Part 6

f(2) He had been Archon at the time of the battle of Marathon.

DICAEOPOLIS Peace! profane men!(1)

f(1) A sacred formula, pronounced by the priest before offering the sacrifice.

CHORUS Silence all! Friends, do you hear the sacred formula? Here is he, whom we seek! This way, all! Get out of his way, surely he comes to offer an oblation.

DICAEOPOLIS Peace, profane men! Let the basket-bearer(1) come forward, and thou Xanthias, hold the phallus well upright.(2)

f(1) The maiden who carried the basket filled with fruits at the Dionysia in honour of Bacchus.

f(2) The emblem of the fecundity of nature; it consisted of a representation, generally grotesquely exaggerated, of the male genital organs; the phallophori crowned with violets and ivy and their faces shaded with green foliage, sang improvised airs, call 'Phallics,' full of obscenity and suggestive 'double entendres.'

WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS Daughter, set down the basket and let us begin the sacrifice.

DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS Mother, hand me the ladle, that I may spread the sauce on the cake.

DICAEOPOLIS It is well! Oh, mighty Bacchus, it is with joy that, freed from military duty, I and all mine perform this solemn rite and offer thee this sacrifice; grant that I may keep the rural Dionysia without hindrance and that this truce of thirty years may be propitious for me.

WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS Come, my child, carry the basket gracefully and with a grave, demure face. Happy he, who shall be your possessor and embrace you so firmly at dawn,(1) that you belch wind like a weasel. Go forward, and have a care they don't snatch your jewels in the crowd.

f(1) The most propitious moment for Love's gambols, observes the scholiast.

DICAEOPOLIS Xanthias, walk behind the basket-bearer and hold the phallus well erect; I will follow, singing the Phallic hymn; thou, wife, look on from the top of the terrace.(1) Forward! Oh, Phales,(2) companion of the orgies of Bacchus, night reveller, god of adultery, friend of young men, these past six(3) years I have not been able to invoke thee. With what joy I return to my farmstead, thanks to the truce I have concluded, freed from cares, from fighting and from Lamachuses!(4) How much sweeter, oh Phales, oh, Phales, is it to surprise Thratta, the pretty woodmaid, Strymodorus' slave, stealing wood from Mount Phelleus, to catch her under the arms, to throw her on the ground and possess her, Oh, Phales, Phales! If thou wilt drink and bemuse thyself with me, we shall to-morrow consume some good dish in honour of the peace, and I will hang up my buckler over the smoking hearth.

f(1) Married women did not join in the processions.

f(2) The god of generation, worshipped in the form of a phallus.

f(3) A remark which fixes the date of the production of 'The Acharnians,' viz. the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War, 426 B.C.

f(4) Lamachus was an Athenian general, who figures later in this comedy.

CHORUS It is he, he himself. Stone him, stone him, stone him, strike the wretch. All, all of you, pelt him, pelt him!

DICAEOPOLIS What is this? By Heracles, you will smash my pot.(1)

f(1) At the rural Dionysia a pot of kitchen vegetables was borne in the procession along with other emblems.

CHORUS It is you that we are stoning, you miserable scoundrel.

DICAEOPOLIS And for what sin, Acharnian Elders, tell me that!

CHORUS You ask that, you impudent rascal, traitor to your country; you alone amongst us all have concluded a truce, and you dare to look us in the face!

DICAEOPOLIS But you do not know WHY I have treated for peace. Listen!

CHORUS Listen to you? No, no, you are about to die, we will annihilate you with our stones.

DICAEOPOLIS But first of all, listen. Stop, my friends.

CHORUS I will hear nothing; do not address me; I hate you more than I do Cleon,(1) whom one day I shall flay to make sandals for the Knights. Listen to your long speeches, after you have treated with the Laconians? No, I will punish you.

f(1) Cleon the Demagogue was a currier originally by trade. He was the sworn foe and particular detestation of the Knights or aristocratic party generally.