The Eleven Comedies Vol 1 Part 27

[233]: Throughout this whole scene there is an obscene play upon the word [Greek: choiros], which means in Greek both 'sow' and 'a woman's organs of generation.'

[234] Sacrificial victims were bound to be perfect in every part; an animal, therefore, without a tail could not be offered.

[235] The Greek word, [Greek: erebinthos], also means the male s.e.xual organ. Observe the little pig-girl greets this question with three affirmative squeaks!

[236] The Megarians used the Doric dialect.

[237] A play upon the word [Greek: phainein], which both means to light and to denounce.

[238] An informer (sycophant), otherwise unknown.

[239] A debauchee of vile habits; a pathic.

[240] Mentioned above; he was as proud as he was cowardly.

[241] An Athenian general, quarrelsome and litigious, and an Informer into the bargain.

[242] A comic poet of vile habits.

[243] A painter.

[244] A debauchee, a gambler, and always in extreme poverty.

[245] This kind of flute had a bellows, made of dog-skin, much like the bagpipes of to-day.

[246] A flute-player, mentioned above.

[247] A hero, much honoured in Thebes; nephew of Heracles.

[248] A form of bread peculiar to Boeotia.

[249] A lake in Boeotia.

[250] He was the Lucullus of Athens.

[251] This again fixes the date of the presentation of the 'Acharnians' to 426 B.C., the sixth year of the War, since the beginning of which Boeotia had been closed to the Athenians.

[252] An Informer.

[253] The second day of the Dionysia or feasts of Bacchus, kept in the month Anthesterion (February), and called the Anthesteria. They lasted three days; the second being the Feast of Cups, a description of which is to be found at the end of this comedy, the third the Feast of Pans. Vases, filled with grain of all kinds, were borne in procession and dedicated to Hermes.

[254] A parody of some verses from a lost poet.

[255] A feasting song in honour of Harmodius, the a.s.sa.s.sin of Hipparchus the Tyrant, son of Pisistratus.

[256] The celebrated painter, born at Heraclea, a contemporary of Aristophanes.

[257] A deme and frontier fortress of Attica, near the Boeotian border.

[258] An Athenian physician of the day.

[259] An allusion to the paroxysms of rage, as represented in many tragedies familiar to an Athenian audience, of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, after he had killed his mother.

[260] No doubt the comic poet, rival of Aristophanes.

[261] Unexpected wind-up of the story. Aristophanes intends to deride the boasting of Lamachus, who was always ascribing to himself most unlikely exploits.

PEACE

INTRODUCTION

The 'Peace' was brought out four years after 'The Acharnians' (422 B.C.), when the War had already lasted ten years. The leading motive is the same as in the former play-the intense desire of the less excitable and more moderate-minded citizens for relief from the miseries of war.

Trygaeus, a rustic patriot, finding no help in men, resolves to ascend to heaven to expostulate personally with Zeus for allowing this wretched state of things to continue. With this object he has fed and trained a gigantic dung-beetle, which he mounts, and is carried, like Bellerophon on Pegasus, on an aerial journey. Eventually he reaches Olympus, only to find that the G.o.ds have gone elsewhere, and that the heavenly abode is occupied solely by the demon of War, who is busy pounding up the Greek States in a huge mortar. However, his benevolent purpose is not in vain; for learning from Hermes that the G.o.ddess Peace has been cast into a pit, where she is kept a fast prisoner, he calls upon the different peoples of h.e.l.las to make a united effort and rescue her, and with their help drags her out and brings her back in triumph to earth. The play concludes with the restoration of the G.o.ddess to her ancient honours, the festivities of the rustic population and the nuptials of Trygaeus with Opora (Harvest), handmaiden of Peace, represented as a pretty courtesan.

Such references as there are to Cleon in this play are noteworthy. The great Demagogue was now dead, having fallen in the same action as the rival Spartan general, the renowned Brasidas, before Amphipolis, and whatever Aristophanes says here of his old enemy is conceived in the spirit of 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum.' In one scene Hermes is descanting on the evils which had nearly ruined Athens and declares that 'The Tanner' was the cause of them all. But Trygaeus interrupts him with the words:

"Hold-say not so, good master Hermes; Let the man rest in peace where now he lies.

He is no longer of our world, but yours."

Here surely we have a trait of magnanimity on the author's part as admirable in its way as the wit and boldness of his former attacks had been in theirs.

PEACE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

TRYGAEUS.

TWO SERVANTS of TRYGAEUS.

MAIDENS, Daughters of TRYGAEUS.

HERMES.

WAR.

TUMULT.

HIEROCLES, a Soothsayer.

A SICKLE-MAKER.

A CREST-MAKER.

A TRUMPET-MAKER.

A HELMET-MAKER.

A SPEAR-MAKER.

SON OF LAMACHUS.

SON OF CLEONYMUS.

CHORUS OF HUSBANDMEN.

SCENE: A farmyard, two slaves busy beside a dungheap; afterwards, in Olympus.

PEACE

FIRST SERVANT. Quick, quick, bring the dung-beetle his cake.