Les Grenouilles

Brekekekex coax coax, brekekekex coax coax !
Filles marécageuses des eaux, unissons les accents de nos hymnes aux sons de la flûte, le chant harmonieux coax coax, que nous entonnons dans le marais, en l’honneur de Dionysos de Nysa, fils de Zeus, lorsque la foule enivrée, le jour de la fête des Marmites, se porte vers notre temple. Brekekekex coax coax ! 

XANTHIAS: Now tell me, by Zeus, our mutual god of floggings, what's all this commotion and yelling and name-calling inside the palace?
SLAVE: It's Aeschylus and Euripides.
XANTHIAS: Aha.
SLAVE: An event's underway, a big event among the dead, and very intense factionalism.
XANTHIAS: About what?
SLAVE: There's a traditional custom down here: in each of the most important and skilled professions, the one who's best of all his fellow professionals is entitled to maintenance in the Prytaneum and a seat next to Pluto–
XANTHIAS: I get the picture.
SLAVE: –until someone more competent in the same craft arrives, at which point he has to step down.
XANTHIAS: So why has this flustered Aeschylus?
SLAVE: He was the one who held the Chair of Tragedy, for being dominant in that art.
XANTHIAS: And who holds it now?
SLAVE: When Euripides came down here, he started giving recitals for the muggers and purse-snatchers and father-beaters and burglars (there's a lot of them in Hades), and when they heard his disputations and twists and dodges, they went crazy for him and considered him the best, and that inspired him to claim the chair that Aeschylus was occupying.
XANTHIAS: And wasn't he pelted?
SLAVE: He was not; the public clamored to hold a trial of who's best in that art.
XANTHIAS: The criminal public clamored?
SLAVE: That's right, to high heaven
XANTHIAS: But weren't there others who sided with Aeschylus?
SLAVE: The good and the minority, (indicating the spectators) just like up there.
XANTHIAS: So what does Pluto intend to do?
SLAVE: To hold a contest immediately, a test and trial of the artistry of both.
XANTHIAS: Then how come Sophocles didn't stake a claim to the chair?
SLAVE: Not him! When he came down here Aeschylus gave him a kiss and grasped his hand, and he withdrew any rival claim on the chair. And now he's ready, in the words of Cleidemides, to take a bye and sit it out, and if Aeschylus wins, he'll stay where he is; otherwise, he's promised to challenge Euripides for his art's sake.
[...]
XANTHIAS: And who's to be the judge?
SLAVE: That was a tough one, because both discovered a shortage of competent people. You see, Aeschylus wouldn't agree to use Athenians–
XANTHIAS: Maybe he considered too many of them crooks.
SLAVE: –and the rest of them he thought were pure piffle when it comes to judging what poets really are.

"Oui, c'est là l'apanage d'un homme
Doué d'intellect et de raison et qui
A beaucoup sillonné les mers du monde,
De toujours alterner le roulement de sa vie
Pour tenir le bon bord,
Plutôt que, dressé tel une icône
Peinte, de ne prendre qu'une seule
Figure. [...] " - Les Grenouilles, Le chœur ( v.533)

Allons Eschyle, pars content et sauve notre cité par de sages avis ; fais l’éducation des sots : ils sont légions.