Chorus: Follow her with all your might, pursue [her], and inquire about the man.
Chorus: of all the travelers; for it is worthy for the city.
Chorus: to seize this man. But tell me,
Chorus: If anyone knows where the one who carries the libations has turned on the ground.
Chorus: He has escaped, he is gone without a trace. Alas, poor wretch!
Chorus: of the years of mine;
Chorus: No, certainly not in my youth, when I was carrying a load of charcoal.
Chorus: I was following Phaulus running, thus badly would the
Chorus: this is the spoudophoros being pursued by me at that time.
Chorus: He would not have escaped, nor would he have been lightly carried off.
Chorus: But now that my shin-guard is already tight,
Chorus: And the old man Lysander's leg feels heavy,
Chorus: He is gone. He must be pursued; for he might slip away at some point.
Chorus: having escaped the Acharnians even though he is an old man.
Chorus: Whoever, O Father Zeus and gods, has sown for his enemies,
Chorus: To whom the war, which is an enemy of the land, grows among my fields;
Chorus: Nor shall I desist until I have set a rope against them.
Chorus: sharp, painful, and off-beat, until
Chorus: I hope they do not tread on my vineyards anymore.
Chorus: But we must seek the man and look in his direction.
Chorus: and to pursue land after land, until ever so much is found.
Chorus: If I were throwing that man, I would not be filled with stones.
Dikaiopolis: Be silent, be silent.
Chorus: Silence, all. Did you hear, men, the silence?
Chorus: this very one is the one whom we are looking for. But come here, all of you.
Chorus: Out of the way; for the man seems to be coming out to sacrifice.
Dikaiopolis: Hush, hush.
Dikaiopolis: Walk forward a little bit, you basket-bearer.
Dikaiopolis: Let Xanthias set up the phallus erect.
Dikaiopolis: put down the basket, daughter, so that we may make the first offering.
Daughter: Oh childless mother, bring the fire-tongs here,
Daughter: so that I may pour out the urine of this man.
Dikaiopolis: And indeed it is fine; O lord Dionysus
Dikaiopolis: I am most grateful to you for this procession.
Dicaeopolis: having sent and having sacrificed with the slaves
Dikaiopolis: 'Bring off the Dionysia in the country successfully.'
Dikaiopolis: released from the army; but the truce for me
Dikaiopolis: It is well to bring together the thirty triremes.
Dikaiopolis: Come now, daughter, that the basket may be beautiful and good.
Dicaeopolis: You will carry it, seeing [it], the thyme-eater. How blessed!
Dicaeopolis: Whoever will spy on you and do you a bad turn with milk.
Dikaiopolis: Do not fart any less than you, whenever it is morning.
Dikaiopolis: go forward, and watch out very carefully in the crowd.
Dikaiopolis: Let no one steal your gold.
Dicaeopolis: O Xanthias, you two have a straight thing to sell.
Dikaiopolis: The phallus is behind the kanephoros.
Dikaiopolis: But I, following along, will sing the phallic song;
Dikaiopolis: But you, woman, jump down from the roof for me. Come down.
Dikaiopolis: Falês, companion of Bakchios
Dikaiopolis: Let's go together, night-wanderer!
Dikaiopolis: adulterer, pederast,
Dikaiopolis: I said to you in the sixth year
Dicaeopolis: having come to the people with pleasure,
Dikaiopolis: having made a treaty for myself,
Dicaeopolis: of affairs and of battles
Dikaiopolis: and freed from Lamachos.
Dikaiopolis: for it is much sweeter, O Phales Phales,
Dicaeopolis: finding a wood-carrier stealing an hour-glass
Dikaiopolis: the Thracian woman, daughter of Strymodorus, from Phelleus
Dikaiopolis: having caught him in the middle, having lifted him, having thrown him down.
Dikaiopolis: 'Oh, you are really annoying!'
Dikaiopolis: Falês, Falês.
Dikaiopolis: If you join us, from a hangover
Dikaiopolis: At dawn he will drink up a bowl of peace;
Dikaiopolis: but the shield will hang in the drying room.
Chorus: This very one is he, this one.
Chorus: Throw, throw, throw, throw,
Chorus: Strike, strike the filthy one.
Chorus: Will you not throw? Will you not throw?
Dikaiopolis: By Heracles, what is this? You are smashing the pot.
Chorus: So we will surely burn you, you filthy head.
Dikaiopolis: For what reason, most honored Acharnians?
Chorus: You ask this? You are shameless and detestable.
Chorus: O traitor of your fatherland, you who alone among us
Chorus: After pouring out a libation, you are able to look at me.
Dikaiopolis: You do not know what I have paid for in return. But listen carefully.
Chorus: Shall we hear you? He will perish; we will bury you with stones.
Dikaiopolis: By no means before you hear; but bear with it, good men.
Chorus: I will not endure it; do not speak a word to me, you!
Chorus: How much more I hate you, Kleon, whom I...
Chorus: I will cut up some horse-flesh for the horsemen.
Chorus: But I will not listen to your long speeches,
Chorus: Whoever has sown for the Lacedaemonians, I will punish.
Dicaeopolis: O good men, leave the Lacedaemonians out of the way,
Dikaiopolis: Hear my treaties, if I have negotiated them well.
Chorus: But how could you possibly speak well, if indeed you have once made peace?
Chorus: For those upon whom neither altar nor trust nor even an oath remains?
Dicaeopolis: I know the Lacedaemonians too, whom we oppose too much,
Dikaiopolis: not being responsible to us for everything.
Chorus: Not of all, you rogue? You dare to say these things?
Chorus: Is it now clearly [towards] us? Then will I spare you?
Dikaiopolis: Not of all, not of all; but I speaking this way
Dikaiopolis: I could say many things about them, even if they are being wronged.
Chorus: This is already a terrible and heart-troubling saying,
Chorus: if you will dare to speak on behalf of the enemies to us.
Dikaiopolis: And even if I do not speak just things, I do not seem to the multitude,
Dikaiopolis: I will speak with my head over the border, wishing it.
Chorus: Tell me, fellow citizens, what are we sparing the stones?
Chorus: Is it not right to kill this man with a Phoenician dagger?
Dicaeopolis: What a fellow is this, who has once again blackened you!
Dicaeopolis: Will you not be heard? Will you not be heard, you truthful Acharnians?
Chorus: We will not, then, listen.
Dikaiopolis: I shall suffer terrible things, then.
Chorus: I would be utterly destroyed, if I should hear.
Dicaeopolis: by no means, Acharnians.
Chorus: Know now that you will be strangled.
Dicaeopolis: For I will bite you, I.
Dikaiopolis: For I will kill your dearest friends in return!
Dikaiopolis: As I have hostages from you, whom I will slaughter when I have seized them.
Chorus: tell me, what does this word threaten, men of the people?
Chorus: To us, the people of Acharnae? Or does the child have something?
Chorus: Did you lock up those present inside? Or is he emboldened on that account?
Dikaiopolis: Hit him if you wish. For I will corrupt this one.
Dikaiopolis: I will soon find out from you who cares about anything regarding charcoal.
Chorus: How we are ruined! This is my lark of a citizen.
Chorus: But do not do what you intend; by no means, by no means.
Dikaiopolis: 'I will kill, I have cried out; for I will not listen.'
Chorus: Will you destroy this friendly and amiable comrade?
Dikaiopolis: Even though I was not speaking, you just now heard [me].
Chorus: But now, if it seems good to you, speak of both the Lacedaemonian
Chorus: † how he is not a friend to you in that way·
Chorus: By this little bird, I will never betray him.
Dikaiopolis: Now, first of all, throw the stones down here for me.
Chorus: These are on the ground for you, and you put back the sword again.
Dikaiopolis: but so that they may not sit on the stones somewhere while they are rubbing.
Chorus: It has been shaken down to the ground; do you not see it shaking?
Chorus: but do not give me an excuse, but rather throw the dart.
Chorus: How much he trembles at the same time as the turn!
Dikaiopolis: So you were certainly going to cease your shouting,
Dikaiopolis: I almost died, charcoal from Mount Parnes,
Dikaiopolis: And these things because of the foolishness of the citizens.
Dikaiopolis: For from the fear of the mare, much [pain] to me
Dicaeopolis: the bladder has been inflated just like a cuttlefish.
Dikaiopolis: For it is terrible that a green-gathering has grown in this way.
Dikaiopolis: that the anger of men should be such as to strike and shout.
Dikaiopolis: I wish to hear nothing bearing equal to equal,
Dikaiopolis: while I wish to speak on behalf of a foreigner
Dikaiopolis: all things for the sake of the Lacedaemonians, whatever I say;
Dikaiopolis: Even so, I do love my soul, indeed.
Chorus: So why don't you say it, bringing out the guest-friend to the doors?
Chorus: Whatever great thing you have, you impious wretch?
Chorus: for indeed my longing is great for whatever you think.
Chorus: But as you yourself decided the lawsuit,
Chorus: Put the wine here and take up the speech.
Dicaeopolis: Behold, look at this, the living one,
Dicaeopolis: And this man here will be a Tynnicus.
Dikaiopolis: By Zeus, I certainly will not shield myself,
Dikaiopolis: I will speak on behalf of the Spartans as it seems to me.
Dikaiopolis: and yet I am afraid of many things; for indeed the manners
Dikaiopolis: I know the country bumpkins are very happy,
Dikaiopolis: if anyone praises them and the city.
Dikaiopolis: a man who claims what is unjust and calls unjust what is just;
Dikaiopolis: And here too they go unnoticed while being auctioned off.
Dikaiopolis: I know the minds of the elders once again, that...
Dikaiopolis: They see nothing else but to count votes.
Dicaeopolis: I myself was hurt by Cleon.
Dikaiopolis: I know because of last year's comedy.
Dikaiopolis: for since he dragged me into the council chamber
Dikaiopolis: He slandered me and falsely slandered me.
Dicaeopolis: and he stole from the city and washed it, so that he was very nearly...
Dikaiopolis: I have been ruined, having been engaged in sordid business.
Dikaiopolis: Now therefore, allow me first before I speak.
Dikaiopolis: 'Pack me up as if I were the most wretched.'
Chorus: Why do you turn these things about, contrive, and procure strips?
Chorus: Take, then, for my sake from Hieronymus
Chorus: a certain shaggy, dark, thick-haired, hairy cap of Hades;
Chorus: But open up the machines of Sisyphus,
Chorus: This contest will not accept a pretext.
Dicaeopolis: It is now time to take a firm heart,
Dikaiopolis: And I must walk to Euripides.
Dikaiopolis: boy, boy.
Kephisophon: Who is this?
Dicaeopolis: Is Euripides inside?
Cephisophon: He is not inside, inside, if you have sense.
Dikaiopolis: How, then, are you inside and not inside?
Cephisophon: "Correctly, old man."
Kephisophon: My mind is gathering epigrams outside.
Kephisophon: Not inside, but he himself is going inside.
Kephisophon: a tragedy.
Dicaeopolis: O thrice-blessed Euripides,
Dikaiopolis: whenever the slave answered so clearly.
Dicaeopolis: Summon him.
Kephisophon: But it is impossible.
Dikaiopolis: But still;
Dikaiopolis: For I would not leave, but I will chop at the door.
Dikaiopolis: Euripides, Euripides,
Dicaeopolis: obey, if indeed you ever obeyed anyone of men;
Dikaiopolis: Dikaiopolis, Cholleidēs calls you, I.
Euripides: But I have no time.
Dikaiopolis: But he was surrounded.
Euripides: but it is impossible.
Dicaeopolis: But still.
Euripides: But I will go out to meet him; I have no time to come down.
Dikaiopolis: Euripides,
Euripides: Why are you silent?
Dikaiopolis: "You are going up!"
Dicaeopolis: Is it possible to go down? You are not making the right year for lame men.
Dikaiopolis: But what do you have from tragedy, the scraps?
Dikaiopolis: A wretched outfit? You do not look like a beggar.
Dikaiopolis: But I beg you, Euripides, by your knees.
Dikaiopolis: give me a rag from the old drama.
Dikaiopolis: for I must speak a long speech to the chorus.
Dikaiopolis: This brings death, if I speak badly.
Euripides: Which straw? Or rather, in which [straw] Oineus here
Euripides: Was the unfortunate old man struggling?
Dikaiopolis: It was not of Oineus, but of one even more wretched.
Euripides: 'The things of the blind Phoenician?'
Dikaiopolis: Not from a Phoenician, no;
Dikaiopolis: But there was another, more wretched than Phoinix.
Euripides: Whose, pray, does a man ask for the patches of cloaks?
Euripides: But surely you are speaking of the poor man's Philoctetes' things?
Dikaiopolis: No, but much, much poorer than this one.
Euripides: But do you really want the tattered robes?
Euripides: The very thing that this lame fellow Bellerophon had?
Dikaiopolis: Not Bellerophon; but he too was
Dikaiopolis: A lame beggar, arrogant, skillful at speaking.
Euripides: I know a man, Mysian Telephus.
Dikaiopolis: Yes, Telephos.
Dikaiopolis: Give me the swaddling-clothes of this man, I beg you.
Euripides: Give him the rags of Telephus, boy.
Euripides: it lies above the rags of the Thyestae.
Euripides: in the middle of Ino's.
Kephisophon: Here, take these.
Dikaiopolis: O Zeus, who sees from above and sees everywhere,
Dicaeopolis: to equip myself, like the most wretched man.
Dicaeopolis: Euripides, since you have granted me this favor,
Dikaiopolis: And give me those too, the things that follow the rags.
Dikaiopolis: the Mysian pill-box around the head.
Dikaiopolis: for I must seem to be poor today,
Dicaeopolis: to be what I am, but not to seem so.
Dikaiopolis: Let the spectators know who I am.
Dikaiopolis: 'But now the dancers are standing there as fools,'
Dikaiopolis: so that I may trick them with words.
Euripides: I will give it; for with a dense mind I devise subtle schemes.
Dikaiopolis: May you prosper, but I am thinking of Telephus.
Dicaeopolis: Well, I am already full of words.
Dikaiopolis: But I do beg for a beggar's staff.
Euripides: Take this and go, weighing out linen.
Dicaeopolis: Oh my soul, for you see how I am being pushed away from the houses,
Dikaiopolis: much in need of equipment; so be it now.
Dikaiopolis: a wretched beggar of fat, Euripides.
Dikaiopolis: give me a small basket burned with a lamp.
Euripides: But what, wretched man, is the debt of this entanglement that holds you?
Dikaiopolis: I have no debt, but I wish to take it anyway.
Euripides: Be sorrowful and withdraw from the house.
Dikaiopolis: alas;
Dikaiopolis: May you be happy, just as your mother once was.
Euripides: Go away now.
Dicaeopolis: But, please, give me just one thing.
Dicaeopolis: a cup with a chipped rim.
Euripides: 'Having taken this thing, corrupt it; know that, being burdensome to the household.'
Dikaiopolis: Not yet, by Zeus! You know what evils you yourself are working.
Dikaiopolis: But, sweetest Euripides, just this one thing
Dikaiopolis: Give me a pot dipped in a sponge.
Euripides: Oh man, you will take my tragedy away from me.
Euripides: Go away, taking this one.
Dikaiopolis: I am going away.
Dikaiopolis: Yet what shall I do? For it is necessary to be deprived of one thing
Dikaiopolis: I am ruined. Listen, dearest Euripides.
Dikaiopolis: Taking this, I am going and I shall not approach any more;
Dikaiopolis: Give me some dry leaves for the basket.
Euripides: You will destroy me. Here you are. My plays are of no use to me.
Dikaiopolis: But no longer, but I am going. For I am too much.
Dikaiopolis: Obnoxious, not seeming to hate the tyrants.
Dikaiopolis: Alas, wretched me, I am ruined! I forgot.
Dicaeopolis: For it is in this that all my affairs stand.
Dicaeopolis: Euripides, dearest and sweetest!
Dikaiopolis: May I fare most wretchedly, if I should ask you anything more,
Dicaeopolis: except for one thing, just this, just this, just this,
Dikaiopolis: Give me the asparagus, received from my mother's side.
Euripides: A man is committing outrage; call the bolted doors.
Dikaiopolis: Oh, my soul, we must go without a sycophant.
Dicaeopolis: Do you know how great the contest will soon be?
Dikaiopolis: 'About to speak on behalf of the men of the Lacedaemonians?'
Dikaiopolis: advance now, my heart; for this is the line.
Dicaeopolis: Are you standing? Have you not swallowed Euripides?
Dikaiopolis: 'Well praised! Come now, wretched heart.'
Dicaeopolis: Go there, and then [put] the head there.
Dikaiopolis: let her say whatever seems good to you.
Dicaeopolis: Dare, go, make your way, I admire your spirit.
Chorus: What will you do? What will you say? Be well assured now
Chorus: shameless, though an iron man,
Chorus: whoever has offered his neck to the city
Chorus: You are about to say the opposite of everything.
Chorus: A man does not tremble at the matter. Come now,
Chorus: since he himself chooses, speak.
Dikaiopolis: Do not envy me, gentlemen who are watching,
Dikaiopolis: if, being poor, you then speak among the Athenians
Dikaiopolis: I am about to make a comedy about the city.
Dikaiopolis: for tragedy also knows what is just.
Dicaeopolis: But I will speak terrible things, but just ones.
Dicaeopolis: for he will not now slander me, Cleon, that
Dikaiopolis: while foreigners are present, I speak ill of the city.
Dikaiopolis: For we ourselves are [competitors] at the Lenaia, too,
Dikaiopolis: And they are not yet foreigners; for there are no taxes
Dikaiopolis: The allies have not come either from the cities;
Dicaeopolis: but we ourselves are now, at least, completely covered up;
Dikaiopolis: for I call the metics the chaff of the citizens.
Dicaeopolis: But I hate the Lacedaemonians very much,
Dikaiopolis: and Poseidon too is their god, the one at Taenarum.
Dicaeopolis: Shake and cast the houses upon all;
Dicaeopolis: For I too have vineyards cut down.
Dicaeopolis: but indeed, for those present in the speech are friends,
Dicaeopolis: Why do we blame the Lacedaemonians for these things?
Dicaeopolis: for, men of ours, I am not speaking of the city,
Dikaiopolis: Remember this, that I am not speaking about the city,
Dikaiopolis: but wretched little men, shaved smooth,
Dikaiopolis: "unhonored, unmarked, and strange,"
Dikaiopolis: He was acting as a sycophant against the Megarians' cloaks;
Dikaiopolis: and if they should see any cucumber or hare.
Dicaeopolis: either a little pig, or garlic, or barley groats with salt,
Dikaiopolis: These things were Megarian, and he was selling them on the same day.
Dikaiopolis: And these things, then, are small and rustic,
Dicaeopolis: 'Going to Megara, let's get a prostitute named Simaetha.'
Dikaiopolis: young men, drunkards, are stealing me;
Dikaiopolis: and then the Megarians, swollen with pains,
Dikaiopolis: They stole two of Aspasia's prostitutes;
Dicaeopolis: And from here too the beginning of the war was shattered.
Dikaiopolis: to all Greeks from three basket-weavers.
Dikaiopolis: from here, the Olympian Pericles is angry.
Dicaeopolis: The lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, and the whole of Greece was in a whirlwind,
Dikaiopolis: 'He was laying down laws like those written crookedly,'
Dicaeopolis: 'The Megarians must be banned both from the land and from the market.'
Dikaiopolis: neither in the sea nor in the sky shall he remain.
Dikaiopolis: from here the Megarians, when they were indeed starving, came on foot,
Dikaiopolis: 'The Spartans were asking for the decree that'
Dikaiopolis: turn the head for the sake of the flute-girls.
Dikaiopolis: And yet we did not wish, although they begged us often.
Dikaiopolis: And from here too there was already the clatter of shields.
Dicaeopolis: Someone will say, 'He should not have said it'; but what should he have said, tell me.
Dikaiopolis: Bring, if any one of the Lacedaemonians has sailed away in a skiff.
Dikaiopolis: 'They have sold me a dog's bit from Seriphos!'
Dikaiopolis: Would you sit in the house? By no means!
Dikaiopolis: And indeed, you are dragging it down immediately.
Dikaiopolis: three hundred ships, and the city would have been full.
Dikaiopolis: noise of soldiers, a shout about a trierarch,
Dikaiopolis: while a hire is being given, while golden statues are being gilded,
Dikaiopolis: when the colonnade is groaning, when grain is being measured,
Dikaiopolis: [those who are] buying skins, bellows, and jars,
Dikaiopolis: garlic, oil, onions in nets,
Dikaiopolis: garlands, little hairnets, little flutes, eye-paint;
Dikaiopolis: but the shipyard, again, of the rowers as they spread out,
Dikaiopolis: as the loaves crackle, as the cabins are overturned,
Dikaiopolis: I play the aulos, I give orders to the trumpeters, I whistle, I play the syrinx.
Dicaeopolis: I know that you would do these things; but Telephus...
Dikaiopolis: Don't we think so? We have no sense, then.
Half-Chorus A: True, you old rascal and most wicked one?
Half-Chorus A: Do you, being poor, dare to say these things to us,
Half-Chorus A: And if you accused someone of being a sycophant, was there one?
Half-Chorus B: By Poseidon, and he says just what he says.
Half-Chorus B: All things are just and none of them lies.
Chorus 1: Then, if it is just, should he say this?
Half-Chorus A: But he will not dare to say these things while rejoicing.
Half-Chorus B: Where are you off to, you? Won't you stay? As if you were going to die.
Half-Chorus B: This man, he will soon lift him up.
Half-Chorus A: O Lamachus, you who see lightning bolts,
Half-Chorus A: Come to my aid, O sharp-beaked one, appearing,
Half-Chorus A: O Lamachus, my dear friend, fellow tribesman!
Half-Chorus A: whether there is any taxiarhos or strategos or
Half-Chorus A: A man who breaches walls, let him come to help!
Half-Chorus A: someone having completed it. For I am holding on in the middle.
Lamachus: From where did I hear a warlike shout?
Lamachus: Where must one come to the aid? Where must one throw in the confusion?
Lamachus: Who stirred up Gorgo from the sack?
Dikaiopolis: Oh hero Lamachus, of the hills and of the ambushes.
Half-chorus A: O Lamachus, for this man is not a human being long ago.
Half-Chorus A: Does he slander our entire city?
Lamachus: You, being poor, dare to say these things?
Dikaiopolis: O hero Laches, but please forgive me,
Dikaiopolis: if, being poor, I said something and swore an oath.
Lamachus: What did you say about us? You will not tell?
Dikaiopolis: I do not know yet.
Dicaeopolis: For I am reeling from the fear of the weapons.
Dikaiopolis: But I implore you, carry my little lamb away for me.
Lamachus: Look here.
Dikaiopolis: Put her down on her back here for me now.
Lamachus: He is lying dead.
Dicaeopolis: Bring me now the feather from the helmet.
Lamachus: this is a little shirt for you.
Dikaiopolis: Now take my head,
Dikaiopolis: in order that I may vomit; for I detest the mounds.
Lamachus: What will you do to this? Are you going to fight me with the helmet?
Lamachus: for it is a feather-bed—
Dikaiopolis: Tell me, whose is it, then?
Dikaiopolis: Is it a bird? A boastful one?
Lamachus: Alas, how you will die!
Dikaiopolis: By no means, Laches.
Dikaiopolis: For it is not by strength; but if you are strong,
Dikaiopolis: Why haven't you spat on me? For you are well-armed.
Lamachus: Are you saying these things, poor man, about the general?
Dikaiopolis: for am I a beggar?
Lamachus: But who are you, then?
Dikaiopolis: Who? A good citizen, not a demagogue,
Dikaiopolis: but from whatever time the war began, soldier,
Dicaeopolis: But you, since the war began, are a mercenary.
Lamachus: For they have voted for me —
Dikaiopolis: three cuckoos, indeed.
Dicaeopolis: Therefore, since I detest these things, I have drunk them,
Dicaeopolis: seeing men who are grey-haired indeed in the ranks,
Dikaiopolis: 'young men such as you have done,'
Dikaiopolis: the men hired for Thrace, three drachmas,
Dikaiopolis: Taisamenophainippos Panourgipparchildas,
Dikaiopolis: some with Charis, others with Chaos,
Dikaiopolis: Geretodōrous, Diomeialazonas,
Dikaiopolis: But the ones in Kamarina, and in Gela, and in Katagela.
Lamachus: For they were elected.
Dikaiopolis: but what is the reason?
Dicaeopolis: You, however, are always serving as mercenaries in a mixed crowd,
Dicaeopolis: Not one of these, then? It is true, Marilades.
Dicaeopolis: You have already been an envoy, you being grey-haired, one or two?
Dikaiopolis: he nodded. And yet he is a sensible man and a worker.
Dikaiopolis: What then, Drakyllos or Euphorides or Prinides?
Dicaeopolis: Has one of you seen the baggage, or the Chaones?
Dikaiopolis: They do not say so. But the Coisyran and Laches,
Dikaiopolis: on which, recently at one time, through a contribution and of debts,
Dikaiopolis: like a dish-rinse pouring out in the evening,
Dikaiopolis: All my friends were urging me to flee.
Lamachus: O democracy, these things are surely unbearable?
Dikaiopolis: No, certainly not, if Lamachus does not get paid.
Lamachus: but nevertheless I, for my part, to all the Peloponnesians
Lamachus: I will always fight and cause confusion everywhere.
Lamachus: with ships and foot soldiers according to the standard.
Dikaiopolis: But I proclaim to the Peloponnesians!
Dicaeopolis: to everyone, both to the Megarians and to the Boeotians.
Dikaiopolis: Sell and buy from me, but not from Lamachus.
Chorus: A man wins with his arguments, and he persuades the people.
Chorus: about the truce. But let us put off the anapaests and drink.
Chorus: from which time indeed our teacher has stood in the wine-press choirs,
Chorus: He has not yet gone to the theater to speak as if he were expert;
Chorus: being slandered by the enemies among the quick-counseling Athenians,
Chorus: How he mocks our city and insults the people,
Chorus: it must now be answered to the Athenians who have changed their minds.
Chorus: He says that the poet is worthy of many good things for you,
Chorus: Having stopped you from being deceived too much by foreign words,
Chorus: neither to be pleased by being flattered, nor to be shallow citizens.
Chorus: and before that, the ambassadors were deceiving you from the cities.
Chorus: first they used to call them violet-crowned; and when someone said this,
Chorus: Immediately, because of the wreaths, sit upon the very tips of your buttocks.
Chorus: but if anyone, having flattered you, should call Athens fat,
Chorus: Someone has found a way through the greasy ones, having slipped a fee around their necks.
Chorus: Having done these things, he has become responsible for many good things to you,
Chorus: and showing the people in the cities that they are democratically governed.
Chorus: Therefore now, bringing the tribute from the cities, we are taking it away from you.
Chorus: They will come wishing to see the best poet,
Chorus: Whoever has dared to speak the just things among the Athenians.
Chorus: Thus already a long way off the report of his daring has come,
Chorus: when the king of the Lacedaemonians was torturing the embassy
Chorus: He first asked them whether they held power with the ships,
Chorus: then which of the two would this poet say many bad things about?
Chorus: For he said that these men have become much better.
Chorus: And with the war, having such an advisor, they will greatly defeat him.
Chorus: Because of this, the Lacedaemonians are provoking you for peace.
Chorus: and they demand Aegina too; and as for that island,
Chorus: They do not care, but [they act] in order that they may take this poet away.
Chorus: but you, mind you, must never be let go; how they will mock what is just!
Chorus: He says that he will teach you many good things, so that you will be happy,
Chorus: not flattering, nor paying a wage, nor deceiving,
Chorus: neither acting cunningly nor acting deceitfully, but teaching the best things.
Chorus: In response to these things, let Kleon clap his hands.
Chorus: and let everything be arranged by me.
Chorus: for the good and the just with me
Chorus: He will be an ally, and he will never be captured.
Chorus: being about the city just like that one
Chorus: cowardly and with a flat buttock.
Chorus: Come here, Muse, bringing the fierce, intense force of the Acharnian fire.
Chorus: Just as a bellows, when it is being stirred up by a blast of wind, is lifted from black coals,
Chorus: Whenever the charcoal embers are lying nearby,
Chorus: but they spin the Thasian oil-flask round.
Chorus: The fools, come then, a solemn, intense, and more rustic song
Chorus: as she took hold of the citizen.
Chorus: the old men, the aged, are blaming the city;
Chorus: for not worthily [of] those things which we fought at sea
Chorus: We are being cared for by you, but we are suffering terrible things,
Chorus: those who, having thrown old men into lawsuits
Chorus: Let us be mocked by young men of the orators,
Chorus: being nothing at all, but deaf and bewildered,
Chorus: for whom Poseidon is the staff of safety;
Chorus: And we have stood firm against the stone, shouting with old age,
Chorus: We do not see anything except the noise of the lawsuit.
Chorus: But that man, having practiced for himself to act as an advocate,
Chorus: Quickly, he hits, joining with the round words.
Chorus: And then, having dragged him up, he asks, setting up a trap of words.
Chorus: tearing Tithonus apart, and troubling him, and encircling him.
Chorus: But he shakes from old age, and then, having caught it, he goes away,
Chorus: then he unties [the cords] and weeps and says to his friends,
Chorus: If I ought to have bought a cloak for this, I am going away owing.
Chorus: How can it be reasonable, old man, to destroy a gray-haired man over a water-clock?
Chorus: Having worked hard through many trials and having been hot-
Chorus: having worked up manly sweat, and much,
Chorus: A good man being [or: who was] at Marathon for the city?
Chorus: then, when we were at Marathon, we were pursuing,
Chorus: But now we are greatly pursued by wicked men, and then we are caught.
Chorus: Against these, who will answer back, Marpsias?
Chorus: for it is likely that a man like Thucydides, who is hunchbacked,
Chorus: to be utterly destroyed, entangled with the wilderness of the Scythians,
Chorus: To this babbling, talkative citizen of the Cephisus-deme?
Chorus: So, I, for my part, pitied him and wiped my tears, seeing it.
Chorus: an old man being encircled by a man with a bow,
Chorus: He, by Demeter, that man, whenever he was Thucydides,
Chorus: nor would he have easily endured even Achaea herself,
Chorus: But first, indeed, he wrestled with Euaethlus ten times,
Chorus: he would have shouted out three thousand archers, having cried out,
Chorus: he would have shot him with arrows right there, that father's relatives.
Chorus: but since you do not allow the old men to get some sleep,
Chorus: Vote to be separate the indictments, so that it may be.
Chorus: for the old man there is an old and mute advocate,
Chorus: to the young men, moreover, is broad-rumped and talkative, and Cleinius as well.
Chorus: And now we must drive [him] out, and even if someone flees, [we must] fine him.
Chorus: the old man for the old man, but the young man for the young man.
Dikaiopolis: These are the boundaries of my market.
Dikaiopolis: Let him buy here for all the Peloponnesians.
Dicaeopolis: It is permitted also for the Megarians and for the Boeotians,
Dicaeopolis: on condition that he sells to me, but not to Lamachus.
Dikaiopolis: But I appoint the market officials of the agora.
Dikaiopolis: three of the straps, these, which were drawn by lot, from Lepreon.
Dikaiopolis: Let no slanderer enter here.
Dikaiopolis: nor any other man who is a Phasian.
Dikaiopolis: But I [will go] to the pillar by which I paid the tax.
Dicaeopolis: Move me, so that I may set up a public one in the marketplace.
Megarian: Hail to the Megarians, a market in Athens, friendly.
Megarian: I longed for a friend, just as [I longed] for my mother.
Megarian: But you wretched wench, of a miserable father,
Megarian: Go up to the big heap, if you can find it.
Megarian: listen, now, keep away your belly from me;
Megarian: Whether must one be sold or starve miserably?
Girl: 'Sold, sold.'
Megarian: I myself indeed say it. Who is so senseless?
Megarian: 'Who would you buy a public mistress for?'
Megarian: But for I have some Megarian device,
Megarian: for I say that you have prepared a pig to carry.
Megarian: Put these weapons of the piglets around you.
Megarian: So that it may seem that we are born of a good mother;
Megarian: By Hermes, if you have indeed come home.
Megarian: You will try in vain, you will be badly starved.
Megarian: But sit down here, and also take these snouts,
Megarian: And then, this way, you will step into the sack.
Megarian: so that you may grunt and snore
Megarian: And you will make the voice of the mystic piglets.
Megarian: But I will knock Dikaiopolis's head with a nutcracker.
Megarian: Dikaiopolis, are you going to buy piglets?
Dicaeopolis: What? A Megarian man?
Megarian: Let us buy and come.
Dikaiopolis: How are you?
Megarian: We are always burning more wood.
Dikaiopolis: But by Zeus, it is sweet, if the flute is present.
Dikaiopolis: What else are the Megarians doing now?
Megarian: just as you say.
Megarian: I was quickly selling from there,
Megarian: Men of the Council, this is what they were doing for the city,
Megarian: May we perish as quickly and as badly as possible.
Dicaeopolis: Immediately then you will depart from your affairs.
Megarian: What, surely?
Dikaiopolis: What else is there, Megara? How is the grain sold?
Megarian: with us he is as precious as the gods.
Dicaeopolis: So you are bringing salt?
Megarian: 'Aren't you the ones who rule them?'
Dikaiopolis: Not even garlic?
Megarian: What sort of garlic? You, who are always,
Megarian: 'You throw it ten times, the poor mice.'
Megarian: You pull up the stones again and again.
Dikaiopolis: What, then, are you bringing?
Megarian: I am a pig, secretly.
Dikaiopolis: You speak well; show it.
Megarian: but, by Zeus, they are beautiful.
Megarian: 'Strike me if you can! How fat and well-fed!'
Dikaiopolis: What was this thing?
Megarian: a pig, by Zeus.
Dikaiopolis: What are you saying? What kind of a pig is it, then?
Megarian: Megarian.
Megarian: Or isn't this a pig?
Dicaeopolis: He does not appear to me.
Megarian: Isn't it terrible? Run away from this treachery!
Megarian: 'You don't say that this is a pig. But, by Zeus,'
Megarian: Oh, you who will die, throw me a handful of salt from your salt-cellar,
Megarian: If this is not a pig according to the laws of the Greeks.
Dikaiopolis: but there is one of a man, indeed.
Megarian: Yes, by Diocles.
Megarian: I am Megarian. And whom do you think you are taking him to be?
Megarian: Do you really want to hear them speaking?
Dikaiopolis: By the gods
Dikaiopolis: Certainly.
Megarian: shout out quickly now a piglet.
Megarian: Are you not using it? Are you being silent, you most wretched woman?
Megarian: Again I will beat you, by Hermes, to your home.
Girl: And, and.
Megarian: "Is this a pig?"
Dikaiopolis: Now a piglet is clearly visible.
Dikaiopolis: but since you were reared in a cellar, you will be a fool.
Megarian: five years,
Megarian: Be quite sure, your mother will be likened to a many.
Dikaiopolis: but he is not even a sacrifice.
Megarian: "Do you, at least, swear?"
Megarian: But isn't he a butcher?
Dikaiopolis: He does not have a tail.
Megarian: for she is young; but she is a virgin.
Megarian: She will have a large and fat and red one.
Megarian: But if you let them be raised, this pig is good for you.
Dikaiopolis: as related is the bushel to the other.
Megarian: For she is a half-sister, since she is from the same father.
Megarian: but if it fattens and blooms three times,
Megarian: The pig will be finest for sacrificing to Aphrodite.
Dikaiopolis: But a pig is not sacrificed to Aphrodite.
Megarian: Isn't there a pig for Aphrodite? She alone is a goddess among the gods.
Megarian: And indeed the meat of these pigs is being made.
Megarian: 'The most delightful thing is the spitted pig.'
Dicaeopolis: Would they already be eating without their mother?
Megarian: Yes, by Poseidon, and I would have been able to eat my father.
Dikaiopolis: And what does he eat most?
Megarian: whatever you give.
Megarian: But let him ask.
Dikaiopolis: Pig! Pig!
Girl: And and.
Dikaiopolis: Would you eat chickpeas?
Girl: coo, coo, and coo.
Dikaiopolis: What then? The testicles of a Philobolos?
Girl: And? And?
Dikaiopolis: 'But what about you? Would you eat?'
Girl: 'Hey! Hey! Hey!'
Dicaeopolis: How shrilly you have screamed at my testicles.
Dicaeopolis: Let someone bring in some garlic from inside.
Dikaiopolis: to the little pigs. Will they eat them? Oh dear,
Dikaiopolis: how it gurgles, O most honored Heracles.
Dikaiopolis: Where are the piglets? They seem to be from Tragasa.
Megarian: But I did not eat all the figs.
Megarian: for I myself have taken this one.
Dikaiopolis: By Zeus, they are a very fine pair of cattle!
Dikaiopolis: How much will I buy the piglets from you? Speak.
Megarian: one of these two, a head of garlic, is a trophy.
Megarian: the other, if you please, is only a half-pint of salt.
Dikaiopolis: I will buy you; wait for me here.
Megarian: These things, indeed.
Megarian: Hermes, trade my wife for me!
Megarian: Thus let me be given back both my own mother and my own mother.
Sycophant: 'What sort of man are you?'
Megarian: a pig-seller from Megara.
Sycophant: So then, I will show these piglets here.
Sycophant: [You are] enemies to me and to you.
Megarian: That's it, come back again.
Megarian: From here originated the beginning of our troubles.
Sycophant: I am weeping for the Megarians. Will you not leave the sack?
Megarian: Dikaiopolis, Dikaiopolis, I think I see you.
Dikaiopolis: From whom? Who is the one showing himself to you? Agora-nomoi,
Dikaiopolis: Will you not drive the sycophants out at once?
Dicaeopolis: But what have you learned to show without a wick?
Sycophant: For I will not reveal the enemies?
Dikaiopolis: "You, at least, are weeping."
Dikaiopolis: unless you run and slander somewhere else.
Megarian: like this evil is in Athens.
Dikaiopolis: take heart, Megarian; but where are the little pigs you sold?
Dikaiopolis: take this salt and these garlics.
Dikaiopolis: And hail, many times.
Megarian: But it is not native to us.
Dicaeopolis: 'May meddling now turn to my own ruin.'
Megarian: O little pigs, try to steal even from your father!
Megarian: to hit the fig against the sea, if only someone gives.
Chorus: The man is happy. Did you not hear how he proceeds?
Chorus: The matter of the plan? For the man will harvest it.
Chorus: sitting in the agora.
Chorus: And if Ktesias is there too
Chorus: or some other sycophant, lamenting
Chorus: he is sitting down.
Chorus: Nor will any other man, while suspecting you, harm you in any way,
Chorus: Nor will Prepis cleanse your wide-buttocked rear for you,
Chorus: Nor does he feast Cleonymus;
Chorus: Having worn a cloak, he was seen as a runner.
Chorus: and Hyperbolus, not having met you,
Chorus: [he] will fill the lawsuits.
Chorus: And he will not approach you walking if he has not encountered you in the marketplace.
Chorus: Cratinus, always having been cut up, adulterer with one knife,
Chorus: the thoroughly wicked Artemon,
Chorus: the too swift music,
Chorus: A bad smell from the armpits.
Chorus: of Tragasas's father;
Chorus: And again, the utterly villainous Pauson will not mock you.
Chorus: And Lysistratus in the agora, the disgrace of the Chollargians,
Chorus: the tailor of evils,
Chorus: shivering and always hungry
Chorus: more than thirty days
Chorus: of every month.
Boeotus: I'm going, Heracles, I've been badly beaten in the fight;
Boeotus: Put down the parsley, Ismenia, carefully.
Boeotus: And you, as many as flute-players from Thebes have come
Boeotus: Blow on the anus of a dog with the blowpipe.
Dikaiopolis: Stop, to the crows! Are the wasps not from the doors?
Dikaiopolis: Where have those who were washed badly flown up from?
Dikaiopolis: 'Chaireas, are the bomboloi at the door for me?'
Boeotus: By Iolaus, you are very welcome, stranger.
Boiotos: For they are breathing back at me from behind.
Boeotus: The thyme and the rue they pulled up from the ground.
Boeotus: But if you want anything, buy it from what I am bringing.
Boeotus: of the quails or of the four-winged ones.
Dicaeopolis: hail, Boeotian bean-eater.
Dikaiopolis: What are you bringing?
Boeotus: whatever is good for the Boeotians, simply,
Boeotus: marjoram, glax, psithos, wick-tapers
Boeotus: quails, jackdaws, partridges, partridges
Boeotus: swimming quickly.
Dikaiopolis: Just like winter, then.
Dikaiopolis: You have come to the marketplace with a basket of birds.
Boeotus: Yes, by Zeus, I bring geese, hares, and foxes.
Boeotus: scallops, sea urchins, wild cats, and spotted fish.
Boeotus: water-hawks, water-eels of Copais.
Dikaiopolis: O most delightful portion you bring to men,
Dikaiopolis: give me permission to address you, if you are willing, the eels.
Boeotus: fifty daughters of the Copeans, a messenger-woman,
Boeotus: Get out of this way and also make yourself agreeable to the stranger.
Dicaeopolis: O my dearest one, long desired,
Dikaiopolis: You have come, longed for by the tragic choruses,
Dikaiopolis: Dear to Morchos. Slaves, carry him out!
Dikaiopolis: bring me the brazier here and the shield.
Dicaeopolis: consider, children, the finest eel,
Dicaeopolis: they have come, only in the sixth year longed for;
Dikaiopolis: tell her, my children; but as for charcoal, I...
Dikaiopolis: I will provide for you the benefit of this stranger.
Dikaiopolis: But throw it at her; for not even when dead will she [ever] [be able to speak].
Dicaeopolis: May I be without you, having been rubbed smooth.
Boeotus: And for me, how will this honor come about?
Dikaiopolis: You will certainly pay me for these markets!
Dikaiopolis: but if you are selling any of these other things, say so.
Boeotus: Good heavens, all this!
Dicaeopolis: come now, at what price do you say [it]?
Dikaiopolis: Will you carry another load from here to there, going?
Boeotus: Whatever it is in Athens, let it not be in Boeotia.
Dicaeopolis: So you will lead away the eels, having bought Phaleric ones.
Dikaiopolis: Or a pot.
Boeotus: eels or pottery? No, but there they are.
Boeotus: But whatever is not with us, this is again very much.
Dicaeopolis: I know, then; lead out a sycophant,
Dicaeopolis: just as if he had put on a helmet.
Boeotus: by the two gods
Boeotus: I would indeed take a gain if I brought it, even a large one,
Boeotus: Singing, I sail away with many jars.
Dikaiopolis: And indeed, Nikarchos comes this way, having shown himself.
Boeotus: a big one is this.
Dicaeopolis: but all [is] evil.
Nikarchos: Whose are these loads?
Boeotus: these are mine.
Boeotus: From Thebes, I am going to Zeus.
Nikarchos: I then, here
Nikarchos: These things are showing themselves as enemies.
Boeotus: What evil having suffered
Boeotus: Did you desire war with nets and battle?
Nikarchos: And I will show you before these people.
Boeotus: How am I being wronged?
Nikarchos: I will tell you the reason for what has happened;
Nikarchos: From the enemy, indeed, you bring in wicks.
Dikaiopolis: Then, so you are visible through the wick, are you?
Nikarchos: for this woman would have set fire to the shipyard.
Dikaiopolis: a shipyard? A taper?
Nikarchos: I think so.
Dicaeopolis: in what way?
Nícharxos: a Boeotian man would put [it] into the fire.
Níarchos: If he had caught him, he would have sent him to the shipyard.
Nikarchos: 'Through the water spouts, watching for a great north wind.'
Nikarchos: and even if he were to catch the fire from the ships once,
Nikarchos: He would immediately be eating sharks.
Dicaeopolis: O most filthy bather,
Dikaiopolis: Would he be scorched by a firebrand and a tallow-candle?
Nikarchos: I bear witness.
Dikaiopolis: seize his mouth together!
Dikaiopolis: Give me a bundle of firewood, so that I may carry it tied up.
Dikaiopolis: just like a tile, so that it may not break while being carried.
Chorus: Bind yourself, most excellent man, to the
Chorus: It is good for the stranger to buy the cloak.
Chorus: just like that
Chorus: Unless the heat brings it down.
Dikaiopolis: These things will be my concern, since...
Dicaeopolis: Yes, and it is making a noise, a chattering one, and
Dikaiopolis: A burning grain!
Dikaiopolis: and it is otherwise hateful to the gods.
Chorus: What will he ever do with him?
Dikaiopolis: it will be an extremely useful vessel,
Dikaiopolis: a bowl of evils, a three-legged stand of lawsuits,
Dikaiopolis: Let the torch-bearers be held liable.
Dikaiopolis: and a cup—
Dikaiopolis: And to go around the matter.
Chorus: How could anyone trust a jar?
Chorus: using such a man
Chorus: house by house
Chorus: So much noise always?
Dicaeopolis: It is strong, good man, so that
Dicaeopolis: he would never have been persuaded, if indeed
Dikaiopolis: 'From the ground.'
Dikaiopolis: he was hanging head downward.
Chorus: It is already well with you.
Boeotus: I am about to thresh, then.
Chorus: But, best of strangers, join in the revel!
Chorus: and having taken this one
Chorus: Strike wherever you wish, carrying [it].
Chorus: against every extortioner.
Dikaiopolis: I have hardly tied up the man who was being badly washed.
Dicaeopolis: Pick up the potsherd, Boeotian!
Boeotus: bow down and go to Ismenichus.
Dikaiopolis: And how will you capture him, being cautious?
Dikaiopolis: certainly you will carry nothing healthy, but still;
Dikaiopolis: And even if you win by carrying this load,
Dikaiopolis: You will prosper, being a slanderer, for that reason.
Lamachus's servant: Dicaeopolis.
Dikaiopolis: Who is it? Why are you bellowing at me?
Lamachus' servant: "What?"
Lamachus' servant: Lamachus ordered you for this drachma.
Lamachus's servant: to let himself have a share of the thrushes at the Choes,
Lamachus' servant: 'He ordered Kopeas to pay three drachmas.'
Dikaiopolis: Which one of these is Lamachus with the eel?
Lamachus' servant: the terrible one, the one with the helmet, who [has] the Gorgon
Lamachus' servant: he swings, brandishing, darkened by three hills.
Dikaiopolis: No, by Zeus, if he were to give me the shield;
Dikaiopolis: but let him shake his eyebrows on a fish sauce!
Dicaeopolis: But if he should starve, I will call the market supervisors.
Dicaeopolis: But I, having taken this burden for myself,
Dikaiopolis: I will go under the wings of the swallows and the kites.
Chorus: Did you see, did you see, O whole city, the sensible man, the super-wise man,
Chorus: How he has fared, having borrowed commercial money to resell it,
Chorus: some of these are useful in the house, but others it is proper to eat lukewarm.
Chorus: Everything good is provided of its own accord in this respect.
Chorus: I will never welcome war home,
Chorus: Nor will Harmodius ever be sung even by me.
Chorus: You recline with us, since you have become a drunken man.
Chorus: whoever, having sung the song of victory, finds everyone in possession of all good things.
Chorus: She has wrought all evils, and turned them back and poured them out.
Chorus: and he fought and, while he was calling him on even more, he fought.
Chorus: Drink, recline, take this love-token.
Chorus: 'She touched the charcoals much more into the fire,'
Chorus: They pour out our wine by force from the vineyards.
Chorus: This fellow is winged for the dinner too, and indeed he thinks very highly of himself,
Chorus: and so these wings have cast off a sample of life before the doors.
Chorus: O Beauty of Cyprus and Graces, my dear friends, and Concord who shares my path,
Chorus: Since you have a beautiful face, did you really remain hidden?
Chorus: How could some Eros, having taken me and you, gather us together,
Chorus: just like the painted one holding a crown of flowers.
Chorus: Or perhaps you have come to think of me as a very old woman?
Chorus: But I think that, having seized you, I should still be able to strike you three more times;
Chorus: First of all, we would lead a long vine-dance,
Chorus: and then beside this [place] new calves of figs,
Chorus: and the third of the day's dance, this old man,
Chorus: and all over the field they will drive the oxen in a circle,
Chorus: So that you and I may be anointed by them on the new moons.
Herald: Listen, you people; according to ancestral custom, the Choes.
Herald: drink under the sound of the trumpet; whoever drinks it up,
Herald: the first one will take Ctesiphon's wineskin.
Dikaiopolis: Oh children, oh women, have you not heard?
Dikaiopolis: What are you doing? Do you not listen to the herald?
Dicaeopolis: boil, roast, turn, drag out
Dikaiopolis: quickly the hares, the garlands ask for.
Dikaiopolis: Bring the skewers, so that I may pierce the thrushes.
Chorus: I envy you for your good counsel,
Chorus: rather than the feast
Chorus: Man of the present!
Dikaiopolis: Why then, when you see the roasted wrens?
Chorus: I think you are also saying this well.
Dikaiopolis: dig under the fire.
Chorus: Did you hear as if it were a cook?
Chorus: elegantly and in a dining manner.
Chorus: Is he served by himself?
Farmer: Alas, wretched me.
Dikaiopolis: O Heracles, who is this man here?
Farmer: a wretched man.
Dikaiopolis: Now turn against yourself.
Farmer: O dearest friend, for there are truce-terms only for you,
Farmer: Measure out for me how much peace, even if it is five years.
Dikaiopolis: 'But what happened to you?'
Farmer: I was worn out having lost the two oxen.
Dikaiopolis: From where?
Farmer: The Boeotians received [the grain] from Phyle.
Dikaiopolis: O wretched fellow, then, do you hold out your white hand?
Farmer: And these things, by Zeus, just as I was reared.
Farmer: in all respects it is beneficial.
Dikaiopolis: Then is it necessary now?
Farmer: I have lost both my eyes to tears, both oxen.
Farmer: But if something distresses Dercetus the Watchman,
Farmer: wipe out my eyes with peace quickly.
Dikaiopolis: But you scoundrel, I happen not to be publishing it publicly.
Farmer: Come now, I beg you, if I can somehow get the two oxen.
Dikaiopolis: It is not, but steal it from Pittalos.
Farmer: But you, give me just one drop of peace.
Farmer: Drip this into the little reed.
Dikaiopolis: Not even a strybilix [a type of bird]. But go away and wail.
Farmer: Alas, wretched me, for the two oxen of the farmers.
Chorus: A man has found something for the...
Chorus: Sweet is the libation, nor does it seem so.
Chorus: he will not share with anyone.
Dikaiopolis: pour the honey onto the string, and set up the squid.
Chorus: Have you heard of the stand-ups?
Dikaiopolis: Roast the eels.
Chorus: Will you kill me by starvation and
Chorus: the neighbors, with the smell and with
Chorus: babbling such things with his voice.
Dicaeopolis: Roast these and turn them a nice golden brown.
Paranymph: Dicaeopolis.
Dikaiopolis: Who is this man? Who is this man?
Paranymph: A bridegroom sent you this meat.
Paranymph: from the wedding.
Dikaiopolis: well done whoever he was.
Paranymph: He ordered you to pour some of the meat for a favor,
Paranymph: so that he may not be on campaign but stay and drink wine,
Paramythos: into the alabaster cup of peace, one.
Dikaiopolis: carry away, carry away the meat, and do not give it to me,
Dikaiopolis: 'If I were not to pour out [it], [it would be] ten thousand drachmas.'
Dikaiopolis: But who is this woman here?
Paranymph: the marriage attendant.
Paranymph: The bride must speak to you alone.
Dikaiopolis: Come now, what are you saying? As ridiculous, O gods!
Dikaiopolis: but the fear of the bride that he greatly desires,
Dicaeopolis: so that the groom's penis may remain intact.
Dikaiopolis: Bring the treaties here, so that I may give them to her alone,
Dikaiopolis: For a woman is not the cause of the war.
Dicaeopolis: Hold out the oil-flask this way, here, woman.
Dikaiopolis: Do you know what you are doing? Tell this to the bride,
Dikaiopolis: whenever they enroll soldiers, right here
Dikaiopolis: Let him anoint the penis of the bridegroom at night.
Dikaiopolis: take away the peace-treaties. Bring the wine-skin,
Dikaiopolis: so that I may pour wine, having taken it, into the Choes.
Chorus: And indeed someone here with raised eyebrows;
Chorus: as though he were announcing some terrible thing, he hurries.
Messenger A: O labors and battles and Lamachuses.
Lamachus: Who is beating the bronze-topped houses?
Messenger A: The generals ordered you to go today.
Messenger A: seize the ambushes and the hills quickly;
And afterwards, to guard the incursions while being snowed upon.
Messenger A: for someone is under the Choës and the Chytrai
Messenger A: The Boeotians have been reported to have thrown in robbers.
Lamachus: O generals, more numerous than better.
Lamachus: Won't it be terrible if I don't go abroad and don't celebrate a festival?
Dicaeopolis: O war-loving army!
Lamachus: Alas, wretched man, you are already mocking me.
Dicaeopolis: Do you want to fight the four-winged Geryon?
Lamachus: alas
Lamachus: What a message the herald has announced to me.
Dikaiopolis: Alas! Who is running up to me now, bringing news?
Messenger B: Dikaiopolis.
Dikaiopolis: What is it?
Messenger B: quickly to dinner.
Messenger B: Walk off, taking the chest and the jug.
Messenger B: For the priest of Dionysus is summoning you.
Messenger B: But keep quiet; you have long been preventing us from having dinner.
Messenger B: But all the other things are prepared,
Messenger B: Tilt the tables, the pillows, the mats.
Messenger B: garlands, perfume, savory dishes, the prostitutes are at hand,
Messenger B: griddle-cakes sprinkled with sesame, flat cakes.
Messenger B: Dancers, most dear ones of Harmodius, beautiful ones.
Messenger B: But hurry as quickly as possible.
Lamachus: wretched me.
Dicaeopolis: For you also were inscribing a large Gorgon.
Dikaiopolis: shut the door, and let someone prepare dinner.
Lamachus: Boy, boy, bring the cooking-pot here to me.
Dicaeopolis: Boy, boy, bring the box out here to me.
Lamachus: Child, bring some salt and garlic and onions.
Dicaeopolis: But I want pieces; for I am annoyed by onions.
Lamachos: bring hither the jar of pickled fish, boy, of the rotten sort.
Dikaiopolis: And you are a public nuisance to me too. I will see to it right away.
Lamachus: Bring here the two wings of the helmet.
Dicaeopolis: But bring me the troughs, indeed, and the finches.
Lamachus: It is indeed a beautiful and white wing of a sparrow.
Dikaiopolis: The meat of the trough is indeed good and yellowish.
Lamachus: O man, stop laughing at my weapons.
Dikaiopolis: Oh man, do you want not to look at the thrushes?
Lamachus: take out the plume from the three hills.
Dicaeopolis: And give me a small dish of hare meat as well.
Lamachos: But perhaps they have eaten the crests, which are hairy.
Dikaiopolis: But shall I eat the marmarke before dinner?
Lamachus: Do you wish not to address me, man?
Dikaiopolis: No, but I and the boy have been quarreling for a long time.
Dikaiopolis: Do you want to be handed over and entrusted to Lamachus?
Dicaeopolis: Is it more pleasant to be locusts or thrushes?
Lamachus: Alas, how you are treating me with insolence!
Dikaiopolis: He judges the locusts very carefully.
Lamachus: Boy, boy, having drawn down my spear, bring it out here.
Dikaiopolis: boy, boy, you, having taken it, bring the string here.
Lamachus: Come, let me pull the spear-shield off.
Lamachus: Hold on, hold fast, child.
Dikaiopolis: And you, child, hold fast to this one.
Lamachos: Take the kilibans, child of the shield.
Dikaiopolis: and bring out the loaves of my bread.
Lamachus: Bring here the swift-gorged shield's rim.
Dikaiopolis: And give me, for my part, a round cake with cheese.
Lamachus: Is this not ridiculous for men to be broad?
Dikaiopolis: Surely this is not a sweet cake for people?
Lamachos: Pour water on the boy's ear. In the bronze workshop.
Lamachos: I see an old man fleeing from cowardice.
Dikaiopolis: pour out the honey for yourself. And here, an old man is plainly visible.
Dicaeopolis: ordering Lamachus, the son of Gorgias, to weep.
Lamachus: Bring here, boy, a warrior's breastplate.
Dicaeopolis: Take off the breastplate for me too, boy, and also the helmet.
Lamachus: In this matter I will arm myself against the enemy.
Dikaiopolis: In this matter I will arm myself against my drinking companions.
Lamachus: Bind the bedding, boy, from the shield.
Dikaiopolis: Tie up the dinner, boy, from the basket.
Lamachus: And I will carry off the thigh for myself, having taken it.
Dikaiopolis: But I, taking my little cloak, go out.
Lamachus: Take up the shield and go, boy, having taken it.
Lamachus: It's snowing. Good grief; winter is upon us.
Dikaiopolis: Lift the dinner; the matters are festive.
Chorus: Come now, rejoicing, to the army.
Chorus: Come, come by a different path!
Chorus: To the one who has crowned himself for drinking,
Chorus: but for you, shivering and guarding yourself,
Chorus: and to sleep
Chorus: with a very beautiful girl,
Chorus: when the dreadful thing is being rubbed.
Chorus: Antimachus, the poet of the psakadoi, the writer of the meloi,
Chorus: if he were simple, Zeus would utterly destroy him;
Chorus: who, after being my choragus for the Lenaia, dismissed me the wretch without supper.
Chorus: whom I might yet see in a tunic.
Chorus: being begged, but the roasted one
Chorus: a sizzling eel lying on a table
Chorus: It is gone; and then, while it was about to...
Chorus: Let a dog take it from him.
Chorus: Let her snatch [something] and flee.
Chorus: This is one evil for him, and may another one, a nocturnal one, come to pass afterwards.
Chorus: for, walking homeward from a horse-ride,
Chorus: Then some drunken man would have struck Orestes on the head.
Chorus: He is mad; but he will throw a stone.
Chorus: I wish to take [it] in the dark.
Chorus: a pestle, freshly crushed by hand;
Chorus: he would sing, holding
Chorus: the marble, and then having missed
Chorus: Let him throw Cratinus.
Lamachus' servant: O slaves who are at Lamachus' house,
Lamachus' servant: Heat water, water, in the little pot;
Lamachus' servant: Prepare bandages and a waxing spatula,
Lamachus' servant: 'A sharp blow with the staff, a torch about the ankle.'
Lamachus's servant: A man has been wounded by a spear while leaping over a ditch,
Lamachus' servant: and he has knocked out the ankle's bone,
Lamachus' servant: and he broke his head by falling against a stone,
Lamachus' servant: And he roused Gorgo from the shield.
Lamachus' servant: And the great cock-comb of the vainglorious fellow has fallen.
Lamachus' servant: near the rocks, he sang a terrible song;
Lamachus' servant: O brilliant eye, seeing you now for the very last time
Lamachus' servant: I leave my own light; I am no more.
Lamachus' servant: Having said so much, he fell into the gutter.
Lamachus' servant: he gets up and meets the deserters.
Lamachus' servant: driving off robbers and scouring them with the spear.
Lamachus' servant: Here he is too; but open the door.
Lamachus: ouch, ouch
Lamachus: hateful and shivering are these sufferings; wretched am I.
Lamachus: I am perishing, struck by the spear of an enemy.
Lamachus: Then that would certainly happen,
Lamachus: Dicaeopolis, if he saw me wounded,
Lamachus: And may it happen to fit my good fortune!
Dikaiopolis: alack, alack!
Dikaiopolis: of the titthia, like hard and quinces.
Dicaeopolis: Kiss me gently, golden one.
Dikaiopolis: the flapping and the fluttering.
Dicaeopolis: for I have drunk the whole wine first.
Lamachus: Oh, wretched disaster of my misfortunes.
Lamachus: Oh, oh, of painful wounds.
Dikaiopolis: Iē, iē, hail Lamachippion.
Lamachus: I am hateful.
Dikaiopolis: Why are you barking at me?
Lamachus: wretched am I.
Dikaiopolis: Why do you bite me?
Lamachus: woe is me for this heavy bargain.
Dikaiopolis: For, someone was making a contribution to the Chous, wasn't he?
Lamachos: oh oh Paean, Paean.
Dikaiopolis: But not now, today, the Paean.
Lamachus: Take me, take my leg, oh dear!
Lamachus: take hold, O friends.
Dikaiopolis: But you two shall have the middle of my privy parts.
Dikaiopolis: take hold of me, my dear friends.
Lamachus: My head is spinning, having been struck by a stone.
Lamachus: And I am becoming dizzy.
Dikaiopolis: And I want to go to sleep and get drunk.
Dikaiopolis: And I'll be a night-owl.
Lamachus: Take me out the door into the Pittalou!
Lamachus: with Paeonian hands.
Dicaeopolis: How do you bear me, the judges? Where is the king?
Dikaiopolis: give me back the wineskin.
Lamachus: A spear has pierced through my bones painfully.
Dikaiopolis: Do you see this one empty? The other one is a kalonikos.
Chorus: Now then, if you are indeed calling for one, old man, a song of victory.
Dikaiopolis: And indeed I also scraped out a ladle full of unmixed wine.
Chorus: Come now, you noble one! Go, taking the wineskin.
Dikaiopolis: Follow me now, singing, O my dear one, Kalinnikos.
Chorus: But we shall cook for your sake.
Chorus: singing a victory song, we celebrate.
Chorus: you and the wineskin.