ickly; there are plenty of
folk awaiting you with ready weapons.

CHORUS Farewell and good luck be yours! Let us begin by handing over all
this gear to the care of our servants, for no place is less safe than a
theatre; there is always a crowd of thieves prowling around it, seeking
to find some mischief to do. Come, keep a good watch over all this.
As for ourselves, let us explain to the spectators what we have in our
minds, the purpose of our play.

Undoubtedly the comic poet who mounted the stage to praise himself
in the parabasis would deserve to be handed over to the sticks of the
beadles. Nevertheless, oh Muse, if it be right to esteem the most honest
and illustrious of our comic writers at his proper value, permit our
poet to say that he thinks he has deserved a glorious renown. First of
all, 'tis he who has compelled his rivals no longer to scoff at rags
or to war with lice; and as for those Heracles, always chewing and ever
hungry, those poltroons and cheats who allow themselves to be beaten
at will, he was the first to cover them with ridicule and to chase them
from the stage;(1) he has also dismissed that slave, whom one never
failed to set a-weeping before you, so that his comrade might have
the chance of jeering at his stripes and might ask, "Wretch, what has
happened to your hide? Has the lash rained an army of its thongs on
you and laid your back waste?" After having delivered us from all these
wearisome ineptitudes and these low buffooneries, he has built up for
us a great art, like a palace with high towers, constructed of fine
phrases, great thoughts and of jokes not common on the streets.
Moreover 'tis not obscure private persons or women that he stages in his
comedies; but, bold as Heracles, 'tis the very greatest whom he attacks,
undeterred by the fetid stink of leather or the threats of hearts of
mud. He has the right to say, "I am the first ever dared to go straight
for that beast with the sharp teeth and the terrible eyes that flashed
lambent fire like those of Cynna,(2) surrounded by a hundred lewd
flatterers, who spittle-licked him to his heart's content; it had a
voice like a roaring torrent, the stench of a seal, a foul Lamia's
testicles and the rump of a camel."(3)

I did not recoil in horror at the sight of such a monster, but fought
him relentlessly to win your deliverance and that of the Islanders. Such
are the services which should be graven in your recollection and entitle
me to your