XANTHIAS Where Aeschylus was seated.
XANTHIAS Wasn’t he pelted?
AEACUS Not he: the populace clamoured out to try Which of the twain was wiser in his art.
XANTHIAS You mean the rascals?
AEACUS Aye, as high as heaven!
XANTHIAS But were there none to side with Aeschylus?
AEACUS Scanty and sparse the good, (Regards the audience) the same as here.
XANTHIAS And what does Pluto now propose to do?
AEACUS He means to hold a tournament, and bring Their tragedies to the proof.
XANTHIAS But Sophocles, How came not he to claim the tragic chair?
AEACUS Claim it? Not he! When he came down, he kissed With reverence Aeschylus, and clasped his hand, And yielded willingly the chair to him. But now he’s going, says Cleidemides, To sit third-man: and then if Aeschylus win, He’ll stay content: if not, for his art’s sake, He’ll fight to the death against Euripides.
XANTHIAS Will it come off?
AEACUS O yes, by Zeus, directly.
AEACUS And then, I hear, will wonderful things be done, The art poetic will be weighed in scales.
XANTHIAS What! weigh out tragedy, like butcher’s meat?
AEACUS Levels they’ll bring, and measuring-tapes for words, And moulded oblongs,
XANTHIAS Is it bricks they are making
AEACUS Wedges and compasses: for Euripides Vows that he’ll test the dramas, word by word.
XANTHIAS Aeschylus chafes at this, I fancy.
AEACUS Well, He lowered his brows, upglaring like a bull.
XANTHIAS And who’s to be the judge?
AEACUS There came the rub. Skilled men were hard to find: for with the Athenians Aeschylus, somehow, did not hit it off,
XANTHIAS Too many burglars, I expect, he thought.
AEACUS And all the rest, he said, were trash and nonsense To judge poetic wits. So then at last They chose your lord, an expert in the art. But go we in: for when our lords are bent On urgent business, that means blows for us.
CHORUS O surely with terrible wrath will the thunder-voiced monarch be filled,
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