The Contest Begins
Χορός
που δεινὸν ἐριβρεμέτας χόλον ἔνδοθεν ἕξει,
815 ἡνίκʼ ἂν ὀξύλαλον παρίδῃ θήγοντος ὀδόντα
ἀντιτέχνου· τότε δὴ μανίας ὑπὸ δεινῆς
ὄμματα στροβήσεται.
ἔσται δʼ ἱππολόφων τε λόγων κορυθαίολα νείκη
σχινδαλάμων τε παραξόνια σμιλεύματά τʼ ἔργων,
820 φωτὸς ἀμυνομένου φρενοτέκτονος ἀνδρὸς
ῥήμαθʼ ἱπποβάμονα.
φρίξας δʼ αὐτοκόμου λοφιᾶς λασιαύχενα χαίταν,
δεινὸν ἐπισκύνιον ξυνάγων βρυχώμενος ἥσει
ῥήματα γομφοπαγῆ πινακηδὸν ἀποσπῶν
825 γηγενεῖ φυσήματι·
ἔνθεν δὴ στοματουργὸς ἐπῶν βασανίστρια λίσφη
γλῶσσʼ ἀνελισσομένη φθονεροὺς κινοῦσα χαλινοὺς
ῥήματα δαιομένη καταλεπτολογήσει
πλευμόνων πολὺν πόνον.
820–829

steed-prancing phrases from the man who builds our minds. The bristling crest erect there on his shaggy neck, his natural hair, a fearful scowl upon his brow, and bellowing, he’ll launch his language fixed with bolts, like planking for a ship, he’ll rip the words apart, blasting with his giant’s lungs. The other man, the one who works his mouth, who tortures every word,

unrolling his smooth tongue and shaking envy’s rein, will dissect and parse those words, and, splitting hairs, refute all that large labour of the former’s lungs.

[Enter Aeschylus, Euripides, Dionysus, and Pluto, with attendants.]
EURIPIDES

I’ll not give up the chair—no more advice.

Translation by Ian Johnston, Vancouver Island University
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An open-access project
Hall 1907
OCT
Hall & Geldart, OCT, 1907 · 1907
The Editor

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.

About This Edition

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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