The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1

205

A tragic poet; we know next to nothing of him or his works.

206

Son of Aeolus, renowned in fable for his robberies, and for the tortures to which he was put by Pluto. He was cunning enough to break loose out of hell, but Hermes brought him back again.

207

This whole scene is directed at Euripides; Aristophanes ridicules the subtleties of his poetry and the trickeries of his staging, which, according to him, he only used to attract the less refined among his audience.

208

"Wheeled out"—that is, by means of the [Greek: ekkukl_ema], a mechanical contrivance of the Greek stage, by which an interior was shown, the set scene with performers, etc., all complete, being in some way, which cannot be clearly made out from the descriptions, swung out or wheeled out on to the main stage.

209

Having been lamed, it is of course implied, by tumbling from the lofty apparatus on which the Author sat perched to write his tragedies.

210

Euripides delighted, or was supposed by his critic Aristophanes to delight, in the representation of misery and wretchedness on the stage. 'Aeneus,' 'Phoenix,' 'Philoctetes,' 'Bellerophon,' 'Telephus,' 'Ino' are titles of six tragedies of his in this genre of which fragments are extant.

211

Line borrowed from Euripides. A great number of verses are similarly parodied in this scene.

212

Report said that Euripides' mother had sold vegetables on the market.

213

Aristophanes means, of course, to imply that the whole talent of Euripides lay in these petty details of stage property.

214

'The Babylonians' had been produced at a time of year when Athens was crowded with strangers; 'The Acharnians,' on the contrary, was played in December.

215

Sparta had been menaced with an earthquake in 427 B.C. Posidon was 'The Earthshaker,' god of earthquakes, as well as of the sea.

216

A song by Timocreon the Rhodian, the words of which were practically identical with Pericles' decree.

217

A small and insignificant island, one of the Cyclades, allied with the Athenians, like most of these islands previous to and during the first part of the Peloponnesian War.

218

A figure of Medusa's head, forming the centre of Lamachus' shield.

219

Indicates the character of his election, which was arranged, so Aristophanes implies, by his partisans.

220

Towns in Sicily. There is a pun on the name Gela—[Greek: Gela] and [Greek: Katagela] (ridiculous)—which it is impossible to keep in English. Apparently the Athenians had sent embassies to all parts of the Greek world to arrange treaties of alliance in view of the struggle with the Lacedaemonians; but only young debauchees of aristocratic connections had been chosen as envoys.

221

A contemporary orator apparently, otherwise unknown.

222

The parabasis in the Old Comedy was a sort of address or topical harangue addressed directly by the poet, speaking by the Chorus, to the audience. It was nearly always political in bearing, and the subject of the particular piece was for the time being set aside altogether.

223

It will be remembered that Aristophanes owned land in Aegina.

224

Everything was made the object of a law-suit at Athens. The old soldiers, inexpert at speaking, often lost the day.

225

A water-clock used to limit the length of speeches in the courts.

226

A braggart speaker, fiery and pugnacious.

227

Cephisodemus was an Athenian, but through his mother possessed Scythian blood.

228

The city of Athens was policed by Scythian archers.

229

Alcibiades.

230

The leather market was held at Lepros, outside the city.

231

Meaning an informer ([Greek: phain_o], to denounce).

232

According to the Athenian custom.

233

Megara was allied to Sparta and suffered during the war more than any other city, because of its proximity to Athens.

234

: Throughout this whole scene there is an obscene play upon the word [Greek: choiros], which means in Greek both 'sow' and 'a woman's organs of generation.'

235

Sacrificial victims were bound to be perfect in every part; an animal, therefore, without a tail could not be offered.

236

The Greek word, [Greek: erebinthos], also means the male sexual organ. Observe the little pig-girl greets this question with three affirmative squeaks!

237

The Megarians used the Doric dialect.

238

A play upon the word [Greek: phainein], which both means to light and to denounce.

239

An informer (sycophant), otherwise unknown.

240

A debauchee of vile habits; a pathic.

241

Mentioned above; he was as proud as he was cowardly.

242

An Athenian general, quarrelsome and litigious, and an Informer into the bargain.

243

A comic poet of vile habits.

244

A painter.

245

A debauchee, a gambler, and always in extreme poverty.

246

This kind of flute had a bellows, made of dog-skin, much like the bagpipes of to-day.

247

A flute-player, mentioned above.

248

A hero, much honoured in Thebes; nephew of Heracles.

249

A form of bread peculiar to Boeotia.

250

A lake in Boeotia.

251

He was the Lucullus of Athens.

252

This again fixes the date of the presentation of the 'Acharnians' to 426 B.C., the sixth year of the War, since the beginning of which Boeotia had been closed to the Athenians.

253

An Informer.

254

The second day of the Dionysia or feasts of Bacchus, kept in the month Anthesterion (February), and called the Anthesteria. They lasted three days; the second being the Feast of Cups, a description of which is to be found at the end of this comedy, the third the Feast of Pans. Vases, filled with grain of all kinds, were borne in procession and dedicated to Hermes.

255

A parody of some verses from a lost poet.

256

A feasting song in honour of Harmodius, the assassin of Hipparchus the Tyrant, son of Pisistratus.

257

The celebrated painter, born at Heraclea, a contemporary of Aristophanes.

258

A deme and frontier fortress of Attica, near the Boeotian border.

259

An Athenian physician of the day.

260

An allusion to the paroxysms of rage, as represented in many tragedies familiar to an Athenian audience, of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, after he had killed his mother.

261

No doubt the comic poet, rival of Aristophanes.

262

Unexpected wind-up of the story. Aristophanes intends to deride the boasting of Lamachus, who was always ascribing to himself most unlikely exploits.

263

An obscene allusion, the faeces of catamites being 'well ground' from the treatment they are in the habit of submitting to.

264

'Peace' was no doubt produced at the festival of the Apaturia, which was kept at the end of October, a period when strangers were numerous in Athens.

265

The winged steed of Perseus—an allusion to a lost tragedy of Euripides, in which Bellerophon was introduced riding on Pegasus.

266

Fearing that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the highest heaven to satisfy itself.

267

The Persians and the Spartans were not then allied as the Scholiast states, since a treaty between them was only concluded in 412 B.C., i.e. eight years after the production of 'Peace'; the great king, however, was trying to derive advantages out of the dissensions in Greece.

268

Go to the crows, a proverbial expression equivalent to our Go to the devil.

269

Aesop tells us that the eagle and the beetle were at war; the eagle devoured the beetle's young and the latter got into its nest and tumbled out its eggs. On this the eagle complained to Zeus, who advised it to lay its eggs in his bosom; but the beetle flew up to the abode of Zeus, who, forgetful of the eagle's eggs, at once rose to chase off the objectionable insect. The eggs fell to earth and were smashed to bits.

270

Pegasus is introduced by Euripides both in his 'Andromeda' and his 'Bellerophon.'

271

Boats, called 'beetles,' doubtless because in form they resembled these insects, were built at Naxos.

272

Nature had divided the Piraeus into three basins—Cantharos, Aphrodisium and Zea; [Greek: kántharos] is Greek for a dung-beetle.

273

In allusion to Euripides' fondness for introducing lame heroes in his plays.

274

An allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the Chians—[Greek: Chios apopat_on], "shitting Chian." On account of their notoriously pederastic habits, the inhabitants of this island were known throughout Greece as 'loose-arsed' Chians, and therefore always on the point of voiding their faeces. There is a further joke, of course, in connection with the hundred and one frivolous pretexts which the Athenians invented for exacting contributions from the maritime allies.

275

Masters of Pylos and Sphacteria, the Athenians had brought home the three hundred prisoners taken in the latter place in 425 B.C.; the Spartans had several times sent envoys to offer peace and to demand back both Pylos and the prisoners, but the Athenian pride had caused these proposals to be long refused. Finally the prisoners had been given up in 423 B.C., but the War was continued nevertheless.

276

An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, [Greek: prasa], the root-word of the name Prasiae, into his mortar.

277

War throws some garlic into his mortar as emblematical of the city of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.

278

Because the smell of bruised garlic causes the eyes to water.

279

He throws cheese into the mortar as emblematical of Sicily, on account of its rich pastures.

280

Emblematical of Athens. The honey of Mount Hymettus was famous.

281

Cleon, who had lately fallen before Amphipolis, in 422 B.C.

282

An island in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Thrace and opposite the mouth of the Hebrus; the Mysteries are said to have found their first home in this island, where the Cabirian gods were worshipped; this cult, shrouded in deep mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and they were feared as to-day the jettatori (spell-throwers, casters of the evil eye) in Sicily are feared.

283

Brasidas perished in Thrace in the same battle as Cleon at Amphipolis, 422 B.C.

284

An Athenian general as ambitious as he was brave. In 423 B.C. he had failed in an enterprise against Heraclea, a storm having destroyed his fleet. Since then he had distinguished himself in several actions, and was destined, some years later, to share the command of the expedition to Sicily with Alcibiades and Nicias.

285

Meaning, to start on a military expedition.

286

Cleon.

287

The Chorus insist on the conventional choric dance.

288

One of the most favourite games with the Greeks. A stick was set upright in the ground and to this the beam of a balance was attached by its centre. Two vessels were hung from the extremities of the beam so as to balance; beneath these two other and larger dishes were placed and filled with water, and in the middle of each a brazen figure, called Manes, was stood. The game consisted in throwing drops of wine from an agreed distance into one or the other vessel, so that, dragged downwards by the weight of the liquor, it bumped against Manes.

289

A general of austere habits; he disposed of all his property to pay the cost of a naval expedition, in which he beat the fleet of the foe off the promontory of Rhium in 429 B.C.

290

The Lyceum was a portico ornamented with paintings and surrounded with gardens, in which military exercises took place.

291

A citizen of Miletus, who betrayed his country to the people of Priené. When asked what he purposed, he replied, "Nothing bad," which expression had therefore passed into a proverb.

292

Hermes was the god of chance.

293

As the soldiers had to do when starting on an expedition.

294

That is, you are pedicated.

295

The initiated were thought to enjoy greater happiness after death.

296

He summons Zeus to reveal Trygaeus' conspiracy.

297

An Athenian captain, who later had the recall of Alcibiades decreed by the Athenian people; in 'The Birds' Aristophanes represents him as a cowardly braggart. He was the reactionary leader who established the Oligarchical Government of the Four Hundred, 411 B.C., after the failure of the Syracusan expedition.

298

Among other attributes, Hermes was the god of thieves.

299

Alluding to the eclipses of the sun and the moon.

300

The Panathenaea were dedicated to Athené, the Mysteries to Demeter, the Dipolia to Zeus, the Adonia to Aphrodité and Adonis. Trygaeus promises Hermes that he shall be worshipped in the place of all the other gods.

301

The pun here cannot be kept. The word [Greek: paian], Paean, resembles [Greek: paiein], to strike; hence the word, as recalling the blows and wounds of the war, seems of ill omen to Trygaeus.

302

The device on his shield was a Gorgon's head. (See 'The Acharnians.')

303

Both Sparta and Athens had sought the alliance of the Argives; they had kept themselves strictly neutral and had received pay from both sides. But, the year after the production of 'The Wasps,' they openly joined Athens, had attacked Epidaurus and got cut to pieces by the Spartans.

304

These are the Spartan prisoners from Sphacteria, who were lying in gaol at Athens. They were chained fast to large beams of wood.

305

'Twas want of force, not want of will. They had suffered more than any other people from the war. (See 'The Acharnians.')

306

Meaning, look chiefly to your fleet. This was the counsel that Themistocles frequently gave the Athenians.

307

A metaphor referring to the abundant vintages that peace would assure.

308

The goddess of fruits.

309

Aristophanes personifies under this name the sacred ceremonies in general which peace would allow to be celebrated with due pomp. Opora and Theoria come on the stage in the wake of Peace, clothed and decked out as courtesans.

310

Aristophanes has already shown us the husbandmen and workers in peaceful trades pulling at the rope to extricate Peace, while the armourers hindered them by pulling the other way.

311

An allusion to Lamachus' shield.

312

Having been commissioned to execute a statue of Athené, Phidias was accused of having stolen part of the gold given him out of the public treasury for its decoration. Rewarded for his work by calumny and banishment, he resolved to make a finer statue than his Athené, and executed one for the temple of Elis, that of the Olympian Zeus, which was considered one of the wonders of the world.

313

He had issued a decree, which forbade the admission of any Megarian on Attic soil, and also all trade with that people. The Megarians, who obtained all their provisions from Athens, were thus almost reduced to starvation.

314

That is, the vineyards were ravaged from the very outset of the war, and this increased the animosity.

315

Driven in from the country parts by the Lacedaemonian invaders.

316

The demagogues, who distributed the slender dole given to the poor, and by that means exercised undue power over them.

317

Meaning, the side of the Spartans.

318

Cleon.

319

It was Hermes who conducted the souls of the dead down to the lower regions.

320

The Spartans had thrice offered to make peace after the Pylos disaster.

321

i.e. dominated by Cleon.

322

There is a pun here, that cannot be rendered, between [Greek: apobolimaios], which means, one who throws away his weapons, and [Greek: upobolimaios], which signifies, a supposititious child.

323

Simonides was very avaricious, and sold his pen to the highest bidder. It seems that Sophocles had also started writing for gain.

324

i.e. he would recoil from no risk to turn an honest penny.

325

A comic poet as well known for his love of wine as for his writings; he died in 431 B.C., the first year of the war, at the age of ninety-seven.

326

Opora was the goddess of fruits.

327

The Scholiast says fruit may be eaten with impunity in great quantities if care is taken to drink a decoction of this herb afterwards.

328

Theoria is confided to the care of the Senate, because it was this body who named the [Greek: The_orhoi], deputies appointed to go and consult the oracles beyond the Attic borders or to be present at feasts and games.

329

The great festivals, e.g. the Dionysia, lasted three days. Those in honour of the return of Peace, which was so much desired, could not last a shorter time.

330

In spite of what he says, Aristophanes has not always disdained this sort of low comedy—for instance, his Heracles in 'The Birds.'

331

A celebrated Athenian courtesan of Aristophanes' day.

332

Cleon. These four verses are here repeated from the parabasis of 'The Wasps,' produced 423 B.C., the year before this play.

333

Shafts aimed at certain poets, who used their renown as a means of seducing young men to grant them pederastic favours.

334

The poet supplied everything needful for the production of his piece—vases, dresses, masks, etc.

335

Aristophanes was bald himself, it would seem.

336

Carcinus and his three sons were both poets and dancers. (See the closing scene of 'The Wasps.') Perhaps relying little on the literary value of their work, it seems that they sought to please the people by the magnificence of its staging.

337

He had written a piece called 'The Mice,' which he succeeded with great difficulty in getting played, but it met with no success.

338

This passage really follows on the invocation, "Oh, Muse! drive the War," etc., from which indeed it is only divided by the interpolated criticism aimed at Carcinus.

339

The Scholiast informs us that these verses are borrowed from a poet of the sixth century B.C.

340

Sons of Philocles, of the family of Aeschylus, tragic writers, derided by Aristophanes as bad poets and notorious gluttons.

341

The Gorgons were represented with great teeth, and therefore the same name was given to gluttons. The Harpies, to whom the two voracious poets are also compared, were monsters with the face of a woman, the body of a vulture and hooked beak and claws.

342

A tragic and dithyrambic poet, who had written many pieces, which had met with great success at Athens.

343

The shooting stars.

344

That is, men's tools;—we can set her to 'fellate.'

345

It has already been mentioned that the sons of Carcinus were dancers.

346

It was customary at weddings, says Menander, to give the bride a sesame-cake as an emblem of fruitfulness, because sesame is the most fruitful of all seeds.

347

An Attic town on the east coast, noted for a magnificent temple, in which stood the statue of Artemis, which Orestes and Iphigenia had brought from the Tauric Chersonese and also for the Brauronia, festivals that were celebrated every four years in honour of the goddess. This was one of the festivals which the Attic people kept with the greatest pomp, and was an occasion for debauchery.

348

Competitors intending to take part in the great Olympic, Isthmian and other games took with them a tent, wherein to camp in the open. Further, there is an obscene allusion which the actor indicates by gesture, pointing to the girl's privates, signifying there is the lodging where he would fain find a delightful abode. The 'Isthmus' is the perineum, the narrow space betwixt anus and cunnus.

349

He was a 'cunnilingue,' as we gather also from what Aristophanes says of his infamous habits in the 'Knights.'

350

Doubtless the vessels and other sacrificial objects and implements with which Theoria was laden in her character of presiding deity at religious ceremonies.

351

The whole passage is full of obscene double entendres. Theoria throughout is spoken of in words applicable to either of her twofold character—as a sacred, religious feast, and as a lady of pleasure.

352

Where the meats were cooked after sacrifice; Trygaeus points to Theoria's privates, marking the secondary obscene sense he means to convey.

353

"Or otherwise"—that is, with the standing penis. The whole sentence contains a series of allusions to different 'modes of love.'

354

One of the offices of the Prytanes was to introduce those who asked admission to the Senate, but it would seem that none could obtain this favour without payment. Without this, a thousand excuses would be made; for instance, it would be a public holiday, and consequently the Senate could receive no one. As there was some festival nearly every day, he whose purse would not open might have to wait a very long while.