CHORUS
I envy much his fortune As he changes from his dry Ungenial life and manners, Another path to try. Now all to soft indulgence His eager soul will take, And yet perchance it will not, For, ah! ’tis hard to break From all your lifelong habits; Yet some the change have made, With other minds consorting, By other counsels swayed.
CHORUS For filial love and genius In this affair has won. Such sweet and gracious manners I never saw before, Nor ever with such fondness My doting heart gushed o’er. Where proved he not the victor In all this wordy strife, Seeking to raise his father To higher paths of life?
XANTHIAS O Dionysus! here’s a pretty mess Into our house some power has whirligigged. Soon as the old man heard the pipe, and drank The long untasted wine, he grew so merry He won’t stop dancing all the whole night through Those strange old dances such as Thespis taught; And your new bards he’ll prove old fools, he says, Dancing against them in the lists directly.
PHILOCLEON Who sits, who waits at the entrance gates?
XANTHIAS More and more is this evil advancing!
PHILOCLEON Be the bolts undone, we have just begun; This, this is the first evolution of dancing.
XANTHIAS First evolution of madness, I think.
PHILOCLEON With the strong contortion the ribs twist round, And the nostril snorts, and the joints resound, And the tendons crack.
XANTHIAS O, hellebore drink!
PHILOCLEON Cocklike, Phrynichus crouches and cowers,
XANTHIAS You’ll strike by and by.
PHILOCLEON Then he kicks his leg to the wondering sky,
XANTHIAS O look to yourself, look out, look out.
PHILOCLEON For now in these sinewy joints of ours The cup-like socket is twirled about.
BDELYCLEON It won’t do, by Zeus: ’twon’t do: ’tis downright madness.
PHILOCLEON Come on, I challenge all the world to dance. Now what tragedian thinks he dances well, Let him come in and dance a match with me. Well, is there one, or none?
BDELYCLEON Here’s only one.
PHILOCLEON Who’s he, poor devil?
BDELYCLEON ’Tis the midmost son Of poet Carcinus, the Crabbe.
PHILOCLEON I’ll eat him. ’Sdeath! I’ll destroy him with a knuckle-dance. He’s a born fool at rhythm.
BDELYCLEON Nay, but look here! Here comes a brother crab, another son Of Carcinus.
PHILOCLEON ’Faith, I’ve got crab enough.
BDELYCLEON Nothing but crabs! ’fore Zeus, nothing but crabs! Here creeps a third of Carcinus’s brood.
PHILOCLEON Heyday! what’s this? a vinaigrette, or spider?
BDELYCLEON This is the Pinnoteer, of all the tribe The tiniest crab: a tragic poet too!
PHILOCLEON O Carcinus! O proud and happy father! Here’s a fine troop of wrynecks settling down. Well, I must gird me to the fight: and you, Mix pickles for these crabs, in case I beat them.
CHORUS Come draw we aside, and leave them a wide, a roomy and peaceable exercise-ground, That before us therein like tops they may spin, revolving and whirling and twirling around. O lofty-titled sons of the ocean-roving sire, Ye brethren of the shrimps, come and leap On the sand and on the strand of the salt and barren deep. Whisk nimble feet around you; kick out, till all admire, The Phrynichean kick to the sky; That the audience may applaud, as they view your leg on high. On, on, in mazy circles; hit your stomach with your heel Fling legs aloft to heaven, as like spinning-tops you wheel. Your Sire is creeping onward, the Ruler of the Sea, He gazes with delight at his hobby-dancers three. Come, dancing as you are, if you like it, lead away, For never yet, I warrant, has an actor till to-day Led out a chorus, dancing, at the ending of the Play.
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