The Eleven Comedies Vol 2 Part 34

[340] His trade was to accuse the rich citizens of the subject islands, and drag them before the Athenian courts; he explains later the special advantages of this branch of the informer's business.

[341] That is, whips--Corcyra being famous for these articles.

[342] Cleonymus is a standing b.u.t.t of Aristophanes' wit, both as an informer and a notorious poltroon.

[343] In allusion to the cave of the bandit Orestes; the poet terms him a hero only because of his heroic name Orestes.

[344] Prometheus wants night to come and so reduce the risk of being seen from Olympus.

[345] The clouds would prevent Zeus seeing what was happening below him.

[346] The third day of the festival of Demeter was a fast.

[347] A semi-savage people, addicted to violence and brigandage.

[348] Who, being reputed a stranger despite his pretension to the t.i.tle of a citizen, could only have a strange G.o.d for his patron or tutelary deity.

[349] The Triballi were a Thracian people; it was a term commonly used in Athens to describe coa.r.s.e men, obscene debauchees and greedy parasites.

[350] There is a similar pun in the Greek.

[351] i.e. the _supremacy_ of Greece, the real object of the war.

[352] Prometheus had stolen the fire from the G.o.ds to gratify mankind.

[353] A celebrated misanthrope, contemporary to Aristophanes. Hating the society of men, he had only a single friend, Apimantus, to whom he was attached, because of their similarity of character; he also liked Alcibiades, because he foresaw that this young man would be the ruin of his country.

[354] The Canephori were young maidens, chosen from the first families of the city, who carried baskets wreathed with myrtle at the feast of Athene, while at those of Bacchus and Demeter they appeared with gilded baskets.--The daughters of 'Metics,' or resident aliens, walked behind them, carrying an umbrella and a stool.

[355] According to Ctesias, the Sciapodes were a people who dwelt on the borders of the Atlantic. Their feet were larger than the rest of their bodies, and to s.h.i.+eld themselves from the sun's rays they held up one of their feet as an umbrella.--By giving the Socratic philosophers the name of Sciapodes here ([Greek: _podes_], feet, and [Greek: _skia_], shadow) Aristophanes wishes to convey that they are walking in the dark and busying themselves with the greatest nonsense.

[356] This Pisander was a notorious coward; for this reason the poet jestingly supposes that he had lost his soul, the seat of courage.

[357] A [Greek: para prosdokian], considering the shape and height of the camel, which can certainly not be included in the list of _small_ victims, e.g. the sheep and the goat.

[358] In the evocation of the dead, Book XI of the Odyssey.

[359] Chaerephon was given this same t.i.tle by the Herald earlier in this comedy.--Aristophanes supposes him to have come from h.e.l.l because he is lean and pallid.

[360] Posidon appears on the stage accompanied by Heracles and a Triballian G.o.d.

[361] An Athenian general.--Neptune is trying to give Triballus some notions of elegance and good behaviour.

[362] Aristophanes supposes that democracy is in the ascendant in Olympus as it is in Athens.

[363] He is addressing his servant, Manes.

[364] Heracles softens at sight of the food.--Heracles is the glutton of the comic poets.

[365] He pretends not to have seen them at first, being so much engaged with his cookery.

[366] He pretends to forget the presence of the amba.s.sadors.

[367] Posidon jestingly swears by himself.

[368] The barbarian G.o.d utters some gibberish which Pisthetaerus interprets into consent.

[369] Heracles, the G.o.d of strength, was far from being remarkable in the way of cleverness.

[370] This was Athenian law.

[371] The poet attributes to the G.o.ds the same customs as those which governed Athens, and according to which no child was looked upon as legitimate unless his father had entered him on the registers of his phratria. The phratria was a division of the tribe and consisted of thirty families.

[372] The chorus continues to tell what it has seen on its flights.

[373] The harbour of the island of Chios; but this name is here used in the sense of being the land of informers ([Greek: phainein], to denounce).

[374] i.e. near the orators' platform, or [Greek: B_ema], in the Public a.s.sembly, or [Greek: Ekkl_esia], because there stood the [Greek: klepsudra], or water-clock, by which speeches were limited.

[375] A coined name, made up of [Greek: gl_otta], the tongue, and [Greek: gast_er], the stomach, and meaning those who fill their stomach with what they gain with their tongues, to wit, the orators.

[376] [Greek: Sukon] a fig, forms part of the word, [Greek: sukophant_es], which in Greek means an informer.

[377] Both rhetoricians.

[378] Because they consecrated it specially to the G.o.d of eloquence.

[379] Basileia, whom he brings back from heaven.

[380] Terms used in regulating a dance.

[381] Where Pisthetaerus is henceforth to reign.

THE FROGS

INTRODUCTION

Like 'The Birds' this play rather avoids politics than otherwise, its leading _motif_, over and above the pure fun and farce for their own sake of the burlesque descent into the infernal regions, being a literary one, an onslaught on Euripides the Tragedian and all his works and ways.

It was produced in the year 405 B.C., the year after 'The Birds,' and only one year before the Peloponnesian War ended disastrously for the Athenian cause in the capture of the city by Lysander. First brought out at the Lenaean festival in January, it was played a second time at the Dionysia in March of the same year--a far from common honour. The drama was not staged in the Author's own name, we do not know for what reasons, but it won the first prize, Phrynichus' 'Muses' being second.

The plot is as follows. The G.o.d Dionysus, patron of the Drama, is dissatisfied with the condition of the Art of Tragedy at Athens, and resolves to descend to Hades in order to bring back again to earth one of the old tragedians--Euripides, he thinks, for choice. Dressing himself up, lion's skin and club complete, as Heracles, who has performed the same perilous journey before, and accompanied by his slave Xanthias (a sort of cla.s.sical Sancho Panza) with the baggage, he starts on the fearful expedition.