He’s not in there.

Then where’s he gone?

He’s harnessed to the chariot of Zeus and bears the lightning bolt.

The poor thing! Where will he find shit to eat in heaven?

He’ll feed on Ganymede’s ambrosia.

All right, but how do I get down?

It’s easy. Don’t worry. Go this way past the goddess.

This way, girls, just follow me, and quickly. There’s lots of people waiting there for you with their erections ready.

Go on! Farewell!

Meanwhile we should hand all this equipment over to attendants—give it to them

to keep safely. There are many thieving types who really like to hang around the stage and look for things to steal.

Guard these bravely, and let’s explain to these spectators here the road our words will take, what’s on our minds.

The judges here ought to thrash the comic poet who steps onto the stage in front of these spectators to praise himself in verse. But, daughter of Zeus, if it’s all right to pay due honour to the man who is the finest and best known comic writer, then our producer claims he merits your great praise. First, he’s was the only man who stopped his rivals making constant fun of rags and fighting wars with lice,

and the first to ridicule and banish from the stage the Herculeses who were always making cakes and going hungry. He also dismissed those slaves who kept on running off, or deceiving someone, or getting whipped. They were always led out crying, so one of their fellow slaves could mock the bruises and then ask: “O you poor miserable fellow, what’s happened to your skin? Surely a huge army of lashes from a whip has fallen down on you and laid waste your back?” Yes, our poet has removed such feeble trash, such commonplace tomfoolery, and created a great art for us, by building up high-towered homes from lovely words and thoughts and jokes

which are not trivial stuff. And he does not present obscure private types or women in his dramas. No, with the spirit of Hercules he attacks

the greatest targets, striding through the dreadful stink of stripped-off leather hide and the grandiloquence of those with hearts of mud.

Of all the bouts I fought the very first was with the fanged-tooth one himself, whose eyes shot out most dreadful rays, like a Bitch Star. Round him circled a hundred moaning flatterers, who’d spit-lick his head. He had a thundering torrent of a voice, and he smelled as nasty as a seal, the unwashed balls of Lamia, and camels’ arse holes. When I saw this monstrosity, I did not fear, but kept fighting constant wars with him, holding out on your behalf and for the islanders. And so,

it’s only right that you remember me and show your gratitude by paying me back. Before this point, when I’ve had success, I didn’t lose my mind and roam around the wrestling schools trying to seduce young lads. No, I took my theatre gear and went off on my way. I didn’t cause much pain and brought you great delight, producing everything just how it ought to be.

And for this reason men and boys

should side with me. And we advise bald men to join with us and strive for victory, since if I win, at tables and at festivals

every man will say, “Here, take this to that bald man, give this bald man a sweet dessert, and don’t hold back from a man whose forehead matches our noble poet’s balding skull.”

O Muse, drive wars away and dance, my friend, dance with us—celebrate the weddings of the gods, the feasts of mortal men, and festivals of those who have been blessed, for these

have from the start been your concern. And if that Carcinus should come begging you to join his children in a dance, don’t listen to him or move to help them with their play. Think of them all as homebred quails,

dancing dwarves with long scraggy necks, sliced-up lumps of dung, who put on

mere artifice. Their father claimed that once a play he was to stage, a work no one had thought he’d write, was choked one evening by a weasel.

Such are the long-haired Muses’ songs the clever poet ought to sing before the public, when swallows

sitting in the leaves in springtime let forth their song, and choruses of Morsimus are not allowed, nor any from Melanthius, whose most ear-piercing voice I heard once screaming out—it was that day he and his brother put on stage the tragic chorus. What a pair! Gorgon epicures and Harpies,

ravenously devouring roaches, foul rogues chasing down old women and wiping out whole schools of fish. What more, their armpits stink like goats! O goddess Muse, please spit on them— a huge, wide gob of phlegm—and then, throughout the party, play with me.

That was tough, going straight up to the gods. My legs are really aching. You people