Part 9

DICAEOPOLIS You perch aloft to compose tragedies, when you might just as well do them on the ground. I am not astonished at your introducing cripples on the stage.(1) And why dress in these miserable tragic rags? I do not wonder that your heroes are beggars. But, Euripides, on my knees I beseech you, give me the tatters of some old piece; for I have to treat the Chorus to a long speech, and if I do it ill it is all over with me.

f(1) Having been lamed, it is of course implied, by tumbling from the lofty apparatus on which the Author sat perched to write his tragedies.

EURIPIDES What rags do you prefer? Those in which I rigged out Aeneus(1) on the stage, that unhappy, miserable old man?

f(1) Euripides delighted, or was supposed by his critic Aristophanes to delight, in the representation of misery and wretchedness on the stage. 'Aeneus,' 'Phoenix,' 'Philoctetes,' 'Bellerophon,' 'Telephus,' Ino' are titles of six tragedies of his in this genre of which fragments are extant.

DICAEOPOLIS No, I want those of some hero still more unfortunate.

EURIPIDES Of Phoenix, the blind man?

DICAEOPOLIS No, not of Phoenix, you have another hero more unfortunate than him.

EURIPIDES Now, what tatters DOES he want? Do you mean those of the beggar Philoctetes?

DICAEOPOLIS No, of another far more the mendicant.

EURIPIDES Is it the filthy dress of the lame fellow, Bellerophon?

DICAEOPOLIS No, 'tis not Bellerophon; he, whom I mean, was not only lame and a beggar, but boastful and a fine speaker.

EURIPIDES Ah! I know, it is Telephus, the Mysian.

DICAEOPOLIS Yes, Telephus. Give me his rags, I beg of you.

EURIPIDES Slave! give him Telephus' tatters; they are on top of the rags of Thyestes and mixed with those of Ino.

SLAVE Catch hold! here they are.

DICAEOPOLIS Oh! Zeus, whose eye pierces everywhere and embraces all, permit me to assume the most wretched dress on earth. Euripides, cap your kindness by giving me the little Mysian hat, that goes so well with these tatters. I must to-day have the look of a beggar; "be what I am, but not appear to be";(1) the audience will know well who I am, but the Chorus will be fools enough not to, and I shall dupe 'em with my subtle phrases.

f(1) Line borrowed from Euripides. A great number of verses are similarly parodied in this scene.

EURIPIDES I will give you the hat; I love the clever tricks of an ingenious brain like yours.

DICAEOPOLIS Rest happy, and may it befall Telephus as I wish. Ah! I already feel myself filled with quibbles. But I must have a beggar's staff.

EURIPIDES Here you are, and now get you gone from this porch.

DICAEOPOLIS Oh, my soul! You see how you are driven from this house, when I still need so many accessories. But let us be pressing, obstinate, importunate. Euripides, give me a little basket with a lamp alight inside.

EURIPIDES Whatever do you want such a thing as that for?

DICAEOPOLIS I do not need it, but I want it all the same.

EURIPIDES You importune me; get you gone!

DICAEOPOLIS Alas! may the gods grant you a destiny as brilliant as your mother's.(1)

f(1) Report said that Euripides' mother had sold vegetables on the market.

EURIPIDES Leave me in peace.

DICAEOPOLIS Oh, just a little broken cup.