Peace by Aristophanes - HTML preview

Peace

INTRODUCTION

The 'Peace' was brought out four years after 'The Acharnians' (422 B.C.), when the War had already lasted ten years. The leading motive is the same as in the former play--the intense desire of the less excitable and more moderate-minded citizens for relief from the miseries of war.

Trygaeus, a rustic patriot, finding no help in men, resolves to ascend to heaven to expostulate personally with Zeus for allowing this wretched state of things to continue. With this object he has fed and trained a gigantic dung-beetle, which he mounts, and is carried, like Bellerophon on Pegasus, on an aerial journey. Eventually he reaches Olympus, only to find that the gods have gone elsewhere, and that the heavenly abode is occupied solely by the demon of War, who is busy pounding up the Greek States in a huge mortar. However, his benevolent purpose is not in vain; for learning from Hermes that the goddess Peace has been cast into a pit, where she is kept a fast prisoner, he calls upon the different peoples of Hellas to make a united effort and rescue her, and with their help drags her out and brings her back in triumph to earth. The play concludes with the restoration of the goddess to her ancient honours, the festivities of the rustic population and the nuptials of Trygaeus with Opora (Harvest), handmaiden of Peace, represented as a pretty courtesan.

Such references as there are to Cleon in this play are noteworthy. The great Demagogue was now dead, having fallen in the same action as the rival Spartan general, the renowned Brasidas, before Amphipolis, and whatever Aristophanes says here of his old enemy is conceived in the spirit of 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum.' In one scene Hermes is descanting on the evils which had nearly ruined Athens and declares that 'The Tanner' was the cause of them all. But Trygaeus interrupts him with the words:

"Hold-say not so, good master Hermes; Let the man rest in peace where now he lies. He is no longer of our world, but yours."

Here surely we have a trait of magnanimity on the author's part as admirable in its way as the wit and boldness of his former attacks had been in theirs.

 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

TRYGAEUS TWO SERVANTS OF TRYGAEUS MAIDENS, DAUGHTERS OF TRYGAEUS HERMES WAR TUMULT HIEROCLES, a Soothsayer A SICKLEMAKER A CREST-MAKER A TRUMPET-MAKER A HELMET-MAKER A SPEARMAKER 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 illsmelling 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?

 

TRYGAEUS

 

Why is there not the harbour of Cantharos at the Piraeus?[1]

 

f[1] Nature had divided the Piraeus into three basins--Cantharos, Aphrodisium and Zea. [Cantharos] is Greek for dung-beetle.

LITTLE DAUGHTER
Take care not to knock against anything and so fall off into space; once a cripple, you would be a fit subject for Euripides, who would put you into a tragedy.[1]

f[1] In allusion to Euripides' fondness for introducing lame heroes in his plays.

TRYGAEUS
I'll see to it. Good-bye! (TO THE ATHENIANS.) You, for love of whom I brave these dangers, do ye neither let wind nor go to stool for the space of three days, for, if, while cleaving the air, my steed should scent anything, he would fling me head foremost from the summit of my hopes. Now come, my Pegasus, get a-going with up-pricked ears and make your golden bridle resound gaily. Eh! what are you doing? What are you up to? Do you turn your nose towards the cesspools? Come, pluck up a spirit; rush upwards from the earth, stretch out your speedy wings and make straight for the palace of Zeus; for once give up foraging in your daily food.--Hi! you down there, what are you after now? Oh! my god! 'tis a man emptying his belly in the Piraeus, close to the house where the bad girls are. But is it my death you seek then, my death? Will you not bury that right away and pile a great heap of earth upon it and plant wild thyme therein and pour perfumes on it? If I were to fall from up here and misfortune happened to me, the town of Chios[1] would owe a fine of five talents for my death, all along of your cursed rump. Alas! how frightened I am! oh! I have no heart for jests. Ah! machinist, take great care of me. There is already a wind whirling round my navel; take great care or, from sheer fright, I shall form food for my beetle.... But I think I am no longer far from the gods; aye, that is the dwelling of Zeus, I perceive. Hullo! Hi! where is the doorkeeper? Will no one open?

f[1] An allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the Chians [in Greek]--'crapping Chian.' There is a further joke, of course, in connection with the hundred and one frivolous pretexts which the Athenians invented for exacting contributions from the maritime allies.

(THE SCENE CHANGES AND HEAVEN IS PRESENTED.)

HERMES
Meseems I can sniff a man. (HE PERCEIVES TRYGAEUS ASTRIDE HIS BEETLE.) Why, what plague is this?

TRYGAEUS A horse-beetle.

HERMES
Oh! impudent, shameless rascal! oh! scoundrel! triple scoundrel! the greatest scoundrel in the world! how did you come here? Oh! scoundrel of all scoundrels! your name? Reply.

TRYGAEUS

 

Triple scoundrel.

 

HERMES

 

Your country?

 

TRYGAEUS

 

Triple scoundrel.

 

HERMES

 

Your father?

 

TRYGAEUS

 

My father? Triple scoundrel.

 

HERMES

 

By the Earth, you shall die, unless you tell me your name.

TRYGAEUS
I am Trygaeus of the Athmonian deme, a good vine-dresser, little addicted to quibbling and not at all an informer.

HERMES

 

Why do you come?

 

TRYGAEUS

 

I come to bring you this meat.

 

HERMES

 

Ah! my good friend, did you have a good journey?

 

TRYGAEUS

 

Glutton, be off! I no longer seem a triple scoundrel to you. Come, call Zeus.

 

HERMES

 

Ah! ah! you are a long way yet from reaching the gods, for they moved yesterday.

 

TRYGAEUS

 

To what part of the earth? Eh! of the earth, did you say?

 

TRYGAEUS

 

In short, where are they then?

 

HERMES

 

Very far, very far, right at the furthest end of the dome of heaven.

 

TRYGAEUS

 

But why have they left you all alone here?

HERMES
I am watching what remains of the furniture, the little pots and pans, the bits of chairs and tables, and odd wine-jars.

TRYGAEUS

 

And why have the gods moved away?

HERMES
Because of their wrath against the Greeks. They have located War in the house they occupied themselves and have given him full power to do with you exactly as he pleases; then they went as high up as ever they could, so as to see no more of your fights and to hear no more of your prayers.

TRYGAEUS

 

What reason have they for treating us so?

HERMES
Because they have afforded you an opportunity for peace more than once, but you have always preferred war. If the Laconians got the very slightest advantage, they would exclaim, "By the Twin Brethren! the Athenians shall smart for this." If, on the contrary, the latter triumphed and the Laconians came with peace proposals, you would say, "By Demeter, they want to deceive us. No, by Zeus, we will not hear a word; they will always be coming as long as we hold Pylos."[1]

f[1] Masters of Pylos and Sphacteria, the Athenians had brought home the three hundred prisoners taken in the latter place in 425 B.C.; the Spartans had several times sent envoys to offer peace and to demand back both Pylos and the prisoners, but the Athenian pride had caused these proposals to be long refused. Finally the prisoners had been given up in 423 B.C., but the War was continued nevertheless.

TRYGAEUS

 

Yes, that is quite the style our folk do talk in. So that I don't know whether you will ever see Peace again.

 

TRYGAEUS

 

Why, where has she gone to then?

 

HERMES

 

War has cast her into a deep pit.

 

TRYGAEUS Where?

HERMES
Down there, at the very bottom. And you see what heaps of stones he has piled over the top, so that you should never pull her out again.

TRYGAEUS

 

Tell me, what is War preparing against us?

 

HERMES

 

All I know is that last evening he brought along a huge mortar.

 

TRYGAEUS

 

And what is he going to do with his mortar?

HERMES
He wants to pound up all the cities of Greece in it.... But I must say good-bye, for I think he is coming out; what an uproar he is making!

TRYGAEUS
Ah! great gods! let us seek safety; meseems I already hear the noise of this fearful war mortar.

WAR (ENTERS, CARRYING A HUGE MORTAR) Oh! mortals, mortals, wretched mortals, how your jaws will snap!

TRYGAEUS
Oh! divine Apollo! what a prodigious big mortar! Oh, what misery the very sight of War causes me! This then is the foe from whom I fly, who is so cruel, so formidable, so stalwart, so solid on his legs!

WAR
Oh! Prasiae![1] thrice wretched, five times, aye, a thousand times wretched! for thou shalt be destroyed this day.

f[1] An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, the root-word of the name Praisae, into his mortar.

TRYGAEUS

 

This does not concern us over much; 'tis only so much the worse for the Laconians.

WAR
Oh! Megara! Megara! how utterly are you going to be ground up! what fine mincemeat[1] are you to be made into!

f[1] War throws some garlic into his mortar as emblematical of the city of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.

 

TRYGAEUS

 

Alas! alas! what bitter tears there will be among the Megarians![1]

 

f[1] Because the smell of bruised garlic causes the eyes to water.

WAR
Oh, Sicily! you too must perish! Your wretched towns shall be grated like this cheese.[1] Now let us pour some Attic honey[2] into the mortar.

f[1] He throws cheese into the mortar as emblematical of Sicily, on account of its rich pastures.
f[2] Emblematical of Athens. They honey of Mount Hymettus was famous.

TRYGAEUS
Oh! I beseech you! use some other honey; this kind is worth four obols; be careful, oh! be careful of our Attic honey.

WAR

 

Hi! Tumult, you slave there!

 

TUMULT

 

What do you want?

 

WAR

 

Out upon you! Standing there with folded arms! Take this cuff o' the head for your pains. Oh! how it stings! Master, have you got garlic in your fist, I wonder?

 

WAR

 

Run and fetch me a pestle.

 

TUMULT

 

But we haven't got one; 'twas only yesterday we moved.

 

WAR

 

Go and fetch me one from Athens, and hurry, hurry!

 

TUMULT

 

Aye, I hasten there; if I return without one, I shall have no cause for laughing. (EXIT.)

TRYGAEUS
Ah! what is to become of us, wretched mortals that we are? See the danger that threatens if he returns with the pestle, for War will quietly amuse himself with pounding all the towns of Hellas to pieces. Ah! Bacchus! cause this herald of evil to perish on his road!

WAR Well?

 

TUMULT (WHO HAS RETURNED) Well, what?

 

WAR

 

You have brought back nothing?

 

TUMULT

 

Alas! the Athenians have lost their pestle--the tanner, who ground Greece to powder.[1]

 

f[1] Cleon, who had lately fallen before Amphipolis, in 422 B.C.

TRYGAEUS
Oh! Athene, venerable mistress! 'tis well for our city he is dead, and before he could serve us with this hash.

WAR

 

Then go and seek one at Sparta and have done with it! Aye, aye, master!

 

WAR

 

Be back as quick as ever you can.