Aristophanes, Wasps (ed. Eugene O'Neill, Jr.)

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SCENE: In the background is the house of Philocleon, surrounded by a huge net. Two slaves are on guard, one of them asleep. On the roof is Bdelycleon.
Sosias
waking Xanthias up

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 animal we are guarding here?

[5] 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.

Are you crazy, like a Corybant?

No! It's Bacchus who lulls me off.

[10] Then you serve the same god as myself. Just now a heavy slumber settled on my eyelids like a hostile Mede; I nodded and, faith! I had a wondrous dream.

Indeed! and so had I. A dream such as I never had before. [15] But first tell me yours.

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 saw it was Cleonymus had thrown it away.

[20] This Cleonymus is a riddle worth propounding among guests. How can one and the same animal have cast away his buckler both on land, in the sky and at sea?

Alas! what ill does such a [25] dream portend for me?

Rest undisturbed! Please the gods, no evil will befall you.

Nevertheless, it's a fatal omen when a man throws away his weapons. But what was your dream? Let me hear.

Oh! it is a dream of high import. It has reference to the hull of the State; to nothing less.

[30] Tell it to me quickly; show me its very keel.

In my first slumber I thought I saw sheep, wearing cloaks and carrying staves, met in assembly on the Pnyx; [35]  a rapacious whale was haranguing them and screaming like a pig that is being grilled.

Faugh! faugh!

What's the matter?

Enough, enough, spare me. Your dream stinks vilely of old leather.

[40] Then this scoundrelly whale seized a balance and set to weighing ox-fat.

Alas! it's our poor Athenian people, whom this accursed beast wishes to cut up and despoil of their fat.

Seated on the ground close to it, I saw Theorus, who had the head of a crow. Then Alcibiades said to me in his lisping way, [45] "Do you thee? Theoruth hath a crow'th head."

Ah! that's very wll lisped indeed!

Isn't this mighty strange? Theorus turning into a crow!

No, it is glorious.

Why?

Why? He was a man and now he has suddenly become a crow; [50]  does it not foretoken that he will take his flight from here and go to the crows?

Interpreting dreams so aptly certainly is worth two obols.

Cross references from Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges:
1288 [VOCATIVE]

Cross references from Raphael Kühner, Friedrich Blass, Ausführliche Grammatik der Griechischen Sprache (ed. Ildar Ibraguimov):
75 [Bemerkungen über die Quantität in der Dichtersprache.]

Cross references from Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache (ed. Ildar Ibraguimov):
356 [Eigentümlichkeiten im Gebrauche des Nominativs.]

Cross references from Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache (ed. Ildar Ibraguimov):
486 [Nähere Bestimmung des Gebrauches des bezüglichen und des absoluten Partizips (des Participii coniuncti und der Genetivi absoluti).]

Cross references from Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek:
3, 1, 13 [Nominative in apposition with the vocative.]: houtos, ti pascheis;

Cross references from William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown:
7

This text is based on the following book(s):
Aristophanes. Wasps. The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House. 1938.
OCLC: 32280428