[27 VI 1954]

2

XANTHIAS: As you were! But, ah, 'tis strange?
DIONYSOS: What's strange?
XANTHIAS: That seems to weigh so much. This nothing
DIONYSOS: That's the donkey's business.
XANTHIAS: No, by God, it's mine!
DIONYSOS: You're supported, not supporting.
XANTHIAS: My shoulder's insupportable!
DIONYSOS: Well, if my ass is no help to you, pick it up and carry it for a while.
XANTHIAS: a Navy veteran! If only I were
DIONYSOS: Why No?
XANTHIAS: Why, then I could answer you man to man, and not like a damned slave.
DIONYSOS: Get down, you imbecile, we're here at last. [XANTHIAS dismounts]
Hey, you, doorkeeper!
Janitor!
Open up!

ii
[THE VOICE OF HERAKLES IS HEARD, WITHIN]
HERAKLES: In Hell's name, what's out there? Sounds like a Centaur bashing in the door with all four hooves!

[ENTER HERAKLES]
For God's sake, what have we here?
DIONYSOS: Boy. [ASIDE, TO XANTHIAS]
XANTHIAS: Yes?
DIONYSOS: You've observed?
XANTHIAS: Observed what?
DIONYSOS: how I've scared him! Damn it, observed
XANTHIAS: Who's crazy now?
HERAKLES: I can't help laughing, impolite as it is! Forgive me.
DIONYSOS: Take courage, friend, and approach us. We need your help.
HERAKLES: This lion's skin, this saffron gown! Bedroom slippers and

[27 June 1954]

3

a new shillelagh! What kind of fairy are you?
Somehow I don't get the point.

DIONYSOS: Attend.
--then I was under Kleisthenês--

HERAKLES: Good fighting?

DIONYSOS: We sent twelve or thirteen to the bottom.

HERAKLES: Between you?

DIONYSOS: Yes.

HERAKLES: All right; the dream's over!

DIONYSOS: No, let me tell you:
I was reclining in the poop, perusing
a play by Euripidês--the Andromeda, I remember--,
and suddenly my breast was wrenched with a wild desire--

HERAKLES: A big one?

DIONYSOS: Gigantic.

HERAKLES: For a woman?

DIONYSOS: Certainly not!

HERAKLES: Of course not. ~~XFor A~~ boy, then?

DIONYSOS: Sir, you offend me!

HERAKLES: Good God. You mean you wanted a full-grown man?

DIONYSOS: Come, really, Herakles!

HERAKLES: Well, the only thing left
would seem to be Kleisthenês.

DIONYSOS: My good sir, be sensible!
This longing of mine: it's just about killing me.

HERAKLES: Divulge, brother, divulge.

DIONYSOS: No, I can't; not directly;
but maybe a hint--
Tell me, O Herakles:
hast ever been seized by a craving for tomato soup?

HERAKLES: Over and over again.

DIONYSOS: Very well. Now you see.

HERAKLES: I see tomato soup in my mind's eye.

[27 June 1954]

5

**DIONYSOS:**
Scrannel pipes, I assure you; chirping chatterers;
the death of art. One tragedy, and they're spent
without giving the Muse so much as a titillation.
I don't care where you look,
you can't find today a poet who is really
generative.

**HERAKLES:** 'Generative'?

**DIONYSOS:**
Yes, generative. I mean
a poet who really dares to soar in verse:
a poet who can sing of 'the skyey sty of Zeus',
or 'fast-fluttering Time', or 'when last
your eye I eyed', or (best of all, in my judgment)
'Sworn hath my tongue; my soul stands yet unpledged'.

**HERAKLES:** You really like that sort of thing?

**DIONYSOS:** Mad about it.

**HERAKLES:** But it's trash, and you know it.

**DIONYSOS:** 'O thou rash intruder,
intrude not on my brain; *you*ive one of *you* own.'

**HERAKLES:** Have you no critical sense?

**DIONYSOS:** I'll take
kitchen criticism from you; no other kind.

**XANTHIAS:** And still not a word about *me*!

**DIONYSOS:** But now to business. I'm on my way to Hell,
and of course I turn to you. You went down for Kérberos:
tell me, what was it like? the inhabitants?
the general tone of the place--the sights, the shops,
whorehouses, taverns, restaurants, and the hotels
cleanest of bedbugs?

**XANTHIAS:** *Still* not a word!

**HERAKLES:** You're raving.
Do you really mean you're going down to Hell?

**DIONYSOS:** Are you deaf? Tell me the best route (not too hot,
yet not too cold) to the Houses of the Dead.

**HERAKLES:** The best route, hey? Take a rope and hang yourself!

**DIONYSOS:** No. My throat's too delicate.

**HERAKLES:** How about hemlock, then?

**DIONYSOS:** No. My feet get cold.

[end at line 127]

APICTOØANOY BATPAXOI

[28 June 1954]

6

HERAKLES: I'll tell you the quickest way.

DIONYSOS: Good. I hate walking.

HERAKLES: Go out to Kerameikos--

DIONYSOS: Yes?

HERAKLES: Climb the tallest tower--

DIONYSOS: Yes?

HERAKLES: And wait for the beginning of the torch-race.
When the fans shout for the signal, 'Throw the torch down!',
then you just throw yourself--

DIONYSOS: Where?

HERAKLES: Down.

DIONYSOS: Oh.
But that might unhinge my skull. -- No, you must give me
a better route than that.

HERAKLES: You're hard to please!

DIONYSOS: Tell me how *you* got there.

HERAKLES: That was a long, long trip.
Well, first you come to an enormous dismal lake--

DIONYSOS: How do you get across?

HERAKLES: There's an old man
who runs a ferry. Two pennies for the round trip.

DIONYSOS: Dear me.
Even Hell's gone commercial.

HERAKLES: It was Theseus
who started the custom.
Well, after you get over,
you'll meet mobs of snakes and all kinds of disgusting beasts.

DIONYSOS: You can't scare *me*! I've been seeing them all my life.

HERAKLES: Then a great swamp with an almighty stink.
Here they toss criminals: fairies who cheat their boys
of pay for the pleasure they've had; ungracious hosts;
men who maul their mothers or goose their fathers--

DIONYSOS: Don't forget to add:
the publishers of Morismos, and those fools
who admire the lyric spasms of Kinesias.

[28 June 1954]

7

HERAKLES: And then a grove with lovely light and the sound of soft flutes everywhere, and happy crowds of men and women, and laughter, and applause.

DIONYSOS: Who are these men and women?

HERAKLES: The Initiates.

XANTHIAS: And I'm the ass that they use in the Mysteries! [aside]
No, I've had enough!

[He starts to put down the luggage.]

HERAKLES: And these will tell you whatever you want to know. They live near the gates of Pluto's hall, on the very road that leads there.

--And now, dear brother, good-bye and good luck!

[exit HERAKLES]

iii

DIONYSOS: The same to you! --Now, Xanthias, pick up the baggage again.

XANTHIAS: Before I've laid it down?

DIONYSOS: And make it quick!

XANTHIAS: No, by God! Hire someone else!

DIONYSOS: And if I can't find someone?

XANTHIAS: Then I'll go along.

DIONYSOS: Fair enough.

[enter, R, four undertaker's assistants carrying a CORPSE on an elaborate litter]

But look, Xanthias: here comes a dead man!
--My dear sir, you, I mean, the Late Lamented, Mr Corpse: will you carry my luggage with you to Hell?

CORPSE: How heavy?

DIONYSOS: Look at it.

CORPSE: Hm. Well, let's say two drachmai.

DIONYSOS: Too much.

CORPSE: On your way, men!

DIONYSOS: Wait a minute! I'm sure we can strike a bargain.

[28 June 1954]

8

CORPSE: I said two drachmai.

DIONYSOS: Nine obols?

CORPSE: Not on your death! -- Go on, men.

[exeunt, L, the bearers with the CORPSE

XANTHIAS: That cadaver's too clever. To hell with him. Master, I'm with you!

DIONYSOS: My noble Xanthias.

[XANTHIAS retrieves the baggage, remounts his donkey; exeunt, L.

iv

[SCENE: Hell. The bank of a great lake. CHARON standing in a lapidated skiff. Enter DIONYSOS and XANTHIAS.]

DIONYSOS: What's that?

XANTHIAS: That? A lake.

DIONYSOS: By God, the very one he told us about!

XANTHIAS: Yes. And there's the boat.

DIONYSOS: So it is, by Poseidon!

XANTHIAS: And there's old Charon himself!

DIONYSOS: Good morning, Charon.

XANTHIAS: Good morning, Charon!

BOTH: MORNING, CHARON! MORNING, CHARON!

GOOD

[CHARON raises a huge megaphone and addresses them:

CHARON: Who are you, coming from the world of woe and care?
Who are you, coming to Lethê? to the Mare's Nest?
to the Simmering Plain? to Perdition Plaza? to
Hell in all its glory?

DIONYSOS: Me.

CHARON: All aboard, then.
And make it quick: we're running behind schedule.

DIONYSOS: But--
where are we off to?

ARISTOPHANIS RANAE

[29 June 1954]

10

CHARON: Wait for us over at old Arid's tavern.

DIONYSOS: Got it?

XANTHIAS: I've got it, all right. The curse of the walking class!

[exit XANTHIAS; DIONYSOS gets into the boat]

V

CHARON: Sit down. There's your oar.

--All aboard! Anyone else coming?

[DIONYSOS sits down on an oar]
Hey, what are you up to?

DIONYSOS: Just what you told me to do:
I'm sitting on my oar.

CHARON: You gastric hyperbole!
Sit there, on the bench!

DIONYSOS: Very well.

CHARON: Flex your biceps,
stick out your hands.

DIONYSOS: Very well.

CHARON: And row, man, row!

DIONYSOS: Me? Row? Unshipbroken, unoceanized, unoared?
How can I row?

CHARON: Easiest thing in the world; just try,
and you'll have the most marvelous music to help you on.

DIONYSOS: What music?

CHARON: Frogswans. A grade-A troupe.

DIONYSOS: I'm ready.
Give me the stroke.

CHARON: Oh-whúp! Oh-whúp.

[The skiff leaves the shore, unsteadily.]

vi

[A chorus of FROGS is heard, off-stage]

[29 June 1954]

13

XANTHIAS: Didn't you?

DIONYSOS; No.

But I see them now.

[looking at the audience

Well, what's next?

XANTHIAS: We ought to get out of here. This is the place
where that awful menagerie is, the one
Heraklès told us about.

DIONYSOS: Oh, him! He was just trying to scare me. He's
a coward, you know, and he tries to brag it off.
Oh for a beast, a monstrous beast,
to justify my valiant coming hither!

XANTHIAS: Good God! Did you hear a noise?

DIONYSOS: No. Where? Where?

XANTHIAS: Over there in back of you.

DIONYSOS: You get in back of me!

XANTHIAS: Now it's in front of us!

DIONYSOS: Come on: stand in front!

XANTHIAS: Almighty Zeus, what a monster!

DIONYSOS: What's it like?

XANTHIAS: Horrible. Keeps changing its shape, too. First it's an ox,
then it's a mule; and now,
the prettiest girl!

DIONYSOS: Girl? Where? Lead me to her!

XANTHIAS: Now she's turned into a dog.

DIONYSOS: It's the Empousa!

XANTHIAS: A face like a bonfire!

DIONYSOS: Legs of brass?

XANTHIAS: Yes, one of them.
The other one's donkey-manure.

DIONYSOS: Where can I hide?

XANTHIAS: Me, too.

DIONYSOS [to the audience]: Is there a doctor in the house?

XANTHIAS: By Heraklès, we're done for!

[30 June 1954]

15

[ the CHORUS OF INITIATES is heard off-stage ]

CHORUS: Iacchos! O Iacchos!
Iacchos! O Iacchos!

XANTHIAS: The Initiate, master, those
we were told about. This is their holy ground
where they sing of you always,
just like Diágoras.

DIONYSOS: I think so, too; but until we're sure,
let's lie low.

CHORUS: O Iacchos!

[STROPHE

God of many names!
Come to this meadow of delight
come

Dancing with laurel

the bright

Flowers circling the holy hair that streams

Gold in the golden air

Whirl our choirs

In the maze of the Graces

Iô!

As the quick feet go.

XANTHIAS: O Persephoneia! Lady! Deméter's daughter!
What a heavenly smell of pork!

DIONYSOS: Oh, do be quiet!
A sniff of sausage, and you can't control yourself!

CHORUS: Up the torches

[ANTISTROPHE

Radiant god

pure star of our night

The glade's aflame:

and care, and age--how light-

ly borne in the Bacchantês' train!

Lead us, bright glancer,

Whirl our choirs

In the maze of the Graces

Iô!

As the quick feet go.

[ends at the PARODOS]

[7 July 1954]

22

xi

[enter, R, an ELDERLY BARMAID accompanied by PLATHANE, a young waitress

BARMAID: Pláthanê, Pláthanê, just look there! Remember him?
He's the one that broke into our inn one day
and ate up sixteen loaves of bread.

PLATHANE: By God,
the very man!

XANTHIAS: This is going to be hard on somebody.

BARMAID: And twenty roasts or so.

XANTHIAS: Somebody's in for it!

BARMAID: And the dear knows how many pounds of garlic.

DIONYSOS: Madam,
you're mad. Do you know what you're saying?

BARMAID: You!
Do you think I don't know you, in spite of those fancy clothes?
--And I forgot the marinated smelts!

PLATHANE: Yes, and the cheese!
He swallowed it, rind, basket, and all. And when I gave him the bill,
he belched at me.

XANTHIAS: That's the way he always behaves.

PLATHANE: And he hauled out his sword, like he was crazy-like.

BARMAID: So he did.

PLATHANE: And scared us to death, and chased us upstairs,
and then he walked off with the table-cloth.

XANTHIAS: Of course.

PLATHANE: We ought to do something!

BARMAID: Go get lawyer Kleön.

XANTHIAS: Or Hypérbolos, if you can find him.

BARMAID: We'll wreck this wretch!
You walking gullet! How I'd like to take a stone
and smash in those tusks of yours that've eaten my food!

XANTHIAS: This is a hell of a note!

PLATHANE: I'd like to reach down that gizzard
and yank up the tripe he's swilled! -- But I'll get Kleön:

[7 July 1954]

25

DIONYSOS: You say you're a god. Why don't you get whipped, too? [to XANTHIAS

XANTHIAS: Fair enough.
--All right, whip us both; and the first one who yells, he's no god.

AIAKOS: Good man! I see you understand justice. Take off your clothes, both of you.

XANTHIAS: And what is the procedure?

AIAKOS: Simple. I hit one first, and then the other.

XANTHIAS: Brilliant!

AIAKOS: There! [he lashes XANTHIAS' buttocks]

XANTHIAS: Well, why don't you begin?

AIAKOS: I have.

XANTHIAS: Ridiculous!

AIAKOS: Well, let's try the other. [lashes DIONYSOS]

DIONYSOS: Come on; haven't got all day!

AIAKOS: You didn't feel it?

DIONYSOS: Never a feel!

AIAKOS: Strange. Well, the first one again. [lashes XANTHIAS]

XANTHIAS: Oh my God!

AIAKOS: Felt it, hey?

XANTHIAS: No, I was simply thinking of the celebration of the feasts of Heraklès.

AIAKOS: Hm. The religious type. -- Well, back to the other. [lashes DIONYSOS]

DIONYSOS: Oooh! Oooh!

AIAKOS: What's the matter?

DIONYSOS: Just saw some gorgeous knights.

AIAKOS: Then why those tears?

DIONYSOS: An onion popped into my mind.

AIAKOS: And you don't give a damn for the whipping?

DIONYSOS: Not a damn.

[12 July 1954]

32

spewed out of that mammoth cave he calls his mouth!

**AISCHYIOS:** 'And is it thou, scion of vegetables',
ranting in this vein to me? Back to your onions!
You incarnate cliché, collector
of other men's rags for your actors-- I've got your number!

**DIONYSOS:** Aischylos, please, just a little bit of decorum!
'Restrain the rage the boils within thy breast'.

**AISCHYIOS:** No, not before I've proved how this dismal sot
has fooled all Athens with his casts of cripples.

**DIONYSOS:** A lamb, a lamb, a black lamb, slaves: bring it quickly!
The sky is full of thunder!

**AISCHYIOS:** And as for his Kretan
arias, and his filthy
bridal-scenes (miasma of Art)--

**DIONYSOS:** Dearest Aischylos,
remember your blood-pressure.
--Euripides, yours too.
Do you know how really terrible this man is?
He's perfectly capable of hitting you on the head
with a word that would alkalize your Alkestis.
--No.
Let's be calm. You poets shouldn't shriek at each other
as though you were Senators.

**EURIPIDES:** Right. I ask for judgment.
Let him prosecute, or defend: I don't care which.
Let him examine my dialogue, my tragic
choruses; let him investigate
my **Peleus**, my **Aiolos**, my **Meleagros**, and, above all,
my **Telephos**.

**DIONYSOS:** Well, Aischylos? Will you begin?

**AISCHYIOS:** If you say...
this trial is bound to be unfair.
--And yet

**DIONYSOS:** Unfair?

**AISCHYIOS:** My poems are still on earth in the mouths of men.
His are all with him in Hell.
--But I cede the objection.

**DIONYSOS:** Bring incense, slaves,
and let us pray to the almighty gods.
My critical sense is feeble, at the best,
but I must try...
Chorus, a hymn to the Muses!

[ends at verse 875]

[21 July 1954]

39

with those Bellérophons of yours: they prefer
death by hemlock to the shame you have taught them.

EURIPIDES: I suppose you think I created the myth of Phaidra?

AISCHYIOS: Not at all.
But the poet's duty is to conceal the filth,
not flaunt it on the stage. We have schoolmasters
for little boys; we have poets for grown men.
Let our concern be only with what's good.

EURIPIDES: And when you spout your lykabéttos-language,
your Parnês-periods—, is that what you call teaching?
Is that your 'good'? Why not speak like a man?

AISCHYIOS: You fool!
High thoughts must have high language. As the dress
of our actor demi-gods is nobler than our own,
so must their speech be nobler. I have adorned
the theatre; you have debased it.

EURIPIDES: Tell me how.

AISCHYIOS: Well, first of all, you dress your kings in tatters
to churn up tears in the audience.

EURIPIDES: What if I do?

AISCHYIOS: It's a dangerous fashion. There's not a rich man in Athens
who will outfit a galley these days. All the millionaires
say they're too poor, and walk about in rags.

DIONYSOS: Yes, by Deméter, and all the time they're wearing
the finest cloth underneath, and when they're done
with deluding us, the head for the most expensive markets.

AISCHYIOS: Also, you have taught bragging and silly gossip.
The gymnasiums have shut down because the boys
are wearing their buttocks thin on library benches,
learning your tinkling verses. Even the common sailors
are drunk on your clever talk and dare answer back
to their officers. Why, in my time
all they did was chew hardtack and sing 'Yo-ho-ho!'

DIONYSOS: Yes, and fart in the face of the oarsman beneath,
and cover the next man with shit, and steal from the shops
when they went on shore leave. Nowadays their muscles
are all in their tongues; they never flex their arms.

AISCHYIOS: What evil has Euripides
Not brought upon the stage?
He gives us leering pimperies,
Obstetric scenes in sacristies,
Incestuous adulteries,
'The denial of the Age'.
He's filling the City
With second-rate wit. He
Founds a school of writing apes,
Thumbs his nose, and off he trapes.

[22 July 1954]

43

EURIPIDES: I will not allow that Crestês 'returned': he came by stealth, ducking the border guards.

DIONYSOS: An excellent answer, by Hermês! -- Though I must confess that I don't understand it at all.

EURIPIDES: Let's have some more.

DIONYSOS: Yes, Aischylos, go on.

AISCHYIOS: Prostrate at this paternal mound, I beg
My father's ghost to hear me and give ear.

EURIPIDES: There you go again: 'hear me' and 'give ear'!

DIONYSOS: Blasphemer! Crestês is calling upon the dead:
three times is not enough.

AISCHYIOS: Well, suppose you tell us
how you write prologues, Euripidês.

EURIPIDES: Delighted.
And if you find me saying the same thing twice
or loading down my lines with the garbage of language,
spit in my eye!

DIONYSOS: Begin. Your prologues have always enchanted me.

EURIPIDES: Once was Oidipous a fortunate man--

AISCHYIOS: No! From his mother's womb he was doomed to misfortune.
The Oracle sang that he would kill his father
before he was born.

DIONYSOS: A precocious foetus!

AISCHYIOS: How can you call him fortunate?

EURIPIDES: Let me finish.
But later became of all men the most wretched.

AISCHYIOS: Not at all! He had been wretched all his life.
Examine the evidence. The very day he was born
he was put in a jug and left out in the snow
to die, to keep him from murdering his father.
Later he travelled to Korinth on his swollen feet,
and later, though still young,
he married a hag who turned out to me his mother,
and then he poked out his eyes. A fortunate man!

DIONYSOS: At least he never went into politics.

EURIPIDES: Talk as you will, you can't talk away my prologues!

[22 July 1954]

44

**AISCHYLOS:** I certainly won't dissect them line for line; but with God's help I think I can do for them with a little oil.

**EURIPIDES:** Oil?

**AISCHYLOS:** Oil. Just a drop or two. This poetry of yours is such shoddy stuff that almost anything will do to show it up: a pinch of cobweb, an oil-can, a valise.

**EURIPIDES:** You really think so?

**AISCHYLOS:** I do.

**DIONYSOS:** Come on: begin.

**EURIPIDES:** Aig岳os--as the rumour runs i' th' world-- Sailing the broad sea, landing at Argos with His fifty radiant daughters--

**AISCHYLOS:** Ran out of oil.

**DIONYSOS:** What do you mean, he ran out of oil? Shut up! Go on, Euripidês: another prologue.

**EURIPIDES:** Dionysos, dressed in fawn-skin, he who leads The choric revels upon high Parnasos, Waving his holy thyrsos--

**DIONYSOS:** That oil again!

**EURIPIDES:** Never mind. I have a prologue That's oil-proof. Let his try his oil on this: There is no man who can rightly be called happy: Say one was nobly born: today he's bankrupt; Another, of humble parents--

**DIONYSOS:** Euripidês.

**EURIPIDES:** Dionysos?

**DIONYSOS:** Reef your sails. We're in for an oil-storm!

**EURIPIDES:** Do you think I care? No, by Deméter, I'll drown him in his own oil!

**DIONYSOS:** All right. Another prologue, then. But look out!

[ends with verse 1224]

[24 July 1954]

45

EURIPIDES: Kadmos, Agenor's son, departing from
The citadel of Sidon--

AISCHYIOS: Ran out of oil.

DIONYSOS: Euripides, you'd better buy up that oil of his
before it ruins all your lovely prologues.

EURIPIDES: Certainly not! I've lots of prologues left
that he can't touch. For example:
Pelops, Tantalos's son, on his way to Pisa,
Drawn by swift coursers--

AISCHYIOS: Ran out of oil.

DIONYSOS: You see? There he is again with his damned oil-can.
--Come, Aischylos, let Pelops have it:
you can buy a better one anywhere for a penny.

EURIPIDES: Not so fast! I haven't given up yet!
Oineus, reaping in the fields--

AISCHYIOS: Ran out of oil.

EURIPIDES: Let me finish. Let me finish.
--Oineus,
Reaping in the fields an overplus of foison,
Sacrificed to the gods and--

AISCHYIOS: Ran out of oil.

DIONYSOS: While he was sacrificing? Where was the leak?

EURIPIDES: Let me try once more. See what he can do to this:
Zeus, as Truth itself asserts--

DIONYSOS: That's enough!
Can't you hear him saying that Zeus 'ran out of oil'?
A blasphemous thought!

--That oil of his
dirties your lines like the pus from your eyes.
--Come,
for God's sake, take up his choruses!

EURIPIDES: All right, I will.
And I'll show you that he's incompetent as a lyrist
and given to endless repetiti-on.

CHORUS: What cán he do? What cán he say?
How cán he hope to damn
The finest lyrics of our day?
Am I confused? I am.

[28 July 1954]

50

You must find something solid to challenge him with.

EURIPIDES: Where shall I find something solid? I ask you, where?

DIONYSOS: I'll tell you:
Dicing Achilleus rolled a two and a four.
Take it from there: it's the last chance you have.

EURIPIDES: In his right hand he seized a cudgel loaded with iron.

AISCHYIOS: Chariot upon chariot, cadaver upon cadaver. [AISCHYIOS' scale sinks

DIONYSOS: Beaten again.

EURIPIDES: But why?

DIONYSOS: In a single line
he has two chariots and a pair of corpses.
A hundred Egyptians couldn't hoist that verse!

AISCHYIOS: No more of this. Let him climb into his scale
with his, his children, and Kephisophon, and all his plays:
I'll outweigh the whole collection with two lines.

xxii

[enter PLUTO from the house, with his escort.
DIONYSOS turns to them in despair:

DIONYSOS: Gentlemen, you must help me! I can't be their judge;
can't bear the idea of one of them hating me!
I love Euripides as much as I ever did,
and Aischylos is pure joy.

PLUTO: Then you've wasted your trip.

DIONYSOS: And if I give judgment?

PLUTO: Take whichever one wins
back to Earth with you.

DIONYSOS: Oh, well. If I must, I must.

[turning to AISCHYIOS and EURIPIDES

Now listen carefully to what I'm going to say.
I cam down here to find a poet. Why?
To save the City and the Dramatic Art.
And so, whichever of you
can be of service to Athens with his advice,
he shall go with me to the world above.
Tell me, then, what about Alkibiadês?
'He is loved, hated, desired'--all at one time.
What is your thought?

[28 July 1954]

52

The Enemy's land is theirs, and their own land
is the Enemy's. The only safety lies in our ships.

DIONYSOS: Yes... But the dikasts swallow up everything!

PLUTO: The verdict, come!

DIONYSOS: The verdict is rightly yours;
but, 'I will choose him of my heart's desire'.

EURIPIDES: Remember, you swore by the gods that you'd take me home!

DIONYSOS: 'Sworn hath my tongue'; but I choose Aischylos.

EURIPIDES: What have you done, you ambulant disaster?

DIONYSOS: What have I done? Chosen Aischylos. And why not?

EURIPIDES: 'After this horrid betrayal you dare outface me?'

DIONYSOS: 'Betrayal?' Not if our audience doesn't think so!

EURIPIDES: Can you look on me here among the dead?

DIONYSOS: 'Which of us shall say that life's not death's twin brother',
or, for that matter,
that breathing's not dining, that going to bed's not a sheepskin?

[EURIPIDES withdraws indignantly]

PLUTO: And now Dionysos, come into the house.

DIONYSOS: For what?

PLUTO: We must have a feast before you leave.

DIONYSOS: I'm with you!

[all but the CHORUS enter the house]

CHORUS:

Thrice blessed is the man who's found
The true Philosophy!

Take Aischylos: he's upward bound
To Earth's felicity.

His sapience
And prescience

Restore him to the sunlight.

His own shall greet
Him in the street

With loud cries of 'You've done right!'

[ANTISTROPHE 1]