CHORUS OF THESMOPHORIAZUSAE-Women celebrating the THESMOPHORIA(SCENE:-Behind the orchestra are two buildings, one the house of the poet AGATHON, the other the Thesmophorion. EURIPIDES enters from the right, at a rapid pace, with an air of searching for something; his father-in-law MNESILOCHUS, who is extremely aged, follows him as best he can, with an obviously painful expenditure of effort.)MNESILOCHUS
Great Zeus! will the swallow never appear to end the winter of my discontent? Why the fellow has kept me on the run ever since early this morning; he wants to kill me, that's certain. Before I lose my spleen antirely, Euripides, can you at least tell me where you are leading me?
EURIPIDES
What need for you to hear what you are going to see?
MNESILOCHUS
How is that? Repeat it. No need for me to hear....
EURIPIDES
What you are going to see.
MNESILOCHUS
Nor consequently to see....
EURIPIDES
What you have to hear.
MNESILOCHUS
What is this wiseacre stuff you are telling me? I must neither see nor hear?
EURIPIDES
Ah! but you have two things there that are essentially distinct.
MNESILOCHUS
Seeing and hearing?
EURIPIDES
Undoubtedly.
MNESILOCHUS
In what way distinct?
EURIPIDES
In this way. Formerly, when Aether separated the elements and bore the animals that were moving in her bosom, she wished to endow them with sight, and so made the eye round like the sun's disc and bored ears in the form of a funnel.
MNESILOCHUS
And because of this funnel I neither see nor hear. Ah! great gods!
I am delighted to know it. What a fine thing it is to talk with wise men!
EURIPIDES
I will teach you many another thing of the sort.
MNESILOCHUS
That's well to know; but first of all I should like to find out how to grow lame, so that I need not have to follow you all about.
EURIPIDES
Come, hear and give heed!
MNESILOCHUS
I'm here and waiting.
EURIPIDES
Do you see that little door?
MNESILOCHUS
Yes, certainly.
EURIPIDES
Silence!
MNESILOCHUS
Silence about what? About the door?
EURIPIDES
Pay attention!
MNESILOCHUS
Pay attention and be silent about the door? Very well.
EURIPIDES
That is where Agathon, the celebrated tragic poet, dwells.
MNESILOCHUS
Who is this Agathon?
EURIPIDES
He's a certain Agathon....
MNESILOCHUS
Swarthy, robust of build?
EURIPIDES
No, another.
MNESILOCHUS
I have never seen him. He has a big beard?
EURIPIDES
Have you never seen him?
MNESILOCHUS
Never, so far as I know.
EURIPIDES
And yet you have made love to him. Well, it must have been without knowing who he was. (The door of AGATHON'S house opens.) Ah! let us step aside; here is one of his slaves bringing a brazier and some myrtle branches; no doubt he is going to offer a sacrifice and pray for a happy poetical inspiration for Agathon.
SERVANT OF AGATHON (standing on the threshold; solemnly)Silence! oh, people! keep your mouths sedately shut! The chorus of the Muses is moulding songs at my master's hearth. Let the winds hold their breath in the silent Aether! Let the azure waves cease murmuring on the shore!....
MNESILOCHUS
Bombax.
EURIPIDES
Be still! I want to hear what he is saying.
SERVANT
....Take your rest, ye winged races, and you, ye savage inhabitants of the woods, cease from your erratic wandering....
MNESILOCHUS (more loudly)
Bombalobombax.
SERVANT
....for Agathon, our master, the sweet-voiced poet, is going....
MNESILOCHUS
....to be made love to?
SERVANT
Whose voice is that?
MNESILOCHUS
It's the silent Aether.
SERVANT
....is going to construct the framework of a drama. He is rounding fresh poetical forms, he is polishing them in the lathe and is welding them; he is hammering out sentences and metaphors; he is working up his subect like soft wax. First he models it and then he casts it in bronze....
MNESILOCHUS
....and sways his buttocks amorously.
SERVANT
Who is the rustic that approaches this sacred enclosure?
MNESILOCHUS
Take care of yourself and of your sweet-voiced poet! I have a strong tool here both well rounded and well polished, which will pierce your enclosure and penetrate you.
SERVANT
Old man, you must have been a very insolent fellow in your youth!
EURIPIDES (to the SERVANT)
Let him be, friend, and, quick, go and call Agathon to me.
SERVANT
It's not worth the trouble, for he will soon be here himself. He has started to compose, and in winter it is never possible to round off strophes without coming to the sun to excite the imagination.
EURIPIDES
And what am I to do?
SERVANT
Wait till he gets here.
(He goes into the house.)
EURIPIDES
Oh, Zeus! what hast thou in store for me to-day?
MNESILOCHUS
Great gods, what is the matter now? What are you grumbling and groaning for? Tell me; you must not conceal anything from your father-in-law.
EURIPIDES
Some great misfortune is brewing against me.
MNESILOCHUS
What is it?
EURIPIDES
This day will decide whether it is all over with Euripides or not.
MNESILOCHUS
But how? Neither the tribunals nor the Senate are sitting, for it is the third day of the Thesmophoria.
EURIPIDES
That is precisely what makes me tremble; the women have plotted my ruin, and to-day they are to gather in the Temple of Demeter to execute their decision.
MNESILOCHUS
What have they against you?
EURIPIDES
Because I mishandle them in my tragedies.
MNESILOCHUS
By Posidon, you would seem to have thoroughly deserved your fate. But how are you going to get out of the mess?
EURIPIDES
I am going to beg Agathon, the tragic poet, to go to the Thesmophoria.
MNESILOCHUS
And what is he to do there?
EURIPIDES
He would mingle with the women, and stand up for me, if needful.
MNESILOCHUS
Would be present or secretly?
EURIPIDES
Secretly, dressed in woman's clothes.
MNESILOCHUS
That's a clever notion, thoroughly worthy of you. The prize for trickery is ours.
(The door of AGATHON'S house opens.)
EURIPIDES
Silence!
MNESILOCHUS
What's the matter?
EURIPIDES
Here comes Agathon.
MNESILOCHUS
Where, where?
EURIPIDES
That's the man they are bringing out yonder on the eccyclema.
