aeschylus - Conscious Evolution TV

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE
MNESILOCHUS
EURIPIDES
A SERVANT OF AGATHON
AGATHON
CRIERESS
WOMEN
Two elderly men are discovered, when the Play
opens, pacing along an Athenian street. In one,
both by his gait and by his language, we at once
recognize a Philosopher and a Genius. His
companion is a garrulous and cheery old man,
evidently tired out by a long promenade. They
prove to be the poet EURIPIDES, and MNESILO­
CHUS, his connexion by marriage, in tlte translation
inaccurately styled his cousin. The latter is
the first to speak.
Mnesilochus. Zeus! is the swallow never going to
come?
Tramped lip and down since daybreak! I can't
stand it.
Might I, before my wind's entirely gone,
Ask where you're taking me, Euripides?
Euripides. You're not to hear the things which
face to face
You're going to see.
Mn. What! Please say that again.
I'm not to hear?
Eu. The things which you shall see.
Mn. And not to see?
Eu. The things which you shall hear.
Mn. A pleasant jestl a mighty pleasant jest!
I'm not to hear or see at all, I see.
Eu. (in high philosophic rhapsody)
To hear 1 to see 1 full differen t things, I ween;
Yea verily, generically di verse.
Mn. What's "diverse"?
Eu. I will explicate my meaning.
When Ether first was mapped and parcelled out,
And living creatures breathed and moved in her,
She, to give sight, implanted in their heads
The Eye, a mimic circlet of the Sun,
And· bored the funnel of the Ear, to hear with.
Mn. Did she! That's why I'm not to hear or see!
I'm very glad to get that information!
0, what a thing it is to talk with Poets!
Eu. Much of sllch knowledge I shall give you.
Mn. (involuntarily) O!
Then p'raps (excuse me) you will tell me how
Not to be lame to-morrow, after this.
Eu. (loftily disregarding the innuendo)
Come here and listen.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
600
CLEISTHENES
CRITYLLA
A POLICEMAN
A SCYTHIAN
ECHO
CHORUS OF THESMOPHORIAZUSAE
Mn. (courteously) Certainly I will.
Eu. See you that wicket?
Mn. Why, by Heracles,
Of course I do.
Eu. Be still.
Mn. Be still the wicket?
Eu. And most attentive.
Mn. Still attentive wicket?
Eu. There dwells, observe, the famous Agathon,
The Tragic Poet.
Mn. (considering) Agathon. Don't know him.
Eu. He is that Agathon-
Mn. (interrupting) Dark, brawny fellow?
Eu. 0 no, quite different; don't you know him
really?
Mn. Big-whiskered fellow?
Eu. Don't you know him really?
Mn. No. (Thinks again) No, I don't; at least I
don't remember.
Eu. (severely) I fear there's much you don't
remember, sir.
But step aside: I see his servant coming.
See, he has myrtles and a pan of coals
To pray, methinks, for favourable rhymes.
The two retire into the background. Agathon's
SERVANT enters from the house.
Servant. All people be still!
Allow not a word from your lips to be heard,
For the Muses are here, and are making their odes
In my Master's abodes.
Let Ether be lulled, and forgetful to blow,
And the blue sea-waves, let them cease to flow,
And be noiseless.
Mn. Fudge!
Eu. Hush, hush, if you please.
Se. Sleep, birdsoftheair, with your pinions at ease;
Sleep, beasts of the field, with entranquillized feet;
Sleep, sleep, and be still.
Mn. Fudge, fudge, I repeat.
Se. For the soft and the terse professor of verse,
Our Agathon now is about to-
Mn. (scandalized) No, nol
Se. What's that?
Mn. 'Twas the ether, Jorgetting to blowl
Se. (beginning pettishly, but soon foiling back into
his Jormer tone)