Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/aristophanes/knights.asp?pg=47

ELPENOR - Home of the Greek Word

Three Millennia of Greek Literature
ARISTOPHANES HOME PAGE  /  ARISTOPHANES POEMS  

Aristophanes' KNIGHTS Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

ELPENOR EDITIONS IN PRINT

The Original Greek New Testament
69 pages - You are on Page 47

SAUSAGE-SELLER. If you listen to him, you'll have to let him skin your penis to the very stump.

CLEON. My oracles say that you are to reign over the whole earth, crowned with chaplets.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. And mine say that, clothed in an embroidered purple robe, you shall pursue Smicythes and her spouse,[108] standing in a chariot of gold and with a crown on your head.

DEMOS. Go, fetch me your oracles, that the Paphlagonian may hear them.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. Willingly.

DEMOS. And you yours.

CLEON. I run.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I run too; nothing could suit me better!

CHORUS. Oh! happy day for us and for our children, if Cleon perish. Yet just now I heard some old cross-grained pleaders on the market-place who hold not this opinion discoursing together. Said they, "If Cleon had not had the power we should have lacked two most useful tools, the pestle and the soup-ladle."[109] You also know what a pig's education he has had; his school-fellows can recall that he only liked the Dorian style and would study no other; his music-master in displeasure sent him away, saying: "This youth in matters of harmony, will only learn the Dorian style because 'tis akin to bribery."[110]

[108] Smicythes, King of Thrace, spoken of in the oracle as a woman, doubtless on account of his cowardice. The word pursue is here used in a double sense, viz. in battle and in law. It is on account of this latter meaning, that Aristophanes adds "and her spouse," because in cases in which women were sued at law, their husbands were summoned as conjointly liable.

[109] Because he had smashed up and turned upside down the fortunes of Athens.

[110] The pun--rather a far-fetched one--is between the words [Greek: Dorhosti] (in the Dorian mode) and [Greek: dorhon] (a bribe).
Previous Page / First / Next Page of Aristophanes KNIGHTS
Aristophanes Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
Aeschylus ||| Sophocles ||| Euripides
Three Millennia of Greek Literature

 

Greek Literature - Ancient, Medieval, Modern

  Aristophanes Complete Works   Aristophanes Home Page & Bilingual Anthology
Aristophanes in Print

Elpenor's Greek Forum : Post a question / Start a discussion

Learned Freeware

Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/aristophanes/knights.asp?pg=47