The Eleven Comedies Vol 2 Part 58

FIRST WOMAN. I do.

HERALD. First put on this garland, and then speak. Silence! let all be quiet! Pay attention! for here she is spitting as orators generally do before they begin; no doubt she has much to say.

FIRST WOMAN. If I have asked to speak, may the G.o.ddesses bear me witness, it was not for sake of ostentation. But I have long been pained to see us women insulted by this Euripides, this son of the green-stuff woman,[579]

who loads us with every kind of indignity. Has he not hit us enough, calumniated us sufficiently, wherever there are spectators, tragedians, and a chorus? Does he not style us gay, lecherous, drunken, traitorous, boastful? Does he not repeat that we are all vice, that we are the curse of our husbands? So that, directly they come back from the theatre, they look at us doubtfully and go searching every nook, fearing there may be some hidden lover. We can do nothing as we used to, so many are the false ideas which he has instilled into our husbands. Is a woman weaving a garland for herself? 'Tis because she is in love.[580] Does she let some vase drop while going or returning to the house? her husband asks her in whose honour she has broken it, "It can only be for that Corinthian stranger."[581] Is a maiden unwell? Straightway her brother says, "That is a colour that does not please me."[582] And if a childless woman wishes to subst.i.tute one, the deceit can no longer be a secret, for the neighbours will insist on being present at her delivery. Formerly the old men married young girls, but they have been so calumniated that none think of them now, thanks to the verse: "A woman is the tyrant of the old man who marries her."[583] Again, it is because of Euripides that we are incessantly watched, that we are shut up behind bolts and bars, and that dogs are kept to frighten off the gallants. Let that pa.s.s; but formerly it was we who had the care of the food, who fetched the flour from the storeroom, the oil and the wine; we can do it no more. Our husbands now carry little Spartan keys on their persons, made with three notches and full of malice and spite.[584] Formerly it sufficed to purchase a ring marked with the same sign for three obols, to open the most securely sealed-up door;[585] but now this pestilent Euripides has taught men to hang seals of worm-eaten wood about their necks.[586] My opinion, therefore, is that we should rid ourselves of our enemy by poison or by any other means, provided he dies. That is what I announce publicly; as to certain points, which I wish to keep secret, I propose to record them on the secretary's minutes.

CHORUS. Never have I listened to a cleverer or more eloquent woman.

Everything she says is true; she has examined the matter from all sides and has weighed up every detail. Her arguments are close, varied, and happily chosen. I believe that Xenocles himself, the son of Carcinus, would seem to talk mere nonsense, if placed beside her.

SECOND WOMAN. I have only a very few words to add, for the last speaker has covered the various points of the indictment; allow me only to tell you what happened to me. My husband died at Cyprus, leaving me five children, whom I had great trouble to bring up by weaving chaplets on the myrtle market. Anyhow, I lived as well as I could until this wretch had persuaded the spectators by his tragedies that there were no G.o.ds; since then I have not sold as many chaplets by half. I charge you therefore and exhort you all to punish him, for does he not deserve it in a thousand respects, he who loads you with troubles, who is as coa.r.s.e toward you as the green-stuff upon which his mother reared him? But I must back to the market to weave my chaplets; I have twenty to deliver yet.

CHORUS. This is even more animated and more trenchant than the first speech; all she has just said is full of good sense and to the point; it is clever, clear and well calculated to convince. Yes! we must have striking vengeance on the insults of Euripides.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh, women! I am not astonished at these outbursts of fiery rage; how could your bile not get inflamed against Euripides, who has spoken so ill of you? As for myself, I hate the man, I swear it by my children; 'twould be madness not to hate him! Yet, let us reflect a little; we are alone and our words will not be repeated outside. Why be so bent on his ruin? Because he has known and shown up two or three of our faults, when we have a thousand? As for myself, not to speak of other women, I have more than one great sin upon my conscience, but this is the blackest of them. I had been married three days and my husband was asleep by my side; I had a lover, who had seduced me when I was seven years old; impelled by his pa.s.sion, he came scratching at the door; I understood at once he was there and was going down noiselessly. "Where are you going?"

asked my husband. "I am suffering terribly with colic," I told him, "and am going to the closet." "Go," he replied, and started pounding together juniper berries, aniseed, and sage.[587] As for myself, I moistened the door-hinge[588] and went to find my lover, who embraced me, half-reclining upon Apollo's altar[589] and holding on to the sacred laurel with one hand. Well now! Consider! that is a thing of which Euripides has never spoken. And when we bestow our favours on slaves and muleteers for want of better, does he mention this? And when we eat garlic early in the morning after a night of wantonness, so that our husband, who has been keeping guard upon the city wall, may be rea.s.sured by the smell and suspect nothing,[590] has Euripides ever breathed a word of this? Tell me. Neither has he spoken of the woman who spreads open a large cloak before her husband's eyes to make him admire it in full daylight to conceal her lover by so doing and afford him the means of making his escape. I know another, who for ten whole days pretended to be suffering the pains of labour until she had secured a child; the husband hurried in all directions to buy drugs to hasten her deliverance, and meanwhile an old woman brought the infant in a stew-pot; to prevent its crying she had stopped up its mouth with honey. With a sign she told the wife that she was bringing a child for her, who at once began exclaiming, "Go away, friend, go away, I think I am going to be delivered; I can feel him kicking his heels in the belly ... of the stew-pot."[591] The husband goes off full of joy, and the old wretch quickly picks the honey out of the child's mouth, which sets a-crying; then she seizes the babe, runs to the father and tells him with a smile on her face, "'Tis a lion, a lion, that is born to you; 'tis your very image. Everything about it is like you, even to its little tool, which is all twisty like a fir-cone." Are these not our everyday tricks? Why certainly, by Artemis, and we are angry with Euripides, who a.s.suredly treats us no worse than we deserve!

CHORUS. Great G.o.ds! where has she unearthed all that? What country gave birth to such an audacious woman? Oh! you wretch! I should not have thought ever a one of us could have spoken in public with such impudence.

'Tis clear, however, that we must expect everything and, as the old proverb says, must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal some orator[592] ready to sting us. There is but one thing in the world worse than a shameless woman, and that's another woman.

THIRD WOMAN. By Aglaurus![593] you have lost your wits, friends! You must be bewitched to suffer this plague to belch forth insults against us all.

Is there no one has any spirit at all? If not, we and our maid-servants will punish her. Run and fetch coals and let's depilate her c.u.n.t in proper style, to teach her not to speak ill of her s.e.x.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! no! have mercy, friends. Have we not the right to speak frankly at this gathering? And because I have uttered what I thought right in favour of Euripides, do you want to depilate me for my trouble?

THIRD WOMAN. What! we ought not to punish you, who alone have dared to defend the man who has done us so much harm, whom it pleases to put all the vile women that ever were upon the stage, who only shows us Melanippes Phaedras? But of Penelope he has never said a word, because she was reputed chaste and good.

MNESILOCHUS. I know the reason. 'Tis because not a single Penelope exists among the women of to-day, but all without exception are Phaedras.

THIRD WOMAN. Women, you hear how this creature still dares to speak of us all.

MNESILOCHUS. And, 'faith, I have not said all that I know. Do you want any more?

THIRD WOMAN. You cannot tell us any more; you have emptied your bag.

MNESILOCHUS. Why, I have not told the thousandth part of what we women do. Have I said how we use the hollow handles of our brooms to draw up wine unbeknown to our husbands.

THIRD WOMAN. The cursed jade!

MNESILOCHUS. And how we give meats to our lovers at the feast of the Apaturia and then accuse the cat....

THIRD WOMAN. She's mad!

MNESILOCHUS. ... Have I mentioned the woman who killed her husband with a hatchet? Of another, who caused hers to lose his reason with her potions?

And of the Acharnian woman ...

THIRD WOMAN. Die, you b.i.t.c.h!

MNESILOCHUS. ... who buried her father beneath the bath?[594]

THIRD WOMAN. And yet we listen to such things?

MNESILOCHUS. Have I told how you attributed to yourself the male child your slave had just borne and gave her your little daughter?

THIRD WOMAN. This insult calls for vengeance. Look out for your hair!

MNESILOCHUS. By Zeus! don't touch me.

THIRD WOMAN. There!

MNESILOCHUS. There! t.i.t for tat! (_They exchange blows._)

THIRD WOMAN. Hold my cloak, Philista!

MNESILOCHUS. Come on then, and by Demeter ...

THIRD WOMAN. Well! what?

MNESILOCHUS. ... I'll make you disgorge the sesame-cake you have eaten.[595]

CHORUS. Cease wrangling! I see a woman[596] running here in hot haste.

Keep silent, so that we may hear the better what she has to say.

CLISTHENES. Friends, whom I copy in all things, my hairless chin sufficiently evidences how dear you are to me; I am women-mad and make myself their champion wherever I am. Just now on the market-place I heard mention of a thing that is of the greatest importance to you; I come to tell it you, to let you know it, so that you may watch carefully and be on your guard against the danger which threatens you.

CHORUS. What is it, my child? I can well call you child, for you have so smooth a skin.

CLISTHENES. 'Tis said that Euripides has sent an old man here to-day, one of his relations ...

CHORUS. With what object? What is his purpose?

CLISTHENES. ... so that he may hear your speeches and inform him of your deliberations and intentions.

CHORUS. But how would a man fail to be recognized amongst women?

CLISTHENES. Euripides singed and depilated him and disguised him as a woman.

MNESILOCHUS. This is pure invention! What man is fool enough to let himself be depilated? As for myself, I don't believe a word of it.

CLISTHENES. Are you mad? I should not have come here to tell you, if I did not know it on indisputable authority.

CHORUS. Great G.o.ds! what is it you tell us! Come, women, let us not lose a moment; let us search and rummage everywhere! Where can this man have hidden himself escape our notice? Help us to look, Clisthenes; we shall thus owe you double thanks, dear friend.

CLISTHENES (_to a fourth woman_). Well then! let us see. To begin with you; who are you?

MNESILOCHUS (_aside_). Wherever am I to stow myself?

CLISTHENES. Each and every one must pa.s.s the scrutiny.

MNESILOCHUS (_aside_). Oh! great G.o.ds!