Aristophanes, The Wasps 1009–1121: Parabasis: the chorus speak for the poet and the wasps

Yea, go rejoicing your own good way, Wherever your path may be;

But you, ye numberless myriads, stay And listen the while to me. Beware lest the truths I am going to say Unheeded to earth should fall; For that were the part of a fool to play, And not your part at all.

That never the Muse, whom he loved to use, the villainous trade of a bawd should ply. When first he began to exhibit plays, no paltry men for his mark he chose, He came in the mood of a Heracles forth to grapple at once with the mightiest foes. In the very front of his bold career with the jag-toothed Monster he closed in fight, Though out of its fierce eyes flashed and flamed the glare of Cynna’s detestable light, And a hundred horrible sycophants’ tongues were twining and flickering over its head, And a voice it had like the roar of a stream which has just brought forth destruction and dread, And a Lamia’s groin, and a camel’s loin, and foul as the smell of a seal it smelt. But He, when the monstrous form he saw, no bribe he took and no fear he felt, For you he fought, and for you he fights: and then last year with adventurous hand He grappled besides with the Spectral Shapes, the Agues and Fevers that plagued our land; That loved in the darksome hours of night to throttle fathers, and grandsires choke, That laid them down on their restless beds, and against your quiet and peaceable folk Kept welding together proofs and writs and oath against oath, till many a man Sprang up, distracted with wild affright, and off in haste to the Polemarch ran. Yet although such a champion as this ye had found, to purge your land from sorrow and shame,

Ye played him false when to reap, last year, the fruit of his novel designs he came, Which, failing to see in their own true light, ye caused to fade and wither away. And yet with many a deep libation, invoking Bacchus, he swears this day That never a man, since the world began, has witnessed a cleverer comedy. Yours is the shame that ye lacked the wit its infinite merit at first to see. But none the less with the wise and skilled the bard his accustomed praise will get, Though when he had distanced all his foes, his noble Play was at last upset. BUT O FOR the future, my Masters, pray Show more regard for a genuine Bard Who is ever inventing amusements new And fresh discoveries, all for you. Make much of his play, and store it away, And into your wardrobe throw it With the citrons sweet: and if this you do, Your clothes will be fragrant, the whole year through, With the volatile wit of the Poet.

Yet in these our embers low still some youthful fires must glow. Better far our old-world fashion, Better far our ancient truth, Than the curls and dissipation Of your modern youth. Do you wonder, O spectators, thus to see me spliced and braced, Like a wasp in form and figure, tapering inwards at the waist? Why I am so, what’s the meaning of this sharp and pointed sting, Easily I now will teach you, though you “knew not anything.” We on whom this stern-appendage, this portentous tail is found, Are the genuine old Autochthons, native children of the ground; We the only true-born Attics, of the staunch heroic breed, Many a time have fought for Athens, guarding her in hours of need; When with smoke and fire and rapine forth the fierce Barbarian came, Eager to destroy our wasps-nests, smothering all the town in flame, Out at once we rushed to meet him: on with shield and spear we went, Fought the memorable battle, primed with fiery hardiment; Man to man we stood, and, grimly, gnawed for rage our under lips. Hah! their arrows hail so densely, all the sun is in eclipse!

Yet we drove their ranks before us, ere the fall of eventide: As we closed, an owl flew o’er us, and the GODS were on our side! Stung in jaw, and cheek, and eyebrow, fearfully they took to flight, We behind them, we harpooning at their slops with all our might: So that in barbarian countries, even now the people call Attic wasps the best, and bravest, yea, the manliest tribe of all! MINE WAS then a life of glory, never craven fear came o’er me Every foeman quailed before me As across the merry waters, fast the eager galleys bore me. ’Twas not then our manhood’s test, Who can make a fine oration? Who is shrewd in litigation? It was, WHO CAN ROW THE BEST? Therefore did we batter down many a hostile Median town. And ’twas we who for the nation Gathered in the tribute pay, Which the younger generation Merely steal away. You WILL find us very wasplike, if you scan us through and through, In our general mode of living, and in all our habits too. First, if any rash assailant dare provoke us, can there be

Any creature more vindictive, more irascible than we? Then we manage all our business in a waspish sort of way, Swarming in the Courts of Justice, gathering in from day to day, Many where the Eleven invite us, many where the Archon calls, Many to the great Odeum, many to the city walls. There we lay our heads together, densely packed, and stooping low, Like the grubs within their cells, with movement tremulous and slow. And for ways and means in general we’re superlatively good, Stinging every man about us, culling thence a livelihood Yet we’ve stingless drones amongst us, idle knaves who sit them still, Shrink from work, and toil, and labour, stop at home, and eat their fill, Eat the golden tribute-honey our industrious care has wrought. This is what extremely grieves us, that a man who never fought Should contrive our fees to pilfer, one who for his native land Never to this day had oar, or lance, or blister in his hand. Therefore let us for the future pass a little short decree, Whoso wears no sting shall never carry off the obols three.