Chapter 18
SCYTHIAN. Ye gods! ye gods! and all this while Artemuxia is escaping. [_Exit running._
CHORUS. Go your way! and a pleasant journey to you! But our sports have lasted long enough; it is time for each of us to be off home; and may the two goddesses reward us for our labours!
* * * * *
FINIS OF "THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE"
* * * * *
Footnotes:
[544] Aristophanes parodies Euripides' language, which is occasionally sillily sententious.
[545] He flourished about 420 B.C. and composed many tragedies, such as 'Telephus,' 'Thyestes,' which are lost. Some fragments of his work are to be found in Aristotle and in Athenaeus; he also distinguished himself as a musician. The banquet, which gave his name to one of Plato's dialogues, is supposed to have taken place at his house.
[546] The Thesmophoria were celebrated in the month of Pyanepsion, or November.
[547] The Thesmophoria lasted five days; they were dedicated to Demeter Thesmophoros, or Legislatress, in recognition of the wise laws she had given mankind. For many days before the solemn event, the women of high birth (who alone were entitled to celebrate it) had to abstain from all pleasures that appealed to the senses, even the most legitimate, and to live with the greatest sobriety. The presiding priest at the Thesmophoria was always chosen from the sacerdotal family of the Eumolpidae, the descendants of Eumolpus, the son of Posidon. At these feasts, the worship of Persephoné was associated with that of Demeter.
[548] Refers presumably to the [Greek: ekkukl_ema], a piece of machinery by means of which interiors were represented on the Greek stage--room and occupant being in some way wheeled out into view of the spectators bodily.
[549] A celebrated 'lady of pleasure'; Agathon is like her by reason of his effeminate, wanton looks and dissolute habits.
[550] Demeter is represented wandering, torch in hand, about the universe looking for her lost child Proserpine (Persephoné).
[551] Troy.
[552] Agathon, in accordance with his character, voluptuousness, is represented as preferring the effeminate music and lascivious dances of Asia.
[553] Goddesses who presided over generation; see also the 'Lysistrata.'
[554] A tetralogy, a series of four dramas connected by subject, of which the principal character was Lycurgus, king of the Thracians. When Bacchus returned to Thrace as conqueror of the Indies he dared to deride the god, and was punished by him in consequence. All four plays are lost.
[555] That is, the attributes of a man and those of a woman combined.
[556] That is, you make love in the posture known as 'the horse,' _equus_, in other words the woman atop of the man. There is a further joke intended here, inasmuch as Euripides, in his 'Phaedra,' represents the heroine as being passionately addicted to hunting and horses.
[557] Ibycus, a lyric poet of the sixth century, originally from Rhegium in Magna Graecia.--Anacreon, a celebrated erotic poet of the beginning of the fifth century.--Alcaeus, a lyric poet, born about 600 B.C. at Mytilené, in the island of Lesbos, was driven out of his country by a tyrant and sang of his loves, his services as a warrior, his travels and the miseries of his exile. He was a contemporary of Sappho, and conceived a passion for her, which she only rewarded with disdain.
[558] Phrynichus, a disciple of Thespis, improved the dramatic art, when still no more than a child; it was he who first introduced female characters upon the stage and made use of the iambic of six feet in tragedies. He flourished about 500 B.C.
[559] Philocles, Xenocles, and Theognis were dramatic poets and contemporaries of Aristophanes. The two first were sons of Carcinus, the poet and dancer.
[560] Fragment of Euripides' 'Aeolus,' a lost drama.
[561] Fragment of Euripides' well-known play, the 'Alcestis.'
[562] An allusion to the secret practices of mutual love which the women assembled for the Thesmophoria were credited by popular repute with indulging in.
[563] That is, to sanctuary.
[564] An effeminate often mentioned by Aristophanes.
[565] An allusion to the pederastic habits which the poet attributes to Agathon.
[566] An obscene allusion.
[567] On the machine upon which he is perched.
[568] A fragment of the 'Menalippé' of Euripides.
[569] The ether played an important part in the physical theories of Hippocrates, the celebrated physician.
[570] An allusion to a verse in his 'Hippolytus,' where Euripides says, "_The tongue has sworn, but the heart is unsworn._" See also 'The Frogs.'
[571] The name of a slave; being disguised as a woman, Mnesilochus has himself followed by a female servant, a Thracian slave-woman.
[572] Demeter and Cora (or Persephoné), who were adored together during the Thesmophoria.
[573] Women slaves were forbidden by law to be present at the Thesmophoria; they remained at the door of the temple and there waited for the orders of their mistresses.
[574] The god of riches.
[575] The nurse of Demeter. According to another version, Calligenia was a surname of Demeter herself, who was adored as presiding over the growth of a child at its mother's breast.
[576] A surname of Demeter, who, by means of the food she produces as goddess of abundance, presides over the development of the bodies of children and young people. Curotrophos is derived from [Greek: trephein], to nourish, and [Greek: kouros], young boy.
[577] Apollo.
[578] Artemis.
[579] An insult which Aristophanes constantly repeats in every way he can; as we have seen before, Euripides' mother was, or was commonly said to be, a market-woman.
[580] Lovers sent each other chaplets and flowers.
[581] In parody of a passage in the 'Sthenoboea' of Euripides, which is preserved in Athenaeus.
[582] He believes her pregnant.
[583] A fragment from the 'Phoenix,' by Euripides.
[584] It seems that the Spartan locksmiths were famous for their skill.
[585] The women broke the seals their husbands had affixed, and then, with the aid of their ring bearing the same device, they replaced them as before.
[586] The impression of which was too complicated and therefore could not be imitated.
[587] As a remedy against the colic.
[588] So that it might not creak when opened.
[589] An altar in the form of a column in the front vestibule of houses and dedicated to Apollo.
[590] Because the smell of garlic is not inviting to gallants.
[591] The last words are the thoughts of the woman, who pretends to be in child-bed; she is, however, careful not to utter them to her husband.
[592] The proverb runs, "_There is a scorpion beneath every stone._" By substituting _orator_ for _scorpion_, Aristophanes means it to be understood that one is no less venomous than the other.
[593] There were two women named Aglaurus. One, the daughter of Actaeus, King of Attica, married Cecrops and brought him the kingship as her dowry; the other was the daughter of Cecrops, and was turned into stone for having interfered from jealousy with Hermes' courtship of Hersé her sister. It was this second Aglaurus the Athenian women were in the habit of invoking; they often associated with her her sister Pandrosus.
[594] Underneath the baths were large hollow chambers filled with steam to maintain the temperature of the water.
[595] By kicking her in the stomach.
[596] Clisthenes is always represented by Aristophanes as effeminate in the extreme in dress and habits.
[597] The coward, often mentioned with contempt by Aristophanes, had thrown away his shield.
[598] The ancients believed that cress reduced the natural secretions.
[599] A deme of Attica.
[600] The women lodged in pairs during the Thesmophoria in tents erected near the Temple of Demeter.
[601] The Corinthians were constantly passing their vessels across the isthmus from one sea to the other; we know that the Grecian ships were of very small dimensions.
[602] This was the name of the place where the Ecclesia, the public meeting of the people, took place; the chorus gives this name here to Demeter's temple, because the women are gathered there.
[603] The spaces left free between the tents, and which served as passage-ways.
[604] A choric dance began here.
[605] A woman's footgear.--On undressing the supposed child, Mnesilochus perceives that it is nothing but a skin of wine.
[606] Dr. P. Menier repeatedly points out in his "La médecine et les poètes latins," that the ancient writers constantly spoke of ten months as being a woman's period of gestation.
[607] A cotyla contained nearly half a pint.
[608] Both the Feast of Cups and the Dionysia were dedicated to Bacchus, the god of wine; it is for this reason that Mnesilochus refers to the former when guessing the wine-skin's age.
[609] The Cretan robe that had covered the wine-skin.
[610] An allusion to the tragedy by Euripides called 'Palamedes,' which belonged to the tetralogy of the Troades, and was produced in 414 B.C. Aristophanes is railing at the strange device which the poet makes Oeax resort to. Oeax was Palamedes' brother, and he is represented as inscribing the death of the latter on a number of oars with the hope that at least one would reach the shores of Euboea and thus inform his father, Nauplias, the king of the fact.
[611] The images of the various gods which were invoked at the Thesmophoria, and the enumeration of which we have already had.
[612] Charminus, an Athenian general, who had recently been defeated at sea by the Spartans.--Nausimaché was a courtesan, but her name is purposely chosen because of its derivation ([Greek: naus], ship, and [Greek: mach_e], fight), so as to point more strongly to Charminus' disgrace.
[613] A general and an Athenian orator.
[614] A courtesan.
[615] Aristomaché ([Greek: mach_e], fight, and [Greek: arist_e], excellent) and Stratonicé ([Greek: stratos], army, and [Greek: nik_e], victory) are imaginary names, invented to show the decadence of the Athenian armies.
[616] Eubulé ([Greek: eu], well, and [Greek: bouleuesthai], to deliberate) is also an imaginary name. The poet wishes to say that in that year wisdom had not ruled the decisions of the Senate; they had allowed themselves to be humbled by the tyranny of the Four Hundred.
[617] The cylinder and the beams were the chief tools of the weaver. It was the women who did this work.
[618] The taxiarch had the command of 128 men; the strategus had the direction of an army.
[619] The Sthenia were celebrated in honour of Athené Sthenias, or the goddess of force; the women were then wont to attack each other with bitter sarcasms.--During the Scirophoria ([Greek: skiron], canopy) the statues of Athené, Demeter, Persephone, the Sun and Posidon were carried in procession under canopies with great pomp.
[620] The trierarchs were rich citizens, whose duty it was to maintain the galleys or triremes of the fleet.
[621] Hyperbolus is incessantly railed at by Aristophanes as a traitor and an informer. Lamachus, although our poet does not always spare him, was a brave general; he had been one of the commanders of the Sicilian Expedition.
[622] It will be remembered that Mnesilochus had employed a similar device to one imputed to Oeax by Euripides in his 'Palamedes,' in order to inform his father-in-law of his predicament.
[623] A tragedy, in which Menelaus is seen in Egypt, whither he has gone to seek Helen, who is detained there.
[624] These are the opening verses of Euripides' 'Helen,' with the exception of the last words, which are a parody.--Syrmea is a purgative plant very common in Egypt. Aristophanes speaks jestingly of the white soil of Egypt, because the slime of the Nile is very black.
[625] This reply and those that follow are fragments from 'Helen.'
[626] An infamous Athenian, whose name had become a byword for everything that was vile.
[627] The whole of this dialogue between Mnesilochus and Euripides is composed of fragments taken from 'Helen,' slightly parodied at times.
[628] King of Egypt.
[629] Son of Epicles, and mentioned by Thucydides.
[630] Aristophanes invents this in order to give coherence to what follows.
[631] An Athenian general whom Thucydides mentions.
[632] A deme of Attica.
[633] No doubt Euripides appeared on the stage carrying some herbs in his hand or wearing them in his belt, so as to recall his mother's calling. If the gibes of Aristophanes can be believed, she dealt in vegetables, as we have noted repeatedly.
[634] A ruined man, living in penury, presumably well known to the audience.
[635] Apollo.
[636] Surnames of Bacchus.
[637] The archers, or the police officers, at Athens were mostly Scythians. If not from that country always, they were known generally by that name.
[638] Which the archer had driven in to tighten up the rope binding the prison to the pillory.
[639] Perseus was returning from the land of the Gorgons mounted upon Pegasus, when, while high up in the air, he saw Andromeda bound to a rock and exposed to the lusts and voracity of a sea monster. Touched by the misfortune and the beauty of the princess, he turned the monster to stone by showing him the head of Medusa, released Andromeda and married her.--Euripides had just produced a tragedy on this subject.
[640] Mnesilochus speaks alternately in his own person and as though he were Andromeda, the effect being comical in the extreme.
[641] A notorious glutton, mentioned also in the 'Peace.'
[642] Through Euripides, his father-in-law.
[643] On the occasion of the presentation of the tragedy of 'Andromeda,' in which the nymph Echo plays an important part.
[644] Unknown; Aristophanes plays upon the similarity of name.
[645] That is, the Thesmophoriae, viz. Demeter and Persephoné.
[646] Throughout the whole scene the Scythian speaks with a grotesque barbarian accent.
[647] The pun depends in the Greek on the similarity of the final syllables of [Greek: subin_e], and [Greek: katabin_esi]. It can be given literally in English.
THE ECCLESIAZUSAE
or
Women In Council
INTRODUCTION
The 'Ecclesiazusae, or Women in Council,' was not produced till twenty years after the preceding play, the 'Thesmophoriazusae' (at the Great Dionysia of 392 B.C.), but is conveniently classed with it as being also largely levelled against the fair sex. "It is a broad, but very amusing, satire upon those ideal republics, founded upon communistic principles, of which Plato's well-known treatise is the best example. His 'Republic' had been written, and probably delivered in the form of oral lectures at Athens, only two or three years before, and had no doubt excited a considerable sensation. But many of its most startling principles had long ago been ventilated in the Schools."
Like the 'Lysistrata,' the play is a picture of woman's ascendancy in the State, and the topsy-turvy consequences resulting from such a reversal of ordinary conditions. The women of Athens, under the leadership of the wise Praxagora, resolve to reform the constitution. To this end they don men's clothes, and taking seats in the Assembly on the Pnyx, command a majority of votes and carry a series of revolutionary proposals--that the government be vested in a committee of women, and further, that property and women be henceforth held in common. The main part of the comedy deals with the many amusing difficulties that arise inevitably from this new state of affairs, the community of women above all necessitating special safeguarding clauses to secure the rights of the less attractive members of the sex to the service of the younger and handsomer men. Community of goods again, private property being abolished, calls for a regulation whereby all citizens are to dine at the public expense in the various public halls of the city, the particular place of each being determined by lot; and the drama winds up with one of these feasts, the elaborate menu of which is given in burlesque, and with the jubilations of the women over their triumph.
"This comedy appears to labour under the very same faults as the 'Peace.' The introduction, the secret assembly of the women, their rehearsal of their parts as men, the description of the popular assembly, are all handled in the most masterly manner; but towards the middle the action stands still. Nothing remains but the representation of the perplexities and confusion which arise from the new arrangements, especially in connection with the community of women, and from the prescribed equality of rights in love both for the old and ugly and for the young and beautiful. These perplexities are pleasant enough, but they turn too much on a repetition of the same joke."
We learn from the text of the play itself that the 'Ecclesiazusae' was drawn by lot for first representation among the comedies offered for competition at the Festival, the Author making a special appeal to his audience not to let themselves be influenced unfavourably by the circumstance; but whether the play was successful in gaining a prize is not recorded.
* * * * *
THE ECCLESIAZUSAE
or
Women In Council
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
PRAXAGORA. BLEPYRUS, husband of Praxagora. WOMEN. A MAN. CHREMES. TWO CITIZENS. HERALD. AN OLD MAN. A GIRL. A YOUNG MAN. THREE OLD WOMEN. A SERVANT MAID. HER MASTER. CHORUS OF WOMEN.
SCENE: Before a house in a Public Square at Athens; a lamp is burning over the door. Time: a little after midnight.
* * * * *
THE ECCLESIAZUSAE
or
Women In Council
PRAXAGORA (_enters carrying a lamp in her hand_). Oh! thou shining light of my earthenware lamp, from this high spot shalt thou look abroad. Oh! lamp, I will tell thee thine origin and thy future; 'tis the rapid whirl of the potter's wheel that has lent thee thy shape, and thy wick counterfeits the glory of the sun;[648] mayst thou send the agreed signal flashing afar! In thee alone do we confide, and thou art worthy, for thou art near us when we practise the various postures in which Aphrodité delights upon our couches, and none dream even in the midst of her sports of seeking to avoid thine eye that watches our swaying bodies. Thou alone shinest into the depths of our most secret charms, and with thy flame dost singe the hairy growth of our privates. If we open some cellar stored with fruits and wine, thou art our companion, and never dost thou betray or reveal to a neighbour the secrets thou hast learned about us. Therefore thou shalt know likewise the whole of the plot that I have planned with my friends, the women, at the festival of the Scirophoria.[649]
I see none of those I was expecting, though dawn approaches; the Assembly is about to gather and we must take our seats in spite of Phyromachus,[650] who forsooth would say, "It is meet the women sit apart and hidden from the eyes of the men." Why, have they not been able then to procure the false beards that they must wear, or to steal their husbands cloaks? Ah! I see a light approaching; let us draw somewhat aside, for fear it should be a man.
FIRST WOMAN. Let us start, it is high time; as we left our dwellings, the cock was crowing for the second time.
PRAXAGORA. And I have spent the whole night waiting for you. But come, let us call our neighbour by scratching at her door; and gently too, so that her husband may hear nothing.
SECOND WOMAN. I was putting on my shoes, when I heard you scratching, for I was not asleep, so there! Oh! my dear, my husband (he is a Salaminian) never left me an instant's peace, but was at me, for ever at me, all night long, so that it was only just now that I was able to filch his cloak.
FIRST WOMAN. I see Clinareté coming too, along with Sostraté and their next-door neighbour Philaeneté.
PRAXAGORA. Hurry yourselves then, for Glycé has sworn that the last comer shall forfeit three measures of wine and a _choenix_ of pease.
FIRST WOMAN. Don't you see Melisticé, the wife of Smicythion, hurrying hither in her great shoes? Methinks she is the only one of us all who has had no trouble in getting rid of her husband.
SECOND WOMAN. And can't you see Gusistraté, the tavern-keeper's wife, with a lamp in her hand, and the wives of Philodoretus and Chaeretades?
PRAXAGORA. I can see many others too, indeed the whole of the flower of Athens.
THIRD WOMAN. Oh! my dear, I have had such trouble in getting away! My husband ate such a surfeit of sprats last evening that he was coughing and choking the whole night long.
PRAXAGORA. Take your seats, and, since you are all gathered here at last, let us see if what we decided on at the feast of the Scirophoria has been duly done.
FOURTH WOMAN. Yes. Firstly, as agreed, I have let the hair under my armpits grow thicker than a bush; furthermore, whilst my husband was at the Assembly, I rubbed myself from head to foot with oil and then stood the whole day long in the sun.[651]
FIFTH WOMAN. So did I. I began by throwing away my razor, so that I might get quite hairy, and no longer resemble a woman.
PRAXAGORA. Have you the beards that we had all to get ourselves for the Assembly?
FOURTH WOMAN. Yea, by Hecaté! Is this not a fine one?
FIFTH WOMAN. Aye, much finer than Epicrates'.[652]
PRAXAGORA (_to the other women_). And you?
FOURTH WOMAN. Yes, yes; look, they all nod assent.
PRAXAGORA. I see that you have got all the rest too, Spartan shoes, staffs and men's cloaks, as 'twas arranged.
SIXTH WOMAN. I have brought Lamias'[653] club, which I stole from him while he slept.
PRAXAGORA. What, the club that makes him puff and pant with its weight?
SIXTH WOMAN. By Zeus the Deliverer, if he had the skin of Argus, he would know better than any other how to shepherd the popular herd.
PRAXAGORA. But come, let us finish what has yet to be done, while the stars are still shining; the Assembly, at which we mean to be present, will open at dawn.
FIRST WOMAN. Good; you must take up your place at the foot of the platform and facing the Prytanes.
SIXTH WOMAN. I have brought this with me to card during the Assembly. (_She shows some wool._)
PRAXAGORA. During the Assembly, wretched woman?
SIXTH WOMAN. Aye, by Artemis! shall I hear any less well if I am doing a bit of carding? My little ones are all but naked.
PRAXAGORA. Think of her wanting to card! whereas we must not let anyone see the smallest part of our bodies.[654] 'Twould be a fine thing if one of us, in the midst of the discussion, rushed on to the speaker's platform and, flinging her cloak aside, showed her hairy privates. If, on the other hand, we are the first to take our seats closely muffled in our cloaks, none will know us. Let us fix these beards on our chins, so that they spread all over our bosoms. How can we fail then to be mistaken for men? Agyrrhius has deceived everyone, thanks to the beard of Pronomus;[655] yet he was no better than a woman, and you see how he now holds the first position in the city. Thus, I adjure you by this day that is about to dawn, let us dare to copy him and let us be clever enough to possess ourselves of the management of affairs. Let us save the vessel of State, which just at present none seems able either to sail or row.
SIXTH WOMAN. But where shall we find orators in an Assembly of women?
PRAXAGORA. Nothing simpler. Is it not said, that the cleverest speakers are those who submit themselves oftenest to men? Well, thanks to the gods, we are that by nature.
SIXTH WOMAN. There's no doubt of that; but the worst of it is our inexperience.
PRAXAGORA. That's the very reason we are gathered here, in order to prepare the speech we must make in the Assembly. Hasten, therefore, all you who know aught of speaking, to fix on your beards.
SEVENTH WOMAN. Oh! you great fool! is there ever a one among us cannot use her tongue?
PRAXAGORA. Come, look sharp, on with your beard and become a man. As for me, I will do the same in case I should have a fancy for getting on to the platform. Here are the chaplets.