one man say something quite urbane and finely trimmed. The other one will seize him and his arguments,

the roots and all, and then attack and scatter words around the place like rolling on a wrestling mat.

You must speak at full speed. But see you talk this way—with elegance, no metaphors, and nothing someone else might say.

All right. As for myself—the kind of poet I am— I’ll say that in my final words. For first, I’ll demonstrate this fellow’s fraudulent, a cheat. I’ll show just how he took them in,

and fooled those idiots reared on Phrynichos.

First, he’d wrap a person up and sit him down with his face hidden away—some character like his Niobe or his Achilles— mere window dressing for the tragedy. They didn’t speak or even mutter.

That’s right. They didn’t.

And then his Chorus thumped their lyrics out— strings of them, four in a row without a break, the character just sat on stage in silence.

Well, I liked that they kept quiet. It pleased me.

It wasn’t any worse than those today who babble on and on.

You were a fool— no doubt of that.

I think so, too. But why so? Why did our friend here do that?

It was a trick designed to keep spectators in their seats, waiting for when Niobe might start to speak. So the play continued on and on and on . . .

What a rascal! How he had me fooled!

[to Aeschylus] Why are you fretting there and fidgeting?

Because I’ve caught him out. When he’d played this trick and half the play was done, someone would speak up, a dozen ox-like words—with eyebrows, crests, some fear-faced things full of the bogey man, which no one in the audience understood.

How miserable I feel . . .

Stay quiet please.

Nothing he said was ever clear.

Don’t grind your teeth.

He talked on about Scamanders, trenches, shields with bronze enamelled griffon-eagles, in horse-cliffed phrases hard to comprehend.

Yes, by god, one long night I got no sleep

from worrying what kind of bird was called the tawny clear-voiced horse cock.

You idiot! It was a symbol painted on the ships.

I thought it was Eryxis, Philoxenos’ son.

Did you have to work a rooster in just for the tragedy?

You god-forsaken wretch, what sorts of plays did you create?

None like you— no horse-cock monsters or goat-stags, by god, the sort they paint on Persian tapestries. When I first took this art of plays from you,

crammed with bombast to the gills, fustian stuff,

Yes, by god, one long night I got no sleep

from worrying what kind of bird was called the tawny clear-voiced horse cock.

You idiot! It was a symbol painted on the ships.

I thought it was Eryxis, Philoxenos’ son.

Did you have to work a rooster in just for the tragedy?

You god-forsaken wretch, what sorts of plays did you create?

None like you— no horse-cock monsters or goat-stags, by god, the sort they paint on Persian tapestries. When I first took this art of plays from you,

crammed with bombast to the gills, fustian stuff,

at first I made it slim, reduced its weight, with vesicles, and walks, and laxatives. I gave a potion drawn from bookish chat, and took care nursing it with monodies.

And you mixed in Cephisophon, as well.

I wasn’t fool enough to put in there whatever stuff I chanced upon, or add just anything I found. The character who came out first would right away explain

on my behalf the background of the play.

Which was better than your own, by god.

After those opening words I never set anything superfluous in the play. No. For me the woman spoke—so did the slave, the master, maiden, the old woman, too.

Well, shouldn’t you be killed for daring this?

By Apollo, no. I was doing my work the democratic way.

My dear fellow, I’d forget that—from your point of view

that’s not the best line you could take.

I taught these people here to speak their minds . . .

I say so too—and before doing that I wish you’d split apart—right down the middle.

. . . introducing subtle rules for words, for verses nicely trimmed. I taught them to think, to see, to understand, to love new twists and double dealing, to suspect the worst, to be too smart in everything . . .

I agree.

. . . and I brought in domestic issues, too—

useful matters of things we understand, things people here could challenge me about.

Well, shouldn’t you be killed for daring this?

By Apollo, no. I was doing my work the democratic way.

My dear fellow, I’d forget that—from your point of view

that’s not the best line you could take.

I taught these people here to speak their minds . . .

I say so too—and before doing that I wish you’d split apart—right down the middle.

. . . introducing subtle rules for words, for verses nicely trimmed. I taught them to think, to see, to understand, to love new twists and double dealing, to suspect the worst, to be too smart in everything . . .

I agree.

. . . and I brought in domestic issues, too—

useful matters of things we understand, things people here could challenge me about.

They know their stuff—so they could test my art. I didn’t boast or lose my common sense. Nor did I scare them all with characters like Cycnus and Memnon, who walk around with bells attached. Look at our disciples, his and mine—you know them all quite well. Meganeitos and rough Phormisios are his—great long-beard-lance-and-trumpet men, flesh-rippers with the pine—whereas, for me there’s neat Theramenes and Cleitophon.

Theramenes? Now, he’s a clever man, expert in everything. When he meets trouble, when it hits him in the face, he gets away, no problem, by changing who he is— if being a Chian doesn’t work for him,

he claims that he's Achaean.

I taught these people here to think about such things.

I brought logic into art. I made them questioners. Now they see everything and understand it all. Their minds are more profound— they organize their homes much better than before. So now they ask “Where’s this?” “How’s it going?” “Who took that?”

Yes, by god, that’s what they do.

Now each Athenian man goes home and starts to yell— to scream at his own servants, “Where’s my pot? My sardine— who’s bitten off its head? My bowl from bygone years, is it, too, dead and gone? And where’s my garlic clove? I had it yesterday. Who’s munching on my olives?”

Before this, they’d just sit and gape there stupidly, like little mummy’s boys

and silly sweet-toothed fools.

You see this, radiant Achilles. Come now, what can you say to him? Don’t let your anger take control and carry you beyond the track. He’s charged you with some dreadful things. But now, you noble gentleman,

respond to him, but not with wrath Haul in your sails—except the tips—

then bit by bit bring in your ship. Keep watching for an easy wind. You just may get a gentle breeze.

Now you who were first among the Greeks to raise the solemn towers of spoken words adorning them with tragic gibberish, be strong and spout forth eloquence.

This trial enrages me—it pains my spleen

to have to answer such a man. But still, to stop your claim that I’m incompetent you answer this for me: Why should anyone admire the man who is a poet?

For cleverness and good advice—and since we help improve the men who live within our cities.

So if that’s something you didn’t do,

instead transforming fine and decent men to make them scoundrels, what would you say you'd then deserve by way of punishment?

Death—but don’t ask him.

Consider first the nature of the men he got from me— were they not nobly born and six feet tall? There were no runaways, no layabouts, no scoundrels like today, no ne’er-do-wells. No. Those men breathed spears and javelins, white-crested helmets, coronets, and greaves, with passions wrapped in seven oxhide folds.

This is getting bad.

His helmet-making wears me down.

What exactly did you do

to make these men so noble?

Aeschylus, speak up. Forget your pride and stubbornness.

instead transforming fine and decent men to make them scoundrels, what would you say you'd then deserve by way of punishment?

Death—but don’t ask him.

Consider first the nature of the men he got from me— were they not nobly born and six feet tall? There were no runaways, no layabouts, no scoundrels like today, no ne’er-do-wells. No. Those men breathed spears and javelins, white-crested helmets, coronets, and greaves, with passions wrapped in seven oxhide folds.

This is getting bad.

His helmet-making wears me down.

What exactly did you do

to make these men so noble?

Aeschylus, speak up. Forget your pride and stubbornness.

I wrote a play brim full of war god Ares.

Which one was that?

My Seven Against Thebes. Every man who saw it fell in love with war.

But you did something bad there with the Thebans— you made them more courageous in the war. For that you should be spanked.

You people too, you could have trained yourselves for war as well, but you weren’t so inclined. Then after that,

by putting on my Persians I instructed them so they were always keen to beat their foes— thus honouring our finest act.

I was pleased when you cried out in sorrowful lament, “O child of Darius, who is dead,” and then, the chorus clapped its hands and all yelled out “Booo hooo.”

Poets need to work on things like this.

Look back—they’ve been useful from the start, the noble race of poets. There’s Orpheus— he taught us rituals and not to kill,

Musaeus showed us cures for sicknesses and oracles as well, and Hesiod taught farming, harvest times, and how to plough. As for divine Homer, where’s his renown, his special fame, if not in what he taught, those useful facts about courageous deeds, and battle ranks and how men arm themselves.

Well, that may be, but Homer didn’t teach a thing to Pantacles, that clumsy oaf. The other day while marching on parade,

he clipped his helmet on, and then he tried to tie the crest on top.

And brave men, too— Homer gave us lots—with them the hero Lamachos. I took Homeric warriors,

and let my brain write many noble deeds about great lion-hearted fighting men like Patroclus and Teucer—in this way I urged our citizens to match themselves with them, when they heard the trumpet sound. But by god I never made a single whore

like Phaedra or that Sthenoboia. No one’s ever known me as a man who writes about the way a woman loves.

No, by god. Whatever you possess, there’s nothing there of Aphrodite.

Let her stay away! But she took her seat when she sat down hard on you and yours. She really squashed you flat.

She sure did, by god. What you wrote about the wives of other men you had to suffer with your own.

You wretched man,

How has my Stheneboia harmed our state?

Because you helped persuade the noble wives

of well-born men to drink down hemlock, ashamed of those like your Bellerophon.

My Phaedra story—did I make that up?

No—it was there. But it’s a poet’s task to conceal disgrace—not put it on parade front and centre and instruct men in it. Small children have a teacher helping them, for young men there’s the poets—we’ve got

a solemn duty to say useful things.

When you spout on of Lycabettus and subjects like magnificent Parnassus, does this involve your teaching useful things? We need to use the language people use.

You pestering demon, don’t you see that noble thoughts and fine ideas perforce produce a language of commensurate size? Besides, it’s fitting for the demi-gods to speak in loftier terms—just as they wear

much finer robes than ours. But you besmirched what I displayed with such nobility.

What did I do?

First, you dressed your kings in rags, to make them pitiful to all who watched.

If I did that, what damage did it do?

It’s your fault no rich man any more is keen to pay out money for a ship. Instead he wraps himself in rags and weeps and whines about how poor he is.

Yes, by Demeter, that’s true. But underneath

he wears a tunic of pure wool. And then, if he deceives them with a speech like that, he pops up in the market by the fish.

And then you taught them how to babble on with stupid gossip—so the wrestling schools

stood empty and the buttocks of our young, who chattered all the time, were quite worn out. You then convinced the Paralos’s crew to argue with their officers. In my day they were ignorant of this—all they knew

was how to yell for food and cry “Yo ho.”

By Apollo, that’s right—and how to fart straight in the faces of the rowers there, or shit on sailors down below, their mess mates. On shore they’d rob someone. Now they talk back— they never row—just sail out here and there.

What crimes is he not guilty of? Did he not put up on display pimps and women giving birth in holy shrines and having sex

with their own brothers, and then claim that living is no life? So now, because of him our city here is crammed with bureaucratic types and stupid democratic apes who always cheat our people. Nobody caries on the torch— no one’s trained in that these days.

No, by god, they’re not. That’s why while at the Panathenic games

I laughed myself quite pissless— a slow, pallid, porky runner went on by—head drooping down— far behind the rest. In that race he wasn’t very good. Well then, the folks at Keremeios gate began to whack him in the gut, to hit his ribs and sides and butt. While their hands were slapping him, he let rip a tremendous fart

which killed the torch. Then on he ran.

The event is huge, the strife intense— the mighty war goes on. It’s hard to choose.