DAUGHTER
| Give me the cruet, mother, |
| And let me pour it on the holy cake. |
DIKÆOPOLIS
| O blessed Bacchus, what a joy it is |
| To go thus unmolested, undisturbed, |
| My wife, my children, and my family, |
| With our accustomed joyful ceremony, |
| To celebrate thy festival in my farm. |
| Well, here's success to the truce of thirty years. |
WIFE
| Mind your behavior, child. Carry the basket |
| In a modest, proper manner; look demure; |
| Mind your gold trinkets, they'll be stolen else. |
Dikæopolis now intones a hymn to Bacchus, but is interrupted by the violent threats of his war-loving neighbors, the Acharnians, who break out in injurious language, and threaten the life of the miscreant who has made peace with the enemies of his country solely for his own interests. With a good deal of difficulty, he persuades the enraged crowd to allow him to argue his case before them, and this fact makes us acquainted with another leading trait in Aristophanes; viz., his polemic opposition to the poet Euripides. Dikæopolis, wishing to make a favorable impression upon the rustics, hies to the house of Euripides, whose servant parleys with him in true transcendental language.
DIKÆOPOLIS
| Euripides within? |
SERVANT