Opening The Wasps — Aristophanes in Plato Scroll…
Continue → · About this text
Aristophanes · Anonymous (Athenian Society, 1912)
A Roman bust of the playwright Why, Xanthias! what are you doing, wretched man? I am teaching myself how to rest; I have been awake and on watch the whole night. So you want to earn trouble for your ribs, eh? Don’t you know what sort of an animal we are guarding here? Aye indeed! but I want to put my cares to sleep for a while. Beware what you do. I too feel soft sleep spreading over my eyes. Resist it, for you must be as mad as a Corybant if you fall asleep. No! ’Tis Bacchus who lulls me off. Then you serve the same god as myself. Just now a heavy slumber settled on my eyelids like a hostile Mede; A nodded and, faith! I had a wondrous dream. Indeed! and so had I. A dream such as I never had before. But first tell me yours. Methinks I saw an eagle, a gigantic bird, descend upon the market-place; it seized a brazen buckler with its talons and bore it away into the highest heavens; then I …
Editions (plain text / reader):