Peace (cont'd) - Page 2

HIEROCLES
And that is?

TRYGAEUS
Don't talk, for 'tis divine Peace to whom we are sacrificing.

HIEROCLES
Oh! wretched mortals, oh, you idiots!

TRYGAEUS
Keep such ugly terms for yourself.

HIEROCLES
What! you are so ignorant you don't understand the will of the gods and you make a treaty, you, who are men, with apes, who are full of malice?[1]

[1] The Spartans.

TRYGAEUS
Ha, ha, ha!

HIEROCLES
What are you laughing at?

TRYGAEUS
Ha, ha! your apes amuse me!

HIEROCLES
You simple pigeons, you trust yourselves to foxes, who are all craft, both in mind and heart.

TRYGAEUS
Oh, you trouble-maker! may your lungs get as hot as this meat!

HIEROCLES
Nay, nay! if only the Nymphs had not fooled Bacis, and Bacis mortal men; and if the Nymphs had not tricked Bacis a second time...[1]

[1] Emphatic pathos, incomprehensible even to the diviner himself; this is a satire on the obscure style of the oracles. Bacis was a famous Boeotian diviner.

TRYGAEUS
May the plague seize you, if you don't stop wearying us with your Bacis!

HIEROCLES
...it would not have been written in the book of Fate that the bends of Peace must be broken; but first...

TRYGAEUS
The meat must be dusted with salt.

HIEROCLES
...it does not please the blessed gods that we should stop the War until the wolf uniteth with the sheep.

TRYGAEUS
How, you cursed animal, could the wolf ever unite with the sheep?

HIEROCLES
As long as the wood-bug gives off a fetid odour, when it flies; as long as the noisy bitch is forced by nature to litter blind pups, so long shall peace be forbidden.

TRYGAEUS
Then what should be done? Not to stop War would be to leave it to the decision of chance which of the two people should suffer the most, whereas by uniting under a treaty, we share the empire of Greece.

HIEROCLES
You will never make the crab walk straight.

TRYGAEUS
You shall no longer be fed at the Prytaneum; the war done, oracles are not wanted.

HIEROCLES
You will never smooth the rough spikes of the hedgehog.

TRYGAEUS
Will you never stop fooling the Athenians?

HIEROCLES
What oracle ordered you to burn these joints of mutton in honour of the gods?

TRYGAEUS
This grand oracle of Homer's: "Thus vanished the dark war-clouds and we offered a sacrifice to new-born Peace. When the flame had consumed the thighs of the victim and its inwards had appeased our hunger, we poured out the libations of wine." 'Twas I who arranged the sacred rites, but none offered the shining cup to the diviner.[1]

[1] Of course this is not a bona fide quotation, but a whimsical adaptatioin of various Homeric verses; the last is a coinage of his own, and means,