Delphi Complete Works of Aristophanes (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics)

by Aristophanes

  DIONYSUS. So that the city, when once it has escaped the imminent dangers of the war, may have tragedies produced. I have resolved to take back whichever of the two is prepared to give good advice to the citizens. So first of all, what think you of Alcibiades? For the city is in most difficult labour over this question.

  EURIPIDES. And what does it think about it?

  DIONYSUS. What does it think? It regrets him, hates him, and yet wishes to have him, all at the same time. But tell me your opinion, both of you.

  EURIPIDES. I hate the citizen who is slow to serve his country, quick to involve it in the greatest troubles, ever alert to his own interests, and a bungler where those of the State are at stake.

  DIONYSUS. That’s good, by Posidon! And you, what is your opinion?

  AESCHYLUS. A lion’s whelp should not be reared within the city. No doubt that’s best; but if the lion has been reared, one must submit to his ways.

  DIONYSUS. Zeus, the Deliverer! this puzzles me greatly. The one is clever, the other clear and precise. Now each of you tell me your idea of the best way to save the State.

  EURIPIDES. If Cinesias were fitted to Cleocritus as a pair of wings, and the wind were to carry the two of them across the waves of the sea …

  DIONYSUS. ’Twould be funny. But what is he driving at?

  EURIPIDES. … they could throw vinegar into the eyes of the foe in the event of a sea-fight. But I know something else I want to tell you.

  DIONYSUS. Go on.

  EURIPIDES. When we put trust in what we mistrust and mistrust what we trust….

  DIONYSUS. What? I don’t understand. Tell us something less profound, but clearer.

  EURIPIDES. If we were to mistrust the citizens, whom we trust, and to employ those whom we to-day neglect, we should be saved. Nothing succeeds with us; very well then, let’s do the opposite thing, and our deliverance will be assured.

  DIONYSUS. Very well spoken. You are the most ingenious of men, a true

  Palamedes! Is this fine idea your own or is it Cephisophon’s?

  EURIPIDES. My very own, — bar the vinegar, which is Cephisophon’s.

  DIONYSUS (to Aeschylus). And you, what have you to say?

  AESCHYLUS. Tell me first who the commonwealth employs. Are they the just?

  DIONYSUS. Oh! she holds them in abhorrence.

  AESCHYLUS. What, are then the wicked those she loves?

  DIONYSUS. Not at all, but she employs them against her will.

  AESCHYLUS. Then what deliverance can there be for a city that will neither have cape nor cloak?

  DIONYSUS. Discover, I adjure you, discover a way to save her from shipwreck.

  AESCHYLUS. I will tell you the way on earth, but I won’t here.

  DIONYSUS. No, send her this blessing from here.

  AESCHYLUS. They will be saved when they have learnt that the land of the foe is theirs and their own land belongs to the foe; that their vessels are their true wealth, the only one upon which they can rely.

  DIONYSUS. That’s true, but the dicasts devour everything.

  PLUTO (to Dionysus). Now decide.

  DIONYSUS. ’Tis for you to decide, but I choose him whom my heart prefers.

  EURIPIDES. You called the gods to witness that you would bear me through; remember your oath and choose your friends.

  DIONYSUS. Yes, “my tongue has sworn.” … But I choose Aeschylus.

  EURIPIDES. What have you done, you wretch?

  DIONYSUS. I? I have decided that Aeschylus is the victor. What then?

  EURIPIDES. And you dare to look me in the face after such a shameful deed?

  DIONYSUS. “Why shameful, if the spectators do not think so?”

  EURIPIDES. Cruel wretch, will you leave me pitilessly among the dead?

  DIONYSUS. “Who knows if living be not dying, if breathing be not feasting, if sleep be not a fleece?”

  PLUTO. Enter my halls. Come, Dionysus.

  DIONYSUS. What shall we do there?

  PLUTO. I want to entertain my guests before they leave.

  DIONYSUS. Well said, by Zeus; ’tis the very thing to please me best.

  CHORUS. Blessed the man who has perfected wisdom! Everything is happiness for him. Behold Aeschylus; thanks to the talent, to the cleverness he has shown, he returns to his country; and his fellow-citizens, his relations, his friends will all hail his return with joy. Let us beware of jabbering with Socrates and of disdaining the sublime notes of the tragic Muse. To pass an idle life reeling off grandiloquent speeches and foolish quibbles, is the part of a madman.

  PLUTO. Farewell, Aeschylus! Go back to earth and may your noble precepts both save our city and cure the mad; there are such, a many of them! Carry this rope from me to Cleophon, this one to Myrmex and Nichomachus, the public receivers, and this other one to Archenomous. Bid them come here at once and without delay; if not, by Apollo, I will brand them with the hot iron. I will make one bundle of them and Adimantus, the son of Leucolophus, and despatch the lot into hell with all possible speed.

  AESCHYLUS. I will do your bidding, and do you make Sophocles occupy my seat. Let him take and keep it for me, against I should ever return here. In fact I award him the second place among the tragic poets. As for this impostor, watch that he never usurps my throne, even should he be placed there in spite of himself.

  PLUTO (to the Chorus of the Initiate). Escort him with your sacred torches, singing to him as you go his own hymns and choruses.

  CHORUS. Ye deities of the nether world, grant a pleasant journey to the poet who is leaving us to return to the light of day; grant likewise wise and healthy thoughts to our city. Put an end to the fearful calamities that overwhelm us, to the awful clatter of arms. As for Cleophon and the likes of him, let them go, an it please them, and fight in their own land.

  THE ASSEMBLYWOMEN

  Anonymous translation for the Athenian Society, London, 1912

  The Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι dates from 391 BC and like Lysistrata involves the theme of women and politics. The comedy concerns a group of women led by Praxagora, who has decided that the women must convince the men to give them control of Athens, because they could rule it better than has been done already. The women, disguised as men, sneak into the assembly and vote the measure, convincing some of the men to vote for it because it is the only thing they have not tried before. The women then institute a government where the state feeds, houses and generally takes care of every Athenian. They enforce an idea of equality by allowing every man to sleep with every woman, though the man must sleep with an ugly woman before he may sleep with a beautiful one.

  The enforced equality presented in the play is something of a political statement in addition to being a social one. Following the oligarchy put in place after the war, Athenians asserted their democracy and equality very strongly, to the point that, while it was a clear exaggeration, the play surely made its position on excessive democracy clear. Therefore Aristophanes uses this drama to make fun of the socialist-like ideals in the form of the abolition of private property, abolition of the family and purely material prosperity.

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE ECCLESIAZUSAE

  INTRODUCTION

  The ‘Ecclesiazusae, or Women in Council,’ was not produced till twenty years after the preceding play, the ‘Thesmophoriazusae’ (at the Great Dionysia of 392 B.C.), but is conveniently classed with it as being also largely levelled against the fair sex. “It is a broad, but very amusing, satire upon those ideal republics, founded upon communistic principles, of which Plato’s well-known treatise is the best example. His ‘Republic’ had been written, and probably delivered in the form of oral lectures at Athens, only two or three years before, and had no doubt excited a considerable sensation. But many of its most startling principles had long ago been ventilated in the Schools.”

  Like the ‘Lysistrata,’ the play is a picture of woman’s ascendancy in the State, and the topsy-turvy consequences resul
ting from such a reversal of ordinary conditions. The women of Athens, under the leadership of the wise Praxagora, resolve to reform the constitution. To this end they don men’s clothes, and taking seats in the Assembly on the Pnyx, command a majority of votes and carry a series of revolutionary proposals — that the government be vested in a committee of women, and further, that property and women be henceforth held in common. The main part of the comedy deals with the many amusing difficulties that arise inevitably from this new state of affairs, the community of women above all necessitating special safeguarding clauses to secure the rights of the less attractive members of the sex to the service of the younger and handsomer men. Community of goods again, private property being abolished, calls for a regulation whereby all citizens are to dine at the public expense in the various public halls of the city, the particular place of each being determined by lot; and the drama winds up with one of these feasts, the elaborate menu of which is given in burlesque, and with the jubilations of the women over their triumph.

  “This comedy appears to labour under the very same faults as the ‘Peace.’ The introduction, the secret assembly of the women, their rehearsal of their parts as men, the description of the popular assembly, are all handled in the most masterly manner; but towards the middle the action stands still. Nothing remains but the representation of the perplexities and confusion which arise from the new arrangements, especially in connection with the community of women, and from the prescribed equality of rights in love both for the old and ugly and for the young and beautiful. These perplexities are pleasant enough, but they turn too much on a repetition of the same joke.”

  We learn from the text of the play itself that the ‘Ecclesiazusae’ was drawn by lot for first representation among the comedies offered for competition at the Festival, the Author making a special appeal to his audience not to let themselves be influenced unfavourably by the circumstance; but whether the play was successful in gaining a prize is not recorded.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  PRAXAGORA.

  BLEPYRUS, husband of Praxagora.

  WOMEN.

  A MAN.

  CHREMES.

  TWO CITIZENS.

  HERALD.

  AN OLD MAN.

  A GIRL.

  A YOUNG MAN.

  THREE OLD WOMEN.

  A SERVANT MAID.

  HER MASTER.

  CHORUS OF WOMEN.

  SCENE: Before a house in a Public Square at Athens; a lamp is burning over the door. Time: a little after midnight.

  THE ECCLESIAZUSAE

  OR, THE ASSEMBLYWOMEN

  PRAXAGORA (enters carrying a lamp in her hand). Oh! thou shining light of my earthenware lamp, from this high spot shalt thou look abroad. Oh! lamp, I will tell thee thine origin and thy future; ’tis the rapid whirl of the potter’s wheel that has lent thee thy shape, and thy wick counterfeits the glory of the sun; mayst thou send the agreed signal flashing afar! In thee alone do we confide, and thou art worthy, for thou art near us when we practise the various postures in which Aphrodité delights upon our couches, and none dream even in the midst of her sports of seeking to avoid thine eye that watches our swaying bodies. Thou alone shinest into the depths of our most secret charms, and with thy flame dost singe the hairy growth of our privates. If we open some cellar stored with fruits and wine, thou art our companion, and never dost thou betray or reveal to a neighbour the secrets thou hast learned about us. Therefore thou shalt know likewise the whole of the plot that I have planned with my friends, the women, at the festival of the Scirophoria.

  I see none of those I was expecting, though dawn approaches; the Assembly is about to gather and we must take our seats in spite of Phyromachus, who forsooth would say, “It is meet the women sit apart and hidden from the eyes of the men.” Why, have they not been able then to procure the false beards that they must wear, or to steal their husbands cloaks? Ah! I see a light approaching; let us draw somewhat aside, for fear it should be a man.

  FIRST WOMAN. Let us start, it is high time; as we left our dwellings, the cock was crowing for the second time.

  PRAXAGORA. And I have spent the whole night waiting for you. But come, let us call our neighbour by scratching at her door; and gently too, so that her husband may hear nothing.

  SECOND WOMAN. I was putting on my shoes, when I heard you scratching, for I was not asleep, so there! Oh! my dear, my husband (he is a Salaminian) never left me an instant’s peace, but was at me, for ever at me, all night long, so that it was only just now that I was able to filch his cloak.

  FIRST WOMAN. I see Clinareté coming too, along with Sostraté and their next-door neighbour Philaeneté.

  PRAXAGORA. Hurry yourselves then, for Glycé has sworn that the last comer shall forfeit three measures of wine and a choenix of pease.

  FIRST WOMAN. Don’t you see Melisticé, the wife of Smicythion, hurrying hither in her great shoes? Methinks she is the only one of us all who has had no trouble in getting rid of her husband.

  SECOND WOMAN. And can’t you see Gusistraté, the tavern-keeper’s wife, with a lamp in her hand, and the wives of Philodoretus and Chaeretades?

  PRAXAGORA. I can see many others too, indeed the whole of the flower of

  Athens.

  THIRD WOMAN. Oh! my dear, I have had such trouble in getting away! My husband ate such a surfeit of sprats last evening that he was coughing and choking the whole night long.

  PRAXAGORA. Take your seats, and, since you are all gathered here at last, let us see if what we decided on at the feast of the Scirophoria has been duly done.

  FOURTH WOMAN. Yes. Firstly, as agreed, I have let the hair under my armpits grow thicker than a bush; furthermore, whilst my husband was at the Assembly, I rubbed myself from head to foot with oil and then stood the whole day long in the sun.

  FIFTH WOMAN. So did I. I began by throwing away my razor, so that I might get quite hairy, and no longer resemble a woman.

  PRAXAGORA. Have you the beards that we had all to get ourselves for the

  Assembly?

  FOURTH WOMAN. Yea, by Hecaté! Is this not a fine one?

  FIFTH WOMAN. Aye, much finer than Epicrates’.

  PRAXAGORA (to the other women). And you?

  FOURTH WOMAN. Yes, yes; look, they all nod assent.

  PRAXAGORA. I see that you have got all the rest too, Spartan shoes, staffs and men’s cloaks, as ’twas arranged.

  SIXTH WOMAN. I have brought Lamias’ club, which I stole from him while he slept.

  PRAXAGORA. What, the club that makes him puff and pant with its weight?

  SIXTH WOMAN. By Zeus the Deliverer, if he had the skin of Argus, he would know better than any other how to shepherd the popular herd.

  PRAXAGORA. But come, let us finish what has yet to be done, while the stars are still shining; the Assembly, at which we mean to be present, will open at dawn.

  FIRST WOMAN. Good; you must take up your place at the foot of the platform and facing the Prytanes.

  SIXTH WOMAN. I have brought this with me to card during the Assembly. (She shows some wool.)

  PRAXAGORA. During the Assembly, wretched woman?

  SIXTH WOMAN. Aye, by Artemis! shall I hear any less well if I am doing a bit of carding? My little ones are all but naked.

  PRAXAGORA. Think of her wanting to card! whereas we must not let anyone see the smallest part of our bodies. ’Twould be a fine thing if one of us, in the midst of the discussion, rushed on to the speaker’s platform and, flinging her cloak aside, showed her hairy privates. If, on the other hand, we are the first to take our seats closely muffled in our cloaks, none will know us. Let us fix these beards on our chins, so that they spread all over our bosoms. How can we fail then to be mistaken for men? Agyrrhius has deceived everyone, thanks to the beard of Pronomus; yet he was no better than a woman, and you see how he now holds the first position in the city. Thus, I adjure you by this day that is about to dawn, let us dare to copy him and let us be clever enough to possess ourselves of the management
of affairs. Let us save the vessel of State, which just at present none seems able either to sail or row.

  SIXTH WOMAN. But where shall we find orators in an Assembly of women?

  PRAXAGORA. Nothing simpler. Is it not said, that the cleverest speakers are those who submit themselves oftenest to men? Well, thanks to the gods, we are that by nature.

  SIXTH WOMAN. There’s no doubt of that; but the worst of it is our inexperience.

  PRAXAGORA. That’s the very reason we are gathered here, in order to prepare the speech we must make in the Assembly. Hasten, therefore, all you who know aught of speaking, to fix on your beards.

  SEVENTH WOMAN. Oh! you great fool! is there ever a one among us cannot use her tongue?

  PRAXAGORA. Come, look sharp, on with your beard and become a man. As for me, I will do the same in case I should have a fancy for getting on to the platform. Here are the chaplets.

  SECOND WOMAN. Oh! great gods! my dear Praxagora, do look here! Is it not laughable?

  PRAXAGORA. How laughable?

  SECOND WOMAN. Our beards look like broiled cuttle-fishes.

  PRAXAGORA. The priest is bringing in — the cat. Make ready, make ready! Silence, Ariphrades! Go and take your seat. Now, who wishes to speak?

  SEVENTH WOMAN. I do.

  PRAXAGORA. Then put on this chaplet and success be with you.

  SEVENTH WOMAN. There, ’tis done!

  PRAXAGORA. Well then! begin.

  SEVENTH WOMAN. Before drinking?

  PRAXAGORA. Hah! she wants to drink!

  SEVENTH WOMAN. Why, what else is the meaning of this chaplet?

  PRAXAGORA. Get you hence! you would probably have played us this trick also before the people.

  SEVENTH WOMAN. Well! don’t the men drink then in the Assembly?

  PRAXAGORA. Now she’s telling us the men drink!

  SEVENTH WOMAN. Aye, by Artemis, and neat wine too. That’s why their decrees breathe of drunkenness and madness. And why libations, why so many ceremonies, if wine plays no part in them? Besides, they abuse each other like drunken men, and you can see the archers dragging more than one uproarious drunkard out of the Agora.