by Aristophanes
SECOND CRONE: You there, where are you taking him? It’s illegal. The law says clearly he’s got to sleep first with me.
EPIGENES: Holy mackerel! Where did you emerge from, you abysmal emanation even more disgusting than the last?
SECOND CRONE: Get yourself over here.
EPIGENES: [to GIRL] Sweetheart, keep her off me. Don’t let this be.
[GIRL dashes off, presumably to get help, but we don’t see her again.]935
SECOND CRONE: It’s not me but the law that’s tugging you away.
EPIGENES: A monstrous succubus is what I see. I’m aghast. . . .
A blister of pus and blood.
SECOND CRONE: Get along with you, cut the cackle,
and don’t be such a dud.
EPIGENES: Just a sec. I need to go and have a wee
to relieve myself, and if you don’t allow me,
I’ll do it here in a gush of yellow fear.
SECOND CRONE: Move. You can do your flood inside.
EPIGENES: But it’ll be a deluge. Look, you can have my two testicles as bail.
SECOND CRONE: Balls!
[THIRD CRONE arrives.]
THIRD CRONE: Hey, fella, where are you off to with her?
EPIGENES: Off to, my foot. I’m an object of pillage. But bless you, whoever you are, and don’t just stand there watching me suffer.
[The full impact of her ugliness suddenly hits him.]
O Heracles, O Pan, O Corybantes936 and the Heavenly Twins!937
This one’s even topped the last in horror.
What is it? Can anyone tell?
A plastered and painted ape? A harridan from hell?
THIRD CRONE: Follow me and cut the drivel.
SECOND CRONE: Not so fast! . . . This way, please.
THIRD CRONE: I’m not letting him go.
SECOND CRONE: Nor am I.
EPIGENES: Hey, you’re tearing me apart, you hideous bogies.
SECOND CRONE: The law says you follow me.
THIRD CRONE: Not so . . . not if another hag is uglier.
EPIGENES: Meanwhile, if the two of you finish me off, please tell
me what will be left of me for that gorgeous girl?
THIRD CRONE: That’s your worry,
but as to your duty—watch me.
[She makes a lunge for his phallus.]
EPIGENES: [hopelessly] All right, which of you do I bang first to get free?
THIRD CRONE: Don’t you know! . . . This way, sweetie.
EPIGENES: Then make this one let go.
THIRD CRONE: That I will not.
SECOND CRONE: And I won’t either.
EPIGENES: You two would do a terrible job if either was a ferry skipper.
SECOND CRONE: What?
EPIGENES: You’d tear your passengers asunder.
THIRD CRONE: Hold your tongue and come along.
SECOND CRONE: Not that way, this.
EPIGENES: If I’m not wrong,
here we have the Commonus Law in operation.938
I am held in a vise
and expected to fuck vice versa.
It’s like handling two dinghies with only one oar.
SECOND CRONE: You’ll be just fine.
An onion stew will do the cure.
EPIGENES: A sodding tragedy, I’d say: dragged to the very verge.
THIRD CRONE: Can’t be helped, and I’m just behind.
EPIGENES: Curb that urge.
I’d rather wrestle with one than two.
THIRD CRONE: The choice, by Hecate, is not for you.
EPIGENES: [to the audience]
I’m under a terrible load,
damned for one whole night and one whole day
to shag a rotting hag.
And when I’ve serviced that old toad
I’ve got to do it all again
to yet another, whose false teeth
are by the urn that stands there for her funeral.
Tell me please, wouldn’t you say
I’m clamped to Death?
Surely so, completely wrecked
and stuck with freaks like these.
In the worst of these damnations
when I’ve actually breached the harbor mouth
and am tupping these two harridans,
drown me in the very funnel of the channel.
As to the third crone’s turn,
bury her alive in tar and her feet in molten lead,
then prop her up over my tomb instead
of a funeral urn.
[SECOND CRONE and THIRD CRONE drag EPIGENES into the house and slam the front door. A MAID in her cups enters and begins a speech, which should be delivered with slurs and hiccups.]
MAID: You blessed people, you happy land,
and most of all my most happy mistress,
you women, too, who throng our threshold,
and all you neighbors and parishioners, and me of course,
a maid drenched in fragrances, yes, Zeus,
but not to be compared with the fragrance
that comes off amphorettes of wine from Thrace
whose bouquet hums around the head and stays
much longer than those other fragrances,
which disappear in thin air.
These, praised be the gods, are far superior.
Pour it neat and it will last the night.
But choose with care. . . . Tell me, good ladies, where
the boss is . . . I mean our mistress’ sire?
LEADER: You’ll see him soon enough if you wait here. In fact he’s coming now, on his way to dinner.
[BLEPYRUS enters, garlanded and looking twenty years younger with his arms around TWO GIRLS.]
MAID: Dear guv’nor, you lucky, you thrice-blessed wight!
BLEPYRUS: Me?
MAID: Yes, you, by Zeus,
what other man on earth could be so fortunate?
Out of thirty thousand citizens, you’ve not had dinner yet.939
LEADER: That certainly makes him out a lucky fella.
BLEPYRUS: Naturally, I’m off to dinner.
MAID: By Aphrodite, so you are, and the last to go. I have instructions from your wife to take you there,
and these girls along with you.
There’s still some Chian wine and appetizing fare,
so don’t hold back.
And you spectators, too, if we’re in your good grace,
and any judge who’s not gazing into space
must join us as well. We’ve got enough for all.
BLEPYRUS: [to MAID] Be a grande dame—what the heck!—
include this whole lot. Leave no one out.
Be all-expansive and invite
dotard, boy, and mite.
There’s dinner enough for the human race,
so hurry and make yourselves at home.
As for me, I’m off to a dinner of my own,
and have a little flare here to light me on my way.
[He indicates one of the TWO GIRLS.]
LEADER: Don’t stand on ceremony, pray,
but take these girls, and while you’re on your way,
I’ll sing you a little dinner grace.
[BLEPYRUS, the MAID, and the TWO GIRLS move into the CHORUS for the exodus dance.]
LEADER:940 Let me first deliver some wise words to the wise.
Besides the jokes, remember, there’s a lot of serious stuff.
Vote for me for that, and if you have a sense of fun,
vote for me, too, for the jokes. Your votes will be enough.
Don’t be put off by the handicap I’ve drawn
of having to present my play first in line.
So keeping this in mind,
keep faith with me and do justice to my play.
Don’t be like those disingenuous tarts
who can only think of the bloke who screwed them last.
CHORUS: Whoopee! Whoopee! Dear women,
the time has come to complete this thing
and dance away to dinne
r on a Cretan tune.941
BLEPYRUS: Which is what I’m doing.
CHORUS: And these young girls as well,
with limbs so lithe and limber, will
move to the rhythm. Soon
they’ll be fed every prodigious dish:942
limpets-oysters-rocksalmon-salted fish,943
sharksteaks-mullets-pickled herring,
blackbirds-thrushes-pigeons-capons,
larks-and-wagtails roasted in the pan,
jugged hare stewed in wine,
with honey and silphium capping every blessed thing,944
not forgetting oil-and-vinegar and every blessed dressing.
Now you know what you’re getting,
so come on the double and grab a plate for dinner.
You could begin with pulse.
BLEPYRUS: They’re already guzzling—what else!
CHORUS: Up with those legs, away, away!
Off to dinner, iai euai!
Off to dinner as the winner,
Iai euai hooray hooray!
[The whole company, actors and chorus, dances out of the theater.]
PLUTUS (WEALTH)
Plutus was produced in 388 B.C. by Aristophanes
in competition with four other playwrights but
we have no record of the prize results.
THEME
Perhaps it would be unwise to pin down the theme of Plutus (Wealth) to a declaration of how unevenly wealth is distributed in human society. Certainly it is that, but by making Plutus a sickly old man instead of the robust and gleaming child of Demeter, as he had always been for the Greeks, Aristophanes is pointedly saying that the disparity between rich and poor is as old as the human race. As Jesus one day would say when rebuked for letting Mary Magdalene “waste” a whole jar of precious spikenard by pouring it over his feet when the money could have been given to the poor: “The poor you have always with you.” But why, one may ask, does God allow this discrepancy to exist? Well, because Zeus long ago blinded Plutus so that he couldn’t tell the good from the undeserving; thus, mortals would realize that being rich has nothing to do with being good.
CHARACTERS
CARIO, servant of Chremylus
CHREMYLUS, elderly Athenian householder
PLUTUS, god of wealth
BLEPSIDEMUS, friend of Cremylus
POVERTY, hanger-on of Plutus
WIFE, of Chremylus
HONEST MAN, Athenian citizen
INFORMER
OLD WOMAN, Athenian citizen, with attendant
YOUNG MAN, Athenian citizen
HERMES, messenger of the gods
PRIEST, of Zeus the Savior
CHORUS, of depressed farm laborers
SILENT PARTS
BOY, with Honest Man
WITNESS, of Informer
SERVANTS, of Chremylus and others
THE STORY
Chremylus is depressed by the lack of honesty in the world and cynically wonders if it wouldn’t be better to bring his son up as a crook. He goes to the oracle at Delphi with his servant Cario to consult Apollo and receives the answer: “When you leave the sanctuary take home the first person you meet.” He does so, and that first person is no less than Plutus, the god of wealth. But Plutus is in a bad way. He is old and decrepit and tells Chremylus that long ago Zeus blinded him so that he couldn’t tell the difference between good people and bad. Chremylus decides to take him to Aesclepius, the god of healing, and get him back his sight, but before he and Cario set out, they are accosted by Poverty, a grim old hag, who tells them they are making a mistake, for without the fear of poverty what motive would there be for mortals to bestir themselves? Chremylus and Cario nevertheless proceed to Aesclepius’s temple, where Plutus gets back his sight. On their return home, they receive a series of visitors illustrating the good and bad consequences of Plutus’s cure.
OBSERVATIONS
It is always useful to take a look at the names that Aristophanes gives his characters. They nearly always conceal a hint of each character’s characteristics. Chremylus, for instance, is based on a word that means “querulousness,” but in this case the name would be more aptly translated as “Mr. No-nonsense.” Cario, which became the stock appellation in New Comedy for a servant or slave, stems from the word karis, which means “shrimp”; and there is something sprightly and alert about a shrimp or prawn, which well fits Cario and could translate into “Smarty.” Blepsidemus means “people-seer,” so he could be called “Mr. Observer.”
As to the play itself, it represents a departure in form and intent from all of Aristophanes’ other works and is the harbinger of the New Comedy to come: that which was exploited by Menander and others and then in Rome by Plautus and was to become the bedrock of comedy right to our own day. What differentiates New Comedy from what came to be called Old Comedy is that it is not topical: individuals give way to types—the old man, the young man, the crone, the honest householder, the clever servant; wit gives way to humor; the quasi-Shakespearian richness of vocabulary is pared down to something simpler; there is less satire; the morality is urbane and politically correct, and bawdiness—if it exists at all—is less robust; the somewhat elitist take-it-or-leave-it stance is replaced by something more plebeian; the self-evolving story gives way to the contrived plot; last, the Chorus virtually disappears, though indications are given of where there should be interludes of song and dance. The result of all these changes was a tremendous popular success, and for generations Plutus (Wealth) became the most widely acted of all Aristophanes’ comedies.
One last and perhaps trifling observation: in all my translations of Greek drama, I tried to avoid using the word “slave” because to the Anglo-Saxon ear this has the wrong connotation. I prefer the word “servant” or “domestic.” A slave could be a queen or a princess (as Hecuba and Cassandra were in Trojan Women) or a highly educated ex-ambassador. There is a passage somewhere in Xenophon where the question is asked: “How can you tell a slave from his master?” The answer: “The slave is better dressed.”
In Plutus (Wealth), Aristophanes does not in fact use the word “slave.” Cario is an oikades, that is, a “house servant.” It remains true of course that even if a slave happened to be a royal personage he or she became the property, the chattel, of the owner.
It is also worth remembering that it was the army of slaves in Athens during the fifth century B.C. who made possible one of the triumphs of civilization in the arts, literature, philosophy, and even in science. How else did men like Socrates have the leisure to wander about the agora asking deep provocative questions, or Plato and Aristotle to give their lectures in the Stoa and the Academy, or indeed the playwrights to write and produce their plays?
TIME AND SETTING
A street in Athens, early in the day, outside the house of CHREMYLUS. A blind and ragged old man, PLUTUS, is seen doddering along followed by CHREMYLUS and his servant, CARIO, both of whom are wearing chaplets of bay because they are returning from the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. CARIO carries a piece of meat retrieved from the sacrifice they made there. He appears to be worked up about something.
CARIO: Zeus in heaven and all ye gods,
what nonsense it is to work for a boss who’s off his rocker.
What’s so unfair
is that when the boss decides to ignore
some utterly sensible suggestion of his servant
the wretched servant has to bear the brunt of it.
It’s so unfair
that he can’t follow his own bent
simply because he’s owned body and soul by the man who bought
him.
Well, that’s the way things are,
but my next complaint is against Apollo, “who
from a tripod of beaten gold gives vent
to his oracular drone.”945
My grouse is this:
he’s supposed to be a healer and the all-knowing one
yet he sends my master off in the blackest mood
; traipsing after a man who’s blind—the last thing he should do.
It’s for us who see to lead the blind, not follow,
especially with me tagging along behind.
Meanwhile, not so much as a grunt does he deign to award
my questioning mind.
[turning to CHREMYLUS]
Hey, boss, I’ll not shut up until you tell
me why we’re following this fellow.
I’m going to give you hell until you do,
and you won’t dare beat me with my holy garlands on and all.
CHREMYLUS: If you keep pestering me I’ll rip them off you
and give you the hiding of your life.
CARIO: Bullshit! I won’t stop unless you tell me
who that geezer is. I only ask for your sake.
CHREMYLUS: All right, I’ll not leave you in the dark.
You’re the most trustworthy and accomplished . . . thief
in all my household.
I’m a God-fearing honest mortal,
but I’m poor and have never done well.
CARIO: Don’t I know it!
CHREMYLUS: Others have grown fat:
bank robbers, politicians, snoopers, and every sort of scoundrel.
CARIO: Quite!
CHREMYLUS: That’s why I went to consult the god:
not for my own wretched sake—
at this stage of my life I’ve shot all my bolts—
but for my son, the only son I’ve got. I went to ask
if he should change his direction and take to crime . . . become
a crook, a total dropout,
since that seems to be the road to success in life.
CARIO: And what did Phoebus in his holy wreaths let out?
CHREMYLUS: I’ll tell you. This is what the god plainly said: I
