No More Learning

Come, friends, get to work.
To the pit quickly, pick in hand and drag away the stones.

CHORUS. We go, but you, the cleverest of all the gods, supervise our
labours; tell us, good workman as you are, what we must do; we shall obey
your orders with alacrity.

TRYGAEUS. Quick, reach me your cup, and let us preface our work by
addressing prayers to the gods.

HERMES. Oh! sacred, sacred libations! Keep silence, oh! ye people! keep
silence!

TRYGAEUS. Let us offer our libations and our prayers, so that this day
may begin an era of unalloyed happiness for Greece and that he who has
bravely pulled at the rope with us may never resume his buckler.

CHORUS.
Aye, may we pass our lives in peace, caressing our mistresses and
poking the fire.

TRYGAEUS. May he who would prefer the war, oh Dionysus, be ever drawing
barbed arrows out of his elbows.

CHORUS. If there be a citizen, greedy for military rank and honours, who
refuses, oh, divine Peace! to restore you to daylight, may he behave as
cowardly as Cleonymus on the battlefield.

TRYGAEUS. If a lance-maker or a dealer in shields desires war for the
sake of better trade, may he be taken by pirates and eat nothing but
barley.

CHORUS. If some ambitious man does not help us, because he wants to
become a General, or if a slave is plotting to pass over to the enemy,
let his limbs be broken on the wheel, may he be beaten to death with
rods! As for us, may Fortune favour us! Io! Paean, Io!

TRYGAEUS. Don't say Paean,[300] but simply, Io.

CHORUS.