DIONYSUS. To private gods of your own, which you have made after your own
image?
EURIPIDES. Why, certainly!
DIONYSUS. Well then, invoke your gods.
EURIPIDES. Oh! thou Aether, on which I feed, oh! thou Volubility of
Speech, oh! Craftiness, oh! Subtle Scent! enable me to crush the
arguments of my opponent.
CHORUS. We are curious to see upon what ground these clever tilters are
going to measure each other. Their tongue is keen, their wit is ready,
their heart is full of audacity. From the one we must expect both
elegance and polish of language, whereas the other, armed with his
ponderous words, will fall hip and thigh upon his foe and with a single
blow tear down and scatter all his vain devices.
DIONYSUS. Come, be quick and speak and let your words be elegant, but
without false imagery or platitude.
EURIPIDES. I shall speak later of my poetry, but I want first to prove
that Aeschylus is merely a wretched impostor; I shall relate by what
means he tricked a coarse audience, trained in the school of
Phrynichus.[472] First one saw some seated figure, who was veiled, some
Achilles or Niobé,[473] who then strutted about the stage, but neither
uncovered their face nor uttered a syllable.
DIONYSUS. I' faith! that's true!
EURIPIDES. Meanwhile, the Chorus would pour forth as many as four tirades
one after the other, without stopping, and the characters would still
maintain their stony silence.
DIONYSUS. I liked their silence, and these mutes pleased me no less than
those characters that have such a heap to say nowadays.
EURIPIDES. 'Tis because you were a fool, understand that well.
DIONYSUS. Possibly; but what was his object?
EURIPIDES. 'Twas pure quackery; in this way the spectator would sit
motionless, waiting, waiting for Niobé to say something, and the piece
would go running on.
DIONYSUS. Oh! the rogue! how he deceived me! Well, Aeschylus, why are you
so restless? Why this impatience, eh?
EURIPIDES. 'Tis because he sees himself beaten. Then when he had rambled
on well, and got half-way through the piece, he would spout some dozen
big, blustering, winged words, tall as mountains, terrible scarers, which
the spectator admired without understanding what they meant.
DIONYSUS. Oh! great gods!
AESCHYLUS. Silence!
EURIPIDES. There was no comprehending one word.
DIONYSUS (_to Aeschylus_). Don't grind your teeth.
EURIPIDES. There were Scamanders, abysses, griffins with eagles' beaks
chiselled upon brazen bucklers, all words with frowning crests and hard,
hard to understand.
DIONYSUS. 'Faith, I was kept awake almost an entire night, trying to
think out his yellow bird, half cock and half horse.[474]
AESCHYLUS. Why, fool, 'tis a device that is painted on the prow of a
vessel.
DIONYSUS. Ah! I actually thought 'twas Eryxis, the son of
Philoxenus.[475]
EURIPIDES. But what did you want with a cock in tragedy?
AESCHYLUS. But you, you foe of the gods, what have you done that is so
good?
EURIPIDES. Oh! I have not made horses with cocks' heads like you, nor
goats with deer's horns, as you may see 'em on Persian tapestries; but,
when I received tragedy from your hands, it was quite bloated with
enormous, ponderous words, and I began by lightening it of its heavy
baggage and treated it with little verses, with subtle arguments, with
the sap of white beet and decoctions of philosophical folly, the whole
being well filtered together;[476] then I fed it with monologues, mixing
in some Cephisophon;[477] but I did not chatter at random nor mix in any
ingredients that first came to hand; from the outset I made my subject
clear, and told the origin of the piece.