Chapter 108

As I turned—"True, lady, I am tolerably drunk:The proper inspiration! Otherwise,—Phrunichos, Choirilos!—had AischulosSo foiled you at the goat-song? Drink 's a god.How else did that old doating drivellerKratinos foil me, match my masterpieceThe 'Clouds'? I swallowed cloud-distilment—dewUndimmed by any grape-blush, knit my browAnd gnawed my style and laughed my learnedest;While he worked at his 'Willow-wicker-flask,'Swigging at that same flask by which he swore,Till, sing and empty, sing and fill again,Somehow result was—what it should not beNext time, I promised him and kept my word!Hence, brimful now of Thasian ... I 'll be bound,Mendesian, merely: triumph-night, you know,The High Priest entertains the conqueror,And, since war worsens all things, stingilyThe rascal starves whom he is bound to stuff,Choros and actors and their lord and kingThe poet: supper, still he needs must spread—And this time all was conscientious fare:He knew his man, his match, his master—madeAmends, spared neither fish, flesh, fowl nor wine:So merriment increased, I promise you,Till—something happened."Here he strangely paused,"After that,—Well, it either was the cupTo the Good Genius, our concluding pledge,That wrought me mischief, decently unmixed,—Or, what if, whenthathappened, need aroseOf new libation? Did you only knowWhat happened! Little wonder I am drunk."Euthukles, o'er the boat-side, quick, what change,Watch, in the water! But a second since,It laughed a ripply spread of sun and sea,Say fused with wave, to never disunite.Now, sudden all the surface, hard and black,Lies a quenched light, dead motion: What the cause?Look up and lo, the menace of a cloudHas solemnized the sparkling, spoil the sport!Just so, some overshadow, some new careStopped all the mirth and mocking on his faceAnd left there only such a dark surmise—No wonder if the revel disappeared,So did his face shed silence every side!I recognized a new man fronting me."So!" he smiled, piercing to my thought at once,"You see myself? Balaustion's fixed regardCan strip the proper AristophanesOf what our sophists, in their jargon, styleHis accidents? My soul sped forth but nowTo meet your hostile survey,—soul unseen,Yet veritably cinct for soul-defenceWith satyr sportive quips, cranks, boss and spike,Just as my visible body paced the street,Environed by a boon companionshipYour apparition also puts to flight.Well, what care I, if, unaccoutred twice,I front my foe—no comicalityRound soul, and body-guard in banishment?Thank your eyes' searching, undisguised I stand:The merest female child may question me.Spare not, speak bold, Balaustion!"I did speak:"Bold speech be—welcome to this honored hearth,Good Genius! Glory of the poet, glowO' the humorist who castigates his kind,Suave summer-lightning lambency which playsOn stag-horned tree, misshapen crag askew,Then vanishes with unvindictive smileAfter a moment's laying black earth bare.Splendor of wit that springs a thunderball—Satire—to burn and purify the world,True aim, fair purpose: just wit justly strikesInjustice,—right, as rightly quells the wrong,Finds out in knaves', fools', cowards' armoryThe tricky tinselled place fire flashes through,No damage else, sagacious of true ore;Wit, learned in the laurel, leaves each wreathO'er lyric shell or tragic barbiton,—Though alien gauds be singed,—undesecrate,The genuine solace of the sacred brow.Ay, and how pulses flame a patriot-starSteadfast athwart our country's night of things,To beacon, would she trust no meteor-blaze,Athenai from the rock she steers for straight!O light, light, light, I hail light everywhere,No matter for the murk that was,—perchance,That will be,—certes, never should have beenSuch orb's associate!"Aristophanes!'The merest female child may question you?'Once, in my Rhodes, a portent of the waveAppalled our coast: for many a darkened day,Intolerable mystery and fear.Who snatched a furtive glance through crannied peak,Could but report of snake-scale, lizard-limb,—So swam what, making whirlpools as it went,Madded the brine with wrath or monstrous sport.''T is Tuphon, loose, unmanacled from mount.'Declared the priests, 'no way appeasableUnless perchance by virgin-sacrifice!'Thus grew the terror and o'erhung the doom—Until one eve a certain female-childStrayed in safe ignorance to seacoast edge,And there sat down and sang to please herself.When all at once, large-looming from his wave,Out leaned, chin hand-propped, pensive on the ledge,A sea-worn face, sad as mortality,Divine with yearning after fellowship.He rose but breast-high. So much god she saw;So much she sees now, and does reverence!"Ah, but there followed tail-splash, frisk of fin!Let cloud pass, the sea's ready laugh outbreaks.No very godlike trace retained the mouthWhich mocked with—"So, He taught you tragedy!I always asked 'Why may not women act?'Nay, wear the comic visor just as well;Or, better, quite cast off the face-disguiseAnd voice-distortion, simply look and speak,Real women playing women as men—men!I shall not wonder if things come to that,Some day when I am distant far enough.Do you conceive the quite new ComedyWhen laws allow? laws only let girls dance,Pipe, posture,—above all, Elaphionize,Provided they keep decent—that is, dumb.Ay, and, conceiving, I would execute,Had I but two lives: one were overworked!How penetrate encrusted prejudice,Pierce ignorance three generations thickSince first Sousarion crossed our boundary?He battered with a big Megaric stone;Chionides felled oak and rough-hewed thenceThis club I wield now, having spent my lifeIn planing knobs and sticking studs to shine;Somebody else must try mere polished steel!"Emboldened by the sober mood's return,"Meanwhile," said I, "since planed and studded clubOnce more has pashed competitors to dust,And poet proves triumphant with that playEuthukles found last year unfortunate,—Does triumph spring from smoothness still more smoothed,Fresh studs sown thick and threefold? In plain words,Have you exchanged brute-blows,—which teach the bruteMan may surpass him in brutality,—For human fighting, or true god-like forceWhich breathes persuasion nor needs fight at all?Have you essayed attacking ignorance,Convicting folly, by their opposites,Knowledge and wisdom? not by yours for ours,Fresh ignorance and folly, new for old,Greater for less, your crime for our mistake!If so success at last have crowned desert,Bringing surprise (dashed haply by concernAt your discovery such wild waste of strength—And what strength!—went so long to keep in vogueSuch warfare—and what warfare!—shamed so fast,So soon made obsolete, as fell their foeBy the first arrow native to the orb,First onslaught worthy Aristophanes)—Was this conviction's entry that same strange'Something that happened' to confound your feast?""Ah, did he witness then my play that failed,First 'Thesmophoriazousai'? Well and good!But did he also see—your Euthukles—My 'Grasshoppers,' which followed and failed too,Three months since, at the 'Little-in-the-Fields'?""To say that he did see that First—should sayHe never cared to see its following.""There happens to be reason why I wroteFirst play and second also. Ask the cause!I warrant you receive, ere talk be done,Fit answer, authorizing either act.But here 's the point: as Euthukles made vowNever again to taste my quality,So I was minded next experimentShould tickle palate—yea, of Euthukles!Not by such utter change, such absoluteA topsyturvy of stage-habitudeAs you and he want,—Comedy built fresh,By novel brick and mortar, base to roof,—No, for I stand too near and look too close!Pleasure and pastime yours, spectators brave,Should I turn art's fixed fabric upside down!Little you guess how such tough work tasks soul!Not overtasks, though: give fit strength fair play,And strength 's a demiourgos! Art renewed?Ay, in some closet where strength shuts out—firstThe friendly faces, sympathetic cheer:'More of the old provision, none suppliesSo bounteously as thou,—our love, our pride,Our author of the many a perfect piece!Stick to that standard, change were decadence!Next, the unfriendly: 'This time, strain will tire,He 's fresh, Ameipsias thy antagonist!'—Or better, in some Salaminian caveWhere sky and sea and solitude make earthAnd man and noise one insignificance,Let strength propose itself,—behind the world,—Sole prize worth winning, work that satisfiesStrength it has dared and done strength's uttermost!After which,—clap-to closet and quit cave,—Strength may conclude in Archelaos' court,And yet esteem the silken companySo much sky-scud, sea-froth, earth-thistledown,For aught their praise or blame should joy or grieve.Strength amid crowds as late in solitudeMay lead the still life, ply the wordless task:Then only, when seems need to move or speak,Moving—for due respect, when statesmen pass,(Strength, in the closet, watched how spiders spin!)Speaking—when fashion shows intelligence,(Strength, in the cave, oft whistled to the gulls!)In short, has learnt first, practised afterwards!Despise the world and reverence yourself,—Why, you may unmake things and remake things,And throw behind you, unconcerned enough,What 's made or marred: 'you teach men, are not taught!'So marches off the stage Euripides!"No such thin fare feeds flesh and blood like mine,No such faint fume of fancy sates my soul,No such seclusion, closet, cave or court,Suits either: give me IostephanosWorth making happy what coarse way she will—O happy-maker, when her cries increaseAbout the favorite! 'Aristophanes!More grist to mill, here 's Kleophon to grind!He's for refusing peace, though Sparté cedeEven Dekeleia! Here 's KleonumosDeclaring—though he threw away his shield,He 'll thrash you till you lay your lyre aside!Orestes bids mind where you walk of nights—He wants your cloak as you his cudgelling.Here 's, finally, Melanthios fat with fish,The gormandizer-spendthrift-dramatist!So, bustle! Pounce on opportunity!Let fun a-screaming in Parabasis,Find food for folk agape at either end,Mad for amusement! Times grow better too,And should they worsen, why, who laughs, forgets.In no ease, venture boy-experiments!Old wine 's the wine: new poetry drinks raw:Two plays a season is your pledge, beside;So, give us "Wasps" again, grown hornets mow!'"Then he changed."Do you so detect in me—Brow-bald, chin-bearded, me, curved cheek, carved lip,Or where soul sits and reigns in either eye—What suits the—stigma, I say,—style say you,Of 'Wine-lees-poet'? Bravest of buffoons,Less blunt, than Telekleides, less obsceneThan Murtilos, Hermippos: quite a matchIn elegance for Eupolis himself,Yet pungent as Kratinos at his best?Graced with traditional immunityEver since, much about my grandsire's time,Some funny village-man in Megara,Lout-lord and clown-king, used a privilege,As due religious drinking-bouts came round,To daub his phiz,—no, that was afterward,—He merely mounted cart with mates of choiceAnd traversed country, taking house by house,At night,—because of danger in the freak,—Then hollaed 'Skin-flint starves his laborers!Clench-fist stows figs away, cheats government!Such an one likes to kiss his neighbor's wife,And beat his own; while such another ... Boh!'Soon came the broad day, circumstantial tale,Dancing and verse, and there 's our Comedy,There's Mullos, there 's Euetes, there 's the stockI shall be proud to graft my powers upon!Protected? Punished quite as certainlyWhen Archons pleased to lay down each his law,—Your Morucheides-Surakosios sort,—Each season, 'No more naming citizens,Only abuse the vice, the vicious spare!Observe, henceforth no AreopagiteDemean his rank by writing Comedy!'(They one and all could write the 'Clouds' of course.)'Needs must we nick expenditure, allowComedy half a choros, supper—none,Times being hard, while applicants increaseFor, what costs cash, the Tragic Trilogy.'Lofty Tragedians! How they lounge aloofEach with his Triad, three plays to my one,Not counting the contemptuous fourth, the frankConcession to mere mortal levity,Satyric pittance tossed our beggar-world!Your proud Euripides from first to lastDoled out some five such, never deigned us more!And these—what curds and whey for marrowy wine!That same Alkestis you so rave aboutPassed muster with him for a Satyr-play,The prig!—why trifle time with toys and skitsWhen he could stuff four ragbags sausage-wiseWith sophistry, with bookish odds and ends,Sokrates, meteors, moonshine, 'Life 's not Life,''The tongue swore, but unsworn the mind remains,'And fifty such concoctions, crabtree-fruitDigested while, head low and heels in heaven,He lay, let Comics laugh—for privilege!Looked puzzled on, or pityingly off,But never dreamed of paying gibe by jeer,Buffet by blow: plenty of proverb-pokesAt vice and folly, wicked kings, mad mobs!No sign of wincing at my Comic lash,No protest against infamous abuse,Malignant censure,—naught to prove I scourgedWith tougher thong-than leek-and-onion-plait!If ever he glanced gloom, aggrieved at all,The aggriever must be—Aischulos perhaps:Or Sophokles he 'd take exception to.—Do you detect in me—in me, I ask,The man like to accept this measurementOf faculty, contentedly sit classedMere Comic Poet—since I wrote 'The Birds'?"I thought there might lurk truth in jest's disguise."Thanks!" he resumed, so quick to construe smile!"I answered—in my mind—these gapers thus:Since old wine 's ripe and new verse raw, you judge—What if I vary vintage-mode and mixBlossom with must, give nosegay to the brew,Fining, refining, gently, surely, tillThe educated taste turns unawaresFrom customary dregs to draught divine?Then answered—with my lips: More 'Wasps' you want?Come next year and I give you 'Grasshoppers'!And 'Grasshoppers' I gave them,—last month's play.They formed the Choros. Alkibiades,No longer Triphales but Trilophos,(Whom I called Darling-of-the-Summertime,Born to be nothing else but beautifulAnd brave, to eat, drink, love his life away)Persuades the Tettix (our Autochthon-brood,That sip the dew and sing on olive-branchAbove the ant-and-emmet populace)To summon all who meadow, hill and daleInhabit—bee, wasp, woodlouse, dragonfly—To band themselves against red nipper-noseStagbeetle, huge Taügetan (you guess—Sparté) Athenai needs must battle with,Because her sons are grown effeminateTo that degree—so morbifies their fleshThe poison-drama of Euripides,Morals and music—there 's no antidoteOccurs save warfare which inspirits blood,And brings us back perchance the blessed timeWhen (Choros takes up tale) our commonaltyFirm in primeval virtue, antique faith,Ere earwig-sophist plagued or pismire-sage,Cockered no noddle up with A, b, g,Book-learning, logic-chopping, and the moon,But just employed their brains on "Ruppapai,Row, boys, munch barley-bread, and take your ease—Mindful, however, of the tier beneath!'Ah, golden epoch! while the nobler sort(Such needs must study, no contesting that!)Wore no long curls but used to crop their hair,Gathered the tunic well about the ham,Remembering 't was soft sand they used for seatAt school-time, while—mark this—the lesson long,No learner ever dared to cross his legs!Then, if you bade him take the myrtle-boughAnd sing for supper—'t was some grave romauntHow man of Mitulené, wondrous wise,Jumped into hedge, by mortals quickset called,And there, anticipating Oidipous,Scratched out his eyes and scratched them in again.None of your Phaidras, Augés, Kanakés,To mincing music, turn, trill, tweedle-trash,Whence comes that Marathon is obsolete!Next, my Antistrophé was—praise of Peace:Ah, could our people know what Peace implies!Home to the farm and furrow! Grub one's vine,Romp with one's Thratta, pretty serving-girl.When wifie 's busy bathing! Eat and drink.And drink and eat, what else is good in life?Slice hare, toss pancake, gayly gurgle downThe Thasian grape in celebration dueOf Bacchos! Welcome, dear domestic rite,When wife and sons and daughters, Thratta too,Pour pea-soup as we chant delectablyIn Bacchos reels, his tunic at his heels!Enough, you comprehend,—I do at least!Then,—be but patient,—the Parabasis!Pray! For in that I also pushed reform.None of the self-laudation, vulgar brag,Vainglorious rivals cultivate so much!No! If some merest word in Art's defenceJustice demanded of me,—never fear!Claim was preferred, but dignifiedly.A cricket asked a locust (winged, you know)What he had seen most rare in foreign parts?'I have flown far,' chirped he, 'North, East, South, West,And nowhere heard of poet worth a figIf matched with Bald-head here, Aigina's boast,Who in this play bids rivalry despairPast, present, and to come, so marvellousHis Tragic, Comic, Lyric excellence!Whereof the fit reward were (not to speakOf dinner every day at public costI' the Prutaneion) supper with yourselves,My Public, best dish offered bravest bard!'No more! no sort of sin against good taste!Then, satire,—Oh, a plain necessity!But I won't tell you: for—could I dispenseWith one more gird at old Ariphrades?How scorpion-like he feeds on human flesh—Ever finds out some novel infamyUnutterable, inconceivable,Which all the greater need was to describeMinutely, each tail-twist at ink-shed time ...Now, what 's your gesture caused by? What you loathe,Don't I loathe doubly, else why take such painsTo tell it you? But keep your prejudice!My audience justified you! Housebreakers!This pattern-purity was played and failedLast Rural Dionusia—failed! for why?Ameipsias followed with the genuine stuff.He had been mindful to engage the Four—Karkinos and his dwarf-crab-family—Father and sons, they whirled like spinning-tops,Choros gigantically poked his fun,The boys' frank laugh relaxed the seniors' brow,The skies re-echoed victory's acclaim,Ameipsias gained his due, I got my doseOf wisdom for the future. Purity?No more of that next month, Athenai mine!Contrive new cut of robe who will,—I patchThe old exomis, add no purple sleeve!The Thesmophoriazousai, smartened upWith certain plaits, shall please, I promise you!"Yes, I took up the play that failed last year,And re-arranged things; threw adroitly in—No Parachoregema—men to matchMy women there already; and when these(I had a hit at Aristullos here,His plan how womankind should rule the roast)Drove men to plough—'A-field, ye cribbed of cape!'Men showed themselves exempt from service straightStupendously, till all the boys cried 'Brave!'Then for the elders, I bethought me too,Improved upon Mnesilochos' releaseFrom the old bowman, board and binding-strap:I made his son-in-law EuripidesEngage to put both shrewish wives away—'Gravity,' one, the other 'Sophist-lore'—And mate with the Bald Bard's hetairai twain—'Goodhumor' and 'Indulgence:' on they tripped,Murrhiné, Akalanthis,—'beautifulTheir whole belongings'—crowd joined choros there!And while the Toxotes wound up his partBy shower of nuts and sweetmeats on the mob,The woman-choros celebrated NewKalligeneia, the frank last-day rite.Brief, I was chairéd and caressed and crownedAnd the whole theatre broke out a-roar,Echoed my admonition—choros-cap—Rivals of mine, your hands to your faces!Summon no more the Muses, the Graces,Since here by my side they have chosen their places!And so we all flocked merrily to feast,—I, my choragos, choros, actors, mutesAnd flutes aforesaid, friends in crowd, no fear,At the Priest's supper; and hilarityGrew none the less that, early in the piece,Ran a report, from row to row close-packed,Of messenger's arrival at the PortWith weighty tidings, 'Of Lusandros' flight,'Opined one; 'That Euboia penitentSends the Confederation fifty ships,'Preferred another; while 'The Great King's EyeHas brought a present for Elaphion here,That rarest peacock Kompolakuthes!'Such was the supposition of a third.'No matter what the news,' friend Strattis laughed,'It won't be worse for waiting: while each clickOf the klepsudra sets a shaking graveResentment in our shark's-head, boiled and spoiledBy this time: dished in Sphettian vinegar,Silphion and honey, served with cocks'-brain-sauce!So, swift to supper, Poet! No mistake,This play; nor, like the unflavored "Grasshoppers,"Salt without thyme!' Right merrily we supped,Till—something happened."Out it shall, at last!"Mirth drew to ending, for the cup was crownedTo the Triumphant!' Kleonclapper erst,Now, Plier of a scourge EuripidesFairly turns tail from, flying AttikéFor Makedonia's rocks and frosts and bears,Where, furry grown, he growls to match the squeakOf girl-voiced, crocus-vested Agathon!Ha ha, he he!' When suddenly a knock—Sharp, solitary, cold, authoritative."'Babaiax!Sokrates a-passing by,A-peering in, for Aristullos' sake,To put a question touching Comic Law?'"No! Enters an old pale-swathed majesty,Makes slow mute passage through two ranks as mute,(Strattis stood up with all the rest, the sneak!)Gray brow still bent on ground, upraised at lengthWhen, our Priest reached, full front the vision paused."'Priest!'—the deep tone succeeded the fixed gaze—'Thou carest that thy god have spectacleDecent and seemly; wherefore, I announceThat, since Euripides is dead to-day,My Choros, at the Greater Feast, next month,Shall, clothed in black, appear ungarlanded!'"Then the gray brow sank low, and SophoklesRe-swathed him, sweeping doorward: mutely passed'Twixt rows as mute, to mingle possiblyWith certain gods who convoy age to port;And night resumed him."When our stupor broke,Chirpings took courage, and grew audible."'Dead—so one speaks now of Euripides!''Ungarlanded dance Choros, did he say?I guess the reason: in extreme old ageNo doubt such have the gods for visitants.Why did he dedicate to HeraklesAn altar else, but that the god, turned Judge,Told him in dream who took the crown of gold?He who restored Akropolis the theft,Himself may feel perhaps a timely twingeAt thought of certain other crowns he filchedFrom—who now visits Herakles the Judge.Instance "Medeia"! that play yielded palmTo Sophokles; and he again—to whom?Euphorion! Why? Ask Herakles the Judge!''Ungarlanded, just means—economy!Suppress robes, chaplets, everything suppressExcept the poet's present! An old talePut capitally by Trugaios—eh?News from the world of transformation strange!How Sophokles is grown Simonides,And—aged, rotten—all the same, for greedWould venture on a hurdle out to sea!So jokes Philonides. KallistratosRetorts, Mistake! Instead of stinginess—The fact is, in extreme decrepitude,He has discarded poet and turned priest,Priest of Half-Hero Alkon: visitedIn his own house too by Asklepios' self,So he avers. Meanwhile, his own estateLies fallow; Iophon 's the manager,—Nay, touches up a play, brings out the same,Asserts true sonship. See to what you sinkAfter your dozen-dozen prodigies!Looking so old—Euripides seems young,Born ten years later.'"'Just his tricky style!Since, stealing first away, he wins first wordOut of good-natured rival Sophokles,Procures himself no bad panegyric.Had fate willed otherwise, himself were taxedTo pay survivor's-tribute,—harder squeezedFrom anybody beaten first to last,Than one who, steadily a conqueror,Finds that his magnanimity is taskedTo merely make pretence and—beat itself!'"So chirped the feasters though suppressedly."But I—what else do you suppose?—had piercedQuite through friends' outside-straining, foes' mock-praise,And reached conviction hearted under all.Death's rapid line had closed a life's account,And cut off, left unalterably clearThe summed-up value of Euripides."Well, it might be the Thasian! CertainlyThere sang suggestive music in my ears;And, through—what sophists style—the wall of senseMy eyes pierced: death seemed life and life seemed death,Envisaged that way, now, which I, before,Conceived was just a moon-struck mood. Quite plainThere re-insisted,—ay, each prim stiff phraseOf each old play, my still-new laughing-stock,Had meaning, well worth poet's pains to state,Should life prove half true life's term,—death, the rest.As for the other question, late so large,Now all at once so little,—he or I,—Which better comprehended playwright craft,—There, too, old admonition took fresh point.As clear recurred our last word-interchangeTwo years since, when I tried with 'Ploutos.' 'Vain!'Saluted me the cold grave-bearded bard—'Vain, this late trial, Aristophanes!None balks the genius with impunity!You know what kind's the nobler, what makes graveOr what makes grin: there 's yet a nobler still,Possibly,—what makes wise, not grave,—and glad,Not grinning: whereby laughter joins with tears,Tragic and Comic Poet prove one power,And Aristophanes becomes our Fourth—Nay, greatest! Never needs the Art stand still,But those Art leans on lag, and none like you,Her strongest of supports, whose step asideUndoes the march: defection checks advanceToo late adventured! See the "Ploutos" here!This step decides your foot from old to new—Proves you relinquish song and dance and jest,Discard the beast, and, rising from all-fours,Fain would paint, manlike, actual human life,Make veritable men think, say and do.Here 's the conception: which to execute,Where 's force? Spent! Ere the race began, was breathO' the runner squandered' on each friendly fool—Wit-fireworks fizzed off while day craved no flame;How should the night receive her due of fireFlared out in Wasps and Horses, Clouds and Birds,Prodigiously a-crackle? Rest content!The new adventure for the novel manBorn to that next success myself foreseeIn right of where I reach before I rest.At end of a long course, straight all the way,Well may there tremble somewhat into kenThe untrod path, clouds veiled from earlier gaze!None may live two lives: I have lived mine through,Die where I first stand still. You retrograde.I leave my life's work.Icompete with you,My last with your last, my "Antiope"—"Phoinissai"—with this "Ploutos"? No, I think!Ever shall great and awful VictoryAccompany my life—in MaketisIf not Athenai. Take my farewell, friend!Friend,—for from no consummate excellenceLike yours, whatever fault may countervail,Do I profess estrangement: murk the marsh,Yet where a solitary marble blockBlanches the gloom, there let the eagle perch!You show—what splinters of Pentelikos,Islanded by what ordure! Eagles fly,Rest on the right place, thence depart as free;But 'ware man's footstep, would it traverse mireUntainted! Mire is safe for worms that crawl.'"Balaustion! Here are very many words,All to portray one moment's rush of thought,—And much they do it! Still, you understand.The Archon, the Feast-master, read their sumAnd substance, judged the banquet-glow extinct,So rose, discreetly if abruptly, crownedThe parting cup,—'To the Good Genius, then!'"Up starts young Strattis for a final flash:'Ay, the Good Genius! To the Comic Muse,She who evolves superiority.Triumph and joy from sorrow, unsuccessAnd all that 's incomplete in human life;Who proves such actual failure transient wrong,Since out of body uncouth, halt and maimed—Since out of soul grotesque, corrupt or blank—Fancy, uplifted by the Muse, can flitTo soul and body, reinstate them Man:Beside which perfect man, how clear we seeDivergency from type was earth's effect!Escaping whence by laughter,—Fancy's feat,—We right man's wrong, establish true for false,—Above misshapen body, uncouth soul,Reach the fine form, the clear intelligence—Above unseemliness, reach decent law,—By laughter: attestation of the MuseThat low-and-ugsome is not signed and sealedIncontrovertibly man's portion here,Or, if here,—why, still high-and-fair existsIn that ethereal realm where laughs our soulLift by the Muse. Hail thou her ministrant!Hail who accepted no deformityIn man as normal and remediless,But rather pushed it to such gross extremeThat, outraged, we protest by eye's recoilThe opposite proves somewhere rule and law!Hail who implied, by limning Lamachos,Plenty and pastime wait on peace, not war!Philokleon—better bear a wrong than plead,Play the litigious fool to stuff the mouthOf dikast with the due three-obol fee!The Paphlagonian—stick to the old swayOf few and wise, not rabble-government!Trugaios, Pisthetairos, Strepsiades,—Why multiply examples? Hail, in fine,The hero of each painted monster—soSuggesting the unpictured perfect shape!Pour out! A laugh to Aristophanes!'"'Stay, my fine Strattis'—and I stopped applause—'To the Good Genius—but the Tragic Muse!She who instructs her poet, bids man's soulPlay man's part merely nor attempt the gods'Ill-guessed of! Task humanity to height,Put passion to prime use, urge will, unshamedWhen will's last effort breaks in impotence!No power forego, elude: no weakness,—pliedFairly by power and will,—renounce, deny!Acknowledge, in such miscalled weakness, strengthLatent: and substitute thus things for words!Make man run life's race fairly,—legs and feet,Craving no false wings to o'erfly its length!Trust on, trust ever, trust to end—in truth!By truth of extreme passion, utmost will,Shame back all false display of either force—Barrier about such strenuous heat and glow,That cowardice shall shirk contending,—cant,Pretension, shrivel at truth's first approach!Pour to the Tragic Muse's ministrantWho, as he pictured pure Hippolutos,Abolished our earth's blot Ariphrades;Who, as he drew Bellerophon the bold,Proclaimed Kleonumos incredible;Who, as his Theseus towered up man once more,Made Alkibiades shrink boy again!A tear—no woman's tribute, weak exchangeFor action, water spent and heart's-blood saved—No man's regret for greatness gone, ungracedPerchance by even that poor meed, man's praise—But some god's superabundance of desire,Yearning of will to 'scape necessity,—Love's overbrimming for self-sacrifice,Whence good might be, which never else may be,By power displayed, forbidden this strait sphere,—Effort expressible one only way—Such tear from me fall to Euripides!'

As I turned—

"True, lady, I am tolerably drunk:The proper inspiration! Otherwise,—Phrunichos, Choirilos!—had AischulosSo foiled you at the goat-song? Drink 's a god.How else did that old doating drivellerKratinos foil me, match my masterpieceThe 'Clouds'? I swallowed cloud-distilment—dewUndimmed by any grape-blush, knit my browAnd gnawed my style and laughed my learnedest;While he worked at his 'Willow-wicker-flask,'Swigging at that same flask by which he swore,Till, sing and empty, sing and fill again,Somehow result was—what it should not beNext time, I promised him and kept my word!Hence, brimful now of Thasian ... I 'll be bound,Mendesian, merely: triumph-night, you know,The High Priest entertains the conqueror,And, since war worsens all things, stingilyThe rascal starves whom he is bound to stuff,Choros and actors and their lord and kingThe poet: supper, still he needs must spread—And this time all was conscientious fare:He knew his man, his match, his master—madeAmends, spared neither fish, flesh, fowl nor wine:So merriment increased, I promise you,Till—something happened."

"True, lady, I am tolerably drunk:

The proper inspiration! Otherwise,—

Phrunichos, Choirilos!—had Aischulos

So foiled you at the goat-song? Drink 's a god.

How else did that old doating driveller

Kratinos foil me, match my masterpiece

The 'Clouds'? I swallowed cloud-distilment—dew

Undimmed by any grape-blush, knit my brow

And gnawed my style and laughed my learnedest;

While he worked at his 'Willow-wicker-flask,'

Swigging at that same flask by which he swore,

Till, sing and empty, sing and fill again,

Somehow result was—what it should not be

Next time, I promised him and kept my word!

Hence, brimful now of Thasian ... I 'll be bound,

Mendesian, merely: triumph-night, you know,

The High Priest entertains the conqueror,

And, since war worsens all things, stingily

The rascal starves whom he is bound to stuff,

Choros and actors and their lord and king

The poet: supper, still he needs must spread—

And this time all was conscientious fare:

He knew his man, his match, his master—made

Amends, spared neither fish, flesh, fowl nor wine:

So merriment increased, I promise you,

Till—something happened."

Here he strangely paused,

"After that,—Well, it either was the cupTo the Good Genius, our concluding pledge,That wrought me mischief, decently unmixed,—Or, what if, whenthathappened, need aroseOf new libation? Did you only knowWhat happened! Little wonder I am drunk."

"After that,—Well, it either was the cup

To the Good Genius, our concluding pledge,

That wrought me mischief, decently unmixed,—

Or, what if, whenthathappened, need arose

Of new libation? Did you only know

What happened! Little wonder I am drunk."

Euthukles, o'er the boat-side, quick, what change,Watch, in the water! But a second since,It laughed a ripply spread of sun and sea,Say fused with wave, to never disunite.Now, sudden all the surface, hard and black,Lies a quenched light, dead motion: What the cause?Look up and lo, the menace of a cloudHas solemnized the sparkling, spoil the sport!Just so, some overshadow, some new careStopped all the mirth and mocking on his faceAnd left there only such a dark surmise—No wonder if the revel disappeared,So did his face shed silence every side!I recognized a new man fronting me.

Euthukles, o'er the boat-side, quick, what change,

Watch, in the water! But a second since,

It laughed a ripply spread of sun and sea,

Say fused with wave, to never disunite.

Now, sudden all the surface, hard and black,

Lies a quenched light, dead motion: What the cause?

Look up and lo, the menace of a cloud

Has solemnized the sparkling, spoil the sport!

Just so, some overshadow, some new care

Stopped all the mirth and mocking on his face

And left there only such a dark surmise

—No wonder if the revel disappeared,

So did his face shed silence every side!

I recognized a new man fronting me.

"So!" he smiled, piercing to my thought at once,"You see myself? Balaustion's fixed regardCan strip the proper AristophanesOf what our sophists, in their jargon, styleHis accidents? My soul sped forth but nowTo meet your hostile survey,—soul unseen,Yet veritably cinct for soul-defenceWith satyr sportive quips, cranks, boss and spike,Just as my visible body paced the street,Environed by a boon companionshipYour apparition also puts to flight.Well, what care I, if, unaccoutred twice,I front my foe—no comicalityRound soul, and body-guard in banishment?Thank your eyes' searching, undisguised I stand:The merest female child may question me.Spare not, speak bold, Balaustion!"

"So!" he smiled, piercing to my thought at once,

"You see myself? Balaustion's fixed regard

Can strip the proper Aristophanes

Of what our sophists, in their jargon, style

His accidents? My soul sped forth but now

To meet your hostile survey,—soul unseen,

Yet veritably cinct for soul-defence

With satyr sportive quips, cranks, boss and spike,

Just as my visible body paced the street,

Environed by a boon companionship

Your apparition also puts to flight.

Well, what care I, if, unaccoutred twice,

I front my foe—no comicality

Round soul, and body-guard in banishment?

Thank your eyes' searching, undisguised I stand:

The merest female child may question me.

Spare not, speak bold, Balaustion!"

I did speak:

"Bold speech be—welcome to this honored hearth,Good Genius! Glory of the poet, glowO' the humorist who castigates his kind,Suave summer-lightning lambency which playsOn stag-horned tree, misshapen crag askew,Then vanishes with unvindictive smileAfter a moment's laying black earth bare.Splendor of wit that springs a thunderball—Satire—to burn and purify the world,True aim, fair purpose: just wit justly strikesInjustice,—right, as rightly quells the wrong,Finds out in knaves', fools', cowards' armoryThe tricky tinselled place fire flashes through,No damage else, sagacious of true ore;Wit, learned in the laurel, leaves each wreathO'er lyric shell or tragic barbiton,—Though alien gauds be singed,—undesecrate,The genuine solace of the sacred brow.Ay, and how pulses flame a patriot-starSteadfast athwart our country's night of things,To beacon, would she trust no meteor-blaze,Athenai from the rock she steers for straight!O light, light, light, I hail light everywhere,No matter for the murk that was,—perchance,That will be,—certes, never should have beenSuch orb's associate!

"Bold speech be—welcome to this honored hearth,

Good Genius! Glory of the poet, glow

O' the humorist who castigates his kind,

Suave summer-lightning lambency which plays

On stag-horned tree, misshapen crag askew,

Then vanishes with unvindictive smile

After a moment's laying black earth bare.

Splendor of wit that springs a thunderball—

Satire—to burn and purify the world,

True aim, fair purpose: just wit justly strikes

Injustice,—right, as rightly quells the wrong,

Finds out in knaves', fools', cowards' armory

The tricky tinselled place fire flashes through,

No damage else, sagacious of true ore;

Wit, learned in the laurel, leaves each wreath

O'er lyric shell or tragic barbiton,—

Though alien gauds be singed,—undesecrate,

The genuine solace of the sacred brow.

Ay, and how pulses flame a patriot-star

Steadfast athwart our country's night of things,

To beacon, would she trust no meteor-blaze,

Athenai from the rock she steers for straight!

O light, light, light, I hail light everywhere,

No matter for the murk that was,—perchance,

That will be,—certes, never should have been

Such orb's associate!

"Aristophanes!'The merest female child may question you?'Once, in my Rhodes, a portent of the waveAppalled our coast: for many a darkened day,Intolerable mystery and fear.Who snatched a furtive glance through crannied peak,Could but report of snake-scale, lizard-limb,—So swam what, making whirlpools as it went,Madded the brine with wrath or monstrous sport.''T is Tuphon, loose, unmanacled from mount.'Declared the priests, 'no way appeasableUnless perchance by virgin-sacrifice!'Thus grew the terror and o'erhung the doom—Until one eve a certain female-childStrayed in safe ignorance to seacoast edge,And there sat down and sang to please herself.When all at once, large-looming from his wave,Out leaned, chin hand-propped, pensive on the ledge,A sea-worn face, sad as mortality,Divine with yearning after fellowship.He rose but breast-high. So much god she saw;So much she sees now, and does reverence!"

"Aristophanes!

'The merest female child may question you?'

Once, in my Rhodes, a portent of the wave

Appalled our coast: for many a darkened day,

Intolerable mystery and fear.

Who snatched a furtive glance through crannied peak,

Could but report of snake-scale, lizard-limb,—

So swam what, making whirlpools as it went,

Madded the brine with wrath or monstrous sport.

''T is Tuphon, loose, unmanacled from mount.'

Declared the priests, 'no way appeasable

Unless perchance by virgin-sacrifice!'

Thus grew the terror and o'erhung the doom—

Until one eve a certain female-child

Strayed in safe ignorance to seacoast edge,

And there sat down and sang to please herself.

When all at once, large-looming from his wave,

Out leaned, chin hand-propped, pensive on the ledge,

A sea-worn face, sad as mortality,

Divine with yearning after fellowship.

He rose but breast-high. So much god she saw;

So much she sees now, and does reverence!"

Ah, but there followed tail-splash, frisk of fin!Let cloud pass, the sea's ready laugh outbreaks.No very godlike trace retained the mouthWhich mocked with—

Ah, but there followed tail-splash, frisk of fin!

Let cloud pass, the sea's ready laugh outbreaks.

No very godlike trace retained the mouth

Which mocked with—

"So, He taught you tragedy!I always asked 'Why may not women act?'Nay, wear the comic visor just as well;Or, better, quite cast off the face-disguiseAnd voice-distortion, simply look and speak,Real women playing women as men—men!I shall not wonder if things come to that,Some day when I am distant far enough.Do you conceive the quite new ComedyWhen laws allow? laws only let girls dance,Pipe, posture,—above all, Elaphionize,Provided they keep decent—that is, dumb.Ay, and, conceiving, I would execute,Had I but two lives: one were overworked!How penetrate encrusted prejudice,Pierce ignorance three generations thickSince first Sousarion crossed our boundary?He battered with a big Megaric stone;Chionides felled oak and rough-hewed thenceThis club I wield now, having spent my lifeIn planing knobs and sticking studs to shine;Somebody else must try mere polished steel!"

"So, He taught you tragedy!

I always asked 'Why may not women act?'

Nay, wear the comic visor just as well;

Or, better, quite cast off the face-disguise

And voice-distortion, simply look and speak,

Real women playing women as men—men!

I shall not wonder if things come to that,

Some day when I am distant far enough.

Do you conceive the quite new Comedy

When laws allow? laws only let girls dance,

Pipe, posture,—above all, Elaphionize,

Provided they keep decent—that is, dumb.

Ay, and, conceiving, I would execute,

Had I but two lives: one were overworked!

How penetrate encrusted prejudice,

Pierce ignorance three generations thick

Since first Sousarion crossed our boundary?

He battered with a big Megaric stone;

Chionides felled oak and rough-hewed thence

This club I wield now, having spent my life

In planing knobs and sticking studs to shine;

Somebody else must try mere polished steel!"

Emboldened by the sober mood's return,"Meanwhile," said I, "since planed and studded clubOnce more has pashed competitors to dust,And poet proves triumphant with that playEuthukles found last year unfortunate,—Does triumph spring from smoothness still more smoothed,Fresh studs sown thick and threefold? In plain words,Have you exchanged brute-blows,—which teach the bruteMan may surpass him in brutality,—For human fighting, or true god-like forceWhich breathes persuasion nor needs fight at all?Have you essayed attacking ignorance,Convicting folly, by their opposites,Knowledge and wisdom? not by yours for ours,Fresh ignorance and folly, new for old,Greater for less, your crime for our mistake!If so success at last have crowned desert,Bringing surprise (dashed haply by concernAt your discovery such wild waste of strength—And what strength!—went so long to keep in vogueSuch warfare—and what warfare!—shamed so fast,So soon made obsolete, as fell their foeBy the first arrow native to the orb,First onslaught worthy Aristophanes)—Was this conviction's entry that same strange'Something that happened' to confound your feast?"

Emboldened by the sober mood's return,

"Meanwhile," said I, "since planed and studded club

Once more has pashed competitors to dust,

And poet proves triumphant with that play

Euthukles found last year unfortunate,—

Does triumph spring from smoothness still more smoothed,

Fresh studs sown thick and threefold? In plain words,

Have you exchanged brute-blows,—which teach the brute

Man may surpass him in brutality,—

For human fighting, or true god-like force

Which breathes persuasion nor needs fight at all?

Have you essayed attacking ignorance,

Convicting folly, by their opposites,

Knowledge and wisdom? not by yours for ours,

Fresh ignorance and folly, new for old,

Greater for less, your crime for our mistake!

If so success at last have crowned desert,

Bringing surprise (dashed haply by concern

At your discovery such wild waste of strength

—And what strength!—went so long to keep in vogue

Such warfare—and what warfare!—shamed so fast,

So soon made obsolete, as fell their foe

By the first arrow native to the orb,

First onslaught worthy Aristophanes)—

Was this conviction's entry that same strange

'Something that happened' to confound your feast?"

"Ah, did he witness then my play that failed,First 'Thesmophoriazousai'? Well and good!But did he also see—your Euthukles—My 'Grasshoppers,' which followed and failed too,Three months since, at the 'Little-in-the-Fields'?"

"Ah, did he witness then my play that failed,

First 'Thesmophoriazousai'? Well and good!

But did he also see—your Euthukles—

My 'Grasshoppers,' which followed and failed too,

Three months since, at the 'Little-in-the-Fields'?"

"To say that he did see that First—should sayHe never cared to see its following."

"To say that he did see that First—should say

He never cared to see its following."

"There happens to be reason why I wroteFirst play and second also. Ask the cause!I warrant you receive, ere talk be done,Fit answer, authorizing either act.But here 's the point: as Euthukles made vowNever again to taste my quality,So I was minded next experimentShould tickle palate—yea, of Euthukles!Not by such utter change, such absoluteA topsyturvy of stage-habitudeAs you and he want,—Comedy built fresh,By novel brick and mortar, base to roof,—No, for I stand too near and look too close!Pleasure and pastime yours, spectators brave,Should I turn art's fixed fabric upside down!Little you guess how such tough work tasks soul!Not overtasks, though: give fit strength fair play,And strength 's a demiourgos! Art renewed?Ay, in some closet where strength shuts out—firstThe friendly faces, sympathetic cheer:'More of the old provision, none suppliesSo bounteously as thou,—our love, our pride,Our author of the many a perfect piece!Stick to that standard, change were decadence!Next, the unfriendly: 'This time, strain will tire,He 's fresh, Ameipsias thy antagonist!'—Or better, in some Salaminian caveWhere sky and sea and solitude make earthAnd man and noise one insignificance,Let strength propose itself,—behind the world,—Sole prize worth winning, work that satisfiesStrength it has dared and done strength's uttermost!After which,—clap-to closet and quit cave,—Strength may conclude in Archelaos' court,And yet esteem the silken companySo much sky-scud, sea-froth, earth-thistledown,For aught their praise or blame should joy or grieve.Strength amid crowds as late in solitudeMay lead the still life, ply the wordless task:Then only, when seems need to move or speak,Moving—for due respect, when statesmen pass,(Strength, in the closet, watched how spiders spin!)Speaking—when fashion shows intelligence,(Strength, in the cave, oft whistled to the gulls!)In short, has learnt first, practised afterwards!Despise the world and reverence yourself,—Why, you may unmake things and remake things,And throw behind you, unconcerned enough,What 's made or marred: 'you teach men, are not taught!'So marches off the stage Euripides!

"There happens to be reason why I wrote

First play and second also. Ask the cause!

I warrant you receive, ere talk be done,

Fit answer, authorizing either act.

But here 's the point: as Euthukles made vow

Never again to taste my quality,

So I was minded next experiment

Should tickle palate—yea, of Euthukles!

Not by such utter change, such absolute

A topsyturvy of stage-habitude

As you and he want,—Comedy built fresh,

By novel brick and mortar, base to roof,—

No, for I stand too near and look too close!

Pleasure and pastime yours, spectators brave,

Should I turn art's fixed fabric upside down!

Little you guess how such tough work tasks soul!

Not overtasks, though: give fit strength fair play,

And strength 's a demiourgos! Art renewed?

Ay, in some closet where strength shuts out—first

The friendly faces, sympathetic cheer:

'More of the old provision, none supplies

So bounteously as thou,—our love, our pride,

Our author of the many a perfect piece!

Stick to that standard, change were decadence!

Next, the unfriendly: 'This time, strain will tire,

He 's fresh, Ameipsias thy antagonist!'

—Or better, in some Salaminian cave

Where sky and sea and solitude make earth

And man and noise one insignificance,

Let strength propose itself,—behind the world,—

Sole prize worth winning, work that satisfies

Strength it has dared and done strength's uttermost!

After which,—clap-to closet and quit cave,—

Strength may conclude in Archelaos' court,

And yet esteem the silken company

So much sky-scud, sea-froth, earth-thistledown,

For aught their praise or blame should joy or grieve.

Strength amid crowds as late in solitude

May lead the still life, ply the wordless task:

Then only, when seems need to move or speak,

Moving—for due respect, when statesmen pass,

(Strength, in the closet, watched how spiders spin!)

Speaking—when fashion shows intelligence,

(Strength, in the cave, oft whistled to the gulls!)

In short, has learnt first, practised afterwards!

Despise the world and reverence yourself,—

Why, you may unmake things and remake things,

And throw behind you, unconcerned enough,

What 's made or marred: 'you teach men, are not taught!'

So marches off the stage Euripides!

"No such thin fare feeds flesh and blood like mine,No such faint fume of fancy sates my soul,No such seclusion, closet, cave or court,Suits either: give me IostephanosWorth making happy what coarse way she will—O happy-maker, when her cries increaseAbout the favorite! 'Aristophanes!More grist to mill, here 's Kleophon to grind!He's for refusing peace, though Sparté cedeEven Dekeleia! Here 's KleonumosDeclaring—though he threw away his shield,He 'll thrash you till you lay your lyre aside!Orestes bids mind where you walk of nights—He wants your cloak as you his cudgelling.Here 's, finally, Melanthios fat with fish,The gormandizer-spendthrift-dramatist!So, bustle! Pounce on opportunity!Let fun a-screaming in Parabasis,Find food for folk agape at either end,Mad for amusement! Times grow better too,And should they worsen, why, who laughs, forgets.In no ease, venture boy-experiments!Old wine 's the wine: new poetry drinks raw:Two plays a season is your pledge, beside;So, give us "Wasps" again, grown hornets mow!'"

"No such thin fare feeds flesh and blood like mine,

No such faint fume of fancy sates my soul,

No such seclusion, closet, cave or court,

Suits either: give me Iostephanos

Worth making happy what coarse way she will—

O happy-maker, when her cries increase

About the favorite! 'Aristophanes!

More grist to mill, here 's Kleophon to grind!

He's for refusing peace, though Sparté cede

Even Dekeleia! Here 's Kleonumos

Declaring—though he threw away his shield,

He 'll thrash you till you lay your lyre aside!

Orestes bids mind where you walk of nights—

He wants your cloak as you his cudgelling.

Here 's, finally, Melanthios fat with fish,

The gormandizer-spendthrift-dramatist!

So, bustle! Pounce on opportunity!

Let fun a-screaming in Parabasis,

Find food for folk agape at either end,

Mad for amusement! Times grow better too,

And should they worsen, why, who laughs, forgets.

In no ease, venture boy-experiments!

Old wine 's the wine: new poetry drinks raw:

Two plays a season is your pledge, beside;

So, give us "Wasps" again, grown hornets mow!'"

Then he changed.

"Do you so detect in me—Brow-bald, chin-bearded, me, curved cheek, carved lip,Or where soul sits and reigns in either eye—What suits the—stigma, I say,—style say you,Of 'Wine-lees-poet'? Bravest of buffoons,Less blunt, than Telekleides, less obsceneThan Murtilos, Hermippos: quite a matchIn elegance for Eupolis himself,Yet pungent as Kratinos at his best?Graced with traditional immunityEver since, much about my grandsire's time,Some funny village-man in Megara,Lout-lord and clown-king, used a privilege,As due religious drinking-bouts came round,To daub his phiz,—no, that was afterward,—He merely mounted cart with mates of choiceAnd traversed country, taking house by house,At night,—because of danger in the freak,—Then hollaed 'Skin-flint starves his laborers!Clench-fist stows figs away, cheats government!Such an one likes to kiss his neighbor's wife,And beat his own; while such another ... Boh!'Soon came the broad day, circumstantial tale,Dancing and verse, and there 's our Comedy,There's Mullos, there 's Euetes, there 's the stockI shall be proud to graft my powers upon!Protected? Punished quite as certainlyWhen Archons pleased to lay down each his law,—Your Morucheides-Surakosios sort,—Each season, 'No more naming citizens,Only abuse the vice, the vicious spare!Observe, henceforth no AreopagiteDemean his rank by writing Comedy!'(They one and all could write the 'Clouds' of course.)'Needs must we nick expenditure, allowComedy half a choros, supper—none,Times being hard, while applicants increaseFor, what costs cash, the Tragic Trilogy.'Lofty Tragedians! How they lounge aloofEach with his Triad, three plays to my one,Not counting the contemptuous fourth, the frankConcession to mere mortal levity,Satyric pittance tossed our beggar-world!Your proud Euripides from first to lastDoled out some five such, never deigned us more!And these—what curds and whey for marrowy wine!That same Alkestis you so rave aboutPassed muster with him for a Satyr-play,The prig!—why trifle time with toys and skitsWhen he could stuff four ragbags sausage-wiseWith sophistry, with bookish odds and ends,Sokrates, meteors, moonshine, 'Life 's not Life,''The tongue swore, but unsworn the mind remains,'And fifty such concoctions, crabtree-fruitDigested while, head low and heels in heaven,He lay, let Comics laugh—for privilege!Looked puzzled on, or pityingly off,But never dreamed of paying gibe by jeer,Buffet by blow: plenty of proverb-pokesAt vice and folly, wicked kings, mad mobs!No sign of wincing at my Comic lash,No protest against infamous abuse,Malignant censure,—naught to prove I scourgedWith tougher thong-than leek-and-onion-plait!If ever he glanced gloom, aggrieved at all,The aggriever must be—Aischulos perhaps:Or Sophokles he 'd take exception to.—Do you detect in me—in me, I ask,The man like to accept this measurementOf faculty, contentedly sit classedMere Comic Poet—since I wrote 'The Birds'?"

"Do you so detect in me—

Brow-bald, chin-bearded, me, curved cheek, carved lip,

Or where soul sits and reigns in either eye—

What suits the—stigma, I say,—style say you,

Of 'Wine-lees-poet'? Bravest of buffoons,

Less blunt, than Telekleides, less obscene

Than Murtilos, Hermippos: quite a match

In elegance for Eupolis himself,

Yet pungent as Kratinos at his best?

Graced with traditional immunity

Ever since, much about my grandsire's time,

Some funny village-man in Megara,

Lout-lord and clown-king, used a privilege,

As due religious drinking-bouts came round,

To daub his phiz,—no, that was afterward,—

He merely mounted cart with mates of choice

And traversed country, taking house by house,

At night,—because of danger in the freak,—

Then hollaed 'Skin-flint starves his laborers!

Clench-fist stows figs away, cheats government!

Such an one likes to kiss his neighbor's wife,

And beat his own; while such another ... Boh!'

Soon came the broad day, circumstantial tale,

Dancing and verse, and there 's our Comedy,

There's Mullos, there 's Euetes, there 's the stock

I shall be proud to graft my powers upon!

Protected? Punished quite as certainly

When Archons pleased to lay down each his law,—

Your Morucheides-Surakosios sort,—

Each season, 'No more naming citizens,

Only abuse the vice, the vicious spare!

Observe, henceforth no Areopagite

Demean his rank by writing Comedy!'

(They one and all could write the 'Clouds' of course.)

'Needs must we nick expenditure, allow

Comedy half a choros, supper—none,

Times being hard, while applicants increase

For, what costs cash, the Tragic Trilogy.'

Lofty Tragedians! How they lounge aloof

Each with his Triad, three plays to my one,

Not counting the contemptuous fourth, the frank

Concession to mere mortal levity,

Satyric pittance tossed our beggar-world!

Your proud Euripides from first to last

Doled out some five such, never deigned us more!

And these—what curds and whey for marrowy wine!

That same Alkestis you so rave about

Passed muster with him for a Satyr-play,

The prig!—why trifle time with toys and skits

When he could stuff four ragbags sausage-wise

With sophistry, with bookish odds and ends,

Sokrates, meteors, moonshine, 'Life 's not Life,'

'The tongue swore, but unsworn the mind remains,'

And fifty such concoctions, crabtree-fruit

Digested while, head low and heels in heaven,

He lay, let Comics laugh—for privilege!

Looked puzzled on, or pityingly off,

But never dreamed of paying gibe by jeer,

Buffet by blow: plenty of proverb-pokes

At vice and folly, wicked kings, mad mobs!

No sign of wincing at my Comic lash,

No protest against infamous abuse,

Malignant censure,—naught to prove I scourged

With tougher thong-than leek-and-onion-plait!

If ever he glanced gloom, aggrieved at all,

The aggriever must be—Aischulos perhaps:

Or Sophokles he 'd take exception to.

—Do you detect in me—in me, I ask,

The man like to accept this measurement

Of faculty, contentedly sit classed

Mere Comic Poet—since I wrote 'The Birds'?"

I thought there might lurk truth in jest's disguise.

"Thanks!" he resumed, so quick to construe smile!"I answered—in my mind—these gapers thus:Since old wine 's ripe and new verse raw, you judge—What if I vary vintage-mode and mixBlossom with must, give nosegay to the brew,Fining, refining, gently, surely, tillThe educated taste turns unawaresFrom customary dregs to draught divine?Then answered—with my lips: More 'Wasps' you want?Come next year and I give you 'Grasshoppers'!And 'Grasshoppers' I gave them,—last month's play.They formed the Choros. Alkibiades,No longer Triphales but Trilophos,(Whom I called Darling-of-the-Summertime,Born to be nothing else but beautifulAnd brave, to eat, drink, love his life away)Persuades the Tettix (our Autochthon-brood,That sip the dew and sing on olive-branchAbove the ant-and-emmet populace)To summon all who meadow, hill and daleInhabit—bee, wasp, woodlouse, dragonfly—To band themselves against red nipper-noseStagbeetle, huge Taügetan (you guess—Sparté) Athenai needs must battle with,Because her sons are grown effeminateTo that degree—so morbifies their fleshThe poison-drama of Euripides,Morals and music—there 's no antidoteOccurs save warfare which inspirits blood,And brings us back perchance the blessed timeWhen (Choros takes up tale) our commonaltyFirm in primeval virtue, antique faith,Ere earwig-sophist plagued or pismire-sage,Cockered no noddle up with A, b, g,Book-learning, logic-chopping, and the moon,But just employed their brains on "Ruppapai,Row, boys, munch barley-bread, and take your ease—Mindful, however, of the tier beneath!'Ah, golden epoch! while the nobler sort(Such needs must study, no contesting that!)Wore no long curls but used to crop their hair,Gathered the tunic well about the ham,Remembering 't was soft sand they used for seatAt school-time, while—mark this—the lesson long,No learner ever dared to cross his legs!Then, if you bade him take the myrtle-boughAnd sing for supper—'t was some grave romauntHow man of Mitulené, wondrous wise,Jumped into hedge, by mortals quickset called,And there, anticipating Oidipous,Scratched out his eyes and scratched them in again.None of your Phaidras, Augés, Kanakés,To mincing music, turn, trill, tweedle-trash,Whence comes that Marathon is obsolete!Next, my Antistrophé was—praise of Peace:Ah, could our people know what Peace implies!Home to the farm and furrow! Grub one's vine,Romp with one's Thratta, pretty serving-girl.When wifie 's busy bathing! Eat and drink.And drink and eat, what else is good in life?Slice hare, toss pancake, gayly gurgle downThe Thasian grape in celebration dueOf Bacchos! Welcome, dear domestic rite,When wife and sons and daughters, Thratta too,Pour pea-soup as we chant delectablyIn Bacchos reels, his tunic at his heels!Enough, you comprehend,—I do at least!Then,—be but patient,—the Parabasis!Pray! For in that I also pushed reform.None of the self-laudation, vulgar brag,Vainglorious rivals cultivate so much!No! If some merest word in Art's defenceJustice demanded of me,—never fear!Claim was preferred, but dignifiedly.A cricket asked a locust (winged, you know)What he had seen most rare in foreign parts?'I have flown far,' chirped he, 'North, East, South, West,And nowhere heard of poet worth a figIf matched with Bald-head here, Aigina's boast,Who in this play bids rivalry despairPast, present, and to come, so marvellousHis Tragic, Comic, Lyric excellence!Whereof the fit reward were (not to speakOf dinner every day at public costI' the Prutaneion) supper with yourselves,My Public, best dish offered bravest bard!'No more! no sort of sin against good taste!Then, satire,—Oh, a plain necessity!But I won't tell you: for—could I dispenseWith one more gird at old Ariphrades?How scorpion-like he feeds on human flesh—Ever finds out some novel infamyUnutterable, inconceivable,Which all the greater need was to describeMinutely, each tail-twist at ink-shed time ...Now, what 's your gesture caused by? What you loathe,Don't I loathe doubly, else why take such painsTo tell it you? But keep your prejudice!My audience justified you! Housebreakers!This pattern-purity was played and failedLast Rural Dionusia—failed! for why?Ameipsias followed with the genuine stuff.He had been mindful to engage the Four—Karkinos and his dwarf-crab-family—Father and sons, they whirled like spinning-tops,Choros gigantically poked his fun,The boys' frank laugh relaxed the seniors' brow,The skies re-echoed victory's acclaim,Ameipsias gained his due, I got my doseOf wisdom for the future. Purity?No more of that next month, Athenai mine!Contrive new cut of robe who will,—I patchThe old exomis, add no purple sleeve!The Thesmophoriazousai, smartened upWith certain plaits, shall please, I promise you!

"Thanks!" he resumed, so quick to construe smile!

"I answered—in my mind—these gapers thus:

Since old wine 's ripe and new verse raw, you judge—

What if I vary vintage-mode and mix

Blossom with must, give nosegay to the brew,

Fining, refining, gently, surely, till

The educated taste turns unawares

From customary dregs to draught divine?

Then answered—with my lips: More 'Wasps' you want?

Come next year and I give you 'Grasshoppers'!

And 'Grasshoppers' I gave them,—last month's play.

They formed the Choros. Alkibiades,

No longer Triphales but Trilophos,

(Whom I called Darling-of-the-Summertime,

Born to be nothing else but beautiful

And brave, to eat, drink, love his life away)

Persuades the Tettix (our Autochthon-brood,

That sip the dew and sing on olive-branch

Above the ant-and-emmet populace)

To summon all who meadow, hill and dale

Inhabit—bee, wasp, woodlouse, dragonfly—

To band themselves against red nipper-nose

Stagbeetle, huge Taügetan (you guess—

Sparté) Athenai needs must battle with,

Because her sons are grown effeminate

To that degree—so morbifies their flesh

The poison-drama of Euripides,

Morals and music—there 's no antidote

Occurs save warfare which inspirits blood,

And brings us back perchance the blessed time

When (Choros takes up tale) our commonalty

Firm in primeval virtue, antique faith,

Ere earwig-sophist plagued or pismire-sage,

Cockered no noddle up with A, b, g,

Book-learning, logic-chopping, and the moon,

But just employed their brains on "Ruppapai,

Row, boys, munch barley-bread, and take your ease—

Mindful, however, of the tier beneath!'

Ah, golden epoch! while the nobler sort

(Such needs must study, no contesting that!)

Wore no long curls but used to crop their hair,

Gathered the tunic well about the ham,

Remembering 't was soft sand they used for seat

At school-time, while—mark this—the lesson long,

No learner ever dared to cross his legs!

Then, if you bade him take the myrtle-bough

And sing for supper—'t was some grave romaunt

How man of Mitulené, wondrous wise,

Jumped into hedge, by mortals quickset called,

And there, anticipating Oidipous,

Scratched out his eyes and scratched them in again.

None of your Phaidras, Augés, Kanakés,

To mincing music, turn, trill, tweedle-trash,

Whence comes that Marathon is obsolete!

Next, my Antistrophé was—praise of Peace:

Ah, could our people know what Peace implies!

Home to the farm and furrow! Grub one's vine,

Romp with one's Thratta, pretty serving-girl.

When wifie 's busy bathing! Eat and drink.

And drink and eat, what else is good in life?

Slice hare, toss pancake, gayly gurgle down

The Thasian grape in celebration due

Of Bacchos! Welcome, dear domestic rite,

When wife and sons and daughters, Thratta too,

Pour pea-soup as we chant delectably

In Bacchos reels, his tunic at his heels!

Enough, you comprehend,—I do at least!

Then,—be but patient,—the Parabasis!

Pray! For in that I also pushed reform.

None of the self-laudation, vulgar brag,

Vainglorious rivals cultivate so much!

No! If some merest word in Art's defence

Justice demanded of me,—never fear!

Claim was preferred, but dignifiedly.

A cricket asked a locust (winged, you know)

What he had seen most rare in foreign parts?

'I have flown far,' chirped he, 'North, East, South, West,

And nowhere heard of poet worth a fig

If matched with Bald-head here, Aigina's boast,

Who in this play bids rivalry despair

Past, present, and to come, so marvellous

His Tragic, Comic, Lyric excellence!

Whereof the fit reward were (not to speak

Of dinner every day at public cost

I' the Prutaneion) supper with yourselves,

My Public, best dish offered bravest bard!'

No more! no sort of sin against good taste!

Then, satire,—Oh, a plain necessity!

But I won't tell you: for—could I dispense

With one more gird at old Ariphrades?

How scorpion-like he feeds on human flesh—

Ever finds out some novel infamy

Unutterable, inconceivable,

Which all the greater need was to describe

Minutely, each tail-twist at ink-shed time ...

Now, what 's your gesture caused by? What you loathe,

Don't I loathe doubly, else why take such pains

To tell it you? But keep your prejudice!

My audience justified you! Housebreakers!

This pattern-purity was played and failed

Last Rural Dionusia—failed! for why?

Ameipsias followed with the genuine stuff.

He had been mindful to engage the Four—

Karkinos and his dwarf-crab-family—

Father and sons, they whirled like spinning-tops,

Choros gigantically poked his fun,

The boys' frank laugh relaxed the seniors' brow,

The skies re-echoed victory's acclaim,

Ameipsias gained his due, I got my dose

Of wisdom for the future. Purity?

No more of that next month, Athenai mine!

Contrive new cut of robe who will,—I patch

The old exomis, add no purple sleeve!

The Thesmophoriazousai, smartened up

With certain plaits, shall please, I promise you!

"Yes, I took up the play that failed last year,And re-arranged things; threw adroitly in—No Parachoregema—men to matchMy women there already; and when these(I had a hit at Aristullos here,His plan how womankind should rule the roast)Drove men to plough—'A-field, ye cribbed of cape!'Men showed themselves exempt from service straightStupendously, till all the boys cried 'Brave!'Then for the elders, I bethought me too,Improved upon Mnesilochos' releaseFrom the old bowman, board and binding-strap:I made his son-in-law EuripidesEngage to put both shrewish wives away—'Gravity,' one, the other 'Sophist-lore'—And mate with the Bald Bard's hetairai twain—'Goodhumor' and 'Indulgence:' on they tripped,Murrhiné, Akalanthis,—'beautifulTheir whole belongings'—crowd joined choros there!And while the Toxotes wound up his partBy shower of nuts and sweetmeats on the mob,The woman-choros celebrated NewKalligeneia, the frank last-day rite.Brief, I was chairéd and caressed and crownedAnd the whole theatre broke out a-roar,Echoed my admonition—choros-cap—Rivals of mine, your hands to your faces!Summon no more the Muses, the Graces,Since here by my side they have chosen their places!And so we all flocked merrily to feast,—I, my choragos, choros, actors, mutesAnd flutes aforesaid, friends in crowd, no fear,At the Priest's supper; and hilarityGrew none the less that, early in the piece,Ran a report, from row to row close-packed,Of messenger's arrival at the PortWith weighty tidings, 'Of Lusandros' flight,'Opined one; 'That Euboia penitentSends the Confederation fifty ships,'Preferred another; while 'The Great King's EyeHas brought a present for Elaphion here,That rarest peacock Kompolakuthes!'Such was the supposition of a third.'No matter what the news,' friend Strattis laughed,'It won't be worse for waiting: while each clickOf the klepsudra sets a shaking graveResentment in our shark's-head, boiled and spoiledBy this time: dished in Sphettian vinegar,Silphion and honey, served with cocks'-brain-sauce!So, swift to supper, Poet! No mistake,This play; nor, like the unflavored "Grasshoppers,"Salt without thyme!' Right merrily we supped,Till—something happened.

"Yes, I took up the play that failed last year,

And re-arranged things; threw adroitly in—

No Parachoregema—men to match

My women there already; and when these

(I had a hit at Aristullos here,

His plan how womankind should rule the roast)

Drove men to plough—'A-field, ye cribbed of cape!'

Men showed themselves exempt from service straight

Stupendously, till all the boys cried 'Brave!'

Then for the elders, I bethought me too,

Improved upon Mnesilochos' release

From the old bowman, board and binding-strap:

I made his son-in-law Euripides

Engage to put both shrewish wives away—

'Gravity,' one, the other 'Sophist-lore'—

And mate with the Bald Bard's hetairai twain—

'Goodhumor' and 'Indulgence:' on they tripped,

Murrhiné, Akalanthis,—'beautiful

Their whole belongings'—crowd joined choros there!

And while the Toxotes wound up his part

By shower of nuts and sweetmeats on the mob,

The woman-choros celebrated New

Kalligeneia, the frank last-day rite.

Brief, I was chairéd and caressed and crowned

And the whole theatre broke out a-roar,

Echoed my admonition—choros-cap—

Rivals of mine, your hands to your faces!

Summon no more the Muses, the Graces,

Since here by my side they have chosen their places!

And so we all flocked merrily to feast,—

I, my choragos, choros, actors, mutes

And flutes aforesaid, friends in crowd, no fear,

At the Priest's supper; and hilarity

Grew none the less that, early in the piece,

Ran a report, from row to row close-packed,

Of messenger's arrival at the Port

With weighty tidings, 'Of Lusandros' flight,'

Opined one; 'That Euboia penitent

Sends the Confederation fifty ships,'

Preferred another; while 'The Great King's Eye

Has brought a present for Elaphion here,

That rarest peacock Kompolakuthes!'

Such was the supposition of a third.

'No matter what the news,' friend Strattis laughed,

'It won't be worse for waiting: while each click

Of the klepsudra sets a shaking grave

Resentment in our shark's-head, boiled and spoiled

By this time: dished in Sphettian vinegar,

Silphion and honey, served with cocks'-brain-sauce!

So, swift to supper, Poet! No mistake,

This play; nor, like the unflavored "Grasshoppers,"

Salt without thyme!' Right merrily we supped,

Till—something happened.

"Out it shall, at last!

"Mirth drew to ending, for the cup was crownedTo the Triumphant!' Kleonclapper erst,Now, Plier of a scourge EuripidesFairly turns tail from, flying AttikéFor Makedonia's rocks and frosts and bears,Where, furry grown, he growls to match the squeakOf girl-voiced, crocus-vested Agathon!Ha ha, he he!' When suddenly a knock—Sharp, solitary, cold, authoritative.

"Mirth drew to ending, for the cup was crowned

To the Triumphant!' Kleonclapper erst,

Now, Plier of a scourge Euripides

Fairly turns tail from, flying Attiké

For Makedonia's rocks and frosts and bears,

Where, furry grown, he growls to match the squeak

Of girl-voiced, crocus-vested Agathon!

Ha ha, he he!' When suddenly a knock—

Sharp, solitary, cold, authoritative.

"'Babaiax!Sokrates a-passing by,A-peering in, for Aristullos' sake,To put a question touching Comic Law?'"No! Enters an old pale-swathed majesty,Makes slow mute passage through two ranks as mute,(Strattis stood up with all the rest, the sneak!)Gray brow still bent on ground, upraised at lengthWhen, our Priest reached, full front the vision paused.

"'Babaiax!Sokrates a-passing by,

A-peering in, for Aristullos' sake,

To put a question touching Comic Law?'

"No! Enters an old pale-swathed majesty,

Makes slow mute passage through two ranks as mute,

(Strattis stood up with all the rest, the sneak!)

Gray brow still bent on ground, upraised at length

When, our Priest reached, full front the vision paused.

"'Priest!'—the deep tone succeeded the fixed gaze—'Thou carest that thy god have spectacleDecent and seemly; wherefore, I announceThat, since Euripides is dead to-day,My Choros, at the Greater Feast, next month,Shall, clothed in black, appear ungarlanded!'

"'Priest!'—the deep tone succeeded the fixed gaze—

'Thou carest that thy god have spectacle

Decent and seemly; wherefore, I announce

That, since Euripides is dead to-day,

My Choros, at the Greater Feast, next month,

Shall, clothed in black, appear ungarlanded!'

"Then the gray brow sank low, and SophoklesRe-swathed him, sweeping doorward: mutely passed'Twixt rows as mute, to mingle possiblyWith certain gods who convoy age to port;And night resumed him.

"Then the gray brow sank low, and Sophokles

Re-swathed him, sweeping doorward: mutely passed

'Twixt rows as mute, to mingle possibly

With certain gods who convoy age to port;

And night resumed him.

"When our stupor broke,Chirpings took courage, and grew audible.

"When our stupor broke,

Chirpings took courage, and grew audible.

"'Dead—so one speaks now of Euripides!''Ungarlanded dance Choros, did he say?I guess the reason: in extreme old ageNo doubt such have the gods for visitants.Why did he dedicate to HeraklesAn altar else, but that the god, turned Judge,Told him in dream who took the crown of gold?He who restored Akropolis the theft,Himself may feel perhaps a timely twingeAt thought of certain other crowns he filchedFrom—who now visits Herakles the Judge.Instance "Medeia"! that play yielded palmTo Sophokles; and he again—to whom?Euphorion! Why? Ask Herakles the Judge!''Ungarlanded, just means—economy!Suppress robes, chaplets, everything suppressExcept the poet's present! An old talePut capitally by Trugaios—eh?News from the world of transformation strange!How Sophokles is grown Simonides,And—aged, rotten—all the same, for greedWould venture on a hurdle out to sea!So jokes Philonides. KallistratosRetorts, Mistake! Instead of stinginess—The fact is, in extreme decrepitude,He has discarded poet and turned priest,Priest of Half-Hero Alkon: visitedIn his own house too by Asklepios' self,So he avers. Meanwhile, his own estateLies fallow; Iophon 's the manager,—Nay, touches up a play, brings out the same,Asserts true sonship. See to what you sinkAfter your dozen-dozen prodigies!Looking so old—Euripides seems young,Born ten years later.'

"'Dead—so one speaks now of Euripides!'

'Ungarlanded dance Choros, did he say?

I guess the reason: in extreme old age

No doubt such have the gods for visitants.

Why did he dedicate to Herakles

An altar else, but that the god, turned Judge,

Told him in dream who took the crown of gold?

He who restored Akropolis the theft,

Himself may feel perhaps a timely twinge

At thought of certain other crowns he filched

From—who now visits Herakles the Judge.

Instance "Medeia"! that play yielded palm

To Sophokles; and he again—to whom?

Euphorion! Why? Ask Herakles the Judge!'

'Ungarlanded, just means—economy!

Suppress robes, chaplets, everything suppress

Except the poet's present! An old tale

Put capitally by Trugaios—eh?

News from the world of transformation strange!

How Sophokles is grown Simonides,

And—aged, rotten—all the same, for greed

Would venture on a hurdle out to sea!

So jokes Philonides. Kallistratos

Retorts, Mistake! Instead of stinginess—

The fact is, in extreme decrepitude,

He has discarded poet and turned priest,

Priest of Half-Hero Alkon: visited

In his own house too by Asklepios' self,

So he avers. Meanwhile, his own estate

Lies fallow; Iophon 's the manager,—

Nay, touches up a play, brings out the same,

Asserts true sonship. See to what you sink

After your dozen-dozen prodigies!

Looking so old—Euripides seems young,

Born ten years later.'

"'Just his tricky style!Since, stealing first away, he wins first wordOut of good-natured rival Sophokles,Procures himself no bad panegyric.Had fate willed otherwise, himself were taxedTo pay survivor's-tribute,—harder squeezedFrom anybody beaten first to last,Than one who, steadily a conqueror,Finds that his magnanimity is taskedTo merely make pretence and—beat itself!'

"'Just his tricky style!

Since, stealing first away, he wins first word

Out of good-natured rival Sophokles,

Procures himself no bad panegyric.

Had fate willed otherwise, himself were taxed

To pay survivor's-tribute,—harder squeezed

From anybody beaten first to last,

Than one who, steadily a conqueror,

Finds that his magnanimity is tasked

To merely make pretence and—beat itself!'

"So chirped the feasters though suppressedly.

"But I—what else do you suppose?—had piercedQuite through friends' outside-straining, foes' mock-praise,And reached conviction hearted under all.Death's rapid line had closed a life's account,And cut off, left unalterably clearThe summed-up value of Euripides.

"But I—what else do you suppose?—had pierced

Quite through friends' outside-straining, foes' mock-praise,

And reached conviction hearted under all.

Death's rapid line had closed a life's account,

And cut off, left unalterably clear

The summed-up value of Euripides.

"Well, it might be the Thasian! CertainlyThere sang suggestive music in my ears;And, through—what sophists style—the wall of senseMy eyes pierced: death seemed life and life seemed death,Envisaged that way, now, which I, before,Conceived was just a moon-struck mood. Quite plainThere re-insisted,—ay, each prim stiff phraseOf each old play, my still-new laughing-stock,Had meaning, well worth poet's pains to state,Should life prove half true life's term,—death, the rest.As for the other question, late so large,Now all at once so little,—he or I,—Which better comprehended playwright craft,—There, too, old admonition took fresh point.As clear recurred our last word-interchangeTwo years since, when I tried with 'Ploutos.' 'Vain!'Saluted me the cold grave-bearded bard—'Vain, this late trial, Aristophanes!None balks the genius with impunity!You know what kind's the nobler, what makes graveOr what makes grin: there 's yet a nobler still,Possibly,—what makes wise, not grave,—and glad,Not grinning: whereby laughter joins with tears,Tragic and Comic Poet prove one power,And Aristophanes becomes our Fourth—Nay, greatest! Never needs the Art stand still,But those Art leans on lag, and none like you,Her strongest of supports, whose step asideUndoes the march: defection checks advanceToo late adventured! See the "Ploutos" here!This step decides your foot from old to new—Proves you relinquish song and dance and jest,Discard the beast, and, rising from all-fours,Fain would paint, manlike, actual human life,Make veritable men think, say and do.Here 's the conception: which to execute,Where 's force? Spent! Ere the race began, was breathO' the runner squandered' on each friendly fool—Wit-fireworks fizzed off while day craved no flame;How should the night receive her due of fireFlared out in Wasps and Horses, Clouds and Birds,Prodigiously a-crackle? Rest content!The new adventure for the novel manBorn to that next success myself foreseeIn right of where I reach before I rest.At end of a long course, straight all the way,Well may there tremble somewhat into kenThe untrod path, clouds veiled from earlier gaze!None may live two lives: I have lived mine through,Die where I first stand still. You retrograde.I leave my life's work.Icompete with you,My last with your last, my "Antiope"—"Phoinissai"—with this "Ploutos"? No, I think!Ever shall great and awful VictoryAccompany my life—in MaketisIf not Athenai. Take my farewell, friend!Friend,—for from no consummate excellenceLike yours, whatever fault may countervail,Do I profess estrangement: murk the marsh,Yet where a solitary marble blockBlanches the gloom, there let the eagle perch!You show—what splinters of Pentelikos,Islanded by what ordure! Eagles fly,Rest on the right place, thence depart as free;But 'ware man's footstep, would it traverse mireUntainted! Mire is safe for worms that crawl.'

"Well, it might be the Thasian! Certainly

There sang suggestive music in my ears;

And, through—what sophists style—the wall of sense

My eyes pierced: death seemed life and life seemed death,

Envisaged that way, now, which I, before,

Conceived was just a moon-struck mood. Quite plain

There re-insisted,—ay, each prim stiff phrase

Of each old play, my still-new laughing-stock,

Had meaning, well worth poet's pains to state,

Should life prove half true life's term,—death, the rest.

As for the other question, late so large,

Now all at once so little,—he or I,—

Which better comprehended playwright craft,—

There, too, old admonition took fresh point.

As clear recurred our last word-interchange

Two years since, when I tried with 'Ploutos.' 'Vain!'

Saluted me the cold grave-bearded bard—

'Vain, this late trial, Aristophanes!

None balks the genius with impunity!

You know what kind's the nobler, what makes grave

Or what makes grin: there 's yet a nobler still,

Possibly,—what makes wise, not grave,—and glad,

Not grinning: whereby laughter joins with tears,

Tragic and Comic Poet prove one power,

And Aristophanes becomes our Fourth—

Nay, greatest! Never needs the Art stand still,

But those Art leans on lag, and none like you,

Her strongest of supports, whose step aside

Undoes the march: defection checks advance

Too late adventured! See the "Ploutos" here!

This step decides your foot from old to new—

Proves you relinquish song and dance and jest,

Discard the beast, and, rising from all-fours,

Fain would paint, manlike, actual human life,

Make veritable men think, say and do.

Here 's the conception: which to execute,

Where 's force? Spent! Ere the race began, was breath

O' the runner squandered' on each friendly fool—

Wit-fireworks fizzed off while day craved no flame;

How should the night receive her due of fire

Flared out in Wasps and Horses, Clouds and Birds,

Prodigiously a-crackle? Rest content!

The new adventure for the novel man

Born to that next success myself foresee

In right of where I reach before I rest.

At end of a long course, straight all the way,

Well may there tremble somewhat into ken

The untrod path, clouds veiled from earlier gaze!

None may live two lives: I have lived mine through,

Die where I first stand still. You retrograde.

I leave my life's work.Icompete with you,

My last with your last, my "Antiope"—

"Phoinissai"—with this "Ploutos"? No, I think!

Ever shall great and awful Victory

Accompany my life—in Maketis

If not Athenai. Take my farewell, friend!

Friend,—for from no consummate excellence

Like yours, whatever fault may countervail,

Do I profess estrangement: murk the marsh,

Yet where a solitary marble block

Blanches the gloom, there let the eagle perch!

You show—what splinters of Pentelikos,

Islanded by what ordure! Eagles fly,

Rest on the right place, thence depart as free;

But 'ware man's footstep, would it traverse mire

Untainted! Mire is safe for worms that crawl.'

"Balaustion! Here are very many words,All to portray one moment's rush of thought,—And much they do it! Still, you understand.The Archon, the Feast-master, read their sumAnd substance, judged the banquet-glow extinct,So rose, discreetly if abruptly, crownedThe parting cup,—'To the Good Genius, then!'

"Balaustion! Here are very many words,

All to portray one moment's rush of thought,—

And much they do it! Still, you understand.

The Archon, the Feast-master, read their sum

And substance, judged the banquet-glow extinct,

So rose, discreetly if abruptly, crowned

The parting cup,—'To the Good Genius, then!'

"Up starts young Strattis for a final flash:'Ay, the Good Genius! To the Comic Muse,She who evolves superiority.Triumph and joy from sorrow, unsuccessAnd all that 's incomplete in human life;Who proves such actual failure transient wrong,Since out of body uncouth, halt and maimed—Since out of soul grotesque, corrupt or blank—Fancy, uplifted by the Muse, can flitTo soul and body, reinstate them Man:Beside which perfect man, how clear we seeDivergency from type was earth's effect!Escaping whence by laughter,—Fancy's feat,—We right man's wrong, establish true for false,—Above misshapen body, uncouth soul,Reach the fine form, the clear intelligence—Above unseemliness, reach decent law,—By laughter: attestation of the MuseThat low-and-ugsome is not signed and sealedIncontrovertibly man's portion here,Or, if here,—why, still high-and-fair existsIn that ethereal realm where laughs our soulLift by the Muse. Hail thou her ministrant!Hail who accepted no deformityIn man as normal and remediless,But rather pushed it to such gross extremeThat, outraged, we protest by eye's recoilThe opposite proves somewhere rule and law!Hail who implied, by limning Lamachos,Plenty and pastime wait on peace, not war!Philokleon—better bear a wrong than plead,Play the litigious fool to stuff the mouthOf dikast with the due three-obol fee!The Paphlagonian—stick to the old swayOf few and wise, not rabble-government!Trugaios, Pisthetairos, Strepsiades,—Why multiply examples? Hail, in fine,The hero of each painted monster—soSuggesting the unpictured perfect shape!Pour out! A laugh to Aristophanes!'

"Up starts young Strattis for a final flash:

'Ay, the Good Genius! To the Comic Muse,

She who evolves superiority.

Triumph and joy from sorrow, unsuccess

And all that 's incomplete in human life;

Who proves such actual failure transient wrong,

Since out of body uncouth, halt and maimed—

Since out of soul grotesque, corrupt or blank—

Fancy, uplifted by the Muse, can flit

To soul and body, reinstate them Man:

Beside which perfect man, how clear we see

Divergency from type was earth's effect!

Escaping whence by laughter,—Fancy's feat,—

We right man's wrong, establish true for false,—

Above misshapen body, uncouth soul,

Reach the fine form, the clear intelligence—

Above unseemliness, reach decent law,—

By laughter: attestation of the Muse

That low-and-ugsome is not signed and sealed

Incontrovertibly man's portion here,

Or, if here,—why, still high-and-fair exists

In that ethereal realm where laughs our soul

Lift by the Muse. Hail thou her ministrant!

Hail who accepted no deformity

In man as normal and remediless,

But rather pushed it to such gross extreme

That, outraged, we protest by eye's recoil

The opposite proves somewhere rule and law!

Hail who implied, by limning Lamachos,

Plenty and pastime wait on peace, not war!

Philokleon—better bear a wrong than plead,

Play the litigious fool to stuff the mouth

Of dikast with the due three-obol fee!

The Paphlagonian—stick to the old sway

Of few and wise, not rabble-government!

Trugaios, Pisthetairos, Strepsiades,—

Why multiply examples? Hail, in fine,

The hero of each painted monster—so

Suggesting the unpictured perfect shape!

Pour out! A laugh to Aristophanes!'

"'Stay, my fine Strattis'—and I stopped applause—'To the Good Genius—but the Tragic Muse!She who instructs her poet, bids man's soulPlay man's part merely nor attempt the gods'Ill-guessed of! Task humanity to height,Put passion to prime use, urge will, unshamedWhen will's last effort breaks in impotence!No power forego, elude: no weakness,—pliedFairly by power and will,—renounce, deny!Acknowledge, in such miscalled weakness, strengthLatent: and substitute thus things for words!Make man run life's race fairly,—legs and feet,Craving no false wings to o'erfly its length!Trust on, trust ever, trust to end—in truth!By truth of extreme passion, utmost will,Shame back all false display of either force—Barrier about such strenuous heat and glow,That cowardice shall shirk contending,—cant,Pretension, shrivel at truth's first approach!Pour to the Tragic Muse's ministrantWho, as he pictured pure Hippolutos,Abolished our earth's blot Ariphrades;Who, as he drew Bellerophon the bold,Proclaimed Kleonumos incredible;Who, as his Theseus towered up man once more,Made Alkibiades shrink boy again!A tear—no woman's tribute, weak exchangeFor action, water spent and heart's-blood saved—No man's regret for greatness gone, ungracedPerchance by even that poor meed, man's praise—But some god's superabundance of desire,Yearning of will to 'scape necessity,—Love's overbrimming for self-sacrifice,Whence good might be, which never else may be,By power displayed, forbidden this strait sphere,—Effort expressible one only way—Such tear from me fall to Euripides!'

"'Stay, my fine Strattis'—and I stopped applause—

'To the Good Genius—but the Tragic Muse!

She who instructs her poet, bids man's soul

Play man's part merely nor attempt the gods'

Ill-guessed of! Task humanity to height,

Put passion to prime use, urge will, unshamed

When will's last effort breaks in impotence!

No power forego, elude: no weakness,—plied

Fairly by power and will,—renounce, deny!

Acknowledge, in such miscalled weakness, strength

Latent: and substitute thus things for words!

Make man run life's race fairly,—legs and feet,

Craving no false wings to o'erfly its length!

Trust on, trust ever, trust to end—in truth!

By truth of extreme passion, utmost will,

Shame back all false display of either force—

Barrier about such strenuous heat and glow,

That cowardice shall shirk contending,—cant,

Pretension, shrivel at truth's first approach!

Pour to the Tragic Muse's ministrant

Who, as he pictured pure Hippolutos,

Abolished our earth's blot Ariphrades;

Who, as he drew Bellerophon the bold,

Proclaimed Kleonumos incredible;

Who, as his Theseus towered up man once more,

Made Alkibiades shrink boy again!

A tear—no woman's tribute, weak exchange

For action, water spent and heart's-blood saved—

No man's regret for greatness gone, ungraced

Perchance by even that poor meed, man's praise—

But some god's superabundance of desire,

Yearning of will to 'scape necessity,—

Love's overbrimming for self-sacrifice,

Whence good might be, which never else may be,

By power displayed, forbidden this strait sphere,—

Effort expressible one only way—

Such tear from me fall to Euripides!'

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