Aristophanes' KNIGHTS Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

69 pages - You are on Page 23

SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will slit your gullet.

DEMOSTHENES. We will set his mouth open with a wooden stick as the cooks do with pigs; we will tear out his tongue, and, looking down his gaping throat, will see whether his inside has any pimples.[46]

CHORUS. Thus then at Athens we have something more fiery than fire, more impudent than impudence itself! 'Tis a grave matter; come, we will push and jostle him without mercy. There, you grip him tightly under the arms; if he gives way at the onset, you will find him nothing but a craven; I know my man.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. That he has been all his life and he has only made himself a name by reaping another's harvest; and now he has tied up the ears he gathered over there, he lets them dry and seeks to sell them.[47]

CLEON. I do not fear you as long as there is a Senate and a people which stands like a fool, gaping in the air.

CHORUS. What unparalleled impudence! 'Tis ever the same brazen front. If I don't hate you, why, I'm ready to take the place of the one blanket Cratinus wets;[48] I'll offer to play a tragedy by Morsimus.[49] Oh! you cheat! who turn all into money, who flutter from one extortion to another; may you disgorge as quickly as you have crammed yourself! Then only would I sing, "Let us drink, let us drink to this happy event!"[50] Then even the son of Iulius,[51] the old niggard, would empty his cup with transports of joy, crying, "Io, Paean! Io, Bacchus!"

[46] A disease among swine.

[47] Cleon wanted the Spartans to purchase the prisoners of Sphacteria from him.

[48] With piss--the result of his drunken habits.

[49] A tragic poet, apparently proverbial for feebleness of style.

[50] Beginning of a song of Simonides.

[51] A miser.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Aristophanes KNIGHTS

Aristophanes Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
Aeschylus ||| Sophocles ||| Euripides

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/aristophanes/knights.asp?pg=23