The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1. Аристофан

Hold! here is a little box of ointment to rub into the sores on your legs.

      CLEON. I will pluck out your white hairs and make you young again.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. Take this hare's scut to wipe the rheum from your eyes.

      CLEON. When you wipe your nose, clean your fingers on my head.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, on mine.

      CLEON. On mine. (To the Sausage-seller.) I will have you made a trierarch103 and you will get ruined through it; I will arrange that you are given an old vessel with rotten sails, which you will have to repair constantly and at great cost.

      CHORUS. Our man is on the boil; enough, enough, he is boiling over; remove some of the embers from under him and skim off his threats.

      CLEON. I will punish your self-importance; I will crush you with imposts; I will have you inscribed on the list of the rich.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. For me no threats—only one simple wish. That you may be having some cuttle-fish fried on the stove just as you are going to set forth to plead the cause of the Milesians,104 which, if you gain, means a talent in your pocket; that you hurry over devouring the fish to rush off to the Assembly; suddenly you are called and run off with your mouth full so as not to lose the talent and choke yourself. There! that is my wish.

      CHORUS. Splendid! by Zeus, Apollo and Demeter!

      DEMOS. Faith! here is an excellent citizen indeed, such as has not been seen for a long time. 'Tis truly a man of the lowest scum! As for you, Paphlagonian, who pretend to love me, you only feed me on garlic. Return me my ring, for you cease to be my steward.

      CLEON. Here it is, but be assured, that if you bereave me of my power, my successor will be worse than I am.

      DEMOS. This cannot be my ring; I see another device, unless I am going purblind.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. What was your device?

      DEMOS. A fig-leaf, stuffed with bullock's fat.105

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, that is not it.

      DEMOS. What is it then?

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. 'Tis a gull with beak wide open, haranguing from the top of a stone.106

      DEMOS. Ah! great gods!

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. What is the matter?

      DEMOS. Away! away out of my sight! 'Tis not my ring he had, 'twas that of Cleonymus. (To the Sausage-seller.) Hold, I give you this one; you shall be my steward.

      CLEON. Master, I adjure you, decide nothing till you have heard my oracles.107

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. And mine.

      CLEON. If you believe him, you will have to suck his tool for him.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. If you listen to him, you'll have to let him skin your penis to the very stump.

      CLEON. My oracles say that you are to reign over the whole earth, crowned with chaplets.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. And mine say that, clothed in an embroidered purple robe, you shall pursue Smicythes and her spouse,108 standing in a chariot of gold and with a crown on your head.

      DEMOS. Go, fetch me your oracles, that the Paphlagonian may hear them.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. Willingly.

      DEMOS. And you yours.

      CLEON. I run.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I run too; nothing could suit me better!

      CHORUS. Oh! happy day for us and for our children, if Cleon perish. Yet just now I heard some old cross-grained pleaders on the market-place who hold not this opinion discoursing together. Said they, "If Cleon had not had the power we should have lacked two most useful tools, the pestle and the soup-ladle."109 You also know what a pig's education he has had; his school-fellows can recall that he only liked the Dorian style and would study no other; his music-master in displeasure sent him away, saying: "This youth in matters of harmony, will only learn the Dorian style because 'tis akin to bribery."110

      CLEON. There, behold and look at this heap; and yet I do not bring all.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. Ugh! I pant and puff under the weight and yet I do not bring all.

      DEMOS. What are these?

      CLEON. Oracles.

      DEMOS. All these?

      CLEON. Does that astonish you? Why, I have another whole boxful of them.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I the whole of my attics and two rooms besides.

      DEMOS. Come, let us see, whose are these oracles?

      CLEON. Mine are those of Bacis.111

      DEMOS (to the Sausage-seller). And whose are yours?

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. Glanis's, the elder brother of Bacis.112

      DEMOS. And of what do they speak?

      CLEON. Of Athens, of Pylos, of you, of me, of all.

      DEMOS. And yours?

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. Of Athens, of lentils, of Lacedaemonians, of fresh mackerel, of scoundrelly flour-sellers, of you, of me. Ah! ha! now let him gnaw his own penis with chagrin!

      DEMOS. Come, read them out to me and especially that one I like so much, which says that I shall become an eagle and soar among the clouds.

      CLEON. Then listen and be attentive! "Son of Erectheus,113 understand the meaning of the words, which the sacred tripods set resounding in the sanctuary of Apollo. Preserve the sacred dog with the jagged teeth, that barks and howls in your defence; he will ensure you a salary and, if he fails, will perish as the victim of the swarms of jays that hunt him down with their screams."

      DEMOS. By Demeter! I do not understand a word of it. What connection is there between Erectheus, the jays and the dog?

      CLEON. 'Tis I who am the dog, since I bark in your defence. Well! Phoebus commands you to keep and cherish your dog.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. 'Tis not so spoken by the god; this dog seems to me to gnaw at the oracles as others gnaw at doorposts. Here is exactly what Apollo says of the dog.

      DEMOS. Let us hear, but I must first pick up a stone; an oracle which speaks of a dog might bite me.

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. "Son of Erectheus, beware of this Cerberus that enslaves freemen; he fawns upon you with his tail, when you are dining, but he is lying in wait to devour your dishes, should you turn your head an instant; at night he sneaks into the kitchen and, true dog that he is, licks up with one lap of his tongue both your dishes and … the islands."114

      DEMOS. Faith, Glanis, you speak better than your brother.

      CLEON. Condescend again to hear me and then judge: "A woman in sacred Athens will be delivered of a lion, who shall fight for the people against clouds of gnats with the same ferocity as if he were defending his whelps; care ye for him, erect wooden walls around him and towers of brass." Do you understand that?

      DEMOS. Not the least bit in the world.

      CLEON. The god tells you here to look after me, for, 'tis I who am your lion.

      DEMOS. How! You have become a lion and I never knew a thing about it?

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. There is only one thing which he purposely keeps from you; he does not say what this wall of wood and brass is in which Apollo warns you to keep and guard him.

      DEMOS. What does the god mean, then?

      SAUSAGE-SELLER. He advises

103

A very expensive burden, which was imposed upon the rich citizen. The trierarchs had to furnish both the equipment of the triremes or war-galleys and their upkeep. They varied considerably in number and ended in reaching a total of 1200; the most opulent found the money, and were later repaid partly and little by little by those not so well circumstanced. Later it was permissible for anyone, appointed as a trierarch, to point out someone richer than himself and to ask to have him take his place with the condition that if the other preferred, he should exchange fortunes with him and continue his office of trierarch.

104

This is an allusion to some extortion of Cleon's.

105

The Greek word [Greek: d_emos] means both "The People" and fat, grease. The pun cannot well be kept in English.

106

A voracious bird—in allusion to Cleon's rapacity and to his loquacity in the Assembly.

107

The orators were fond of supporting their arguments with imaginary oracles—and Cleon was an especial adept at this dodge.

108

Smicythes, King of Thrace, spoken of in the oracle as a woman, doubtless on account of his cowardice. The word pursue is here used in a double sense, viz. in battle and in law. It is on account of this latter meaning, that Aristophanes adds "and her spouse," because in cases in which women were sued at law, their husbands were summoned as conjointly liable.

109

Because he had smashed up and turned upside down the fortunes of Athens.

110

The pun—rather a far-fetched one—is between the words [Greek: D_orh_osti] (in the Dorian mode) and [Greek: d_orhon] (a bribe).

111

A Boeotian soothsayer.

112

A name invented by the Sausage-seller on the spur of the moment, to cap Cleon's boast.

113

That is, Athenian; Erectheus was an ancient mythical King of Athens.

114

That is, the tributes paid to Athens by the Aegaean Islands, whether allies or subjects.