Peace (cont'd) - Page 2

Heave away, heave! All together! (PEACE IS DRAWN OUT OF THE PIT.)

TRYGAEUS
Oh! venerated goddess, who givest us our grapes, where am I to find the ten-thousand-gallon words[1] wherewith to greet thee? I have none such at home. Oh! hail to thee, Opora,[2] and thee, Theoria![3] How beautiful is thy face! How sweet thy breath! What gentle fragrance comes from thy bosom, gentle as freedom from military duty, as the most dainty perfumes!

[1] A metaphor referring to the abundant vintages that peace would assure.
[2] The goddess of fruits.
[3] Aristophanes personifies under this name the sacred ceremonies in general which peace would allow to be celebrated with due pomp. Opora and Theoria come on the stage in the wake of Peace, clothed and decked out as courtesans.

HERMES
Is it then a smell like a soldier's knapsack?

TRYGAEUS
Oh! hateful soldier! your hideous satchel makes me sick! it stinks like the belching of onions, whereas this lovable deity has the odour of sweet fruits, of festivals, of the Dionysia, of the harmony of flutes, of the comic poets, of the verses of Sophocles, of the phrases of Euripides...

HERMES
That's a foul calumny, you wretch! She detests that framer of subtleties and quibbles.

TRYGAEUS
...of ivy, of straining-bags for wine, of bleating ewes, of provision-laden women hastening to the kitchen, of the tipsy servant wench, of the upturned wine-jar, and of a whole heap of other good things.

HERMES
Then look how the reconciled towns chat pleasantly together, how they laugh; and yet they are all cruelly mishandled; their wounds are bleeding still.

TRYGAEUS
But let us also scan the mien of the spectators; we shall thus find out the trade of each.

HERMES
Ah! good gods! Look at that poor crest-maker, tearing at his hair,[1] and at that pike-maker, who has just broken wind in yon sword-cutler's face.

[1] Aristophanes has already shown us the husbandmen and workers in peaceful trades pulling at the rope the extricate Peace, while the armourers hindered them by pulling the other way.

TRYGAEUS
And do you see with what pleasure this sickle-maker is making long noses at the spear-maker?

HERMES
Now ask the husbandmen to be off.

TRYGAEUS
Listen, good folk! Let the husbandmen take their farming tools and return to their fields as quick as possible, but without either sword, spear or javelin. All is as quiet as if Peace had been reigning for a century. Come, let everyone go till the earth, singing the Paean.

CHORUS
Oh, thou, whom men of standing desired and who art good to husbandmen, I have gazed upon thee with delight; and now I go to greet my vines, to caress after so long an absence the fig trees I planted in my youth.

TRYGAEUS
Friends, let us first adore the goddess, who has delivered us from crests and Gorgons;[1] then