Chapter II: Part 2

DIO. Theramenes? a clever man and wonderfully sly:
Immerse him in a flood of ills, he'll soon be high and dry,
"A Kian with a kappa, sir, not Chian with a chi."

EUR. I taught them all these knowing ways
By chopping logic in my plays,
And making all my speakers try
To reason out the How and Why.
So now the people trace the springs,
The sources and the roots of things,
And manage all their households too
Far better than they used to do,
Scanning and searching _What's amiss?_
And, _Why was that?_ And, _How is this?_

DIO. Ay, truly, never now a man
Comes home, but he begins to scan;
And to his household loudly cries,
_Why, where's my pitcher? What's the matter?
'Tis dead and gone my last year's platter.
Who gnawed these olives? Bless the sprat,
Who nibbled off the head of that?
And where's the garlic vanished, pray,
I purchased only yesterday?_
--Whereas, of old, our stupid youths
Would sit, with open mouths and eyes,
Like any dull-brained Mammacouths.

CHOR. "All this thou beholdest, Achilles our boldest."
And what wilt thou reply?
Draw tight the rein
Lest that fiery soul of thine
Whirl thee out of the listed plain,
Past the olives, and o'er the line.
Dire and grievous the charge he brings.
See thou answer him, noble heart,
Not with passionate bickerings.
Shape thy course with a sailor's art,
Reef the canvas, shorten the sails,
Shift them edgewise to shun the gales.
When the breezes are soft and low,
Then, well under control, you'll go
Quick and quicker to strike the foe.
O first of all the Hellenic bards high loftily-towering verse to
rear,
And tragic phrase from the dust to raise, pour forth thy fountain
with right good cheer.

AESCH. My wrath is hot at this vile mischance, and my spirit revolts at
the thought that I
Must bandy words with a fellow like _him_: but lest he should vaunt
that I can't reply--
Come, tell me what are the points for which a noble poet our praise
obtains.

EUR. For his ready wit, and his counsels sage, and because the citizen
folk he trains
To be better townsmen and worthier men.

AESCH. If then you have done the very reverse,
Found noble-hearted and virtuous men, and altered them, each and all,
for the worse,
Pray what is the need you deserve to get?

DIO. Nay, ask not _him_. He deserves to die.

AESCH. For just consider what style of men he received from me, great
six-foot-high
Heroical souls, who never would blench from a townsman's duties in
peace or war;
Not idle loafers, or low buffoons, or rascally scamps such as now they
are.
But men who were breathing spears and helms, and the snow-white plume
in its crested pride
The greave, and the dart, and the warrior's heart in its seven-fold
casing of tough bull-hide.

DIO. He'll stun me, I know, with his armoury-work; this business is
going from bad to worse.

EUR. And how did you manage to make them so grand, exalted, and brave
with your wonderful verse?

DIO. Come, Aeschylus, answer, and don't stand mute in your self-willed
pride and arrogant spleen.

AESCH. A drama I wrote with the War-god filled.

DIO. Its name?

AESCH. 'Tis the "Seven against Thebes" that I mean. Which who so
beheld, with eagerness swelled to rush to the battlefield there and
then.

DIO. O that was a scandalous thing you did! You have made the Thebans
mightier men,
More eager by far for the business of war.
Now, therefore, receive this punch on the head.

AESCH. Ah, _ye_ might have practised the same yourselves, but ye turned
to other pursuits instead.
Then next the "Persians" I wrote, in praise of the noblest deed that
the world can show,
And each man longed for the victor's wreath, to fight and to vanquish
his country's foe.

DIO. I was pleased, I own, when I heard their moan for old Darius,
their great king, dead;
When they smote together their hands, like this, and _Evir alake_ the
Chorus said.

AESCH. Aye, such are the poet's appropriate works: and just consider
how all along
From the very first they have wrought you good, the noble bards, the
masters of song.
First, Orpheus taught you religious rites, and from bloody murder to
stay your hands:
Musaeus healing and oracle lore; and Hesiod all the culture of lands,
The time to gather, the time to plough. And gat not Homer his glory
divine
By singing of valour, and honour, and right, and the sheen of the
battle-extended line,
The ranging of troops and the arming of men?

DIO. O ay, but he didn't teach _that_, I opine,
To Pantacles; when he was leading the show I couldn't imagine what he
was at,
He had fastened his helm on the top of his head, he was trying to
fasten his plume upon that.

AESCH. But others, many and brave, he taught, of whom was Lamachus,
hero true;
And thence my spirit the impress took, and many a lion-heart chief I
drew,
Parocluses, Teucers, illustrious names; for I fain the citizen-folk
would spur
To stretch themselves to _their_ measure and height, when-ever the
trumpet of war they hear.
But Phaedras and Stheneboeas? No! no harlotry business deformed my
plays.
And none can say that ever I drew a love sick woman in all my days.

EUR. For _you_ no lot or portion had got in Queen Aphrodite.

AESCH. Thank Heaven for that.
But ever on you and yours, my friend, the mighty goddess mightily sat;
Yourself she cast to the ground at last.

DIO. O ay, that came uncommonly pat.
You showed how cuckolds are made, and lo, you were struck yourself by
the very same fate.

EUR. But say, you cross-grained censor of mine, how _my_ Stheneboeas
could harm the state.

AESCH. Full many a noble dame, the wife of a noble citizen, hemlock
took,
And died, unable the shame and sin of your Bellerophonscenes to brook.

EUR. Was then, I wonder, the tale I told of Phaedra's passionate love
untrue?

AESCH. Not so: but tales of incestuous vice the sacred poet should hide
from view,
Nor ever exhibit and blazon forth on the public stage to the public
ken.
For boys a teacher at school is found, but we, the poets, are teachers
of men.
We are BOUND things honest and pure to speak.

EUR. And to speak great Lycabettuses, pray,
And massive blocks of Parnassian rocks, is _that_ things honest and
pure to say?
In human fashion we ought to speak.

AESCH. Alas, poor witling, and can't you see
That for mighty thoughts and heroic aims, the words themselves
must appropriate be?
And grander belike on the ear should strike the speech of heroes and
godlike powers,
Since even the robes that invest their limbs are statelier, grander
robes than ours.
Such was _my_ plan: but when _you_ began, you spoilt and degraded it
all.

EUR. How so?

AESCH. Your kings in tatters and rags you dressed, and brought them on,
a beggarly show,
To move, forsooth, our pity and ruth.

EUR. And what was the harm, I should like to know.

AESCH. No more will a wealthy citizen now equip for the state a galley
of war. He wraps his limbs in tatters and rags, and whines _he is poor,
too poor by far_.

DIO. But under his rags he is wearing a vest, as woolly and soft as a
man could wish.
Let him gull the state, and he's off to the mart; an eager, extravagant
buyer of fish.

AESCH. Moreover to prate, to harangue, to debate, is now the ambition
of all in the state.
Each exercise-ground is in consequence found deserted and empty: to
evil repute
Your lessons have brought our youngsters, and taught our sailors to
challenge, discuss, and refute
The orders they get from their captains and yet, when _I_ was alive,
I protest that the knaves
Knew nothing at all, save for rations' to call, and to sing "Rhyppapae"
as they pulled through the waves.

DIO. And bedad to let fly from their sterns in the eye of the fellow
who tugged at the undermost oar,
And a jolly young messmate with filth to besmirch, and to land for a
filching adventure ashore; But now they harangue, and dispute, and
won't row, And idly and aimlessly float to and fro.

AESCH. Of what ills is he NOT the creator and cause?
Consider the scandalous scenes that he draws,
His bawds, and his panders, his women who give
Give birth in the sacredest shrine,
Whilst others with brothers are wedded and bedded,
And others opine
That "not to be living" is truly "to live."
And therefore our city is swarming to-day
With clerks and with demagogue-monkeys, who play
Their jackanape tricks at all times, in all places,
Deluding the people of Athens; but none
Has training enough in athletics to run
With the torch in his hand at the races.

DIO. By the Powers, you are right! At the Panathenaea
I laughed till I felt like a potsherd to see a
Pale, paunchy young gentleman pounding along,
With his head butting forward, the last of the throng,
In the direst of straits; and behold at the gates,
The Ceramites flapped him, and smacked him, and slapped him,
In the ribs, and the loin, and the flank, and the groin,
And still, as they spanked him, he puffed and he panted,
Till at one mighty cuff, he discharged such a puff
That he blew out his torch and levanted.

CHOR. Dread the battle, and stout the combat, mighty and manifold
looms the war.
Hard to decide in the fight they're waging,
One like a stormy tempest raging,
One alert in the rally and skirmish, clever to parry and foin and
spar.
Nay but don't be content to sit
Always in one position only: many the fields for your keen-edged wit.
On then, wrangle in every way,
Argue, battle, be flayed and flay,
Old and new from your stores display,
Yea, and strive with venturesome daring something subtle and neat to
say.

Fear ye this, that to-day's spectators lack the grace of artistic
lore,
Lack the knowledge they need for taking
All the points ye will soon be making?
Fear it not: the alarm is groundless: that, be sure, is the case no
more.
All have fought the campaign ere this:
Each a book of the words is holding; never a single point they'll
miss.
Bright their natures, and now, I ween,
Newly whetted, and sharp, and keen.
Dread not any defect of wit,
Battle away without misgiving, sure that the audience, at least, are
fit.

EUR. Well then I'll turn me to your prologues now,
Beginning first to test the first beginning
Of this fine poet's plays. Why he's obscure
Even in the enunciation of the facts.

DIO. Which of them will you test?

EUR. Many: but first give as that famous one from the Oresteia.

DIO. St! Silence all! Now, Aeschylus, begin.

AESCH. _Grave Hermes, witnessing a father's power. Be thou my saviour
and mine aid to-day, For here I come and hither I return._

DIO. Any fault there?

EUR. A dozen faults and more.

DIO. Eh! why the lines are only three in all.

EUR. But every one contains a score of faults.

DIO. Now Aeschylus, keep silent; if you don't
You won't get off with three iambic lines.

AESCH. Silent for _him_!

DIO. If _my_ advice you'll take.

EUR. Why, at first starting here's a fault sky high.

AESCH. (_To Dio_.) You see your folly.

DIO. Have your way; I care not.

AESCH. (_To Eur_.) What is my fault?

EUR. Begin the lines again.

AESCH. _Grave Hermes, witnessing a father's power_--

EUR. And this beside his murdered father's grave Orestes speaks?

AESCH. I say not otherwise.

EUR. Then does he mean that when his father fell
By craft and violence at a woman's hand,
The god of craft was witnessing the deed?

AESCH. It was not he: it was the Helper Hermes
He called the grave: and this he showed by adding
It was his sire's prerogative he held.

EUR. Why this is worse than all. If from his father
He held this office grave, why then--

DIO. He was A graveyard rifler on his father's side.

AESCH. Bacchus, the wine you drink is stale and fusty.

DIO. Give him another: (_to Eur_.) you, look out for faults.

AESCH. _Be thou my saviour and mine aid to-day, For here I come, and
hither I return_.

EUR. The same thing twice says clever Aeschylus.

DIO. How twice?

EUR. Why, just consider: I'll explain. "I come," says he; and "I
return," says he: It's the same thing, to "come" and to "return."

DIO. Aye, just as if you said, "Good fellow, lend me
A kneading trough: likewise, a trough to knead in."

AESCH. It is not so, you everlasting talker,
They're not the same, the words are right enough.

DIO. How so? inform me how you use the words.

AESCH. A man, not banished from his home, may "come"
To any land, with no especial chance.
A home-bound exile both "returns" and "comes."

DIO. O good, by Apollo! What do you say, Euripides, to that?

EUR. I say Orestes never did "return." He came in secret: nobody
recalled him.

DIO. O good, by Hermes! (_Aside_.) I've not the least suspicion what he
means.

EUR. Repeat another line.

DIO. Ay, Aeschylus, Repeat one instantly: _you_, mark what's wrong.

AESCH. _Now on this funeral mound I call my father To hear, to
hearken._

EUR. There he is again. To "hear," to "hearken"; the same thing,
exactly.

DIO. Aye, but he's speaking to the dead, you knave,
Who cannot hear us though we call them thrice.

AESCH. And how do you make _your_ prologues?

EUR. You shall hear; And if you find one single thing said twice,
Or any useless padding, spit upon me.

DIO. Well, fire away: I'm all agog to hear
Your very accurate and faultless prologues.

EUR. _A happy man was Oedipus at first_--

AESCH. Not so, by Zeus; a most unhappy man.
Who, not yet born nor yet conceived, Apollo
Foretold would be his father's murderer.
How could he be a happy man at first.

EUR. _Then he became the wretchedest of men._

AESCH. Not so, by Zeus; he never ceased to be. No sooner born, than
they exposed the babe (And that in winter), in an earthen crock, lest
he should grow a man, and slay his father. Then with both ankles
pierced and swoln, he limped away to Polybus: still young, he married
an ancient crone, and her his mother too. Then scratched out both his
eyes.

DIO. Happy indeed had he been Erasinides's colleague!

EUR. Nonsense; I say my prologues are first rate.

AESCH. Nay then, by Zeus, no longer line by line I'll maul your
phrases: but with heaven to aid I'll smash your prologues with a bottle
of oil.

EUR. You mine with a bottle of oil?

AESCH. With only one. You frame your prologues so that each and all
Fit in with a "bottle of oil," or "coverlet-skin," Or "reticule-bag."
I'll prove it here, and now.

EUR. You'll prove it? You?

AESCH. I will.

DIO. Well then, begin.

EUR. _'Aegyptus, sailing with his fifty sons, As ancient legends mostly
tell the tale, Touching at Argos_,

AESCH. Lost his bottle of oil.

EUR. Hang it, what's that? Confound that bottle of oil!

DIO. Give him another: let him try again.

EUR. _Bacchus, who, clad in fawnskins, leaps and bounds
With torch and thyrsus in the choral dance Along Parnassus_.

AESCH. Lost his bottle of oil.

DIO. Ah me, we are stricken--with that bottle again!

EUR. Pooh, pooh, that's nothing. I've a prologue here, He'll never tack
his bottle of oil to this: _No man is blest in every single thing. One
is of noble birth, but lacking means. Another, baseborn_,

AESCH. Lost his bottle of oil.

DIO. Euripides!

EUR. Well?

DIO. Lower your sails, my boy;
This bottle of oil is going to blow a gale.

EUR. O, by Demeter, I don't care one bit;
Now from his hands I'll strike that bottle of oil.

DIO. Go on then, go; but ware the bottle of oil.

EUR. _Once Cadmus, quitting the Sidonian town, Agenor's offspring_

AESCH. Lost his bottle of oil.

DIO. O pray, my man, buy off that bottle of oil, Or else he'll smash
our prologues all to bits.

EUR. I buy of _him_?

DIO. If my advice you'll take.

EUR. No, no, I've many a prologue yet to say, To which he can't tack on
his bottle of oil. _Pelops, the son of Tantalus, while driving His
mares to Pisa_

AESCH. Lost his bottle of oil.

DIO. There! he tacked on the bottle of oil again. O for heaven's sake,
pay him its price, dear boy; You'll get it for an obol, spick and span.

EUR. Not yet, by Zeus; I've plenty of prologues left. _Oeneus once
reaping_

AESCH. Lost his bottle of oil.

EUR. Pray let me finish one entire line first. _Oeneus once reaping an
abundant harvest, Offering the firstfruits_

AESCH. Lost his bottle of oil.

DIO. What in the act of offering? Fie! Who stole it?

EUR. O don't keep bothering! Let him try with this! _Zeus, as by
Truth's own voice the tale is told,_

DIO. No, he'll cut in with "Lost his bottle of oil!"
Those bottles of oil on all your prologues seem
To gather and grow, like styes upon the eye.
Turn to his melodies now for goodness' sake.

EUR. O I can easily show that he's a poor
Melody-maker; makes them all alike.

CHOR. What, O what will be done!
Strange to think that he dare
Blame the bard who has won,
More than all in our days,
Fame and praise for his lays,
Lays so many and fair.
Much I marvel to hear
What the charge he will bring
'Gainst our tragedy king;
Yea for himself do I fear.

EUR. Wonderful lays! O yes, you'll see directly. I'll cut down all his
metrical strains to one.

DIO. And I, I'll take some pebbles, and keep count.

(_A slight pause, during which the music of a flute is heard. The music
continues to the end of line 1277 as an accompaniment to the
recitative_.)

EUR. Lord of Phthia, Achilles, _why hearing the voice of the
hero-dividing. Hah! smiting! approachest thou not to the rescue_? We,
by the lake who _abide, are adoring our ancestor Hermes. Hah! smiting!
approachest thou not to the rescue?_

DIO. O Aeschylus, twice art thou smitten!

EUR. Hearken to me, great king; yea, hearken _Atreides, thou noblest of
all the Achaeans. Hah! smiting! approachest thou not to the rescue_?

DIO. Thrice, Aeschylus, thrice art thou smitten!

EUR. Hush! the bee-wardens are here: they _will quickly the Temple of
Artemis open. Hah! smiting! approachest thou not to the rescue?_ I will
expound (for _I know it_) _the omen the chieftains encountered. Hah!
smiting! approachest thou not to the rescue?_

DIO. O Zeus and King, the terrible lot of smitings! I'll to the bath:
I'm very sure my kidneys Are quite inflamed and swoln with all these
smitings.

EUR. Wait till you've heard another batch of lays Culled from his
lyre-accompanied melodies.

DIO. Go on then, go: but no more smitings, please.

EUR. How the twin-throned powers of _Achaea, the lords of the mighty
Hellenes_.
O phlattothrattophlattothrat!
Sendeth _the Sphinx, the unchancy, the chieftainess blood-hound._
O phlattothrattophlattothrat!
Launcheth fierce with brand _and hand the avengers the terrible eagle_.
O phlattothrattophlattothrat!
So for the swift-_winged hounds of the air he provided a booty._
O phlattothrattophlattothrat!
The throng down-bearing on Aias.
O phlattothrattophlattothrat!

DIO. Whence comes that phlattothrat? From Marathon, or
Where picked you up these cable-twister's strains?

AESCH. From noblest source for noblest ends I brought them,
Unwilling in the Muses' holy field
The self-same flowers as Phrynichus to cull.
But _he_ from all things rotten draws his lays,
From Carian flutings, catches of Meletus,
Dance-music, dirges. You shall hear directly.
Bring me the lyre. Yet wherefore need a lyre
For songs like these? Where's she that bangs and jangles
Her castanets? Euripides's Muse,
Present yourself: fit goddess for fit verse.

DIO. The Muse herself can't be a wanton? No!

AESCH. Halcyons, who by the ever-rippling
Waves of the sea are babbling,
Dewing your plumes with the drops that fall
From wings in the salt spray dabbling.

Spiders, ever with twir-r-r-r-r-rling fingers
Weaving the warp and the woof,
Little, brittle, network, fretwork,
Under the coigns of the roof.

The minstrel shuttle's care.

Where in the front of the dark-prowed ships
Yarely the flute-loving dolphin skips.

Races here and oracles there.
And the joy of the young vines smiling,

And the tendril of grapes, care-beguiling.

O embrace me, my child, O embrace me.
(_To Dio_.) You see this foot?

DIO. I do.

AESCH. And this?

DIO. And that one too.

AESCH. (_To Eur_.) You, such stuff who compile,
Dare my songs to upbraid;
You, whose songs in the style
Of Gyrene's embraces are made.
So much for them: but still I'd like to show
The way in which your monodies are framed.
O darkly-light mysterious Night,
What may this Vision mean,
Sent from the world unseen
With baleful omens rife;
A thing of lifeless life,
A child of sable night,
A ghastly curdling sight,
In black funereal veils,
With murder, murder in its eyes,
And great enormous nails?

Light ye the lanterns, my maidens, and dipping your jugs in the stream,
Draw me the dew of the water, and heat it to boiling and steam,
So will I wash me away the ill effects of my dream.

"God of the sea!
My dream's come true.
Ho, lodgers, ho,
This portent view.
Glyce has vanished, carrying off my cock,
My cock that crew!
O Mania, help! O reads of the rock
Pursue! pursue!
For I poor girl, was working within,
Holding my distaff heavy and full,
Twir-r-r-r-r-rling my hand as the threads I spin,
Weaving an excellent bobbin of wool:
Thinking 'To-morrow I'll go to the fair,
In the dusk of the morn, and be selling it there.'
But he to the blue upflew, upflew,
On the lightliest tips of his wings outspread;
To me he bequeathed but woe, but woe,
And tears, sad tears, from my eyes o'erflow,
Which I, the bereaved, must shed, must shed.
O children of Ida, sons of Crete,
Grasping your bows to the rescue come;
Twinkle about on your restless feet,
Stand in a circle around her home.
O Artemis, thou maid divine,
Dictynna, huntress, fair to see,
O bring that keen-nosed pack of thine,
And hunt through all the house with me.
O Hecate, with flameful brands,
O Zeus's daughter, arm thine hands,
Those swiftliest hands, both right and left;
Thy rays on Glyce's cottage throw
That I serenely there may go
And search by moonlight for the theft."

DIO. Enough of both your odes.

AESCH. Enough for me. Now would I bring the fellow to the scales. That,
that alone, shall test our poetry now, And prove whose words are
weightiest, his or mine.

DIO. Then both come hither, since I needs must weigh
The art poetic like a pound of cheese.

CHOR.

O the labour these wits go through!
O the wild, extravagant, new,
Wonderful things they are going to do!
Who but they would ever have thought of it?
Why, if a man had happened to meet me
Out in the street, and intelligence brought of it,
I should have thought he was trying to cheat me;
Thought that his story was false and deceiving.
That were a tale I could never believe in.

DIO. Each of you stand beside his scale.

AESCH. and EUR. We're here.

DIO. And grasp it firmly whilst ye speak your lines,
And don't let go until I cry "Cuckoo."

AESCH. EUR. Ready!

DIO. Now speak your lines into the scale.

EUR. _O that the Argo had not winged her way_--
AESCH. _River Spercheius, cattle-grazing haunts_--

DIO. _Cuckoo! let go. O look, by far the lowest_
His scale sinks down.

EUR. Why, how came that about?

DIO. He threw a river in, like some wool-seller
Wetting his wool, to make it weight the more.
But _you_ threw in a light and winged word.

EUR. Come, let him match another verse with mine.

DIO. Each to his scale.

AESCH. EUR. We're ready.

DIO. Speak your lines.

EUR. _Persuasion's only shrine is eloquent speech._

AESCH. _Death loves not gifts, alone amongst the gods_

DIO. Let go, let go. Down goes his scale again. He threw in Death, the
heaviest ill of all.

EUR. And I Persuasion, the most lovely word.

DIO. A vain and empty sound, devoid of sense.
Think of some heavier-weighted line of yours,
To drag your scale down: something strong and big.

EUR. Where have I got one? Where? Let's see.

DIO. I'll tell you. _"Achilles threw two singles and a four_."
Come, speak your lines: this is your last set-to.

EUR. _In his right hand he grasped an iron-clamped mace_.

AESCH. _Chariot on chariot, corpse on corpse was hurled_.

DIO. There now! again he has done you.

EUR. Done me? How?

DIO. He threw two chariots and two corpses in;
Five-score Egyptians could not lift that weight.

AESCH. No more of "line for line"; let him--himself,
His children, wife, Cephisophon--get in,
With all his books collected in his arms,
Two lines of mine shall overweigh the lot.

DIO. Both are my friends; I can't decide between them:
I don't desire to be at odds with either:
One is so clever, one delights me so.

PLUTO. Then you'll effect nothing for which you came?

DIO. And how, if I decide?

PLUTO. Then take the winner;
So will your journey not be made in vain.

DIO. Heaven bless your Highness! Listen, I came down
After a poet.

EUR. To what end?

DIO. That so The city, saved, may keep her choral games.
Now then, whichever of you two shall best
Advise the city, _he_ shall come with me.
And first of Alcibiades, let each
Say what he thinks; the city travails sore.

EUR. What does she think herself about him?

DIO. What? She loves, and hates, and longs to have him back.
But give me _your_ advice about the man.

EUR. I loathe a townsman who is slow to aid,
And swift to hurt, his town: who ways and means
Finds for himself, but finds not for the state.

DIO. Poseidon, but that's smart! (_To Aesch_.) And what say _you?_

AESCH. 'Twere best to rear no lion in the state:
But having reared, 'tis best to humour him.

DIO. By Zeus the Saviour, still I can't decide.
One is so clever, and so clear the other.
But once again. Let each in turn declare
What plan of safety for the state ye've got.

EUR. [First with Cinesias wing Cleocritus,
Then zephyrs waft them o'er the watery plain.

DIO. A funny sight, I own: but where's the sense?

EUR. If, when the fleets engage, they holding cruets
Should rain down vinegar in the foemen's eyes,]
I know, and I can tell you.

DIO. Tell away.

EUR. When things, mistrusted now, shall trusted be,
And trusted things, mistrusted.

DIO. How! I don't quite comprehend.
Be clear, and not so clever.

EUR. If we mistrust those citizens of ours
Whom now we trust, and those employ whom now
We don't employ, the city will be saved.
If on our present tack we fail, we surely
Shall find salvation in the opposite course.

DIO. Good, O Palamedes! Good, you genius you. [Is this _your_
cleverness or Cephisophon's?

EUR. This is my own: the cruet-plan was his.]

DIO. (_To Aesch._) Now, you.

AESCH. But tell me whom the city uses. The good and useful?

DIO. What are you dreaming of? She hates and loathes them.

AESCH. Does she love the bad?

DIO. Not love them, no: she uses them perforce.

AESCH. How can one save a city such as this,
Whom neither frieze nor woollen tunic suits?

DIO. O, if to earth you rise, find out some way.

AESCH. There will I speak: I cannot answer here.

DIO. Nay, nay; send up your guerdon from below.

AESCH. When they shall count the enemy's soil their own,
And theirs the enemy's: when they know that ships
Are their true wealth, their so-called wealth delusion.

DIO. Aye, but the justices suck that down, you know.

PLUTO. Now then, decide.

DIO. I will; and thus I'll do it. I'll choose the man in whom my soul
delights.

EUR. O, recollect the gods by whom you swore
You'd take me home again; and choose your friends.

DIO. 'Twas my tongue swore; my choice is--Aeschylus.

EUR. Hah! what have you done?

DIO. Done? Given the victor's prize
To Aeschylus; why not?

EUR. And do you dare look in my face, after that shameful deed?

DIO. What's shameful, if the audience think not so?

EUR. Have you no heart? Wretch; would you leave me dead?

DIO. Who knows if death be life, and life be death, And breath be
mutton broth, and sleep a sheepskin?

PLUTO. Now, Dionysus, come ye in.

DIO. What for?

PLUTO. And sup before ye go.

DIO. A bright idea. I' faith, I'm nowise indisposed for that.

CHOR. Blest the man who possesses a
Keen intelligent mind.
This full often we find.
He, the bard of renown,
Now to earth reascends,
Goes, a joy to his town,
Goes, a joy to his friends,
Just because he possesses a
Keen intelligent mind.
RIGHT it is and befitting,
Not by Socrates sitting,
Idle talk to pursue,
Stripping tragedy-art of
All things noble and true,
Surely the mind to school
Fine-drawn quibbles to seek,
Fine-set phrases to speak,
Is but the part of a fool!

PLUTO. Farewell then, Aeschylus, great and wise,
Go, save our state by the maxims rare
Of thy noble thought; and the fools chastise,

For many a fool dwells there.
And _this_ to Cleophon give, my friend,
And _this_ to the revenue-raising crew,
Nicomachus, Myrmex, next I send,
And _this_ to Archenomus too.
And bid them all that without delay,
To my realm of the dead they hasten away.
For if they loiter above, I swear
I'll come myself and arrest them there.
And branded and fettered the slaves shall go
With the vilest rascal in all the town,
Adeimantus, son of Leucolophus, down,
Down, down to the darkness below.

AESCH. I take the mission. This chair of mine
Meanwhile to Sophocles here commit,
(For I count him next in our craft divine,)
Till I come once more by thy side to sit.
But as for that rascally scoundrel there,
That low buffoon, that worker of ill,
O let him not sit in my vacant chair,
Not even against his will.

PLUTO. (To the Chorus.) Escort him up with your mystic throngs,
While the holy torches quiver and blaze.
Escort him up with his own sweet songs and his noble festival lays.

CHOR. First, as the poet triumphant is passing away to the light,
Grant him success on his journey, ye powers that are ruling below.
Grant that he find for the city good counsels to guide her aright;
So we at last shall be freed from the anguish, the fear, and the woe,
Freed from the onsets of war. Let Cleophon now and his band
Battle, if battle they must, far away in their own fatherland.