70
ng of ingenious and suggestive 'double entendres' and ludicrous jokes; another where the Informer, or Market-Spy, is packed up in a crate as crockery and carried off home by the Boeotian buyer.
The drama takes its title from the Chorus, composed of old men of Acharnae.
* * * * *
THE ACHARNIANS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
DICAEOPOLIS. HERALD. AMPHITHEUS. AMBASSADORS. PSEUDARTABAS. THEORUS. WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS. DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS. EURIPIDES. CEPHISOPHON, servant of Euripides. LAMACHUS. ATTENDANT OF LAMACHUS. A MEGARIAN. MAIDENS, daughters of the Megarian. A BOEOTIAN. NICARCHUS. A HUSBANDMAN. A BRIDESMAID. AN INFORMER. MESSENGERS. CHORUS OF ACHARNIAN ELDERS.
SCENE: The Athenian Ecclesia on the Pnyx; afterwards Dicaeopolis' house in the country.
* * * * *
THE ACHARNIANS
DICAEOPOLIS[147] (alone). What cares have not gnawed at my heart and how few have been the pleasures in my life! Four, to be exact, while my troubles have been as countless as the grains of sand on the shore! Let me see of what value to me have been these few pleasures? Ah! I remember that I was delighted in soul when Cleon had to disgorge those five talents;[148] I was in ecstasy and I love the Knights for this deed; 'it is an honour to Greece.'[149] But the day when I was impatiently awaiting a piece by Aeschylus,[150] what tragic despair it caused me when the herald called, "Theognis,[151] introduce your Chorus!" Just imagine how this blow struck straight at my heart! On the other hand, what joy Dexitheus caused me at the musical competition, when he played a Boeotian melody on the lyre! But this year by contrast! Oh! what deadly torture to hear Chaeris[152] perform the prelude in the Orthian mode![153]--Never, however, since I began to bathe, has the dust hurt my eyes as it does to-day. Still it is the day of assembly; all should be here at daybreak, and yet the Pnyx[154] is still deserted. Th