by Aristophanes
55. My bowel is empty: The Greek (enkekhōda, ‘I’ve shat myself) is a comic adaptation of a religious formula (ekkekhutai, ‘it is poured out’) used when a libation is poured during a sacrifice. The libation would be followed by an invocation to the god to whom the sacrifice is being made (hence Dionysus’ remark, ‘Call on the god’). The irony here, of course, is that he himself is a god.
56. Theramenes: Politician whose career began under Pericles; he came to prominence as someone who established but later supplanted the oligarchic revolution of 411. His opportunism led to his being called ‘the Buskin’ (a shoe that fits either foot). He also had a hand in the harsh treatment of the generals at the battle of Arginusae in 406.
57. Cleon: The demagogue who came to power after Pericles. He died in 422 (and so had been a resident of Hades for some time). Aristophanes savaged him in several early plays, including Knights and Wasps.
58. Hyperbolus: Politician frequently reviled by Aristophanes and other playwrights of Old Comedy.
59. in court… day’s out: Cleon’s influence over the lawcourts forms the background to Wasps.
60. Hipponax: Poet of the sixth century BC.
61. spouting swallow… Thracian: Cleophon, a primary target of comic poets around the time Frogs was written, was a general in 428 but came to prominence after the oligarchy of 411 was overthrown and democracy restored. Consistently opposed to peace with Sparta, he was tried on dubious grounds and executed in 404. He may have had some family connection with Thrace, but is likened to a Thracian swallow here because he declaims in warlike fashion (Thrace was associated with belligerence).
62. Phrynichus: Joined the oligarchic revolution despite originally having been a radical democrat; assassinated in 411, shortly before the downfall of the oligarchic regime. He is not to be confused with the early tragedian, or contemporary comic playwright, of the same name.
63. allies from Plataea: The Plataeans were granted Athenian citizenship after their city was destroyed by the Spartans in 427.
64. Cleigenes: Radical democrat opposed to peace with Sparta; he may have owned a bathhouse or laundry. Other politicians with business interests were similarly mocked (e.g., Cleon ‘the Tanner’, Hyperbolus ‘the Lamp-maker’).
65. the right to have his dinner… honour: These privileges may allude to the right accorded to winners of certain festivals to take meals at public expense in the Prytaneum (the building housing the sacred hearth of the state) or to the additional award of proedria, only given occasionally, which entitled the recipient to the best seats at the theatre and other public events.
66. eye to eye with the Athenians: There were later claims of friction between Aeschylus and the Athenian public of his day, but their reliability is questionable (not least because they may be inferred from the present passage). It is not surprising that Aeschylus should be at odds with the Athenians of Aristophanes’ day, who are characterized as degenerate.
67. take up their seats: Other non-speaking characters may have come on at this point – dancing-girls, attendants, perhaps even a collection of the distinguished dead.
68. Ah, how impressive… stone: Describing Aeschylus.
69. Neatly… what you mean: Describing Euripides.
70. son of the seed-goddess: Aeschylus parodies a line from a play of Euripides (fr. 885) which probably involves Achilles being addressed as ‘the son of the sea-goddess’ (i.e., Thetis). The joke rests on Aristophanes’ regular slur that Euripides’ mother Cleito was a seller of greens (see, e.g., Women 387); while the origin of the slur is unclear, there is evidence to suggest that Euripides’ mother was of good birth. Euripides is regularly criticized in Aristophanic comedy for making his characters speak in more ordinary, less elevated language and for presenting heroes in pitifully reduced circumstances.
71. Do not inflame… rage: Probably a parody of a line of Aeschylus.
72. cripple-merchant: As well as wearing rags, a number of Euripidean heroes appear lame or injured. In Acharnians, Euripides himself gives a list of such characters, including Phoenix (blind), Philoctetes (gangrenous foot), Bellerophon (lamed by a fall) and Telephus (septic war wound).
73. black lamb: Black lambs were sacrificed to appease storm-gods.
74. Cretan arias… incest: Euripides was fond of solo songs particularly in his later plays. It is not entirely clear why these should be described as Cretan; perhaps they refer to songs from plays with a Cretan setting such as his Cretans or Cretan Women (both lost). Euripides’ Aeolus (also lost) involved an incestuous union between half-brother and half-sister, while his Cretans deals with an even more unsavoury union between Minos’ wife, Pasiphae, and a bull (resulting in the birth of the Minotaur).
75. Telephus: Controversial, presumably, even by Euripides’ standards.
76. My plays… hand down here: After Aeschylus’ death, his plays were granted the unique distinction of being eligible for reperformance in the tragic competition against the work of living tragedians (for reference to such a performance, see Acharnians 9–11).
77. O Demeter … your mysteries: Aeschylus invokes Demeter not only because he was initiated into the Mysteries but because he was a native of Eleusis, the site of her main temple. The invocation is also fitting in the presence of a Chorus of Initiates and Dionysus, one of the main deities connected with the Mysteries.
78. Hail, Ether… Nostrils: Euripides is shown as rejecting traditional gods in favour of gods of his own (as was Socrates in Aristophanes’ Clouds). While the charge of worshipping new gods was often levelled at intellectuals, there is no evidence to suggest that Euripides (or Socrates) rejected traditional divinities. The main point here is to contr.ast the avant-garde Euripides with the traditional Aeschylus.
79. Phrynichus: Older contemporary of Aeschylus; the tragedian was known for his imaginative choreography (sent up in the finale of Wasps) and melodious lyrics.
80. Niobe… Achilles… not a word: Euripides refers to two lost plays of Aeschylus, Niobe and Myrmidons. In the former, Niobe boasted that she had more children than Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis, whereupon Leto sent her divine twins to kill all twelve (or fourteen) of Niobe’s children, leaving her maddened with grief and suicidal. The latter, part of a trilogy based on the Iliad, focuses on Achilles’ grief at the death of Patroclus. Both plays involved main characters sitting onstage in prolonged silence.
81. device painted on the ships: In Myrmidons, the emblem of a hippocock (a creature that was part horse, part bird) painted on a Greek ship is described as dripping into the sea after Hector has set fire to it (while Achilles is still refusing to fight).
82. And there was I… Eryxis: The context of this joke is unknown.
83. Cephisophon: Member of Euripides’ household (possibly a slave) who was alleged to have collaborated on his plays and to have had sexual relations with his wife, although there is no reliable evidence for either rumour.
84. first character… origin: Nearly all of Euripides’ plays begin with a prefatory speech elucidating background events. The plays of Sophocles, by contrast, tend to open with dialogue or exchange between two characters, while Aeschylus’ plays start in various ways including monologue, exchange and choral ode.
85. better than your own: Another joke about the (supposedly) humble origins of Euripides’ mother (see note 70).
86. I should keep off… if I were you: Dionysus is alluding to the fact that Euripides left democratic Athens for the court of King Archelaus of Macedon (where he remained until his death) in 408 BC.
87. Phormisius… Megaenetus: A man called Phormisius is mentioned in Assemblywomen and another comic fragment. Nothing else is known of Megaenetus.
88. Cleitophon: Probably the man of the same name who appears in Plato as a friend of the sophist Thrasymachus.
89. You see this, famed Achilles: A line from Aeschylus’ Myrmidons (fr. 134), possibly the opening lines of the play but, at any rate, almost certainly addressed to Achilles by the Chorus.
90.
oxhide, seven layers thick: Alluding to the Homeric Ajax, who is regularly described in the Iliad as carrying a huge, impenetrable shield made of seven layers of oxhide.
91. Seven Against Thebes: The only surviving work of a Theban tetralogy (Laius, Oedipus, Seven Against Thebes and the satyrplay Sphinx), produced in 468/7, deals with the attempt by one of Oedipus’ sons, Polynices, to capture Thebes from his brother Eteocles (with six other princes). The two had agreed to rule in yearly alternation but after the first year Eteocles refused to cede power. The play culminates in a duel (offstage) in which the two brothers die simultaneously. The subsequent attempt by Antigone to bury her brother Polynices, against the orders of the new king Creon (her uncle), forms the action of Sophocles’ Antigone.
92. Persians: Aeschylus’ earliest surviving play, produced in 472, is unusual in treating a historical rather than a mythological subject.
93. Orpheus: Legendary singer and musician, who tried but failed to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld.
94. Musaeus: Legendary figure from Eleusis, to whom were attributed poems on the origins of the cosmos, hymns and divinely inspired oracles.
95. Hesiod… harvesting: Hesiod wrote Works and Days, a didactic poem about agriculture and the farmer’s life, at a date close to that of the Homeric poems.
96. Homer… equipment: Besides being considered the greatest poet, Homer was regarded as a source of battle tactics (Alexander the Great always kept a copy of the Iliad by his bedside for this purpose).
97. Pantacles: There is one other reference to a man of this name by another comic playwright (Eupolis, fr. 318) also suggesting that he is stupid.
98. Lamachus: Successful general in the early part of the Peloponnesian War, presented as a blundering soldier in Acharnians but mentioned in a more positive light in Women three years after he died fighting courageously.
99. Patroclus: Appears in Aeschylus’ Myrmidons. Fragmentary evidence suggests that the play presented the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as homosexual (in contrast with Homer’s ambivalence). Here Aeschylus perhaps has in mind the messengerspeech in which Achilles is told the courageous nature of Patroclus’ death.
100. Teucer: Half-brother of Ajax. It is unclear which plays of Aeschylus he appeared in, but he may well have featured in any that were about Ajax.
101. Phaedra… Stheneboea: Phaedra appears in two versions of Euripides’ Hippolytus (we only have the second). Stheneboea appears in Bellerophon and another play named after her. The two women’s stories, as presented by Euripides, involve similarities: both are married but fall in love with other men (Phaedra with her stepson Hippolytus and Stheneboea with Bellerophon, a guest of her husband’s); both make false accusations against the men who reject their infatuations; both commit suicide. Aeschylus seems to deplore such female characters not only for openly expressing uncontrollable sexual feelings – this was generally deemed unacceptable in freeborn women – but for wrongly accusing innocent men.
102. experience of Aphrodite… in the end: A reference to the alleged relationship between Euripides’ wife and his collaborator Cephisophon (see note 83).
103. took poison straightaway: Aeschylus means either that noble women have committed suicide because they are so appalled at Euripides’ portrayal of Stheneboea’s immoral behaviour towards Bellerophon or that they have committed suicide in imitation of Euripides’ Stheneboea.
104. We have a duty… right and proper: The view of poetry as having a predominantly moral function is common in Greek attitudes to art. It is visible in Plato’s wary attitude to poetry in the Republic, and is perhaps implicit in the use of the term didaskalos (‘teacher’) for a dramatist, although this usage may have had more to do with the dramatist’s role of instructing the performers. Moral and political advice also forms a key part of the contest between Aeschylus and Euripides.
105. ship levy: Wealthy Athenians had to pay for, and command, a warship as a form of compulsory public service. Exemption could be obtained only if the person in question could propose someone richer who had not yet been required to perform the service; if the proposed man wished, he could contest the claim in court. Aeschylus is suggesting that in such cases men try to outdo each other in evoking the sympathy of the jury by wearing tattered clothes – like Euripidean heroes.
106. bawds: Probably referring to the nurse in Hippolytus, who tried to arrange an adulterous union between Phaedra and Hippolytus (see note 101).
107. giving birth in temples: In Auge, the eponymous heroine, a priestess of Athena, gave birth to her son Telephus (by Heracles) in Athena’s sanctuary.
108. sleeping with their brothers: In Aeolus, Aeolus’ daughter Canace had sexual relations with her half-brother Macareus.
109. life is not life: From Euripides’ Polyidus (fr. 638). The remark was made by a mother, possibly Pasiphae (see note 74).
110. For I have come back… return: The opening lines of Choephori, the second play of the Oresteia trilogy, which deals with the killing of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by Orestes and Electra to avenge their murdered father Agamemnon. The same story is treated in two plays called Electra by Sophocles and Euripides respectively.
111. subterranean function: Hermes was responsible for guiding souls of the dead to Hades. In the Odyssey, he escorts slaughtered suitors to the underworld in this capacity.
112. Orestes… those in power: In all three plays that treat this story, by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides respectively, Orestes returns to Argos without the knowledge of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
113. A happy man… mortal men: The opening two lines of Euripides’ Antigone (lost).
114. your iambics… I’ll show you what I mean: Aeschylus’ point is that Euripides’ trimeters have a predictable word-break at a particular point in the line. Iambic trimeters comprise three feet, or units, each with four metrical quantities arranged in iambic sequence. The predictable word-break comes after the first quantity of the second foot (i.e., the fifth quantity out of the twelve in the line). Aeschylus inserts the same seven-quantity-long phrase after each such word-break. In this translation, during the ‘oilflask’ section, the Euripidean word-break comes after the fifth syllable of an English iambic hexameter (which is equivalent to a Greek iambic trimeter because the Greek foot or unit is four iambic quantities rather than our two).
115. Aegyptus… reaching Argos: These lines may be the opening from one of two plays by the name of Archelaus (on Archelaus see note 17).
116. Dionysus… to the dance and: The opening of Hypsipyle. The play concerns the fifty daughters of Danaus, who all vowed to murder their husbands, the sons of Aegyptus, because they had been forced to marry. Hypsipyle, however, was in love with her husband and spared him.
117. No man… lowborn and: The opening of Euripides’ Stheneboea.
118. Cadmus… town of Sidon: The opening of the second of two plays by Euripides entitled Phrixus.
119. Pelops… speedy horses: The opening lines of Iphigenia Among the Taurians. The play deals with the visit by Orestes and his friend Pylades, who were exiled after murdering Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, to the land of the Taurians. Upon arrival they are seized and about to be sacrificed only to be spared by Orestes’ sister Iphigenia. She, it turns out, was saved by Artemis from being sacrificed at Aulis, and transported to the land of the Taurians, where she became the priestess of the goddess.
120. ’Tis said… full harvest: These lines, which allow Aeschylus to interrupt twice, are from Euripides’ Meleager. Oddly, they do not seem to be the opening lines, which are known from other sources.
121. CHORUS: This brief choral passage contains two short blocks of lines that are somewhat repetitive. It is possible that one set was used in the original production in 405 and the other in the restaging of the play the following winter; both are included here.
122. Achilles… rescue: A patchwork of Aeschylean lines. It begins with two lines from Myrmidons (fr. 132), the second of which is repeated nonsensically a
fter each new line. The lines from Myrmidons are originally spoken by envoys pleading in vain to the implacable Achilles. Euripides makes fun of Aeschylus’ fondness for dactylic rhythm (the metre of Homeric epic) and of his overuse of refrains.
We who dwell… Hermes: From Ghost Raisers (fr. 273), a play about Odysseus’ visit to the underworld.
Lord Agamemnon… hear my words: Of uncertain origin (fr. 238).
Silence… temple doors: From the Priestesses (fr. 87), a play whose Chorus were priestesses of Artemis.
I am empowered… travellers: From Agamemnon 104.
123. Of how the twin-throned kings… phlatto-thrat: This section combines short quotations stitched together from the same choral ode from Agamemnon quoted a few lines earlier but with three lines from other plays.
Of how the twin-throned kings… Hellas’ manhood: From Agamemnon 108–9.
Did send the Sphinx… baleful days: Probably from the satyrplay Sphinx.
With spear… bird of omen: From Agamemnon 111–12.
To be the prey… hounds: From an unknown play (fr. 282), though the lines resemble the Agamemnon passage.
And those who fought with Ajax: Possibly from the Thracian Women, which deals with the death of Ajax.
Phlatto-thrat: Perhaps a humorous misrepresentation of the stringed accompaniment used in Aeschylean choral lyrics.
124. A bit of Persian from Marathon: Aeschylus had fought in the battle of Marathon (490 BC).
125. Meletus: Composer of erotic verse and drinking songs (probably sixth century BC).
126. Caria: In southwest Asia Minor; associated with emotive pipe music.
127. castanets: This may be an allusion to Euripides’ Hypsipyle, in which the eponymous heroine amuses the infant Opheltes by singing to him and using castanets (the borrowings from Hypsipyle in the ode itself support this).
128. DANCING-GIRL: This silent character may have been an old hag or an unpalatable young woman. At any rate, she would have been ridiculously dressed.
