Whenever I am a little tired or down, there is one piece of ancient Hellenic literature that always cheers me up--and since I have been swamped lately and on my last legs, I need it today! That piece? 'Peace' by Aristophanes--especially the start. Why? Because it's basically about a guy so obsessed with the Gods that he tries to fly up to Them on a dung beetle. It's abolutely awesome.
Peace (Εἰρήνη, Eirēnē) is an Athenian comedy written and produced by the Hellenic playwright Aristophanes. It won second prize at the City Dionysia where it was staged just a few days before the Peace of Nicias was validified (421 BC), which promised to end the ten-year-old Peloponnesian War. The play is notable for its joyous anticipation of peace and for its celebration of a return to an idyllic life in the countryside. However, it also sounds a note of caution, there is bitterness in the memory of lost opportunities and the ending is not happy for everyone. As in all Aristophanes' plays, the jokes are numerous, the action is wildly absurd and the satire is savage.
The play starts with two serves who are frantically working outside an ordinary house in Athens, kneading unusually large lumps of something and carrying them one by one into the stable. They are feeding a giant dung beetle that their crazy master Trygaeus has brought home from the Mount Etna region and on which he intends flying to a private audience with the Gods. He makes it, too, only to find just Hermes home--the rest of the Gods have retured to somewhere far away where there are no idiot humans looking for war. Then Trygaeus discovers that the new tennant War has imprisoned Peace in a cave and After a lot of back nd forth, Trygaeus frees Peache, Harvest and Festival and it becomes Trygaeus' goal in life to ban war in all forms.
Let me quote the first few lines of the play. If it inspires you, you can find the rest here:
SECOND SERVANT
There it is. Give it to him, and may it kill him! And may he never eat a better.
FIRST SERVANT
Now give him this other one kneaded up with ass's dung.
SECOND SERVANT
There! I've done that too. And where's what you gave him just now? Surely he can't have devoured it yet!
FIRST SERVANT
Indeed he has; he snatched it, rolled it between his feet and bolted it. Come, hurry up, knead up a lot and knead them stiffly.
SECOND SERVANT
Oh, scavengers, help me in the name of the gods, if you do not wish to see me fall down choked.
FIRST SERVANT
Come, come, another made from the stool of a fairy's favourite. That will be to the beetle's taste; he likes it well ground.
SECOND SERVANT
There! I am free at least from suspicion; none will accuse me of tasting what I mix.
FIRST SERVANT
Faugh! come, now another! keep on mixing with all your might.
SECOND SERVANT
By god, no. I can stand this awful cesspool stench no longer.
FIRST SERVANT
I shall bring you the whole ill-smelling gear.
SECOND SERVANT
Pitch it down the sewer sooner, and yourself with it.
To the AUDIENCE
Maybe, one of you can tell me where I can buy a stopped-up nose, for there is no work more disgusting than to mix food for a dung-beetle and to carry it to him. A pig or a dog will at least pounce upon our excrement without more ado, but this foul wretch affects the disdainful, the spoilt mistress, and won't eat unless I offer him a cake that has been kneaded for an entire day.... But let us open the door a bit ajar without his seeing it. Has he done eating? Come, pluck up courage, cram yourself till you burst! The cursed creature! It wallows in its food! It grips it between its claws like a wrestler clutching his opponent, and with head and feet together rolls up its paste like a rope-maker twisting a hawser. What an indecent, stinking, gluttonous beast! I don't know what angry god let this monster loose upon us, but of a certainty it was neither Aphrodite nor the Graces.
Peace (Εἰρήνη, Eirēnē) is an Athenian comedy written and produced by the Hellenic playwright Aristophanes. It won second prize at the City Dionysia where it was staged just a few days before the Peace of Nicias was validified (421 BC), which promised to end the ten-year-old Peloponnesian War. The play is notable for its joyous anticipation of peace and for its celebration of a return to an idyllic life in the countryside. However, it also sounds a note of caution, there is bitterness in the memory of lost opportunities and the ending is not happy for everyone. As in all Aristophanes' plays, the jokes are numerous, the action is wildly absurd and the satire is savage.
The play starts with two serves who are frantically working outside an ordinary house in Athens, kneading unusually large lumps of something and carrying them one by one into the stable. They are feeding a giant dung beetle that their crazy master Trygaeus has brought home from the Mount Etna region and on which he intends flying to a private audience with the Gods. He makes it, too, only to find just Hermes home--the rest of the Gods have retured to somewhere far away where there are no idiot humans looking for war. Then Trygaeus discovers that the new tennant War has imprisoned Peace in a cave and After a lot of back nd forth, Trygaeus frees Peache, Harvest and Festival and it becomes Trygaeus' goal in life to ban war in all forms.
Let me quote the first few lines of the play. If it inspires you, you can find the rest here:
FIRST SERVANT
Quick, quick, bring the dung-beetle his cake.
Quick, quick, bring the dung-beetle his cake.
SECOND SERVANT
There it is. Give it to him, and may it kill him! And may he never eat a better.
FIRST SERVANT
Now give him this other one kneaded up with ass's dung.
SECOND SERVANT
There! I've done that too. And where's what you gave him just now? Surely he can't have devoured it yet!
FIRST SERVANT
Indeed he has; he snatched it, rolled it between his feet and bolted it. Come, hurry up, knead up a lot and knead them stiffly.
SECOND SERVANT
Oh, scavengers, help me in the name of the gods, if you do not wish to see me fall down choked.
FIRST SERVANT
Come, come, another made from the stool of a fairy's favourite. That will be to the beetle's taste; he likes it well ground.
SECOND SERVANT
There! I am free at least from suspicion; none will accuse me of tasting what I mix.
FIRST SERVANT
Faugh! come, now another! keep on mixing with all your might.
SECOND SERVANT
By god, no. I can stand this awful cesspool stench no longer.
FIRST SERVANT
I shall bring you the whole ill-smelling gear.
SECOND SERVANT
Pitch it down the sewer sooner, and yourself with it.
To the AUDIENCE
Maybe, one of you can tell me where I can buy a stopped-up nose, for there is no work more disgusting than to mix food for a dung-beetle and to carry it to him. A pig or a dog will at least pounce upon our excrement without more ado, but this foul wretch affects the disdainful, the spoilt mistress, and won't eat unless I offer him a cake that has been kneaded for an entire day.... But let us open the door a bit ajar without his seeing it. Has he done eating? Come, pluck up courage, cram yourself till you burst! The cursed creature! It wallows in its food! It grips it between its claws like a wrestler clutching his opponent, and with head and feet together rolls up its paste like a rope-maker twisting a hawser. What an indecent, stinking, gluttonous beast! I don't know what angry god let this monster loose upon us, but of a certainty it was neither Aphrodite nor the Graces.
No comments:
Post a Comment