The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

  CLEON. Who are they?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Envoys, bearing sacks bulging with money.

  CLEON. (Hearing money mentioned Clean turns his head, and Agoracritus seizes the opportunity to snatch away the stewed hare.) Where, where, I say?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Bah! What’s that to you? Will you not even now let the strangers alone? Demos, do you see this stewed hare which I bring you?

  CLEON. Ah! rascal! you have shamelessly robbed me.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. You have robbed too, you robbed the Laconians at Pylos.

  DEMOS. An you pity me, tell me, how did you get the idea to filch it from him?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. The idea comes from the goddess; the theft is all my own.

  CLEON. And I had taken such trouble to catch this hare.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. But ’twas I who had it cooked.

  DEMOS (to Cleon). Get you gone! My thanks are only for him who served it.

  CLEON. Ah! wretch! have you beaten me in impudence!

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Well then, Demos, say now, who has treated you best, you and your stomach? Decide!

  DEMOS. How shall I act here so that the spectators shall approve my judgment?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will tell you. Without saying anything, go and rummage through my basket, and then through the Paphlagonian’s, and see what is in them; that’s the best way to judge.

  DEMOS. Let us see then, what is there in yours?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Why, ’tis empty, dear little father; I have brought everything to you.

  DEMOS. This is a basket devoted to the people.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Now hunt through the Paphlagonian’s. Well?

  DEMOS. Oh! what a lot of good things! Why! ’tis quite full! Oh! what a huge great part of this cake he kept for himself! He had only cut off the least little tiny piece for me.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. But this is what he has always done. Of everything he took, he only gave you the crumbs, and kept the bulk.

  DEMOS. Oh! rascal! was this the way you robbed me? And I was loading you with chaplets and gifts!

  CLEON. ’Twas for the public weal I robbed.

  DEMOS (to Cleon). Give me back that crown; I will give it to him.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Return it quick, quick, you gallows-bird.

  CLEON. No, for the Pythian oracle has revealed to me the name of him who shall overthrow me.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. And that name was mine, nothing can be clearer.

  CLEON. Reply and I shall soon see whether you are indeed the man whom the god intended. Firstly, what school did you attend when a child?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. ’Twas in the kitchens I was taught with cuffs and blows.

  CLEON. What’s that you say? Ah! this is truly what the oracle said. And what did you learn from the master of exercises?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. I learnt to take a false oath without a smile, when I had stolen something.

  CLEON. Oh! Phoebus Apollo, god of Lycia! I am undone! And when you had become a man, what trade did you follow?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. I sold sausages and did a bit of fornication.

  CLEON. Oh! my god! I am a lost man! Ah! still one slender hope remains. Tell me, was it on the market-place or near the gates that you sold your sausages?

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Near the gates, in the market for salted goods.

  CLEON Alas! I see the prophecy of the god is verily come true. Alas! roll me home. I am a miserable, ruined man. Farewell, my chaplet! ’Tis death to me to part with you. So you are to belong to another; ’tis certain he cannot be a greater thief, but perhaps he may be a luckier one.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. Oh! Zeus, the protector of Greece! ’tis to you I owe this victory!

  DEMOSTHENES. Hail! illustrious conqueror, but forget not, that if you have become a great man, ’tis thanks to me; I ask but a little thing; appoint me secretary of the law-court in the room of Phanus.

  DEMOS (to the Sausage-seller). But what is your name then? Tell me.

  SAUSAGE-SELLER. My name is Agoracritus, because I have always lived on the market-place in the midst of lawsuits.

  DEMOS. Well then, Agoracritus, I stand by you; as for the Paphlagonian, I hand him over to your mercy.

  AGORACRITUS. Demos, I will care for you to the best of my power, and all shall admit that no citizen is more devoted than I to this city of simpletons.

  CHORUS. What fitter theme for our Muse, at the close as at the beginning of his work, than this, to sing the hero who drives his swift steeds down the arena? Why afflict Lysistratus with our satires on his poverty, and Thumantis, who has not so much as a lodging? He is dying of hunger and can be seen at Delphi, his face bathed in tears, clinging to your quiver, oh, Apollo! and supplicating you to take him out of his misery.

  An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud. Him, whom I wish to brand with infamy, is little known himself; ’tis the brother of Arignotus. I regret to quote this name which is so dear to me, but whoever can distinguish black from white, or the Orthian mode of music from others, knows the virtues of Arignotus, whom his brother, Ariphrades, in no way resembles. He gloats in vice, is not merely a dissolute man and utterly debauched — but he has actually invented a new form of vice; for he pollutes his tongue with abominable pleasures in brothels licking up that nauseous moisture and befouling his beard as he tickles the lips of lewd women’s private parts. Whoever is not horrified at such a monster shall never drink from the same cup with me.

  At times a thought weighs on me at night; I wonder whence comes this fearful voracity of Cleonymus. ’Tis said, that when dining with a rich host, he springs at the dishes with the gluttony of a wild beast and never leaves the bread-bin until his host seizes him round the knees, exclaiming, “Go, go, good gentleman, in mercy go, and spare my poor table!”

  ’Tis said that the triremes assembled in council and that the oldest spoke in these terms, “Are you ignorant, my sisters, of what is plotting in Athens? They say, that a certain Hyperbolus, a bad citizen and an infamous scoundrel, asks for a hundred of us to take them to sea against Chalcedon.” All were indignant, and one of them, as yet a virgin, cried, “May god forbid that I should ever obey him! I would prefer to grow old in the harbour and be gnawed by worms. No! by the gods I swear it, Nauphanté, daughter of Nauson, shall never bend to his law; ’tis as true as I am made of wood and pitch. If the Athenians vote for the proposal of Hyperbolus, let them! we will hoist full sail and seek refuge by the temple of Theseus or the shrine of the Euminides. No! he shall not command us! No! he shall not play with the city to this extent! Let him sail by himself for Tartarus, if such please him, launching the boats in which he used to sell his lamps.”

  AGORACRITUS. Maintain a holy silence! Keep your mouths from utterance! call no more witnesses; close these tribunals, which are the delight of this city, and gather at the theatre to chant the Paean of thanksgiving to the gods for a fresh favour.

  CHORUS. Oh! torch of sacred Athens, saviour of the Islands, what good tidings are we to celebrate by letting the blood of the victims flow in our market-places?

  AGORACRITUS. I have freshened Demos up somewhat on the stove and have turned his ugliness into beauty.

  CHORUS. I admire your inventive genius; but, where is he?

  AGORACRITUS. He is living in ancient Athens, the city of the garlands of violets.

  CHORUS. How I should like to see him! What is his dress like, what his manner?

  AGORACRITUS. He has once more become as he was in the days when he lived with Aristides and Miltiades. But you will judge for yourselves, for I hear the vestibule doors opening. Hail with your shouts of gladness the Athens of old, which now doth reappear to your gaze, admirable, worthy of the songs of the poets and the home of the illustrious Demos.

  CHORUS. Oh! noble, brilliant Athens, whose brow is wreathed with violets, show us the sovereign master of this land and of all Greece.

  AGORACRITUS. Lo! here he is coming with his hair held in place with a golden band and in all th
e glory of his old-world dress; perfumed with myrrh, he spreads around him not the odour of lawsuits, but of peace.

  CHORUS. Hail! King of Greece, we congratulate you upon the happiness you enjoy; it is worthy of this city, worthy of the glory of Marathon.

  DEMOS. Come, Agoracritus, come, my best friend; see the service you have done me by freshening me up on your stove.

  AGORACRITUS. Ah! if you but remembered what you were formerly and what you did, you would for a certainty believe me to be a god.

  DEMOS. But what did I? and how was I then?

  AGORACRITUS. Firstly, so soon as ever an orator declared in the assembly “Demos, I love you ardently; ’tis I alone, who dream of you and watch over your interests”; at such an exordium you would look like a cock flapping his wings or a bull tossing his horns.

  DEMOS. What, I?

  AGORACRITUS. Then, after he had fooled you to the hilt, he would go.

  DEMOS. What! they would treat me so, and I never saw it!

  AGORACRITUS. You knew only how to open and close your ears like a sunshade.

  DEMOS. Was I then so stupid and such a dotard?

  AGORACRITUS. Worse than that; if one of two orators proposed to equip a fleet for war and the other suggested the use of the same sum for paying out to the citizens, ’twas the latter who always carried the day. Well! you droop your head! you turn away your face?

  DEMOS. I redden at my past errors.

  AGORACRITUS. Think no more of them; ’tis not you who are to blame, but those who cheated you in this sorry fashion. But, come, if some impudent lawyer dared to say, “Dicasts, you shall have no wheat unless you convict this accused man!” what would you do? Tell me.

  DEMOS. I would have him removed from the bar, I would bind Hyperbolus about his neck like a stone and would fling him into the Barathrum.

  AGORACRITUS. Well spoken! but what other measures do you wish to take?

  DEMOS. First, as soon as ever a fleet returns to the harbour, I shall pay up the rowers in full.

  AGORACRITUS. That will soothe many a worn and chafed bottom.

  DEMOS. Further, the hoplite enrolled for military service shall not get transferred to another service through favour, but shall stick to that given him at the outset.

  AGORACRITUS. This will strike the buckler of Cleonymus full in the centre.

  DEMOS. None shall ascend the rostrum, unless their chins are bearded.

  AGORACRITUS. What then will become of Clisthenes and of Strato?

  DEMOS. I wish only to refer to those youths, who loll about the perfume shops, babbling at random, “What a clever fellow is Pheax! How cleverly he escaped death! how concise and convincing is his style! what phrases! how clear and to the point! how well he knows how to quell an interruption!”

  AGORACRITUS. I thought you were the lover of those pathic minions.

  DEMOS. The gods forefend it! and I will force all such fellows to go a-hunting instead of proposing decrees.

  AGORACRITUS. In that case, accept this folding-stool, and to carry it this well-grown, big-testicled slave lad. Besides, you may put him to any other purpose you please.

  DEMOS. Oh! I am happy indeed to find myself as I was of old!

  AGORACRITUS. Aye, you deem yourself happy, when I shall have handed you the truces of thirty years. Truces! step forward!

  DEMOS. Great gods! how charming they are! Can I do with them as I wish? where did you discover them, pray?

  AGORACRITUS. ’Twas that Paphlagonian who kept them locked up in his house, so that you might not enjoy them. As for myself, I give them to you; take them with you into the country.

  DEMOS. And what punishment will you inflict upon this Paphlagonian, the cause of all my troubles?

  AGORACRITUS. ‘Twill not be over-terrible. I condemn him to follow my old trade; posted near the gates, he must sell sausages of asses’ and dogs’-meat; perpetually drunk, he will exchange foul language with prostitutes and will drink nothing but the dirty water from the baths.

  DEMOS. Well conceived! he is indeed fit to wrangle with harlots and bathmen; as for you, in return for so many blessings, I invite you to take the place at the Prytaneum which this rogue once occupied. Put on this frog-green mantle and follow me. As for the other, let ‘em take him away; let him go sell his sausages in full view of the foreigners, whom he used formerly so wantonly to insult.

  THE CLOUDS

  Anonymous translation for the Athenian Society, London, 1912

  Originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC, this comedy was not well received, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year. The play has gained notoriety for its satirical caricature and victimisation of the philosopher Socrates and has since been seen as a factor contributing to the philosopher’s trial and execution.

  The Clouds represents a departure from the political themes concerning the Peloponnesian War in Aristophanes’ early plays. At the time of composition, the Spartans had recently stopped their annual invasions of Attica after the Athenians had taken Spartan hostages in the Battle of Sphacteria in 425 BC and both sides were enjoying a truce. Thus the original production of The Clouds in 423 BC came at a time when Athens was looking forward to a period of peace. Having already successfully lampooned Cleon, the populist leader of the pro-war faction in Athens, in his previous play The Knights in 424 BC, Aristophanes now turned his attention to satirising the philosopher Socrates in The Clouds. Socrates and his like-minded friends represented a new age of thought, challenging the men and women of Athens to question the world around him and the system of society they lived in, but many Athenians feared the ideas and changes that this new type of intellectual thinking might bring. Socrates is presented in The Clouds as a petty thief, a fraud and a sophist with a specious interest in physical speculations. However, it is still possible to recognise in him the distinctive individual defined in Plato’s dialogues. The practice of ascetism, disciplined, introverted thinking and conversational dialectic appear to be caricatures of Socratic behaviours later described more sympathetically by Plato. The Aristophanic Socrates is much more interested in physical speculations than is Plato’s Socrates, yet it is possible that the real Socrates did take a strong interest in such speculations during his development as a philosopher.

  The play introduces the concerned Athenian father Strepsiades, who is afraid that his son Pheidippides lacks direction in his life and is too prone to run up debts. Strepsiades, having thought up a plan to get his son out of debt, tells Pheidippides that he wants to enrol him in The Thinkery, a school for intellectuals that no self-respecting, athletic young man dares to be seen with. Strepsiades explains that students of The Thinkery learn how to turn inferior arguments into winning arguments and this is the only way he can beat their aggrieved creditors in court. Pheidippides however will not be persuaded and Strepsiades decides to enroll himself in The Thinkery in spite of his advanced age. There he meets a student who tells him about some of the recent discoveries made by Socrates, the head of The Thinkery, including a new unit of measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea (a flea’s foot, created from a minuscule imprint in wax), the exact cause of the buzzing noise made by a gnat (its arse resembles a trumpet) and a new use for a large pair of compasses (as a kind of fishing-hook for stealing cloaks from pegs over the gymnasium wall). Impressed, Strepsiades begs to be introduced to the man behind these discoveries…

  Roman bust of Socrates, c. 100 BC

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE CLOUDS

  ‘The Death of Socrates’ by Jacques-Louis David, 1787. Many believe, including Plato, that Aristophanes’ play had a hand in influencing public opinion against the great thinker, leading to his execution.

  INTRODUCTION

  The satire in this, one of the best known of all Aristophanes’ comedies, is directed against the new schools of philosophy, or perhaps we should rather say dialectic, which had lately been introduced, mostly from abroad, a
t Athens. The doctrines held up to ridicule are those of the ‘Sophists’ — such men as Thrasymachus from Chalcedon in Bithynia, Gorgias from Leontini in Sicily, Protagoras from Abdera in Thrace, and other foreign scholars and rhetoricians who had flocked to Athens as the intellectual centre of the Hellenic world. Strange to say, Socrates of all people, the avowed enemy and merciless critic of these men and their methods, is taken as their representative, and personally attacked with pitiless raillery. Presumably this was merely because he was the most prominent and noteworthy teacher and thinker of the day, while his grotesque personal appearance and startling eccentricities of behaviour gave a ready handle to caricature. Neither the author nor his audience took the trouble, or were likely to take the trouble, to discriminate nicely; there was, of course, a general resemblance between the Socratic ‘elenchos’ and the methods of the new practitioners of dialectic; and this was enough for stage purposes. However unjustly, Socrates is taken as typical of the newfangled sophistical teachers, just as in ‘The Acharnians’ Lamachus, with his Gorgon shield, is introduced as representative of the War party, though that general was not specially responsible for the continuance of hostilities more than anybody else.

  Aristophanes’ point of view, as a member of the aristocratical party and a fine old Conservative, is that these Sophists, as the professors of the new education had come to be called, and Socrates as their protagonist, were insincere and dangerous innovators, corrupting morals, persuading young men to despise the old-fashioned, home-grown virtues of the State and teaching a system of false and pernicious tricks of verbal fence whereby anything whatever could be proved, and the worse be made to seem the better — provided always sufficient payment were forthcoming. True, Socrates refused to take money from his pupils, and made it his chief reproach against the lecturing Sophists that they received fees; but what of that? The Comedian cannot pay heed to such fine distinctions, but belabours the whole tribe with indiscriminate raillery and scurrility.