章节正文
of them now, thanks to that line of his: "A woman is the tyrant of the
old man who marries her." Again, it is because of Euripides that we
are incessantly watched, that we are shut up behind bolts and bars,
and that dogs are kept to frighten off the adulterers. Let that
pass; but formerly it was we who had the care of the food, who fetched
the flour from the storeroom, the oil and the wine; we can do it no
more. Our husbands now carry little Spartan keys on their persons,
made with three notches and full of malice and spite. Formerly it
sufficed to purchase a ring marked with the same sign for three obols,
to open the most securely sealed-up door! but now this pestilent
Euripides has taught men to hang seals of worm-eaten wood about
their necks. My opinion, therefore, is that we should rid ourselves of
our enemy by poison or by any other means, provided he dies. That is
what I announce publicly; as to certain points, which I wish to keep
secret, I propose to record them on the secretary's minutes.
CHORUS (singing)
Never have I listened to a cleverer or more eloquent woman.
Everything she says is true; she has examined the matter from all
sides and has weighed up every detail. Her arguments are close,
varied, and happily chosen. I believe that Xenocles himself, the son
of Carcinus, would seem to talk mere nonsense, if placed beside her.
SECOND WOMAN
I have only a very few words to add, for the last speaker has
covered the various points of the indictment; allow me only to tell
you what happened to me. My husband died at Cyprus, leaving me five
children, whom I had great trouble to bring up by weaving chaplets
on the myrtle market. Anyhow, I lived as well as I could until this
wretch had persuaded the spectators by his tragedies that there were
no gods; since then I have not sold as many chaplets by half. I charge
you therefore and exhort you all to punish him, for does he not
deserve it in a thousand respects, he who loads you with troubles, who
is as coarse toward you as the vegetables upon which his mother reared
him? But I must back to the market to weave my chaplets; I have twenty
to deliver yet.
CHORUS (singing)
This is even more animated and more trenchant than the first
speech; all she has just said is full of good sense and to the
point; it is clever, clear and well calculated to convince. Yes! we
must have strikingvengeance on the insults of Euripides.
MNESILOCHUS
Oh, women! I am not astonished at these outbursts of fiery rage;
how could your bile not get inflamed against Euripides, who has spoken
so ill of you? As for myself, I hate the man, I swear it by my
children; it would be madness not to hate him! Yet, let us reflect a
little; we are alone and our words will not be repeated outside. Why
be so bent on his ruin? Because he has known and shown up two or three
of our faults, when we have a thousand? As for myself, not to speak of
other women, I have more than one great sin upon my conscience, but
this is the blackest of them. I had been married three days and my
husband was asleep by my side; I had a lover, who had seduced me
when I was seven years old; impelled by his passion, he came
scratching at the door; I understood at once he was there and was
going down noiselessly. "Where are you going?" asked my husband. "I am
sufferingterribly with colic," I told him, "and am going to the can."
"Go ahead," he replied, and started pounding together juniper berries,
aniseed, and sage. As for myself, I moistened the door-hinge and
went to find my lover, who laid me, half-reclining upon Apollo's altar
and holding on to the sacredlaurel with one hand. Well now! Consider!
that is a thing of which Euripides has never spoken. And when we
bestow our favours on slaves and muleteers for want of better, does he
mention this? And when we eat garlic early in the morning after a
night of wantonness, so that our husband, who has been keeping guard
upon the city wall, may be reassured by the smell and suspect nothing,
has Euripides ever breathed a word of this? Tell me. Neither has he
spoken of the woman who spreads open a large cloak before her
husband's eyes to make him admire it in full daylight to conceal her
lover by so doing and afford him the means of making his escape. I
know another, who for ten whole days pretended to be suffering the
pains of labour until she had secured a child; the husband hurried
in all directions to buy drugs to hasten her deliverance, and
meanwhile an old woman brought the infant in a stew-pot; to prevent
its crying she had stopped up its mouth with honey. With a sign she
told the wife that she was bringing a child for her, who at once began
exclaiming, "Go away, friend, go away, I think I am going to be
delivered; I can feel him kicking his heels in the belly ....of the
stew-pot." The husband goes off full of joy, and the old wretch
quickly takes the honey out of the child's mouth, which starts crying;
then she seizes the baby, runs to the father and tells him with a
smile on her face, "It's a lion, a lion, that is born to you; it's
your very image. Everything about it is like you, even his little
tool, curved like the sky." Are these not our everyday tricks? Why
certainly, by Artemis, and we, are angry with Euripides, who assuredly
treats us no worse than we deserve!
CHORUS (singing)
Great gods! where has she unearthed all that? What country gave
birth to such an audacious woman? Oh! you wretch! I should not have
thought ever a one of us could have spoken in public with such
impudence. 'Tis clear, however, that we must expect everything and, as
the old proverb says, must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal
some orator ready to sting us.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
There is but one thing in the world worse than a shameless
woman, and that's another woman.
FIRST WOMAN
By Aglaurus! you have lost your wits, friends! You must be
bewitched to suffer this plague to belch forth insults against us all.
Is there no one has any spirit at all? If not, we and our
maid-servants will punish her. Run and fetch coals and let's
depilate her in proper style, to teach her not to speak ill of her
sex.
MNESILOCHUS
Oh no no! not that part of me, my friends. Have we not the right
to speak frankly at this gathering? And because I have uttered what
I thought right in favour of Euripides, do you want to depilate me for
my trouble?
FIRST WOMAN
What! we ought not to punish you, who alone have dared to defend
the man who has done so much harm, whom it pleases to put all the vile
women that ever were upon the stage, who only shows us Melanippes
and Phaedras? But of Penelope he has never said a word, because she
was reputed chaste and good.
MNESILOCHUS
I know the reason. It's because not a single Penelope exists among
the women of to-day, but all without exception are Phaedras.
FIRST WOMAN
Women, you hear how this creature still dares to speak of us all.
MNESILOCHUS
And, Heaven knows, I have not said all that I know. Do you want
any more?
FIRST WOMAN
You cannot tell us any more; you have crapped out all you know.
MNESILOCHUS
Why, I have not told the thousandth part of what we women do. Have
I said how we use the hollow bandles of our brooms to draw up wine
unbeknown to our husbands?
FIRST WOMAN
The cursed jade!
MNESILOCHUS
And how we give meats to our pimps at the feast of the Apaturia
and then accuse the cat....
FIRST WOMAN
You're crazy!
MNESILOCHUS
....Have I mentioned the woman who killed her husband with a
hatchet? Of another, who caused hers to lose his reason with her
potions? And of the Acharnian woman....
FIRST WOMAN
Die, you bitch!
MNESILOCHUS
....who buried her father beneath the bath?
FIRST WOMAN
And yet we listen to such things!
MNESILOCHUS
Have I told how you attributed to yourself the male child your
slave had just borne and gave her your little daughter?
FIRST WOMAN
This insult calls for vengeance. Look out for your hair!
MNESILOCHUS
By Zeus! don't touch me.
FIRST WOMAN (slapping him)
There!
MNESILOCHUS (hitting back)
There! tit for tat!
FIRST WOMAN
Hold my cloak, Philista!
MNESILOCHUS
Come on then, and by Demeter....
FIRST WOMAN
Well! what?
MNESILOCHUS
I'll make you crap forth the sesame-cake you have eaten.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Stop wrangling! I see a woman running here in hot haste. Keep
silent, so that we may hear the better what she has to say.
(Enter CLISTHENES, dressed as a woman.)
CLISTHENES
Friends, whom I copy in all things, my hairless chin
sufficiently evidences how dear you are to me; I am women-mad and make
myself their championwherever I am. Just now on the market-place I
heard mention of a thing that is of the greatest importance to you;
I come to tell it to you, to let you know it, so that you may watch
carefully and be on your guard against the danger which threatens you.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
What is it, my child? I can well call you child, for you have so
smooth a skin.
CLISTHENES
They say that Euripides has sent an old man here to-day, one of
his relations....
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
With what object? What is his idea?
CLISTHENES
....so that he may hear your speeches and inform him of your
deliberations and intentions.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
But how would a man fail to be recognized amongst women?
CLISTHENES
Euripides singed and depilated him and disguised him as a woman.
MNESILOCHUS
This is pure invention! What man is fool enough to let himself
be depilated? As for myself, I don't believe a word of it.
CLISTHENES
Nonsense! I should not have come here to tell you, if I did not
know it on indisputable authority.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Great gods! what is it you tell us! Come, women, let us not lose a
moment; let us search and rummage everywhere! Where can this man
have hidden himself to escape our notice? Help us to look, Clisthenes;
we shall thus owe you double thanks, dear friend.
CLISTHENES
Well then! let us see. To begin with you; who are you?
MNESILOCHUS (aside)
old man who marries her." Again, it is because of Euripides that we
are incessantly watched, that we are shut up behind bolts and bars,
and that dogs are kept to frighten off the adulterers. Let that
pass; but formerly it was we who had the care of the food, who fetched
the flour from the storeroom, the oil and the wine; we can do it no
more. Our husbands now carry little Spartan keys on their persons,
made with three notches and full of malice and spite. Formerly it
sufficed to purchase a ring marked with the same sign for three obols,
to open the most securely sealed-up door! but now this pestilent
Euripides has taught men to hang seals of worm-eaten wood about
their necks. My opinion, therefore, is that we should rid ourselves of
our enemy by poison or by any other means, provided he dies. That is
what I announce publicly; as to certain points, which I wish to keep
secret, I propose to record them on the secretary's minutes.
CHORUS (singing)
Never have I listened to a cleverer or more eloquent woman.
Everything she says is true; she has examined the matter from all
sides and has weighed up every detail. Her arguments are close,
varied, and happily chosen. I believe that Xenocles himself, the son
of Carcinus, would seem to talk mere nonsense, if placed beside her.
SECOND WOMAN
I have only a very few words to add, for the last speaker has
covered the various points of the indictment; allow me only to tell
you what happened to me. My husband died at Cyprus, leaving me five
children, whom I had great trouble to bring up by weaving chaplets
on the myrtle market. Anyhow, I lived as well as I could until this
wretch had persuaded the spectators by his tragedies that there were
no gods; since then I have not sold as many chaplets by half. I charge
you therefore and exhort you all to punish him, for does he not
deserve it in a thousand respects, he who loads you with troubles, who
is as coarse toward you as the vegetables upon which his mother reared
him? But I must back to the market to weave my chaplets; I have twenty
to deliver yet.
CHORUS (singing)
This is even more animated and more trenchant than the first
speech; all she has just said is full of good sense and to the
point; it is clever, clear and well calculated to convince. Yes! we
must have strikingvengeance on the insults of Euripides.
MNESILOCHUS
Oh, women! I am not astonished at these outbursts of fiery rage;
how could your bile not get inflamed against Euripides, who has spoken
so ill of you? As for myself, I hate the man, I swear it by my
children; it would be madness not to hate him! Yet, let us reflect a
little; we are alone and our words will not be repeated outside. Why
be so bent on his ruin? Because he has known and shown up two or three
of our faults, when we have a thousand? As for myself, not to speak of
other women, I have more than one great sin upon my conscience, but
this is the blackest of them. I had been married three days and my
husband was asleep by my side; I had a lover, who had seduced me
when I was seven years old; impelled by his passion, he came
scratching at the door; I understood at once he was there and was
going down noiselessly. "Where are you going?" asked my husband. "I am
sufferingterribly with colic," I told him, "and am going to the can."
"Go ahead," he replied, and started pounding together juniper berries,
aniseed, and sage. As for myself, I moistened the door-hinge and
went to find my lover, who laid me, half-reclining upon Apollo's altar
and holding on to the sacredlaurel with one hand. Well now! Consider!
that is a thing of which Euripides has never spoken. And when we
bestow our favours on slaves and muleteers for want of better, does he
mention this? And when we eat garlic early in the morning after a
night of wantonness, so that our husband, who has been keeping guard
upon the city wall, may be reassured by the smell and suspect nothing,
has Euripides ever breathed a word of this? Tell me. Neither has he
spoken of the woman who spreads open a large cloak before her
husband's eyes to make him admire it in full daylight to conceal her
lover by so doing and afford him the means of making his escape. I
know another, who for ten whole days pretended to be suffering the
pains of labour until she had secured a child; the husband hurried
in all directions to buy drugs to hasten her deliverance, and
meanwhile an old woman brought the infant in a stew-pot; to prevent
its crying she had stopped up its mouth with honey. With a sign she
told the wife that she was bringing a child for her, who at once began
exclaiming, "Go away, friend, go away, I think I am going to be
delivered; I can feel him kicking his heels in the belly ....of the
stew-pot." The husband goes off full of joy, and the old wretch
quickly takes the honey out of the child's mouth, which starts crying;
then she seizes the baby, runs to the father and tells him with a
smile on her face, "It's a lion, a lion, that is born to you; it's
your very image. Everything about it is like you, even his little
tool, curved like the sky." Are these not our everyday tricks? Why
certainly, by Artemis, and we, are angry with Euripides, who assuredly
treats us no worse than we deserve!
CHORUS (singing)
Great gods! where has she unearthed all that? What country gave
birth to such an audacious woman? Oh! you wretch! I should not have
thought ever a one of us could have spoken in public with such
impudence. 'Tis clear, however, that we must expect everything and, as
the old proverb says, must look beneath every stone, lest it conceal
some orator ready to sting us.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
There is but one thing in the world worse than a shameless
woman, and that's another woman.
FIRST WOMAN
By Aglaurus! you have lost your wits, friends! You must be
bewitched to suffer this plague to belch forth insults against us all.
Is there no one has any spirit at all? If not, we and our
maid-servants will punish her. Run and fetch coals and let's
depilate her in proper style, to teach her not to speak ill of her
sex.
MNESILOCHUS
Oh no no! not that part of me, my friends. Have we not the right
to speak frankly at this gathering? And because I have uttered what
I thought right in favour of Euripides, do you want to depilate me for
my trouble?
FIRST WOMAN
What! we ought not to punish you, who alone have dared to defend
the man who has done so much harm, whom it pleases to put all the vile
women that ever were upon the stage, who only shows us Melanippes
and Phaedras? But of Penelope he has never said a word, because she
was reputed chaste and good.
MNESILOCHUS
I know the reason. It's because not a single Penelope exists among
the women of to-day, but all without exception are Phaedras.
FIRST WOMAN
Women, you hear how this creature still dares to speak of us all.
MNESILOCHUS
And, Heaven knows, I have not said all that I know. Do you want
any more?
FIRST WOMAN
You cannot tell us any more; you have crapped out all you know.
MNESILOCHUS
Why, I have not told the thousandth part of what we women do. Have
I said how we use the hollow bandles of our brooms to draw up wine
unbeknown to our husbands?
FIRST WOMAN
The cursed jade!
MNESILOCHUS
And how we give meats to our pimps at the feast of the Apaturia
and then accuse the cat....
FIRST WOMAN
You're crazy!
MNESILOCHUS
....Have I mentioned the woman who killed her husband with a
hatchet? Of another, who caused hers to lose his reason with her
potions? And of the Acharnian woman....
FIRST WOMAN
Die, you bitch!
MNESILOCHUS
....who buried her father beneath the bath?
FIRST WOMAN
And yet we listen to such things!
MNESILOCHUS
Have I told how you attributed to yourself the male child your
slave had just borne and gave her your little daughter?
FIRST WOMAN
This insult calls for vengeance. Look out for your hair!
MNESILOCHUS
By Zeus! don't touch me.
FIRST WOMAN (slapping him)
There!
MNESILOCHUS (hitting back)
There! tit for tat!
FIRST WOMAN
Hold my cloak, Philista!
MNESILOCHUS
Come on then, and by Demeter....
FIRST WOMAN
Well! what?
MNESILOCHUS
I'll make you crap forth the sesame-cake you have eaten.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Stop wrangling! I see a woman running here in hot haste. Keep
silent, so that we may hear the better what she has to say.
(Enter CLISTHENES, dressed as a woman.)
CLISTHENES
Friends, whom I copy in all things, my hairless chin
sufficiently evidences how dear you are to me; I am women-mad and make
myself their championwherever I am. Just now on the market-place I
heard mention of a thing that is of the greatest importance to you;
I come to tell it to you, to let you know it, so that you may watch
carefully and be on your guard against the danger which threatens you.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
What is it, my child? I can well call you child, for you have so
smooth a skin.
CLISTHENES
They say that Euripides has sent an old man here to-day, one of
his relations....
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
With what object? What is his idea?
CLISTHENES
....so that he may hear your speeches and inform him of your
deliberations and intentions.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
But how would a man fail to be recognized amongst women?
CLISTHENES
Euripides singed and depilated him and disguised him as a woman.
MNESILOCHUS
This is pure invention! What man is fool enough to let himself
be depilated? As for myself, I don't believe a word of it.
CLISTHENES
Nonsense! I should not have come here to tell you, if I did not
know it on indisputable authority.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Great gods! what is it you tell us! Come, women, let us not lose a
moment; let us search and rummage everywhere! Where can this man
have hidden himself to escape our notice? Help us to look, Clisthenes;
we shall thus owe you double thanks, dear friend.
CLISTHENES
Well then! let us see. To begin with you; who are you?
MNESILOCHUS (aside)
- frighten [´fraitn]
vt.吓唬，使惊惧 (初中英语单词) - formerly [´fɔ:məli] ad.从前，以前 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- poison [´pɔizən] n.毒物 v.毒害 a.有毒的 (初中英语单词)
- speaker [´spi:kə] n.演讲人；代言人 (初中英语单词)
- punish [´pʌniʃ] vt.(惩)罚；痛击；折磨 (初中英语单词)
- coarse [kɔ:s] a.粗(糙)的；粗鲁的 (初中英语单词)
- convince [kən´vins] vt.使确信；使认识错误 (初中英语单词)
- striking [´straikiŋ] a.显著的，明显的 (初中英语单词)
- reflect [ri´flekt] v.反射；反响；表达 (初中英语单词)
- conscience [´kɔnʃəns] n.良心；道德心 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- terribly [´terəbli] ad.可怕地 (初中英语单词)
- sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- suspect [´sʌspekt, sə´spekt] v.怀疑；觉得 n.嫌疑犯 (初中英语单词)
- daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
- conceal [kən´si:l] vt.藏；隐瞒 (初中英语单词)
- suffering [´sʌfəriŋ] n.痛苦；灾害 (初中英语单词)
- hasten [´heisən] vt.催促；促进 vi.赶紧 (初中英语单词)
- infant [´infənt] n.&a.婴(幼)儿 (初中英语单词)
- frankly [´fræŋkli] ad.直率地；慷慨地 (初中英语单词)
- exception [ik´sepʃən] n.例外；反对，异议 (初中英语单词)
- accuse [ə´kju:z] vt.谴责；控告，告发 (初中英语单词)
- insult [in´sʌlt, ´insʌlt] n.&vt.侮辱；损害 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- champion [´tʃæmpiən] n.冠军 vt.拥护 (初中英语单词)
- wherever [weər´evə] conj.无论在哪里 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- tyrant [´taiərənt] n.暴君；霸主；专制君主 (高中英语单词)
- malice [´mælis] n.恶意；怨恨；预谋 (高中英语单词)
- nonsense [´nɔnsəns] n.胡说 int.胡说!废话 (高中英语单词)
- vengeance [´vendʒəns] n.报复，复仇 (高中英语单词)
- madness [´mædnis] n.疯狂；狂热 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- laurel [´lɔrəl] n.月桂树(叶)；桂冠 (高中英语单词)
- everyday [´evridei] a.每日的，日常的 (高中英语单词)
- plague [pleig] n.瘟疫 vt.使...染疫 (高中英语单词)
- amongst [ə´mʌŋst] prep.其中之一 =among (高中英语单词)
- eloquent [´eləkwənt] a.流利的；雄辩的 (英语四级单词)
- noiselessly [´nɔizlisli] ad.静静地，轻轻地 (英语四级单词)
- deliverance [di´livərəns] n.援救；获释 (英语四级单词)
- proverb [´prɔvə:b] n.谚语；格言 (英语四级单词)
- orator [´ɔrətə] n.演说者；雄辩家 (英语四级单词)
- gathering [´gæðəriŋ] n.集会，聚集 (英语四级单词)
- chaste [tʃeist] a.贞洁的；高雅的 (英语四级单词)
- incessantly [in´sesntli] ad.不断地，不停地 (英语六级单词)
- securely [si´kjuəli] ad.安全地；无疑地 (英语六级单词)
- publicly [´pʌblikli] ad.公然；公众所有地 (英语六级单词)
- indictment [in´daitmənt] n.控诉，告发；起诉书 (英语六级单词)
- myrtle [´mə:tl] n.桃金娘科 (英语六级单词)
- animated [´ænimeitid] a.栩栩如生的；活跃的 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- garlic [´gɑ:lik] n.蒜，大蒜 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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