THE ELEVEN COMEDIES
The Athenian Society
ARISTOPHANES
Now For The First Time Literally And Completely Translated From The Greek
Tongue Into English
With Translator's Foreword An Introduction To Each Comedy And Elucidatory
Notes
The First Of Two Volumes
* * * * *
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME
Translator's Foreword
Authorities
THE KNIGHTS
Introduction
Text And Notes
THE ACHARNIANS
Introduction
Text And Notes
PEACE
Introduction
Text And Notes
LYSISTRATA
Introduction
Text And Notes
THE CLOUDS
Introduction
Text And Notes
INDEX
* * * * *
Translator's Foreword
Perhaps the first thing to strike us--paradoxical as it may sound to say
so--about the Athenian 'Old Comedy' is its _modernness_. Of its very
nature, satiric drama comes later than Epic and Lyric poetry, Tragedy or
History; Aristophanes follows Homer and Simonides, Sophocles and
Thucydides. Of its essence, it is free from many of the conventions and
restraining influences of earlier forms of literature, and enjoys much of
the liberty of choice of subject and licence of method that marks
present-day conditions of literary production both on and off the stage.
Its very existence presupposes a fuller and bolder intellectual life, a
more advanced and complex city civilization, a keener taste and livelier
faculty of comprehension in the people who appreciate it, than could
anywhere be found at an earlier epoch. Speaking broadly and generally,
the Aristophanic drama has more in common with modern ways of looking at
things, more in common with the conditions of the modern stage,
especially in certain directions--burlesque, extravaganza, musical farce,
and even 'pantomime,' than with the earlier and graver products of the
Greek mind.
The eleven plays, all that have come down to us out of a total of over
forty staged by our author in the course of his long career, deal with
the events of the day, the incidents and personages of contemporary
Athenian city life, playing freely over the surface of things familiar to
the audience and naturally provoking their interest and rousing their
prejudices, dealing with contemporary local gossip, contemporary art and
literature, and above all contemporary politics, domestic and foreign.
All this _farrago_ of miscellaneous subjects is treated in a frank,
uncompromising spirit of criticism and satire, a spirit of broad fun,
side-splitting laughter and reckless high spirits. Whatever lends itself
to ridicule is instantly seized upon; odd, eccentric and degraded
personalities are caricatured, social foibles and vices pilloried,
pomposity and sententiousness in the verses of the poets, particularly
the tragedians, and most particularly in Euripides--the pet aversion and
constant butt of Aristophanes' satire--are parodied. All is fish that
comes to the Comic dramatists net, anything that will raise a laugh is
fair game.
"It is difficult to compare the Aristophanic Comedy to any one form of
modern literature, dramatic or other. It perhaps most resembles what we
now call burlesque; but it had also very much in it of broad farce and
comic opera, and something also (in the hits at the fashions and follies
of the day with which it abounded) of the modern pantomime. But it was
something more, and more important to the Athenian public than any or all
of these could have been. Almost always more or less political, and
sometimes intensely personal, and always with some purpose more or less
important underlying its wildest vagaries and coarsest buffooneries, it
supplied the place of the political journal, the literary review, the
popular caricature and the party pamphlet, of our own times. It combined
the attractions and influence of all these; for its grotesque masks and
elaborate 'spectacle' addressed the eye as strongly as the author's
keenest witticisms did the ear of his audience."[1]
Rollicking, reckless, uproarious fun is the key-note; though a more
serious intention is always latent underneath. Aristophanes was a
strong--sometimes an unscrupulous--partisan; he was an uncompromising
Conservative of the old school, an ardent admirer of the vanishing
aristocratic regime, an anti-Imperialist--'Imperialism' was a
_democratic_ craze at Athens--and never lost an opportunity of throwing
scorn on Cleon the demagogue, his political _bete noire_ and personal
enemy, Cleon's henchmen of the popular faction, and the War party
generally. Gravity, solemnity, seriousness, are conspicuous by their
absence; even that 'restraint' which is the salient characteristic of
Greek expression in literature no less than in Art, is largely relaxed in
the rough-and-tumble, informal, miscellaneous _modern_ phantasmagoria of
these diverting extravaganzas.
At the same time we must not be misled by the word 'Comedy' to bring
Aristophanes' work into comparison with what we call Comedy now. This is
quite another thing--confined to a representation of incidents of
private, generally polite life, and made up of the intrigues and
entanglements of social and domestic situations. Such a Comedy the Greeks
did produce, but at a date fifty or sixty years subsequent to
Aristophanes' day, and recognized by themselves as belonging to an
entirely different genre. Hence the distinction drawn between 'The Old
Comedy,' of which Cratinus and his younger contemporaries, Eupolis and
Aristophanes, were the leading representatives, and which was at
high-water mark just before and during the course of the great struggle
of the Peloponnesian War, and 'The New Comedy,' a comedy of manners, the
two chief exponents of which were Philemon and Menander, writing after
Athens had fallen under the Macedonian yoke, and politics were excluded
altogether from the stage. Menander's plays in turn were the originals of
those produced by Plautus and Terence at Rome, whose existing Comedies
afford some faint idea of what the lost masterpieces of their Greek
predecessor must have been. Unlike the 'Old,' the 'New Comedy' had no
Chorus and no 'Parabasis.'
This remarkable and distinctive feature, by-the-bye, of the Old Comedy,
the 'Parabasis' to wit, calls for a word of explanation. It was a direct
address on the Author's part to the audience, delivered in verse of a
special metre, generally towards the close of the representation, by the
leader of the Chorus, but expressing the personal opinions and
predilections of the poet, and embodying any remarks upon current topics
and any urgent piece of advice which he was particularly anxious to
insist on. Often it was made the vehicle for special appeal to the
sympathetic consideration of the spectators for the play and its merits.
These 'parabases,' so characteristic of the Aristophanic comedy, are
conceived in the brightest and wittiest vein, and abound in topical
allusions and personal hits that must have constituted them perhaps the
most telling part of the whole performance.
Aristophanes deals with all questions; for him the domain of the Comic
Poet has no limits, his mission is as wide as human nature. It is to
Athens he addresses himself, to the city as a whole; his criticism
embraces morals no less than politics, poetry no less than philosophy; he
does not hesitate to assail the rites and dogmas of Paganism; whatever
affords subject for laughter or vituperation lies within his province;
there he is in his element, scourge in hand, his heart ablaze with
indignation, pitiless, and utterly careless of all social distinctions.
In Politics Aristophanes belongs to the party of the Aristocracy. He
could not do otherwise, seeing that the democratic principle was then
triumphant; Comedy is never laudatory, it lives upon criticism, it must
bite to the quick to win a hearing; its strength, its vital force is
contradiction. Thus the abuses of democracy and demagogy were the most
favourable element possible for the development of Aristophanes' genius,
just because his merciless satire finds more abundant subject-matter
there than under any other form of civil constitution. Then are we
actually to believe that the necessity of his profession as a comic poet
alone drove him into the faction of the malcontents? This would surely be
to wilfully mistake the dignity of character and consistency of
conviction which are to be found underlying all his productions.
Throughout his long career as a dramatist his predilections always remain
the same, as likewise his antipathies, and in many respects the party he
champions so ardently had claims to be regarded as representing the best
interests of the state. It is but just therefore to proclaim
Aristophanes as having deserved well of his country, and to admit the
genuine courage he displayed in attacking before the people the people's
own favourites, assailing in word those who held the sword. To mock at
the folly of a nation that lets itself be cajoled by vain and empty
flatteries, to preach peace to fellow-citizens enamoured of war, was to
fulfil a dangerous role, that would never have appealed, we may feel
sure, to a mere vulgar ambition.
Moreover his genius, pre-eminently Greek as it is, has an instinctive
horror of all excesses, and hits out at them wherever he marks their
existence, whether amongst the great or the humble of the earth.
Supposing the Aristocracy, having won the victory the Poet desired, had
fallen in turn into oppression and misgovernment, doubtless Aristophanes
would have lashed its members with his most biting sarcasms. It is just
because Liberty is dear to his heart that he hates government by
Demagogues; he would fain free the city from the despotism of a clique of
wretched intriguers that oppressed her. But at the same time the
Aristocracy favoured by our Author was not such as comes by birth and
privilege, but such as is won and maintained by merit and high service to
the state.
In matters of morality his satires have the same high aims. How should a
corrupted population recover purity, if not by returning to the old
unsullied sources from which earlier generations had drawn their
inspiration? Accordingly we find Aristophanes constantly bringing on the
stage the "men of Marathon," the vigorous generation to which Athens owed
her freedom and her greatness. It is no mere childish commonplace with
our poet, this laudation of a past age; the facts of History prove he was
in the right, all the novelties he condemns were as a matter of fact so
many causes that brought about Athenian decadence. Directly the citizen
receives payment for attending the Assembly, he is no longer a perfectly
free agent in the disposal of his vote; besides, the practice is
equivalent to setting a premium on idleness, and so ruining all proper
activity; a populace maintained by the state loses all energy, falls into
a lethargy and dies. The life of the forum is a formidable solvent of
virtue and vigour; by dint of speechifying, men forget how to act.
Another thing was the introduction of 'the new education,' imported by
'the Sophists,' which substituted for serious studies, definitely limited
and systematically pursued, a crowd of vague and subtle speculations; it
was a mental gymnastic that gave suppleness to the wits, it is true, but
only by corrupting and deteriorating the moral sense, a system that in
the long run was merely destructive. Such, then, was the threefold poison
that was destroying Athenian morality--the triobolus, the noisy
assemblies in the Agora, the doctrines of the Sophists; the antidote was
the recollection of former virtue and past prosperity, which the Poet
systematically revives in contrast with the turpitudes and trivialities
of the present day. There is no turning back the course of history; but
if Aristophanes' efforts have remained abortive, they are not therefore
inglorious. Is the moralist to despair and throw away his pen, because in
so many cases his voice finds no echo?
Again we find Aristophanes' literary views embodying the same good sense
which led him to see the truth in politics and morals. Here likewise it
is not the individual he attacks; his criticism is general. His adversary
is not the individual Euripides, but under his name depraved taste and
the abandonment of that noble simplicity which had produced the
masterpieces of the age of Pericles. Euripides was no ordinary writer,
that is beyond question; but the very excellence of his qualities made
his influence only the more dangerous.
Literary reform is closely connected with moral regeneration, the
decadence of the one being both cause and effect of the deterioration of
the other. The author who should succeed in purifying the public taste
would come near restoring to repute healthy and honest views of life.
Aristophanes essayed the task both by criticism and example--by
criticism, directing the shafts of his ridicule at over-emphasis and
over-subtlety, by example, writing himself in inimitable perfection the
beautiful Attic dialect, which was being enervated and effeminated and
spoiled in the hands of his opponents.
Even the Gods were not spared by the Aristophanic wit and badinage; in
'Plutus,' in 'The Birds,' in 'The Frogs,' we see them very roughly
handled. To wonder at these profane drolleries, however, is to fail
altogether to grasp the privileges of ancient comedy and the very nature
of Athenian society. The Comic Poets exercised unlimited rights of making
fun; we do not read in history of a single one of the class having ever
been called to the bar of justice to answer for the audacity of his
dramatic efforts. The same liberty extended to religious matters; the
Athenian people, keen, delicately organized, quick to see a joke and
loving laughter for its own sake, even when the point told against
themselves, this people of mockers felt convinced the Gods appreciated
raillery just as well as men did. Moreover, the Greeks do not appear to
have had any very strong attachment to Paganism as a matter of dogmatic
belief. To say nothing of the enlightened classes, who saw in this vast
hierarchy of divinities only an ingenious allegory, the populace even was
mainly concerned with the processions and songs and dances, the banquets
and spectacular shows and all the external pomp and splendour of a cult
the magnificence and varied rites of which amused its curiosity. But
serious faith, ardent devotion, dogmatic discussion, is there a trace of
these things? A sensual and poetic type of religion, Paganism was
accepted at Athens only by the imagination, not by the reason; its
ceremonies were duly performed, without any real piety touching the
heart. Thus the audience felt no call to champion the cause of their
deities when held up to ribaldry on the open stage; they left them to
defend themselves--if they could.
Thus Aristophanes, we see, covered the whole field of thought; he
scourged whatever was vicious or ridiculous, whether before the altars of
the Gods, in the schools of the Sophists, or on the Orators' platform.
But the wider the duty he undertook, the harder it became to fulfil this
duty adequately. How satisfy a public made up of so many and such diverse
elements, so sharply contrasted by birth, fortune, education, opinion,
interest? How hold sway over a body of spectators, who were at the same
time judges? To succeed in the task he was bound to be master of all
styles of diction--at one and the same time a dainty poet and a diverting
buffoon. It is just this universality of genius, this combination of the
most eminent and various qualities, that has won Aristophanes a place
apart among satirists; and if it be true to say that well-written works
never die, the style alone of his Comedies would have assured their
immortality.
No writer, indeed, has been more pre-eminent in that simple, clear,
precise, elegant diction that is the peculiar glory of Attic literature,
the brilliant yet concise quality of which the authors of no other Greek
city were quite able to attain. He shows, each in its due turn, vigour
and suppleness of language, he exercises a sure and spontaneous choice of
correct terms, the proper combination of harmonious phrases, he goes
straight to his object, he aims well and hits hard, even when he seems to
be merely grazing the surface. Under his apparent negligence lies
concealed the high perfection of accomplished art. This applies to the
dialogues. In the choruses, Aristophanes speaks the tongue of Pindar and
Sophocles; he follows the footsteps of those two mighty masters of the
choric hymn into the highest regions of poetry; his lyric style is bold,
impetuous, abounding in verve and brilliance, yet without the high-flown
inspiration ever involving a lapse from good taste.
One of the forms in which he is fondest of clothing his conceptions is
allegory; it may truly lie said that the stage of Aristophanes is a
series of caricatures where every idea has taken on a corporeal
presentment and is reproduced under human lineaments. To personify the
abstract notion, to dress it up in the shape of an animated being for its
better comprehension by the public, is in fact a proceeding altogether in
harmony with the customs and conventions of Ancient Comedy. The Comic
Poet never spares us a single detail of everyday life, no matter how
commonplace or degrading; he pushes the materialistic delineation of the
passions and vices to the extreme limit of obscene gesture and the most
cynical shamelessness of word and act.
This scorn of propriety, this unchecked licence of speech, has often been
made a subject of reproach against Aristophanes, and it appears to the
best modern critics that the poet would have been not a whit less
diverting or effective had he respected the dictates of common decency.
But it is only fair, surely, before finally condemning our Author, to
consider whether the times in which he lived, the origin itself of the
Greek Comedy, and the constitution of the audience, do not entitle him at
any rate to claim the benefit of extenuating circumstances. We must not
forget that Comedy owes its birth to those festivals at which Priapus was
adored side by side with Bacchus, and that 'Phallophoria' (carrying the
symbols of generation in procession) still existed as a religious rite at
the date when Aristophanes was composing his plays. Nor must we forget
that theatrical performances were at Athens forbidden pleasures to women
and children. Above all we should take full account of the code of social
custom and morality then prevailing. The Ancients never understood
modesty quite in the same way as our refined modern civilization does;
they spoke of everything without the smallest reticence, and expressions
which would revolt the least squeamish amongst ourselves did not surprise
or shock the most fastidious. We ought not, therefore, to blame too
severely the Comic Poet, who after all was only following in this respect
the habits of his age; and if his pictures are often repulsively bestial,
let us lay most blame to the account of a state of society which deserved
to be painted in such odiously black colours. Doubtless Aristophanes
might have given less Prominence to these cynical representations,
instead of revelling in them, as he really seems to have done; men of
taste and refinement, and there must have been such even among his
audience, would have thought all the better of him! But it was the
populace filled the bulk of the benches, and the populace loved coarse
laughter and filthy words. The Poet supplied what the majority demanded;
he was not the man to sacrifice one of the easiest and surest means of
winning applause and popularity.
Aristophanes enjoyed an ample share of glory in his lifetime, and
posterity has ratified the verdict given by his contemporaries. The
epitaph is well-known which Plato composed for him, after his death: "The
Graces, seeking an imperishable sanctuary, found the soul of
Aristophanes." Such eulogy may appear excessive to one who re-peruses
after the lapse of twenty centuries these pictures of a vanished world.
But if, despite the profound differences of custom, taste and opinion
which separate our own age from that of the Greeks, despite the obscurity
of a host of passages whose especial point lay in their reference to some
topic of the moment, and which inevitably leave us cold at the present
day--if, despite all this, we still feel ourselves carried away, charmed,
diverted, dominated by this dazzling _verve_, these copious outpourings
of imagination, wit and poesy, let us try to realize in thought what must
have been the unbounded pleasure of an Athenian audience listening to one
of our Author's satires. Then every detail was realized, every nuance of
criticism appreciated; every allusion told, and the model was often
actually sitting in the semicircle of the auditorium facing the copy at
that time being presented on the stage. "What a passion of excitement!
What transports of enthusiasm and angry protest! What bursts of
uncontrollable merriment! What thunders of applause! How the Comic Poet
must have felt himself a King, indeed, in presence of these popular
storms which, like the god of the sea, he could arouse and allay at his
good will and pleasure!"[2]
To return for a moment to the coarseness of language so often pointed to
as a blot in Aristophanes. "The great comedian has been censured and
apologized for on this ground, over and over again. His personal
exculpation must always rest upon the fact, that the wildest licence in
which he indulged was not only recognized as permissible, but actually
enjoined as part of the ceremonial at these festivals of Bacchus; that it
was not only in accordance with public taste, but was consecrated as a
part of the national religion.... But the coarseness of Aristophanes is
not corrupting. There is nothing immoral in his plots, nothing really
dangerous in his broadest humour. Compared with some of our old English
dramatists, he is morality itself. And when we remember the plots of some
French and English plays which now attract fashionable audiences, and the
character of some modern French and English novels not unfrequently found
(at any rate in England) upon drawing-room tables, the least that can be
said is, that we had better not cast stones at Aristophanes."[3]
Moreover, it should be borne in mind that Athenian custom did not
sanction the presence of women--at least women of reputable character--at
these performances.
The particular plays, though none are free from it, which most abound in
this ribald fun--for fun it always is, never mere pruriency for its own
sake, Aristophanes has a deal of the old 'esprit gaulois' about him--are
the 'Peace' and, as might be expected from its theme, lending itself so
readily to suggestive allusions and situations, above all the
'Lysistrata.' The 'Thesmophoriazusae' and 'Ecclesiazusae' also take ample
toll in this sort of the 'risque' situations incidental to their plots,
the dressing up of men as women in the former, and of women as men in the
latter. Needless to say, no faithful translator will emasculate his
author by expurgation, and the reader will here find Aristophanes'
Comedies as Aristophanes wrote them, not as Mrs. Grundy might wish him to
have written them.
These performances took place at the Festivals of Dionysus (Bacchus),
either the Great Dionysia or the minor celebration of the Lenaea, and
were in a sense religious ceremonials--at any rate under distinct
religious sanction. The representations were held in the Great Theatre of
Dionysus, under the slope of the Acropolis, extensive remains of which
still exist; several plays were brought out at each festival in
competition, and prizes, first and second, were awarded to the most
successful productions--rewards which were the object of the most intense
ambition.
Next to nothing is known of the private life of Aristophanes, and that
little, beyond the two or three main facts given below, is highly
dubious, not to say apocryphal. He was born about 444 B.C., probably at
Athens. His father held property in Aegina, and the family may very
likely have come originally from that island. At any rate, this much is
certain, that the author's arch-enemy Cleon made more than one judicial
attempt to prove him of alien birth and therefore not properly entitled
to the rights of Athenian citizenship; but in this he entirely failed.
The great Comedian had three sons, but of these and their career history
says nothing whatever. Such incidents and anecdotes of our author's
literary life as have come down to us are all connected with one or other
of the several plays, and will be found alluded to in the special
Introductions prefixed to these. He died about 380 B.C.--the best and
central years of his life and work thus coinciding with the great
national period of stress and struggle, the Peloponnesian War, 431-404
B.C. He continued to produce plays for the Athenian stage for the long
period of thirty-seven years; though only eleven Comedies, out of a
reputed total of forty, have survived.
A word or two as to existing translations of Aristophanes. These, the
English ones at any rate, leave much to be desired; indeed it is not too
much to say that there is no version of our Author in the language which
gives the general reader anything like an adequate notion of these Plays.
We speak of prose renderings. Aristophanes has been far more fortunate in
his verse translators--Mitchell, who published four Comedies in this form
in 1822, old-fashioned, but still helpful, Hookham Frere, five plays
(1871), both scholarly and spirited, and last but not least, Mr. Bickley
Rogers, whose excellent versions have appeared at intervals since 1867.
But from their very nature these cannot afford anything like an exact
idea of the 'ipsissima verba' of the Comedies, while all slur over or
omit altogether passages in any way 'risque.' There remains only our old
friend 'Bohn' ("The Comedies of Aristophanes; a literal Translation by W.
J. Hickie"), and what stuff 'Bohn' is! By very dint of downright
literalness--though not, by-the-bye, always downright accuracy--any true
notion of the Author's meaning is quite obscured. The letter kills the
spirit.
The French prose versions are very good. That by C. Poyard (in the series
of "Chefs-d'oeuvre des Litteratures Anciennes") combines scholarly
precision with an easy, racy, vernacular style in a way that seems
impossible to any but a French scholar.
The order here adopted for the successive plays differs slightly from
that observed in most editions; but as these latter do not agree amongst
themselves, this small assumption of licence appears not unwarrantable.
Chronologically 'The Acharnians' (426 B.C.) should come first; but it
seems more convenient to group it with the two other "Comedies of the
War," the whole trilogy dealing with the hardships involved by the
struggle with the Lacedaemonians and the longings of the Athenian people
for the blessings of peace. This leaves 'The Knights' to open the whole
series--the most important politically of all Aristophanes' productions,
embodying as it does his trenchant attack on the great demagogue Cleon
and striking the keynote of the author's general attitude as advocate of
old-fashioned conservatism against the new democracy, its reckless
'Imperialism' and the unscrupulous and self-seeking policy, so the
aristocratic party deemed it, of its accredited leaders.
Order, as thus rearranged, approximate date, and _motif_ (in brief) of
each of the eleven Comedies are given below:
'The Knights': 424 B.C.--eighth year of the War. Attacks Cleon, the
Progressives, and the War policy generally.
Comedies of the War:--
'The Acharnians': 426 B.C.--sixth year of the War. Insists on the
miseries consequent on the War, especially affecting the rural
population, as represented by the Acharnian Dicaeopolis and his
fellow demesmen. Incidentally makes fun of the tragedian Euripides.
'Peace': 422 B.C.--tenth year of the War. Further insists on the same
theme, and enlarges on the blessings of Peace. The hero Trygaeus
flies to Olympus, mounted on a beetle, to bring back the goddess
Peace to earth.
'Lysistrata': 411 B.C.--twenty-first year of the War. A burlesque
conspiracy entered into by the confederated women of Hellas, led by
Lysistrata the Athenian, to compel the men to conclude peace.
'The Clouds': 423 B.C.--satirizes Socrates, the 'Sophists,' and the
'New Education.'
'The Wasps': 422 B.C. Makes fun of the Athenian passion for
litigation, and the unsatisfactory organization of the Courts.
Contains the incident of the mock trial of the thievish house-dog.
'The Birds': 414 B.C. Euelpides and Pisthetaerus, disgusted with the
state of things at Athens, build a new and improved city,
Cloud-cuckoo-town, in the kingdom of the birds. Some see an allusion
to the Sicilian expedition, and Alcibiades' Utopian schemes.
'The Frogs': 405 B.C. A satire on Euripides and the 'New Tragedy.'
Dionysus, patron of the Drama, dissatisfied with the contemporary
condition of the Art, goes down to Hades to bring back to earth a
poet of the older and worthier school.
'The Thesmophoriazusae': 412 B.C. Another literary satire; Euripides,
summoned as a notorious defamer of women to defend himself before the
dames of Athens assembled in solemn conclave at the Thesmophoria, or
festival of Demeter and Persephone, induces his father-in-law,
Mnesilochus, to dress up in women's clothes, penetrate thus disguised
into the assemblage, and plead the poet's cause, but with scant
success.
'The Ecclesiazusae': 392 B.C. Pokes fun at the ideal Utopias, such as
Plato's 'Republic,' based on sweeping social and economic changes,
greatly in vogue with the Sophists of the day. The women of the city
disguise themselves as men, slip into the Public Assembly and secure
a majority of votes. They then pass a series of decrees providing for
community of goods and community of women, which produce,
particularly the latter, a number of embarrassing and diverting
consequences.
'Plutus': 408 and 388 B.C. A whimsical allegory more than a regular
comedy. Plutus, the god of wealth, has been blinded by Zeus;
discovered in the guise of a ragged beggarman and succoured by
Chremylus, an old man who has ruined himself by generosity to his
friends, he is restored to sight by Aesculapius. He duly rewards
Chremylus, and henceforth apportions this world's goods among mankind
on juster principles--enriching the just, but condemning the unjust
to poverty.
AUTHORITIES
List Of Editions, Commentaries, Etc., Used Or Consulted
Text: edit. Dindorf, Oxford
Text: edit. Blaydes. 1886.
Text, with Notes, etc.: edit. Immanuel Bekker. 5 vols. 1829.
Text, with Notes, etc.: Brunck.
Text, with (German) Notes, etc.: Separate Plays: edit. Kock.
Text, with Notes, etc.: Separate Plays: edit. Rev. W. W. Merry.
1887-1901.
Translation: English, by W. J. Hickie. (Bohn's Classical Library.)
Translation: English verse, 'Knights,' 'Acharnians,' 'Clouds,' 'Wasps,'
by Mitchell. 1822.
Translation: English verse, 'Knights,' 'Acharnians,' 'Birds,' 'Frogs,'
'Peace,' by Hookham Frere. 1871.
Translation: English verse, Various Plays, by B. Bickley Rogers. 1867
onwards.
Translation: French, by C. Poyard. ("Chefs-d'oeuvre des Litteratures
Anciennes." Paris, Hachette. 1875.)
Translation: French, by Eugene Talbot, with Preface by Sully Prudhomme. 2
vols. Paris, Lemerre. 1897.
Translation: German, by Droysen.
"Aristophanes" (Ancient Classics for English Readers): edit. W. Lucas
Collins. 1897.
"Aristophane et l'ancienne Comedie attique," par Auguste Couat. Paris.
1889.
"Aristophane et les Partis a Athens," par Maurice Croiset. Paris,
Fontemoing. 1906.
"Beitrage zur inneren Geschichte Athens im Zeitalter des Pelopon.
Krieges," G. Gilbert. Leipzig. 1877.
"Die attischen Politik seit Perikles," J. Beloch. Leipzig. 1884.
"Aristophanes und die historische Kritik," Muller-Strubing. Leipzig.
1873.
Footnotes:
[1] Ancient Classics for English Readers: Aristophanes, by Lucas Collins,
Introductory Chapter, p. 2.
[2] "Aristophane": Traduction Nouvelle, par C. Poyard (Paris, 1875):
Introduction.
[3] Ancient Classics for English Readers: "Aristophanes," by Lucas
Collins. Introductory Chapter, p. 12.
THE KNIGHTS
INTRODUCTION
This was the fourth play in order of time produced by Aristophanes on the
Athenian stage; it was brought out at the Lenaean Festival, in January,
424 B.C. Of the author's previous efforts, two, 'The Revellers' and 'The
Babylonians,' were apparently youthful essays, and are both lost. The
other, 'The Acharnians,' forms the first of the three Comedies dealing
directly with the War and its disastrous effects and urging the
conclusion of Peace; for this reason it is better ranged along with its
sequels, the 'Peace' and the 'Lysistrata,' and considered in conjunction
with them.
In many respects 'The Knights' may be reckoned the great Comedian's
masterpiece, the direct personal attack on the then all-powerful Cleon,
with its scathing satire and tremendous invective, being one of the most
vigorous and startling things in literature. Already in 'The Acharnians'
he had threatened to "cut up Cleon the Tanner into shoe-leather for the
Knights," and he now proceeds to carry his menace into execution,
"concentrating the whole force of his wit in the most unscrupulous and
merciless fashion against his personal enemy." In the first-mentioned
play Aristophanes had attacked and satirized the whole general policy of
the democratic party--and incidentally Cleon, its leading spirit and
mouthpiece since the death of Pericles; he had painted the miseries of
war and invasion arising from this mistaken and mischievous line of
action, as he regarded it, and had dwelt on the urgent necessity of peace
in the interests of an exhausted country and ruined agriculture. Now he
turns upon Cleon personally, and pays him back a hundredfold for the
attacks the demagogue had made in the Public Assembly on the daring
critic, and the abortive charge which the same unscrupulous enemy had
brought against him in the Courts of having "slandered the city in the
presence of foreigners." "In this bitterness of spirit the play stands in
strong contrast with the good-humoured burlesque of 'The Acharnians' and
the 'Peace,' or, indeed, with any other of the author's productions which
has reached us."
The characters are five only. First and foremost comes Demos, 'The
People,' typifying the Athenian democracy, a rich householder--a
self-indulgent, superstitious, weak creature. He has had several
overseers or factors in succession, to look after his estate and manage
his slaves. The present one is known as 'the Paphlagonian,' or sometimes
as 'the Tanner,' an unprincipled, lying, cheating, pilfering scoundrel,
fawning and obsequious to his master, insolent towards his subordinates.
Two of these are Nicias and Demosthenes. Here we have real names. Nicias
was High Admiral of the Athenian navy at the time, and Demosthenes one of
his Vice-Admirals; both held still more important commands later in
connection with the Sicilian Expedition of 415-413 B.C. Fear of
consequences apparently prevented the poet from doing the same in the
case of Cleon, who is, of course, intended under the names of 'the
Paphlagonian' and 'the Tanner.' Indeed, so great was the terror inspired
by the great man that no artist was found bold enough to risk his
powerful vengeance by caricaturing his features, and no actor dared to
represent him on the stage. Aristophanes is said to have played the part
himself, with his face, in the absence of a mask, smeared with wine-lees,
roughly mimicking the purple and bloated visage of the demagogue. The
remaining character is 'the Sausage-seller,' who is egged on by Nicias
and Demosthenes to oust 'the Paphlagonian' from Demos' favour by outvying
him in his own arts of impudent flattery, noisy boasting and unscrupulous
allurement. After a fierce and stubbornly contested trial of wits and
interchange of 'Billingsgate,' 'the Sausage-seller' beats his rival at
his own weapons and gains his object; he supplants the disgraced
favourite, who is driven out of the house with ignominy.
The Comedy takes its title, as was often the case, from the Chorus, which
is composed of Knights--the order of citizens next to the highest at
Athens, and embodying many of the old aristocratic preferences and
prejudices.
The drama was adjudged the first prize--the 'Satyrs' of Cratinus being
placed second--by acclamation, as such a masterpiece of wit and
intrepidity certainly deserved to be; but, as usual, the political result
was nil. The piece was applauded in the most enthusiastic manner, the
satire on the sovereign multitude was forgiven, and--Cleon remained in as
much favour as ever.[4]
* * * * *
THE KNIGHTS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
DEMOSTHENES.
NICIAS.
AGORACRITUS, a Sausage-seller.
CLEON.
DEMOS, an old man, typifying the Athenian people.
CHORUS OF KNIGHTS.
SCENE: In front of Demos' house at Athens.
* * * * *
THE KNIGHTS
DEMOSTHENES. Oh! alas! alas! Oh! woe! oh! woe! Miserable Paphlagonian![5]
may the gods destroy both him and his cursed advice! Since that evil day
when this new slave entered the house he has never ceased belabouring us
with blows.
NICIAS. May the plague seize him, the arch-fiend--him and his lying
tales!
DEMOSTHENES. Hah! my poor fellow, what is your condition?
NICIAS. Very wretched, just like your own.
DEMOSTHENES. Then come, let us sing a duet of groans in the style of
Olympus.[6]
DEMOSTHENES AND NICIAS. Boo, hoo! boo, hoo! boo, hoo! boo, hoo! boo, hoo!
boo, hoo!!
DEMOSTHENES. Bah! 'tis lost labour to weep! Enough of groaning! Let us
consider how to save our pelts.
NICIAS. But how to do it! Can you suggest anything?
DEMOSTHENES. Nay! you begin. I cede you the honour.
NICIAS. By Apollo! no, not I. Come, have courage! Speak, and then I will
say what I think.
DEMOSTHENES. "Ah! would you but tell me what I should tell you!"[7]
NICIAS. I dare not. How could I express my thoughts with the pomp of
Euripides?
DEMOSTHENES. Oh! prithee, spare me! Do not pelt me with those
vegetables,[8] but find some way of leaving our master.
NICIAS. Well, then! Say "Let-us-bolt," like this, in one breath.
DEMOSTHENES. I follow you--"Let-us-bolt."
NICIAS. Now after "Let-us-bolt" say "at-top-speed!"
DEMOSTHENES. "At-top-speed!"
NICIAS. Splendid! Just as if you were masturbating yourself; first
slowly, "Let-us-bolt"; then quick and firmly, "at-top-speed!"
DEMOSTHENES. Let-us-bolt, let-us-bolt-at-top-speed![9]
NICIAS. Hah! does that not please you?
DEMOSTHENES. I' faith, yes! yet I fear me your omen bodes no good to my
hide.
NICIAS. How so?
DEMOSTHENES. Because hard rubbing abrades the skin when folk masturbate
themselves.
NICIAS. The best thing we can do for the moment is to throw ourselves at
the feet of the statue of some god.
DEMOSTHENES. Of which statue? Any statue? Do you then believe there are
gods?
NICIAS. Certainly.
DEMOSTHENES. What proof have you?
NICIAS. The proof that they have taken a grudge against me. Is that not
enough?
DEMOSTHENES. I'm convinced it is. But to pass on. Do you consent to my
telling the spectators of our troubles?
NICIAS. 'Twould not be amiss, and we might ask them to show us by their
manner, whether our facts and actions are to their liking.
DEMOSTHENES. I will begin then. We have a very brutal master, a perfect
glutton for beans,[10] and most bad-tempered; 'tis Demos of the Pnyx,[11]
an intolerable old man and half deaf. The beginning of last month he
bought a slave, a Paphlagonian tanner, an arrant rogue, the incarnation
of calumny. This man of leather knows his old master thoroughly; he plays
the fawning cur, flatters, cajoles; wheedles, and dupes him at will with
little scraps of leavings, which he allows him to get. "Dear Demos," he
will say, "try a single case and you will have done enough; then take
your bath, eat, swallow and devour; here are three obols."[12] Then the
Paphlagonian filches from one of us what we have prepared and makes a
present of it to our old man. T'other day I had just kneaded a Spartan
cake at Pylos;[13] the cunning rogue came behind my back, sneaked it and
offered the cake, which was my invention, in his own name. He keeps us at
a distance and suffers none but himself to wait upon the master; when
Demos is dining, he keeps close to his side with a thong in his hand and
puts the orators to flight. He keeps singing oracles to him, so that the
old man now thinks of nothing but the Sibyl. Then, when he sees him
thoroughly obfuscated, he uses all his cunning and piles up lies and
calumnies against the household; then we are scourged and the
Paphlagonian runs about among the slaves to demand contributions with
threats and gathers 'em in with both hands. He will say, "You see how I
have had Hylas beaten! Either content me or die at once!" We are forced
to give, for else the old man tramples on us and makes us spew forth all
our body contains. There must be an end to it, friend. Let us see! what
can be done? Who will get us out of this mess?
NICIAS. The best thing, chum, is our famous "Let-us-bolt!"
DEMOSTHENES. But none can escape the Paphlagonian, his eye is everywhere.
And what a stride! He has one leg on Pylos and the other in the Assembly;
his rump is exactly over the land of the Chaonians, his hands are with
the Aetolians and his mind with the Clopidians.[14]
NICIAS. 'Tis best then to die; but let us seek the most heroic death.
DEMOSTHENES. Let me bethink me, what is the most heroic? |
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