Aristophanes' FROGS Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

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AESCHYLUS. You too might have trained yourself, but you were not willing. Then, by producing 'The Persae,' I have taught you to conquer all your enemies; 'twas my greatest work.

DIONYSUS. Aye, I shook with joy at the announcement of the death of Darius; and the Chorus immediately clapped their hands and shouted, "Triumph!"[486]

AESCHYLUS. Those are the subjects that poets should use. Note how useful, even from remotest times, the poets of noble thought have been! Orpheus taught us the mystic rites and the horrid nature of murder; Musaeus, the healing of ailments and the oracles; Hesiod, the tilling of the soil and the times for delving and harvest. And does not divine Homer owe his immortal glory to his noble teachings? Is it not he who taught the warlike virtues, the art of fighting and of carrying arms?

DIONYSUS. At all events he has not taught it to Pantacles,[487] the most awkward of all men; t'other day, when he was directing a procession, 'twas only after he had put on his helmet that he thought of fixing in the crest.

AESCHYLUS. But he has taught a crowd of brave warriors, such as Lamachus,[488] the hero of Athens. 'Tis from Homer that I borrowed the Patrocli and the lion-hearted Teucers,[489] whom I revived to the citizens, to incite them to show themselves worthy of these illustrious examples when the trumpets sounded. But I showed them neither Sthenoboea[490] nor shameless Phaedra; and I don't remember ever having placed an amorous woman on the stage.

[486] The 'Persae' of Aeschylus (produced 472 B.C.) was received with transports of enthusiasm, reviving as it did memories of the glorious defeat of Xerxes at Salamis, where the poet had fought, only a few years before, 480 B.C.

[487] Nothing is known of this Pantacles, whom Eupolis, in his 'Golden Age,' also describes as awkward ([Greek: skaios]).

[488] Aristophanes had by this time modified his opinion of this general, whom he had so flouted in 'The Acharnians.'

[489] Son of Telamon, the King of Salamis and brother of Ajax.

[490] The wife of Proetus, King of Argos. Bellerophon, who had sought refuge at the court of this king after the accidental murder of his brother Bellerus, had disdained her amorous overtures. Therefore she denounced him to her husband as having wanted to attempt her virtue and urged him to cause his death. She killed herself immediately after the departure of the young hero.

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