Well,—yes, he is, if they will only listen to him; and so confident is he of the justice of his views, that he undertakes to plead his cause with his head laid upon a chopping-block, with full permission to his opponents to cut it off at once if he fails to convince them. Even this scanty grace the indignant Acharnians are unwilling to allow him, until he fortunately lays his hand upon an important hostage, whose life shall, he declares, be forfeited the moment they proceed to violence. He produces what looks like a cradle, and might contain a baby. It is really nothing more or less than a basket of charcoal—the local product and staple merchandise of Acharnæ. “Lo,” says he to his irate antagonists, throwing himself into a tragic attitude and brandishing a dagger—“Lo, I will stab your darling to the heart!” The joke seems so very feeble in itself, that it is necessary to bear in mind that a well-known “situation” in a lost tragedy of Euripides (Telephus), which would have been fresh in the memory of an audience of such inveterate play-goers, is here burlesqued for their amusement. The threat brings the Acharnians to terms at once; they lay down their stones, and prepare to listen to argument, even in apology for the detested Spartans. The chopping-block is brought out; but before Dicæopolis begins to plead, he remembers that he is not provided with one very important requisite for a prisoner on trial for his life. He ought to be clothed in “a most pathetical and heart-rending dress”—to move the compassion of his judges. Will they allow him just to step over the way and borrow one from that great tragedian Euripides, who keeps a whole wardrobe of pathetic costumes for his great characters? They give him leave; and as Euripides—most conveniently for dramatic purposes—appears to live close by, Dicæopolis proceeds at once to knock at the door of his lodging, and a servant answers from within. The humour of the scene which follows must have been irresistible to an audience who were familiar with every one of the characters mentioned, and who enjoyed the caricature none the less because they had, no doubt, applauded the tragic original.
“Servant. Who’s there?
Dic. Euripides within?
Serv. Within, yet not within. You comprehend me?
Dic. Within and not within! why, what d’ye mean?
Serv. I speak correctly, old sire! his outward man
Is in the garret writing tragedy;
While his essential being is abroad,
Pursuing whimsies in the world of fancy.
Dic. O happy Euripides, with such a servant,
So clever and accomplished!—Call him out.
Serv. It’s quite impossible.
Dic. But it must be done.
Positively and absolutely I must see him;
Or I must stand here rapping at the door.
Euripides! Euripides! come down,
If ever you came down in all your life!
’Tis I—’tis Dicæopolis from Chollidæ.
Eur. I’m not at leisure to come down.
Dic. Perhaps—
But here’s the scene-shifter can wheel you round.
Eur. It cannot be.
Dic. But, however, notwithstanding.
Eur. Well, there then, I’m wheeled round; for I had not time
For coming down.
Dic. Euripides, I say!
Eur. What say ye?
Dic. Euripides! Euripides!
Good lawk, you’re there! up-stairs! you write up-stairs,
Instead of the ground-floor? always up-stairs?
Well now, that’s odd! But, dear Euripides,
If you had but a suit of rags that you could lend me!
You’re he that brings out cripples in your tragedies,
A’nt ye?[20] You’re the new Poet, he that writes
Those characters of beggars and blind people?
Well, dear Euripides, if could you but lend me
A suit of tatters from a cast-off tragedy!
For mercy’s sake, for I’m obliged to make
A speech, in my own defence before the Chorus,
A long pathetic speech, this very day;
And if it fails, the doom of death betides me.
Eur. Say, what d’ye seek? is it the woful garb
In which the wretched aged Æneus acted?
Dic. No, ’twas a wretcheder man than Æneus, much.
Eur. Was it blind Phœnix?
Dic. No, not Phœnix; no,
A fellow a great deal wretcheder than Phœnix.”—(F.)
After some further suggestions on the part of Euripides of other tragic characters, whose piteous “get-up” might excite the compassion of audience or judges, it turns out that the costume on which the applicant has set his heart is that in which Telephus the Mysian, in the tragedy which bears his name, pleads before Achilles, to beg that warrior to heal, as his touch alone could do, the wound which he had made. The whole scene should be read, if not in the original, then in Mr Frere’s admirable translation. Dicæopolis begs Euripides to lend him certain other valuable stage properties, one after the other: a beggar’s staff,—a little shabby basket,—a broken-lipped pitcher. The tragedian grows out of patience at last at this wholesale plagiarism of his dramatic repertory:—
“Eur. Fellow, you’ll plunder me a whole tragedy!
Take it, and go.
Dic. Yes; I forsooth, I’m going.
But how shall I contrive? There’s something more
That makes or mars my fortune utterly;
Yet give them, and bid me go, my dear Euripides;
A little bundle of leaves to line my basket.
Eur. For mercy’s sake!... But take them.—There they go!
My tragedies and all! ruined and robbed!
Dic. No more; I mean to trouble you no more.
Yes, I retire; in truth I feel myself
Importunate, intruding on the presence
Of chiefs and princes, odious and unwelcome.
But out, alas! that I should so forget
The very point on which my fortune turns;
I wish I may be hanged, my dear Euripides,
If ever I trouble you for anything,
Except one little, little, little boon,—
A single lettuce from your mother’s stall.”—(F.)
This parting shot at the tragedian’s family antecedents (for his mother was said to have been a herb-woman) is quite in the style of Athenian wit, which was nothing if not personal. Euripides very naturally orders the door to be shut in the face of this uncivil intruder,—who has got all he wanted, however. Clad in the appropriate costume, he lays his head on the chopping-block, while one of the Chorus stands over him with an axe; and in this ludicrous position makes one of those addresses to the audience which were usual in these comedies, in which the poet assumes for the moment his own character, and takes the house into his personal confidence. As he has already told Euripides,—
“For I must wear a beggar’s garb to-day,
Yet be myself in spite of my disguise,
That the audience all may know me.”
He will venture upon a little plain-speaking to his fellow-Athenians, upon a very delicate subject, as he is well aware. But at this January festival, unlike the greater one in March, no foreigners were likely to be present, so that all that was said might be considered as between friends.
“The words I speak are bold, but just and true.
Cleon, at least, cannot accuse me now,
That I defame the city before strangers.
For this is the Lenæan festival,
And here we meet, all by ourselves alone;
No deputies are arrived as yet with tribute,
No strangers or allies; but here we sit,
A chosen sample, clean as sifted corn,
With our own denizens as a kind of chaff.
First, I detest the Spartans most extremely;
And wish that Neptune, the Tænarian deity,
Would bury them and their houses with his earthquakes.
For I’ve had losses—losses, let me tell ye,
Like other people: vines cut down and ruined.
But, among friends (for only friends are here),
Why should we blame the Spartans for all this?
For people of ours, some people of our own,—
Some people from amongst us here, I mean;
But not The People—pray remember that—
I never said The People—but a pack
Of paltry people, mere pretended citizens,
Base counterfeits, went laying informations,
And making confiscation of the jerkins
Imported here from Megara; pigs, moreover,
Pumpkins, and pecks of salt, and ropes of onions,
Were voted to be merchandise from Megara,
Denounced, and seized, and sold upon the spot.”—(F.)
He goes on to mention other aggressions on the part of his own countrymen—to wit, the carrying off from Megara a young woman, no great loss to any community in point of personal character, but still a Megarian—aggressions not of much importance in themselves, but such as he feels sure no high-spirited nation could be expected to put up with:—
“Just make it your own case; suppose the Spartans
Had manned a boat, and landed on your islands,
And stolen a pug puppy-dog from Seriphos”—