We’ll be here with you to help you do it. Why not just leave? You may soon be screaming for that hair of yours.

Go on, piss off! So the Spartans inside there can come on out and go away in peace.

Well now, I never seen a banquet quite like this. The Spartans were delightful. As for us, we had too much wine, but as companions we said lots of really clever things.

That’s right. When we’re sober, we lose our minds. I’ll speak up and persuade Athenians what when our embassies go anywhere

they stay permanently drunk. As it is, whenever we go sober off to Sparta, right away we look to stir up trouble. So we just don’t hear what they have to say and get suspicious of what they don’t state. Then we bring back quite different reports about the same events. But now these things have all been sorted out. So if someone there sang “Telamon” when he should have sung “Cleitagora,” we’d applaud the man and even swear quite falsely that . . .

Hey, those slaves are coming here again. You whipping posts,

why can’t you go away?

By Zeus, the ones in there are coming out again.

Here, my dear sir, take this wind instrument, so I can dance and sing a lovely song to honour both Athenians and ourselves.

Yes, by the gods, take the pipes. I love to see you Spartans dance and sing.

O Memory, to this young man send down your child the Muse who knows the Spartans and Athenians.

Back then at Artemesium they fought the ships like gods of war and overpowered the Medes, while we, I know, led by Leonidas

whetted our teeth like boars with foaming mouths, which dripped down on our legs. The Persian force possessed more fighting men than grains of sea shore sand.

O Artemis, queen of the wild, slayer of beasts, chaste goddess, come here to bless our treaty, to make us long united. May our peace be always blessed with friendship and prosperity, and may we put an end to all manipulating foxes.

Come here, O come here, Virgin Goddess of the Hunt.

Come now, since everything has turned out well, take these women back with you, you Spartans. And, you Athenians, these ones are yours. Let each man stand beside his wife, each wife beside her man, and then to celebrate good times let’s dance in honour of the gods. And for all future time, let’s never make the same mistake again.

Lead on the dance, bring on the Graces, and summon Artemis and her twin,

Apollo, the god who heals us all, call on Bacchus, Nysa’s god, whose eyes blaze forth amid his Maenads’ ecstasy, and Zeus alight with flaming fire, and Hera, Zeus’s blessed wife, and other gods whom we will use as witnesses who won’t forget the meaning of the gentle Peace made here by goddess Aphrodite.

Alalai! Raise the cry of joy, raise it high, iai! the cry of victory, iai! Evoi, evoi, evoi, evoi!

Spartan, now offer us another song, match our new song with something new.

Leave lovely Taygetus once again and, Spartan Muse, in some way that is appropriate for us pay tribute to Amyclae’s god, and to bronze-housed Athena, to Tyndareus’s splendid sons,

who play beside the Eurotas. Step now, with many a nimble turn, so we may sing a hymn to Sparta, dancing in honour of the gods, with stamping feet in that place where by the river Eurotas young maidens dance, like fillies raising dust,

tossing their manes, like bacchants who play and wave their thyrsus stalks, brought on by Leda’s lovely child, their holy leader in the choral dance.

But come let your hands bind up your hair. Let your feet leap up like deer, sound out the beat to help our dance. Sing out a song of praise for our most powerful bronze-house goddess, all-conquering Athena!