Peace [1]
do not sweep Greece away!" Ah!
Hush, hush! I think I hear his voice!
TRYGAEUS (from within)
Oh! Zeus, what art thou going to do for our people? Dost thou
not see this, that our cities will soon be but empty husks?
SECOND SERVANT
As I told you, that is his form of madness. There you have a
sample of his follies. When his trouble first began to seize him, he
said to himself, "By what means could I go straight to Zeus? Then he
made himself very slender little ladders and so clambered up towards
heaven; but he soon came hurtling down again and broke his head.
Yesterday, to our misfortune, he went out and brought us back this
thoroughbred, but from where I know not, this great beetle, whose
groom he has forced me to become. He himself caresses it as though
it were a horse, saying, "Oh! my little Pegasus, my noble aerial
steed, may your wings soon bear me straight to Zeus!" But what is my
master doing? I must stoop down to look through this hole. Oh! great
gods! Here! neighbours, run here quick! here is my master flying off
mounted on his beetle as if on horseback.
(The Machine brings in TRYGAEUS astride an enormous figure of a
dung beetle with wings spread.)
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
Gently, gently, go easy, beetle; don't start off so proudly, or
trust at first too greatly to your powers; wait till you have sweated,
till the beating of your wings shall make your limb joints supple.
Above all things, don't let off some foul smell. I adjure you; else
I would rather have you stay right in the stable.
SECOND SERVANT (intoning)
Poor master! Is he crazy?
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
Silence! silence!
SECOND SERVANT (intoning)
But why start up into the air on chance?
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
'Tis for the weal of all the Greeks; I am attempting a daring
and novel feat.
SECOND SERVANT (intoning)
But what is your purpose? What useless folly!
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
No words of ill omen! Give vent to joy and command all men to keep
silence, to close down their drains and privies with new tiles and
to cork up their own arses.
FIRST SERVANT (speaking)
No, I shall not be silent, unless you tell me where you are going.
TRYGAEUS
Why, where am I likely to be going across the sky, if it be not to
visit Zeus?
FIRST SERVANT
For what purpose?
TRYGAEUS
I want to ask him what he reckons to do for all the Greeks.
SECOND SERVANT
And if he doesn't tell you?
TRYGAEUS
I shall pursue him at law as a traitor who sells Greece to the
Medes.
SECOND SERVANT
Death seize me, if I let you go.
TRYGAEUS
It is absolutely necessary.
SECOND SERVANT (loudly)
Alas! alas! dear little girls, your father is deserting you
secretly to go to heaven. Ah! poor orphans, entreat him, beseech him.
(The little daughters of TRYGAEUS come out.)
LITTLE DAUGHTER (singing)
Father! father! what is this I hear? Is it true? What! you would
leave me, you would vanish into the sky, you would go to the crows?
Impossible! Answer, father, if you love me.
TRYGAEUS (singing)
Yes, I am going. You hurt me too sorely, my daughters, when you
ask me for bread, calling me your daddy, and there is not the ghost of
an obolus in the house; if I succeed and come back, you will have a
barley loaf every morning-and a punch in the eye for sauce!
LITTLE DAUGHTER
But how will you make the journey? There's no ship that will
take you there.
TRYGAEUS
No, but this winged steed will.
LITTLE DAUGHTER
But what an idea, papa, to harness a beetle, to fly to the gods
on.
TRYGAEUS
We see from Aesop's fables that they alone can fly to the abode of
the Immortals.
LITTLE DAUGHTER
Father, father, that's a tale nobody can believe! that such a
smelly creature can have gone to the gods.
TRYGAEUS
It went to have
Hush, hush! I think I hear his voice!
TRYGAEUS (from within)
Oh! Zeus, what art thou going to do for our people? Dost thou
not see this, that our cities will soon be but empty husks?
SECOND SERVANT
As I told you, that is his form of madness. There you have a
sample of his follies. When his trouble first began to seize him, he
said to himself, "By what means could I go straight to Zeus? Then he
made himself very slender little ladders and so clambered up towards
heaven; but he soon came hurtling down again and broke his head.
Yesterday, to our misfortune, he went out and brought us back this
thoroughbred, but from where I know not, this great beetle, whose
groom he has forced me to become. He himself caresses it as though
it were a horse, saying, "Oh! my little Pegasus, my noble aerial
steed, may your wings soon bear me straight to Zeus!" But what is my
master doing? I must stoop down to look through this hole. Oh! great
gods! Here! neighbours, run here quick! here is my master flying off
mounted on his beetle as if on horseback.
(The Machine brings in TRYGAEUS astride an enormous figure of a
dung beetle with wings spread.)
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
Gently, gently, go easy, beetle; don't start off so proudly, or
trust at first too greatly to your powers; wait till you have sweated,
till the beating of your wings shall make your limb joints supple.
Above all things, don't let off some foul smell. I adjure you; else
I would rather have you stay right in the stable.
SECOND SERVANT (intoning)
Poor master! Is he crazy?
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
Silence! silence!
SECOND SERVANT (intoning)
But why start up into the air on chance?
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
'Tis for the weal of all the Greeks; I am attempting a daring
and novel feat.
SECOND SERVANT (intoning)
But what is your purpose? What useless folly!
TRYGAEUS (intoning)
No words of ill omen! Give vent to joy and command all men to keep
silence, to close down their drains and privies with new tiles and
to cork up their own arses.
FIRST SERVANT (speaking)
No, I shall not be silent, unless you tell me where you are going.
TRYGAEUS
Why, where am I likely to be going across the sky, if it be not to
visit Zeus?
FIRST SERVANT
For what purpose?
TRYGAEUS
I want to ask him what he reckons to do for all the Greeks.
SECOND SERVANT
And if he doesn't tell you?
TRYGAEUS
I shall pursue him at law as a traitor who sells Greece to the
Medes.
SECOND SERVANT
Death seize me, if I let you go.
TRYGAEUS
It is absolutely necessary.
SECOND SERVANT (loudly)
Alas! alas! dear little girls, your father is deserting you
secretly to go to heaven. Ah! poor orphans, entreat him, beseech him.
(The little daughters of TRYGAEUS come out.)
LITTLE DAUGHTER (singing)
Father! father! what is this I hear? Is it true? What! you would
leave me, you would vanish into the sky, you would go to the crows?
Impossible! Answer, father, if you love me.
TRYGAEUS (singing)
Yes, I am going. You hurt me too sorely, my daughters, when you
ask me for bread, calling me your daddy, and there is not the ghost of
an obolus in the house; if I succeed and come back, you will have a
barley loaf every morning-and a punch in the eye for sauce!
LITTLE DAUGHTER
But how will you make the journey? There's no ship that will
take you there.
TRYGAEUS
No, but this winged steed will.
LITTLE DAUGHTER
But what an idea, papa, to harness a beetle, to fly to the gods
on.
TRYGAEUS
We see from Aesop's fables that they alone can fly to the abode of
the Immortals.
LITTLE DAUGHTER
Father, father, that's a tale nobody can believe! that such a
smelly creature can have gone to the gods.
TRYGAEUS
It went to have