The Eleven Comedies Vol 1 Part 39

TRYGAEUS. Farewell, farewell, my friends. All who come with me shall have cakes galore.

FINIS OF "PEACE"

Footnotes:

[262] An obscene allusion, the faeces of catamites being 'well ground' from the treatment they are in the habit of submitting to.

[263] 'Peace' was no doubt produced at the festival of the Apaturia, which was kept at the end of October, a period when strangers were numerous in Athens.

[264] The winged steed of Perseus-an allusion to a lost tragedy of Euripides, in which Bellerophon was introduced riding on Pegasus.

[265] Fearing that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the highest heaven to satisfy itself.

[266] The Persians and the Spartans were not then allied as the Scholiast states, since a treaty between them was only concluded in 412 B.C., i.e. eight years after the production of 'Peace'; the great king, however, was trying to derive advantages out of the dissensions in Greece.

[267] Go to the crows, a proverbial expression equivalent to our Go to the devil.

[268] Aesop tells us that the eagle and the beetle were at war; the eagle devoured the beetle's young and the latter got into its nest and tumbled out its eggs. On this the eagle complained to Zeus, who advised it to lay its eggs in his bosom; but the beetle flew up to the abode of Zeus, who, forgetful of the eagle's eggs, at once rose to chase off the objectionable insect. The eggs fell to earth and were smashed to bits.

[269] Pegasus is introduced by Euripides both in his 'Andromeda' and his 'Bellerophon.'

[270] Boats, called 'beetles,' doubtless because in form they resembled these insects, were built at Naxos.

[271] Nature had divided the Piraeus into three basins-Cantharos, Aphrodisium and Zea; [Greek: kantharos] is Greek for a dung-beetle.

[272] In allusion to Euripides' fondness for introducing lame heroes in his plays.

[273] An allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the Chians-[Greek: Chios apopat_on], "s.h.i.+tting Chian." On account of their notoriously pederastic habits, the inhabitants of this island were known throughout Greece as 'loose-a.r.s.ed' Chians, and therefore always on the point of voiding their faeces. There is a further joke, of course, in connection with the hundred and one frivolous pretexts which the Athenians invented for exacting contributions from the maritime allies.

[274] Masters of Pylos and Sphacteria, the Athenians had brought home the three hundred prisoners taken in the latter place in 425 B.C.; the Spartans had several times sent envoys to offer peace and to demand back both Pylos and the prisoners, but the Athenian pride had caused these proposals to be long refused. Finally the prisoners had been given up in 423 B.C., but the War was continued nevertheless.

[275] An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, [Greek: prasa], the root-word of the name Prasiae, into his mortar.

[276] War throws some garlic into his mortar as emblematical of the city of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.

[277] Because the smell of bruised garlic causes the eyes to water.

[278] He throws cheese into the mortar as emblematical of Sicily, on account of its rich pastures.

[279] Emblematical of Athens. The honey of Mount Hymettus was famous.

[280] Cleon, who had lately fallen before Amphipolis, in 422 B.C.

[281] An island in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Thrace and opposite the mouth of the Hebrus; the Mysteries are said to have found their first home in this island, where the Cabirian G.o.ds were wors.h.i.+pped; this cult, shrouded in deep mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and they were feared as to-day the jettatori (spell-throwers, casters of the evil eye) in Sicily are feared.

[282] Brasidas perished in Thrace in the same battle as Cleon at Amphipolis, 422 B.C.

[283] An Athenian general as ambitious as he was brave. In 423 B.C. he had failed in an enterprise against Heraclea, a storm having destroyed his fleet. Since then he had distinguished himself in several actions, and was destined, some years later, to share the command of the expedition to Sicily with Alcibiades and Nicias.

[284] Meaning, to start on a military expedition.

[285] Cleon.

[286] The Chorus insist on the conventional choric dance.

[287] One of the most favourite games with the Greeks. A stick was set upright in the ground and to this the beam of a balance was attached by its centre. Two vessels were hung from the extremities of the beam so as to balance; beneath these two other and larger dishes were placed and filled with water, and in the middle of each a brazen figure, called Manes, was stood. The game consisted in throwing drops of wine from an agreed distance into one or the other vessel, so that, dragged downwards by the weight of the liquor, it b.u.mped against Manes.

[288] A general of austere habits; he disposed of all his property to pay the cost of a naval expedition, in which he beat the fleet of the foe off the promontory of Rhium in 429 B.C.

[289] The Lyceum was a portico ornamented with paintings and surrounded with gardens, in which military exercises took place.

[290] A citizen of Miletus, who betrayed his country to the people of Priene. When asked what he purposed, he replied, "Nothing bad," which expression had therefore pa.s.sed into a proverb.

[291] Hermes was the G.o.d of chance.

[292] As the soldiers had to do when starting on an expedition.

[293] That is, you are pedicated.

[294] The initiated were thought to enjoy greater happiness after death.

[295] He summons Zeus to reveal Trygaeus' conspiracy.

[296] An Athenian captain, who later had the recall of Alcibiades decreed by the Athenian people; in 'The Birds' Aristophanes represents him as a cowardly braggart. He was the reactionary leader who established the Oligarchical Government of the Four Hundred, 411 B.C., after the failure of the Syracusan expedition.

[297] Among other attributes, Hermes was the G.o.d of thieves.

[298] Alluding to the eclipses of the sun and the moon.

[299] The Panathenaea were dedicated to Athene, the Mysteries to Demeter, the Dipolia to Zeus, the Adonia to Aphrodite and Adonis. Trygaeus promises Hermes that he shall be wors.h.i.+pped in the place of all the other G.o.ds.

[300] The pun here cannot be kept. The word [Greek: paian], Paean, resembles [Greek: paiein], to strike; hence the word, as recalling the blows and wounds of the war, seems of ill omen to Trygaeus.

[301] The device on his s.h.i.+eld was a Gorgon's head. (See 'The Acharnians.')

[302] Both Sparta and Athens had sought the alliance of the Argives; they had kept themselves strictly neutral and had received pay from both sides. But, the year after the production of 'The Wasps,' they openly joined Athens, had attacked Epidaurus and got cut to pieces by the Spartans.

[303] These are the Spartan prisoners from Sphacteria, who were lying in gaol at Athens. They were chained fast to large beams of wood.

[304] 'Twas want of force, not want of will. They had suffered more than any other people from the war. (See 'The Acharnians.')

[305] Meaning, look chiefly to your fleet. This was the counsel that Themistocles frequently gave the Athenians.

[306] A metaphor referring to the abundant vintages that peace would a.s.sure.