The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

HIEROCLES. What oracle ordered you to burn these joints of mutton in honour of the gods?

  TRYGAEUS. This grand oracle of Homer’s: “Thus vanished the dark war-clouds and we offered a sacrifice to new-born Peace. When the flame had consumed the thighs of the victim and its inwards had appeased our hunger, we poured out the libations of wine.” ’Twas I who arranged the sacred rites, but none offered the shining cup to the diviner.

  HIEROCLES. I care little for that. ’Tis not the Sibyl who spoke it.

  TRYGAEUS. Wise Homer has also said: “He who delights in the horrors of civil war has neither country nor laws nor home.” What noble words!

  HIEROCLES. Beware lest the kite turn your brain and rob….

  TRYGAEUS. Look out, slave! This oracle threatens our meat. Quick, pour the libation, and give me some of the inwards.

  HIEROCLES. I too will help myself to a bit, if you like.

  TRYGAEUS. The libation! the libation!

  HIEROCLES. Pour out also for me and give me some of this meat.

  TRYGAEUS. No, the blessed gods won’t allow it yet; let us drink; and as for you, get you gone, for ’tis their will. Mighty Peace! stay ever in our midst.

  HIEROCLES. Bring the tongue hither.

  TRYGAEUS. Relieve us of your own.

  HIEROCLES. The libation.

  TRYGAEUS. Here! and this into the bargain (strikes him).

  HIEROCLES. You will not give me any meat?

  TRYGAEUS. We cannot give you any until the wolf unites with the sheep.

  HIEROCLES. I will embrace your knees.

  TRYGAEUS. ’Tis lost labour, good fellow; you will never smooth the rough spikes of the hedgehog…. Come, spectators, join us in our feast.

  HIEROCLES. And what am I to do?

  TRYGAEUS. You? go and eat the Sibyl.

  HIEROCLES. No, by the Earth! no, you shall not eat without me; if you do not give, I take; ’tis common property.

  TRYGAEUS (to the servant). Strike, strike this Bacis, this humbugging soothsayer.

  HIEROCLES. I take to witness….

  TRYGAEUS. And I also, that you are a glutton and an impostor. Hold him tight and beat the impostor with a stick.

  SERVANT. You look to that; I will snatch the skin from him, which he has stolen from us. Are you going to let go that skin, you priest from hell! do you hear! Oh! what a fine crow has come from Oreus! Stretch your wings quickly for Elymnium.

  CHORUS. Oh! joy, joy! no more helmet, no more cheese nor onions! No, I have no passion for battles; what I love, is to drink with good comrades in the corner by the fire when good dry wood, cut in the height of the summer, is crackling; it is to cook pease on the coals and beechnuts among the embers; ’tis to kiss our pretty Thracian while my wife is at the bath. Nothing is more pleasing, when the rain is sprouting our sowings, than to chat with some friend, saying, “Tell me, Comarchides, what shall we do? I would willingly drink myself, while the heavens are watering our fields. Come, wife, cook three measures of beans, adding to them a little wheat, and give us some figs. Syra! call Manes off the fields, ’tis impossible to prune the vine or to align the ridges, for the ground is too wet to-day. Let someone bring me the thrush and those two chaffinches; there were also some curds and four pieces of hare, unless the cat stole them last evening, for I know not what the infernal noise was that I heard in the house. Serve up three of the pieces for me, slave, and give the fourth to my father. Go and ask Aeschinades for some myrtle branches with berries on them, and then, for ’tis the same road, you will invite Charinades to come and drink with me to the honour of the gods who watch over our crops.”

  When the grasshopper sings its dulcet tune, I love to see the Lemnian vines beginning to ripen, for ’tis the earliest plant of all. I love likewise to watch the fig filling out, and when it has reached maturity I eat with appreciation and exclaim, “Oh! delightful season!” Then too I bruise some thyme and infuse it in water. Indeed I grow a great deal fatter passing the summer this way than in watching a cursed captain with his three plumes and his military cloak of a startling crimson (he calls it true Sardian purple), which he takes care to dye himself with Cyzicus saffron in a battle; then he is the first to run away, shaking his plumes like a great yellow prancing cock, while I am left to watch the nets. Once back again in Athens, these brave fellows behave abominably; they write down these, they scratch through others, and this backwards and forwards two or three times at random. The departure is set for to-morrow, and some citizen has brought no provisions, because he didn’t know he had to go; he stops in front of the statue of Pandion, reads his name, is dumbfounded and starts away at a run, weeping bitter tears. The townsfolk are less ill-used, but that is how the husbandmen are treated by these men of war, the hated of the gods and of men, who know nothing but how to throw away their shield. For this reason, if it please heaven, I propose to call these rascals to account, for they are lions in times of peace, but sneaking foxes when it comes to fighting.

  TRYGAEUS. Oh! oh! what a crowd for the nuptial feast! Here! dust the tables with this crest, which is good for nothing else now. Halloa! produce the cakes, the thrushes, plenty of good jugged hare and the little loaves.

  A SICKLE-MAKER. Trygaeus, where is Trygaeus?

  TRYGAEUS. I am cooking the thrushes.

  SICKLE-MAKER. Trygaeus, my best of friends, what a fine stroke of business you have done for me by bringing back Peace! Formerly my sickles would not have sold at an obolus apiece, to-day I am being paid fifty drachmas for every one. And here is a neighbour who is selling his casks for the country at three drachmae each. So come, Trygaeus, take as many sickles and casks as you will for nothing. Accept them for nothing; ’tis because of our handsome profits on our sales that we offer you these wedding presents.

  TRYGAEUS. Thanks. Put them all down inside there, and come along quick to the banquet. Ah! do you see that armourer yonder coming with a wry face?

  A CREST-MAKER. Alas! alas! Trygaeus, you have ruined me utterly.

  TRYGAEUS. What! won’t the crests go any more, friend?

  CREST-MAKER. You have killed my business, my livelihood, and that of this poor lance-maker too.

  TRYGAEUS. Come, come, what are you asking for these two crests?

  CREST-MAKER. What do you bid for them?

  TRYGAEUS. What do I bid? Oh! I am ashamed to say. Still, as the clasp is of good workmanship, I would give two, even three measures of dried figs; I could use ‘em for dusting the table.

  CREST-MAKER. All right, tell them to bring me the dried figs; ’tis always better than nothing.

  TRYGAEUS. Take them away, be off with your crests and get you gone; they are moulting, they are losing all their hair; I would not give a single fig for them.

  A BREASTPLATE-MAKER. Good gods, what am I going to do with this fine ten-minae breast-plate, which is so splendidly made?

  TRYGAEUS. Oh, you will lose nothing over it.

  BREASTPLATE-MAKER. I will sell it you at cost price.

  TRYGAEUS. ’Twould be very useful as a night-stool….

  BREASTPLATE-MAKER. Cease your insults, both to me and my wares.

  TRYGAEUS. … if propped on three stones. Look, ’tis admirable.

  BREASTPLATE-MAKER. But how can you wipe, idiot?

  TRYGAEUS. I can pass one hand through here, and the other there, and so….

  BREASTPLATE-MAKER. What! do you wipe with both hands?

  TRYGAEUS. Aye, so that I may not be accused of robbing the State, by blocking up an oar-hole in the galley.

  BREASTPLATE-MAKER. So you would pay ten minae for a night-stool?

  TRYGAEUS. Undoubtedly, you rascal. Do you think I would sell my rump for a thousand drachmae?

  BREASTPLATE-MAKER. Come, have the money paid over to me.

  TRYGAEUS. No, friend; I find it hurts me to sit on. Take it away, I won’t buy.

  A TRUMPET-MAKER. What is to be done with this trumpet, for which I gave sixty drachmae the other day?

  TRYGAEUS. Pour lead into the hollow and fit a good, long stick to the
top; and you will have a balanced cottabos.

  TRUMPET-MAKER. Ha! would you mock me?

  TRYGAEUS. Well, here’s another notion. Pour in lead as I said, add here a dish hung on strings, and you will have a balance for weighing the figs which you give your slaves in the fields.

  A HELMET-MAKER. Cursed fate! I am ruined. Here are helmets, for which I gave a mina each. What am I to do with them? who will buy them?

  TRYGAEUS. Go and sell them to the Egyptians; they will do for measuring loosening medicines.

  A SPEAR-MAKER. Ah! poor helmet-maker, things are indeed in a bad way.

  TRYGAEUS. That man has no cause for complaint.

  SPEAR-MAKER. But helmets will be no more used.

  TRYGAEUS. Let him learn to fit a handle to them and he can sell them for more money.

  SPEAR-MAKER. Let us be off, comrade.

  TRYGAEUS. No, I want to buy these spears.

  SPEAR-MAKER. What will you give?

  TRYGAEUS. If they could be split in two, I would take them at a drachma per hundred to use as vine-props.

  SPEAR-MAKER. The insolent dog! Let us go, friend.

  TRYGAEUS. Ah! here come the guests, children from the table to relieve themselves; I fancy they also want to hum over what they will be singing presently. Hi! child! what do you reckon to sing? Stand there and give me the opening line.

  THE SON OF LAMACHUS. “Glory to the young warriors….”

  TRYGAEUS. Oh! leave off about your young warriors, you little wretch; we are at peace and you are an idiot and a rascal.

  SON OF LAMACHUS. “The skirmish begins, the hollow bucklers clash against each other.”

  TRYGAEUS. Bucklers! Leave me in peace with your bucklers.

  SON OF LAMACHUS. “And then there came groanings and shouts of victory.”

  TRYGAEUS. Groanings! ah! by Bacchus! look out for yourself, you cursed squaller, if you start wearying us again with your groanings and hollow bucklers.

  SON OF LAMACHUS. Then what should I sing? Tell me what pleases you.

  TRYGAEUS. “’Tis thus they feasted on the flesh of oxen,” or something similar, as, for instance, “Everything that could tickle the palate was placed on the table.”

  SON OF LAMACHUS. “’Tis thus they feasted on the flesh of oxen and, tired of warfare, unharnessed their foaming steeds.”

  TRYGAEUS. That’s splendid; tired of warfare, they seat themselves at table; sing, sing to us how they still go on eating after they are satiated.

  SON OF LAMACHUS. “The meal over, they girded themselves …”

  TRYGAEUS. With good wine, no doubt?

  SON OF LAMACHUS. “… with armour and rushed forth from the towers, and a terrible shout arose.”

  TRYGAEUS. Get you gone, you little scapegrace, you and your battles! You sing of nothing but warfare. Who is your father then?

  SON OF LAMACHUS. My father?

  TRYGAEUS. Why yes, your father.

  SON OF LAMACHUS. I am Lamachus’ son.

  TRYGAEUS. Oh! oh! I could indeed have sworn, when I was listening to you, that you were the son of some warrior who dreams of nothing but wounds and bruises, of some Boulomachus or Clausimachus; go and sing your plaguey songs to the spearmen…. Where is the son of Cleonymus? Sing me something before going back to the feast. I am at least certain he will not sing of battles, for his father is far too careful a man.

  SON OF CLEONYMUS. “An inhabitant of Saïs is parading with the spotless shield which I regret to say I have thrown into a thicket.”

  TRYGAEUS. Tell me, you little good-for-nothing, are you singing that for your father?

  SON or CLEONYMUS. “But I saved my life.”

  TRYGAEUS. And dishonoured your family. But let us go in; I am very certain, that being the son of such a father, you will never forget this song of the buckler. You, who remain to the feast, ’tis your duty to devour dish after dish and not to ply empty jaws. Come, put heart into the work and eat with your mouths full. For, believe me, poor friends, white teeth are useless furniture, if they chew nothing.

  CHORUS. Never fear; thanks all the same for your good advice.

  TRYGAEUS. You, who yesterday were dying of hunger, come, stuff yourselves with this fine hare-stew; ’tis not every day that we find cakes lying neglected. Eat, eat, or I predict you will soon regret it.

  CHORUS. Silence! Keep silence! Here is the bride about to appear! Take nuptial torches and let all rejoice and join in our songs. Then, when we have danced, clinked our cups and thrown Hyperbolus through the doorway, we will carry back all our farming tools to the fields and shall pray the gods to give wealth to the Greeks and to cause us all to gather in an abundant barley harvest, enjoy a noble vintage, to grant that we may choke with good figs, that our wives may prove fruitful, that in fact we may recover all our lost blessings, and that the sparkling fire may be restored to the hearth.

  TRYGAEUS. Come, wife, to the fields and seek, my beauty, to brighten and enliven my nights. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  CHORUS. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus! oh! thrice happy man, who so well deserve your good fortune!

  TRYGAEUS. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  CHORUS. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  FIRST SEMI-CHORUS. What shall we do to her?

  SECOND SEMI-CHORUS. What shall we do to her?

  FIRST SEMI-CHORUS. We will gather her kisses.

  SECOND SEMI-CHORUS. We will gather her kisses.

  CHORUS. Come, comrades, we who are in the first row, let us pick up the bridegroom and carry him in triumph. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  TRYGAEUS. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  CHORUS. You shall have a fine house, no cares and the finest of figs. Oh!

  Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  TRYGAEUS. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  CHORUS. The bridegroom’s fig is great and thick; the bride’s is very soft and tender.

  TRYGAEUS. While eating and drinking deep draughts of wine, continue to repeat: Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  CHORUS. Oh! Hymen! oh! Hymenaeus!

  TRYGAEUS. Farewell, farewell, my friends. All who come with me shall have cakes galore.

  THE BIRDS

  Anonymous translation for the Athenian Society, London, 1912

  This famous comedy was first performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia, where it won second prize. Unlike Aristophanes’ other early plays, The Birds includes no direct mention of the Peloponnesian War and there are few references to Athenian politics, though it was staged not long after the commencement of the Sicilian Expedition, an ambitious military campaign that had greatly increased Athenian commitment to the war effort. It is the longest of Aristophanes’ surviving plays, providing a humorous fantasy, celebrated for its remarkable depiction of birds and imaginative songs.

  The play begins with two middle-aged men stumbling across a hillside wilderness, guided by a pet crow and a pet jackdaw. One of them advises the audience that they are fed up with life in Athens, where people do nothing all day but argue over laws, and they are looking for Tereus, a king who was once metamorphosed into the Hoopoe, as they feel he might help them find a better life somewhere else. Just then a very large and fearsome bird emerges from a camouflaged bower, demanding to know what they are up to and accusing them of being bird-catchers. The bird is in fact the Hoopoe’s servant and the men convince him to fetch his master.

  Moments later Tereus himself appears, who is happy to discuss their plight and one of the men has a brilliant idea: the birds should stop flying about mindlessly and instead should build themselves a great city in the sky, since this would not only allow them to enslave men, it would also enable them to blockade the Olympian gods in the same way that the Athenians had recently starved the island of Melos into submission. The Hoopoe likes the idea and he agrees to help implement it, provided of course that the two Athenians can first convince all the other birds. He calls to his wife, the Nightingale, and bids her to begin her celestial music. The notes of an unseen flute swell through the theatre and meanwhile the Hoopoe provid
es the lyrics, summoning the birds of the world from their different habitats — birds of the fields, mountain birds and birds of the trees, birds of the waterways, marshes and seas. These soon begin to appear and each of them is identified by name on arrival. Four of them dance together while the rest form into a Chorus. In time, the birds are completely won over and urge the Athenians to lead them in their war against the usurping gods. They then set about building their city-in-the-sky, which they decide to call Νεφελοκοκκυγία – Cloudcuckooland – the original source of this famous expression.

  An Attic vase depicting a scene from this famous play

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE BIRDS

  A Willamette University Theatre production of The Birds in 1986

  INTRODUCTION

  The Birds’ differs markedly from all the other Comedies of Aristophanes which have come down to us in subject and general conception. It is just an extravaganza pure and simple — a graceful, whimsical theme chosen expressly for the sake of the opportunities it afforded of bright, amusing dialogue, pleasing lyrical interludes, and charming displays of brilliant stage effects and pretty dresses. Unlike other plays of the same Author, there is here apparently no serious political motif underlying the surface burlesque and buffoonery.

  Some critics, it is true, profess to find in it a reference to the unfortunate Sicilian Expedition, then in progress, and a prophecy of its failure and the political downfall of Alcibiades. But as a matter of fact, the whole thing seems rather an attempt on the dramatist’s part to relieve the overwrought minds of his fellow-citizens, anxious and discouraged at the unsatisfactory reports from before Syracuse, by a work conceived in a lighter vein than usual and mainly unconnected with contemporary realities.

  The play was produced in the year 414 B.C., just when success or failure in Sicily hung in the balance, though already the outlook was gloomy, and many circumstances pointed to impending disaster. Moreover, the public conscience was still shocked and perturbed over the mysterious affair of the mutilation of the Hermae, which had occurred immediately before the sailing of the fleet, and strongly suspicious of Alcibiades’ participation in the outrage. In spite of the inherent charm of the subject, the splendid outbursts of lyrical poetry in some of the choruses and the beauty of the scenery and costumes, ‘The Birds’ failed to win the first prize. This was acclaimed to a play of Aristophanes’ rival, Amipsias, the title of which, ‘The Comastae,’ or ‘Revellers,’ “seems to imply that the chief interest was derived from direct allusions to the outrage above mentioned and to the individuals suspected to have been engaged in it.”