CHORUS. Silence all! Friends, do you hear the sacred formula? Here is he,
whom we seek! This way, all! Get out of his way, surely he comes to offer
an oblation.
DICAEOPOLIS. Peace, profane men! Let the basket-bearer[189] come forward,
and thou, Xanthias, hold the phallus well upright.[190]
WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS. Daughter, set down the basket and let us begin the
sacrifice.
DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS. Mother, hand me the ladle, that I may spread the
sauce on the cake.
DICAEOPOLIS. It is well! Oh, mighty Bacchus, it is with joy that, freed
from military duty, I and all mine perform this solemn rite and offer
thee this sacrifice; grant, that I may keep the rural Dionysia without
hindrance and that this truce of thirty years may be propitious for me.
WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS. Come, my child, carry the basket gracefully and with
a grave, demure face. Happy he, who shall be your possessor and embrace
you so firmly at dawn,[191] that you belch wind like a weasel. Go
forward, and have a care they don't snatch your jewels in the crowd.
DICAEOPOLIS. Xanthias, walk behind the basket-bearer and hold the phallus
well erect; I will follow, singing the Phallic hymn; thou, wife, look on
from the top of the terrace.[192] Forward! Oh, Phales,[193] companion of
the orgies of Bacchus, night reveller, god of adultery, friend of young
men, these past six[194] years I have not been able to invoke thee. With
what joy I return to my farmstead, thanks to the truce I have concluded,
freed from cares, from fighting and from Lamachuses![195] How much
sweeter, Phales, oh, Phales, is it to surprise Thratta, the pretty
wood-maid, Strymodorus' slave, stealing wood from Mount Phelleus, to
catch her under the arms, to throw her on the ground and possess her! Oh,
Phales, Phales! If thou wilt drink and bemuse thyself with me, we will
to-morrow consume some good dish in honour of the peace, and I will hang
up my buckler over the smoking hearth.
CHORUS. It is he, he himself. Stone him, stone him, stone him, strike the
wretch. All, all of you, pelt him, pelt him!