Chapter 15

[516] The Scholiast conjectures this Melitus to be the same individual who later accused Socrates.

[517] The most infamous practices were attributed to the Lesbian women, amongst others, that of _fellation_, that is the vile trick of taking a man's penis in the mouth, to give him gratification by sucking and licking it with the tongue. Dionysus means to say that Euripides takes pleasure in describing shameful passions.

[518] Here the criticism only concerns the rhythm and not either the meaning or the style. This passage was sung to one of the airs that Euripides had adopted for his choruses and which have not come down to us; we are therefore absolutely without any data that would enable us to understand and judge a criticism of this kind.

[519] A celebrated courtesan, who was skilled in twelve different postures of Venus. Aeschylus returns to his idea, which he has so often indicated, that Euripides' poetry is low and impure; he at the same time scoffs at the artifices to which Euripides had recourse when inspiration and animation failed him.

[520] No monologue of Euripides that has been preserved bears the faintest resemblance to this specimen which. Aeschylus pretends to be giving here.

[521] Beginning of Euripides' 'Medea.'

[522] Fragment from Aeschylus 'Philoctetes.' The Sperchius is a river in Thessaly, which has its source in the Pindus range and its mouth in the Maliac gulf.

[523] A verse from Euripides' 'Antigoné.' Its meaning is, that it is better to speak well than to speak the truth, if you want to persuade.

[524] From the 'Niobe,' a lost play, of Aeschylus.

[525] From the 'Telephus' of Euripides, in which he introduces Achilles playing at dice. This line was also ridiculed by Eupolis.

[526] From Euripides' 'Meleager.' All these plays, with the one exception of the 'Medea,' are lost.

[527] From the 'Glaucus Potniensis,' a lost play of Aeschylus.

[528] i.e. one hundred porters, either because many of the Athenian porters were Egyptians, or as an allusion to the Pyramids and other great works, which had habituated them to carrying heavy burdens.

[529] Euripides' friend and collaborator.

[530] The invention of weights and measures, of dice, and of the game of chess are attributed to him, also that of four additional letters of the alphabet.

[531] i.e. that cannot decide for either party.

[532] i.e. that a country can always be invaded and that the fleet alone is a safe refuge. This is the same advice as that given by Pericles, and which Thucydides expresses thus, "Let your country be devastated, or even devastate it yourself, and set sail for Laconia with your fleet."

[533] An allusion to the fees of the dicasts, or jurymen; we have already seen that at this period it was two obols, and later three.

[534] A half-line from Euripides' 'Hippolytus.' The full line is: [Greek: h_e gl_ott' om_omok', h_e de phr_en an_omotos,] "my tongue has taken an oath, but my mind is unsworn," a bit of casuistry which the critics were never tired of bringing up against the author.

[535] A verse from the 'Aeolus' of Euripides, but slightly altered. Euripides said, "Why is is shameful, if the spectators, who enjoy it, do not think so?"

[536] A verse from the 'Phrixus' of Euripides; what follows is a parody.

[537] We have already seen Aeschylus pretending that it was possible to adapt any foolish expression one liked to the verses of Euripides: "a little bottle, a little bag, a little fleece."

[538] Pluto speaks as though he were an Athenian himself.

[539] That they should hang themselves. Cleophon is said to have been an influential alien resident who was opposed to concluding peace; Myrmex and Nicomachus were two officials guilty of peculation of public funds; Archenomus is unknown.

[540] He would brand them as fugitive slaves, if, despite his orders, they refused to come down.

[541] An Athenian admiral.

[542] The real name of the father of Adimantus was Leucolophides, which Aristophanes jestingly turns into Leucolophus, i.e. _White Crest_.

[543] i.e. in a foreign country; Cleophon, as we have just seen, was not an Athenian.

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE

or

The Women's Festival

INTRODUCTION

Like the 'Lysistrata,' the 'Thesmophoriazusae, or Women's Festival,' and the next following play, the 'Ecclesiazusae, or Women in Council' are comedies in which the fair sex play a great part, and also resemble that extremely _scabreux_ production in the plentiful crop of doubtful 'double entendres' and highly suggestive situations they contain.

The play has more of a proper intrigue and formal dénouement than is general with our Author's pieces, which, like modern extravaganzas and musical comedies, are often strung on a very slender thread of plot. The idea of the 'Thesmophoriazusae' is as follows.

Euripides is summoned as a notorious woman-hater and detractor of the female sex to appear for trial and judgment before the women of Athens assembled to celebrate the Thesmophoria, a festival held in honour of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, from which men were rigidly excluded. The poet is terror-stricken, and endeavours to persuade his confrère, the tragedian Agathon, to attend the meeting in the guise of a woman to plead his cause, Agathon's notorious effeminacy of costume and way of life lending itself to the deception; but the latter refuses point-blank. He then prevails on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, to do him this favour, and shaves, depilates, and dresses him up accordingly. But so far from throwing oil on the troubled waters, Mnesilochus indulges in a long harangue full of violent abuse of the whole sex, and relates some scandalous stories of the naughty ways of peccant wives. The assembly suspects at once there is a man amongst them, and on examination of the old fellow's person, this is proved to be the case. He flies for sanctuary to the altar, snatching a child from the arms of one of the women as a hostage, vowing to kill it if they molest him further. On investigation, however, the infant turns out to be a wine-skin dressed in baby's clothes.

In despair Mnesilochus sends urgent messages to Euripides to come and rescue him from his perilous predicament. The latter then appears, and in successive characters selected from his different Tragedies--now Menelaus meeting Helen again in Egypt, now Echo sympathising with the chained Andromeda, presently Perseus about to release the heroine from her rock--pleads for his unhappy father-in-law. At length he succeeds in getting him away in the temporary absence of the guard, a Scythian archer, whom he entices from his post by the charms of a dancing-girl.

As may be supposed, the appearance of Mnesilochus among the women dressed in women's clothes, the examination of his person to discover his true sex and his final detection, afford fine opportunities for a display of the broadest Aristophanic humour. The latter part of the play also, where various pieces of Euripides are burlesqued, is extremely funny; and must have been still more so when represented before an audience familiar with every piece and almost every line parodied, and played by actors trained and got up to imitate every trick and mannerism of appearance and delivery of the tragic actors who originally took the parts.

The 'Thesmophoriazusae' was produced in the year 412 B.C., six years before the death of Euripides, who is held up to ridicule in it, as he is in 'The Wasps' and several other of our Author's comedies.

* * * * *

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE

or

The Women's Festival

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

EURIPIDES. MNESILOCHUS, Father-in-law of Euripides. AGATHON. SERVANT OF AGATHON. CHORUS attending AGATHON. HERALD. WOMEN. CLISTHENES. A PRYTANIS or Member of the Council. A SCYTHIAN or Police Officer. CHORUS OF THESMOPHORIAZUSAE--women keeping the Feast of Demeter.

SCENE: In front of Agathon's house; afterwards in the precincts of the Temple of Demeter.

* * * * *

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE

or

The Women's Festival

MNESILOCHUS. Great Zeus! will the swallow never appear to end the winter of my discontent? Why the fellow has kept me on the run ever since early this morning; he wants to kill me, that's certain. Before I lose my spleen entirely, Euripides, can you at least tell me whither you are leading me?

EURIPIDES. What need for you to hear what you are going to see?

MNESILOCHUS. How is that? Repeat it. No need for me to hear....

EURIPIDES. What you are going to see.

MNESILOCHUS. Nor consequently to see....

EURIPIDES. What you have to hear.[544]

MNESILOCHUS. What is this wiseacre stuff you are telling me? I must neither see nor hear.

EURIPIDES. Ah! but you have two things there that are essentially distinct.

MNESILOCHUS. Seeing and hearing.

EURIPIDES. Undoubtedly.

MNESILOCHUS. In what way distinct?

EURIPIDES. In this way. Formerly, when Ether separated the elements and bore the animals that were moving in her bosom, she wished to endow them with sight, and so made the eye round like the sun's disc and bored ears in the form of a funnel.

MNESILOCHUS. And because of this funnel I neither see nor hear. Ah! great gods! I am delighted to know it. What a fine thing it is to talk with wise men!

EURIPIDES. I will teach you many another thing of the sort.

MNESILOCHUS. That's well to know; but first of all I should like to find out how to grow lame, so that I need not have to follow you all about.

EURIPIDES. Come, hear and give heed!

MNESILOCHUS. I'm here and waiting.

EURIPIDES. Do you see that little door?

MNESILOCHUS. Yes, certainly.

EURIPIDES. Silence!

MNESILOCHUS. Silence about what? About the door?

EURIPIDES. Pay attention!

MNESILOCHUS. Pay attention and be silent about the door? Very well.

EURIPIDES. 'Tis there that Agathon, the celebrated tragic poet, dwells.[545]

MNESILOCHUS. Who is this Agathon?

EURIPIDES. 'Tis a certain Agathon....

MNESILOCHUS. Swarthy, robust of build?

EURIPIDES. No, another. You have never seen him?

MNESILOCHUS. He has a big beard?

EURIPIDES. No, no, evidently you have never seen him.

MNESILOCHUS. Never, so far as I know.

EURIPIDES. And yet you have pedicated him. Well, it must have been without knowing who he was. Ah! let us step aside; here is one of his slaves bringing a brazier and some myrtle branches; no doubt he is going to offer a sacrifice and pray for a happy poetical inspiration for Agathon.

SERVANT OF AGATHON. Silence! oh, people! keep your mouths sedately shut! The chorus of the Muses is moulding songs at my master's hearth. Let the winds hold their breath in the silent Ether! Let the azure waves cease murmuring on the shore!...

MNESILOCHUS. Brououou! brououou! (_Imitates the buzzing of a fly._)

EURIPIDES. Keep quiet! what are you saying there?

SERVANT. ... Take your rest, ye winged races, and you, ye savage inhabitants of the woods, cease from your erratic wandering ...

MNESILOCHUS. Broum, broum, brououou.

SERVANT. ... for Agathon, our master, the sweet-voiced poet, is going ...

MNESILOCHUS. ... to be pedicated?

SERVANT. Whose voice is that?

MNESILOCHUS. 'Tis the silent Ether.

SERVANT. ... is going to construct the framework of a drama. He is rounding fresh poetical forms, he is polishing them in the lathe and is welding them; he is hammering out sentences and metaphors; he is working up his subject like soft wax. First he models it and then he casts it in bronze ...

MNESILOCHUS. ... and sways his buttocks amorously.

SERVANT. Who is the rustic who approaches this sacred enclosure?

MNESILOCHUS. Take care of yourself and of your sweet-voiced poet! I have a strong instrument here both well rounded and well polished, which will pierce your enclosure and penetrate your bottom.

SERVANT. Old man, you must have been a very insolent fellow in your youth!

EURIPIDES (_to the servant_). Let him be, friend, and, quick, go and call Agathon to me.

SERVANT. 'Tis not worth the trouble, for he will soon be here himself. He has started to compose, and in winter[546] it is never possible to round off strophes without coming to the sun to excite the imagination. (_He departs._)

MNESILOCHUS. And what am I to do?

EURIPIDES. Wait till he comes.... Oh, Zeus! what hast thou in store for me to-day?

MNESILOCHUS. But, great gods, what is the matter then? What are you grumbling and groaning for? Tell me; you must not conceal anything from your father-in-law.

EURIPIDES. Some great misfortune is brewing against me.

MNESILOCHUS. What is it?

EURIPIDES. This day will decide whether it is all over with Euripides or not.

MNESILOCHUS. But how? Neither the tribunals nor the Senate are sitting, for it is the third of the five days consecrated to Demeter.[547]

EURIPIDES. That is precisely what makes me tremble; the women have plotted my ruin, and to-day they are to gather in the Temple of Demeter to execute their decision.

MNESILOCHUS. Why are they against you?

EURIPIDES. Because I mishandle them in my tragedies.

MNESILOCHUS. By Posidon, you would seem to have thoroughly deserved your fate. But how are you going to get out of the mess?

EURIPIDES. I am going to beg Agathon, the tragic poet, to go to the Thesmophoria.

MNESILOCHUS. And what is he to do there?

EURIPIDES. He would mingle with the women, and stand up for me, if needful.

MNESILOCHUS. Would he be openly present or secretly?

EURIPIDES. Secretly, dressed in woman's clothes.

MNESILOCHUS. That's a clever notion, thoroughly worthy of you. The prize for trickery is ours.

EURIPIDES. Silence!

MNESILOCHUS. What's the matter?

EURIPIDES. Here comes Agathon.

MNESILOCHUS. Where, where?

EURIPIDES. That's the man they are bringing out yonder on the machine.[548]

MNESILOCHUS. I am blind then! I see no man here, I only see Cyrené.[549]

EURIPIDES. Be still! He is getting ready to sing.

MNESILOCHUS. What subtle trill, I wonder, is he going to warble to us?

AGATHON. Damsels, with the sacred torch[550] in hand, unite your dance to shouts of joy in honour of the nether goddesses; celebrate the freedom of your country.

CHORUS. To what divinity is your homage addressed? I wish to mingle mine with it.

AGATHON. Oh! Muse! glorify Phoebus with his golden bow, who erected the walls of the city of the Simois.[551]

CHORUS. To thee, oh Phoebus, I dedicate my most beauteous songs; to thee, the sacred victor in the poetical contests.

AGATHON. And praise Artemis too, the maiden huntress, who wanders on the mountains and through the woods....

CHORUS. I, in my turn, celebrate the everlasting happiness of the chaste Artemis, the mighty daughter of Latona!

AGATHON. ... and Latona and the tones of the Asiatic lyre, which wed so well with the dances of the Phrygian Graces.[552]

CHORUS. I do honour to the divine Latona and to the lyre, the mother of songs of male and noble strains. The eyes of the goddess sparkle while listening to our enthusiastic chants. Honour to the powerful Phoebus! Hail! thou blessed son of Latona!

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! ye venerable Genetyllides,[553] what tender and voluptuous songs! They surpass the most lascivious kisses in sweetness; I feel a thrill of delight pass up my rectum as I listen to them. Young man, whoever you are, answer my questions, which I am borrowing from Aeschylus' 'Lycurgeia.'[554] Whence comes this effeminate? What is his country? his dress? What contradictions his life shows! A lyre and a hair-net! A wrestling school oil flask and a girdle![555] What could be more contradictory? What relation has a mirror to a sword? And you yourself, who are you? Do you pretend to be a man? Where is the sign of your manhood, your penis, pray? Where is the cloak, the footgear that belong to that sex? Are you a woman? Then where are your breasts? Answer me. But you keep silent. Oh! just as you choose; your songs display your character quite sufficiently.

AGATHON. Old man, old man, I hear the shafts of jealousy whistling by my ears, but they do not hit me. My dress is in harmony with my thoughts. A poet must adopt the nature of his characters. Thus, if he is placing women on the stage, he must contract all their habits in his own person.

MNESILOCHUS. Then you ride the high horse[556] when you are composing a Phaedra.

AGATHON. If the heroes are men, everything in him will be manly. What we don't possess by nature, we must acquire by imitation.

MNESILOCHUS. When you are staging Satyrs, call me; I will do my best to help you from behind with standing tool.

AGATHON. Besides, it is bad taste for a poet to be coarse and hairy. Look at the famous Ibycus, at Anacreon of Teos, and at Alcaeus,[557] who handled music so well; they wore headbands and found pleasure in the lascivious dances of Ionia. And have you not heard what a dandy Phrynichus was[558] and how careful in his dress? For this reason his pieces were also beautiful, for the works of a poet are copied from himself.

MNESILOCHUS. Ah! so it is for this reason that Philocles, who is so hideous, writes hideous pieces; Xenocles, who is malicious, malicious ones, and Theognis,[559] who is cold, such cold ones?

AGATHON. Yes, necessarily and unavoidably; and 'tis because I knew this that I have so well cared for my person.

MNESILOCHUS. How, in the gods' name?

EURIPIDES. Come, leave off badgering him; I was just the same at his age, when I began to write.

MNESILOCHUS. At! then, by Zeus! I don't envy you your fine manners.

EURIPIDES (_to Agathon_). But listen to the cause that brings me here.

AGATHON. Say on.

EURIPIDES. Agathon, wise is he who can compress many thoughts into few words.[560] Struck by a most cruel misfortune, I come to you as a suppliant.

AGATHON. What are you asking?

EURIPIDES. The women purpose killing me to-day during the Thesmophoria, because I have dared to speak ill of them.

AGATHON. And what can I do for you in the matter?

EURIPIDES. Everything. Mingle secretly with the women by making yourself pass as one of themselves; then do you plead my cause with your own lips, and I am saved. You, and you alone, are capable of speaking of me worthily.

AGATHON. But why not go and defend yourself?

EURIPIDES. 'Tis impossible. First of all, I am known; further, I have white hair and a long beard; whereas you, you are good-looking, charming, and are close-shaven; you are fair, delicate, and have a woman's voice.

AGATHON. Euripides!

EURIPIDES. Well?

AGATHON. Have you not said in one of your pieces, "You love to see the light, and don't you believe your father loves it too?"[561]

EURIPIDES. Yes.

AGATHON. Then never you think I am going to expose myself in your stead; 'twould be madness. 'Tis for you to submit to the fate that overtakes you; one must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace.

MNESILOCHUS. This is why you, you wretch, offer your posterior with a good grace to lovers, not in words, but in actual fact.

EURIPIDES. But what prevents your going there?

AGATHON. I should run more risk than you would.

EURIPIDES. Why?

AGATHON. Why? I should look as if I were wanting to trespass on secret nightly pleasures of the women and to ravish their Aphrodité.[562]

MNESILOCHUS. Of wanting to ravish indeed! you mean wanting to be ravished--in the rearward mode. Ah! great gods! a fine excuse truly!

EURIPIDES. Well then, do you agree?

AGATHON. Don't count upon it.

EURIPIDES. Oh! I am unfortunate indeed! I am undone!

MNESILOCHUS. Euripides, my friend, my son-in-law, never despair.

EURIPIDES. What can be done?

MNESILOCHUS. Send him to the devil and do with me as you like.

EURIPIDES. Very well then, since you devote yourself to my safety, take off your cloak first.

MNESILOCHUS. There, it lies on the ground. But what do you want to do with me?

EURIPIDES. To shave off this beard of yours, and to remove your hair below as well.

MNESILOCHUS. Do what you think fit; I yield myself entirely to you.

EURIPIDES. Agathon, you have always razors about you; lend me one.

AGATHON. Take if yourself, there, out of that case.

EURIPIDES. Thanks. Sit down and puff out the right cheek.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! oh! oh!

EURIPIDES. What are you shouting for? I'll cram a spit down your gullet, if you're not quiet.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! (_He springs up and starts running away._)

EURIPIDES. Where are you running to now?

MNESILOCHUS. To the temple of the Eumenides.[563] No, by Demeter I won't let myself be gashed like that.

EURIPIDES. But you will get laughed at, with your face half-shaven like that.

MNESILOCHUS. Little care I.

EURIPIDES. In the gods' names, don't leave me in the lurch. Come here.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! by the gods! (_Resumes his seat._)

EURIPIDES. Keep still and hold up your head. Why do you want to fidget about like this?

MNESILOCHUS. Mu, mu.

EURIPIDES. Well! why, mu, mu? There! 'tis done and well done too!

MNESILOCHUS Ah! great god! It makes me feel quite light.

EURIPIDES. Don't worry yourself; you look charming. Do you want to see yourself?

MNESILOCHUS. Aye, that I do; hand the mirror here.

EURIPIDES. Do you see yourself?

MNESILOCHUS. But this is not I, it is Clisthenes![564]

EURIPIDES. Stand up; I am now going to remove your hair. Bend down.

MNESILOCHUS. Alas! alas! they are going to grill me like a pig.

EURIPIDES. Come now, a torch or a lamp! Bend down and take care of the tender end of your tail!

MNESILOCHUS. Aye, aye! but I'm afire! oh! oh! Water, water, neighbour, or my rump will be alight!

EURIPIDES. Keep up your courage!

MNESILOCHUS. Keep my courage, when I'm being burnt up?

EURIPIDES. Come, cease your whining, the worst is over.

MNESILOCHUS. Oh! it's quite black, all burnt below there all about the hole!

EURIPIDES. Don't worry! that will be washed off with a sponge.

MNESILOCHUS. Woe to him who dares to wash my rump!

EURIPIDES. Agathon, you refuse to devote yourself to helping me; but at any rate lend me a tunic and a belt. You cannot say you have not got them.

AGATHON. Take them and use them as you like; I consent.

MNESILOCHUS. What must be taken?

EURIPIDES. What must be taken? First put on this long saffron-coloured robe.

MNESILOCHUS. By Aphrodité! what a sweet odour! how it smells of a man's genitals![565] Hand it me quickly. And the belt?

EURIPIDES. Here it is.

MNESILOCHUS. Now some rings for my legs.

EURIPIDES. You still want a hair-net and a head-dress.

AGATHON. Here is my night-cap.

EURIPIDES. Ah! that's capital.

MNESILOCHUS. Does it suit me?

AGATHON. It could not be better.

EURIPIDES. And a short mantle?

AGATHON. There's one on the couch; take it.

EURIPIDES. He wants slippers.

AGATHON. Here are mine.

MNESILOCHUS. Will they fit me? You like a loose fit.[566]

AGATHON. Try them on. Now that you have all you need, let me be taken inside.[567]

EURIPIDES. You look for all the world like a woman. But when you talk, take good care to give your voice a woman's tone.

MNESILOCHUS. I'll try my best.

EURIPIDES. Come, get yourself to the temple.

MNESILOCHUS. No, by Apollo, not unless you swear to me ...

EURIPIDES. What?

MNESILOCHUS. ... that, if anything untoward happen to me, you will leave nothing undone to save me.

EURIPIDES Very well! I swear it by the Ether, the dwelling-place of the king of the gods.[568]

MNESILOCHUS. Why not rather swear it by the disciples of Hippocrates?[569]

EURIPIDES. Come, I swear it by all the gods, both great and small.

MNESILOCHUS. Remember, 'tis the heart, and not the tongue, that has sworn;[570] for the oaths of the tongue concern me but little.

EURIPIDES. Hurry yourself! The signal for the meeting has just been displayed on the Temple of Demeter. Farewell. [_Exit._