CHORUS
Off to your duties, my heroes bold. Different truly the paths ye tread; One to drink with wreaths on his head One to watch, and shiver with cold, Lonely, the while his antagonist passes The sweetest of hours with the sweetest of lasses. Pray we that Zeus calmly reduce to destruction emphatic and utter That meanest of poets and meanest of men, Antimachus, offspring of Sputter; The Choregus who sent me away without any supper at all At the feast of Lenaea; I pray, two Woes that Choregus befall. May he hanker for a dish of the subtle cuttle-fish; May he see the cuttle sailing through its brine and through its oil, On its little table lying, hot and hissing from the frying, Till it anchor close beside him, when alas! and woe betide him! As he reaches forth his hand for the meal the Gods provide him, May a dog snatch and carry off the spoil, off the spoil, May a dog snatch and carry off the spoil.
CHORUS Duly the first Woe is rehearsed; attend whilst the other I’m telling. It is night, and our gentleman, after a ride, is returning on foot to his dwelling; With ague he’s sorely bested, and he’s feeling uncommonly ill, When suddenly down on his head comes Orestes’s club with a will. ’Tis Orestes, hero mad, ’tis the drunkard and the pad. Then stooping in the darkness let him grope about the place, If his hand can find a brickbat at Orestes to be flung; But instead of any brickbat may he grasp a podge of dung, And rushing on with this, Orestes may he miss, And hit young Cratinus in the face, in the face, And hit young Cratinus in the face.
ATTENDANT Varlets who dwell in Lamachus’s halls, Heat water, knaves, heat water in a pot. Make ready lint, and salves, and greasy wool, And ankle-bandages. Your lord is hurt, Pierced by a stake whilst leaping o’er a trench. Then, twisting round, he wrenched his ankle out, And, falling, cracked his skull upon a stone; And shocked the sleeping Gorgon from his shield. Then the Great Boastard’s plume being cast away
ATTENDANT Prone on the rocks, a dolorous cry he raised, O glorious Eye, with this my last fond look The heavenly light I leave; my day is done. He spake, and straightway falls into a ditch: Jumps up again: confronts the runaways, And prods the fleeing bandits with his spear, But here he enters. Open wide the door.
LAMACHUS O lack-a-day! O lack-a-day! I’m hacked, I’m killed, by hostile lances! But worse than wound or lance ’twill grieve me If Dicaeopolis perceive me And mock, and mock at my mischances.
DICAEOPOLIS O lucky day! O lucky day! What mortal ever can be richer, Than he who feels, my golden misses, Your softest, closest, loveliest kisses. ’Twas I, ’twas I, first drained the pitcher.
LAMACHUS O me, my woful dolorous lot! O me, the gruesome wounds I’ve got!
DICAEOPOLIS My darling Lamachippus, is it not?
LAMACHUS O doleful chance!
DICAEOPOLIS O cursed spite!
LAMACHUS Why give me a kiss?
DICAEOPOLIS Why give me a bite?
LAMACHUS O me the heavy, heavy charge they tried.
DICAEOPOLIS Who makes a charge this happy Pitcher-tide?
LAMACHUS O Paean, Healer! heal me, Paean, pray.
DICAEOPOLIS ’Tis not the Healer’s festival to-day.
LAMACHUS O lift me gently round the hips, My comrades true!
DICAEOPOLIS O kiss me warmly on the lips, My darlings, do!
LAMACHUS My brain is dizzy with the blow Of hostile stone.
DICAEOPOLIS Mine’s dizzy too: to bed I’ll go, And not alone.
LAMACHUS O take me in your healing hands, and bring To Pittalus this battered frame of mine.
DICAEOPOLIS O take me to the judges. Where’s the King That rules the feast? hand me my skin of wine.
LAMACHUS A lance has struck me through the bone So piteously! so piteously! (He is helped off the stage.)
DICAEOPOLIS I’ve drained the pitcher all alone; Sing ho! Sing ho! for Victory.
CHORUS Sing ho! Sing ho! for Victory then, If so you bid, if so you bid.
DICAEOPOLIS I filled it with neat wine, my men, And quaffed it at a gulp, I did.
CHORUS Sing ho! brave heart, the wineskin take, And onward go, and onward go.
DICAEOPOLIS And ye must follow in my wake, And sing for Victory ho! sing ho!
CHORUS O yes, we’ll follow for your sake Your wineskin and yourself, I trow. Sing ho! for Victory won, sing ho!
Cite This Text