When I was a younger man, I could run
with a sack of charcoal across my back
and match the pace of great Phayllus.
Back then this treaty-proposing fellow
would not have easily eluded us,
no matter how swift his feet may be.
Now my legs are stiff. Old Lacratides
feels heavy in his legs, and the young wretch
outpaces us.
We have to follow him.
We must never let him make fools of us,
and he will, if he manages to escape,
even though we Acharnians are old.
O Father Zeus and you gods in heaven,
he has made a truce with our enemies,
men against whom I wish to keep on fighting
this hateful war, because of what they’ve done
to our farmlands. I will not give up
till I take revenge by piercing their flesh,
like a sharp, painful thorn, driven right in,
up to the hilt, so that they never dare
to trample on my vineyards any more.
Come on, we have to find this wretched man.
Look everywhere—we’ll chase him from one place
to another until we corner him. And then
I’ll never tire of throwing stones at him.
Be silent! Due reverence from all!
Be quiet—all of you! Did you men hear
that ritual call for silence? That voice
belongs to the very man we’re chasing.
All of you, get out of his way. Hide!
He has surely come to make an offering.
Peace! Be silent! Due reverence from all!
The basket girl should move up just a bit.
Xanthias, hold the phallus fully erect.
Daughter, put the basket down and we’ll begin.
Mother, pass me the ladle so I can drip
the sauce across the flat-cake.
That is good!
O lord Dionysus, may you find
the procession and the sacrifice
I and my household offer you
acceptable, so I may celebrate
the rural Dionysia peacefully,
Frederick William Hall (1865–1948) was a classical scholar and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Together with William Martin Geldart, he produced the Oxford Classical Text of several authors. Hall was a careful editor known for his thorough collation of manuscripts and his conservative approach to textual criticism.
The Hall–Geldart editions in the Oxford Classical Texts series provide reliable critical texts with selective apparatus criticus. The OCT series, established in 1894 as the Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, aims to present the best available Greek and Latin texts in a format suitable for both scholarly use and teaching. Each volume provides a clean text with the most significant manuscript variants recorded at the foot of each page.
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