Peace, page 10 by Aristophanes
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udly, or trust at first too greatly to your powers; wait till you have sweated, till the beating of your wings shall make your limb joints supple. Above all things, don't let off some foul smell, I adjure you; else I would rather have you stop in the stable altogether.
SECOND SERVANT Poor master! Is he crazy?
TRYGAEUS Silence! silence!
SECOND SERVANT (TO TRYGAEUS) But why start up into the air on chance?
TRYGAEUS 'Tis for the weal of all the Greeks; I am attempting a daring and novel feat.
SECOND SERVANT But what is your purpose? What useless folly!
TRYGAEUS No words of ill omen! Give vent to joy and command all men to keep silence, to close down their drains and privies with new tiles and to stop up their own vent-holes.[1]
f[1] Fearing that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the highest heaven to satisfy itself.
FIRST SERVANT No, I shall not be silent, unless you tell me where you are going.
TRYGAEUS Why, where am I likely to be going across the sky, if it be not to visit Zeus?
FIRST SERVANT For what purpose?
TRYGAEUS I want to ask him what he reckons to do for all the Greeks.
SECOND SERVANT And if he doesn't tell you?
TRYGAEUS I shall pursue him at law as a traitor who sells Greece to the Medes.[1]
f[1] The Persians and the Spartans were not then allied as the scholiast states, since a treaty between them was only concluded in 412 B.C., i.e. eight years after the production of 'Peace'; the great king, however, was trying to derive advantages out of the dissensions in Greece.
SECOND SERVANT Death seize me, if I let you go.
TRYGAEUS It is absolutely necessary.
SECOND SERVANT Alas! alas! dear little girls, your father is deserting you secretly to go to heaven. Ah! poor orphans, entreat him, beseech him.
LITTLE DAUGHTER Father! father! what is this I hear? Is it true? What! you would leave me, you would vanish int