The Frogs | Page 9

the truth.
DIO. Right! right! I only wish you had thought of that Before you gave
me those tremendous whacks.
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 Cleophon's
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 that perch of exotic descent, Rejoicing her
sorrow to vent, She pours to her spirit's content, a nightingale's woeful
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's 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
father 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 bathman 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 commonweal, 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
every-where
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
metal, 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