Aristophanes' FROGS Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

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AEACUS. Ah! wretched, impudent, shameless, threefold rascal, the most rascally of rascals. Ah! 'tis you who hunted out our dog Cerberus, whose keeper I was! But I have got you to-day; and the black stones of Styx, the rocks of Acheron, from which the blood is dripping, and the roaming dogs of Cocytus shall account to me for you; the hundred-headed Hydra shall tear your sides to pieces; the Tartessian Muraena[438] shall fasten itself on your lungs and the Tithrasian[439] Gorgons shall tear your kidneys and your gory entrails to shreds; I will go and fetch them as quickly as possible.

XANTHIAS. Eh! what are you doing there?

DIONYSUS (stooping down). I have just shit myself! Invoke the god.[440]

XANTHIAS. Get up at once. How a stranger would laugh, if he saw you.

DIONYSUS. Ah! I'm fainting. Place a sponge on my heart.

XANTHIAS. Here, take it.

DIONYSUS. Place it yourself.

XANTHIAS. But where? Good gods, where is your heart?

[438] Tartessus was an Iberian town, near the Avernian marshes, which were said to be tenanted by reptiles, the progeny of vipers and muraenae, a kind of fish.

[439] Tithrasios was a part of Libya, fabled to be peopled by Gorgons.

[440] "Invoke the god" was the usual formula which immediately followed the offering of the libation in the festival of Dionysus. Here he uses the words after a libation of a new kind and induced by fear.

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