Aristophanes

The Thesmophoriazusae

Warsaw 2020

Contents

Characters of the Play

Euripides

Mnesilochus, Father-in-law of Euripides

Agathon

Servant of agathon

Herald

Women

Clisthenes

A magistrate

A scythian policeman

Chorus of thesmophoriazusae, Women celebrating the Thesmophoria

[Scene:-Behind the orchestra are two buildings, one the house of the poet Agathon, the other the Thesmophorion. Euripides enters from the right, at a rapid pace, with an air of searching for something; his father-in-law Mnesilochus, who is extremely aged, follows him as best he can, with an obviously painful expenditure of effort.]

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 antirely, Euripides, can you at least tell me where you are leading me?

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

Mnesilochus: 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.

Mnesilochus: In what way distinct?

Euripides: In this way. Formerly, when Aether 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!

Euripides: 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?

Euripides: Pay attention!

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

Euripides: That is where Agathon, the celebrated tragic poet, dwells.

Mnesilochus: Who is this Agathon?

Euripides: He’s a certain Agathon....

Mnesilochus: Swarthy, robust of build?

Euripides: No, another.

Mnesilochus: I have never seen him. He has a big beard?

Euripides: Have you never seen him?

Mnesilochus: Never, so far as I know.

Euripides: And yet you have made love to him. Well, it must have been without knowing who he was. [The door of Agathon’s house opens.] 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: [standing on the threshold; solemnly] 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 Aether! Let the azure waves cease murmuring on the shore!....

Mnesilochus: Bombax.

Euripides: Be still! I want to hear what he is saying.

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

Mnesilochus: [more loudly] Bombalobombax.

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

Mnesilochus:.... to be made love to?

Servant: Whose voice is that?

Mnesilochus: It’s the silent Aether.

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 subect 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 that approaches this sacred enclosure?

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

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: It’s 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.

Euripides: And what am I to do?

Servant: Wait till he gets here.

[He goes into the house.]

Euripides: Oh, Zeus! what hast thou in store for me to-day?

Mnesilochus: Great gods, what is the matter now? 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.

Mnesilochus: But how? Neither the tribunals nor the Senate are sitting, for it is the third day of the Thesmophoria.

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: What have they against you?

Euripides: Because I mishandle them in my tragedies.

Mnesilochus: 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 be present or secretly?

Euripides: Secretly, dressed in woman’s clothes.

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

[The door of Agathon’s house opens.]

Euripides: Silence!

Mnesilochus: What’s the matter?

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.

This is a free sample. Please purchase full version of the book to continue.