The Frogs: Acted at Athens in the Year B.C. 4051902 - 322 pages |
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Page 109 - Not long shall he vex us, I hope. And this the unlucky one knows, Yet ventures a peace to oppose, And being addicted to blows he carries a stick as he goes, Lest while he is tipsy and reeling, some robber his cloak should be stealing. Often has it crossed my fancy, that the city loves to deal With the very best and noblest members of her commonweal, Just as with our ancient coinage, and the newly-minted gold.
Page 17 - Those be mere vintage-leavings, jabberers, choirs Of swallow-broods, degraders of their art, Who get one chorus, and are seen no more, The Muses' love once gained. But O my friend, Search where you will, you'll never find a true Creative genius, uttering startling things.
Page 65 - Shall we all a merry joke At Archedemus poke, Who has not cut his guildsmen yet, though seven years old; Yet up among the dead He is demagogue and head, And contrives the topmost place of the rascaldom to hold? And Cleisthenes, they say, Is among the tombs all day, Bewailing for his lover with a lamentable whine. And Callias, I'm told, Has become a sailor bold. And casts a lion's hide o'er his members feminine.
Page 167 - Of what ills is he NOT the creator and cause? Consider the scandalous scenes that he draws, His- bawds, and his panders, his women who give, Give birth in the sacredest shrine, Whilst others with brothers are wedded and bedded, And others opine That 'not to be living
Page 151 - I taught them all these knowing ways By chopping logic in my plays, And making all my speakers try To reason out the How and Why. So now the people trace the springs, The sources and the roots of things, And manage all their households too Far better than they used to do, Scanning and searching What's amiss? And, Why was that? And, How is this?
Page 9 - I vow I can't help laughing, I can't help it. A lion's hide upon a yellow silk, A club and buskin! What's it all about? Where were you going?
Page 159 - Aye, such are the poet's appropriate works: and just consider how all along From the very first they have wrought you good, the noble bards, the masters of song. First, Orpheus taught you religious rites, and from bloody murder to stay your hands: Musaeus healing and oracle lore; and Hesiod all the culture of lands, The time to gather, the time to plough. And...
Page 143 - No cock-horse in my plays, by Zeus, no goat-stag there you'll see, Such figures as are blazoned forth in Median tapestry. When first I took the art from you, bloated and swoln, poor thing, With turgid gasconading words and heavy dieting, First I reduced and toned her down, and made her slim and neat With wordlets and with exercise and poultices of beet, And next a dose of chatterjuice, distilled from books, I gave her, And monodies she took, with sharp Cephisophon for flavour.
Page 55 - All evil thoughts and profane be still: far hence, far hence from our choirs depart, "Who knows not well what the Mystics tell, or is not holy and pure of heart; "Who ne'er has the noble revelry learned, or danced the dance of the Muses high; Or shared in the Bacchic rites which old bull-eating Cratinus's...
Page 89 - The rule which I dare to enact and declare, Is that all shall be equal, and equally share All wealth and enjoyments! nor longer endure That one should be rich, and another be poor, That one should have acres...