Oh! my dears, methinks I see fire and smoke; can it be a conflagration? Let us hurry all we can.
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS OF WOMEN (singing)
Fly, fly, Nicodice, ere Calyce and Critylle perish in the fire, or are stifled in the smoke raised by these accursed old men and their pitiless laws.But, great gods, can it be I come too late? Rising at dawn, I had the utmost trouble to fill this vessel at the fountain.
Oh! what a crowd there was, and what a din! What a rattling of water-pots! Servants and slave-girls pushed and thronged me!
However, here I have it full at last; and I am running to carry the water to my fellow-townswomen, whom our foes are plotting to burn alive.
SECOND SEMI-CHORUS OF WOMEN (singing)
News has been brought us that a company of old, doddering grey-beards, loaded with enormous faggots, as if they wanted to heat a furnace, have taken the field, vomiting dreadful threats, crying that they must reduce to ashes these horrible women.Suffer them not, oh! goddess, but, of thy grace, may I see Athens and Greece cured of their warlike folly.'Tis to this end, oh! thou guardian deity of our city, goddess of the golden crest, that they have seized thy sanctuary.Be their friend and ally, Athene, and if any man hurl against them lighted firebrands, aid us to carry water to extinguish them.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
What is this I see, ye wretched old men? Honest and pious folk ye cannot be who act so vilely.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Ah, ha! here's something new! a swarm of women stand posted outside to defend the gates!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Fart at us, would you? we seem a mighty host, yet you do not see the ten-thousandth part of our sex.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Ho, Phaedrias! shall we stop their cackle? Suppose one of us were to break a stick across their backs, eh?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Let us set down our water-pots on the ground, to be out of the way, if they should dare to offer us violence.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Let someone knock out two or three teeth for them, as they did to Bupalus; they won't talk so loud then.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Come on then; I wait you with unflinching foot, and no other bitch will ever grab your balls.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Silence! or my stick will cut short your days.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Now, just you dare to touch Stratyllis with the tip of your finger!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
And if I batter you to pieces with my fists, what will you do?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
I will tear out your lungs and entrails with my teeth.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Oh! what a clever poet is Euripides! how well he says that woman is the most shameless of animals.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Let's pick up our water-jars again, Rhodippe.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
You damned women, what do you mean to do here with your water?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
And you, old death-in-life, with your fire? Is it to cremate yourself?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
I am going to build you a pyre to roast your female friends upon.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
And I,-I am going to put out your fire.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
You put out my fire-you?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Yes, you shall soon see.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
I don't know what prevents me from roasting you with this torch.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
I am getting you a bath ready to clean off the filth.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
A bath for me, you dirty slut?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Yes, indeed, a nuptial bath-tee heel LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN (turning to his followers)Do you hear that? What insolence!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
I am a free woman, I tell you.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
I will make you hold your tongue, never fear!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Ah ha! you shall never sit any more amongst the Heliasts.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN (to his torch)
Burn off her hair for her!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN (to her pot)
Achelous, do your duty!
(The women pitch the water in their water-pots over the old men.)LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
Was it hot?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Hot, great gods! Enough, enough!
LEADER OF CHORUS OF WOMEN
I'm watering you, to make you bloom afresh.
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
Alas! I am too dry! Ah, me how! how I am trembling with cold!
(A MAGISTRATE enters, with a few Scythian policemen.)MAGISTRATE
These women, have they made din enough, I wonder, with their tambourines? bewept Adonis enough upon their terraces? I was listening to the speeches last assembly day, and Demostratus, whom heaven confound! was saying we must all go over to Sicily-and lo! his wife was dancing round repeating: "Alas! alas! Adonis, woe is me for Adonis!" Demostratus was saying we must levy hoplites at Zacynthus-and there was his wife, more than half drunk, screaming on the house-roof:
"Weep, weep for Adonis!"-while that infamous Mad Ox was bellowing away on his side.-Do you not blush, you women, for your wild and uproarious doings?
LEADER OF CHORUS OF OLD MEN
But you don't know all their effrontery yet! They abused and insulted us; then soused us with the water in their water-pots, and have set us wringing out our clothes, for all the world as if we had bepissed ourselves.
MAGISTRATE
