Second Episode

AEAC. By Zeus the Saviour, quite the gentlemanYour master is.

XAN. Gentleman?I believe you.He's all for wine and women, is my master.

AEAC. But not to have flogged you, when the truth came outThat you, the slave, were passing off as master!

XAN. He'd get the worst of that.

AEAC. Bravo!that's spoken Like a true slave: that's what I love myself.

XAN. You love it, do you?

AEAC. Love it? I'm entrancedWhen I can curse my lord behind his back.

XAN. How about grumbling, when you have felt the stick,And scurry out of doors?

AEAC. That's jolly too.

XAN. How about prying?

AEAC. That beats everything!

XAN. Great Kin-god Zeus! And what of overhearingYour master's secrets?

AEAC. What? I'm mad with joy.

XAN. And blabbing them abroad?

AEAC. O heaven and earth!When I do that, I can't contain myself.

XAN. Phoebus Apollo! clap your hand in mine,Kiss and be kissed: and prithee tell me this,Tell me by Zeus, our rascaldom's own god,What's all that noise within?What means this hubbubAnd row?

AEAC. That's Aeschylus and Euripides.

XAN. Eh?

AEAC. Wonderful, wonderful things are going on.The dead are rioting, taking different sides.

XAN. Why, what's the matter?

AEAC. There's a custom hereWith all the crafts, the good and noble crafts,That the chief master of his art in eachShall have his dinner in the assembly hall,And sit by Pluto's side.

XAN. I understand.

AEAC. Until another comes, more wise than heIn the same art: then must the first give way.

XAN. And how has this disturbed our Aeschylus?

AEAC. 'Twas he that occupied the tragic chair,As, in his craft, the noblest.

XAN. Who does now?

AEAC. But when Euripides came down, he keptFlourishing off before the highwaymen,Thieves, burglars, parricides--these form our mobIn Hades--till with listening to his twistsAnd turns, and pleas and counterpleas, they wentMad on the man, and hailed him first and wisest:Elate with this, he claimed the tragic chairWhere Aeschylus was seated.

XAN. Wasn't he pelted?

AEAC. Not he: the populace clamoured out to tryWhich of the twain was wiser in his art.

XAN. You mean the rascals?

AEAC. Aye, as high as heaven!

XAN. But were there none to side with Aeschylus?

AEAC. Scanty and sparse the good, (Regards the audience) the same as here.

XAN. And what does Pluto now propose to do?

AEAC. He means to hold a tournament, and bringTheir tragedies to the proof.

XAN. But Sophocles, How came not he to claim the tragic chair?

AEAC. Claim it? Not he! When he came down, he kissedWith reverence Aeschylus, and clasped his hand,And yielded willingly the chair to him.But now he's going, says Cleidemides,To sit third-man: and then if Aeschylus win,He'll stay content: if not, for his art's sake,He'll fight to the death against Euripides.

XAN. Will it come off?

AEAC. O yes, by Zeus, directly.And then, I hear, will wonderful things be done,The art poetic will be weighed in scales.

XAN. What! weigh out tragedy, like butcher's meat?

AEAC. Levels they'll bring, and measuring-tapes for words,And moulded oblongs.

XAN. Is it bricks they are making?

AEAC. Wedges and compasses: for EuripidesVows that he'll test the dramas, word by word.

XAN. Aeschylus chafes at this, I fancy.

AEAC. Well, He lowered his brows, upglaring like a bull.

XAN. And who's to be the judge?

AEAC. There came the rub.Skilled men were hard to find: for with the AtheniansAeschylus, somehow, did not hit it off.

XAN. Too many burglars, I expect, he thought.

AEAC. And all the rest, he said, were trash and nonsenseTo judge poetic wits. So then at lastThey chose your lord, an expert in the art.But go we in: for when our lords are bentOn urgent business, that means blows for us.

CHOR. O surely with terrible wrath will the thunder-voiced monarch be filled,When he sees his opponent beside him, the tonguester, the artifice-skilled,Stand, whetting his tusks for the fight! O surely, his eyes rolling-fellWill with terrible madness be fraught!O then will be charging of plume-waving words with their wild-floating mane,And then will be whirling of splinters, and phrases smoothed down with the plane,When the man would the grand-stepping maxims, the language gigantic, repelOf the hero-creator of thought.There will his shaggy-born crest upbristle for anger and woe,Horribly frowning and growling, his fury will launch at the foeHuge-clamped masses of words, with exertion Titanic up--tearingGreat ship-timber planks for the fray.But here will the tongue be at work, uncoiling, word-testing refining,Sophist-creator of phrases, dissecting, detracting, maligning,Shaking the envious bits, and with subtle analysis paringThe lung's large labour away.