Peace | Page 7

Aristophanes
jaws will snap!
TRYGAEUS Oh! divine Apollo! what a prodigious big mortar! Oh, what misery the very sight of War causes me! This then is the foe from whom I fly, who is so cruel, so formidable, so stalwart, so solid on his legs!
WAR Oh! Prasiae![1] thrice wretched, five times, aye, a thousand times wretched! for thou shalt be destroyed this day.
f[1] An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, the root-word of the name Praisae, into his mortar.
TRYGAEUS This does not concern us over much; 'tis only so much the worse for the Laconians.
WAR Oh! Megara! Megara! how utterly are you going to be ground up! what fine mincemeat[1] are you to be made into!
f[1] War throws some garlic into his mortar as emblematical of the city of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.
TRYGAEUS Alas! alas! what bitter tears there will be among the Megarians![1]
f[1] Because the smell of bruised garlic causes the eyes to water.
WAR Oh, Sicily! you too must perish! Your wretched towns shall be grated like this cheese.[1] Now let us pour some Attic honey[2] into the mortar.
f[1] He throws cheese into the mortar as emblematical of Sicily, on account of its rich pastures. f[2] Emblematical of Athens. They honey of Mount Hymettus was famous.
TRYGAEUS Oh! I beseech you! use some other honey; this kind is worth four obols; be careful, oh! be careful of our Attic honey.
WAR Hi! Tumult, you slave there!
TUMULT What do you want?
WAR Out upon you! Standing there with folded arms! Take this cuff o' the head for your pains.
TUMULT Oh! how it stings! Master, have you got garlic in your fist, I wonder?
WAR Run and fetch me a pestle.
TUMULT But we haven't got one; 'twas only yesterday we moved.
WAR Go and fetch me one from Athens, and hurry, hurry!
TUMULT Aye, I hasten there; if I return without one, I shall have no cause for laughing. (EXIT.)
TRYGAEUS Ah! what is to become of us, wretched mortals that we are? See the danger that threatens if he returns with the pestle, for War will quietly amuse himself with pounding all the towns of Hellas to pieces. Ah! Bacchus! cause this herald of evil to perish on his road!
WAR Well?
TUMULT (WHO HAS RETURNED) Well, what?
WAR You have brought back nothing?
TUMULT Alas! the Athenians have lost their pestle--the tanner, who ground Greece to powder.[1]
f[1] Cleon, who had lately fallen before Amphipolis, in 422 B.C.
TRYGAEUS Oh! Athene, venerable mistress! 'tis well for our city he is dead, and before he could serve us with this hash.
WAR Then go and seek one at Sparta and have done with it!
TUMULT Aye, aye, master!
WAR Be back as quick as ever you can.
TRYGAEUS (TO THE AUDIENCE) What is going to happen, friends? 'Tis the critical hour. Ah! if there is some initiate of Samothrace[1] among you, 'tis surely the moment to wish this messenger some accident--some sprain or strain.
f[1] An island in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Thrace and opposite the mouth of the Hebrus; the Mysteries are said to have found their first home in this island, where the Cabirian gods were worshipped; this cult, shrouded in deep mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and they were feared as to-day the 'jettatori' (spell-throwers, casters of the evil eye) in Sicily are feared.
TUMULT (WHO RETURNS) Alas! alas! thrice again, alas!
WAR What is it? Again you come back without it?
TUMULT The Spartans too have lost their pestle.
WAR How, varlet?
TUMULT They had lent it to their allies in Thrace,[1] who have lost it for them.
f[1] Brasidas perished in Thrace in the same battle as Cleon at Amphipolis, 422 B.C.
TRYGAEUS Long life to you, Thracians! My hopes revive, pluck up courage, mortals!
WAR Take all this stuff away; I am going in to make a pestle for myself.
TRYGAEUS 'Tis now the time to sing as Datis did, as he abused himself at high noon, "Oh pleasure! oh enjoyment! oh delights!" 'Tis now, oh Greeks! the moment when freed of quarrels and fighting, we should rescue sweet Peace and draw her out of this pit, before some other pestle prevents us. Come, labourers, merchants, workmen, artisans, strangers, whether you be domiciled or not, islanders, come here, Greeks of all countries, come hurrying here with picks and levers and ropes! 'Tis the moment to drain a cup in honour of the Good Genius.
CHORUS Come hither all! quick, hasten to the rescue! All peoples of Greece, now is the
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