His children, wife, Cephisophon--get in,
With all his books collected in his arms,
Two lines of mine shall overweigh the lot.
DIO. Both are my friends; I can't decide between them:
I don't desire to be at odds with either:
One is so clever, one delights me so.
PLUTO. Then you'll effect nothing for which you came?
DIO. And how, if I decide?
PLUTO. Then take the winner;
So will your journey not be made in vain.
DIO. Heaven bless your Highness! Listen, I came down
After a poet.
EUR. To what end?
DIO. That so The city, saved, may keep her choral games.
Now then, whichever of you two shall best
Advise the city, _he_ shall come with me.
And first of Alcibiades, let each
Say what he thinks; the city travails sore.
EUR. What does she think herself about him?
DIO. What? She loves, and hates, and longs to have him back.
But give me _your_ advice about the man.
EUR. I loathe a townsman who is slow to aid,
And swift to hurt, his town: who ways and means
Finds for himself, but finds not for the state.
DIO. Poseidon, but that's smart! (_To Aesch_.) And what say _you?_
AESCH. 'Twere best to rear no lion in the state:
But having reared, 'tis best to humour him.
DIO. By Zeus the Saviour, still I can't decide.
One is so clever, and so clear the other.
But once again. Let each in turn declare
What plan of safety for the state ye've got.
EUR. [First with Cinesias wing Cleocritus,
Then zephyrs waft them o'er the watery plain.
DIO. A funny sight, I own: but where's the sense?
EUR. If, when the fleets engage, they holding cruets
Should rain down vinegar in the foemen's eyes,]
I know, and I can tell you.
DIO. Tell away.
EUR. When things, mistrusted now, shall trusted be,
And trusted things, mistrusted.
DIO. How! I don't quite comprehend.
Be clear, and not so clever.
EUR. If we mistrust those citizens of ours
Whom now we trust, and those employ whom now
We don't employ, the city will be saved.
If on our present tack we fail, we surely
Shall find salvation in the opposite course.
DIO. Good, O Palamedes! Good, you genius you. [Is this _your_
cleverness or Cephisophon's?
EUR. This is my own: the cruet-plan was his.]
DIO. (_To Aesch._) Now, you.
AESCH. But tell me whom the city uses. The good and useful?
DIO. What are you dreaming of? She hates and loathes them.
AESCH. Does she love the bad?
DIO. Not love them, no: she uses them perforce.
AESCH. How can one save a city such as this,
Whom neither frieze nor woollen tunic suits?
DIO. O, if to earth you rise, find out some way.
AESCH. There will I speak: I cannot answer here.
DIO. Nay, nay; send up your guerdon from below.
AESCH. When they shall count the enemy's soil their own,
And theirs the enemy's: when they know that ships
Are their true wealth, their so-called wealth delusion.
DIO. Aye, but the justices suck that down, you know.
PLUTO. Now then, decide.
DIO. I will; and thus I'll do it. I'll choose the man in whom my soul
delights.
EUR. O, recollect the gods by whom you swore
You'd take me home again; and choose your friends.
DIO. 'Twas my tongue swore; my choice is--Aeschylus.
EUR. Hah! what have you done?
DIO. Done? Given the victor's prize
To Aeschylus; why not?
EUR. And do you dare look in my face, after that shameful deed?
DIO. What's shameful, if the audience think not so?
EUR. Have you no heart? Wretch; would you leave me dead?
DIO. Who knows if death be life, and life be death, And breath be
mutton broth, and sleep a sheepskin?
PLUTO. Now, Dionysus, come ye in.
DIO. What for?
PLUTO. And sup before ye go.
DIO. A bright idea. I' faith, I'm nowise indisposed for that.
CHOR. Blest the man who possesses a
Keen intelligent mind.
This full often we find.
He, the bard of renown,
Now to earth reascends,
Goes, a joy to his town,
Goes, a joy to his friends,
Just because he possesses a
Keen intelligent mind.
RIGHT it is and befitting,
Not by Socrates sitting,
Idle talk to pursue,
Stripping tragedy-art of
All things noble and true,
Surely the mind to school
Fine-drawn quibbles to seek,
Fine-set phrases to speak,
Is but the part of a fool!
PLUTO. Farewell then, Aeschylus, great and wise,
Go, save our state by the maxims rare
Of thy noble thought; and the fools chastise,
For many a fool dwells there.
And _this_ to Cleophon give, my friend,
And _this_ to the revenue-raising crew,
Nicomachus, Myrmex, next I send,
And _this_ to Archenomus too.
And bid them all that without delay,
To my realm of the dead they hasten away.
For if they loiter above, I swear
I'll come myself and arrest them there.
And branded and fettered the slaves shall go
With the vilest rascal in all the town,
Adeimantus, son of Leucolophus, down,
Down, down to the darkness below.
AESCH. I take the mission. This chair of mine
Meanwhile to Sophocles here commit,
(For I count him next in our craft divine,)
Till I come once more by thy side to sit.
But as for that rascally scoundrel there,
That low buffoon, that worker of ill,
O let him not sit in my vacant chair,
Not even against his will.
PLUTO. (To the Chorus.) Escort him up with your mystic throngs,
While the holy torches quiver and blaze.
Escort him up with his own sweet songs and his noble festival lays.
CHOR. First, as the poet triumphant is passing away to the light,
Grant him success on his journey, ye powers that are ruling below.
Grant that he find for the city good counsels to guide her aright;
So we at last shall be freed from the anguish, the fear, and the woe,
Freed from the onsets of war. Let Cleophon now and his band
Battle, if battle they must, far away in their own fatherland.