Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/185

Rh

And charm the ear.

Come then anew combine

Your notes in harmony with mine,

And with a tone beyond compare

Begin your Anapæstic air.

The sudden passion for science among the Athenians, and the ridicule of it among the comic poets, has been already noticed. Much might be said on the subject of the most splendid passage of the Parabasis, and of the philosophic system of which it presents the traces; but this would lead to considerations very remote from the imitation of actual life, and manners and character, which, as constituting the most singular excellence of the author, it has been the object of the translator to illustrate. Of the Parabasis before us, the merits are well known, and perhaps no passage in Aristophanes has been oftener quoted with admiration. To bring the most sublime subjects within the verge of Comedy, and to treat of them with humour and fancy, without falling into vulgarity or offending the principles of good taste, seems a task which no poet whom we know of, could have accomplished: though, if we were possessed of the works of Epicharmus, it is possible that we might see other specimens of the same style.

Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span,

Protracted with sorrow from day to day,

Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,

Sickly, calamitous, creatures of clay!

Attend to the words of the Sovereign Birds,

(Immortal, illustrious, lords of the air)

Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye,

Your struggles of misery, labour, and care.

Whence you may learn and clearly discern

Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn;

Which is busied of late, with a mighty debate,

A profound speculation about the creation,

And organical life, and chaotical strife,

With various notions of heavenly motions,

And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains,

And sources of fountains, and meteors on high,

And stars in the sky. We propose by-and-by

(If you'll listen and hear) to make it all clear.

And Prodicus henceforth shall pass for a dunce,

When his doubts are explained and expounded at once.