Chorus: Now again, pay attention to the speech, if indeed you love anything pure.
1015
Chorus: for now the poet desires to criticize the spectators.
Chorus: for he says that they wrong him, even though he has done them many good deeds first,
Chorus: not openly, but secretly aiding other poets,
Chorus: having imitated Eurycleus' prophecy and intention,
Chorus: to pour forth many comic things, clad in other people's bellies.
1020
Chorus: after this, now also openly in danger on his own account,
Chorus: having steered the mouths of not alien but familiar Muses.
Chorus: Having been raised great and honored as no one has ever been among you,
Chorus: He says that he has not been puffed up so as to accomplish anything, nor to swell his pride,
Chorus: Do not even try to revel around the wrestling-school; nor even if some lover
1025
Chorus: he hastened towards him, hating that he was being mocked as a child.
Chorus: He says that he has never yet trusted anyone, holding a moderate opinion,
Chorus: so that he may use the Muses as guides and not as spokesmen.
Chorus: nor even when he first began to teach, he says, did he set upon men,
Chorus: but, having some anger of Heracles, he undertakes the greatest things,
1030
Chorus: boldly, having scraped him right from the start, the tooth-grinder,
Chorus: for most terrible rays from the eyes of Cynna were shining,
Chorus: And a hundred heads of flatterers, wailing, licked round about.
Chorus: about the head, and she had the voice of a ravine that had given birth to destruction,
Chorus: the smell of a seal, the unclean testicles of Lamia, and the anus of a camel.
1035
Chorus: 'Seeing such a portent, he says he would not have been bribed out of fear,'
Chorus: but he still fights even now for your sake; and he says that he is with him.
Chorus: to attempt to attack the weak ones last year and the feverish ones,
Chorus: who strangled their fathers at night and choked their grandfathers,
Chorus: reclining on the couches because of your idleness
1040
Chorus: he glued together counter-oaths and summonses and testimonies,
Chorus: So that many, fearing, jump up, like the polemarcus.
Chorus: having found such a protector and purifier of this country,
Chorus: You traitor, you who sowed him last year with most novel schemes,
Chorus: Those [crimes] which you have made yourselves ungrateful because of not knowing clearly.
1045
Chorus: And yet, while pouring many libations on many occasions, he swears by Dionysus.
Chorus: Never have you heard anything better than these comic verses.
Chorus: This, then, is shameful for you, for those who do not immediately understand it,
Chorus: But the poet is not considered any worse than the wise men,
Chorus: if, while driving past, he crushed the opponents' ingenuity.
1050
