FIRST SERVANT Bring, bring the beetle cake; quick, quick there, quick!
SECOND SERVANT Here!
FIRST SERVANT Give it him, the abominable brute.
SECOND SERVANT O may he never taste a daintier morsel!
FIRST SERVANT Now, bring another, shaped from asses’ dung.
SECOND SERVANT Here, here again.
FIRST SERVANT Where’s that you brought just now? He can’t have eaten it.
SECOND SERVANT No; he trundled it With his two feet, and bolted it entire.
FIRST SERVANT Quick, quick, and beat up several, firm and tight.
SECOND SERVANT O help me, scavengers, by all the Gods! Or I shall choke and die before your eyes.
FIRST SERVANT Another cake, a boy-companion’s bring him: He wants one finelier moulded.
SECOND SERVANT Here it is. There’s one advantage in this work, my masters: No man will say I pick my dishes now.
FIRST SERVANT Pah! more, bring more, another and another; Keep kneading more.
SECOND SERVANT By Apollo, no, not I! I can’t endure this muck a moment longer;
SECOND SERVANT I’ll take and pitch the muck-tub in and all.
FIRST SERVANT Aye to the crows, and follow it yourself.
SECOND SERVANT Can any one of you, I wonder, tell me Where I can buy a nose not perforated? There’s no more loathly miserable task Than to be mashing dung to feed a beetle. A pig or dog will take its bit of muck Just as it falls: but this conceited brute Gives himself airs, and, bless you, he won’t touch it, Unless I mash it all day long, and serve it As for a lady, in a rich round cake. Now I’ll peep in and see if he has done, Holding the door, thus, that he mayn’t observe me. Aye, tuck away; go gobbling on, don’t stop; I hope you’ll burst yourself before you know it. Wretch! how he throws himself upon his food, Squared like a wrestler, grappling with his jaws, Twisting his head and hands, now here, now there, For all the world like men who plait and weave Those great thick ropes to tow the barges with. ’Tis a most stinking, foul, voracious brute. Nor can I tell whose appanage he is: I really think he can’t be Aphrodite’s,
SECOND SERVANT Nor yet the Graces’.
FIRST SERVANT No? then whose?
SECOND SERVANT I take it This is the sign of sulphur-bolting Zeus. Now I suspect some pert young witling there Is asking, “Well, but what’s it all about? What can the beetle mean?” And then I think That some Ionian, sitting by, will answer, “Now, I’ve nae doubt but this is aimed at Cleon, It eats the muck sae unco shamelessly.” But I will in, and give the beetle drink.
FIRST SERVANT And I will tell the story to the boys, And to the lads, and also to the men,
FIRST SERVANT And to the great and mighty men among you, And to the greatest mightiest men of all. My master’s mad; a novel kind of madness, Not your old style, but quite a new invention. For all day long he gazes at the sky, His mouth wide open, thus; and rails at Zeus: O Zeus, says he, what seekest thou to do? Lay down thy besom, sweep not Hellas bare!
TRYGAEUS (Behind the scenes.) Ah me! Ah me!
SERVANT Hush! for methinks I hear him speaking now.
TRYGAEUS (Behind the scenes.) O Zeus, What wouldest thou with our people? Thou wilt drain The lifeblood from our cities ere thou knowest!
SERVANT Aye, there it is; that’s just what I was saying: Ye hear yourselves a sample of his ravings. But what he did when first the frenzy seized him I’ll tell you: he kept muttering to himself, Oh if I could but somehow get to Zeus! With that he got thin scaling ladders made, And tried by them to scramble up to heaven, Till he came tumbling down, and cracked his skull. Then yesterday he stole I know not whither,
FIRST SERVANT
And brought a huge Aetnaean beetle home, And made me groom it, while he coaxed it down Like a young favourite colt, and kept on saying, Wee Pegasus, my flying thoroughbred, Your wings must waft me straight away to Zeus! Now I’ll peep in and see what he’s about. O, mercy on us! neighbours! neighbours! help! My master’s got astride upon the beetle, And up they go ascending in the air.
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