by Aristophanes
65 The golden boy of Athens and a pupil of Socrates. He was beautiful, talented, arrogant, unscrupulous, and dissolute.
66 The actor playing MEGARIAN would speak in a thick provincial accent.
67 A hero celebrated in Megara.
68 Metaphor for penis.
69 Goddess of sexual intercourse. ‡ Phibalis was a district of Attica known for its early figs. Both chickpeas and figs were supposed to be aphrodisiacs.
70 This is the best I could do with Aristophanes’ Tragasaia, which was not only a town in the Epirus (between Greece and Macedonia) but a play upon the word tragein, “to eat,” and tragos, “a goat.”
71 Perhaps referring to the INFORMER’S lack of a comic phallus. (Loeb)
72 “Grabber”.
73 An official in the Council, and a pet dislike of Aristophanes’.
74 A demagogue who replaced Cleon after his death in 422 B.C.
75 A rival comic poet to Aristophanes who lived to the age of ninety-seven though he was a drunkard. He won the prize nine times, defeating Aristophanes’ Clouds in 423 B.C. He was competing in this very festival with his play Stormtossed, which won second prize behind Acharnians. (Loeb)
76 A sixth-century B.C. poet who ridiculed Anacreon. But it is more likely that Aristophanes has a contemporary in mind.
77 An impoverished painter known for caricatures, jokes, and riddles. (Loeb) Lysistratus is mentioned in both Knights and Wasps. He seems to have been something of a wit and practical joker. Aristophanes damned him as a parasite.
78 Like the MEGARIAN, the BOEOTIAN speaks in dialect.
79 Chaereas was an Athenian who wrote on agriculture and nature. DICAEOPOLIS at first confuses the bagpipers with the BOEOTIAN.
80 Iolaus (i-ō-lā-us) was the nephew and helper of Heracles.
81 The locust is probably meant, very succulent when fried.
82 Lake Copais—now Limne—in Boeotia was famous for its eels.
83 A rich glutton.
84 Aristophanes has Euripides’ Alcestis in mind, in which Alcestis offers up her life in place of her husband, Admetus. He turns the lines into parody.
85 A small seaside port not far from Athens.
86 Not known, but evidently a snooper.
87 Thucydides, some twenty years older than Aristophanes and certainly known to him, describes, in his History of the Peloponnesian War, how the Boeotians and their allies wheeled an iron-encased pipe to a wooden part of the enemy walls and blew flame through it from a brazier of sulfur, pitch, and coal and set the wall on fire.
88 A midwinter festival honoring Dionysus during which there were drinking contests.
89 A drinking song celebrating Harmodius, who became a hero for assassinating Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias.
90 PEACE, a dazzling young woman, momentarily appears, with the THREE GRACES in the background.
91 Unknown.
92 Another word for thrush.
93 A general practitioner appointed by the State.
94 A winged monster with three heads that lived at Gades (Cadiz) in southern Spain, twenty-five miles from the Pillars of Heracles (Gibraltar). The monster was slain by Heracles.
95 Referring to his Gorgon shield. In other words, what can you expect when you are wedded to war?
96 Another dig, probably, at Cleonymus, who in battle threw away his shield and ran.
97 Unknown, except for the fact that his father sprayed people with saliva when he talked.
98 After Orestes and his sister, Electra, murdered their mother, Clytemnestra, Orestes went mad. (See Euripides’ Electra.)
99 Not to be confused with the famous orator of the next century.
100 Paphlagonia was a country in Asia Minor.
101 A small hill west of the Acropolis where meetings of the Assembly were held.
102 Olympus was the reputed inventor of musical themes on the flute.
103 Cleon used Nicias and Demosthenes to capture the Spartan hoplites stranded on the island of Sphacteria opposite Pylos, then took the credit for it.
104 “he stands by with a leather swatter.” I couldn’t resist stealing this perfect rendering from Jeffrey Henderson in the Loeb Classics.
105 Themistocles (527 B.C.-460 B.C.): one of the greatest of Athenian statesmen and military commanders. To him is largely due the defeat of the Persian fleet off the island of Salamis on October 20, 486 B.C. He died in exile, possibly by taking poisoned bull’s blood.
106 An excellent red wine from Pramia, on the island of Icaria in the Aegean between Chios and Samos. It was where the body of young Icarus was washed up by the waves when he fell from the sky.
107 A legendary Boeotian (pronounced Bee-o-shan) prophet who came to stand for all male soothsayers, as Sibyl for prophetesses.
108 Eucrates of Milite, who had been a general in 432-431 B.C. and went on to have a long political career. (Loeb)
109 Lysicles, who lived with Aspasia after Pericles’ death and died in battle in 428 B.C.
110 Not a biblical anachronism. Amen was already in Greek usage by the time of the New Testament.
111 Cleon was writhing in fury and later brought a suit of libel.
112 Undoubtedly friends of Aristophanes.
113 The reference is obscure.
114 A deme near Athens.
115 Hippodamus was a famous city planner and his son’s name was Archeptolemus, though why he should be mentioned is obscure.
116 I find it difficult to ascribe the following speech to PAPHLAGON (as most editors do). It makes much more sense to give it to the SAUSAGEMAN.
117 Aristophanes plays with three words here by connotation when he uses the words labrax (“sea wolf” or “big fish”), labros (“greedy”), and labragores (“noisy self-promoter”). The irony is that though it is Paphlagon speaking the echo is unmistakably anti-Cleon.
118 Taking the credit for capturing the Spartan soldiers at Pylos.
119 Then using them to bargain with: “When the prisoners had been brought to Athens, the Athenians decided to keep them in prison until a settlement was arrived at.” (Thucydides, 4.41)
120 Cratinus, Aristophanes’ rival in comedy, won the prize nine times.
121 Son of the tragic poet Philocles and great-nephew of Aeschylus. (Loeb) ‡One of the official cereal inspectors. (Loeb) (I could find out nothing more about him [PR].)
122 There was a custom in Greece during dinner of gouging out the inside of a loaf, wiping one’s hands on it, and throwing the remnants to the dogs.
123 If we are to abide by the suggestion that PAPHLAGON represents Cleon, and the SAUSAGEMAN the man in the street (or even Aristophanes himself), then these lines are not appropriate to Cleon and are far better assigned to the SAUSAGEMAN. Therefore, though using the Loeb Greek text, I have in this instance not followed its distribution of parts.
124 Referring to the spies and informers Cleon used for his own ends. ‡ Potidaea, an important town in Macedonia, paid tribute to Athens but rebelled. It was finally taken by the Athenians after a siege that lasted months and cost Athens the equivalent of about a million dollars.
125 An Athenian called Cylon attempted to make himself dictator of Athens, but was thwarted. He escaped but his followers who had taken refuge in the sanctuary of the goddess Athena were killed on the spot. The perpetrators of this sacrilege were known as the “Accursed.”
126 Once again the reference is to the 292 Spartan soldiers captured on the island of Sphacteria opposite Pylos in 425 B.C. (the second year of the Peloponnesian War). Cleon had them brought to Athens as hostages to bargain with. When he failed to get the terms he wanted, he had them all killed. Thucydides says that 120 of the prisoners were of the officer class.
127 The Spartan envoys. ‡Athens was still negotiating with the Persians. (Loeb) §Subversive elements in Boeotia were trying to overthrow the government in favor of greater democracy.
128 Athletes and wrestlers were well oiled.
129 Cocks apparently were given
garlic as last-minute stimulants before a fight. ‡ Speaking in the name of Aristophanes.
130 “To ask for a chorus” was the formal way of seeking permission and support to mount a production. Knights was Aristophanes’ fourth play. The first three, Banqueters , Babylonians, and Acharnians, were produced by Callistratus, an orator and friend of Pericles.
131 Magnes won a record eleven victories, the only datable one in 472 B.C. (Loeb)
132 The remarks in this Parabasis about Cratinus (Aristophanes’ great rival as a writer of comedy) seem partly a nostalgia for his great days, and partly perhaps a kind of teasing, designed to pay back past remarks made by Cratinus about Aristophanes. This, however, is surmise because, of Cratinus’ twenty comedies, we have only fragments. At the time of the first showing of Knights in 424 B.C., Cratinus would certainly have been in the audience because his own play Satyrs won second prize. He would have been about ninety-six and died the next year, having won first prize nine times. Here he reveals two known facts: one, that he was bald; the other, that Cratinus loved his drink.
133 Konnus—from κoννoς, a “beard”—came to mean an insignificant person. There was also a musician of that name who once taught Socrates and came to be looked on as the perfect example of the played-out celebrity.
134 A statue of Dionysus was always prominent in the forefront of the theater.
135 A comic poet who won his first victory in 450 B.C., and then two more.
136 A famous headland in southeastern Attica crowned with a temple to Poseidon, eleven columns of which still stand.
137 This successful and respected admiral died circa 428 B.C. (Loeb) ‡ Cleon’s father.
138 The reference is obscure.
139 To fill with sardines (presumably).
140 Hung on the front of the door. Here a symbol of Athens’ prosperity.
141 Cobblers and tanners=Cleon. Lamp sellers=Hyperbolus, who took over after Cleon’s death.
142 Cynna and Salabaccio were notorious courtesans. (Loeb)
143 Salamis was an island on the southwest of Attica in whose bay the Greek fleet won a crucial battle over the Persians in 480 B.C.
144 Harmodius and Aristogiton in 510 B.C. delivered the Athenians from tyranny and their families were awarded special privileges ever afterwards. It seems that Cleon had married one of the descendants.
145 A Spartan envoy.
146 Arcadia: a pastoral region of the Peloponnese; here a synonym for Sparta and a veiled determination to continue the war till victory.
147 Themistocles was perhaps the greatest Athenian statesman and commander of the fifth century B.C.: a man of foresight and capability who undoubtedly was the savior of his country in the war with Persia. He built up the fleet and was responsible for the victory over the Persians in the naval battle of Salamis. He fortified the Piraeus (the port of Athens) and strengthened the city walls. A disagreement with Cimon (another remarkable Athenian) led to his being banished and he took refuge for a time in Argos in the Peloponnese before throwing himself on the mercy of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, son of the Xerxes whom Themistocles had fought and ruined. He was received with honor and lavished with gifts. (See the note on page 70.)
148 Quoted from Euripides’ lost play Telephus.
149 Apparently a speciality of the Prytaneum (Town Hall).
150 See note on pages 83-84.
151 The ostra shards were pieces of broken pottery used for voting for or against a citizen’s being banished from Attica, hence our word “ostracism.”
152 The reference is obscure.
153 Another reference to Themistocles’ fortification of the Piraeus.
154 Asafetida is a yellowish-brown plant whose root was used as a medecine.
155 Can it be that nose blowing in fifth century B.C. Greece was the same as it still is in the East? I used to marvel at the deft way my ayah in India used to flick the mucus from her nostrils with two fingers.
156 Miletus was an important Ionian city on the coast of Asia Minor and the center of the wool trade. It maintained a precarious alliance with Athens and in 412 B.C. was to revolt (some twelve years after the production of Knights). It is mentioned here perhaps because Athens had just doubled its annual tribute.
157 Probably an effeminate man.
158 In the antistrophe Aristophanes plays with several ideas. The Dorians, early invaders of Greece, settled partly in the Peloponnese, especially Sparta, so he is echoing Cleon’s obsession with Sparta and he calls Cleon a Dorokisti, which means not only a “Dorian” but an “accepter of bribes.”
159 Bacis was an old soothsayer of Boeotia who became a legend. ‡ Glanis, according to Loeb, is a kind of shad. I couldn’t find the word in my lexicon.
160 It seems odd that he should already know this. Or are we to assume that this is wishful thinking?
161 Jackdaws, smaller members of the crow family. ‡ The three-headed hound that guards the entrance to Hades. The reference is probably to Cleon’s attempt to massacre the male population of Mytilene after the revolt.
162 Athens under Cleon wanted to keep all the Aegean islands subjugated.
163 The “wooden walls” were the Athenian fleet, which Themistocles did so much to increase and strengthen.
164 The hawk is Cleon, who made the “reckless fling” of promising the Assembly that if he was sent to Pylos he would capture and bring to Athens the stranded Spartan soldiers (the “fledglings”), which he did.
165 The first king of Athens.
166 There were in fact three Pyloses.
167 The point here is obscure, unless it is that Cleon might shut down all the public baths because it is there that political issues are discussed.
168 Father of Theseus, and legendary king of Athens.
169 A well-known pimp.
170 We are confronted here with multiple connotations. Cyllene was a naval base in the Peloponnese, and also a mountain in Arcadia where Hermes (Mercury, patron of tricksters) was born. Finally, the “wily Cyllene” is Paphlagon (Cleon) with the hand out for handouts (bribes).
171 An expert on oracles and a prosecutor of atheists and intellectuals; his hand seems to have been crippled. (Loeb)
172 A legendary soothsayer famous for his sagacity.
173 Quoted from a fragment of Sophocles’ lost tragedy Peleus. § A crony of Cleon.
174 A play on the word “ivory” (elephas—elephantos), which in Greek meant both “ivory” and “elephant.”
175 This and the above epithet for Athena may not seem particularly funny to us, but to the Greeks they would have been. Aristophanes is spoofing the Greek habit of giving their gods and goddesses double-barrel nicknames like Zeus-the-Thunderer or Hermes-of-the-Flying-Sandals. It’s a little bit like our spoofing religious orders and saying Sister Mary-of-Perpetual-Recreation or Brother Peter-the-Prize-Cheese-Eater.
176 The robe had been presented to Athena at the Panathenaea Festival.
177 The Greeks tended to dilute their wine with three parts water to two of wine.
178 Once again the episode at Pylos seems to stick in Aristophanes’ craw. The capture of the 292 Spartan soldiers on the island of Sphacteria opposite Pylos was instigated by Cleon but carried out by Demosthenes. Then Cleon took the credit for it.
179 Fragment from Euripides’ lost Telephus.
180 Unidentified quote from Euripides.
181 From the denouement of Euripides’ Alcestis, Admetus speaking.
182 A theatrical machine that could be rolled out, disclosing an inner scene. ¶ The official seat of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords. Phanus was a crony of Cleon.
183 Something of a parasite who managed to wangle a cushy sinecure at Delphi. (Strophe and antistrophe are parodies of Pindar.)
184 Ridiculed for reducing himself to a skeleton. ‡ The seat of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi. § Both were sons of Automenes, a well-known lyre player.
185 Polymnestus was a seventh-century B.C. lyric poet from Colophon, a town in Ionia (Asia Mi
nor). Oenichus was a musician.
186 Hyperbolus sold lamps.
187 Both heroes at Marathon, a plain some twenty-two miles northeast of Athens, where on September 28, 490 B.C., a small Athenian force of ten thousand defeated the invading Persian hordes. Aristides, famous for his nobility of character, was also present at the naval victory over the Persians at Salamis.
