Temple of Demeter.

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE or The Women's Festival

MNESILOCHUS: Great Zeus! will the swallow never appear to end the winter of my discontent? Why the fellow has kept me on the run ever since early this morning; he wants to kill me, that's certain. Before I lose my spleen entirely, Euripides, can you at least tell me whither you are leading me?

EURIPIDES: What need for you to hear what you are going to see?

How is that? Repeat it. No need for me to hear....

EURIPIDES: What you are going to see.

MNESILOCHUS: Nor consequently to see....

EURIPIDES: What you have to hear.

MNESILOCHUS: What is this wiseacre stuff you are telling me? I must neither see nor hear.

EURIPIDES: Ah! but you have two things there that are essentially distinct.

MNESILOCHUS: Seeing and hearing.

EURIPIDES: Undoubtedly.

How is that? Repeat it. No need for me to hear....

EURIPIDES: What you are going to see.

MNESILOCHUS: Nor consequently to see....

EURIPIDES: What you have to hear.

MNESILOCHUS: What is this wiseacre stuff you are telling me? I must neither see nor hear.

EURIPIDES: Ah! but you have two things there that are essentially distinct.

MNESILOCHUS: Seeing and hearing.

EURIPIDES: Undoubtedly.

In what way distinct?

EURIPIDES: In this way. Formerly, when Ether separated the elements and bore the animals that were moving in her bosom, she wished to endow them with sight, and so made the eye round like the sun's disc and bored ears in the form of a funnel.

MNESILOCHUS: And because of this funnel I neither see nor hear. Ah! great gods! I am delighted to know it. What a fine thing it is to talk with wise men!

I will teach you many another thing of the sort.

MNESILOCHUS: That's well to know; but first of all I should like to find out how to grow lame, so that I need not have to follow you all about.

EURIPIDES: Come, hear and give heed!

MNESILOCHUS: I'm here and waiting.

EURIPIDES: Do you see that little door?

MNESILOCHUS: Yes, certainly.

EURIPIDES: Silence!

MNESILOCHUS: Silence about what? About the door?

Pay attention!

MNESILOCHUS: Pay attention and be silent about the door? Very well.

EURIPIDES: 'Tis there that Agathon, the celebrated tragic poet, dwells.

MNESILOCHUS: Who is this Agathon?

EURIPIDES: 'Tis a certain Agathon....

MNESILOCHUS: Swarthy, robust of build?

EURIPIDES: No, another. You have never seen him?

MNESILOCHUS: He has a big beard?

EURIPIDES: No, no, evidently you have never seen him.

Never, so far as I know.

EURIPIDES: And yet you have pedicated him. Well, it must have been without knowing who he was. Ah! let us step aside; here is one of his slaves bringing a brazier and some myrtle branches; no doubt he is going to offer a sacrifice and pray for a happy poetical inspiration for Agathon.

SERVANT OF AGATHON: Silence! oh, people! keep your mouths sedately shut! The chorus of the Muses is moulding songs at my master's hearth. Let the winds hold their breath in the silent Ether! Let the azure waves cease murmuring on the shore!...

Brououou! brououou! (_Imitates the buzzing of a fly._)

EURIPIDES: Keep quiet! what are you saying there?

SERVANT: Take your rest, ye winged races, and you, ye savage inhabitants of the woods, cease from your erratic wandering ...

MNESILOCHUS: Broum, broum, brououou.

SERVANT: for Agathon, our master, the sweet-voiced poet, is going ...

MNESILOCHUS: to be pedicated?

SERVANT: Whose voice is that?

'Tis the silent Ether.

SERVANT: is going to construct the framework of a drama. He is rounding fresh poetical forms, he is polishing them in the lathe and is welding them; he is hammering out sentences and metaphors; he is working up his subject like soft wax. First he models it and then he casts it in bronze ...

MNESILOCHUS: and sways his buttocks amorously.

SERVANT: Who is the rustic who approaches this sacred enclosure?

Take care of yourself and of your sweet-voiced poet! I have a strong instrument here both well rounded and well polished, which will pierce your enclosure and penetrate your bottom.

SERVANT: Old man, you must have been a very insolent fellow in your youth! EURIPIDES (_to the servant_). Let him be, friend, and, quick, go and call Agathon to me.

SERVANT: 'Tis not worth the trouble, for he will soon be here himself. He has started to compose, and in winter it is never possible to round off strophes without coming to the sun to excite the imagination. (_He departs._)

And what am I to do?

EURIPIDES: Wait till he comes.... Oh, Zeus! what hast thou in store for me to-day?

MNESILOCHUS: But, great gods, what is the matter then? What are you grumbling and groaning for? Tell me; you must not conceal anything from your father-in-law.

EURIPIDES: Some great misfortune is brewing against me.

MNESILOCHUS: What is it?

EURIPIDES: This day will decide whether it is all over with Euripides or not.

But how? Neither the tribunals nor the Senate are sitting, for it is the third of the five days consecrated to Demeter.

EURIPIDES: That is precisely what makes me tremble; the women have plotted my ruin, and to-day they are to gather in the Temple of Demeter to execute their decision.

MNESILOCHUS: Why are they against you?

EURIPIDES: Because I mishandle them in my tragedies.

By Posidon, you would seem to have thoroughly deserved your fate. But how are you going to get out of the mess?

EURIPIDES: I am going to beg Agathon, the tragic poet, to go to the Thesmophoria.

MNESILOCHUS: And what is he to do there?

EURIPIDES: He would mingle with the women, and stand up for me, if needful.

MNESILOCHUS: Would he be openly present or secretly?

EURIPIDES: Secretly, dressed in woman's clothes.

That's a clever notion, thoroughly worthy of you. The prize for trickery is ours.

EURIPIDES: Silence!

MNESILOCHUS: What's the matter?

EURIPIDES: Here comes Agathon.

MNESILOCHUS: Where, where?

EURIPIDES: That's the man they are bringing out yonder on the machine.

MNESILOCHUS: I am blind then! I see no man here, I only see Cyrené.

EURIPIDES: Be still! He is getting ready to sing.

What subtle trill, I wonder, is he going to warble to us?

AGATHON: Damsels, with the sacred torch in hand, unite your dance to shouts of joy in honour of the nether goddesses; celebrate the freedom of your country.

CHORUS: To what divinity is your homage addressed? I wish to mingle mine with it.

AGATHON: Oh! Muse! glorify Phoebus with his golden bow, who erected the walls of the city of the Simois.

To thee, oh Phoebus, I dedicate my most beauteous songs; to thee, the sacred victor in the poetical contests.

AGATHON: And praise Artemis too, the maiden huntress, who wanders on the mountains and through the woods....

CHORUS: I, in my turn, celebrate the everlasting happiness of the chaste Artemis, the mighty daughter of Latona!

AGATHON: and Latona and the tones of the Asiatic lyre, which wed so well with the dances of the Phrygian Graces.

I do honour to the divine Latona and to the lyre, the mother of songs of male and noble strains. The eyes of the goddess sparkle while listening to our enthusiastic chants. Honour to the powerful Phoebus! Hail! thou blessed son of Latona!

MNESILOCHUS: Oh! ye venerable Genetyllides, what tender and voluptuous songs! They surpass the most lascivious kisses in sweetness; I feel a thrill of delight pass up my rectum as I listen to them. Young man, whoever you are, answer my questions, which I am borrowing from Aeschylus' 'Lycurgeia.' Whence comes this effeminate? What is his country? his dress? What contradictions his life shows! A lyre and a hair-net! A wrestling school oil flask and a girdle! What could be more contradictory? What relation has a mirror to a sword? And you yourself, who are you? Do you pretend to be a man? Where is the sign of your manhood, your penis, pray? Where is the cloak, the footgear that belong to that sex? Are you a woman? Then where are your breasts? Answer me. But you keep silent. Oh! just as you choose; your songs display your character quite sufficiently.

Old man, old man, I hear the shafts of jealousy whistling by my ears, but they do not hit me. My dress is in harmony with my thoughts. A poet must adopt the nature of his characters. Thus, if he is placing women on the stage, he must contract all their habits in his own person.

MNESILOCHUS: Then you ride the high horse when you are composing a Phaedra.

AGATHON: If the heroes are men, everything in him will be manly. What we don't possess by nature, we must acquire by imitation.

When you are staging Satyrs, call me; I will do my best to help you from behind with standing tool.

AGATHON: Besides, it is bad taste for a poet to be coarse and hairy. Look at the famous Ibycus, at Anacreon of Teos, and at Alcaeus, who handled music so well; they wore headbands and found pleasure in the lascivious dances of Ionia. And have you not heard what a dandy Phrynichus was and how careful in his dress? For this reason his pieces were also beautiful, for the works of a poet are copied from himself.

Ah! so it is for this reason that Philocles, who is so hideous, writes hideous pieces; Xenocles, who is malicious, malicious ones, and Theognis, who is cold, such cold ones?

AGATHON: Yes, necessarily and unavoidably; and 'tis because I knew this that I have so well cared for my person.

MNESILOCHUS: How, in the gods' name?

EURIPIDES: Come, leave off badgering him; I was just the same at his age, when I began to write.

Ah! so it is for this reason that Philocles, who is so hideous, writes hideous pieces; Xenocles, who is malicious, malicious ones, and Theognis, who is cold, such cold ones?

AGATHON: Yes, necessarily and unavoidably; and 'tis because I knew this that I have so well cared for my person.

MNESILOCHUS: How, in the gods' name?

EURIPIDES: Come, leave off badgering him; I was just the same at his age, when I began to write.

At! then, by Zeus! I don't envy you your fine manners. EURIPIDES (_to Agathon_). But listen to the cause that brings me here.

AGATHON: Say on.

EURIPIDES: Agathon, wise is he who can compress many thoughts into few words. Struck by a most cruel misfortune, I come to you as a suppliant.

AGATHON: What are you asking?

EURIPIDES: The women purpose killing me to-day during the Thesmophoria, because I have dared to speak ill of them.

At! then, by Zeus! I don't envy you your fine manners. EURIPIDES (_to Agathon_). But listen to the cause that brings me here.

AGATHON: Say on.

EURIPIDES: Agathon, wise is he who can compress many thoughts into few words. Struck by a most cruel misfortune, I come to you as a suppliant.

AGATHON: What are you asking?

EURIPIDES: The women purpose killing me to-day during the Thesmophoria, because I have dared to speak ill of them.

And what can I do for you in the matter?

EURIPIDES: Everything. Mingle secretly with the women by making yourself pass as one of themselves; then do you plead my cause with your own lips, and I am saved. You, and you alone, are capable of speaking of me worthily.

AGATHON: But why not go and defend yourself?

EURIPIDES: 'Tis impossible. First of all, I am known; further, I have white hair and a long beard; whereas you, you are good-looking, charming, and are close-shaven; you are fair, delicate, and have a woman's voice.

Euripides!

AGATHON: Have you not said in one of your pieces, "You love to see the light, and don't you believe your father loves it too?"

AGATHON: Then never you think I am going to expose myself in your stead; 'twould be madness. 'Tis for you to submit to the fate that overtakes you; one must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace.

MNESILOCHUS: This is why you, you wretch, offer your posterior with a good grace to lovers, not in words, but in actual fact.

But what prevents your going there?

AGATHON: I should run more risk than you would.

AGATHON: Why? I should look as if I were wanting to trespass on secret nightly pleasures of the women and to ravish their Aphrodité.

MNESILOCHUS: Of wanting to ravish indeed! you mean wanting to be ravished--in the rearward mode. Ah! great gods! a fine excuse truly!

EURIPIDES: Well then, do you agree?

Don't count upon it.

EURIPIDES: Oh! I am unfortunate indeed! I am undone!

MNESILOCHUS: Euripides, my friend, my son-in-law, never despair.

EURIPIDES: What can be done?

MNESILOCHUS: Send him to the devil and do with me as you like.

EURIPIDES: Very well then, since you devote yourself to my safety, take off your cloak first.

MNESILOCHUS: There, it lies on the ground. But what do you want to do with me?

To shave off this beard of yours, and to remove your hair below as well.

MNESILOCHUS: Do what you think fit; I yield myself entirely to you.

EURIPIDES: Agathon, you have always razors about you; lend me one.

AGATHON: Take if yourself, there, out of that case.

EURIPIDES: Thanks. Sit down and puff out the right cheek.

MNESILOCHUS: Oh! oh! oh!

EURIPIDES: What are you shouting for? I'll cram a spit down your gullet, if you're not quiet.

Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! (_He springs up and starts running away._)

EURIPIDES: Where are you running to now?

MNESILOCHUS: To the temple of the Eumenides. No, by Demeter I won't let myself be gashed like that.

EURIPIDES: But you will get laughed at, with your face half-shaven like that.

MNESILOCHUS: Little care I.

EURIPIDES: In the gods' names, don't leave me in the lurch. Come here.

Oh! by the gods! (_Resumes his seat._)

EURIPIDES: Keep still and hold up your head. Why do you want to fidget about like this?

MNESILOCHUS: Mu, mu.

EURIPIDES: Well! why, mu, mu? There! 'tis done and well done too! MNESILOCHUS Ah! great god! It makes me feel quite light.

EURIPIDES: Don't worry yourself; you look charming. Do you want to see yourself?

MNESILOCHUS: Aye, that I do; hand the mirror here.