Aristophanes' PEACE Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

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TRYGAEUS. Oh! divine Apollo! what a prodigious big mortar! Oh, what misery the very sight of War causes me! This then is the foe from whom I fly, who is so cruel, so formidable, so stalwart, so solid on his legs!

WAR. Oh! Prasiae![275] thrice wretched, five times, aye, a thousand times wretched! for thou shalt be destroyed this day.

TRYGAEUS. This does not yet concern us over much; 'tis only so much the worse for the Laconians.

WAR. Oh! Megara! Megara! how utterly are you going to be ground up! what fine mincemeat[276] are you to be made into!

TRYGAEUS. Alas! alas! what bitter tears there will be among the Megarians![277]

WAR. Oh, Sicily! you too must perish! Your wretched towns shall be grated like this cheese.[278] Now let us pour some Attic honey[279] into the mortar.

[275] An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, [Greek: prasa], the root-word of the name Prasiae, into his mortar.

[276] War throws some garlic into his mortar as emblematical of the city of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.

[277] Because the smell of bruised garlic causes the eyes to water.

[278] He throws cheese into the mortar as emblematical of Sicily, on account of its rich pastures.

[279] Emblematical of Athens. The honey of Mount Hymettus was famous.

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