* * * *
*
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
TRYGAEUS.
TWO SERVANTS of TRYGAEUS.
MAIDENS, Daughters of TRYGAEUS.
HERMES.
WAR.
TUMULT.
HIEROCLES, a Soothsayer.
A SICKLE-MAKER.
A CREST-MAKER.
A TRUMPET-MAKER.
A HELMET-MAKER.
A SPEAR-MAKER.
SON OF LAMACHUS.
SON OF CLEONYMUS.
CHORUS OF HUSBANDMEN.
SCENE: A farmyard, two slaves busy beside a dungheap;
afterwards, in
Olympus.
* * * *
*
FIRST SERVANT. Quick, quick, bring the dung-beetle
his cake.
SECOND SERVANT. Coming, coming.
FIRST SERVANT. Give it to him, and may it kill
him!
SECOND SERVANT. May he never eat a better.
FIRST SERVANT. Now give him this other one kneaded
up with ass’s dung.
SECOND SERVANT. There! I’ve done that
too.
FIRST SERVANT. And where’s what you gave
him just now; surely he can’t have devoured
it yet!
SECOND SERVANT. Indeed he has; he snatched it,
rolled it between his feet and boiled it.
FIRST SERVANT. Come, hurry up, knead up a lot
and knead them stiffly.
SECOND SERVANT. Oh, scavengers, help me in the
name of the gods, if you do not wish to see me fall
down choked.
FIRST SERVANT. Come, come, another made of the
stool of a young scapegrace catamite. ’Twill
be to the beetle’s taste; he likes it well ground.[262]
SECOND SERVANT. There! I am free at least
from suspicion; none will accuse me of tasting what
I mix.
FIRST SERVANT. Faugh! come, now another! keep
on mixing with all your might.
SECOND SERVANT. I’ faith, no. I can
stand this awful cesspool stench no longer, so I bring
you the whole ill-smelling gear.
FIRST SERVANT. Pitch it down the sewer sooner,
and yourself with it.
SECOND SERVANT. Maybe, one of you can tell me
where I can buy a stopped-up nose, for there is no
work more disgusting than to mix food for a beetle
and to carry it to him. A pig or a dog will at
least pounce upon our excrement without more ado,
but this foul wretch affects the disdainful, the spoilt
mistress, and won’t eat unless I offer him a
cake that has been kneaded for an entire day....
But let us open the door a bit ajar without his seeing
it. Has he done eating? Come, pluck up courage,
cram yourself till you burst! The cursed creature!
It wallows in its food! It grips it between its
claws like a wrestler clutching his opponent, and
with head and feet together rolls up its paste like
a ropemaker twisting a hawser. What an indecent,
stinking, gluttonous beast! I know not what angry
god let this monster loose upon us, but of a certainty
it was neither Aphrodité nor the Graces.
FIRST SERVANT. Who was it then?
