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قراءة كتاب Peace
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WAR Oh! Megara! Megara! how utterly are you going to be ground up! what fine mincemeat(1) are you to be made into!
of the city of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.
TRYGAEUS Alas! alas! what bitter tears there will be among the Megarians!(1)
water.
WAR Oh, Sicily! you too must perish! Your wretched towns shall be grated like this cheese.(1) Now let us pour some Attic honey(2) into the mortar.
Sicily, on account of its rich pastures.
f(2) Emblematical of Athens. They honey of Mount Hymettus
was famous.
TRYGAEUS Oh! I beseech you! use some other honey; this kind is worth four obols; be careful, oh! be careful of our Attic honey.
WAR Hi! Tumult, you slave there!
TUMULT What do you want?
WAR Out upon you! Standing there with folded arms! Take this cuff o' the head for your pains.
TUMULT Oh! how it stings! Master, have you got garlic in your fist, I wonder?
WAR Run and fetch me a pestle.
TUMULT But we haven't got one; 'twas only yesterday we moved.
WAR Go and fetch me one from Athens, and hurry, hurry!
TUMULT Aye, I hasten there; if I return without one, I shall have no cause for laughing. (EXIT.)
TRYGAEUS Ah! what is to become of us, wretched mortals that we are? See the danger that threatens if he returns with the pestle, for War will quietly amuse himself with pounding all the towns of Hellas to pieces. Ah! Bacchus! cause this herald of evil to perish on his road!
WAR Well?
TUMULT (WHO HAS RETURNED) Well, what?
WAR You have brought back nothing?
TUMULT Alas! the Athenians have lost their pestle—the tanner, who ground Greece to powder.(1)
B.C.
TRYGAEUS Oh! Athene, venerable mistress! 'tis well for our city he is dead, and before he could serve us with this hash.
WAR Then go and seek one at Sparta and have done with it!
TUMULT Aye, aye, master!
WAR Be back as quick as ever you can.
TRYGAEUS (TO THE AUDIENCE) What is going to happen, friends? 'Tis the critical hour. Ah! if there is some initiate of Samothrace(1) among you, 'tis surely the moment to wish this messenger some accident—some sprain or strain.
opposite the mouth of the Hebrus; the Mysteries are said to
have found their first home in this island, where the
Cabirian gods were worshipped; this cult, shrouded in deep
mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an
almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said
that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and
they were feared as to-day the 'jettatori' (spell-throwers,
casters of the evil eye) in Sicily are feared.
TUMULT (WHO RETURNS) Alas! alas! thrice again, alas!
WAR What is it? Again you come back without it?
TUMULT The Spartans too have lost their pestle.
WAR How, varlet?
TUMULT They had lent it to their allies in Thrace,(1) who have lost it for them.
at Amphipolis, 422 B.C.
TRYGAEUS Long life to you, Thracians! My hopes revive, pluck up courage, mortals!
WAR Take all this stuff away; I am going in to make a pestle for myself.