DICAEOPOLIS. Peace, profane men! Let the basket-bearer[189] come forward, and thou, Xanthias, hold the phallus well upright.[190]
WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS. Daughter, set down the basket and let us begin the sacrifice.
DAUGHTER OF DICAEOPOLIS. Mother, hand me the ladle, that I may spread the sauce on the cake.
DICAEOPOLIS. It is well! Oh, mighty Bacchus, it is with joy that, freed from military duty, I and all mine perform this solemn rite and offer thee this sacrifice; grant, that I may keep the rural Dionysia without hindrance and that this truce of thirty years may be propitious for me.
WIFE OF DICAEOPOLIS. Come, my child, carry the basket gracefully and with a grave, demure face. Happy he, who shall be your possessor and embrace you so firmly at dawn,[191] that you belch wind like a weasel. Go forward, and have a care they don't snatch your jewels in the crowd.
DICAEOPOLIS. Xanthias, walk behind the basket-bearer and hold the phallus well erect; I will follow, singing the Phallic hymn; thou, wife, look on from the top of the terrace.[192] Forward! Oh, Phales,[193] companion of the orgies of Bacchus, night reveller, god of adultery, friend of young men, these past six[194] years I have not been able to invoke thee. With what joy I return to my farmstead, thanks to the truce I have concluded, freed from cares, from fighting and from Lamachuses![195] How much sweeter, Phales, oh, Phales, is it to surprise Thratta, the pretty wood-maid, Strymodorus' slave, stealing wood from Mount Phelleus, to catch her under the arms, to throw her on the ground and possess her! Oh, Phales, Phales! If thou wilt drink and bemuse thyself with me, we will to-morrow consume some good dish in honour of the peace, and I will hang up my buckler over the smoking hearth.
CHORUS. It is he, he himself. Stone him, stone him, stone him, strike the wretch. All, all of you, pelt him, pelt him!
DICAEOPOLIS. What is this? By Heracles, you will smash my pot.[196]
CHORUS. It is you that we are stoning, you miserable scoundrel.
DICAEOPOLIS. And for what sin, Acharnian Elders, tell me that!