(“What then?” you answer, “did you really suppose that your boorish manners and savage ways and clumsiness would harmonise with these things? O most ignorant and most quarrelsome of men, is it so senseless then and so stupid, that puny soul of yours which men of poor spirit call temperate, and which you forsooth think it your duty to adorn and deck out with temperance? You are wrong; for in the first place we do not know what temperance is and we hear its name only, while the real thing we cannot see. But if it is the sort of thing that you now practise, if it consists in knowing that men must be enslaved to the gods and the laws, in behaving with fairness to those of equal rank and bearing with mildness any superiority among them; in studying and taking thought that the poor may suffer no injustice whatever at the hands of the rich; and to attain this, in putting up with all the annoyances that you will naturally often meet with, hatred, anger, and abuse; and then in bearing these also with firmness and not resenting them or giving way to your anger, but in training yourself as far as possible to practise temperance; and if again this also one defines as the effect of temperance that one abstains from every pleasure even though it be not excessively unbecoming or considered blameworthy when openly pursued, because you are convinced that it is impossible for a man to be temperate in his private life and in secret, if in public and openly he is willing to be licentious and delights in the theatres; if, in short, temperance is really this sort of thing, then you yourself have ruined yourself and moreover you are ruining us, who cannot bear in the first place even to hear the name of slavery, whether it be slavery to the gods or the laws. For sweet is liberty in all things!)
“Ἡ δὲ εἰρωνεία πόση; δεσπότης εἶναι οὐ φὴς οὐδὲ ἀνέχῃ τοῦτο ἀκούων, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀγανακτεῖς, [D] ὥστε ἤδη ἔπεισας τοὺς πλείστους ἐθάδας πάλαι γενομένους ἀφελεῖν ὡς ἐπίφθονον τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομα, δουλεύειν δ᾽ ἡμᾶς ἀναγκάζεις ἄρχουσι καὶ νόμοις. καίτοι πόσῳ κρεῖττον ἦν ὀνομάζεσθαι μέν σε δεσπότην, ἔργῳ δὲ ἐᾶν ἡμᾶς εἶναι ἐλευθέρους, ὦ τὰ μὲν ὀνόματα πρᾳότατε, πικρότατε [pg 438] δὲ τὰ ἔργα; [344] πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἀποκναίεις βιαζόμενος μὲν τοὺς πλουσίους ἐν δικαστηρίοις μετριάζειν, τοὺς πένητας δὲ εἴργεις συκοφαντεῖν. ἀφεὶς δὲ τὴν σκηνὴν καὶ τοὺς μίμους καὶ τοὺς ὀρχηστὰς ἀπολώλεκας ἡμῶν τὴν πόλιν, ὥστε οὐδὲν ἡμῖν ἀγαθὸν ὑπάρχει παρὰ σοῦ πλὴν τῆς βαρύτητος, ἧς ἀνεχόμενοι μῆνα ἕβδομον τουτονὶ τὸ μὲν εὔχεσθαι πάντως ἀπαλλαγῆναι τοῦ τοσούτου κακοῦ τοῖς περὶ τοὺς τάφους καλινδουμένοις γρᾳδίοις ξυνεχωρήσαμεν, ἡμεῖς δὲ αὐτὸ διὰ τῆς ἡμῶν αὐτῶν εὐτραπελίας [B] ἐξειργασάμεθα βάλλοντές σε τοῖς σκώμμασιν ὥσπερ τοξεύμασι. σὺ δέ, ὦ γενναῖε, πῶς ἀνέξῃ τὰ Περσῶν βέλη, τὰ ἡμέτερα τρέσας σκώμματα;”
(“But what an affectation of humility is yours! You say that you are not our master and you will not let yourself be so called, nay more, you resent the idea, so that you have actually persuaded the majority of men who have long grown accustomed to it, to get rid of this word ‘Government’ as though it were something invidious; and yet you compel us to be enslaved to magistrates and laws. But how much better it would be for you to accept the name of master, but in actual fact to allow us to be free, you who are so very mild about the names we use and so very strict about the things we do! Then again you harass us by forcing the rich to behave with moderation in the lawcourts, though you keep the poor from making money by informing.[703] And by ignoring the stage and mimes and dancers you have ruined our city, so that we get no good out of you except your harshness; and this we have had to put up with these seven months, so that we have left it to the old crones who grovel among the tombs to pray that we may be entirely rid of so great a curse, but we ourselves have accomplished it by our own ingenious insolence, by shooting our satires at you like arrows. How, noble sir, will you face the darts of Persians, when you take flight at our ridicule?”)
Ἰδού, βούλομαι πάλιν ἀπ᾽ ἄλλης ἀρχῆς ἐμαυτῷ λοιδορήσασθαι. “Φοιτᾷς εἰς τὰ ἱερά, δύσκολε καὶ δύστροπε καὶ πάντα μοχθηρέ. συρρεῖ διὰ σὲ τὰ πλήθη πρὸς τὰ τεμένη καὶ μέντοι καὶ οἱ πλείους τῶν ἐν τέλει, καὶ ἀποδέχονταί σε σὺν βοῇ μετὰ κρότων λαμπρῶς ἐν τοῖς τεμένεσιν ὥσπερ ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις. [C] τί οὖν οὐκ ἀγαπᾷς οὐδ᾽ ἐπαινεῖς, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπιχειρεῖς εἶναι σοφώτερος τὰ τοιαῦτα τοῦ Πυθίου, καὶ δημηγορεῖς ἐν τῷ πλήθει, καὶ καθάπτῃ τῶν βοώντων πικρῶς αὐτὸ δὴ τοῦτο λέγων, ὡς Ὑμεῖς τῶν θεῶν ἕνεκεν ὀλιγάκις εἰς τὰ τεμένη συνέρχεσθε, συνδραμόντες δὲ δι᾽ ἐμὲ πολλῆς ἀκοσμίας ἀναπίμπλατε τὰ ἱερά. [D] πρέπει δ᾽ ἀνδράσι σώφροσι κεκοσμημένως εὔχεσθαι σιγῇ [pg 440] παρὰ τῶν θεῶν αἰτουμένοις τὰ ἀγαθά. τοῦτον οὐκ ἠκροᾶσθε τὸν νόμον Ὁμήρου
(Come, I am ready to make a fresh start in abusing myself. “You, sir, go regularly to the temples, ill-tempered, perverse and wholly worthless as you are! It is your doing that the masses stream into the sacred precincts, yes and most of the magistrates as well, and they give you a splendid welcome, greeting you with shouts and clapping in the precincts as though they were in the theatres. Then why do you not treat them kindly and praise them? Instead of that you try to be wiser in such matters than the Pythian god,[704] and you make harangues to the crowd and with harsh words rebuke those who shout. These are the very words you use to them: ‘You hardly ever assemble at the shrines to do honour to the gods, but to do me honour you rush here in crowds and fill the temples with much disorder. Yet it becomes prudent men to pray in orderly fashion, and to ask blessings from the gods in silence. Have you never heard Homer's maxim,)
Σιγῇ ἐφ᾽ ὑμείων—,
(“In silence, to yourselves”[705]—,)
οὐδ᾽ ὡς Ὀδυσσεὺς ἐπέσχε τὴν Εὐρύκλειαν ἐκπεπληγμένην ὑπὸ μεγέθους τοῦ κατορθώματος,
(or how Odysseus checked Eurycleia when she was stricken with amazement by the greatness of his success,)
Ἐν θυμῷ, γρηῦ, χαῖρε καὶ ἴσχεο μηδ᾽ ὀλόλυζε;