out chasing every handsome lad,
With catcalls like: “Where are you off to, my young man?
It’s not going to do you any good.
The weaselly and the pug-nosed, says the law,
Take precedence of you to screw.
You might as well grab your flower and your twin balls
And jerk off in the hallway near the door.”
Tell me, do you like the plan I’ve set before you?
BLEPYRUS AND NEIGHBOR: Tremendously!
PRAXAGORA: Now I’m off to the marketplace to organize
the reception of the goodies arriving presently,
and I’ll have to find a girl with a carrying voice
to act as herald. Such is the kind of duty
of an elected official. I must also regularize
the dinners in common, for yes,
today’s the day you’re going to enjoy your first spread.
BLEPYRUS: You mean today’s the day we’re going to be fed?
PRAXAGORA: I’m telling you so,
and then I want you to banish every whore.
BLEPYRUS: Whatever for?
NEIGHBOR: Don’t you know? [pointing to PRAXAGORA and the CHORUS] It’s so that these women can have their prick of the young men.916
PRAXAGORA: And no more cosmetics for the slave women
to undermine the hearts of freemen.
Let slaves sleep with slaves, their pussies shaved
like cropped fleece or a scraped porker.
BLEPYRUS: You know what? I want to be seen as your supporter
with people yelling: “Fancy that,
he’s the Major Generaless’s partner.”
[PRAXAGORA and BLEPYRUS go off hand in hand.]
NEIGHBOR: Meantime, I’ve to take my gear to the agora,
and had better make a list of all I’ve got.
[NEIGHBOR goes into his house and there follows an interlude—no longer extant—of song and dance, at the end of which NEIGHBOR reappears with two servants, SICON and PARMENON, and stands staring at a collection of household utilities that he and his servants have assembled outside.]
NEIGHBOR: Hey there, you pretty Winnower of Bran,
favorite of all my kitchen gadgets, run
to me here outside and be my basket carrier,
so delicately spattered by the powder
from many a pannier of flour.
Where’s Camp-stool, and Saucepan? Come here.
My, but you’re black as if you’d been used
for boiling the dye for Lysicrates’ hair . . .917
Better stand next to her.
And you, my lady Jug Tray, I’d be pleased
if you brought that pitcher over here.
Coffee grinder, you can be our music master:918
How many times have you roused me for Parliament
with your dawn aubade at an unearthly hour
in the middle of the night. Will someone bring out Salver
and also the candles?919 And put the sprigs of olive
alongside, and set the Trivets out and leave
space for Oil Flask. And now it’s time
for that bunch of little pots to follow on in line.
[Enter MEAN MAN. He stares at NEIGHBOR’s collection of pots and pans with disgust.]
MEAN MAN: Would anyone expect me to do such a thing? I’d not be a man but someone without a brain. No, that’s certainly not me. I’d scrutinize methodically the whole bloody thing from A to Z. I’d not fling away all that I’d earned with such sweat in this senseless way. The whole layout is something I’d have to examine and survey. Hey, you, what is the big idea with all this litter? Are you moving? Going to pawn it?
NEIGHBOR: Of course not.
MEAN MAN: But they’re all lined up in a row
as if you were marching them off to the auctioneer.
NEIGHBOR: God, no, they’re on their way to the agora,
destined for the city according to the law.
MEAN MAN: You mean you’re getting rid of them all?<
br />
NEIGHBOR: Completely.
MEAN MAN: Zeus save us, you’re a fiasco.
NEIGHBOR: Really?
MEAN MAN: I’d say so.
NEIGHBOR: And ignore the law?
MEAN MAN: What law, you poor ass?
NEIGHBOR: The law that’s just been passed.
MEAN MAN: Just been passed? How brainless can you be?
NEIGHBOR: Brainless?
MEAN MAN: Well, aren’t you? Not only utterly
without a brain but totally clueless.
NEIGHBOR: Because I follow instructions?
MEAN MAN: So it’s sensible to follow instructions?
NEIGHBOR: Absolutely.
MEAN MAN: Like a frigging wimp?
NEIGHBOR: So you’re not going to surrender your stuff?
MEAN MAN: I’ll wait and see what most people do,
I’m not going to jump.
NEIGHBOR: Why wait? They’re already turning in their stuff.
MEAN MAN: I’ll believe it when I see it.
NEIGHBOR: It’s already happening in the town, they say.
MEAN MAN: They say? Of course they would.
NEIGHBOR: They say they’re going to bring it all in personally.
MEAN MAN: They say, they say? Naturally!
NEIGHBOR: You’re killing me. You think nobody’s any good.
MEAN MAN: Nobody? That’s not odd.
NEIGHBOR: Damn you, it is, by God!
MEAN MAN: Do you imagine that anyone in his right mind
is going to give everything up? That’s not our national style.
NEIGHBOR: You mean, we should just take?
MEAN MAN: God, yes! Do as the deities will. Isn’t it obvious when we pray before their effigies that they’re on the make? They just stand there, hands extended, palms up, not to give but to receive.
NEIGHBOR: See here, stinker, let me get on with the job. All this stuff ’s got to be packed. . . . Where’s my strap?
MEAN MAN: So you really believe
you’ve got to give all this up?
NEIGHBOR: I really do. I’m tying these two trivets together right now.
MEAN MAN: You ought to wait a tab,
see what everyone else is doing. Only then in my view . . .
NEIGHBOR: What?
MEAN MAN: Wait some more, then postpone.
NEIGHBOR: For what reason?
MEAN MAN: Well, there could be an earthquake or an ominous stroke
of lightning, or a black cat crossing,
which could change everything, you dummy!
NEIGHBOR: Meanwhile, I’ll be damned if I can’t find
anywhere to dump all this lot.
