by Aristophanes
SCYTHIAN. Whence comes this voice?
EURIPIDES. Whence comes this voice.
SCYTHIAN. Ah! beware!
EURIPIDES. Ah! beware!
SCYTHIAN (to Mnesilochus). Are you mocking me?
EURIPIDES. Are you mocking me?
MNESILOCHUS. No, ’tis this woman, who stands near you.
EURIPIDES. Who stands near you.
SCYTHIAN. Where is the hussy? Ah! she is escaping! Whither, whither are you escaping?
EURIPIDES. Whither, whither are you escaping?
SCYTHIAN. You shall not get away.
EURIPIDES. You shall not get away.
SCYTHIAN. You are chattering still?
EURIPIDES. You are chattering still?
SCYTHIAN. Stop the hussy.
EURIPIDES. Stop the hussy.
SCYTHIAN. What a babbling, cursed woman!
EURIPIDES (as Perseus). “Oh! ye gods! to what barbarian land has my swift flight taken me? I am Perseus, who cleaves the plains of the air with my winged feet, and I am carrying the Gorgon’s head to Argos.”
SCYTHIAN. What, are you talking about the head of Gorgos, the scribe?
EURIPIDES. No, I am speaking of the head of the Gorgon.
SCYTHIAN. Why, yes! of Gorgus!
EURIPIDES. “But what do I behold? A young maiden, beautiful as the immortals, chained to this rock like a vessel in port?”
MNESILOCHUS. Take pity on me, oh, stranger! I am so unhappy and distraught! Free me from these bonds.
SCYTHIAN. Don’t you talk! a curse upon your impudence! you are going to die, and yet you will be chattering!
EURIPIDES. “Oh! virgin! I take pity on your chains.”
SCYTHIAN. But this is no virgin; ’tis an old rogue, a cheat and a thief.
EURIPIDES. You have lost your wits, Scythian. This is Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus.
SCYTHIAN. But just look at this tool; is that like a woman?
EURIPIDES. Give me your hand, that I may descend near this young maiden. Each man has his own particular weakness; as for me I am aflame with love for this virgin.
SCYTHIAN. Oh! I’m not jealous; and as he has his back turned this way, why, I make no objection to your pedicating him.
EURIPIDES. “Ah! let me release her, and hasten to join her on the bridal couch.”
SCYTHIAN. If this old man instils you with such ardent concupiscence, why, you can bore through the plank, and so get at his behind.
EURIPIDES. No, I will break his bonds.
SCYTHIAN. Beware of my lash!
EURIPIDES. No matter.
SCYTHIAN. This blade shall cut off your head.
EURIPIDES. “Ah! what can be done? what arguments can I use? This savage will understand nothing! The newest and most cunning fancies are a dead letter to the ignorant. Let us invent some artifice to fit in with his coarse nature.”
SCYTHIAN. I can see the rascal is trying to outwit me.
MNESILOCHUS. Ah! Perseus! remember in what condition you are leaving me.
SCYTHIAN. Are you wanting to feel my lash again!
CHORUS.
Oh! Pallas, who art fond of dances, hasten hither at my call. Oh! thou chaste virgin, the protectress of Athens, I call thee in accordance with the sacred rites, thee, whose evident protection we adore and who keepest the keys of our city in thy hands. Do thou appear, thou whose just hatred has overturned our tyrants. The womenfolk are calling thee; hasten hither at their bidding along with Peace, who shall restore the festivals. And ye, august goddesses, display a smiling and propitious countenance to our gaze; come into your sacred grove, the entry to which is forbidden to men; ’tis there in the midst of sacred orgies that we contemplate your divine features. Come, appear, we pray it of you, oh, venerable Thesmophoriae! If you have ever answered our appeal, oh! come into our midst.
EURIPIDES. Women, if you will be reconciled with me, I am willing, and I undertake never to say anything ill of you in future. Those are my proposals for peace.
CHORUS. And what impels you to make these overtures?
EURIPIDES. This unfortunate man, who is chained to the post, is my father-in-law; if you will restore him to me, you will have no more cause to complain of me; but if not, I shall reveal your pranks to your husbands when they return from the war.
CHORUS. We accept peace, but there is this barbarian whom you must buy over.
EURIPIDES. That’s my business. (He returns as an old woman and is accompanied by a dancing-girl and a flute-girl.) Come, my little wench, bear in mind what I told you on the road and do it well. Come, go past him and gird up your robe. And you, you little dear, play us the air of a Persian dance.
SCYTHIAN. What is this music that makes me so blithe?
EURIPIDES (as an old woman). Scythian, this young girl is going to practise some dances, which she has to perform at a feast presently.
SCYTHIAN. Very well! let her dance and practise; I won’t hinder her. How nimbly she bounds! one might think her a flea on a fleece.
EURIPIDES. Come, my dear, off with your robe and seat yourself on the Scythian’s knee; stretch forth your feet to me, that I may take off your slippers.
SCYTHIAN. Ah! yes, seat yourself, my little girl, ah! yes, to be sure.
What a firm little bosom! ’tis just like a turnip.
EURIPIDES (to the flute-girl). An air on the flute, quick! (To the dancing-girl.) Well! are you still afraid of the Scythian?
SCYTHIAN. What beautiful thighs!
EURIPIDES. Come! keep still, can’t you?
SCYTHIAN. ’Tis altogether a very fine morsel to make a man’s cock stand.
EURIPIDES. That’s so! (To the dancing-girl.) Resume your dress, it is time to be going.
SCYTHIAN. Give me a kiss.
EURIPIDES (to the dancing-girl). Come, give him a kiss.
SCYTHIAN. Oh! oh! oh! my goodness, what soft lips! ’tis like Attic honey.
But might she not stop with me?
EURIPIDES. Impossible, archer; good evening.
SCYTHIAN. Oh! oh! old woman, do me this pleasure.
EURIPIDES. Will you give a drachma?
SCYTHIAN. Aye, that I will.
EURIPIDES. Hand over the money.
SCYTHIAN. I have not got it, but take my quiver in pledge.
EURIPIDES. You will bring her back?
SCYTHIAN. Follow me, my beautiful child. And you, old woman, just keep guard over this man. But what is your name?
EURIPIDES. Artemisia. Can you remember that name?
SCYTHIAN. Artemuxia. Good!
EURIPIDES (aside). Hermes, god of cunning, receive my thanks! everything is turning out for the best. (To the Scythian.) As for you, friend, take away this girl, quick. (Exit the Scythian with the dancing-girl.) Now let me loose his bonds. (To Mnesilochus.) And you, directly I have released you, take to your legs and run off full tilt to your home to find your wife and children.
MNESILOCHUS. I shall not fail in that as soon as I am free.
EURIPIDES (releases Mnesilochus). There! ’Tis done. Come, fly, before the archer lays his hand on you again.
MNESILOCHUS. That’s just what I am doing. [Exit with Euripides.
SCYTHIAN. Ah! old woman! what a charming little girl! Not at all the prude, and so obliging! Eh! where is the old woman? Ah! I am undone! And the old man, where is he? Hi! old woman! old woman! Ah! but this is a dirty trick! Artemuxia! she has tricked me, that’s what the little old woman has done! Get clean out of my sight, you cursed quiver! (Picks it up and throws it across the stage.) Ha! you are well named quiver, for you have made me quiver indeed. Oh! what’s to be done? Where is the old woman then? Artemuxia!
CHORUS. Are you asking for the old woman who carried the lyre?
SCYTHIAN. Yes, yes; have you seen her?
CHORUS. She has gone that way along with an old man.
SCYTHIAN. Dressed in a long robe?
CHORUS. Yes; run quick, and you will overtake them.
SCYTHIAN. Ah! rascally old woman! Which way has she fled? Ar
temuxia!
CHORUS. Straight on; follow your nose. But, hi! where are you running to now? Come back, you are going exactly the wrong way.
SCYTHIAN. Ye gods! ye gods! and all this while Artemuxia is escaping. [Exit running.
CHORUS. Go your way! and a pleasant journey to you! But our sports have lasted long enough; it is time for each of us to be off home; and may the two goddesses reward us for our labours!
THE FROGS
Anonymous translation for the Athenian Society, London, 1912
First performed at the Lenaia in 405 BC, a year after the death of Euripides, this famous comedy received first place in the competition. The Frogs presents the unlikely tale of the god Dionysus, who, despairing of the quality of Athens’ contemporary tragedians, travels to Hades to bring the playwright Euripides back from the dead. The comedy has been viewed as having the underlying political theme of esteeming old values and beliefs, covertly urging the audience to reject the current leadership that had been put in place by conquering Sparta. In Dionysus’ desire for the old works of Athens’ great tragedians, Aristophanes rouses the Athenians’ desire to return to their days of hegemony in the Greek world.
The play is formed of two parts, making the comedy unique in its structure compared to other Aristophanean works. In the first part, Dionysus seeks to win admission to Pluto’s palace and find the recently deceased Euripides. Then follows a power struggle between Euripides and Aeschylus, where the former is jealous of the latter’s place as the greatest tragic poet. Dionysus is asked by Pluto to mediate the contest or agon, heralding the second part of the comedy. The combination of a journey part, followed by a contest section creates an unusual structure to the play that would have been surprising and innovative for contemporary audiences.
The frogs of the title only appear in one scene, during the first choral interlude (parodos), sung by the chorus of frogs, as Dionysus is ferried across Lake Acheron by Charon. The legendary croaking refrain – Brekekekèx-koàx-koáx (Βρεκεκεκὲξ κοὰξ κοάξ) – greatly annoys Dionysus, who engages in a mocking debate (agon) with the frogs.
Bust of Aeschylus from the Capitoline Museum, Rome
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
THE FROGS
INTRODUCTION
Like ‘The Birds’ this play rather avoids politics than otherwise, its leading motif, over and above the pure fun and farce for their own sake of the burlesque descent into the infernal regions, being a literary one, an onslaught on Euripides the Tragedian and all his works and ways.
It was produced in the year 405 B.C., the year after ‘The Birds,’ and only one year before the Peloponnesian War ended disastrously for the Athenian cause in the capture of the city by Lysander. First brought out at the Lenaean festival in January, it was played a second time at the Dionysia in March of the same year — a far from common honour. The drama was not staged in the Author’s own name, we do not know for what reasons, but it won the first prize, Phrynichus’ ‘Muses’ being second.
The plot is as follows. The God Dionysus, patron of the Drama, is dissatisfied with the condition of the Art of Tragedy at Athens, and resolves to descend to Hades in order to bring back again to earth one of the old tragedians — Euripides, he thinks, for choice. Dressing himself up, lion’s skin and club complete, as Heracles, who has performed the same perilous journey before, and accompanied by his slave Xanthias (a sort of classical Sancho Panza) with the baggage, he starts on the fearful expedition.
Coming to the shores of Acheron, he is ferried over in Charon’s boat — Xanthias has to walk round — the First Chorus of Marsh Frogs (from which the play takes its title) greeting him with prolonged croakings. Approaching Pluto’s Palace in fear and trembling, he knocks timidly at the gate. Being presently admitted, he finds a contest on the point of being held before the King of Hades and the Initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries, who form the Second Chorus, between Aeschylus, the present occupant of the throne of tragic excellence in hell, and the pushing, self-satisfied, upstart Euripides, who is for ousting him from his pride of place.
Each poet quotes in turn from his Dramas, and the indignant Aeschylus makes fine fun of his rival’s verses, and shows him up in the usual Aristophanic style as a corrupter of morals, a contemptible casuist, and a professor of the dangerous new learning of the Sophists, so justly held in suspicion by true-blue Athenian Conservatives. Eventually a pair of scales is brought in, and verses alternately spouted by the two candidates are weighed against each other, the mighty lines of the Father of Tragedy making his flippant, finickin little rival’s scale kick the beam every time.
Dionysus becomes a convert to the superior merits of the old school of tragedy, and contemptuously dismisses Euripides, to take Aeschylus back with him to the upper world instead, leaving Sophocles meantime in occupation of the coveted throne of tragedy in the nether regions.
Needless to say, the various scenes of the journey to Hades, the crossing of Acheron, the Frogs’ choric songs, and the trial before Pluto, afford opportunities for much excellent fooling in our Author’s very finest vein of drollery, and “seem to have supplied the original idea for those modern burlesques upon the Olympian and Tartarian deities which were at one time so popular.”
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
DIONYSUS.
XANTHIAS, his Servant.
HERACLES.
A DEAD MAN.
CHARON.
AEACUS.
FEMALE ATTENDANT OF PERSEPHONÉ.
INKEEPERS’ WIVES.
EURIPIDES.
AESCHYLUS.
PLUTO.
CHORUS OF FROGS.
CHORUS OF INITIATES.
SCENE: In front of the temple of Heracles, and on the banks of Acheron in the Infernal Regions.
THE FROGS
XANTHIAS. Now am I to make one of those jokes that have the knack of always making the spectators laugh?
DIONYSUS. Aye, certainly, any one you like, excepting “I am worn out.”
Take care you don’t say that, for it gets on my nerves.
XANTHIAS. Do you want some other drollery?
DIONYSUS. Yes, only not, “I am quite broken up.”
XANTHIAS. Then what witty thing shall I say?
DIONYSUS. Come, take courage; only …
XANTHIAS. Only what?
DIONYSUS. … don’t start saying as you shift your package from shoulder to shoulder, “Ah! that’s a relief!”
XANTHIAS. May I not at least say, that unless I am relieved of this cursed load I shall let wind?
DIONYSUS. Oh! for pity’s sake, no! you don’t want to make me spew.
XANTHIAS. What need then had I to take this luggage, if I must not copy the porters that Phrynichus, Lycis and Amipsias never fail to put on the stage?
DIONYSUS. Do nothing of the kind. Whenever I chance to see one of these stage tricks, I always leave the theatre feeling a good year older.
XANTHIAS. Oh! my poor back! you are broken and I am not allowed to make a single joke.
DIONYSUS. Just mark the insolence of this Sybarite! I, Dionysus, the son of a … wine-jar, I walk, I tire myself, and I set yonder rascal upon an ass, that he may not have the burden of carrying his load.
XANTHIAS. But am I not carrying it?
DIONYSUS. No, since you are on your beast.
XANTHIAS. Nevertheless I am carrying this….
DIONYSUS. What?
XANTHIAS. … and it is very heavy.
DIONYSUS. But this burden you carry is borne by the ass.
XANTHIAS. What I have here, ’tis certainly I who bear it, and not the ass, no, by all the gods, most certainly not!
DIONYSUS. How can you claim to be carrying it, when you are carried?
XANTHIAS. That I can’t say; but this shoulder is broken, anyhow.
DIONYSUS. Well then, since you say that the ass is no good to you, pick her up in your turn and carry her.
XANTHIAS. What a pity I did not fight
at sea; I would baste your ribs for that joke.
DIONYSUS. Dismount, you clown! Here is a door, at which I want to make my first stop. Hi! slave! hi! hi! slave!
HERACLES (from inside the Temple). Do you want to beat in the door? He knocks like a Centaur. Why, what’s the matter?
DIONYSUS. Xanthias!
XANTHIAS. Well?
DIONYSUS. Did you notice?
XANTHIAS. What?
DIONYSUS. How I frightened him?
XANTHIAS. Bah! you’re mad!
HERACLES. Ho, by Demeter! I cannot help laughing; it’s no use biting my lips, I must laugh.
DIONYSUS. Come out, friend; I have need of you.
HERACLES. Oh! ’tis enough to make a fellow hold his sides to see this lion’s-skin over a saffron robe! What does this mean? Buskins and a bludgeon! What connection have they? Where are you off to in this rig?
DIONYSUS. When I went aboard Clisthenes….
HERACLES. Did you fight?
DIONYSUS. We sank twelve or thirteen ships of the enemy.
HERACLES. You?
DIONYSUS. Aye, by Apollo!
HERACLES. You have dreamt it.
DIONYSUS. As I was reading the ‘Andromeda’ on the ship, I suddenly felt my heart afire with a wish so violent….
HERACLES. A wish! of what nature?
DIONYSUS. Oh, quite small, like Molon.
HERACLES. You wished for a woman?
DIONYSUS. No.
HERACLES. A young boy, then?
DIONYSUS. Nothing of the kind.
HERACLES. A man?
DIONYSUS. Faugh!
HERACLES. Might you then have had dealings with Clisthenes?
DIONYSUS. Have mercy, brother; no mockery! I am quite ill, so greatly does my desire torment me!
HERACLES. And what desire is it, little brother?
DIONYSUS. I cannot disclose it, but I will convey it to you by hints.
Have you ever been suddenly seized with a desire for pea-soup?
HERACLES. For pea-soup! oh! oh! yes, a thousand times in my life.
DIONYSUS. Do you take me or shall I explain myself in some other way?
HERACLES. Oh! as far as the pea-soup is concerned, I understand marvellously well.