Chorus: If indeed any man of the ancient comic teachers [were to accuse] us
Chorus: He compelled them to speak verses, breaking away to the theater,
Chorus: He would not have happened upon this poorly; but now the poet is worthy,
Chorus: that he dares to hate the same men as us and to speak the just things,
510
Chorus: And nobly it advances against the whirlwind and the storm.
Chorus: which things, however, he says many approach him with wonder
Chorus: and he is tormenting us, as if not long ago he had asked a chorus by itself,
Chorus: He ordered us to tell you about this. For the man says
Chorus: He does not linger having suffered this out of folly, but believing
515
Chorus: to be a comic trainer is the most difficult of all tasks;
Chorus: for indeed many have tried to win her, but few have succeeded;
Chorus: recognizing you for a long time as being by nature annual
Chorus: and those of the poets who betray their former selves with old age;
Chorus: knowing this, Magnes, you suffered nothing along with the descending gray hairs,
520
Chorus: He who has set up the most trophies of victory from the opposing choruses;
Chorus: casting every voice at you, and singing, and fluttering
Chorus: both playing the lyre and roasting and dipping in frogs.
Chorus: it was not enough, but ending at old age, for not at youth,
Chorus: He was expelled while being a old man, because he was left without the ability to mock;
525
Chorus: then, remembering Cratinus, who once flowed with great praise
Chorus: It flowed through the open fields, dragging the crowd along.
Chorus: they were wearing the oaks and the plane trees and the enemies as frontlets;
Chorus: It was not possible to sing at the symposium except for Doron, the fig-peeler,
Chorus: and carpenters of sweet-sounding hymns; thus that one flourished.
530
Chorus: Now, seeing him raving, you do not pity him,
Chorus: while the earrings are falling out and the string is no longer present
Chorus: when the nine harmonies yawn; but being old, I flowed around,
Chorus: like Conna, having a wreath, but perished by thirst,
Chorus: He who ought to have been drinking in the Prytaneion because of his previous victories,
535
Chorus: and do not chatter, but look at the fat man near Dionysus.
Chorus: what kinds of rages and insults Crates endured from you,
Chorus: who, feasting you from a small expense, sent you away,
Chorus: from a most cabbagey mouth, they devise the wittiest ideas;
Chorus: And he, however, alone withstood it, at one time falling, at another time not.
540
Chorus: This he always avoided, and besides this he used to say
Chorus: One ought first to become an oarsman before attempting to handle the rudders,
Chorus: And then from here, lead the ship by the prow and lament the winds,
Chorus: And then to steer it for himself. For all these reasons, therefore,
Chorus: that, having acted with sound sense and not foolishly, he prattled,
545
Chorus: take the rudder from him, and row him off to the Eleven with oars
Knights. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.