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A Literal Translation, with Notes.
Studies
Aristophanes in Print
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66 pages - You are on Page 55
MNESILOCHUS (as Andromeda).[640] A pitiless ruffian has chained up the most unfortunate of mortal maids. Alas! I had barely escaped the filthy claws of an old fury, when another mischance overtook me! This Scythian does not take his eye off me and he has exposed me as food for the crows. Alas! what is to become of me, alone here and without friends! I am not seen mingling in the dances nor in the games of my companions, but heavily loaded with fetters I am given over to the voracity of a Glaucetes.[641] Sing no bridal hymn for me, oh women, but rather the hymn of captivity, and in tears. Ah! how I suffer! great gods! how I suffer! Alas! alas! and through my own relatives too![642] My misery would make Tartarus dissolve into tears! Alas! in my terrible distress, I implore the mortal who first shaved me and depilated me, then dressed me in this long robe, and then sent me to this Temple into the midst of the women, to save me. Oh, thou pitiless Fate! I am then accursed, great gods! Ah! who would not be moved at the sight of the appalling tortures under which I succumb? Would that the blazing shaft of the lightning would wither... this barbarian for me! (pointing to the Scythian archer) for the immortal light has no further charm for my eyes since I have been descending the shortest path to the dead, tied up, strangled, and maddened with pain.
EURIPIDES (as Echo). Hail! beloved girl. As for your father, Cepheus, who has exposed you in this guise, may the gods annihilate him.
MNESILOCHUS (as Andromeda). And who are you whom my misfortunes have moved to pity?
[640] Mnesilochus speaks alternately in his own person and as though he were Andromeda, the effect being comical in the extreme.
[641] A notorious glutton, mentioned also in the 'Peace.'
[642] Through Euripides, his father-in-law.
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