MNESILOCHUS Zeus! is the swallow NEVER going to come? Tramped up and down since daybreak! I can’t stand it. Might I, before my wind’s ENTIRELY gone, Ask where you’re taking me, Euripides?
EURIPIDES You’re not to hear the things which face to face You’re going to see.
MNESILOCHUS What! Please say that again. I’m not to hear?
EURIPIDES The things which you shall see.
MNESILOCHUS And not to see?
EURIPIDES The things which you shall hear.
MNESILOCHUS A pleasant jest! a mighty pleasant jest! I’m not to hear or see at all, I see.
EURIPIDES (in high philosophic rhapsody) To hear! to see! full different things, I ween; Yea verily, generically diverse.
MNESILOCHUS What’s “diverse”?
EURIPIDES I will explicate my meaning. When Ether first was mapped and parcelled out, And living creatures breathed and moved in her, She, to give sight, implanted in their heads The Eye, a mimic circlet of the Sun, And bored the funnel of the Ear, to hear with,
MNESILOCHUS Did she! That’s why I’m not to hear or see! I’m very glad to get that information! O, what a thing it is to talk with Poets!
EURIPIDES Much of such knowledge I shall give you.
MNESILOCHUS (involuntarily) O! Then p’raps (excuse me) you will tell me how Not to be lame to-morrow, after this.
EURIPIDES (loftily disregarding the innuendo) Come here and listen.
MNESILOCHUS (courteously) Certainly I will.
EURIPIDES See you that wicket?
MNESILOCHUS Why, by Heracles, Of course I do.
EURIPIDES Be still.
MNESILOCHUS Be still the wicket?
EURIPIDES And most attentive.
MNESILOCHUS Still attentive wicket?
EURIPIDES There dwells, observe, the famous Agathon, The Tragic Poet.
MNESILOCHUS (considering) Agathon. Don’t know him.
EURIPIDES He is that Agathon—
MNESILOCHUS (interrupting) Dark, brawny fellow:
EURIPIDES O no, quite different; don’t you know him really?
MNESILOCHUS Big-whiskered fellow?
EURIPIDES Don’t you know him really?
MNESILOCHUS No. (Thinks again) No, I don’t; at least I don’t remember.
EURIPIDES (severely) I fear there’s much you don’t remember, sir. But step aside: I see his servant coming. See, he has myrtles and a pan of coals To pray, methinks, for favourable rhymes.
SERVANT All people be still! Allow not a word from your lips to be heard, For the Muses are here, and are making their odes In my Master’s abodes. Let Ether be lulled, and forgetful to blow, And the blue sea-waves, let them cease to flow, And be noiseless.
MNESILOCHUS Fudge!
EURIPIDES Hush, hush, if you please.
SERVANT Sleep, birds of the air, with your pinions at ease; Sleep, beasts of the field, with entranquillized feet; Sleep, sleep, and be still.
MNESILOCHUS Fudge, fudge, I repeat.
SERVANT For the soft and the terse professor of verse, Our Agathon now is about to—
MNESILOCHUS (scandalized) No, no!
SERVANT What’s that?
MNESILOCHUS ’Twas the ETHER, FORGETTING TO BLOW!
SERVANT (beginning pettishly, but soon falling back into his former tone) I was going to say he is going to lay The stocks and the scaffolds for building a play. And neatly he hews them, and sweetly he glues them, And a proverb he takes, and an epithet makes, And he moulds a most waxen and delicate song; And he tunnels, and funnels, and—
MNESILOCHUS Does what is wrong.
SERVANT What clown have we here, so close to our eaves?
MNESILOCHUS Why, one who will take you and him, by your leaves, Both you and your terse professor of verse, And with blows and with knocks set you both on the stocks, And tunnel and funnel, and pummel, and worse.
SERVANT Old man, you must have been a rare pert youngster.
EURIPIDES O, heed not him; but quickly call me out Your master Agathon; do pray make haste.
SERVANT No need of prayer: he’s coming forth directly. He’s moulding odes; and in the cold hard winter He cannot turn, and twist, and shape his strophes Until they are warmed and softened in the sun.
MNESILOCHUS And what am I to do?
EURIPIDES You’re to keep quiet. O Zeus! the Hour is come, and so’s the Man!
MNESILOCHUS O, what’s the matter? what disturbs you so? O, tell me what: I really want to know. Come, I’m your cousin; won’t you tell your cousin?
EURIPIDES There’s a great danger brewing for my life.
MNESILOCHUS O, tell your cousin what.
EURIPIDES This hour decides Whether Euripides shall live or die.
MNESILOCHUS Why, how is that? There’s no tribunal sitting, No Court, no Council, will be held to-day. ’Tis the Mid-Fast, the third Home-Festival.
EURIPIDES It is! it is! I wish enough it wasn’t. For on this day the womankind have sworn To hold a great assembly, to discuss How best to serve me out.
MNESILOCHUS Good gracious! Why?
EURIPIDES (with the mild surprise of injured innocence) Because, they say, I write lampoons upon them,
MNESILOCHUS Zeus and Poseidon! they may well say that. But tell your cousin what you mean to do
EURIPIDES I want to get the poet Agathon To go among them.
MNESILOCHUS Tell your cousin why.
EURIPIDES To mingle in the Assembly, perhaps to speak On my behalf.
MNESILOCHUS What, openly, do you mean?
EURIPIDES O no, disguised: dressed up in women’s clothes.
MNESILOCHUS A bright idea that, and worthy of you: For in all craftiness we take the cake.
EURIPIDES O, hush!
MNESILOCHUS What now?
EURIPIDES Here’s Agathon himself.
MNESILOCHUS Where? Which?
EURIPIDES Why there: the man in the machine,
MNESILOCHUS O dear, what ails me? Am I growing blind? I see Cyrene; but I see no man.
EURIPIDES Do, pray, be silent; he’s just going to sing.
MNESILOCHUS Is it “the Pathway of the Ants,” or what?
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