by Aristophanes
A JUST MAN. Come, my child, come with me. Let us go and find the god.
CHREMYLUS. Who comes here?
JUST MAN. A man who was once wretched, but now is happy.
CHREMYLUS. A just man then?
JUST MAN. You have it.
CHREMYLUS. Well! what do you want?
JUST MAN. I come to thank the god for all the blessings he has showered on me. My father had left me a fairly decent fortune, and I helped those of my friends who were in want; ’twas, to my thinking, the most useful thing I could do with my fortune.
CHREMYLUS. And you were quickly ruined?
JUST MAN. Entirely.
CHREMYLUS. Since then you have been living in misery?
JUST MAN. In truth I have; I thought I could count, in case of need, upon the friends whose property I had helped, but they turned their backs upon me and pretended not to see me.
CHREMYLUS. They laughed at you, ’tis evident.
JUST MAN. Just so. With my empty coffers, I had no more friends.
CHREMYLUS. But your lot has changed.
JUST MAN. Yes, and so I come to the god to make him the acts of gratitude that are his due.
CHREMYLUS. But with what object now do you bring this old cloak, which your slave is carrying? Tell me.
JUST MAN. I wish to dedicate it to the god.
CHREMYLUS. Were you initiated into the Great Mysteries in that cloak?
JUST MAN. No, but I shivered in it for thirteen years.
CHREMYLUS. And this footwear?
JUST MAN. These also are my winter companions.
CHREMYLUS. And you wish to dedicate them too?
JUST MAN. Unquestionably.
CHREMYLUS. Fine presents to offer to the god!
AN INFORMER. Alas! alas! I am a lost man. Ah! thrice, four, five, twelve times, or rather ten thousand times unhappy fate! Why, why must fortune deal me such rough blows?
CHREMYLUS. Oh, Apollo, my tutelary! oh! ye favourable gods! what has overtaken this man?
INFORMER. Ah! am I not deserving of pity? I have lost everything; this cursed god has stripped me bare. Ah! if there be justice in heaven, he shall be struck blind again.
JUST MAN. Methinks I know what’s the matter. If this man is unfortunate, ’tis because he’s of little account and small honesty; and i’ faith he looks it too.
CHREMYLUS. Then, by Zeus! his plight is but just.
INFORMER. He promised that if he recovered his sight, he would enrich us all unaided; whereas he has ruined more than one.
CHREMYLUS. But whom has he thus ill-used?
INFORMER. Me.
CHREMYLUS. You were doubtless a villainous thief then.
INFORMER (to Chremylus and Cario). ’Tis rather you yourselves who were such wretches; I am certain you have got my money.
CHREMYLUS. Ha! by Demeter! ’tis an informer. What impudence!
CARIO. He’s ravenously hungry, that’s certain.
INFORMER. You shall follow me this very instant to the marketplace, where the torture of the wheel shall force the confession of your misdeeds from you.
CARIO. Ha! look out for yourself!
JUST MAN. By Zeus the Deliverer, what gratitude all Greeks owe to Plutus, if he destroys these vile informers!
INFORMER. You are laughing at me. Ho! ho! I denounce you as their accomplice. Where did you steal that new cloak from? Yesterday I saw you with one utterly worn out.
JUST MAN. I fear you not, thanks to this ring, for which I paid
Eudemus a drachma.
CHREMYLUS. Ah! there’s no ring to preserve you from the informer’s bite.
INFORMER. The insolent wretches! But, my fine jokers, you have not told me what you are up to here. Nothing good, I’ll be bound.
CHREMYLUS. Nothing of any good for you, be sure of that.
INFORMER. By Zeus! you’re going to dine at my expense!
CHREMYLUS. You vile impostor, may you burst with an empty belly, both you and your witness.
INFORMER. You deny it? I reckon, you villians, that there is much salt fish and roast meat in this house. Hu! hu! hu! hu! hu! hu! (He sniffs.)
CHREMYLUS. Can you smell anything, rascal?
INFORMER. Can such outrages be borne, oh, Zeus! Ye gods! how cruel it is to see me treated thus, when I am such an honest fellow and such a good citizen!
CHREMYLUS. You an honest man! you a good citizen!
INFORMER. A better one than any.
CHREMYLUS. Ah! well then, answer my questions.
INFORMER. Concerning what?
CHREMYLUS. Are you a husbandman?
INFORMER. D’ye take me for a fool?
CHREMYLUS. A merchant?
INFORMER. I assume the title, when it serves me.
CHREMYLUS. Do you ply any trade?
INFORMER. No, most assuredly not!
CHREMYLUS. Then how do you live, if you do nothing?
INFORMER. I superintend public and private business.
CHREMYLUS. You! And by what right, pray?
INFORMER. Because it pleases me to do so.
CHREMYLUS. Like a thief you sneak yourself in where you have no business.
You are hated by all and you claim to be an honest man?
INFORMER. What, you fool? I have not the right to dedicate myself entirely to my country’s service?
CHREMYLUS. Is the country served by vile intrigue?
INFORMER. It is served by watching that the established law is observed — by allowing no one to violate it.
CHREMYLUS. That’s the duty of the tribunals; they are established to that end.
INFORMER. And who is the prosecutor before the dicasts?
CHREMYLUS. Whoever wishes to be.
INFORMER. Well then, ’tis I who choose to be prosecutor; and thus all public affairs fall within my province.
CHREMYLUS. I pity Athens for being in such vile clutches. But would you not prefer to live quietly and free from all care and anxiety?
INFORMER. To do nothing is to live an animal’s life.
CHREMYLUS. Thus you will not change your mode of life?
INFORMER. No, though they gave me Plutus himself and the silphium of
Battus.
CHREMYLUS (to the Informer). Come, quick, off with your cloak.
CARIO. Hi! friend! ’tis you they are speaking to.
CHREMYLUS. Off with your shoes.
CARIO. All this is addressed to you.
INFORMER. Very well! let one of you come near me, if he dares.
CARIO. I dare.
INFORMER. Alas! I am robbed of my clothes in full daylight.
CARIO. That’s what comes of meddling with other folk’s business and living at their expense.
INFORMER (to his witness). You see what is happening; I call you to witness.
CHREMYLUS. Look how the witness whom you brought is taking to his heels.
INFORMER. Great gods! I am all alone and they assault me.
CARIO. Shout away!
INFORMER. Oh! woe, woe is me!
CARIO. Give me that old ragged cloak, that I may dress out the informer.
JUST MAN. No, no; I have dedicated it to Plutus.
CARIO. And where would your offering be better bestowed than on the shoulders of a rascal and a thief? To Plutus fine, rich cloaks should be given.
JUST MAN. And what then shall be done with these shoes? Tell me.
CARIO. I will nail them to his brow as gifts are nailed to the trunks of the wild olive.
INFORMER. I’m off, for you are the strongest, I own. But if I find someone to join me, let him be as weak as he will, I will summon this god, who thinks himself so strong, before the Court this very day, and denounce him as manifestly guilty of overturning the democracy by his will alone and without the consent of the Senate or the popular Assembly.
JUST MAN. Now that you are rigged out from head to foot with my old clothes, hasten to the bath and stand there in the front row to warm yourself better; ’tis the place I formerly had.
CHREMYLUS.
Ah! the bath-man would grip you by the testicles and fling you through the door; he would only need to see you to appraise you at your true value…. But let us go in, friend, that you may address your thanksgivings to the god.
CHORUS. [Missing.]
AN OLD WOMAN. Dear old men, am I near the house where the new god lives, or have I missed the road?
CHORUS. You are at his door, my pretty little maid, who question us so sweetly.
OLD WOMAN. Then I will summon someone in the house.
CHREMYLUS. ’Tis needless! I am here myself. But what matter brings you here?
OLD WOMAN. Ah! a cruel, unjust fate! My dear friend, this god has made life unbearable to me through ceasing to be blind.
CHREMYLUS. What does this mean? Can you be a female informer?
OLD WOMAN. Most certainly not.
CHREMYLUS. Have you not drunk up your money then?
OLD WOMAN. You are mocking me! Nay! I am being devoured with a consuming fire.
CHREMYLUS. Then tell me what is consuming you so fiercely.
OLD WOMAN. Listen! I loved a young man, who was poor, but so handsome, so well-built, so honest! He readily gave way to all I desired and acquitted himself so well! I, for my part, refused him nothing.
CHREMYLUS. And what did he generally ask of you.
OLD WOMAN. Very little; he bore himself towards me with astonishing discretion! perchance twenty drachmae for a cloak or eight for footwear; sometimes he begged me to buy tunics for his sisters or a little mantle for his mother; at times he needed four bushels of corn.
CHREMYLUS. ’Twas very little, in truth; I admire his modesty.
OLD WOMAN. And ’twas not as a reward for his complacency that he ever asked me for anything, but as a matter of pure friendship; a cloak I had given would remind him from whom he had got it.
CHREMYLUS. ’Twas a fellow who loved you madly.
OLD WOMAN. But ’tis no longer so, for the faithless wretch has sadly altered! I had sent him this cake with the sweetmeats you see here on this dish and let him know that I would visit him in the evening….
CHREMYLUS. Well?
OLD WOMAN. He sent me back my presents and added this tart to them, on condition that I never set foot in his house again. Besides, he sent me this message, “Once upon a time the Milesians were brave.”
CHREMYLUS. An honest lad, indeed! But what would you? When poor, he would devour anything; now he is rich, he no longer cares for lentils.
OLD WOMAN. Formerly he came to me every day.
CHREMYLUS. To see if you were being buried?
OLD WOMAN. No! he longed to hear the sound of my voice.
CHREMYLUS. And to carry off some present.
OLD WOMAN. If I was downcast, he would call me his little duck or his little dove in a most tender manner….
CHREMYLUS. And then would ask for the wherewithal to buy a pair of shoes.
OLD WOMAN. When I was at the Mysteries of Eleusis in a carriage, someone looked at me; he was so jealous that he beat me the whole of that day.
CHREMYLUS. ’Twas because he liked to feed alone.
OLD WOMAN. He told me I had very beautiful hands.
CHREMYLUS. Aye, no doubt, when they handed him twenty drachmae.
OLD WOMAN. That my whole body breathed a sweet perfume.
CHREMYLUS. Yes, like enough, if you poured him out Thasian wine.
OLD WOMAN. That my glance was gentle and charming.
CHREMYLUS. ’Twas no fool. He knew how to drag drachmae from a hot-blooded old woman.
OLD WOMAN. Ah! the god has done very, very wrong, saying he would support the victims of injustice.
CHREMYLUS. Well, what must he do? Speak, and it shall be done.
OLD WOMAN. ’Tis right to compel him, whom I have loaded with benefits, to repay them in his turn; if not, he does not merit the least of the god’s favours.
CHREMYLUS. And did he not do this every night?
OLD WOMAN. He swore he would never leave me, as long as I lived.
CHREMYLUS. Aye, rightly; but he thinks you are no longer alive.
OLD WOMAN. Ah! friend, I am pining away with grief.
CHREMYLUS. You are rotting away, it seems to me.
OLD WOMAN. I have grown so thin, I could slip through a ring.
CHREMYLUS. Yes, if ‘twere as large as the hoop of a sieve.
OLD WOMAN. But here is the youth, the cause of my complaint; he looks as though he were going to a festival.
CHREMYLUS. Yes, if his chaplet and his torch are any guides.
YOUTH. Greeting to you.
OLD WOMAN. What does he say?
YOUTH. My ancient old dear, you have grown white very quickly, by heaven!
OLD WOMAN. Oh! what an insult!
CHREMYLUS. It is a long time, then, since he saw you?
OLD WOMAN. A long time? My god! he was with me yesterday.
CHREMYLUS. It must be, then, that, unlike other people, he sees more clearly when he’s drunk.
OLD WOMAN. No, but I have always known him for an insolent fellow.
YOUTH. Oh! divine Posidon! Oh, ye gods of old age! what wrinkles she has on her face!
OLD WOMAN. Oh! oh! keep your distance with that torch.
CHREMYLUS. Yes, ’twould be as well; if a single spark were to reach her, she would catch alight like an old olive branch.
YOUTH. I propose to have a game with you.
OLD WOMAN. Where, naughty boy?
YOUTH. Here. Take some nuts in your hand.
OLD WOMAN. What game is this?
YOUTH. Let’s play at guessing how many teeth you have.
CHREMYLUS. Ah! I’ll tell you; she’s got three, or perhaps four.
YOUTH. Pay up; you’ve lost! she has only one single grinder.
OLD WOMAN. You wretch! you’re not in your right senses. Do you insult me thus before this crowd?
YOUTH. I am washing you thoroughly; ’tis doing you a service.
CHREMYLUS. No, no! as she is there, she can still deceive; but if this white-lead is washed off, her wrinkles would come out plainly.
OLD WOMAN. You are only an old fool!
YOUTH. Ah! he is playing the gallant, he is fondling your breasts, and thinks I do not see it.
OLD WOMAN. Oh! no, by Aphrodité, no, you naughty jealous fellow.
CHREMYLUS. Oh! most certainly not, by Hecaté! Verily and indeed I would need to be mad! But, young man, I cannot forgive you, if you cast off this beautiful child.
YOUTH. Why, I adore her.
CHREMYLUS. But nevertheless she accuses you …
YOUTH. Accuses me of what?
CHREMYLUS. … of having told her insolently, “Once upon a time the
Milesians were brave.”
YOUTH. Oh! I shall not dispute with you about her.
CHREMYLUS. Why not?
YOUTH. Out of respect for your age; with anyone but you, I should not be so easy; come, take the girl and be happy.
CHREMYLUS. I see, I see; you don’t want her any more.
OLD WOMAN. Nay! this is a thing that cannot be allowed.
YOUTH. I cannot argue with a woman, who has been making love these thirteen thousand years.
CHREMYLUS. Yet, since you liked the wine, you should now consume the lees.
YOUTH. But these lees are quite rancid and fusty.
CHREMYLUS. Pass them through a straining-cloth; they’ll clarify.
YOUTH. But I want to go in with you to offer these chaplets to the god.
OLD WOMAN. And I too have something to tell him.
YOUTH. Then I don’t enter.
CHREMYLUS. Come, have no fear; she won’t harm you.
YOUTH. ’Tis true; I’ve been managing the old bark long enough.
OLD WOMAN. Go in; I’ll follow after you.
CHREMYLUS. Good gods! that old hag has fastened herself to her youth like a limpet to its rock.
CHORUS. [Missing.]
CARIO (opening the door). Who knocks at the door? Halloa! I see no one; ’twas then by chance it gave fo
rth that plaintive tone.
HERMES (to Carlo, who is about to close the door). Cario! stop!
CARIO. Eh! friend, was it you who knocked so loudly? Tell me.
HERMES. No, I was going to knock and you forestalled me by opening. Come, call your master quick, then his wife and his children, then his slave and his dog, then thyself and his pig.
CARIO. And what’s it all about?
HERMES. It’s about this, rascal! Zeus wants to serve you all with the same sauce and hurl the lot of you into the Barathrum.
CARIO. Have a care for your tongue, you bearer of ill tidings! But why does he want to treat us in that scurvy fashion?
HERMES. Because you have committed the most dreadful crime. Since Plutus has recovered his sight, there is nothing for us other gods, neither incense, nor laurels, nor cakes, nor victims, nor anything in the world.
CARIO. And you will never be offered anything more; you governed us too ill.
HERMES. I care nothing at all about the other gods, but ’tis myself. I tell you I am dying of hunger.
CARIO. That’s reasoning like a wise fellow.
HERMES. Formerly, from earliest dawn, I was offered all sorts of good things in the wine-shops, — wine-cakes, honey, dried figs, in short, dishes worthy of Hermes. Now, I lie the livelong day on my back, with my legs in the air, famishing.
CARIO. And quite right too, for you often had them punished who treated you so well.
HERMES. Ah! the lovely cake they used to knead for me on the fourth of the month!
CARIO. You recall it vainly; your regrets are useless! there’ll be no more cake.
HERMES. Ah! the ham I was wont to devour!
CARIO. Well then! make use of your legs and hop on one leg upon the wine-skin, to while away the time.
HERMES. Oh! the grilled entrails I used to swallow down!
CARIO. Your own have got the colic, methinks.
HERMES. Oh! the delicious tipple, half wine, half water!
CARIO. Here, swallow that and be off. (He discharges a fart.)
HERMES. Would you do a friend a service?
CARIO. Willingly, if I can.
HERMES. Give me some well-baked bread and a big hunk of the victims they are sacrificing in your house.
CARIO. That would be stealing.
HERMES. Do you forget, then, how I used to take care he knew nothing about it when you were stealing something from your master?
