f(1) As a matter of fact, the Sicyonians, who celebrated the
festival of Peace on the sixteenth day of the month of
Hecatombeon (July), spilled no blood upon her altar.
SERVANT And why not?
TRYGAEUS Blood cannot please Peace, so let us spill none upon her altar.
Therefore go and sacrifice the sheep in the house, cut off the legs and
bring them here; thus the carcase will be saved for the choregus.
CHORUS You, who remain here, get chopped wood and everything needed for
the sacrifice ready.
TRYGAEUS Don't I look like a diviner preparing his mystic fire?
CHORUS Undoubtedly. Will anything that it behooves a wise man to
know escape you? Don't you know all that a man should know, who is
distinguished for his wisdom and inventive daring?
TRYGAEUS There! the wood catches. Its smoke blinds poor Stilbides.(1) I
am now going to bring the table and thus be my own slave.
f(1) A celebrated diviner, who had accompanied the Athenians
on their expedition to Sicily. Thus the War was necessary
to make his calling pay and the smoke of the sacrifice
offered to Peace must therefore be unpleasant to him.
CHORUS You have braved a thousand dangers to save your sacred town. All
honour to you! your glory will be ever envied.
SERVANT Hold! Here are the legs, place them upon the altar. For myself,
I mean to go back to the entrails and the cakes.
TRYGAEUS I'll see to those; I want you here.
SERVANT Well then, here I am. Do you think I have been long?
TRYGAEUS Just get this roasted. Ah! who is this man, crowned with
laurel, who is coming to me?
SERVANT He has a self-important look; is he some diviner?
TRYGAEUS No, I' faith! 'tis Hierocles.
SERVANT Ah! that oracle-monger from Oreus.(1) What is he going to tell
us?
f(1) A town in Euboea on the channel which separated that
island from Thessaly.
TRYGAEUS Evidently he is coming to oppose the peace.
SERVANT No, 'tis the odour of the fat that attracts him.
TRYGAEUS Let us appear not to see him.
SERVANT Very well.
HIEROCLES What sacrifice is this? to what god are you offering it?
TRYGAEUS (TO THE SERVANT) Silence!--(ALOUD.) Look after the roasting and
keep your hands off the meat.
HIEROCLES To whom are you sacrificing? Answer me. Ah! the tail(1) is
showing favourable omens.
f(1) When sacrificing, the tail was cut off the victim and
thrown into the fire. From the way in which it burnt the
inference was drawn as to whether or not the sacrifice was
agreeable to the deity.
SERVANT Aye, very favourable, oh, loved and mighty Peace!
HIEROCLES Come, cut off the first offering(1) and make the oblation.
f(1) This was the part that belonged to the priests and
diviners. As one of the latter class, Hierocles is in haste
to see this piece cut off.
TRYGAEUS 'Tis not roasted enough.
HIEROCLES Yea, truly, 'tis done to a turn.
TRYGAEUS Mind your own business, friend! (TO THE SERVANT.) Cut away.
Where is the table? Bring the libations.
HIEROCLES The tongue is cut separately.
TRYGAEUS We know all that. But just listen to one piece of advice.
HIEROCLES And that is?
TRYGAEUS Don't talk, for 'tis divine Peace to whom we are sacrificing.
HIEROCLES Oh! wretched mortals, oh, you idiots!
TRYGAEUS Keep such ugly terms for yourself.
HIEROCLES What! you are so ignorant you don't understand the will of the
gods and you make a treaty, you, who are men, with apes, who are full of
malice?(1)
f(1) The Spartans.
TRYGAEUS Ha, ha, ha!
HIEROCLES What are you laughing at?
TRYGAEUS Ha, ha! your apes amuse me!
HIEROCLES You simple pigeons, you trust yourselves to foxes, who are all
craft, both in mind and heart.
TRYGAEUS Oh, you trouble-maker! may your lungs get as hot as this meat!
HIEROCLES Nay, nay! if only the Nymphs had not fooled Bacis, and Bacis
mortal men; and if the Nymphs had not tricked Bacis a second time...(1)
f(1) Emphatic pathos, incomprehensible even to the diviner
himself; this is a satire on the obscure style of the
oracles. Bacis was a famous Boeotian diviner.
TRYGAEUS May the plague seize you, if you don't stop wearying us with
your Bacis!
HIEROCLES ...it would not have been written in the book of Fate that the
bends of Peace must be broken; but first...
TRYGAEUS The meat must be dusted with salt.
HIEROCLES ...it does not please the blessed gods that we should stop the
War until the wolf uniteth with the sheep.
TRYGAEUS How, you cursed animal, could the wolf ever unite with the
sheep?
HIEROCLES As long as the wood-bug gives off a fetid odour, when it
flies; as long as the noisy bitch is forced by nature to litter blind
pups, so long shall peace be forbidden.
TRYGAEUS Then what should be done? Not to stop War would be to leave
it to the decision of chance which of the two people should suffer the
most, whereas by uniting under a treaty, we share the empire of Greece.
HIEROCLES You will never make the crab walk straight.
TRYGAEUS You shall no longer be fed at the Prytaneum; the war done,
oracles are not wanted.
HIEROCLES You will never smooth the rough spikes of the hedgehog.
TRYGAEUS Will you never stop fooling the Athenians?
HIEROCLES What oracle ordered you to burn these joints of mutton in
honour of the gods?
TRYGAEUS This grand oracle of Homer's: "Thus vanished the dark
war-clouds and we offered a sacrifice to new-born Peace. When the flame
had consumed the thighs of the victim and its inwards had appeased our
hunger, we poured out the libations of wine." 'Twas I who arranged the
sacred rites, but none offered the shining cup to the diviner.(1)
f(1) Of course this is not a bona fide quotation, but a
whimsical adaptation of various Homeric verses; the last is
a coinage of his own, and means, that he is to have no part,
either in the flesh of the victim or in the wine of the
libations.