You shall have an orchard, with the fig-trees in a border round
Planted all in order, and a vineyard and an olive ground.
When the month is ended, we'll repose from toil,
With a bath and banquet, wine and anointing oil.
Herald or Crier. Here ye! Good people! Hear ye! A Festival—
According to ancient custom—this same day—
The feast of the pitchers—with the prize for drinkers, 1310
To drink at the sound of the trumpet. He that wins
To receive a wine skin; Ctesiphon's own skin.[1]
Dic. Ο slaves! ye boys and women! Heard ye not
The summons of the herald? Hasten forth,
With quick despatch, to boil, to roast, to fry;
Hacking and cutting, plucking, gutting, flaying;
Hashing and slashing, mincing, fricasseeing.
And plait the garlands nimbly; and bring me here
Those, the least skewers of all, to truss the quails.
When Aristophanes cannot make use of his Chorus to sustain an efficient part, he is apt to indemnify himself for the incumbrance they create, by turning the essential characteristics of a Chorus into ridicule. Here then, and at the close of the following scene (that between Dicæopolis and the countryman) they are represented as time—serving and obsequious; in The Lysistrata, as dawdling, useless, and silly (v. 319 to 49); and in The Birds, as exciting the spleen and impatience of the practical active man of business, by their vague speculations and poetical pedantry (1313 to 36). In The Peace, the absurdity of introducing such a Chorus is kept out of sight by the absurd unmanageable behaviour of the Chorus itself (v. 309).
Chorus.Your designs and public ends 1320
First attracted us as friends.
But the present boiled and roast
Surprises and delights us most.
Dic.Wait awhile, if nothing fails,
You shall see a dish of quails.
Chorus. We depend upon your care,
Dic. Rouse the fire and mend it there.
- ↑ The notion of a person's being flayed, and having his skin converted into a wine keg, appears to have been familiar to the imagination of the Athenians, and of frequent recurrence in their low colloquial language. Ctesiphon is only known as having been ridiculed by the comic poets for his extreme corpulence. The conqueror, therefore, would be rewarded with a prize of unusual magnitude.
