Delphi Complete Works of Aristophanes (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (142 page)

The
Thesmophoriazousae
, staged in 411, is a lampoon on Euripides. That poet with his kinsman Mnesilochus calls at the house of Agathon, a brother tragedian whose style is amusingly parodied. Euripides informs him that the women intend to hold a meeting to destroy him for libel; they are celebrating the feast of the Thesmophoria. As Agathon refuses an invitation to go disguised and defend Euripides, Mnesilochus undertakes the dangerous duty; his disguise is effected on the stage with comic gusto. At the meeting the case against the poet is first stated; he has not only lampooned women, he has taught their husbands how to counter their knaveries and is an atheist. Mnesilochus defends him; women are capable of far more villainies than even Euripides has exposed. The statement of these raises the suspicions of the ladies who soon unmask the intruder, inquiring of him the secret ritual of the Thesmophoria.

One of them goes to the Town Council to find out what punishment they are to inflict.

Mnesilochus meanwhile snatches a child from the arms of one of them, holding it as a hostage. To his amazement it turns out to be a wine-stoup. He vainly tries some of the dodges practised in Euripides’ plays to bring him to the rescue. The Chorus meantime expose the folly of calling women evil.

   “If we are a bane, why do you marry us? Why do you forbid us to

   walk abroad or to be caught peeping out? Why use such pains to

   preserve this evil thing? If we do peep out, everybody wants this

   bane to be seen; if we draw back in modesty, every man is much

   more anxious to see this pest peep out again. At any rate, no

   woman comes into the city after stealing public money fifty

   talents at a time.”

A better plan would be

   “to give the mothers of famous sons the right of place in festivals;

   those whose sons are evil should take a lower place.”

In an amusing series of scenes Euripides enters dressed up as some of his own characters to save Mnesilochus. A borough officer enters with a policeman whom he orders to bind the prisoner and guard him. More disguises are adopted by Euripides who succeeds at last in freeing his kinsman by pretending to be an old woman with a marriageable daughter whom the policeman can have at a price. When the latter goes to fetch the money Euripides and his relative disappear.

The poet has in this play very skilfully palmed off on Euripides his own attack on women. We have already seen what Euripides’ attitude was to the neglected sex. Feminine deceit has been a stock theme in all ages; it had already been treated in Greek literature and was to be passed through Roman literature to the Middle Ages, in which period it received more than its due share of attention. In itself it is a poor theme, good enough perhaps as a stand-by, for it is sure to be popular. Those who pose as woman-haters might consider the words of the Chorus in this play.

The most violent attack on Euripides was delivered after his death by Aristophanes in the
Frogs
, written in 405. This famous comedy is so well-known that a brief outline will suffice. It falls into two parts. The first describes the adventures of Dionysus who with his servant Xanthias descends to the lower world to bring back Euripides. The god and his servant exchange parts according as the persons they meet are friendly or hostile. In the second part the three great tragedians are brought on the scene. Euripides, who has just died, tries to claim sovereignty in Hades; Sophocles, “gentle on earth and gentle in death” withdraws his claim, leaving Aeschylus to the contest. The two rivals appoint Dionysus, the patron of drama, to act as umpire. In a series of admirable criticisms the weaknesses of both are plainly indicated. Finally Dionysus decides to take back Aeschylus.

This play is as popular as the Birds. It contains one or two touches of low comedy, but these are redeemed by the spirit of inexhaustible jollity which sets the whole thing rocking with life and gaiety. It is an original in Greek literature, being the first piece of definitely literary criticism. A long experience had made the sense of the stage a second nature to Aristophanes who here criticises two rival schools of poetry as a dramatist possessed of inside professional knowledge. So far his work is of the same class as Cicero’s
De Oratore
and Reynolds’
Discourses
. His object, however, was not to preserve a balance of impartiality but to condemn Euripides as a traitor to the whole tradition of Attic tragedy. He does so, but not without giving his reasons — and these are good and true. No person is qualified to judge the development of Greek tragedy who has not weighed long and carefully the second portion of the
Frogs
.

In 393 Aristophanes broke entirely new ground in the
Ecclesiazousae
(women in Parliament), a discussion of social and economic problems. Praxagora assembles the women of Athens to gain control of the city. They meet early in the morning, disguise themselves with beards and open the question.

   “The decisions of men in Parliament are to reflecting people like

   the derangements of drunken men. I am disgusted with our policy,

   we always employ unscrupulous leaders. If one of them is honest

   for one day, he is a villain for ten. Doling out public money, men

   have eyes only for what they can make out of the State. Let women

   govern; they are the best at providing money and are not likely to

   be deceived in office, for they are well versed in trickery.”

They proceed to the Assembly to execute their plot.

On the opening of the discussion one Euaeon proposed a scheme of wholesale spoliation of the property owners to support the poor. Then a white-faced citizen arose and proposed flatly that women should rule, that being the one thing which had never yet been tried. The motion was carried with great enthusiasm, the men declaring that “an old proverb says all our senseless and foolish decisions turn out for good”. When Praxagora returns to the stage, she declares she intends to introduce a system of absolute communism. All citizens are to live and dine in common and possess wives in common, existing on the work of slaves. Any person who refuses to declare his wealth is to be punished by losing his rations, “the punishment of a man through his belly being the worst insult he can suffer”. A vivid description of the workings of the new system ends the play.

Aristophanes is no doubt criticising Plato’s
Republic
, but allowing for altered circumstances we cannot go far wrong if we see here a picture of the suggested remedy for the social distress which is inseparable from a great war. At Athens, beaten and impoverished, there must have been widespread discontent; the foundation upon which society was built must have been criticised, its inequalities being emphasised by idealists and intriguers alike. Our own generation has to face a similar situation. We have seen women in Parliament and we are deluged by a flood of communistic idealism emanating from Russia. Its one commendation is that it has never yet been tried among us and many simple folk will applaud the philosophy which persuades itself that all our mistakes will somehow come right in the end. The problem of finding somebody to do the work was easily solved in ancient Athens where the slaves were three times as numerous as the free. England, possessing no slaves, would under communism be unable to feed herself and would die of starvation.

The
Plutus
, written in 388 is a singular work. An honest old man Chremylus enters with Carion “his most faithful and most thievish servant”. They are holding fast a blind old man, in obedience to an oracle of Apollo. After a little questioning the stranger admits that he is Plutus, the god of wealth. Wild with joy they invite him to their house. He does not like houses, for they have never brought him to any good.

   “If I enter a stingy man’s abode, he immediately digs me deep in

   the earth and denies he has ever seen me. If I enter a crazy

   man’s home, given to dicing and fast living, I am soon ejected

   naked.”

Learning that Chremylus is honest and poor he consents to try once again.

The rumour gets abroad that Chremylus has suddenly grown rich; his acquaintance reveal their true characters as they come to question him about his luck. The goddess Poverty enters, to be cross-examined by Chremylus who has suggested that Plutus should recover his sight under the healing care of Asclepius. Before the care is effected, she points out the dangers of his project. He is well-meaning, but foolish; Poverty is not Mendicancy, it means a life of thrift, with nothing left over but with no real want; it is the source of the existence of all the handicrafts, nor can the slaves be counted on to do the work if everybody becomes rich, for nobody will sell slaves if he has money already. Riches on the other hand are the curse of many; wealth rots men, causing gout, dropsy and bloated insolence; the gods themselves are poor, otherwise they would not need human sacrifice.

The cure is successful; Plutus recovers his eyes and can see to whom he gives his blessings; the good and the rascals alike receive their due reward. The change which wealth produces in men’s natures is most admirably depicted in the Epilogue.

This is an Allegory dramatised with no little skill. The piece is full of the shrewdest hits at our human failings, aimed, however, with no ill-nature. Aristophanes’ power of characterisation here shows no falling-off. Fortune’s fickleness is proverbial and has received frequent literary treatment. Men’s first prayer is for wealth; poverty, according to Dr. Johnson, is evidently a great evil because it needs such a long defence. Yet it is only the well-meaning but utterly unpractical idealists who desire to make us all prosperous —

   “How that may change our nature, that’s the question.”

Some are not fit for riches, being ignorant of their true function; self-indulgence and moral rottenness follow wealth; because of the abuse of the power which wealth brings, we are taught that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

It is difficult to convey an adequate impression of Aristophanes to the English reader. Long excerpts are impossible and undesirable. Comedy is essentially a mirror of contemporary life; it contains all kinds of references to passing political events and transient forms of social life; its turns of language are peculiar to its own age. We who are familiar with Shakespeare know that one of our chief difficulties in reading him is the constant reference to what was obvious to the Elizabethan public but is dark to us. Yet the plays of Aristophanes in an English translation such as that of Frere read far more like modern work than the comedies of Ben Jonson, for the society in which Aristophanes moved was far more akin to ours. It was democratic, was superficially educated, was troubled by socialistic and communistic unrest exactly as we are. Some of our modern thinkers would be surprised to find how many of their dreamings were discussed twenty-three centuries ago by men quite as intelligent and certainly as honest.

Aristophanes’ greatest fault is excessive conservatism. He gives us a most vivid description of the evils and abuses of his own time, yet has no remedy except that of putting back the hands of the clock some fifty years. Marathon, Aeschylus, the nascent democracy were his ideal and he was evidently put out by the ending of the period of “Periclean calm.” He then has no solution for the problems in front of him. But it might be asked whether a dramatist’s business is not rather to leave solutions to the thinker, concerning himself only with mirroring men’s natures. With singular courage and at no small personal risk this man attacked the great ones of his day, scourging their hypocrisies and exposing the real tendencies of their principles. If he has opened our eyes to the objections to popular government and popular poetry and has made us aware of the significance of the feminist movement, let us be thankful; we shall be more on our guard and be less easily persuaded that problems are new or that they are capable of a final solution.

On the other hand, we shall find in him qualities of a most original type. His spirits are inexhaustible, he laughs heartily and often without malice at the follies of the mass of men; Cleon and Euripides were anathema to him, but the rest he treats as Fluellen did Pistol: “You beggarly knave, God bless you”. His lyrics must be classed with the best in Greek poetry. Like Rabelais this rollicking jolly spirit disguises his wisdom under the mask of folly, turning aside with some whimsical twist just when he is beginning to be too serious. He will repay the most careful reading, for his best things are constantly turning up when least expected. His political satire ceasing with the death of Cleon, he turned to the land of pure fancy among the winged careless things; he then raised the woman’s question, started literary criticism and ended with Allegory. To few has such a noble cycle of work been vouchsafed; we owe him at least a debt of remembrance, for he loved us as our brother.

Athens
—
believed to be where Aristophanes died