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Chorus: It is necessary to be silent and to stand in line with our own choruses,

Chorus: Whoever is inexperienced in such speeches or whose mind is not pure,

355

Chorus: Neither has he seen the mysteries of the noble Muses nor has he danced them,

Chorus: nor has the tongue of Cratinus the bull-eater been consecrated to Bacchus.

Chorus: Or do they delight in the words of the buffoons when they do this at the wrong time?

Chorus: Or if he does not dissolve a hostile stance nor is he easy for the citizens,

Chorus: But he wakes up and tosses about, desiring his own profits,

360

Chorus: Or while the city is being tossed about, the ruler is being bribed,

Chorus: Does he betray a fortress or a ship, or does he send away secret matters?

Chorus: a wretched twentieth-tax collector, being from the Thorikians of Aegina,

Chorus: sending up sacks and linen and flatbreads to Epidaurus,

Chorus: Or does he persuade someone to supply money for the ships of the opponents?

365

Chorus: Or does he, singing, make the round of the round choirs of the Hecateia,

Chorus: Or does the orator, being an orator, then gnaw away the poets' wages,

Chorus: having been mocked in the ancestral rites of Dionysus;

Chorus: To these I speak, and again I answer them, and again for the third time I answer them.

Chorus: let the initiates be amazed at the choruses; but you, awaken the song.

370

Chorus: and our all-night festivals, which are fitting for this festival.

Frogs. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.

Current edition Experimental

English (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (English) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)

Βάτραχοι Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 2. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.) — 354 focus

Χορός

εὐφημεῖν χρὴ κἀξίστασθαι τοῖς ἡμετέροισι χοροῖσιν,

ὅστις ἄπειρος τοιῶνδε λόγων ἢ γνώμῃ μὴ καθαρεύει,
355

ἢ γενναίων ὄργια Μουσῶν μήτʼ εἶδεν μήτʼ ἐχόρευσεν,

μηδὲ Κρατίνου τοῦ ταυροφάγου γλώττης Βακχεῖʼ ἐτελέσθη,

ἢ βωμολόχοις ἔπεσιν χαίρει μὴ ʼν καιρῷ τοῦτο ποιοῦσιν,

ἢ στάσιν ἐχθρὰν μὴ καταλύει μηδʼ εὔκολός ἐστι πολίταις,

ἀλλʼ ἀνεγείρει καὶ ῥιπίζει κερδῶν ἰδίων ἐπιθυμῶν,
360

ἢ τῆς πόλεως χειμαζομένης ἄρχων καταδωροδοκεῖται,

ἢ προδίδωσιν φρούριον ἢ ναῦς, ἢ τἀπόρρητʼ ἀποπέμπει

ἐξ Αἰγίνης Θωρυκίων ὢν εἰκοστολόγος κακοδαίμων,

ἀσκώματα καὶ λίνα καὶ πίτταν διαπέμπων εἰς Ἐπίδαυρον,

ἢ χρήματα ταῖς τῶν ἀντιπάλων ναυσὶν παρέχειν τινὰ πείθει,
365

ἢ κατατιλᾷ τῶν Ἑκαταίων κυκλίοισι χοροῖσιν ὑπᾴδων,

ἢ τοὺς μισθοὺς τῶν ποιητῶν ῥήτωρ ὢν εἶτʼ ἀποτρώγει,

κωμῳδηθεὶς ἐν ταῖς πατρίοις τελεταῖς ταῖς τοῦ Διονύσου·

τούτοις αὐδῶ καὖθις ἀπαυδῶ καὖθις τὸ τρίτον μάλʼ ἀπαυδῶ

ἐξίστασθαι μύσταισι χοροῖς· ὑμεῖς δʼ ἀνεγείρετε μολπὴν
370

καὶ παννυχίδας τὰς ἡμετέρας αἳ τῇδε πρέπουσιν ἑορτῇ.

Translations (1)

Frogs (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Matthew Dillon). Migrated from Perseus legacy XML; source wording and notes retained. See TEI header and migration inventory.) — 354 focus

Chorus

Let him be mute and stand aside from our sacred dances

who has no experience of mystical language, or has not cleansed his mind

Who never has seen and never has danced in the rites of the noble Muses

Nor ever has been inducted into the Bacchic mysteries of beef-eating Cratinus

Or who takes delight in foolish words when doing this is ill-timed,
445

Whoever does not eliminate hateful factionalism, and is disagreeable to the citizens,

but kindles and fans civil strife, in his thirst for private advantage:

Whoever takes bribes when guiding the state through the midst of a storm

Or betrays our forts or our ships, smuggles contraband from Aegina

As Thorycion did, that wretched collector of taxes
450

Sending pads and sails and pitch to Epidauros ,

Or persuades anyone to send supplies to the enemies' ships,

Or defiles Hecate's shrine, while singing dithyrambs,

Or any politician who bites off the pay of the poets

For being ridiculed in the ancestral rites of Dionysus.
455

All these I warn, and twice I warn, and thrice I warn again,

stand aside from our mystical dances; but as for you: arouse the song

and the night-long dances, that belong to our festival here.

Commentary

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) focus

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Line 357

μηδὲ Κρατίνου τοῦ ταυροφάγου γλώττης Βακχεῖʼ ἐτελέσθη,

The phrase 'Κρατίνου τοῦ ταυροφάγου' (of the bull-eating Cratinus) is a notorious textual crux. While the scholia offer no alternative reading, the epithet 'ταυροφάγος' is otherwise unattested for Cratinus and semantically anomalous in a literary context. Scholars have long debated whether this represents a genuine, albeit obscure, biographical detail (perhaps alluding to a specific lost play or a physical characteristic), a corruption of a different word (such as 'ταυροκτόνου' or a reference to a specific ritual), or a deliberate, ironic distortion by the chorus to mock the poet's perceived gluttony or the violence of his old comedy. The lack of manuscript variants heightens the difficulty of resolving whether this is an authentic, albeit rare, contemporary nickname or a scribal error that has become canonical.

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Line 361

ἢ τῆς πόλεως χειμαζομένης ἄρχων καταδωροδοκεῖται,

The participle χειμαζομένης, agreeing with τῆς πόλεως, employs a maritime metaphor ('being storm-tossed') for political crisis, a standard rhetorical trope in the late fifth century but here charged with specific irony given the play's setting during the final years of the Peloponnesian War. The syntax of the genitive absolute construction (ἢ... χειμαζομένης ἄρχων) places the state of the city as the condition for the ruler's corruption, implying that the chaos is not merely a backdrop but the catalyst for the official's venality, a causal relationship Aristophanes sharpens through the juxtaposition of the violent participle with the mundane verb of bribery (καταδωροδοκεῖται).

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Line 363

ἐξ Αἰγίνης Θωρυκίων ὢν εἰκοστολόγος κακοδαίμων,

The phrase 'ἐξ Αἰγίνης' combined with 'Θωρυκίων' refers to the deme of Thoricos on Aegina, a detail that is crucial for identifying the specific social and political standing of the speaker, who is likely a metic or a citizen of a specific deme rather than Athens proper. The term 'εἰκοστολόγος' is a technical administrative title referring to a collector of the two percent tax on imports and exports, a role often held by metics or public slaves, which here serves as a specific marker of the character's humble or servile status within the Athenian economy. The combination of these elements creates a precise prosopographical sketch that would be lost without knowledge of the Athenian fiscal system and the deme system.

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Line 367

ἢ τοὺς μισθοὺς τῶν ποιητῶν ῥήτωρ ὢν εἶτʼ ἀποτρώγει,

The phrase ῥήτωρ ὢν (being a rhetor) is not merely descriptive but functions as a pointed ironic contrast to the subject's identity as a poet. In the context of the *Ranae*, Aristophanes satirizes the figure of the 'new' orator (likely targeting a contemporary like Hyperbolus or the general rhetorical shift in Athens) who, by encroaching on the poetic sphere or its patronage, commits a sort of intellectual gluttony. The verb ἀποτρώγει (devours/consumes) is used metaphorically here to suggest the orator is 'eating up' the poets' wages or perhaps the poets themselves, a vivid image of the orator's predatory nature in the competitive landscape of late 5th-century Athenian public life.

Aristophanes Frogs 354