Part 19

POET I am he whose language is sweeter than honey, the zealous slave of the Muses, as Homer has it.

PISTHETAERUS You a slave! and yet you wear your hair long?

POET No, but the fact is all we poets are the assiduous slaves of the Muses, according to Homer.

PISTHETAERUS In truth your little cloak is quite holy too through zeal! But, poet, what ill wind drove you here?

POET I have composed verses in honour of your Nephelococcygia, a host of splendid dithyrambs and parthenians(1) worthy of Simonides himself.

f(1) Verses sung by maidens.

PISTHETAERUS And when did you compose them? How long since?

POET Oh! 'tis long, aye, very long, that I have sung in honour of this city.

PISTHETAERUS But I am only celebrating its foundation with this sacrifice;(1) I have only just named it, as is done with little babies.

f(1) This ceremony took place on the tenth day after birth, and may be styled the pagan baptism.

POET "Just as the chargers fly with the speed of the wind, so does the voice of the Muses take its flight. Oh! thou noble founder of the town of Aetna,(1) thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices,(2) make us such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest."

f(1) Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse.--This passage is borrowed from Pindar.

f(2) (Hiero) in Greek means 'sacrifice.'

PISTHETAERUS He will drive us silly if we do not get rid of him by some present. Here! you, who have a fur as well as your tunic, take it off and give it to this clever poet. Come, take this fur; you look to me to be shivering with cold.

POET My Muse will gladly accept this gift; but engrave these verses of Pindar's on your mind.

PISTHETAERUS Oh! what a pest! 'Tis impossible then to be rid of him!

POET "Straton wanders among the Scythian nomads, but has no linen garment. He is sad at only wearing an animal's pelt and no tunic." Do you conceive my bent?

PISTHETAERUS I understand that you want me to offer you a tunic. Hi! you (TO EUELPIDES), take off yours; we must help the poet.... Come, you, take it and begone.

POET I am going, and these are the verses that I address to this city: "Phoebus of the golden throne, celebrate this shivery, freezing city; I have travelled through fruitful and snow-covered plains. Tralala! Tralala!"(1)

f(1) A parody of poetic pathos, not to say bathos.

PISTHETAERUS What are you chanting us about frosts? Thanks to the tunic, you no longer fear them. Ah! by Zeus! I could not have believed this cursed fellow could so soon have learnt the way to our city. Come, priest, take the lustral water and circle the altar.

PRIEST Let all keep silence!

A PROPHET Let not the goat be sacrificed.(1)

f(1) Which the priest was preparing to sacrifice.

PISTHETAERUS Who are you?

PROPHET Who am I? A prophet.

PISTHETAERUS Get you gone.

PROPHET Wretched man, insult not sacred things. For there is an oracle of Bacis, which exactly applies to Nephelococcygia.