The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are an old driveller and stupid withal.

  JUST DISCOURSE. And you a debauchee and a shameless fellow.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Hah! What sweet expressions!

  JUST DISCOURSE. An impious buffoon!

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. You crown me with roses and with lilies.

  JUST DISCOURSE. A parricide.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Why, you shower gold upon me.

  JUST DISCOURSE. Formerly, ’twas a hailstorm of blows.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. I deck myself with your abuse.

  JUST DISCOURSE. What impudence!

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. What tomfoolery!

  JUST DISCOURSE. ’Tis because of you that the youth no longer attends the schools. The Athenians will soon recognize what lessons you teach those who are fools enough to believe you.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. You are overwhelmed with wretchedness.

  JUST DISCOURSE. And you, you prosper. Yet you were poor when you said, “I am the Mysian Telephus,” and used to stuff your wallet with maxims of Pandeletus to nibble at.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Oh! the beautiful wisdom, of which you are now boasting!

  JUST DISCOURSE. Madman! But yet madder the city that keeps you, you, the corrupter of its youth!

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. ’Tis not you who will teach this young man; you are as old and out of date as Saturn.

  JUST DISCOURSE. Nay, it will certainly be I, if he does not wish to be lost and to practise verbosity only.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE (to Phidippides). Come hither and leave him to beat the air.

  JUST DISCOURSE (to Unjust Discourse). Evil be unto you, if you touch him.

  CHORUS. A truce to your quarrellings and abuse! But expound, you, what you taught us formerly, and you, your new doctrine. Thus, after hearing each of you argue, he will be able to choose betwixt the two schools.

  JUST DISCOURSE. I am quite agreeable.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. And I too.

  CHORUS. Who is to speak first?

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Let it be my opponent, he has my full consent; then I will follow upon the very ground he shall have chosen and shall shatter him with a hail of new ideas and subtle fancies; if after that he dares to breathe another word, I shall sting him in the face and in the eyes with our maxims, which are as keen as the sting of a wasp, and he will die.

  CHORUS. Here are two rivals confident in their powers of oratory and in the thoughts over which they have pondered so long. Let us see which will come triumphant out of the contest. This wisdom, for which my friends maintain such a persistent fight, is in great danger. Come then, you, who crowned men of other days with so many virtues, plead the cause dear to you, make yourself known to us.

  JUST DISCOURSE. Very well, I will tell you what was the old education, when I used to teach justice with so much success and when modesty was held in veneration. Firstly, it was required of a child, that it should not utter a word. In the street, when they went to the music-school, all the youths of the same district marched lightly clad and ranged in good order, even when the snow was falling in great flakes. At the master’s house they had to stand, their legs apart, and they were taught to sing either, “Pallas, the Terrible, who overturneth cities,” or “A noise resounded from afar” in the solemn tones of the ancient harmony. If anyone indulged in buffoonery or lent his voice any of the soft inflexions, like those which to-day the disciples of Phrynis take so much pains to form, he was treated as an enemy of the Muses and belaboured with blows. In the wrestling school they would sit with outstretched legs and without display of any indecency to the curious. When they rose, they would smooth over the sand, so as to leave no trace to excite obscene thoughts. Never was a child rubbed with oil below the belt; the rest of their bodies thus retained its fresh bloom and down, like a velvety peach. They were not to be seen approaching a lover and themselves rousing his passion by soft modulation of the voice and lustful gaze. At table, they would not have dared, before those older than themselves, to have taken a radish, an aniseed or a leaf of parsley, and much less eat fish or thrushes or cross their legs.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. What antiquated rubbish! Have we got back to the days of the festivals of Zeus Polieus, to the Buphonia, to the time of the poet Cecydes and the golden cicadas?

  JUST DISCOURSE. ’Tis nevertheless by suchlike teaching I built up the men of Marathon. But you, you teach the children of to-day to bundle themselves quickly into their clothes, and I am enraged when I see them at the Panathenaea forgetting Athené while they dance, and covering themselves with their bucklers. Hence, young man, dare to range yourself beside me, who follow justice and truth; you will then be able to shun the public place, to refrain from the baths, to blush at all that is shameful, to fire up if your virtue is mocked at, to give place to your elders, to honour your parents, in short, to avoid all that is evil. Be modesty itself, and do not run to applaud the dancing girls; if you delight in such scenes, some courtesan will cast you her apple and your reputation will be done for. Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. If you listen to him, by Bacchus! you will be the image of the sons of Hippocrates and will be called mother’s great ninny.

  JUST DISCOURSE. No, but you will pass your days at the gymnasia, glowing with strength and health; you will not go to the public place to cackle and wrangle as is done nowadays; you will not live in fear that you may be dragged before the courts for some trifle exaggerated by quibbling. But you will go down to the Academy to run beneath the sacred olives with some virtuous friend of your own age, your head encircled with the white reed, enjoying your ease and breathing the perfume of the yew and of the fresh sprouts of the poplar, rejoicing in the return of springtide and gladly listening to the gentle rustle of the plane-tree and the elm. If you devote yourself to practising my precepts, your chest will be stout, your colour glowing, your shoulders broad, your tongue short, your hips muscular, but your penis small. But if you follow the fashions of the day, you will be pallid in hue, have narrow shoulders, a narrow chest, a long tongue, small hips and a big tool; you will know how to spin forth long-winded arguments on law. You will be persuaded also to regard as splendid everything that is shameful and as shameful everything that is honourable; in a word, you will wallow in debauchery like Antimachus.

  CHORUS. How beautiful, high-souled, brilliant is this wisdom that you practise! What a sweet odour of honesty is emitted by your discourse! Happy were those men of other days who lived when you were honoured! And you, seductive talker, come, find some fresh arguments, for your rival has done wonders. Bring out against him all the battery of your wit, if you desire to beat him and not to be laughed out of court.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. At last! I was choking with impatience, I was burning to upset all his arguments! If I am called the Weaker Reasoning in the schools, ’tis precisely because I was the first before all others to discover the means to confute the laws and the decrees of justice. To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is a talent worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae. But see how I shall batter down the sort of education of which he is so proud. Firstly, he forbids you to bathe in hot water. What grounds have you for condemning hot baths?

  JUST DISCOURSE. Because they are baneful and enervate men.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Enough said! Oh! you poor wrestler! From the very outset I have seized you and hold you round the middle; you cannot escape me. Tell me, of all the sons of Zeus, who had the stoutest heart, who performed the most doughty deeds?

  JUST DISCOURSE. None, in my opinion, surpassed Heracles.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Where have you ever seen cold baths called ‘Baths of

  Heracles’? And yet who was braver than he?

  JUST DISCOURSE. ’Tis because of such quibbles, that the baths are seen crowded with young folk, who chatter there the livelong day while the gymnasia remain empty.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Next you condemn the habit of frequenting t
he market-place, while I approve this. If it were wrong Homer would never have made Nestor speak in public as well as all his wise heroes. As for the art of speaking, he tells you, young men should not practise it; I hold the contrary. Furthermore he preaches chastity to them. Both precepts are equally harmful. Have you ever seen chastity of any use to anyone? Answer and try to confute me.

  JUST DISCOURSE. To many; for instance, Peleus won a sword thereby.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. A sword! Ah! what a fine present to make him! Poor wretch! Hyperbolus, the lamp-seller, thanks to his villainy, has gained more than … I do not know how many talents, but certainly no sword.

  JUST DISCOURSE. Peleus owed it to his chastity that he became the husband of Thetis.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. … who left him in the lurch, for he was not the most ardent; in those nocturnal sports between two sheets, which so please women, he possessed but little merit. Get you gone, you are but an old fool. But you, young man, just consider a little what this temperance means and the delights of which it deprives you — young fellows, women, play, dainty dishes, wine, boisterous laughter. And what is life worth without these? Then, if you happen to commit one of these faults inherent in human weakness, some seduction or adultery, and you are caught in the act, you are lost, if you cannot speak. But follow my teaching and you will be able to satisfy your passions, to dance, to laugh, to blush at nothing. Are you surprised in adultery? Then up and tell the husband you are not guilty, and recall to him the example of Zeus, who allowed himself to be conquered by love and by women. Being but a mortal, can you be stronger than a god?

  JUST DISCOURSE. And if your pupil gets impaled, his hairs plucked out, and he is seared with a hot ember, how are you going to prove to him that he is not a filthy debauchee?

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. And wherein lies the harm of being so?

  JUST DISCOURSE. Is there anything worse than to have such a character?

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Now what will you say, if I beat you even on this point?

  JUST DISCOURSE. I should certainly have to be silent then.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Well then, reply! Our advocates, what are they?

  JUST DISCOURSE. Low scum.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Nothing is more true. And our tragic poets?

  JUST DISCOURSE. Low scum.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Well said again. And our demagogues?

  JUST DISCOURSE. Low scum.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. You admit that you have spoken nonsense. And the spectators, what are they for the most part? Look at them.

  JUST DISCOURSE. I am looking at them.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. Well! What do you see?

  JUST DISCOURSE. By the gods, they are nearly all low scum. See, this one

  I know to be such and that one and that other with the long hair.

  UNJUST DISCOURSE. What have you to say, then?

  JUST DISCOURSE. I am beaten. Debauchees! in the name of the gods, receive my cloak; I pass over to your ranks.

  SOCRATES. Well then! do you take away your son or do you wish me to teach him how to speak?

  STREPSIADES. Teach him, chastise him and do not fail to sharpen his tongue well, on one side for petty law-suits and on the other for important cases.

  SOCRATES. Make yourself easy, I shall return to you an accomplished sophist.

  PHIDIPPIDES. Very pale then and thoroughly hang-dog-looking.

  STREPSIADES. Take him with you.

  PHIDIPPIDES. I do assure you, you will repent it.

  CHORUS. Judges, we are all about to tell you what you will gain by awarding us the crown as equity requires of you. In spring, when you wish to give your fields the first dressing, we will rain upon you first; the others shall wait. Then we will watch over your corn and over your vine-stocks; they will have no excess to fear, neither of heat nor of wet. But if a mortal dares to insult the goddesses of the Clouds, let him think of the ills we shall pour upon him. For him neither wine nor any harvest at all! Our terrible slings will mow down his young olive plants and his vines. If he is making bricks, it will rain, and our round hailstones will break the tiles of his roof. If he himself marries or any of his relations or friends, we shall cause rain to fall the whole night long. Verily, he would prefer to live in Egypt than to have given this iniquitous verdict.

  STREPSIADES. Another four, three, two days, then the eve, then the day, the fatal day of payment! I tremble, I quake, I shudder, for ’tis the day of the old moon and the new. Then all my creditors take the oath, pay their deposits, swear my downfall and my ruin. As for me, I beseech them to be reasonable, to be just, “My friend, do not demand this sum, wait a little for this other and give me time for this third one.” Then they will pretend that at this rate they will never be repaid, will accuse me of bad faith and will threaten me with the law. Well then, let them sue me! I care nothing for that, if only Phidippides has learnt to speak fluently. I go to find out, let me knock at the door of the school…. Ho! slave, slave!

  SOCRATES. Welcome! Strepsiades!

  STREPSIADES. Welcome! Socrates! But first take this sack (offers him a sack of flour); it is right to reward the master with some present. And my son, whom you took off lately, has he learnt this famous reasoning, tell me.

  SOCRATES. He has learnt it.

  STREPSIADES. What a good thing! Oh! thou divine Knavery!

  SOCRATES. You will win just as many causes as you choose.

  STREPSIADES. Even if I have borrowed before witnesses?

  SOCRATES. So much the better, even if there are a thousand of ‘em!

  STREPSIADES. Then I am going to shout with all my might. “Woe to the usurers, woe to their capital and their interest and their compound interest! You shall play me no more bad turns. My son is being taught there, his tongue is being sharpened into a double-edged weapon; he is my defender, the saviour of my house, the ruin of my foes! His poor father was crushed down with misfortune and he delivers him.” Go and call him to me quickly. Oh! my child! my dear little one! run forward to your father’s voice!

  SOCRATES. Here he is.

  STREPSIADES. Oh, my friend, my dearest friend!

  SOCRATES. Take your son, and get you gone.

  STREPSIADES. Oh, my son! oh! oh! what a pleasure to see your pallor! You are ready first to deny and then to contradict; ’tis as clear as noon. What a child of your country you are! How your lips quiver with the famous, “What have you to say now?” How well you know, I am certain, to put on the look of a victim, when it is you who are making both victims and dupes! and what a truly Attic glance! Come, ’tis for you to save me, seeing it is you who have ruined me.

  PHIDIPPIDES. What is it you fear then?

  STREPSIADES. The day of the old and the new.

  PHIDIPPIDES. Is there then a day of the old and the new?

  STREPSIADES. The day on which they threaten to pay deposit against me.

  PHIDIPPIDES. Then so much the worse for those who have deposited! for ’tis not possible for one day to be two.

  STREPSIADES. What?

  PHIDIPPIDES. Why, undoubtedly, unless a woman can be both old and young at the same time.

  STREPSIADES. But so runs the law.

  PHIDIPPIDES. I think the meaning of the law is quite misunderstood.

  STREPSIADES. What does it mean?

  PHIDIPPIDES. Old Solon loved the people.

  STREPSIADES. What has that to do with the old day and the new?

  PHIDIPPIDES. He has fixed two days for the summons, the last day of the old moon and the first day of the new; but the deposits must only be paid on the first day of the new moon.

  STREPSIADES. And why did he also name the last day of the old?

  PHIDIPPIDES. So, my dear sir, that the debtors, being there the day before, might free themselves by mutual agreement, or that else, if not, the creditor might begin his action on the morning of the new moon.

  STREPSIADES. Why then do the magistrates have the deposits paid on the last of the month and not the next day?

  PHIDIPPIDES. I think they do as
the gluttons do, who are the first to pounce upon the dishes. Being eager to carry off these deposits, they have them paid in a day too soon.

  STREPSIADES. Splendid! Ah! poor brutes, who serve for food to us clever folk! You are only down here to swell the number, true blockheads, sheep for shearing, heap of empty pots! Hence I will sound the note of victory for my son and myself. “Oh! happy, Strepsiades! what cleverness is thine! and what a son thou hast here!” Thus my friends and my neighbours will say, jealous at seeing me gain all my suits. But come in, I wish to regale you first.

  PASIAS (to his witness). A man should never lend a single obolus. ’Twould be better to put on a brazen face at the outset than to get entangled in such matters. I want to see my money again and I bring you here to-day to attest the loan. I am going to make a foe of a neighbour; but, as long as I live, I do not wish my country to have to blush for me. Come, I am going to summon Strepsiades.

  STREPSIADES. Who is this?

  PASIAS. … for the old day and the new.

  STREPSIADES. I call you to witness, that he has named two days. What do you want of me?

  PASIAS. I claim of you the twelve minae, which you borrowed from me to buy the dapple-grey horse.

  STREPSIADES. A horse! do you hear him? I, who detest horses, as is well known.

  PASIAS. I call Zeus to witness, that you swore by the gods to return them to me.

  STREPSIADES. Because at that time, by Zeus! Phidippides did not yet know the irrefutable argument.

  PASIAS. Would you deny the debt on that account?

  STREPSIADES. If not, what use is his science to me?

  PASIAS. Will you dare to swear by the gods that you owe me nothing?

  STREPSIADES. By which gods?

  PASIAS. By Zeus, Hermes and Posidon!

  STREPSIADES. Why, I would give three obols for the pleasure of swearing by them.

  PASIAS. Woe upon you, impudent knave!

  STREPSIADES. Oh! what a fine wine-skin you would make if flayed!

  PASIAS. Heaven! he jeers at me!

  STREPSIADES. It would hold six gallons easily.

  PASIAS. By great Zeus! by all the gods! you shall not scoff at me with impunity.