Peace | Page 7

refused. Finally the prisoners had been given
up in 423 B.C., but the War was continued nevertheless.
TRYGAEUS Yes, that is quite the style our folk do talk in.
HERMES So that I don't know whether you will ever see Peace again.
TRYGAEUS Why, where has she gone to then?
HERMES War has cast her into a deep pit.
TRYGAEUS Where?
HERMES Down there, at the very bottom. And you see what heaps of
stones he has piled over the top, so that you should never pull her out
again.
TRYGAEUS Tell me, what is War preparing against us?
HERMES All I know is that last evening he brought along a huge
mortar.
TRYGAEUS And what is he going to do with his mortar?
HERMES He wants to pound up all the cities of Greece in it.... But I
must say good-bye, for I think he is coming out; what an uproar he is
making!
TRYGAEUS Ah! great gods! let us seek safety; meseems I already
hear the noise of this fearful war mortar.
WAR (ENTERS, CARRYING A HUGE MORTAR) Oh! mortals,
mortals, wretched mortals, how your 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