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Aristophanes

The Harvest

Oh, 'tis sweet, when fields are ringing
With the merry cricket's singing,
Oft to mark with curious eye
If the vine-tree's time be nigh:
Here is now the fruit whose birth
Cost a throe to Mother Earth.
Sweet it is, too, to be telling,
How the luscious figs are swelling;
Then to riot without measure
In the rich, nectareous treasure,
While our grateful voices chime,--
Happy season! blessed time.

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The Call Of The Nightingale

Awake! awake!
Sleep no more, my gentle mate!
With your tiny tawny bill,
Wake the tuneful echo shrill,
On vale or hill;
Or in her airy rocky seat,
Let her listen and repeat
The tender ditty that you tell,
The sad lament,
The dire event,
To luckless Itys that befell.
Thence the strain
Shall rise again,
And soar amain,
Up to the lofty palace gate
Where mighty Apollo sits in state
In Jove's abode, with his ivory lyre,
Hymning aloud to the heavenly choir,
While all the gods shall join with thee
In a celestial symphony.

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A Parody On Euripides's Lyric Verse

Halcyons ye by the flowing sea
Waves that warble twitteringly,
Circling over the tumbling blue,
Dipping your down in its briny dew,
Spi-i-iders in corners dim
Spi-spi-spinning your fairy film,
Shuttles echoing round the room
Silver notes of the whistling loom,
Where the light-footed dolphin skips
Down the wake of the dark-prowed ships,
Over the course of the racing steed
Where the clustering tendrils breed
Grapes to drown dull care in delight,
Oh! mother make me a child again just for to-night!
I don't exactly see how that last line is to scan,
But that's a consideration I leave to our musical man.

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Chorus Of Women

They're always abusing the women,
As a terrible plague to men:
They say we're the root of all evil,
And repeat it again and again;
Of war, and quarrels, and bloodshed,
All mischief, be what it may!
And pray, then, why do you marry us,
If we're all the plagues you say?
And why do you take such care of us,
And keep us so safe at home,
And are never easy a moment
If ever we chance to roam?
When you ought to be thanking heaven
That your Plague is out of the way,
You all keep fussing and fretting--
'Where is _my_ Plague to-day?'
If a Plague peeps out of the window,
Up go the eyes of men;
If she hides, then they all keep staring
Until she looks out again.

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A Rainy Day On The Farm

How sweet it is to see the new-sown cornfield fresh and even,
With blades just springing from the soil that only ask a shower
from heaven.
Then, while kindly rains are falling, indolently to rejoice,
Till some worthy neighbor calling, cheers you with his hearty voice.
Well, with weather such as this, let us hear, Trygaeus tell us
What should you and I be doing? You're the king of us good fellows.
Since it pleases heaven to prosper your endeavors, friend, and mine,
Let us have a merry meeting, with some friendly talk and wine.
In the vineyard there's your lout, hoeing in the slop and mud--
Send the wench and call him out, this weather he can do no good.
Dame, take down two pints of meal, and do some fritters in your way;
Boil some grain and stir it in, and let us have those figs, I say.
Send a servant to my house,--any one that you can spare,--
Let him fetch a beestings pudding, two gherkins, and the pies of hare:
There should be four of them in all, if the cat has left them right;
We heard her racketing and tearing round the larder all last night,
Boy, bring three of them to us,--take the other to my father:
Cut some myrtle for our garlands, sprigs in flower or blossoms rather.
Give a shout upon the way to Charinades our neighbor,

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SONG OF THE CLOUDS (from The Clouds)

CLOUD-MAIDENS that float on forever,
Dew-sprinkled, fleet bodies, and fair,
Let us rise from our Sire's loud river,
Great Ocean, and soar through the air
To the peaks of the pine-covered mountains where the pines hang as tressed of hair.
Let us seek the watch towers undaunted,
Where the well-watered cornfields abound,
And through murmurs of rivers nymph-haunted,
The songs of the sea-waves resound;
And the sun in the sky never wearies of spreading his radiance around.

Let us cast off the haze
Of the mists from our band,
Till with far-seeing gaze
We may look on the land.

Cloud-maidens that bring the rain shower,
To the Pallas-loved land let us wing,
To the land of stout heroes and Power,
Where Kekrops was hero and king,

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The Cloud Chorus

SOCRATES SPEAKS

Hither, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves
here;
Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow,
Or whether ye dance with the Nereid Choir in the gardens clear,
Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile's overflow,
Or whether you dwell by Maeotis mere
Or the snows of Mimas, arise! appear!
And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.


THE CLOUDS SING

Immortal Clouds from the echoing shore
Of the father of streams from the sounding sea,
Dewy and fleet, let us rise and soar;
Dewy and gleaming and fleet are we!
Let us look on the tree-clad mountain-crest,
On the sacred earth where the fruits rejoice,

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The Origin Of The Peloponnesian War

DICAEOPOLIS

Be not surprised, most excellent spectators,
If I that am a beggar have presumed
To claim an audience upon public matters,
Even in a comedy; for comedy
Is conversant in all the rules of justice,
And can distinguish betwixt right and wrong.

The words I speak are bold, but just and true.
Cleon at least cannot accuse me now,
That I defame the city before strangers,
For this is the Lenaean festival,
And here we meet, all by ourselves alone;
No deputies are arrived as yet with tribute,
No strangers or allies: but here we sit
A chosen sample, clean as sifted corn,
With our own denizens as a kind of chaff.

First, I detest the Spartans most extremely;

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Grand Chorus Of Birds

Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the
leaves' generations,
That are little of might, that are molded of mire, unenduring
and shadowlike nations,
Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of
shadows fast fleeing,
Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date
of our being;
Us, children of heaven, us, ageless for aye, us, all of whose thoughts
are eternal:
That ye may from henceforth, having heard of us all things aright
as to matters supernal,
Of the being of birds, and beginning of gods, and of streams, and
the dark beyond reaching,
Trustfully knowing aright, in my name bid Prodicus pack with his
preaching!
It was Chaos and Night at the first, and the blackness of darkness,
and Hell's broad border,
Earth was not, nor air, neither heaven; when in depths of the womb
of the dark without order

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The Poet's Apology

Our poet has never as yet
Esteemed it proper or fit
To detain you with a long
Encomiastic song
On his own superior wit;
But being abused and accused,
And attacked of late
As a foe of the State,
He makes an appeal in his proper defense,
To your voluble humor and temper and sense,
With the following plea:
Namely, that he
Never attempted or ever meant
To scandalize
In any wise
Your mighty imperial government.
Moreover he says,
That in various ways
He presumes to have merited honor and praise;
Exhorting you still to stick to your rights,

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