Peace

by Aristophanes
Translator unknown.

Dramatis Personae

Trygaeus
Two Servants of Trygaeus
Maidens, Daughters of Trygaeus
Hermes
War
Tumult
Hierocles, a Soothsayer
A Sickle-Maker
A Crest-Maker
A Trumpet-Maker
A Helmet-Maker
A Spear-Maker
Son of Lamachus
Son of Cleonymus
Chorus of Husbandmen

Scene: A farmyard, two slaves busy beside a dungheap; afterwards,
in Olympus.

First Servant
Quick, quick, bring the dung-beetle his cake.

Second Servant
Coming, coming.

First Servant
Give it to him, and may it kill him!

Second Servant
May he never eat a better.

First Servant
Now give him this other one kneaded up with ass's dung.

Second Servant
There! I've done that too.

First Servant
And where's what you gave him just now; surely he can't have devoured
it yet!

Second Servant
Indeed he has; he snatched it, rolled it between his feet and
bolted it.

First Servant
Come, hurry up, knead up a lot and knead them stiffly.

Second Servant
Oh, scavengers, help me in the name of the gods, if you do not
wish to see me fall down choked.

First Servant
Come, come, another made from the stool of a young scapegrace catamite.
'Twill be to the beetle's taste; he likes it well ground.

Second Servant
There! I am free at least from suspicion; none will accuse me of
tasting what I mix.

First Servant
Faugh! come, now another! keep on mixing with all your might.

Second Servant
I' faith, no. I can stand this awful cesspool stench no longer, so I
bring you the whole ill-smelling gear.

First Servant
Pitch it down the sewer sooner, and yourself with it.

Second Servant
Maybe, one of you can tell me where I can buy a stopped-up nose,
for there is no work more disgusting than to mix food for a
beetle and to carry it to him. A pig or a dog will at least pounce
upon our excrement without more ado, but this foul wretch
affects the disdainful, the spoilt mistress, and won't eat unless I
offer him a cake that has been kneaded for an entire day.... But let
us open the door a bit ajar without his seeing it. Has he done eating?
Come, pluck up courage, cram yourself till you burst! The cursed
creature! It wallows in its food! It grips it between its claws like a
wrestler clutching his opponent, and with head and feet together rolls
up its paste like a rope-maker twisting a hawser. What an indecent,
stinking, gluttonous beast! I know not what angry god let this
monster loose upon us, but of a certainty it was neither Aphrodite nor
the Graces.

First Servant
Who was it then?

Second Servant
No doubt the Thunderer, Zeus.

First Servant
But perhaps some spectator, some beardless youth, who thinks
himself a sage, will say, "What is this? What does the beetle mean?"
And then an Ionian,[1] sitting next him, will add, "I think 'tis an
allusion to Cleon, who so shamelessly feeds on filth all by
himself."--But now I'm going indoors to fetch the beetle a drink.

f[1] 'Peace' was no doubt produced at the festival of the Apaturia, which
was kept at the end of October, a period when strangers were numerous in
Athens.

Second Servant
As for me, I will explain the matter to you all, children, youths,
grownups and old men, aye, even to the decrepit dotards. My master
is mad, not as you are, but with another sort of madness, quite a
new kind. The livelong day he looks open-mouthed towards heaven and
never stops addressing Zeus. "Ah! Zeus," he cries, "what are thy
intentions? Lay aside thy besom; do not sweep Greece away!"

Trygaeus
Ah! ah! ah!

Second Servant
Hush, hush! Mehinks I hear his voice!

Trygaeus
Oh! Zeus, what art thou going to do for our people? Dost thou
not see this, that our cities will soon be but empty husks?

Second Servant
As I told you, that is his form of madness. There you have a
sample of his follies. When his trouble first began to seize him, he
said to himself, "By what means could I go straight to Zeus?" Then he
made himself very slender little ladders and so clambered up towards
heaven; but he soon came hurtling down again and broke his head.
Yesterday, to our misfortune, he went out and brought us back this
thoroughbred, but from where I know not, this great beetle, whose
groom he has forced me to become. He himself caresses it as though
it were a horse, saying, "Oh! my little Pegasus,[1] my noble aerial
steed, may your wings soon bear me straight to Zeus!" But what is my
master doing? I must stoop down to look through this hole. Oh! great
gods! Here! neighbours, run here quick! here is my master flying off
mounted on his beetle as if on horseback.

f[1] The winged steed of Perseus--an allusion to a lost tragedy of Euripides,
in which Bellerophon was introduced riding on Pegasus.

Trygaeus
Gently, gently, go easy, beetle; don't start off so proudly, or
trust at first too greatly to your powers; wait till you have sweated,
till the beating of your wings shall make your limb joints supple.
Above all things, don't let off some foul smell, I adjure you; else
I would rather have you stop in the stable altogether.

Second Servant
Poor master! Is he crazy?

Trygaeus
Silence! silence!

Second Servant (to Trygaeus)
But why start up into the air on chance?

Trygaeus
'Tis for the weal of all the Greeks; I am attempting a daring
and novel feat.

Second Servant
But what is your purpose? What useless folly!

Trygaeus
No words of ill omen! Give vent to joy and command all men to keep
silence, to close down their drains and privies with new tiles and
to stop up their own vent-holes.[1]

f[1] Fearing that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle
might descend from the highest heaven to satisfy itself.

First Servant
No, I shall not be silent, unless you tell me where you are going.

Trygaeus
Why, where am I likely to be going across the sky, if it be not to
visit Zeus?

First Servant
For what purpose?

Trygaeus
I want to ask him what he reckons to do for all the Greeks.

Second Servant
And if he doesn't tell you?

Trygaeus
I shall pursue him at law as a traitor who sells Greece to the Medes.[1]

f[1] The Persians and the Spartans were not then allied as the scholiast
states, since a treaty between them was only concluded in 412 B.C., i.e.
eight years after the production of 'Peace'; the great king, however, was
trying to derive advantages out of the dissensions in Greece.

Second Servant
Death seize me, if I let you go.

Trygaeus
It is absolutely necessary.

Second Servant
Alas! alas! dear little girls, your father is deserting you secretly to go
to heaven. Ah! poor orphans, entreat him, beseech him.

Little Daughter
Father! father! what is this I hear? Is it true? What! you would
leave me, you would vanish into the sky, you would go to the crows?[1]
'Tis impossible! Answer, father, an you love me.

f[1] "Go to the crows," a proverbial expression equivalent to our "Go
to the devil."

Trygaeus
Yes, I am going. You hurt me too sorely, my daughters, when you
ask me for bread, calling me your daddy, and there is not the ghost of
an obolus in the house; if I succeed and come back, you will have a
barley loaf every morning--and a punch in the eye for sauce!

Little Daughter
But how will you make the journey? 'Tis not a ship that will
carry you thither.

Trygaeus
No, but this winged steed will.

Little Daughter
But what an idea, daddy, to harness a beetle, on which to fly to the gods.

Trygaeus
We see from Aesop's fables that they alone can fly to the abode of
the Immortals.[1]

f[1] Aesop tells us that the eagle and the beetle were at war; the eagle
devoured the beetle's young and the latter got into its nest and tumbled
out its eggs. On this the eagle complained to Zeus, who advised it to lay its
eggs in his bosom; but the beetle flew up to the abode of Zeus, who,
forgetful of the eagle's eggs, at once rose to chase off the objectionable
insect. The eggs fell to earth and were smashed to bits.

Little Daughter
Father, father, 'tis a tale nobody can believe! that such a stinking
creature can have gone to the gods.

Trygaeus
It went to have vengeance on the eagle and break its eggs.

Little Daughter
Why not saddle Pegasus? you would have a more Tragic[1] appearance
in
the eyes of the gods.

f[1] Pegasus is introduced by Euripides both in his 'Andromeda' and his
'Bellerophon.'

Trygaeus
Eh! don't you see, little fool, that then twice the food would
be wanted? Whereas my beetle devours again as filth what I have
eaten myself.

Little Daughter
And if it fell into the watery depths of the sea, could it
escape with its wings?

Trygaeus (exposing himself)
I am fitted with a rudder in case of need, and my Naxos beetle
will serve me as a boat.[1]

f[1] Boats, called 'beetles,' doubtless because in form they resembled these
insects, were built at Naxos.

Little Daughter
And what harbour will you put in at?

Trygaeus
Why is there not the harbour of Cantharos at the Piraeus?[1]

f[1] Nature had divided the Piraeus into three basins--Cantharos,
Aphrodisium and Zea. [Cantharos] is Greek for dung-beetle.

Little Daughter
Take care not to knock against anything and so fall off into
space; once a cripple, you would be a fit subject for Euripides, who
would put you into a tragedy.[1]

f[1] In allusion to Euripides' fondness for introducing lame heroes in
his plays.

Trygaeus
I'll see to it. Good-bye! (to the Athenians.) You, for love of whom
I brave these dangers, do ye neither let wind nor go to stool for the
space of three days, for, if, while cleaving the air, my steed should scent
anything, he would fling me head foremost from the summit of my hopes.
Now come, my Pegasus, get a-going with up-pricked ears and make
your golden bridle resound gaily. Eh! what are you doing? What are you
up to? Do you turn your nose towards the cesspools? Come, pluck up a
spirit; rush upwards from the earth, stretch out your speedy wings and
make straight for the palace of Zeus; for once give up foraging in
your daily food.--Hi! you down there, what are you after now? Oh! my
god! 'tis a man emptying his belly in the Piraeus, close to the house
where the bad girls are. But is it my death you seek then, my death?
Will you not bury that right away and pile a great heap of earth upon
it and plant wild thyme therein and pour perfumes on it? If I were to fall
from up here and misfortune happened to me, the town of Chios[1] would
owe a fine of five talents for my death, all along of your cursed rump.
Alas! how frightened I am! oh! I have no heart for jests. Ah!
machinist, take great care of me. There is already a wind whirling
round my navel; take great care or, from sheer fright, I shall form
food for my beetle.... But I think I am no longer far from the gods;
aye, that is the dwelling of Zeus, I perceive. Hullo! Hi! where is the
doorkeeper? Will no one open?

f[1] An allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the Chians [in
Greek]--'crapping Chian.' There is a further joke, of course, in connection
with the hundred and one frivolous pretexts which the Athenians invented
for exacting contributions from the maritime allies.

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