EURIPIDES And next a dose of chatterjuice, distilled from books, I gave her, And monodies she took, with sharp Cephisophon for flavour. I never used haphazard words, or plunged abruptly in; Who entered first explained at large the drama’s origin And source.
DIONYSUS Its source, I really trust, was better than your own.
EURIPIDES Then from the very opening lines no idleness was shown; The mistress talked with all her might, the servant talked as much, The master talked, the maiden talked, the beldame talked.
AESCHYLUS For such An outrage was not death your due
EURIPIDES No, by Apollo, no: That was my democratic way.
DIONYSUS Ah, let that topic go. Your record is not there, my friend, particularly good.
EURIPIDES Then next I taught all these to speak.
AESCHYLUS You did so, and I would That ere such mischief you had wrought, your very lungs had split.
EURIPIDES Canons of verse I introduced, and neatly chiselled wit; To look, to scan: to plot, to plan: to twist, to turn, to woo: On all to spy; in all to pry.
AESCHYLUS You did: I say so too.
EURIPIDES I showed them scenes of common life, the things we know and see, Where any blunder would at once by all detected be. I never blustered on, or took their breath and wits away By Cycnuses or Memnons clad in terrible array, With bells upon their horses’ heads, the audience to dismay. Look at his pupils, look at mine: and there the contrast view. Uncouth Megaenetus is his, and rough Phormisius too;
EURIPIDES Great long-beard-lance-and-trumpet-men, flesh-tearers with the pine: But natty smart Theramenes, and Cleitophon are mine.
DIONYSUS Theramenes? a clever man and wonderfully sly: Immerse him in a flood of ills, he’ll soon be high and dry,
DIONYSUS “A Kian with a kappa, sir, not Chian with a chi.”
EURIPIDES I taught them all these knowing ways By chopping logic in my plays, And making all my speakers try To reason out the How and Why. So now the people trace the springs, The sources and the’roots of things, And manage all their households too Far better than they used to do, Scanning and searching What’s amiss? And, Why was that? And, How is this?
DIONYSUS Ay, truly, never now a man Comes home, but he begins to scan; And to his household loudly cries, Why, where’s my pitcher? What’s the matter? ’Tis dead and gone my last year’s platter. Who gnawed these olives? Bless the sprat, Who nibbled off the head of that? And where’s the garlic vanished, pray, I purchased only yesterday?
EURIPIDES —Whereas, of old, our stupid youths Would sit, with open mouths and eyes, Like any dull-brained Mammacouths.
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