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Part III
Part III
Chor. Come, Muse, to our mystical Chorus, O, come to the joy of my song,
O, see on the benches before us that countless and wonderful throng,
Where wits by the thousand abide, with more than a Cleophons` pride -
On the lips of that foreigner base, of Athens the bane and disgrace,
There is shrieking, his kinsman by race,
The garrulous swallow of Thrace;
From the perch of exotic descent,
Rejoicing her sorrow to vent,
She pours, to her spirit`s content, a nightingale`s woful lament
That e`en though the voting be equal, his ruin will soon be the sequel.
Well it suits the holy Chorus evermore with counsel wise
To exhort and teach the city; this we therefore now advise -
End the townsmen`s apprehensions; equalize the rights of all;
If by Phrynichus` wrestlings some perchance sustained a fall,
Yet to these `tis surely open, having put away their sin,
For their slips and vacillations pardon at your hands to win.
Give your brethren back their franchise. Sin and shame it were that slaves,
Who have once with stern devotion fought your battle on the waves,
Should be straightway lords and masters, yea, Plataeans fully blown -
Not that this deserves our censure; there I praise you; there alone
Has the city, in her anguish, policy and wisdom shown -
Nay, but these, of old accustomed on our ships to fight and win
(They, their fathers too before them), these, our very kith and kin,
You should likewise, when they ask you, pardon for their single sin.
O, by nature best and wisest, O, relax your jealous ire,
Let us all the world as kinsfolk and as citizens acquire,
All who on our ships will battle well and bravely by our side.
If we cocker up our city, narrowing her with senseless pride,
Now when she is rocked and reeling in the cradles of the sea,
Here again will after ages deem we acted brainlessly.
And O, if I`m able to scan the habits and life of a man
Who shall rue his iniquities soon! not long shall that little baboon,
That Cleigenes shifty and small, the wickedest bath-man of all
Who are lords of the earth - which is brought from the isle of Cimolus, and
wrought
With nitre and lye into soap -
Not long shall he vex us, I hope.
And this the unlucky one knows,
Yet ventures a peace to oppose,
And being addicted to blows, he carries a stick as he goes,
Lest while he is tipsy and reeling, some robber his cloak should be stealing.
Often has it crossed my fancy, that the city loves to deal
With the very best and noblest members of her commonwealth,
Just as with our ancient coinage, and the newly minted gold.
Yea, for these, our sterling pieces, all of pure Athenian mould,
All of perfect die and metal, all the fairest of the fair,
All of workmanship unequalled, proved and valued everywhere
Both amongst our own Hellenes and Barbarians far away,
These we use not: but the worthless pinchbeck coins of yesterday,
Vilest die and basest metal, now we always use instead.
Even so, our sterling townsmen, nobly born and nobly bred,
Men of worth and rank and mettle, men of honourable fame,
Trained in every liberal science, choral dance, and manly game,
These we treat with scorn and insult, but the strangers newliest come,
Worthless sons of worthless fathers, pinchbeck townsmen, yellowy scum,
Whom in earlier days the city hardly would have stooped to use
Even for her scapegoat victims, these for every task we choose.
O unwise and foolish people, yet to mend your ways begin;
Use again the good and useful: so hereafter, if ye win
`Twill be due to this your wisdom: if ye fall, at least `twill be
Not a fall that brings dishonour, falling from a worthy tree.
Aeac. By Zeus the Saviour, quite the gentleman
Your master is. Xan. Gentleman? I believe you.
He`s all for wine and women, is my master.
Aeac. But not to have flogged you, when the truth came out
That you, the slave, were passing off as master!
Xan. He`d get the worst of that. Aeac. Bravo! that`s spoken
Like a true slave: that`s what I love myself.
Xan. You love it, do you? Aeac. Love it? I`m entranced
When I can curse my lord behind his back.
Xan. How about grumbling, when you have felt the stick,
And scurry out of doors? Aeac. That`s jolly too.
Xan. How about prying? Aeac. That beats everything!
Xan. Great Kin-god Zeus! And what of overhearing
Your master`s secrets? Aeac. What? I`m mad with joy.
Xan. And blabbing them abroad? Aeac. O, heaven and earth!
When I do that, I can`t contain myself.
Xan. Phoebus Apollo! clap your hand in mine,
Kiss and be kissed: and prithee tell me this,
Tell me by Zeus, our rascaldom`s own gol,
What`s all that noise within? What means this hubbub
And row? Aeac. That`s Aeschylus and Euripides.
Xan. Eh? Aeac. Wonderful, wonderful things are going on.
The dead are rioting, taking different sides.
Xan. Why, what`s the matter? Aeac. There`s a custom here
With all the crafts, the good and noble crafts,
That the chief master of his art in each
Shall have his dinner in the assembly hall,
And sit by Pluto`s side. Xan. I understand.
Aeac. Until another comes, more wise than he
In the same art: then must the first give way.
Xan. And how has this disturbed our Aschylus?
Aeac. `Twas he that occupied the tragic chair,
As, in his craft, the noblest. Xan. Who does now?
Aeac. But when Euripides came down, he kept
Flourishing off before the highwaymen,
Thieves, burglars, parricides - these form our mob
In Hades - till with listening to his twists
And turns, and pleas and counterpleas, they went
Mad on the man, and hailed him first and wisest:
Elate with this, he claimed the tragic chair
Where Aeschylus was seated. Xan. Wasn`t he pelted?
Aeac. Not he: the populace clamoured out to try
Which of the twain was wiser in his art.
Xan. You mean the rascals? Aeac. Aye, as high as heaven!
Xan. But were there none to side with Aeschylus?
Aeac. Scanty and sparse the good, (Regards the audience) the same as
here.
Xan. And what does Pluto now propose to do?
Aeac. He means to hold a tournament, and bring
Their traged es to the proof. Xan. But Sophocles,
How came not he to claim the tragic chair?
Aeac. Claim it? Not he! When he came down, he kissed
With reverence Aeschylus, and clasped his hand,
And yielded willingly the chair to him.
But now he`s going, says Cleidemides,
To sit third man: and then if Aeschylus win,
He`ll stay content: if not, for his art`s sake,
He`ll fight to the death against Euripides.
Xan. Will it come off? Aeac. O, yes, by Zeus, directly.
And then, I hear, will wonderful things be done,
The art poetic will be weighed in scales.
Xan. What! weigh out tragedy, like butcher`s meat?
Aeac. Levels they`ll bring, and measuring-tapes for words,
And moulded oblongs. Xan. Is it bricks they are making?
Aeac. Wedges and compasses: for Euripides
Vows that he`ll test the dramas, word by word.
Xan. Aeschylus chafes at this, I fancy. Aeac. Well,
He lowered his brows, upglaring like a bull.
Xan. And who`s to be the judge? Aeac. There came the rub.
Skilled men were hard to find: for with the Athenians
Aeschylus, somehow, did not hit it off.
Xan. Too many burglars, I expect he thought.
Aeac. And all the rest, he said, were trash and nonsense
To judge poetic wits. So then at last
They chose your lord, an expert in the art.
But go we in: for when our lords are bent
On urgent business, that means blows for us.
Chor. O, surely with terrible wrath will the thunder-voiced monarch be
filled,
When he sees his opponent beside him, the tonguester, the artifice-skilled,
Stand, whetting his tusks for the fight! O, surely, his eyes, rolling fell,
Will with terrible madness be fraught!
O, then will be charging of plume-waving words with their wild-floating
mane,
And then will be whirling of splinters, and phrases smoothed down with the
plane,
When the man would the grand-stepping maxims, the language gigantic, repel
Of the hero-creator of thought.
There will his shaggy-born crest upbristle for anger and woe,
Horribly frowning and growling, his fury will launch at the foe
Huge-clamped masses of words, with exertion Titanic uptearing
Great ship-timber planks for the fray.
But here will the tongue be at work, uncoiling, word-testing, refining,
Sophist-creator of phrases, dissecting, detracting, maligning,
Shaking the envious bits, and with subtle analysis paring
The lung`s large labour away.
Euripides. Don`t talk to me; I won`t give up the chair,
I say I am better in the art than he.
Dio. You hear him, Aeschylus: why don`t you speak?
Eur. He`ll do the grand at first, the juggling trick
He used to play in all his tragedies.
Dio. Come, my fine fellow; pray, don`t talk too big.
Eur. I know the man, I`ve scanned him through and through,
A savage-creating stubborn-pulling fellow,
Uncurbed, unfettered, uncontrolled of speech,
Unperiphrastic, bombastiloquent.
Aeschylus. Hah! sayest thou so, child of the garden quean!
And this to me, thou chattery-babble-collector,
Thou pauper-creating rags-and-patches-stitcher?
Thou shalt abye it dearly! Dio. Pray, be still;
Nor heat thy soul to fury, Aeschylus.
Aesch. Not till I`ve made you see the sort of man
This cripple-maker is who crows so loudly.
Dio. Bring out a ewe, a black-fleeced ewe, my boys:
Here`s a typhoon about to burst upon us.
Aesch. Thou picker-up of Cretan monodies,
Foisting thy tales of incest on the stage -
Dio. Forbear, forbear, most honoured Aeschylus;
And you, poor Euripides, begone,
If you are wise, out of this pitiless hail,
Lest with some heady word he crack your skull
And batter out your brain-less Telephus.
And not with passion, Aeschylus, but calmly
Test and be tested. `Tis not meet for poets
To scold each other, like two baking-girls.
But you go roaring like an oak on fire.
Eur. I`m ready, I! I don`t draw back one bit.
I`ll lash or, if he will, let him lash first
The talk, the lays, the sinews of a play:
Aye, and my Peleus, aye, and Aeolus,
And Meleager, aye, and Telephus.
Dio. And what do you propose? Speak, Aeschylus.
Aesch. I could have wished to meet him otherwhere.
We fight not here on equal terms. Dio. Why not?
Aesch. My poetry survived me: his died with him:
He`s got it here, all handy to recite.
Howbeit, if so you wish it, so we`ll have it.
Dio. O, bring men fire, and bring me frankincense.
I`ll pray, or e`er the clash of wits begin,
To judge the strife with high poetic skill.
Meanwhile (To the Chorus) invoke the Muses with a song.
Chor. O Muses, the daughters divine of Zeus, the immaculate Nine,
Who gaze from your mansions serene on intellects subtle and keen,
When down to the tournament lists, in bright-polished wit they descend,
With wrestling and turnings and twists in the battle of words to contend,
O, come and behold what the two antagonist poets can do,
Whose mouths are the swiftest to teach grand language and filings of speech:
For now of their wits is the sternest encounter commencing in earnest.
Dio. Ye two, put up your prayers before ye start.
Aesch. Demeter, mistress, nourisher of my soul,
O, make me worthy of thy mystic rites!
Dio. (To Eur.) Now put on incense, you. Eur. Excuse me, no;
My vows are paid to other gods than these.
Dio. What, a new coinage of your own? Eur. Precisely.
Dio. Pray then to them, those private gods of yours.
Eur. Ether, my pasture, volubly rolling tongue,
Intelligent wit and critic nostrils keen,
O` well and neatly may I trounce his plays!
Chor. We also yearning from these to be learning
Some stately measure, some majestic grand
Movement telling of conflicts nigh.
Now for battle arrayed they stand,
Tongues embittered, and anger high.
Each has got a venturesome will,
Each an eager and nimble mind;
One will wield, with artistic skill,
Clear-cut phrases, and wit refined;
Then the other, with words defiant,
Stern and strong, like an angry giant
Laying on with uprooted trees,
Soon will scatter a world of these
Superscholastic subtleties.
Dio. Now then, commence your arguments, and mind you both display
True wit, not metaphors, nor things which any fool could say.
Eur. As for myself, good people all, I`ll tell you by-and-by
My own poetic worth and claims; but first of all I`ll try
To show how this portentous quack beguiled the silly fools
Whose tastes were nurtured, ere he came, in Phrynichus` schools.
He`d bring some single mourner on, seated and veiled, `twould be
Achilles, say, or Niobe - the face you could not see -
An empty show of tragic woe, who uttered not one thing.
Dio. `Tis true. Eur. then in the Chorus came, and rattled off a string
Of four continuous lyric odes: the mourner never stirred.
Dio. I liked it too. I sometimes think that I those mutes preferred
To all your chatterers nowadays. Eur. Because, if you must know,
You were an ass. Dio. An ass, no doubt: what made him do it though?
Eur. That was his quackery, don`t you see, to set the audience guessing
When Niobe would speak; meanwhile, the drama was progressing.
Dio. The rascal, how he took me in! `Twas shameful, was it not?
(To Aesch.) What makes you stamp and fidget so? Eur. He`s catching it so hot.
So when he had humbugged thus awhile, and now his wretched play
Was halfway through, a dozen words, great wild-bull words, he`d say,
Fierce Bugaboos, with bristling crests, and shaggy eyebrows too,
Which not a soul could understand. Aesch. O, heavens! Dio. Be quiet, do.
Eur. But not one single word was clear. Dio. St! don`t your teeth be
gnashing.
Eur. `Twas all Scamanders, moated camps, and griffin-eagles flashing
In burnished copper on the shields, chivalric-precipice - high
Expressions, hard to comprehend. Dio. Aye, by the Powers, and I
Full many a sleepless night have spent in anxious thought, because
I`d find the tawny cock-horse out, what sort of bird it was!
Aesch. It was a sign, you stupid dolt, engraved the ships upon.
Dio. Eryxis I supposed it was, Philoxenus` son.
Eur. Now really should a cock be brought into a tragic play?
Aesch. You enemy of gods and men, what was your practice, pray?
Eur. No cock-horse in my plays, by Zeus, no goat-stag there you`ll
see, Such figures as are blazoned forth in Median tapestry.
When first I took the art from you, bloated and swoln, poor thing,
With turgid gasconading words and heavy dieting,
First I reduced and toned her down, and made her slim and neat
With wordlets and with exercise and poultices of beet,
And next a dose of chatterjuice, distilled from books, I gave her,
And monodies she took, with sharp Cephisophon for flavour.
I never used haphazard words, or plunged abruptly in;
Who entered first explained at large the drama`s origin
And source. Dio. Its source, I really trust, was better than your own.
Eur. Then from the very opening lines no idleness was shown;
The mistress talked with all her might, the servant talked as much,.
The master talked, the maiden talked, the beldame talked. Aesch. For such
An outrage was not death your due? Eur. No, by Apollo, no:
That was my democratic way. Dio. Ah, let that topic go.
Your record is not there, my friend, particularly good.
Eur. Then next I taught all these to speak. Aesch. You did so, and I
would
That ere such mischief you had wrought, your very lungs had split.
Eur. Canons of verse I introduced, and neatly chiselled wit;
To look, to scan: to plot, to plan; to twist, to turn, to woo.
On all to spy; in all to pry. Aesch. You did: I say so too.
Eur. I showed them scenes of common life, the things we know and see,
Where any blunder would at once by all detected be.
I never blustered on, or took their breath and wits away
By Cycnuses or Memnons clad in terrible array,
With bells upon their horses` heads, the audience to dismay.
Look at his pupils, look at mine: and there the contrast view.
Uncouth Megaenetus is his, and rough Phormisius too;
Great long-beard-lance-and-trumpet-men, flesh-tearers with the
pine: But natty smart Theramenes, and Cleitophon are mine.
Dio. Theramenes? a clever man and wonderfully sly:
Immerse him in a flood of ills, he`ll soon be high and dry,
"A Kian with a kappa, sir, not Chian with a chi."
Eur. I taught them all these knowing ways
By chopping logic in my plays,
And making all my speakers try
To reason out the How and Why.
So now the people trace the springs,
The sources, and the roots of things,
And manage all their households too
Far better than they used to do,
Scanning and searching What amiss?
And, Why was that? And, How is this?
Dio. Aye, truly, never now a man
Comes home, but he begins to scan;
And to his household loudly cries,
Why, where`s my pitcher? What`s the matter?
`Tis dead and gone my last year`s platter.
Who gnawed these olives? Bless the sprat,
Who nibbled off the head of that?
And where`s the garlic vanished, pray,
I purchased only yesterday?
- Whereas, of old, our stupid youths
Would sit, with open mouths and eyes,
Like any dull-brained Mammacouths.
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