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Aeschylus
“Halcyon kingfishers, who by the sea's everflowing
waves do chatter,
moistening the surface of your wings with damp
drops bedewing,
and ye spiders who in the corners under the roof
wi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yind with your fingers
loom-stretched threads
the cares of the shuttle bard,
where the flute-loving dolphin was leaping
by the blue-peaked prows
oracles and stades.
Wine-blooming joy of the vine
painkilling spiral of grapes,
cast your arms about me, child.
....You see this foot?
Dionysus
I see it.
Aeschylus
Well, do you see this one?
Dionysus
I see it.
Aeschylus
Well, you write this sort of thing
and dare to criticize my lyrics,
you composer in the twelve tone style of Cyrene?
So much for his songs. I still want
to scrutinize the manner of his melodies.
Oh dark-shining night's
gloom, what woeful dream
do you send to me, from unseen Hades'
vestibules, possessing a soulless
soul, child
of black night, hair-raising horrible
sight, black-corpse-shrouded, murder, murder
envisioning, with long fingernails?
Now servants, light my lamp
Draw moisture in pitchers from the rivers, and heat water,
that I might wash away the divine dream.
O Marine Spirit,
So that's it. O Housemates,
Behold these portents!
Snatching my rooster
Glyce has fled.
Mountain-born Nymphs,
O Mania, help!
But I, the wretched one
happened to be performing my
tasks, the spindle full of thread
wi-yi-yinding in my hands
making a skein, so that
at dawn to the market
I could bring it to sell.
But it has flown away, flown away into the air
on the nimblest tips of its wings
but to me it left woes, woes,
and tears, tears from my eyes
I shed, shed, oh wretched me!
Now O Cretans, sons of Ida,
take your bows and come to the rescue
bestir your limbs and circle the house.
And also may Child Dictynna, Artemis the fair,
bring her doggies and come to my house by all means.
And you, daughter of Zeus, upholding twin
torches most piercing in your hands,
Hecate, shine me towards Glyce's
so I can go in and catch her in the act.
Dionysus
Stop with the songs already.
Aeschylus
I've had enough, too.
For now I want to bring him to the scale
which alone will put our poetry to the test.
For it will prove the weight of our phrases.
Dionysus
Then come here, if I really have to do this,
to deal with poets just like selling cheese.
Aristophanes. Frogs. Matthew Dillon.
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