(To Eur.) You, such stuff who compile, Dare my songs to upbraid; You, whose songs in the style Of Gyrene's embraces are made. So much for them: but still I'd like to show The way in which your monodies are framed. O darkly-light mysterious Night, What may this Vision mean, Sent from the world unseen With baleful omens rife; A thing of lifeless life, A child of sable night, A ghastly curdling sight, In black funereal veils, With murder, murder in its eyes, And great enormous nails? Light ye the lanterns, my maidens, and dipping your jugs in the stream, Draw me the dew of the water, and heat it to boiling and steam, So will I wash me away the ill effects of my dream. "God of the sea! My dream's come true. Ho, lodgers, ho, This portent view. Glyce has vanished, carrying off my cock, My cock that crew! O Mania, help! O reads of the rock Pursue! pursue! For I poor girl, was working within, Holding my distaff heavy and full, Twir-r-r-r-r-rling my hand as the threads I spin, Weaving an excellent bobbin of wool: Thinking 'To-morrow I'll go to the fair, In the dusk of the morn, and be selling it there.' But he to the blue upflew, upflew, On the lightliest tips of his wings outspread; To me he bequeathed but woe, but woe, And tears, sad tears, from my eyes o'erflow, Which I, the bereaved, must shed, must shed. O children of Ida, sons of Crete, Grasping your bows to the rescue come; Twinkle about on your restless feet, Stand in a circle around her home. O Artemis, thou maid divine, Dictynna, huntress, fair to see, O bring that keen-nosed pack of thine, And hunt through all the house with me. O Hecate, with flameful brands, O Zeus's daughter, arm thine hands, Those swiftliest hands, both right and left; Thy rays on Glyce's cottage throw That I serenely there may go And search by moonlight for the theft." (DIO: Enough of both your odes.) Enough for me. Now would I bring the fellow to the scales. That, that alone, shall test our poetry now, And prove whose words are weightiest, his or mine.

Aeschylus Monologue from The Frogs

Rehearse Aeschylus's monologue