Aristophanes: The Complete Plays

by Aristophanes

  559 A fragment from Anacreon, Greek lyric poet (570-478 B.C.).

  560 For dithyrambic contests, each of the ten Athenian tribes produced its own choruses. (Loeb)

  561 Cecrops was the first king of Athens, with which his name became synonymous. ‡ A rival composer of dithyrambs to Cinesias, and like him weedy and thin.

  562 Adapted from Alcaeus, fragment 345. (Loeb)

  563 From Aeschylus’ Myrmidons, fragment 140. (Loeb)

  564 Pellene in the Peloponnese was famous for its woolen stuffs, and cloaks were awarded as prizes in the chariot races.

  565 Cranes, like many other birds, put pebbles in their gizzard to aid digestion.

  566 Unidentified.

  567 Largest of the seven islands in the Ionian Sea—the modern Corfu. It was famous for its double-thonged hide whips.

  568 Once again Aristophanes can’t resist having a go at Cleonymus, who threw away his shield in battle and fled. See footnote on page 350.

  569 A women’s festival named after Thesmophoros (Demeter-the-lawgiver), which involved days of fasting and sexual abstinence.

  570 One whose rights to Athenian citizenship were questionable.

  571 An uncouth tribe of gods or men living in upper Thrace.

  572 Fire was unknown on earth until Prometheus stole it from heaven.

  573 An Athenian whose misanthropy was legendary.

  574 One must wait till page 411 for the antistrophe.

  575 A commander and politician sometimes mocked for his cowardice.

  576 Homer records Odysseus’ visit to the underworld in The Odyssey II.

  577 A tragic poet. Aristophanes may have thought he sucked other poets’ blood.

  578 A politician, probably elected general before Birds, who presumably tried to hide misshapen calves by draping his cloaks very low. (Loeb)

  579 It is difficult to tell exactly what the vegetable was. The Greek word used is Silphion , which has been variously translated as “Silphium,” “mustard,” “mushroom,” etc. The lexicon gives the Latin equivalent as assa-foetida or laserpitium, which leaves us no wiser. I think that horseradish is the best bet because the text says it has to be grated. ‡ Heracles was huge and strong. He was also a glutton.

  580 See Amphitryon, a play by Plautus (adapted by him into Latin from the Greek), in which Zeus waits for Amphitryon to go to war, then seduces his wife, Alcmene, the mother of Heracles.

  581 Solon lived between the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, he overhauled the legal system of Athens.

  582 Answering the strophe on page 406.

  583 The water clock, or clepsydra, was a prominent object in the lawcourts to measure the time allotted to each speaker.

  584 Both pet hates of Aristophanes. Philippus was a very common name and it is not known which one is meant here. Gorgias came from Sicily and taught rhetoric in Athens.

  585 Hymenaeus, or Hymen, was the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, or some say of Apollo and one of the muses. He was the god of marriage and personified the celebration of the wedding feast, leading the nuptial chorus.

  586 Paeon (also Paean) means “healer,” and refers to Apollo, the great healer, or, sometimes, to Aesclepius, the god of healing.

  587 Key to London cockney: A becomes I: e.g., name=nime I becomes oi: e.g., time=toime O becomes ow: e.g., home=howm U becomes oe: e.g., you=yoe H is mute

  588 The eels from Lake Copais in Boeotia were a famous delicacy. Boeotia is pronounced Bee-o-sha.

  589 The two swift Athenian galleys used for state missions.

  590 A nouveau riche politician, also mentioned (derogatively) in Wasps, Peace, and Birds. ‡ The name means “myrtle,” a plant associated with Aphrodite.

  591 Anagyris foetida, the bean trefoil, a plant noted for its unpleasant smell.

  592 The heavenly twins, brothers of Helen and Clytemnestra. They were patrons of the Spartans.

  For the key to rendering Lampito’s speech in cockney, see footnote on page 419.

  593 Athenian commander suspected of collaborating with the enemy.

  594 After the Athenian disaster in Sicily, Miletus seized the opportunity to break away from the federation. One of Miletus’ exports was leather dildos.

  595 The highest mountain in Laconia (Sparta).

  596 An anomaly that must have occurred to Aristophanes, which perhaps he hoped nobody would notice: if all the males are at the front and not even lovers are left (which we’ve just been told), there are no throbbing pricks around to abstain from!

  597 Sophocles wrote two tragedies on the subject. Tyro, a beautiful young woman, is seduced by Poseidon, who turns himself into her lover for the occasion. Tyro exposed the twin boys that resulted in a tub by the river.

  598 After the Trojan War, when the sinning Helen was brought home to Sparta by her husband, Meneláus, and he was ready to put an end to her, she disarmed him quite simply by her beauty.

  599 A comic poet and older contemporary of Aristophanes. The point of the quote is obscure (at least to me!).

  600 In his tragedy Seven Against Thebes, where the Seven swear to take Thebes or die in the attempt.

  601 In the Greek it is “. . . like the lioness on the cheese grater.” The meaning, though obscure, is obviously intended to be sexual.

  602 The names given to members of this semichorus are generic for old men. (Loeb)

  603 Because Lycon’s wife had a reputation for promiscuity, the men imagine (wrongly) that she must be the ringleader. (Loeb)

  604 A Spartan king who in 508 B.C. held the Acropolis for two days before being induced to leave by the Athenians.

  605 Because of the desperate characters of Euripides’ women it was assumed (probably wrongly) that he hated them.

  606 An island on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, between Ephesus and Miletus. “Since the end of summer 412 B.C., Samos had been the headquarters of the Athenians’ Aegean fleet.” (Loeb)

  607 I have followed Aristophanes in not making strophe and antistrophe exactly symmetrical or of equal length.

  608 The name means “militant one.”

  609 The State paid a small stipend to impoverished old men to serve on juries.

  610 Adonis was famous for his beauty and Aphrodite fell in love with him, but he was killed by a wild boar. Lamentations for his death became a female cult and took place in midsummer on rooftops.

  611 Another name for Artemis and also of a minor Attic goddess who had a shrine on the Acropolis.

  612 Artemis as the moon goddess.

  613 Two lines in which Aristophanes coins two stupendous words: spermagoraiolekitholaxanopolides and skorodopandokeuttiartopolides.

  614 The antistrophe does not occur until page 444.

  615 Pisander was an admiral who took to politics. He played a part in setting up an oligarchy in Athens. When it collapsed he took refuge with the Spartans.

  616 The notice repudiating the Peace of Nicias made in 421 B.C. on the grounds “the Spartans have not abided by their promises.”

  617 Quoting Hector in The Iliad.

  618 Meaning, presumably, that all the menfolk were at war.

  619 Answering the strophe on page 440.

  620 Another name for the island of Cyprus, near which Aphrodite was born and rose from the sea. (Aphros, genitive aphroditos, is the word for “foam.”)

  621 The head of the Gorgon Medusa writhing with snakes. The sight of it turned people to stone. Using a mirror to guide him Perseus cut off her head.

  622 The Thracians, from the wilds north of the Aegean and east of Macedon (now part of European Turkey), were viewed by the Athenians as big, brawny, brave, and brash.

  623 Tereus, King of Thrace, raped Philomela, daughter of King Pandion of Athens, and then cut out her tongue so that she could never tell. She, however, did manage to tell by weaving the crime into a tapestry.

  624 Charon was a minor but important deity who, for a fee, ferried the souls of the dead across the rivers Acheron and Styx to the
infernal realms. The fee was a coin slipped between the lips of the dead. He is represented as a gloomy and shabby old man.

  625 The last Athenian tyrant, expelled in 510 B.C.; his name (based on hippos, “horse”) suggests the equestrian position in sexual intercourse (woman on top). (Loeb)

  626 A formidable politician who, after the fall of Hippias, steered Athens towards democracy.

  627 Aristogiton and Harmodius were the two young men who assassinated Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias. Their statues stood in the marketplace.

  628 The Arrephoroi were two girls between the ages of seven and eleven who were chosen every year to live on the Acropolis and serve Athena-of-the-city. They helped to weave her mantle and later carry it in the Panathenaic procession.

  629 That is, they helped to grind the flour for Demeter’s ritual cakes.

  630 “Whitefeet” was the nickname given to those who rose against the tyrant Hippias circa 511 B.C., perhaps because they wore white sandals.

  631 Artemisia, Queen of Caria in Asia Minor. Though a Greek, she fought on the Persian side during the Persian invasion and contributed five ships. At the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C., when pursed by an Athenian trireme, she was blocked by two Persian ships and to get away rammed them. Xerxes, the Great King, watching the battle from a hillside, exclaimed in admiration (according to Herodotus): “See how my women have become men and my men women.” He probably would have said something else if he’d known that the rammed ships were his!

  632 The Amazons were a nation of female warriors who lived in the eastern regions of Asia Minor. They cut off their right breasts in order to more easily handle bow or javelin, hence their name, a mazos (“without breast”), though some say it is from a maza (“without cereal food”), for they were meat eaters. Their only association with men was to procreate girls. The boys they gave to their fathers. They were ruled by queens and often warred with men.

  633 I could not find anything about the painter Mikon.

  634 In this fable by Aesop, an eagle grossly offended a dung beetle by catching and devouring his friend the rabbit. So the dung beetle took to climbing up to the eagle’s nest and tossing out her two eggs. After this happened several times, the eagle (the bird of Zeus) laid her eggs in Zeus’s lap, but when the dung beetle rolled a ball of dung there Zeus sprang up and the eggs smashed. This is what the CHORUS WOMEN imply they’ll do to the twin eggs of the MEN.

  635 Lake Copais—now Limne—in Boeotia was famous for its eels. To call someone “a genuine Boeotian eel” was calling her a first-class person.

  636 This was the grotto in which Apollo raped Creusa and she became the mother of Ion. The whole story is told in Euripides’ play Ion.

  637 Sparrows are well known for lechery.

  638 Artemis (Roman Diana).

  639 The goddess of childbirth. Giving birth in shrines like the Acropolis was taboo.

  640 Not really an anachronism. It is the nearest equivalent to the ceremony that took place on “naming day,” about ten days after the baby’s birth. “To christen” no longer has only the meaning of “to baptize in the name of Christ.” It also now means simply “to name,” e.g., “I’ve christened my cat Jack Sprat.”

  641 Pure invention by the THIRD WIFE. No such snake existed.

  642 Colonies of owls (mainly the screech owl) lived on the Acropolis and the owl became the emblem of Pallas Athena.

  643 Recalling the story of Tereus and Procne, a married couple, in which Tereus rapes his wife’s sister, Philomela, and cuts out her tongue. The gods change Tereus into a hoopoe and Procne into a swallow.

  644 Athenian general who in 458 B.C. defeated the Corinthians at Megara.

  645 Athenian general remembered for his vigor and toughness.

  646 A proverbial misanthrope who appears in several comedies.

  647 Cyprus, the island near which Aphrodite was born; Cytherea, the island in the Ionian Sea that also claims that honor; Paphos, a city on Cyprus near which Aphrodite rose from the foam.

  648 A spring on one of the slopes of the Acropolis.

  649 Heracles was reputedly endowed with a gargantuan appetite for food and sex.

  650 From the island of Rhodes.

  651 Cipher messages were written on strips of parchment wound around a rod that exactly matched the rod of the recipient, who was the only one, therefore, who could decode the message.

  652 Pan, half man, half goat, was a nature god: playful, lascivious and unpredictable. He could cause panic. He invented the panpipe.

  653 The myrtle berry is small, purple, and delicious.

  654 A seaside town in south Euboea famous for its marble and its lustful young men.

  655 Beardless and homosexual, frequently ridiculed for his effeminacy.

  656 A herm was a short rectangular pillar surmounted by a bust of the god Hermes, with an erect phallus at its base. They were set up at street corners, in front of houses, and on high roads, as emblems of good luck. One night just before the Sicilian armada set sail, all the herms in Athens were mutilated, with phalluses and heads chopped off. The mystery of the outrage exercised the Athenians for years with no explanation.

  657 The following passage (to the end of the speech) is couched in the form and meter of Greek tragedy—i.e., a twelve-syllable line divided into four sets of three, with six stresses in each line and known as iambic trimeter.

  658 The inhabitants of Messenia in the Peloponnese, after the earthquake of 464 B.C., took the opportunity to revolt against the hegemony of Sparta.

  659 King Cleomēnes of Sparta helped expel the Athenian tyrant Hippias in 510 B.C. (Loeb)

  660 The Bay of Pylos in the western Peloponnese and the island of Sphacteria that almost closes the mouth of the bay were a bone of contention between Athens and Sparta. It was there, in 425 B.C., that the Athenians defeated the Spartans. “Literally ‘gate,’ exploiting the stereotype of Spartan predilection for anal intercourse with either sex; the Athenians will opt for the vagina, and so the settlement will be mutually satisfactory.” (Loeb)

  661 The text here is hopelessly muddled and it’s anybody’s guess as to who is speaking. My selection makes sense, though it is difficult to square with that of the Loeb Classics.

  662 Artemisium was a promontory of Euboea where Artemis had a shrine. On August 7, 480 B.C., the Greek fleet, composed mainly of Athenian ships, inflicted heavy losses on the Persian navy, which was further buffeted by a storm. At the same time, three hundred Spartans led by their king, Leonidas, held up the entire Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae for three consecutive days, fighting to the last man till all were dead. Simonides, one of the greatest of Greek lyric poets, composed a famous epitaph for the fallen: “Go tell the Spartans, you who are passing by, That faithful to their word here we lie.”

  663 Apollo.

  664 Castor and Pollux.

  665 The Spartans did not go along with the story of Helen as the adulterous wife of Meneláus of Sparta, dazzled by the good-looking Paris. To them she was the chaste bride forcibly abducted.

  666 The name MNESILOCHUS in the Greek combines the idea of apt memory with the idea of ambush. The nearest English connotation would perhaps be “on the ball.”

  667 Agathon, a tragic poet, was a beautiful young man much in demand. He gained his first victory in 416 B.C., and it is in his house, celebrating that event, that Plato’s Symposium took place. Later, like Euripides, he became an esteemed poet in residence at the court of King Archelaus of Macedon.

  668 In 412/11 B.C. the Thesmophoria, which normally fell in October, fell in November. (Loeb)

  669 The second day and a day of fast.

  670 The chief deities of the Thesmophoria.

  671 One of the rare instances when a descriptive cliché is exactly the same in English as it is in ancient Greek.

  672 A celebrated contemporary of Aristophanes.

  673 Apollo and Poseidon built the walls of Troy. Leto was the mother of Apollo and Artemis.

  674 Apoll
o was the patron not only of music, but of art, medicine, and poetry.

  675 Goddesses of sex play, procreation, and birthdays.

  676 A tetralogy dramatizing the struggle between the Thracian king Lycurgus and Dionysus, who in the first play, Edonians (as in Euripides’ Bacchae, 453 ff.), is taunted for his effeminate qualities. (Loeb) Both plays are lost.

  677 That is, flighty. Phaedra fell for her stepson Hippolytus. The story is powerfully told by Euripides in his Hippolytus.