CHORUS OF WOMEN.[416] Oh! my dears, methinks I see fire and smoke; can it be a conflagration? Let us hurry all we can. Fly, fly, Nicodicé, ere Calycé and Crityllé perish in the fire, or are stifled in the smoke raised by these accursed old men and their pitiless laws. But, great gods, can it be I come too late? Rising at dawn, I had the utmost trouble to fill this vessel at the fountain. Oh! what a crowd there was, and what a din! What a rattling of water-pots! Servants and slave-girls pushed and thronged me! However, here I have it full at last; and I am running to carry the water to my fellow townswomen, whom our foes are plotting to burn alive. News has been brought us that a company of old, doddering greybeards, loaded with enormous faggots, as if they wanted to heat a furnace, have taken the field, vomiting dreadful threats, crying that they must reduce to ashes these horrible women. Suffer them not, oh! goddess, but, of thy grace, may I see Athens and Greece cured of their warlike folly. 'Tis to this end, oh! thou guardian deity of our city, goddess of the golden crest, that they have seized thy sanctuary. Be their friend and ally, Athené, and if any man hurl against them lighted firebrands, aid us to carry water to extinguish them. STRATYLLIS. Let me be, I say. Oh! oh! (_She calls for help._) CHORUS OF WOMEN. What is this I see, ye wretched old men? Honest and pious folk ye cannot be who act so vilely. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah, ha! here's something new! a swarm of women stand posted outside to defend the gates! CHORUS OF WOMEN. Ah! ah! we frighten you, do we; we seem a mighty host, yet you do not see the ten-thousandth part of our sex. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ho, Phaedrias! shall we stop their cackle? Suppose one of us were to break a stick across their backs, eh? CHORUS OF WOMEN. Let us set down our water-pots on the ground, to be out of the way, if they should dare to offer us violence. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Let someone knock out two or three teeth for them, as they did to Bupalus;[417] they won't talk so loud then. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Come on then; I wait you with unflinching foot, and I will snap off your testicles like a bitch. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Silence! ere my stick has cut short your days. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Now, just you dare to touch Stratyllis with the tip of your finger! CHORUS OF OLD MEN. And if I batter you to pieces with my fists, what will you do? CHORUS OF WOMEN. I will tear out your lungs and entrails with my teeth. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Oh! what a clever poet is Euripides! how well he says that woman is the most shameless of animals. CHORUS OF WOMEN. Let's pick up our water-jars again, Rhodippé. CHORUS OF OLD MEN. Ah! accursed harlot, what do you mean to do here with your water? CHORUS OF WOMEN. And you, old death-in-life, with your fire? Is it to cremate yourself? CHORUS OF OLD MEN. I am going to build you a pyre to roast your female friends upon. CHORUS OF WOMEN. And I,--I am going to put out your fire.