HKB
TRYGAEUS In the name of the meats which I brought you so good-naturedly.
HERMES Why, wretched man, Zeus will annihilate me, if I do not shout out at the top of my voice, to inform him what you are plotting.
TRYGAEUS Oh, no! don't shout, I beg you, dear little Hermes.... And what are you doing, comrades? You stand there as though you were stocks and stones. Wretched men, speak, entreat him at once; otherwise he will be shouting.
CHORUS Oh! mighty Hermes! don't do it; no, don't do it! If ever you have eaten some young pig, sacrificed by us on your altars, with pleasure, may this offering not be without value in your sight to-day.
TRYGAEUS Do you not hear them wheedling you, mighty god?
CHORUS Be not pitiless toward our prayers; permit us to deliver the goddess. Oh! the most human, the most generous of the gods, be favourable toward us, if it be true that you detest the haughty crests and proud brows of Pisander;(1) we shall never cease, oh master, offering you sacred victims and solemn prayers.
f(1) An Athenian captain who later had the recall of Alcibiades decreed by the Athenian people; in 'The Birds' Aristophanes represents him as a cowardly beggar. He was the reactionary leader who established the Oligarchical Government of the Four Hundred, 411 B.C., after the failure of the Syracusan expedition.
TRYGAEUS Have mercy, mercy, let yourself be touched by their words; never was your worship so dear to them as to-day.
HERMES I' truth, never have you been greater thieves.(1)
f(1) Among other attributes, Hermes was the god of thieves.
TRYGAEUS I will reveal a great, a terrible conspiracy against the gods to you.
HERMES Hah! speak and perchance I shall let myself be softened.
TRYGAEUS Know then, that the Moon and that infamous Sun are plotting against you, and want to deliver Greece into the hands of the Barbarians.
HERMES What for?
TRYGAEUS Because it is to you that we sacrifice, whereas the barbarians worship them; hence they would like to see you destroyed, that they alone might receive the offerings.
HERMES 'Tis then for this reason that these untrustworthy charioteers have for so long been defrauding us, one of them robbing us of daylight and the other nibbling away at the other's disk.(1)
f(1) Alluding to the eclipses of the sun and the moon.
TRYGAEUS Yes, certainly. So therefore, Hermes, my friend, help us with your whole heart to find and deliver the captive and we will celebrate the great Panathenaea(1) in your honour as well as all the festivals of the other gods; for Hermes shall be the Mysteries, the Dipolia, the Adonia; everywhere the towns, freed from their miseries, will sacrifice to Hermes the Liberator; you will be loaded with benefits of every kind, and to start with, I offer you this cup for libations as your first present.
f(1) The Panathenaea were dedicated to Athene, the Mysteries to Demeter, the Dipolia to Zeus, the Adonia to Aphrodite and Adonis. Trygaeus promises Hermes that he shall be worshipped in the place of the other gods.
HERMES Ah! how golden cups do influence me! Come, friends, get to work. To the pit quickly, pick in hand, and drag away the stones.
CHORUS We go, but you, cleverest of all the gods, supervise our labours; tell us, good workman as you are, what we must do; we shall obey your orders with alacrity.
TRYGAEUS Quick, reach me your cup, and let us preface our work by addressing prayers to the gods.
HERMES Oh! sacred, sacred libations! Keep silence, oh! ye people! keep silence!
TRYGAEUS Let us offer our libations and our prayers, so that this day may begin an era of unalloyed happiness for Greece and that he who has bravely pulled at the rope with us may never resume his buckler.
CHORUS Aye, may we pass our lives in peace, caressing our mistresses and poking the fire.
TRYGAEUS May he who would prefer the war, oh Dionysus, be ever drawing barbed arrows out of his elbows.