The Acharnians | Page 6

King send us gold? (PSEUDARTABAS MAKES A NEGATIVE SIGN.) Then our ambassadors are seeking to deceive us? (PSEUDARTABAS SIGNS AFFIRMATIVELY.) These fellows make signs like any Greek; I am sure that they are nothing but Athenians. Oh! ho! I recognize one of these eunuchs; it is Clisthenes, the son of Sibyrtius.[1] Behold the effrontery of this shaven rump! How! great baboon, with such a beard do you seek to play the eunuch to us? And this other one? Is it not Straton?
f[1] Noted for his extreme ugliness and his obscenity. Aristophanes frequently holds him to scorn in his comedies.
HERALD Silence! Let all be seated. The Senate invites the King's Eye to the Prytaneum.[1]
f[1] Ambassadors were entertained there at the public expense.
DICAEOPOLIS Is this not sufficient to drive one to hang oneself? Here I stand chilled to the bone, whilst the doors of the Prytaneum fly wide open to lodge such rascals. But I will do something great and bold. Where is Amphitheus? Come and speak with me.
AMPHITHEUS Here I am.
DICAEOPOLIS Take these eight drachmae and go and conclude a truce with the Lacedaemonians for me, my wife and my children; I leave you free, my dear citizens, to send out embassies and to stand gaping in the air.
HERALD Bring in Theorus, who has returned from the Court of Sitalces.[1]
f[1] King of Thrace.
THEORUS I am here.
DICAEOPOLIS Another humbug!
THEORUS We should not have remained long in Thrace...
DICAEOPOLIS Forsooth, no, if you had not been well paid.
THEORUS ...if the country had not been covered with snow; the rivers were ice-bound at the time that Theognis[1] brought out his tragedy here; during the whole of that time I was holding my own with Sitalces, cup in hand; and, in truth, he adored you to such a degree, that he wrote on the walls, "How beautiful are the Athenians!" His son, to whom we gave the freedom of the city, burned with desire to come here and eat chitterlings at the feast of the Apaturia;[2] he prayed his father to come to the aid of his new country and Sitalces swore on his goblet that he would succour us with such a host that the Athenians would exclaim, "What a cloud of grasshoppers!"
f[1] The tragic poet. f[2] A feast lasting three days and celebrated during the month Pyanepsion (November). The Greek word contains the suggestion of fraud.
DICAEOPOLIS May I die if I believe a word of what you tell us! Excepting the grasshoppers, there is not a grain of truth in it all!
THEORUS And he has sent you the most warlike soldiers of all Thrace.
DICAEOPOLIS Now we shall begin to see clearly.
HERALD Come hither, Thracians, whom Theorus brought.
DICAEOPOLIS What plague have we here?
THEORUS 'Tis the host of the Odomanti.[1]
f[1] A Thracian tribe from the right bank of the Strymon.
DICAEOPOLIS Of the Odomanti? Tell me what it means. Who has mutilated them like this?
THEORUS If they are given a wage of two drachmae, they will put all Boeotia[1] to fire and sword.
f[1] The Boeotians were the allies of Sparta.
DICAEOPOLIS Two drachmae to those circumcised hounds! Groan aloud, ye people of rowers, bulwark of Athens! Ah! great gods! I am undone; these Odomanti are robbing me of my garlic![1] Will you give me back my garlic?
f[1] Dicaeopolis had brought a clove of garlic with him to eat during the Assembly.
THEORUS Oh! wretched man! do not go near them; they have eaten garlic[1].
f[1] Garlic was given to game-cocks, before setting them at each other, to give them pluck for the fight.
DICAEOPOLIS Prytanes, will you let me be treated in this manner, in my own country and by barbarians? But I oppose the discussion of paying a wage to the Thracians; I announce an omen; I have just felt a drop of rain.[1]
f[1] At the lest unfavourable omen, the sitting of the Assembly was declared at an end.
HERALD Let the Thracians withdraw and return the day after tomorrow; the Prytanes declare the sitting at an end.
DICAEOPOLIS Ye gods, what garlic I have lost! But here comes Amphitheus returned from Lacedaemon. Welcome, Amphitheus.
AMPHITHEUS No, there is no welcome for me and I fly as fast as I can, for I am pursued by the Acharnians.
DICAEOPOLIS Why, what has happened?
AMPHITHEUS I was hurrying to bring your treaty of truce, but some old dotards from Acharnae[1] got scent of the thing; they are veterans of Marathon, tough as oak or maple, of which they are made for sure--rough and ruthless. They all started a-crying: "Wretch! you are the bearer of a treaty, and the enemy has only just cut our vines!" Meanwhile they were gathering stones in their cloaks, so I fled and they ran after me shouting.
f[1] The deme of Acharnae was largely inhabited by charcoal-burners, who supplied the city with fuel.
DICAEOPOLIS Let 'em shout as much as they please! But