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?