Part 9

Thus Socrates draws benefit even from a shrewish wife. His ideas of a happy marriage, and the best means of securing that happiness, are set out for us by Xenophon in the _Œconomicus_. Ischomachus, Socrates’ interlocutor, is for all practical purposes Xenophon himself, and the whole passage should be compared with those delightful stories of conjugal happiness—the tale of Panthea, and the wife of Tigranes—which the historian gives us in the Education of Cyrus. The dialogue begins by Socrates asking Ischomachus how he won his sobriquet of ‘honest gentleman’—surely not by staying at home!

‘No,’ replies Ischomachus, ‘I do not spend my days indoors: my wife is quite capable of managing our household without my help.’

‘Ah, that is what I want to know. Did you train your wife yourself to be all that a wife should be? Or, when you took her from her parents, did she possess enough knowledge to perform her share of house management?’

‘Possess knowledge when I took her? Why, she was not fifteen years old, and until then she had lived under careful surveillance—to see and hear, and ask as little as possible. All that she knew was how to take wool and turn it into a dress. All that she had seen was how the spinning-women have their daily tasks assigned. As regards control of appetite, she had certainly received a sound education, and that, I think, is all-important.’

Ischomachus then proceeds to detail his system of education. It begins with husband and wife offering sacrifice together and praying that fortune may aid in teaching and learning what is best for both. Then, as soon as the wife ‘is tamed to the hand, and not too frightened to take part in conversation,’ the husband explains that they are now partners together, at present in the house, in future in any children that may be born to them. They have each contributed a portion to the common stock, and must now work together in protecting their joint interests. The wife agrees to this, but doubts her own capacity. ‘Everything depends on you,’ she says; ‘my business, mother said, was to be modest and temperate.’ The husband then explains the true functions of man and woman and their points of difference. Man has a greater capacity than woman for enduring heat and cold, wayfaring and route-marching. God meant for him outdoor work. Woman has less capacity for bearing fatigue; she is more affectionate, more timorous. God has imposed upon her the indoor work. Finally, to men and women alike in equal measure, God gives memory, carefulness, and self-control. Custom agrees with the divine ordinance. For a woman to stay quiet at home, instead of roaming abroad, is no disgrace: for a man to remain indoors is discreditable. The wife is like the queen bee, on whom all the work of the hive depends; and a good mistress soon wins the loyal love of all her servants. So the conversation proceeds, and with this beautiful sentence the first conjugal lesson ends:

‘But your sweetest joy will be to show yourself my superior, and to make me your servant; then you need not fear that as the years roll on you will lose your place of honour in the house; you will be sure that, though you are no longer young, your honour will increase; even as you become a better partner to myself and the children, and a better guardian of the home; for it is not beauty, but virtue, that nurtures the growth of a good name.’

But Ischomachus does not confine his teaching to words. He explains to Socrates how once he asked his wife for some household article which she could not find, and how deeply she blushed at her heedless ignorance. So he gives her a practical lesson in household management by taking her over the house and explaining the uses of the various rooms and different utensils, expatiating the while on the beauty of order—‘for a beauty like the cadence of sweet music dwells even in pots and pans set out in neat array.’ His wife profits by the lesson, and henceforth everything is in its proper place.

He deals faithfully, too, with that most pardonable of woman’s weaknesses, the desire to please, that leads some ladies to attempt to improve upon nature. So when one day he finds his wife with powder and rouge upon her cheeks, and wearing high-heeled shoes, he begins like this:

‘Dear wife, would you think me a good partner in our business if I were to make a display of unreal wealth, false money, and sham purples, wood coated with gold?’

‘Nay, surely not,’ she replies.

‘And as regards my body, would you hold me as more lovable if I were to anoint myself with pigments and paint my eyes?’

‘Nay, I would rather look into your eyes and see them bright with health.’

‘Believe me, then, dear wife, I am not better pleased with this white powder and red paint than I should be with your natural hue.’

So after that day the young wife gives up cosmetics, and on her husband’s advice takes healthy exercise instead; the physical training he recommends being ‘to knead the dough and roll the paste; to shake the coverlets and make the beds.’

With one last anecdote we must end. Socrates asks his friend whether beside his practical wisdom he has any rhetorical and judicial skill.

‘Of course I have,’ says Ischomachus. ‘I am always hearing and debating cases in my own household. Yes, and before to-day I have been taken on one side, and have had to stand my trial, to see what punishment I should bear and what fine I should pay.’

‘And how do you get on?’ says Socrates.

‘When I have the advantage of truth on my side, well enough; but when I have not truth with me I can never make the worse cause appear the better.’

‘And how is that? Who is the judge?’

‘_My wife._’

Ischomachus’ home, at least, is no doll’s-house. His wife is as far removed from the humble drudge with whom the ordinary Athenian was familiar as she is from the painted odalisque who to the Ionian was the ideal of the perfect woman.

X.—ARISTOPHANES

The work of Aristophanes is a pendant to that of Euripides, and is often inspired by a much more serious purpose than is commonly supposed. Aristophanes is no mere vulgar buffoon, and most of his obscenity is an empty parade made necessary by the conditions of the Attic stage which Aristophanes himself in the course of his career rendered obsolete. He was a member of the Socratic Circle (the famous Symposium ends with Socrates expounding to Agathon and Aristophanes the nature of tragedy and comedy, and explaining the essential similarity of their functions), and in his early manhood he fell under the spell of the great tragedian. Of all his comedies there is hardly one which in language, music, and dramatic technique does not reveal the intimate harmony that exists between the two men. Aristophanes and Euripides, like our Shelley, were born to be lyric poets, and they both possess the divine gift of melody. But they were interested in so many other things, in politics, in feminism, and in social reform, that art with them often takes the second place. As men they are incomparably greater than such self-centred poets as Sophocles; as artists they neither aim at nor achieve his academic perfection. Their methods are curiously alike, and it is because Aristophanes knows Euripides so well, and is in such intimate sympathy with him, that the constant parody of the Euripidean style in the comedies never becomes wearisome.

Parody, gross humour, indecency even, these were the qualities that a comic poet at Athens had necessarily to display, and Aristophanes, having chosen his medium of expression, is compelled to obey the restrictions of the comic stage. Moreover, it is obvious that he enjoys indulging his humour to the utmost. The wit of Euripides is restrained and ironical, with something of the bitterness of old age; Aristophanes in most of his plays has the exuberance of youthful spirits and an overflowing stock of fantastic inventions.

But a dramatist, even a comic dramatist, however fantastic and inventive his humour may be, must have some foundation of serious purpose, and that foundation Aristophanes takes very largely from Euripides. His three chief themes are the same as those of the tragedian: firstly, that war is a curse—it is useful perhaps for politicians and soldiers, but only brings disaster to real workers; secondly, that a belief in gods made in mortal shape is absurd—such a belief will certainly lead to farcical situations, which if treated realistically will be excellent material for a comic poet; thirdly, that women are as capable, intellectually and morally, as men—their experience of house-management especially fits them for carrying on the business of a State, and a feminist administration might solve many problems that have proved too hard for men. The first of these themes appears in the plot of the _Acharnians_, the _Peace_, and the _Knights_; the second in the _Birds_, the _Frogs_, and the _Plutus_; the feminist plays are the _Women at the Festival_, the _Lysistrata_, and the _Women in Assembly_.

It is obvious that the treatment of these themes in tragedy and comedy will be different; but the initial point of view is very much the same. As for the abuse of Euripides, and there is plenty in the comedies, it is merely part of the comic game, and it is foolish to take it seriously. Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, and Socrates were all close friends, as intimate one with the other as are our leading politicians, and to speak of Aristophanes ‘attacking’ Euripides and Socrates is to misread the situation.

It is not to be supposed that all the members of the Socratic Circle thought alike on all subjects, and even as regards feminism there are some points of difference between Euripides and Aristophanes. The comic poet is rather interested in the woman’s cause than devoted to it, and in many of his plays he certainly hesitates between the gross realism of the phallic god and the new ideas of feminist doctrine. Often, too, in his theatre women occupy as insignificant a place as they did in the actual life of his time. In the _Wasps_, for example, Philocleon’s household apparently consists of his grown-up son and the attendant slaves: nothing is said of wife or daughter. In the _Knights_, ‘Demos’—John Bull—has no Mrs. Bull to keep him company: his domestic arrangements are in the hands of men slaves. In the _Clouds_ there is a vivid picture of Socrates at home: house, furniture, and pupils are all described, but nothing of Xanthippë. So in the _Acharnians_ and the _Peace_ we have household scenes, but no women take part in the action: the women are there, but they are persons of no importance. Trygæus, before setting off on his adventurous voyage, bids an affectionate farewell to his little children, but for his wife he has no message. The Megarian sells his two daughters for a handful of leeks and a measure of salt, and then prays to all his saints that he may be lucky enough to get as good a price for his mother and his wife.

A realist, depicting life at Athens in the fifth century, was compelled to give women an insignificant rôle, but even in this group of plays Aristophanes makes one exception, the exception, perhaps, that proves the rule, for even under the harem system the masterful woman will sometimes come to the front, and Haroun al Raschid goes in fear of Zobeida. In the _Clouds_, Strepsiades is married and by no means independent of his wife: the lady is mentioned, although she takes no part in the play, and the reasons of this difference are instructive. Strepsiades himself is a person of inferior social position, lacking both in will-power and intellectual force; his wife is a woman of property, the daughter of a noble family and herself of determined character. Using all these advantages, she is just able to hold her own with her feeble, foolish husband, and to insist at least on a compromise when their opinions differ.

But it is possible to make too much of the absence of women characters, for the conditions of performance at the Lenæan festival were all against feminine interests, and even though the plot of many of the comedies has little to do with women, there are constant flashes that reveal the author’s feminist sympathies. Of all the episodes in the _Birds_ there is none quite so freshly humorous as the arrest of Iris, the girl messenger of the Gods, and even in the midst of the fierce political raillery of the _Knights_ there comes the delicious interlude of the lady triremes meeting in council; the old stager Nauphantë, addressing the assembly first and revealing the goings-on of the Government, followed by the shy young thing ‘who has never come near men,’ and is determined to keep her independence, ‘heaven forfend, no man shall ever be my master.’ Indeed, considering the state of Athens and the necessity that lay upon a comic poet of suiting the tastes of his audience, the real surprise is that no less than three of the remaining eleven plays—the _Lysistrata_, the _Women at the Festival_, and the _Women in Assembly_—should be concerned with the feminist movement and be written in open advocacy of the women’s cause.

The Women at the Festival—_Thesmophoriazusæ_—is the lightest of the three, and is really a very brilliantly written feminist ‘revue.’ Euripides is the ‘compare,’ and in various disguises takes part in most of the incidents. He has heard that the women, now assembled in their own festival to which no men are admitted, intend to have him put to death, firstly for being a playwright and secondly as a slanderer of womenkind. He goes round to his friends to save him (the scene is a parody on the _Alcestis_), and first of all to his fellow-dramatist, Agathon. But Agathon, whose music is then burlesqued, is too much like a woman to be of any assistance. He is another of the inner Socratic Circle, but in the way of jest the most infamous conduct is imputed to him: his appearance is as ambiguous as his morals, and all he can do for Euripides is to lend him some articles of women’s dress for the purpose of a disguise. So Euripides has to fall back on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, the buffoon of the piece, and there follows one of those scenes of disrobing with which we are familiar on the modern stage. The old gentleman is undressed, shaved all over and arrayed in woman’s garments, i.e., he exchanges his rough white blanket for a finer yellow one; winds a band-corset round his breast and puts on a hair-net and bonnet. He is now to all appearances a woman and goes to the Thesmophorian Festival to find out the details of the women’s proposal.

The women assemble, and in an elaborate burlesque of a public meeting recount their grievances against Euripides. It is because of the poet that men have become so suspicious: they scent a lover everywhere, spy on their wives, and lock up the store cupboards. Old men who once would take young wives now remain unmarried, for the poet has told them, ‘When an old man marries a young wife, the lady is master.’ Finally, by his atheistical doctrines, Euripides has ruined many an honest flower-girl, for men do not offer garlands now to the gods. Then Mnesilochus gets up for the defence. ‘I detest the fellow as much as you do,’ he says; ‘but it is unreasonable to be annoyed with him for talking about one or two of our weaknesses—we have ten thousand which he has never mentioned.’ He then proceeds to dilate on some of the frailties which Euripides has omitted; but he is stopped by his angry audience. ‘There is nothing so bad as a woman who is naturally shameless’—the chorus say—‘_except it be a woman_.’

A fierce discussion begins, until their arguments are interrupted by the appearance of Cleisthenes, one of those womanish men so unpleasantly familiar in Athens, who tells the assembly that a real man is among them. Suspicion at once falls on Mnesilochus; he is discovered by plain evidence to be of the male sex, and is seized by the women. He makes a gallant attempt to escape by snatching a baby from a woman’s lap, and holding it to ransom (a parody on Euripides’ _Telephus_); but, when he unfastens the child’s wrappings, it is not a baby, but a leather skin, full of wine, which the lady has brought for her private refreshment during the proceedings. He then decides to send to Euripides for help, and a parody of the _Palamedes_ ends the first part of the play.

The intermezzo, as we might call it, between the two acts is a humorous statement of the women’s case on strict Euripidean lines:

Each and every one [the chorus sings] abuses the tribe of women: we are everything that is bad. Well, then, _why do you marry us_? Why do you keep us indoors, as though we were something very, very precious? Why, if we peep out of a window, does every man want to get a good view of our face? As a matter of fact, women are better than men, not worse; they are less greedy, less dishonest, less vulgar; lastly, they alone are the _mothers_ of heroes.

The second act is a series of attempts by Euripides to rescue his defender. In the first episode the tragedian appears disguised as the Menelaus of his Helen. Old Mnesilochus is the fair but frail queen, and the scene is _supposed_ to change to Egypt. But the women refuse to let their captive free, and he is finally handed over to a north-country policeman, an illiterate gentleman with a very strong accent. On him Euripides tries the effect of another tragedy. Disguised as Perseus he insists that Mnesilochus is the captive maiden, Andromeda, and that he has come to release her. But the policeman proves obdurate. Then Euripides plays his last card. Remembering that all policemen have a _faiblesse_ for the weaker sex, he disguises himself as an old woman, and comes in, leading by the hand a young and attractive female. The policeman begins at once to soften, and when the plump flute-girl sits down on his knee he capitulates, murmuring, ‘What a swaät toöng: it’s reaäl Attic hoöney!’ A last vestige of professional caution makes him ask the old lady her name. Euripides, having to choose a title, chooses a good one, and says, ‘Artemisia,’ which the policeman enters as ‘Artamouxia’ in his note-book, and then, handing over the custody of his prisoner to the old lady he retires indoors with his young acquaintance. The other pair hasten to make their escape, and the play ends with the policeman’s despairing cry, ‘Artamouxia, Artamouxia, where are you?’

The _Lysistrata_, ‘breaker up of armies,’ is a much stronger play, and the heroine is a masterpiece of dramatic characterisation. From the beginning of the action, when she stands in the darkness waiting for the women she has summoned, and frowning with impatience—‘although a frown spoils her looks,’ as her one companion tells her—until the end, when, her purpose accomplished, she can say, ‘Let man stand by woman and woman by man. Good luck to all, and pray God that we make no more of these mistakes,’ she is a real living woman. If Aristophanes had written nothing else, _Lysistrata_ shows that he understood the female mind almost as well as Euripides himself: better far than most women authors, except only the incomparable Jane, to whose Emma in masterfulness and independence the Athenian lady bears a close resemblance. The plot of the play is simple. Under the lead of Lysistrata the women of Athens make a league with the women of Sparta, Bœotia, Corinth, and the other Greek States (for the solidarity of women is one of the key-notes of the play), to stop the war. For this purpose they put into effect both active and passive measures: they bind themselves by oath to have no further intercourse with their husbands until peace is made (the women at first object, but under the lead of the athletic Spartan finally agree), and they also seize the Acropolis with the treasury. The old men left at home, and the officials, for most of the men are at the war, try to use force; but Lysistrata has marshalled and drilled her women. In a very vivid scene the men attack, but, ‘Up guards, and at them!’ cries Lysistrata; and the forces of male law and order, as represented by the Scythian policemen, are put to ignominious flight. Then the men think it expedient to propose a friendly meeting, and the ‘conversation’ between Lysistrata and the Chief Commissioner is the most instructive part of the play.

‘Why have you seized the treasury?’ he asks. Lysistrata explains that all wars depend on financial considerations, and that the women mean to stop supplies. His argument, that women have no administrative skill or financial knowledge, is countered by the plain facts of home management. ‘It is not the same thing,’ says the Commissioner; ‘this is a war fund.’ Then Lysistrata declares that the war has to stop—now, at once.

In our retiring modesty we have put up long enough with what you men have been doing. You would not let us speak, but we have not been at all satisfied with you. _We_ knew what was going on, although we stay indoors. Over and over again we were told of some new big mistake you had made. With pain in our hearts we would put on a smile and ask, ‘What have you done to-day about the peace?’ ‘But—what’s that to you?’ our man would say. ‘Hold your tongue.’ And so I did, then (says Lysistrata), but I am not going to now. I have heard the strain quite long enough, ‘Men must see to war’s alarms.’ This is my version of the tune: ‘Women shall see to war’s alarms’; and if you listen to my advice you will not be troubled by war’s alarms any more. All you have to do is to hold your tongue, as we used to do.

At this the Commissioner breaks in furiously: ‘You accursed baggage, I hold my tongue before you! Why, you are wearing a veil now to hide your face. May I die rather.’ But his anger does him little good.

‘If that is your difficulty,’ says Lysistrata, ‘take my veil’—and she puts it on his head—‘and now hold your tongue; moreover, here is my wool-basket, so you may munch beans and card the wool; for now “Women, women never shall be slaves.”’ And so the scene ends with the triumphant chorus.

Between this, the first act, and the second there is a short interval of time; and when we see Lysistrata again she is having some difficulty in keeping her women together and away from their husbands. ‘You long for your men,’ she says; ‘don’t you think they are longing for you? I am sure they are finding the nights very hard. Hold out, good friends, and bear it for a little while longer.’ Her arguments are successful, and soon the first man comes in, with a baby in his arms, prepared to submit to any terms. But till the peace is made, no arrangement is possible and the poor husband goes away unsatisfied. Finally, a joint deputation of Spartans and Athenians appear before Lysistrata. She, as a woman, and therefore, she says, a person of sense, has no difficulty in arranging for them terms of peace which are satisfactory to both sides; and so the play ends with a ‘necklace’ dance, men and women dancing hand in hand.

But this brief summary gives little idea of all the devices of stage-craft in which the _Lysistrata_ abounds. It is eminently an acting play, and can still fill a theatre. The language is certainly gross and its heroine is entirely lacking in modest reticence, but a glance at the French adaptation by M. Donnay, of the Academy, and especially at the additional episodes there introduced, will prove that grossness is not the worst thing in the world, and that a quiet tongue does not always mean a virtuous mind.