a fit reward for all your bravery.

We hope this man thrives in his plan. For at his stage of great old age

he’ll take a dip in new affairs to act the sage.

You spectators, I’ll talk frankly to you now, and speak the truth, in the name of Dionysus, who has cared for me ever since I was a child. So may I win and be considered a wise man.

For I thought you were a discerning audience and this comedy the most intelligent of all my plays. Thus, I believed it worth my while

to produce it first for you, a work which cost me a great deal of effort. But I left defeated, beaten out by vulgar men—which I did not deserve. I place the blame for this on you intellectuals, on whose behalf I went to all that trouble. But still I won’t ever willingly abandon the discriminating ones among you all, not since that time when my play about two men— one was virtuous, the other one depraved— was really well received by certain people here,

whom it pleases me to mention now. As for me, I was still unmarried, not yet fully qualified

to produce that child. But I exposed my offspring, and another woman carried it away. In your generosity you raised and trained it. Since then I’ve had sworn testimony from you that you have faith in me. So now, like old Electra, this comedy has come, hoping she can find, somewhere in here, spectators as intelligent. If she sees her brother’s hair, she’ll recognize it.

Consider how my play shows natural restraint. First, she doesn't have stitched leather dangling down, with a thick red knob, to make the children giggle. She hasn’t mocked bald men or danced some drunken reel.

There’s no old man who talks and beats those present with a stick to hide bad jokes. She doesn’t rush on stage with torches or raise the cry “Alas!” or “Woe is me!” No—she’s come trusting in herself and in the script. And I’m a poet like that. I don’t preen myself. I don’t seek to cheat you by re-presenting here

the same material two or three times over. Instead I base my art on framing new ideas, all different from the rest, and each one very deft. When Cleon was all-powerful, I went for him. I hit him in the gut. But once he was destroyed, I didn’t have the heart to kick at him again.

Yet once Hyperbolos let others seize on him, they’ve not ceased stomping on the miserable man— and on his mother, too. The first was Eupolis— he dredged up his Maricas, a wretched rehash

of my play the Knights—he’s such a worthless poet— adding an aging female drunk in that stupid dance, a woman Phrynichos invented years ago, the one that ocean monster tried to gobble up. Then Hermippos wrote again about Hyperbolos, Now all the rest are savaging the man once more, copying my images of eels. If anyone laughs at those plays, I hope mine don’t amuse him.

But if you enjoy me and my inventiveness, then future ages will commend your worthy taste.

For my dance I first here call on Zeus, high-ruling king of all among the gods—and on Poseidon, so great and powerful—the one who with his trident wildly heaves the earth and all the brine-filled seas, and on our famous father Sky, the most revered, who can supply

all things with life. And I invite the Charioteer whose dazzling light

fills this wide world so mightily for every man and deity.

The wisest in this audience should here take note— you’ve done us wrong, and we confront you with the blame. We confer more benefits than any other god upon your city, yet we’re the only ones to whom you do not sacrifice or pour libations, though we’re the gods who keep protecting you. If there’s some senseless army expedition,

then we respond by thundering or bringing rain.

And when you were selecting as your general that Paphlagonian tanner hated by the gods, we frowned and then complained aloud—our thunder pealed among the lightning bursts, the moon moved off her course, the sun at once pulled his wick back inside himself, and said if Cleon was to be your general then he’d give you no light. Nonetheless, you chose him. They say this city likes to make disastrous choices, but that the gods, no matter what mistakes you make, convert them into something better. If you want

your recent choice to turn into a benefit, I can tell you how—it’s easy. Condemn the man—

that seagull Cleon—for bribery and theft. Set him in the stocks, a wooden yoke around his neck. Then, even if you’ve made a really big mistake, for you things will be as they were before your vote, and for the city this affair will turn out well.

Phoebus Apollo, stay close by, lord of Delos, who sits on high, by lofty Cynthos mountain sides;

and holy lady, who resides in Ephesus, in your gold shrine, where Lydian girls pray all the time;

Athena, too, who guards our home, her aegis raised above her own, and he who holds Parnassus peaks and shakes his torches as he leaps, lord Dionysus, whose shouts call amid the Delphic bacchanal.

When we were getting ready to move over here,

Moon met us and told us, first of all, to greet, on her behalf, the Athenians and their allies. Then she said she was upset—the way you treat her

is disgraceful, though she brings you all benefits— not just in words but in her deeds. To start with, she saves you at least one drachma every month for torchlight— in the evening, when you go outside, you all can say, “No need to buy a torch, my boy, Moon’s light will do just fine.” She claims she helps you all in other ways, as well, but you don’t calculate

your calendar the way you should—no, instead you make it all confused, and that’s why, she says, the gods are always making threats against her, when they are cheated of a meal and go back home because their celebration has not taken place according to a proper count of all the days. And then, when you should be making sacrifice,

you’re torturing someone or have a man on trial. And many times, when we gods undertake a fast, because we’re mourning Memnon or Sarpedon,

you’re pouring out libations, having a good laugh. That’s the reason, after his choice by lot this year to sit on the religious council, Hyperbolos had his wreath of office snatched off by the gods. That should make him better understand the need to count the days of life according to the moon.

By Respiration, Chaos, and the Air, I’ve never seen a man so crude, stupid, clumsy, and forgetful. He tries to learn the tiny trifles, but then he forgets