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“O thou most vile! thou —woman!– for what word
That lips could frame, could carry more reproach?”
 

He can hardly, however, have been a woman-hater who created the beautiful characters of Iphigenia and Alcestis. In this comedy the Athenian ladies have resolved to punish Euripides, and the poet is in dismay in consequence, and takes measures to defend himself. He offers terms of peace to the offended fair sex, and promises never to abuse them in future.

Aristophanes’ Apology; including a Transcript from Euripides, being the last adventure of Balaustion. London, 1875. – As Aristophanes’ Apology is the last adventure of Balaustion, it is necessary to read Balaustion’s Adventure (q. v.) before commencing this poem. Balaustion has married Euthukles, the young man whom she met at Syracuse. She has met the great poet Euripides, paid her homage to his genius, and has received from his own hands his tragedy of Hercules. The poet is dead, and Athens fallen. She returns to the city after its capture by the Spartans, but she can no longer remain therein. Athens will live in her heart, but never again can she behold the place where ghastly mirth mocked its overthrow and death and hell celebrated their triumph. She has left the doomed city, now that it is no longer the free Athens of happier times, and has set sail with her husband for Rhodes. The glory of the material Athens has departed. But Athens will live as a glorious spiritual entity —

 
“That shall be better and more beautiful,
And too august for Sparté’s foot to spurn!”
 

She and Euthukles are exiles from the dead Athens, not the living: “That’s in the cloud there, with the new-born star!” As they voyage, for her consolation she will record her recollections of her Euripides in Athens, and she bids her husband set down her words as she speaks. She must “speak to the infinite intelligence, sing to the everlasting sympathy.” There are dead things that are triumphant still; the walls of intellectual construction can never be overthrown; there are air-castles more real and permanent than the work of men’s hands. She will tell of Euripides and his undying work. She recalls the night when Athens was still herself, when they heard the news that Euripides was dead – “gone with his Attic ivy home to feast.” Dead and triumphant still! She reflected how the Athenian multitude had ever reproached him: “All thine aim thine art, the idle poet only.” It was not enough in those times that thought should be “the soul of art.” The Greek world demanded activity as well as contemplation. The poet must leave his study to command troops, forsake the world of ideas for that of action, otherwise he was a “hater of his kind.” The world is content with you if you do nothing for it; if you do aught you must do all. But when Euripides was at rest, censorious tongues ceased to wag, and the next thing to do was to build a monument for him! But for the hearts of Balaustion and her husband no statue is required: he stood within their hearts. The pure-souled woman says, “What better monument can be than the poem he gave me? Let him speak to me now in his own words; have out the Herakles and re-sing the song; hear him tell of the last labour of the god, worst of all the twelve.” And lovingly and reverently the precious gift of the poet was taken from its shrine and opened for the reading. Suddenly torchlight, knocking at the door, a cry “Open, open! Bacchos bids!” and a sound of revelry and the drunken voices of girl dancers and players, led by Aristophanes, the comic poet of Greece. A splendid presence, “all his head one brow,” drunk, but in him sensuality had become a rite. Mind was here, passions, but grasped by the strong hand of intellect. Balaustion rose and greeted him. “Hail house,” he said, “friendly to Euripides!” and he spoke flatteringly, but in a slightly mocking tone, as men who are sensual defer to spiritual women whom they rather affect to pity while they admire. Balaustion loves genius; to her mind it is the noblest gift of heaven: she can bow to Aristophanes though he is drunk. (Greek intoxication was doubtless a very different thing from Saxon!) The comic poet had just achieved a great triumph: his comedy had been crowned. The “Women’s Festival” (the Thesmophoriazusæ as it was called in Greek) was a play in which the fair sex had the chief part. It was written against Euripides’ dislike of women, for which the women who are celebrating the great feast of Ceres and Proserpine (the Thesmophoria) drag him to justice. And so, with all his chorus troop, he comes to the home of Balaustion, as representing the Euripides whom he disliked and satirised, to celebrate his success. The presence of Balaustion has stripped the proper Aristophanes of his “accidents,” and under her searching gaze he stands undisguised to be questioned. She puts him on his defence, and hence the “Apology.” He recognises the divine in her, and she in him. The discussion, therefore, will be on the principles underlying the works of Euripides, the man of advance, the pioneer of the newer and better age to come, and those of the conservative apologist of prescription, Aristophanes the aristocrat. He defends his first Thesmophoriazusæ, which failed; his Grasshopper, which followed and failed also. There was reason why he wrote both: he painted the world as it was, mankind as they lived and walked, not human nature as seen though the medium of the student’s closet. “Old wine’s the wine; new poetry drinks raw.” The friend of Socrates might weave his fancies, but flesh and blood like that of Aristophanes needs stronger meat. “Curds and whey” might suit Euripides, the Apologist must have marrowy wine. The author of the Alkestis, which Balaustion raved about, was but a prig: he wrote of wicked kings. Aristophanes came nearer home, and attacked infamous abuses of the time, and scourged too with tougher thong than leek-and-onion plait. He wrote The Birds, The Clouds, and The Wasps. The poison-drama of Euripides has mortified the flesh of the men of Athens, so nothing but warfare can purge it. The play that failed last year he has rearranged; he added men to match the women there already, and had a hit at a new-fangled plan by which women should rule affairs. It succeeded, and so they all flocked merrily to feast, and merrily they supped till something happened, – he will confess its influence upon him. Towards the end of the feast there was a sudden knock: in came an old pale-swathed majesty, who addressed the priest, “Since Euripides is dead to-day, my choros, at the Greater Feast next month, shall, clothed in black, appear ungarlanded!” Sophocles (for it was he) mutely passed outwards and left them stupefied. Soon they found their tongues and began to make satiric comment, but Aristophanes swore that at the moment death to him seemed life and life seemed death. The play of which he had made a laughingstock had meaning he had never seen till now. The question who was the greater poet, once so large, now became so small. He remembers his last discussion with the dead poet, two years since, when he said, “Aristophanes, you know what kind’s the nobler – what makes grave or what makes grin!” He pointed out why his Ploutos failed: he had tried, alas! but with force which had been spent on base things, to paint the life of Man. The strength demanded for the race had been wasted ere the race began. Such thoughts as these, long to relate, but floating through the mind as solemn convictions are wont to do, occupied him till the Archon, the Feast-Master, divining what was passing in his mind, thought best to close the feast. He gave “To the good genius, then!” as a parting cup. Young Strattis cried, “Ay, the Comic Muse”; but Aristophanes, stopping the applause, said, “Stay! the Tragic Muse” (in honour of the dead Tragic Poet), and then he told of all the work of the man who had gone from them. But he had mocked at him so often that his audience would not believe him to be serious now, and burst into laughter, exclaiming, “The unrivalled one! He turns the Tragic on its Comic side!” He felt that he was growing ridiculous, and had to repair matters; so he thanked them for laughing with him, and also those who wept rather with the Lord of Tears, and bade the priest – president alike over the Tragic and Comic function of the god, —

 
“Help with libation to the blended twain!”
 

praising complex poetry operant for body as for soul, able to move to laughter and to tears, supreme in heaven and earth. The soul should not be unbodied; he would defend man’s double nature. But, even as he spoke, he turned to the memory of “Cold Euripides,” and declared that he would not abate attack if he were to encounter him again, because of his principle – “Raise soul, sink sense, Evirate Hermes!” And so, as they left the feast, he asked his friends to accompany him to Balaustion’s home, to the lady and her husband who, passionate admirers of Euripides, had not been present on his triumph-day. When they heard the night’s news, neither, he knew, would sleep, but watch; by right of his crown of triumph he would pay them a visit. Balaustion said, “Commemorate, as we, Euripides!” “What?” cried the comic poet, “profane the temple of your deity! – for deity he was, though as for himself he only figured on men’s drinking mugs. And then, as his glance fell on the table, he saw the Herakles which the Tragic Poet had given to Balaustion. “Give me the sheet,” he asks. She interrupted, “You enter fresh from your worst infamy, last instance of a long outrage – throw off hate’s celestiality, show me a mere man’s hand ignobly clenched against the supreme calmness of the dead poet.” Scarcely noticing her, he said, “Dead and therefore safe; only after death begins immunity of faultiness from punishment. Hear Art’s defence. Comedy is coeval with the birth of freedom, its growth matches the greatness of the Republic. He found the Comic Art a club, a means of inflicting punishment without downright slaying: was he to thrash only the crass fool and the clownish knave, or strike at malpractice that affects the State? His was not the game to change the customs of Athens, lead age or youth astray, play the demagogue at the Assembly or the sophist at the Debating Club, or (worst and widest mischief) preach innovation from the theatre, bring contempt on oaths, and adorn licentiousness. And so he new-tipped with steel his cudgel, he had demagogues in coat-of-mail and cased about with impudence to chastise; he was spiteless, for his attack went through the mere man to reach the principle worth purging from Athens. He did not attack Lamachos, but war’s representative; not Cleon, but flattery of the populace; not Socrates, but the pernicious seed of sophistry, whereby youth was perverted to chop logic and worship whirligig. His first feud with Euripides was when he maintained that we should enjoy life as we find it instead of magnifying our miseries. Euripides would talk about the empty name, while the thing’s self lay neglected beneath his nose. Aristophanes represented the whole Republic, – gods, heroes, priests, legislators, poets – all these would have been in the dust, pummelled into insignificance, had Euripides had his way. To him heroes were no more, hardly so much, as men. Men were ragged, sick, lame, halt, and blind, their speech but street terms; and so, having drawn sky earthwards, he must next lift earth to sky. Women, once mere puppets, must match the male in thinking, saying, doing. The very slave he recognised as man’s mate. There are no gods. Man has no master, owns neither right nor wrong, does what he likes, himself his sole law. As there are no gods, there is only “Necessity” above us. No longer to Euripides is there one plain positive enunciation, incontestable, of what is good, right, decent here on earth. And so Euripides triumphed, though he rarely gained a prize. And Aristophanes, wielding the comic weapon, closed with the enemy in good honest hate, called Euripides one name and fifty epithets. He hates “sneaks whose art is mere desertion of a trust.” And so he doses each culprit with comedy, doctors the word-monger with words. Socrates he nicknames chief quack, necromancer; Euripides – well, he acknowledges every word is false if you look at it too close, but at a distance all is indubitable truth behind the lies. Aristophanes declares the essence of his teaching to be, Accept the old, contest the strange, misdoubt every man whose work is yet to do, acknowledge the work already done. Religion, laws, are old – that is, so much achieved and victorious truth, wrung from adverse circumstance by heroic men who beat the world and left their work in evidence. It was Euripides who caused the fight, and Aristophanes has beaten him; if, however, Balaustion can adduce anything to contravene this, let her say on.” Balaustion replies that she is but a mere mouse confronting the forest monarch, a woman with no quality, but the love of all things lovable. How should she dare deny the results he says his songs are pregnant with? She is a foreigner too. Many perhaps view things too severely, as dwellers in some distant isles, – the Cassiterides, for example, – ignorant and lonely, who seeing some statue of Phidias or picture of Teuxis, might feebly judge that hair and hands and fashion of garb, not being like their own, must needs be wrong. So her criticism of art may be equally in fault as theirs, nevertheless she will proceed if she may. “Comedy, you say, is prescription and a rite; it rose with Attic liberty, and will fall with freedom; but your games, Olympian, Pythian and the others, the gods gave you these; and Comedy, did it come so late that your grandsires can remember its beginning? And you were first to change buffoonery for wit, and filth for cleanly sense. You advocate peace, support religion, lash irreverence, yet rebuke superstition with a laugh. Innovation and all change you attack: with you the oldest always is the best; litigation, mob rule and mob favourites you attack; you are hard on sophists and poets who assist them: snobs, scamps, and gluttons you do not spare, – all these noble aims originated with you! Yet Euripides in Cresphontes sang Peace before you! Play after play of his troops tumultuously to confute your boast. No virtue but he praised, no vice but he condemned ere you were boy! As for your love of peace, you did not show your audience that war was wrong, but Lamachos absurd, not that democracy was blind, but Cleon a sham, not superstition vile but Nicias crazy. You gave the concrete for the abstract, you pretended to be earnest while you were only indifferent. You tickled the mob with the idea that peace meant plenty of good things to eat, while in camp the fare is hard and stinted. Peace gives your audience flute girls and gaiety. War freezes the campaigners in the snow. And so, with all the rest you advocate; do not go to law: beware of the Wasps! but as for curing love of lawsuits, you exhibit cheating, brawling, fighting, cursing as capital fun! And when the writer of the new school attacks the vile abuses of the day, straightway to conserve the good old way, you say the rascal cannot read or write, is extravagant, gets somebody to help his sluggish mind, and lets him court his wife; his uncle deals in crockery, and himself – a stranger! And so the poet-rival is chased out of court. And this is Comedy, our sacred song, censor of vice and virtue’s safeguard! You are indignant with sophistry, and say there is but a single side to man and thing; but the sophists at least wish their pupils to believe what they teach, and to practise what they believe; can you wish that? Assume I am mistaken: have you made them end the war? Has your antagonist Euripides succeeded better? He spoke to a dim future, and I trust truth’s inherent kingliness. ‘Arise and go: both have done honour to Euripides!’” But Aristophanes demands direct defence, and not oblique by admonishment of himself. Balaustion tells him that last year Sophocles was declared by his son to be of unsound mind, and for defence his father just recited a chorus chant of his last play. The one adventure of her life that made Euripides her friend was the story of Hercules and Alcestis. When she met the author last, he said, “I sang another Hercules; it gained no prize, but take it – your love the prize! And so the papyrus, with the pendent style, and the psalterion besides, he gave her: by this should she remember the friend who loved Balaustion once. May I read it as defence? I read.” [The Herakles, or Raging Hercules of Euripides, is translated literally by Mr. Browning on the principles which he laid down in the preface to the Agamemnon. In Potter’s Translation of the Tragedies of Euripides we have the following from the introduction to the play: “The first scenes of this tragedy are very affecting; Euripides knew the way to the heart, and as often as his subject leads him to it, he never fails to excite the tenderest pity. We are relieved from this distress by the unexpected appearance of Hercules, who is here drawn in his private character as the most amiable of men: the pious son, the affectionate husband, and the tender father win our esteem as much as the unconquered hero raises our admiration. Here the feeling reader will perhaps wish that the drama had ended, for the next scenes are dreadful indeed, and it must be confessed that the poet has done his subject terrible justice, but without any of that absurd extravagance which, in Seneca becomes un tintamarre horrible qui se passe dans le tête de ce Héros devenu fou. From the violent agitation into which we are thrown by these deeds of honour, we are suffered by degrees to subside into the tenderest grief, in which we are prepared before to sympathise with the unhappy Hercules by that esteem which his amiable disposition had raised in us; and this perhaps is the most affecting scene of sorrow that ever was produced in any theatre. Upon the whole, though this tragedy may not be deemed the most agreeable by the generality of readers, on account of the too dreadful effects of the madness of Hercules, yet the various turns of fortune are finely managed, the scenes of distress highly wrought, and the passions of pity, terror and grief strongly touched. The scene is at Thebes before the palace of Hercules. The persons of the Drama – Amphitryon, Megara, Lycus, Hercules, Iris, Lyssa (the goddess of madness), Theseus, Messenger; Chorus of aged Thebans.”] They were silent after the reading for a long time. “Our best friend – lost, our best friend!” mused Aristophanes, “and who is our best friend?” He then instances in reply a famous Greek game, known as kottabos, played in various ways, but the latest with a sphere pierced with holes. When the orb is set rolling, and wine is adroitly thrown a figure suspended in a certain position can be struck by the fluid; but its only chance of being so hit is when it fronts just that one outlet. So with Euripides: he gets his knowledge merely from one single aperture – that of the High and Right; till he fronts this he writes no play. When the hole and his head happen to correspond, in drops the knowledge that Aristophanes can make respond to every opening – Low, Wrong, Weak; all the apertures bring him knowledge; he gets his wine at every turn; why not? Evil and Little are just as natural as Good and Great, and he demands to know them, and not one phase of life alone. So that he is the “best friend of man.” No doubt, if in one man the High and Low could be reconciled, in tragi-comic verse he would be superior to both when born in the Tin Islands (as he eventually was in the person of Shakespeare). He will sing them a song of Thamyris, the Thracian bard, who boasted that he could rival the Muses, and was punished by them by being deprived of sight and voice and the power of playing the lute. Before he had finished the song, however, he laughed, “Tell the rest who may!” He had not tried to match the muse and sing for gods; he sang for men, and of the things of common life. He bids this couple farewell till the following year, and departs. In a year many things had happened. Aristophanes had produced his play, The Frogs. It had been rapturously applauded, and the author had been crowned; he is now the people’s “best friend.” He had satirised Euripides more vindictively than before; he had satirised even the gods and the Eleusinian Mysteries; and, in the midst of the “frog merriment,” Lysander, the Spartan, had captured Athens, and his first word to the people was, “Pull down your long walls: the place needs none!” He gave them three days to wreck their proud bulwarks, and the people stood stupefied, stonier than their walls. The time expired, and when Lysander saw they had done nothing, he ordered all Athens to be levelled in the dust. Then stood forth Euthukles, Balaustion’s husband, and “flung that choice flower,” a snatch of a tragedy of Euripides, the Electra; then —

 
“Because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparté’s brood,
And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros’ breast,
And poetry is power, and Euthukles
Had faith therein to, full face, fling the same —
Sudden, the ice thaw!”
 

And the assembled foe cried, “Reverence Elektra! Let stand Athenai!” and so, as Euripides had saved the Athenian exiles in Syracuse harbour, now he saved Athens herself. But her brave long walls were destroyed, destroyed to sound of flute and lyre, wrecked to the kordax step, and laid in the dust to the mocking laughter of a Comedy-chorus. And so no longer would Balaustion remain to see the shame of the beloved city. “Back to Rhodes!” she cried. “There are no gods, no gods! Glory to God – who saves Euripides!” [The long walls of Athens consisted of the wall to Phalerum on the east, about four miles long, and of the wall to the harbour of Piraeus on the west, about four and a half miles long; between these two, at a short distance from the latter and parallel to it, another wall was erected, thus making two walls leading to the Piraeus, with a narrow passage between them. The entire circuit of the walls was nearly twenty-two miles, of which about five and a half miles belonged to the city, nine and a half to the long walls, and seven miles to Piraeus, Munychia, and Phalerum.]

Plutarch, in his life of Lysander, tells how Euripides saved Athens from destruction and the Athenians from slavery: – “After Lysander had taken from the Athenians all their ships except twelve, and their fortifications were delivered up to him, he entered their city on the sixteenth of the month Munychon (April), the very day they had overthrown the barbarians in the naval fight at Salamis. He presently set himself to change their form of government; and finding that the people resented his proposal, he told them ‘that they had violated the terms of their capitulation, for their walls were still standing after the time fixed for the demolishing of them was passed; and that, since they had broken the first articles, they must expect new ones from the council.’ Some say he really did propose, in the council of the allies, to reduce the Athenians to slavery; and that Erianthis, a Theban officer, gave it as his opinion that the city should be levelled with the ground, and the spot on which it stood turned to pasturage. Afterwards, however, when the general officers met at an entertainment, a musician of Phocis happened to begin a chorus in the Electra of Euripides, the first lines of which are these —

 
‘Unhappy daughter of the great Atrides,
Thy straw-crowned palace I approach.’
 

The whole company were greatly moved at this incident, and could not help reflecting how barbarous a thing it would be to raze that noble city, which had produced so many great and illustrious men. Lysander, however, finding the Athenians entirely in his power, collected the musicians of the city, and having joined to them the band belonging to the camp, pulled down the walls, and burned the ships, to the sound of their instruments.”

Notes. [The pages are those of the complete edition, in 16 vols.] – P. 3, Euthukles, the husband of Balaustion, whom she met first at Syracuse. p. 4, Koré, the daughter of Ceres, the same as Proserpine. p. 6, Peiraios, the principal harbour of Athens, with which it was connected by the long walls; “walls, long double-range Themistoklean”: after Themistocles, the Athenian general, who planned the fortifications of Athens; Dikast and heliast: the Dikast was the judge (dike, a suit, was the term for a civil process); the heliasts were jurors, and in the flourishing period of the democracy numbered six thousand. p. 7, Kordax-step, a lascivious comic dance: to perform it off the stage was regarded as a sign of intoxication or profligacy; Propulaia, a court or vestibule of the Acropolis at Athens; Pnux, a place at Athens set apart for holding assemblies: it was built on a rock; Bema, the elevated position occupied by those who addressed the assembly. p. 8, Dionusia, the great festivals of Bacchus, held three times a year, when alone dramatic representations at Athens took place; “Hermippos to pelt Perikles”: Hermippos was a poet who accused Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, of impiety; “Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine”: Kratinos was a comic poet of Athens, a contemporary of Aristophanes; Eruxis, the name of a small satirist. (Compare “The Frogs” ll. 933-934.) Momos, the god of pleasantry: he satirised the gods; Makaria, one of the characters in the Heraclidæ of Euripides: she devoted herself to death to enable the Athenians to win a victory. p. 9, “Furies in the Oresteian song” – Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra: they haunted Orestes after he murdered his mother Clytemnestra: “As the Three,” etc., the three tragic poets, Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Klutaimnestra, wife of Agamemnon and mother of Orestes, Iphigenia, and Electra: she murdered her husband on his return from Troy; Iocasté, Iocasta, wife of Laius and mother of Œdipus; Medeia, daughter of Aetes: when Jason repudiated her she killed their children; Choros: the function of the chorus, represented by its leader, was to act as an ideal public: it might consist of old men and women or maidens; dances and gestures were introduced, to illustrate the drama. p. 10, peplosed and kothorned, robed and buskined. Phrunicos, a tragic poet of Athens: he was heavily fined by the government for exhibiting the sufferings of a kindred people in a drama. (Herod., vi., 21.) “Milesian smart-place,” the Persian conquest of Miletus. p. 11, Lenaia, a festival of Bacchus, with poetical contentions, etc.; Baccheion, a temple of Bacchus; Andromedé, rescued from a sea-monster by Perseus; Kresphontes, one of the tragedies of Euripides; Phokis, a country of northern Greece, whence came the husband of Balaustion, who saved Athens by a song from Euripides; Bacchai, a play by Euripides, not acted till after his death. p. 12, Amphitheos, a priest of Ceres at Athens, ridiculed by Aristophanes to annoy Euripides. p. 14, stade, a single course for foot-races at Olympia – about a furlong; diaulos, the double track of the racecourse for the return. p. 15, Hupsipule, queen of Lemnos, who entertained Jason in his voyage to Colchis: “Phoinissai” (The Phœnician Women), title of one of the plays of Euripides; “Zethos against Amphion”: Zethos was a son of Jupiter by Antiope, and brother to Amphion; Macedonian Archelaos, a king of Macedonia who patronised Euripides. p. 16, Phorminx, a harp or guitar; “Alkaion,” a play of Euripides; Pentheus, king of Thebes, who refused to acknowledge Bacchus as a god; “Iphigenia in Aulis,” a play by Euripides; Mounuchia, a port of Attica between the Piræus and the promontory of Sunium; “City of Gapers,” Athens – so called on account of the curiosity of the people; Kopaic eel: the eels of Lake Copais, in Bœotia, were very celebrated, and to this day maintain their reputation. p. 17, Arginousai, three islands near the shores of Asia Minor; Lais, a celebrated courtesan, the mistress of Alcibiades; Leogoras, an Athenian debauchee; Koppa-marked, branded as high bred; choinix, a liquid measure; Mendesian wine: Wine from Mende, a city of Thrace, famous for its wines; Thesmophoria, a women’s festival in honour of Ceres, made sport of by Aristophanes. p. 18, Krateros, probably an imaginary character. Arridaios and Krateues, local poets in royal favour; Protagoras, a Greek atheistic philosopher, banished from Athens, died about 400 B.C.; “Comic Platon,” Greek poet, called “the prince of the middle comedy,” flourished 445 B.C.; Archelaos, king of Macedonia. p. 19, “Lusistraté” a play by Aristophanes, in which the women demand a peace; Kleon: Cleon was an Athenian tanner and a great popular demagogue, 411 B.C., distinguished afterwards as a general; he was a great enemy of Aristophanes. p. 20, Phuromachos, a military leader; Phaidra, fell in love with Hippolytus, her son-in-law, who refused her love, which proved fatal to him. p. 21, Salabaccho, a performer in Aristophanes’ play, The Lysistrata, acting the part of “Peace”; Aristeides, an Athenian general, surnamed the Just, banished 484 B.C.; Miltiades, the Athenian general who routed the armies of Darius, died 489 B.C.; “A golden tettix in his hair” (a grasshopper), an Athenian badge of honour worn as indicative that the bearer had “sprung from the soil”; Kleophon, a demagogue of Athens. p. 22, Thesmophoriazousai, a play by Aristophanes satirising women and Euripides, B.C. 411. p. 23, Peiraios, the seaport of Athens; Alkamenes, a statuary who lived 448 B.C., distinguished for his beautiful statues of Venus and Vulcan; Thoukudides (Thucydides), the Greek historian, died at Athens 391 B.C. p. 24, Herakles (Hercules), who had brought Alcestis back to life: the subject of a play by Euripides. p. 25, Eurustheus, king of Argos, who enjoined Hercules the most hazardous undertakings, hoping he would perish in one of them; King Lukos, the son of an elder Lukos said to have been the husband of Dirke; Megara, daughter of Creon, king of Thebes, and wife of Hercules; Thebai—i. e., of Creon of Thebes; Heracleian House, the house of Hercules. p. 26, Amphitruon, a Theban prince, foster-father of Herakles, i. e., the husband of Alkmene the mother of Herakles by Zeus; Komoscry, a “Komos” was a revel; Dionusos, Bacchos, Phales, Iacchos (all names of Bacchus): the goat was sacrificed to Bacchus on account of the propensity that animal has to destroy the vine. p. 27, Mnesilochos, the father-in-law of Euripides, a character in the Thesmophoriazousai; Toxotes, an archer in the same play; Elaphion, leader of the chorus of females or flute-players. p. 30, Helios, the God of the Sun; Pindaros, the greatest lyric poet of Greece, born 552 B.C.; “Idle cheek band” refers to a support for the cheeks worn by trumpeters; Cuckoo-apple, the highly poisonous tongue-burning Cuckoo-pint (Arum maculatum); Thasian, Thasus, an island in the Ægean Sea famous for its wine; threttanelo and neblaretai, imitative noises; Chrusomelolonthion-Phaps, a dancing girl’s name. p. 31, Artamouxia, a character in the Thesmophoriazousai of Aristophanes; Hermes == Mercury; Goats-breakfast, improper allusions, connected with Bacchus; Archon, a chief magistrate of Athens; “Three days’ salt fish slice”: each soldier was required to take with him on the march three days’ rations. p. 32, Archinos, a rhetorician of Athens (Schol. in Aristoph. Ran.); Agurrhios, an Athenian general in B.C. 389: he was a demagogue; “Bald-head Bard”: this describes Aristophanes, and the two following words indicate his native place; Kudathenaian, native of the Deme Cydathenê; Pandionid, of the tribe of Pandionis; “son of Philippos”: Aristophanes here gives the names of his father and of his birthplace; anapæsts, feet in verse, whereof the first syllables are short and the last long; Phrunichos (see on p. 10); Choirilos, a tragic poet of Athens, who wrote a hundred and fifty tragedies. p. 33, Kratinos, a severe and drunken satirist of Athens, 431 B.C.; “Willow-wicker-flask,” i. e., “Flagon,” the name of a comedy by Kratinos which took the first prize, 423 B.C.; Mendesian, from Mende in Thrace. p. 36, “Lyric shell or tragic barbiton,” instruments of music: the barbiton was a lyre; shells were used as the bodies of lyres; Tuphon, a famous giant chained under Mount Etna. p. 38, Sousarion, a Greek poet of Megara, said to have been the inventor of comedy; Chionides, an Athenian poet, by some alleged to have been the inventor of comedy. p. 39, “Grasshoppers,” a play of Aristophanes; “Little-in-the-Fields,” suburban or village feasts of Bacchus. p. 40, Ameipsias, a comic poet ridiculed by Aristophanes for his insipidity; Salaminian, of Salamis, an island on the coast of Attica. p. 41, Archelaos, king of Macedonia, patron of Euripides. p. 42, Iostephanos (violet-crowned), a title applied to Athens; Dekeleia, a village of Attica north of Athens; Kleonumos, an Athenian often ridiculed by Aristophanes; Melanthios, a tragic poet, a son of Philocles; Parabasis, an address in the old comedy, where the author speaks through the mouth of the chorus; “The Wasps,” one of the famous plays of Aristophanes. p. 43, Telekleides, an Athenian comic poet of the age of Pericles; Murtilos, a comic poet; Hermippos, a poet, an elder contemporary of Aristophanes; Eupolis: is coupled with Aristophanes as a chief representative of the old comedy (born 446 B.C.); Kratinos, a contemporary comic poet, who died a few years after Aristophanes began to write for the stage; Mullos and Euetes, comic poets of Athens; Megara, a small country of Greece, p. 44, Morucheides, an archon of Athens, in whose time it was ordered that no one should be ridiculed on the stage by name; Sourakosios, an Athenian lawyer ridiculed by the poets for his garrulity; Tragic Trilogy, a series of three dramas, which, though complete each in itself, bear a certain relation to each other, and form one historical and poetical picture —e. g., the three plays of the Oresteia, the Agamemnon, the Choëphoræ, and the Eumenides by Æschylus. p. 45, “The Birds,” the title of one of Aristophanes’ plays. p. 46, Triphales, a three-plumed helmet-wearer; Trilophos, a three-crested helmet-wearer; Tettix (the grasshopper), a sign of honour worn as a golden ornament; “Autochthon-brood”: the Athenians so called themselves, boasting that they were as old as the country they inhabited; Taügetan, a mountain near Sparta. p. 47, Ruppapai, a sailor’s cry; Mitulené, the capital of Lesbos, a famous seat of learning, and the birthplace of many great men; Oidipous, son of Laius, king of Thebes, and Jocasta: he murdered his own father; Phaidra, who fell in love with her son Hippolytus; Augé, the mother of Telephus by Hercules; Kanaké, a daughter of Æolus, who bore a child to her brother Macareus; antistrophé, a part of the Greek choral ode. p. 48, Aigina, an island opposite Athens. p. 49, Prutaneion, the large hall at Athens where the magistrates feasted with those who had rendered great services to the country; Ariphrades, a person ridiculed by Aristophanes for his filthiness; Karkinos and his sons were Athenian dancers: supposed here to have been performing in a play of Ameipsias. p. 50, Parachoregema, the subordinate chorus; Aristullos, an infamous poet; “Bald Bard’s hetairai,” Aristophanes’ female companions. p. 51, Murrhiné and Akalanthis, chorus girls representing “good-humour” and “indulgence”; Kailligenia, a name of Ceres: here it means her festival celebrated by the woman chorus of the Thesmophoriaxousai; Lusandros == Lysander, a celebrated Spartan general; Euboia, a large island in the Ægean Sea; “The Great King’s Eye,” the nickname of the Persian ambassador in the play of The Acharnians; Kompolakuthes, a puffed-up braggadocio. p. 52, Strattis, a comic poet; klepsudra, a water clock; Sphettian vinegar == vinegar from the village of Sphettus; silphion, a herb by some called masterwort, by some benzoin, by others pellitory; Kleonclapper, i. e., a scourge of Cleon; Agathon, an Athenian poet, very lady-like in appearance, a character in The Women’s Festival of Aristophanes; “Babaiax!” interjection of admiration. p. 54, “Told him in a dream” (see Cicero, Divinatione, xxv); Euphorion, a son of Æschylus, who published four of his father’s plays after his death, and defeated Euripides with one of them; Trugaios, a character in the comedy of Peace: he is a distressed Athenian who soars to the sky on a beetle’s back; Philonides, a Greek comic poet of Athens; Simonides, a celebrated poet of Cos, 529 B.C.: he was the first poet who wrote for money: he bore the character of an avaricious man; Kallistratos, a comic poet, rival of Aristophanes; Asklepios == Æsculapius; Iophon, a son of Sophocles, who tried to make out that his father was an imbecile. p. 58, Maketis, capital of Macedonia; Pentelikos, a mountain of Attica, celebrated for its marble. p. 60, Lamachos: the “Great Captain” of the day was the brave son of Xenophanes, killed before Syracuse B.C. 414: satirised by Aristophanes in The Acharnians; Pisthetairos, a character in Aristophanes’ Birds; Strepsiades, a character in The Clouds of Aristophanes; Ariphrades (see under p. 49). p. 63, “Nikias, ninny-like,” the Athenian general who ruined Athens at Syracuse – was very superstitious. p. 64, Hermai, statues of Mercury in the streets of Athens: we have one in the British Museum. p. 67, Sophroniskos, was the father of Socrates. p. 75, Kephisophon, a friend of Euripides, said to have afforded him literary assistance. p. 79, Palaistra, the boy’s school for physical culture. p. 82, San, the letter S, used as a horse-brand. p. 81, Aias == Ajax. p. 82, Pisthetairos, an enterprising Athenian in the comedy of the Birds. p. 83, “Rocky-ones” == Athenians; Peparethian, famous wine of Peparethus, on the coast of Macedonia. p. 85, Promachos, a defender or champion, name of a statue: the bronze statue of Athene Promachos is here referred to, which was erected from the spoils taken at Marathon, and stood between the Propylæa and the Erechtheum: the proportions of this statue were so gigantic that the gleaming point of the lance and the crest of the helmet were visible to seamen on approaching the Piræus from Sunium (Seyffert, Dict. Class. Ant.); Oresteia, the trilogy or three tragedies of Æschylus – the Agamemnon, the Choëphoræ, and the Eumenides. p. 86, Kimon, son of Miltiades: he was a famous Athenian general, and was banished by the Boulé, or council of state; Prodikos, a Sophist put to death by the Athenians about 396 B.C., satirised by Aristophanes. p. 87, Kottabos, a kind of game in which liquid is thrown up so as to make a loud noise in falling: it was variously played (see Seyffert’s Dict. Class. Ant., p. 165); Choes, an Athenian festival; Theoros, a comic poet of infamous character. p. 88, Brilesian, Brilessus, a mountain of Attica. p. 89, “Plataian help,” prompt assistance: the Platæans furnished a thousand soldiers to help the Athenians at Marathon; Saperdion, a term of endearment; Empousa, a hobgoblin or horrible sceptre: “Apollonius of Tyana saw in a desert near the Indus an empousa or ghûl taking many forms” (Philostratus, ii., 4); Kimberic, name of a species of vestment. p. 93, “Kuthereia’s self,” a surname of Venus. p. 94, plethron square, 100 square feet; chiton, the chief and indispensible article of female dress, or an undergarment worn by both sexes. p. 95, Ion, a tragic poet of Chios; Iophon, son of Sophocles, a poor poet; Aristullos, an infamous poet. p. 98, Cloudcuckooburg, in Aristophanes’ play The Birds these animals are persuaded to build a city in the air, so as to cut off the gods from men; Tereus, a king of Thrace, who offered violence to his sister-in-law Philomela; Hoopoe triple-crest: Tereus was said to have been changed into a hoopoe (The Birds); Palaistra tool, i. e., one highly developed; Amphiktuon, a council of the wisest and best men of Greece; Phrixos, son of Athamas, king of Thebes, persecuted by his stepmother was fabled to have taken flight to Colchis on a ram. p. 99, Priapos, the god of orchards, gardens, and licentiousness; Phales Iacchos, indecent figure of Bacchus. p. 102, Kallikratidas, a Spartan who routed the Athenian fleet about 400 B.C.; Theramenes, an Athenian philosopher and general of the time of Alcibiades. p. 103, chaunoprockt, a catamite. p. 113, Aristonumos, a comic poet, contemporary with Aristophanes; Ameipsias, a comic poet satirised by Aristophanes; Sannurion, a comic poet of Athens: Neblaretai! Rattei! exclamations of joy. p. 117, Sousarion, a Greek poet of Megara, who introduced comedy at Athens on a movable stage, 562 B.C.: he was unfriendly to the ladies. p. 118, Lemnians, The Hours, Female Playhouse, etc., these are all lost plays of Aristophanes. p. 119, Kassiterides, “the tin islands”: the Scilly Islands, Land’s End, and Lizard Point. p. 121, “Your games”: Olympian, in honour of Zeus at Olympia; Pythian, held near Delphi; Isthmian, held in the Isthmus of Corinth; Nemeian, celebrated in the valley of Nemea. p. 126, Phoibos, name of Apollo or the sun; Kunthia == Cynthia, a surname of Diana, from Mount Cynthus, where she was born. p. 128, skiadeion, the umbel or umbrella-like head of plants like fennel or anise – hence a parasol or umbrella; Huperbolos, an Athenian demagogue. p. 129, Theoria, festival at Athens in honour of Apollo – character in The Peace; Opôra, a character in The Peace. p. 133, “Philokleon turns Bdelukleon,” an admirer of Cleon, turned detester of Cleon: character in Aristophanes’ comedy The Wasps. p. 135, Logeion, the stage where the actors perform – properly “the speaking place.” p. 137, Lamia-shape, as of the monsters with face of a woman and body of a serpent; Kukloboros, roaring – a noise as of the torrent of the river in Attica of that name; Platon == Plato. p. 140, Konnos, the play of Ameipsias which beat the Clouds of Aristophanes in the award of the judges; Moruchides, a magistrate of Athens, in whose time it was decided that no one should be ridiculed on the stage by name; Euthumenes, Argurrhios, Surakosios, Kinesias, Athenian rulers who endeavoured to restrain the gross attacks of the comic poets. p. 141, Acharnes, Aristophanes’ play The Acharnians: it is the most ancient specimen of comedy which has reached us. p. 143, Poseidon, the Sea == Neptune. p. 144, Triballos, a vulgar deity. p. 145, Kolonos, an eminence near Athens; stulos, a style or pen to write with on wax tablets; psalterion, a musical instrument like a harp, a psaltery. p. 146, Pentheus, king of Thebes, who resisted the worship of Bacchus, and was driven mad by the god and torn to pieces by his own mother and her two sisters in their Bacchic frenzy. p. 147, Herakles == Hercules; Argive Amphitruon, son of Alkaios and husband of Alcmene; Alkaios, father of Amphitruon and grandfather of Hercules; Perseus, son of Jupiter and Danae; Thebai, capital of Bœotia, founded by Cadmus; Sown-ones, the armed men who rose from the dragons’ teeth sown by Cadmus; Ares, Greek name of Mars; Kadmos, founder of Bœotian Thebes; Kreon, king of Thebes, father of Megara slain by Lukos; Menoikeus, father of the Kreon above referred to. p. 148, Kuklopian city: Argos, according to Euripides, was built by the seven Cyclopes: “These were architects who attended Prœtus when he returned out of Asia; among other works with which they adorned Greece were the walls of Mycenæ and Tiryns, which were built of unhewn stones, so large that two mules yoked could not move the smallest of them” (Potter); Argos, an ancient city, capital of Argolis in Peloponnesus; Elektruon, a son of Perseus; Heré == Juno; Tainaros, a promontory of Laconia, where was the cavern whence Hercules dragged Cerberus; Dirké, wife of the Theban prince Lukos; Amphion: “His skill in music was so great that the very stones were said to have been wrought upon by his lyre, and of themselves to have built the walls of Thebes” —Carey (see Abt Vogler); Zethos, brother of Amphion; Euboia, the largest island in the Ægean Sea, now Negroponte. p. 149, Minuai, the Argonauts, companions of Jason. p. 150, Taphian town, Taphiæ, islands in the Ionian Sea. p. 153, peplos, a robe. p. 154, Hellas == Greece; Nemeian monster, the lion slain by Hercules. p. 156, Kentaur race, a people of Thessaly represented as half men and half horses; Pholoé, a mountain in Arcadia; Dirphus, a mountain of Eubœa which Hercules laid waste; Abantid: Abantis was an ancient name of Eubœa. p. 158, Parnasos, a mountain of Phocis. p. 165, Peneios, a river of Thessaly; Mount Pelion, a celebrated mountain of Thessaly; Homole, a mountain of Thessaly; Oinoé == Œne, a small town of Argolis; Diomede, a king of Thrace who fed his horses on human flesh, and was himself destroyed by Hercules. p. 166, Hebros, the principal river of Thrace; Mukenaian tyrant, Eurystheus, king of Mycenæ; Amauros, Amaurus, a river of Thessaly near the foot of Pelion; Kuknos, a son of Mars by Pelopea, killed by Hercules; Amphanaia, a Dorian city; Hesperian, west, towards Spain; Maiotis, Lake Mæotis, i. e., the Sea of Azof. p. 167, Lernaian snake, the hydra slain by Hercules, who then drained the marsh of Lerna; Erutheia, an island near Cadiz, where Hercules drove the oxen of Geryon. p. 169, Pelasgia == Greece; Daidalos, mythical personage, father of Icarus; Oichalia, a town of Laconia, destroyed by Hercules. p. 177, Ismenos, a river of Bœotia flowing through Thebes. p. 180, Orgies, festivals of Bacchus; Chthonia, a surname of Ceres; Hermion, a town of Argolis where Ceres had a famous temple; Theseus, king of Athens, conqueror of the Minotaur. p. 182, Aitna == Etna. p. 183, Mnemosuné, the mother of the Muses; Bromios, a surname of Bacchus; Delian girls, of Delos, one of the Cyclades islands; Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana. p. 188, Acherontian harbour: Acheron was one of the rivers of hell. p. 189, Asopiad sisters, daughters of the god of the river Asopus; Puthios, surname of the Delphian Apollo; Helikonian muses: Mount Helicon, in Bœotia, was sacred to Apollo and the Muses. p. 190, Plouton == Pluto, god of hell; Paian, name of Apollo, the healer; Iris, the swift-footed messenger of the gods. p. 193, Keres, the daughters of Night and personified necessity of Death. p. 194, Otototoi, woe! alas! p. 195, Tariaros == Hades; Pallas, i. e., Minerva. p. 198, Niso’s city, port town of Megara; Isthmos, the isthmus of Corinth. p. 201, Argolis, a country of Peloponnesus, now Romania; Danaos, son of Belus, king of Egypt: he had fifty daughters, who murdered the fifty sons of Egyptus; Prokné, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, wife of Tereus, king of Thrace. p. 202, Itus, son of Prokné. p. 206, Taphioi, the Taphians, who made war against Electryon, and killed all his sons; Erinues == the Furies. p. 213, Erechtheidai’s town == Athens. p. 215, Hundredheaded Hydra, a dreadful monster slain by Hercules. p. 216, Phlegruia, a place of Macedonia, where Hercules defeated the giants. p. 234, Iostephanos, violet-crowned, a name of Athens. p. 235, Thamuris, an ancient Thracian bard; Poikilé, a celebrated portico of Athens, adorned with pictures of gods and benefactors; Rhesus was king of Thrace and ally of the Trojans; Blind Bard == Thamuris. p. 236, Eurutos, a king of Œchalia, who offered his daughter to a better shot than himself: Hercules won, but was denied the prize; Dorion, a town of Messenia, where Thamyris challenged the Muses to a trial of skill; Balura, a river of Peloponnesus. p. 241, Dekeleia, a village of Attica north of Athens, celebrated in the Peloponnesian war; spinks, chaffinches. p. 242, Amphion, son of Jupiter and inventor of Music: he built the walls of Thebes to the sound of his lyre. p. 245, Castalian dew, the fountain of Castalia, near Phocis, at the foot of Parnassus. p. 247, Pheidippides, the celebrated runner, a character also in The Clouds. p. 248, Aigispoiamoi, Ægospotamos was the river where the Athenians were defeated by Lysander, B.C. 405; Elaphebolion month, stag-hunting time, when the poetical contests took place; Lusandros, the celebrated Spartan general Lysander; triremes, galleys with three banks of oars one above another. p. 249, Bakis-prophecy, Bacis was a famous soothsayer of Bœotia. p. 253, Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, king of Argos; Orestes, brother of Elektra, who saved his life. p. 254, Klutaimnestra, murdered her husband Agamemnon. p. 255, Kommos, a great wailing; eleleleleu, a loud crying; Lakonians, the Lacedæmonians == the Spartans. p. 258, Young Philemon, a Greek comic poet; there was an old Philemon, contemporary with Menander. – Mr. Fotheringham, in his “Studies in the Poetry of Robert Browning,” says: “Browning’s preference for Euripides among Greek dramatists, and his defence of that poet in the person of Balaustion against Aristophanes, shows how distinctly he has considered the principles raised by the later drama of Greece, and how deliberately he prefers Euripidean art and aims to Aristophanic naturalism. He likes the human and ethical standpoint, the serious and truth-loving spirit of the tragic rather than the pure Hellenism of the comic poet; while the Apology suggests a broader spirit and a larger view, an art that unites the realism of the one with the higher interests of the other – delight in and free study of the world with ideal aims and spiritual truth” (p. 356).