by Aristophanes
678 Lyric poets of the century before Aristophanes, all famous for their love songs.
679 A tragic poet of the time of Aeschylus, of whom we have only fragments.
680 Long noted for the “frigidity” of his style, cf., Acharnians 138-40. (Loeb)
681 From Euripides’ lost play Aeolus, fragment 28.
682 From Euripides’ Alcestis, when Admetus asks his father to die for him.
683 A favorite butt of Aristophanes; an informer and well-known homosexual.
684 From Euripides’ Wise Melanippe, fragment 487. (Loeb)
685 It is not certain who this Hippocrates was, not why his abode is mentioned. ‡Reversing two famous lines in Euripides’ Hippolytus: “My tongue has sworn but not my heart,” when Hippolytus repudiates the promise he made to Phaedra’s nurse that he wouldn’t reveal Phaedra’s passion for him.
686 Pherrephatta is another name for Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter (goddess of agriculture).
687 Paean is another name for Apollo.
688 Apollo, who with his sister Artemis, was born on the Aegean island of Delos.
689 Pallas Athena.
690 The Nereids were the fifty daughters of the deity Nereus. They were nymphs of the sea.
691 Another name for the oracle at Delphi.
692 A branch of the Persians (who had for so long threatened Greece).
693 That is, to make a fraudulent suggestion, such as saying that Ion in Euripides’ play of that name is not Crëusa’s long-lost son.
694 It is probable that this and the following references are aimed at characters in the plays of Euripides.
695 In Euripides’ lost play Stheneboea (Lusty One), the heroine lusts after her husband’s young guest, Bellerophon.
696 The Euripidean source is unknown.
697 From Euripides’ Phoenix, fragment 804.3. (Loeb)
698 The antistrophe occurs on page 503.
699 A tragic poet and one of Carsinus’s four sons. The other three were dancers. Carcinus was a favorite butt of Aristophanes.
700 A favorite gibe of Aristophanes: that Euripides’ mother sold vegetables in the market, which is unlikely because she was wellborn.
701 A statue of Apollo stood outside many houses. There was always one too on the stage.
702 Answering the strophe on page 499.
703 There were two Melanippes. One, the daughter of Aeolus, had two children by Poseidon, for which her father put out her eyes, later restored by Poseidon. The other was a queen of the Amazons who was captured by Heracles but ransomed by her sister Hippolyta. Phaedra, the wife of Theseus, fell in love with her stepson, Hippolytus, who was too honorable to deceive his father. Phaedra, before committing suicide, secured Hippolytus’ ruin by writing a letter accusing him of rape.
704 Penelope was the faithful wife of Odysseus, who waited twenty years for his return from Troy.
705 The meaning, at least to me, is obscure.
706 A three-day festival for men and boys commemorating a victory of Athens over Boeotia. Boeotia is pronounced Bee-o-sha.
707 A servant.
708 David Barrett’s clever rendering of these lines in the Penguin Classics. I had to pinch it!
709 Playing on a slang meaning of isthmus, “crotch,” and referring to the causeway built across the Isthmus of Corinth, which linked the Corinthian and Saronic Gulf. (Loeb) Ships were shunted across the Isthmus on rollers to save them the long journey round by sail.
710 The hill on which assemblies were held.
711 Tragic pastiche, perhaps including material from a chorus in Euripides’ Telephus, cf. fragment 727a. (Loeb)
712 What follows is a parody of Euripides’ lost play Telephus, in which Telephus grabs Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, and rushes to the altar with him.
713 Lunar months counted inclusively. (Loeb)
714 Artemis was the patron of childbirth.
715 A statue of Apollo stood on one side of the theater.
716 In Euripides’ lost play Palamedes (produced in 415 B.C.), the hero, the inventor of writing and a Greek who fought at Troy, was falsely accused of treason and executed; his brother Oeax sent a message to their father by writing it on oar blades and floating them back to Greece. (Loeb)
717 An Athenian admiral defeated the previous winter.
718 Cleophon was a demagogue; Salabaccho a well-known society “companion.”
719 Perhaps a euphemism for adultery.
720 Festivals similar to the Thesmophoria attended only by women.
721 A leading politician who was assassinated soon after the production of this play. His mother, now about fifty, “had been caricatured in at least two plays as an alien, a whore, and a drunk.” (Loeb) It is not known whether she was really a moneylender.
722 An Athenian general who died a hero’s death in the disastrous Sicilian campaign of 415-413 B.C.
723 We have no information of how this play fared in the competitions.
724 Euripides invented a completely new scenario for Helen in which she never went to Troy. She was in Egypt in the palace of Proteus, whose son wanted to marry her.
725 Hecate is Artemis in her moon and more sinister impersonation—the patroness of witchcraft.
726 A legendary brigand.
727 His son Theoclymenus wanted to marry Helen.
728 An Athenian general of the Periclean age.
729 We know nothing about Antitheus.
730 The old joke! Aristophanes never tires of trotting out the well-used chestnut that Euripides’ mother sold vegetables in the market.
731 There’s a naughty play on words here. Euripides in his original uses the words έs χЄƖραs (es cheiras—“into my arms”), which Aristophanes changes into έσχαρs (escharas—“brazier,” slang for female genitalia). I am indebted to Jeffrey Henderson in the Loeb Classics for this insight.
732 Proverbially thought by the Greeks to be pampered, self-indulgent, and dishonest.
733 Porson was an impoverished artist. The joke is that he’ll join in the ritual fast because he’s too poor to be eating.
734 Victory not only in the dramatic contest but also probably in the war against Sparta.
735 This is one of the rare occasions when strophe and antistrophe do not match in number of lines.
736 Another name for Bacchus.
737 Andromeda is one of Euripides’ many lost plays.
738 A noted glutton.
739 A nymph deflowered by Zeus and hated by Hera, who deprived her of speech so that she could only repeat what was said to her. According to Euripides, she lived in the cave where Andromeda was chained and was commonly considered a decrepit old woman.
740 Perseus, after freeing Andromeda from the rock, married her. When he killed the Gorgon Medusa, he placed her head (writhing with snakes) on his shield, which then had the power of turning enemies to stone.
741 Gorgias, a contemporary of Aristophanes, was a famous lecturer and teacher of rhetoric. The main character in Plato’s Gorgias, he lived to the age of 110.
742 Three small islands in the northeast of the Aegean off the coast of Lesbos.
743 That part of a comedy where the author speaks directly to the audience in his own person or through the Chorus.
744 Phrynichus, Lycis, and Ameipsias were fellow competitors with Aristophanes. Phrynichus won second prize with his Muses.
745 The centaurs were a race of creatures living in the wilds of Thessaly, half man and half horse. HERACLES had numerous encounters with them.
746 A public figure mocked for his effeminacy. DIONYSUS’ remark is probably a euphemism for “I buggered him.”
747 A lost play of Euripides, produced in 412 B.C.
748 A famous actor remarkable for his huge size.
749 Euripides had died only the year before, at the court of King Archelaus of Macedon. Sophocles, in his nineties, brought on one of his choruses in mourning. He died the next year.
750 Fragment from Euripides’ lost Oeneus.
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751 A son of Sophocles and a successful playwright.
752 Agathon, victorious in his debut in 416 B.C. (commemorated in Plato’s Symposium ) and famous both for his innovative style and his personal beauty, had left Athens with his lover, Pausanias, for the court of Archelaus of Macedon around 408 B.C. He is portrayed in Women at Thesmophoria Festival. (Loeb)
753 At the court of King Archelaus.
754 A son of Carcinus who defeated Euripides’ Trojan trilogy in 415 B.C. (Loeb)
755 Unknown.
756 To be given a Chorus meant that a wealthy patron had undertaken to fund a production.
757 A paraphrase of the famous line (612) in Euripides’ Hippolytus: “It was my tongue that swore, my heart remained aloof.” The other quotations are also from Euripides.
758 Heracles was famous for his gargantuan appetite.
759 The three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to Hades.
760 An early legendary king of Athens involved in any number of heroic exploits. He went down to Hades to rescue Persephone, whom Pluto had abducted while she was picking flowers in the meadows of Enna in Sicily.
761 A playwright despised by Aristophanes. He is similarly ridiculed in Knights and Peace.
762 A dance in full armor. Cinesias was a contemporary of Aristophanes and came from Thebes. He was a dithyrambic poet, the dithyramb being a passionate type of choral lyric dedicated to Dionysus. The word possibly derives from Thriambus (another name for Dionysus, also meaning “triumphant”) and di, meaning “twice.” Aristophanes elsewhere makes fun of Cinesias for his wispy physique and his “unorthodox” music.
763 The painting was by Polignotus, to be seen at Delphi.
764 The Athenian naval victory off the isles of Arginusae, after which any of the crewmen who were slaves were given their freedom.
765 This was a three days’ Feast of Flowers in honor of Bacchus-of-the-Marshes held between the end of February and beginning of March. Heavy drinking was one of its attractions.
766 A legendary bogey.
767 Aristophanes is throwing out a hint that he expects first prize.
768 Dionysus is still dressed as Heracles.
769 A play on the word ϒαληνη (galēnē), meaning “calm,” and ϒαλη (galē), meaning “tom cat.” Playing the lead in Euripides’ Orestes, the actor Hegelochus made the famous slip.
770 A line that even the splendid Loeb translation gets wrong, though it is clear enough in the Greek if one realizes that it is a friendly below-the-belt punch at the august priest of DIONYSUS sitting in the front row, who, the Scholiast tells us, was noted for his (appropriately) rubicund complexion.
771 Another name for Bacchus.
772 A notorious atheist outlawed from Athens in 416 B.C.
773 Persephone.
774 Cratinus was an older contemporary and rival of Aristophanes. He died at the age of ninety-six. He won the prize for comedy nine times, and in 423 B.C. (the year he died) defeated Aristophanes’ Clouds with his Bottle (which incidentally he was fond of).
775 Thorycion was a tax collector.
776 Using the island of Aegina as his base (conveniently midway between Attica and Sparta), Thorycion was plying an illicit and traitorous trade with the Spartans.
777 That is, with first prize.
778 About twelve miles from Athens to the Mystery precincts of Eleusis.
779 The wearing of old clothes by the initiates was part of the ritual and, because of the impoverished state of Athens, most appropriate. It had even proved impossible to find anyone who could afford single-handedly to produce Frogs at the City Dionysia, so two producers were assigned.
780 Archedemus prosecuted one of the admirals at Arginusae. Also known as Bleary Eyes. A play on words in the Greek difficult to bring over into English: phrateras, “members of a fraternity,” and ϕϱατЄϱs (phrasteres), “second teeth”.
781 There is also an implied pun between πϱωτos (prōtos), “first,” and πϱωKτos, “arse” or “bottom.”
782 We have no knowledge of who Cleisthenes’ son was.
783 AEACUS was a son of Zeus and the father of Peleus. He was one of the three judges in Hades. The other were Rhadamanthus and Mino. Like St. Peter holding the keys to heaven, AEACUS held the keys to hell.
784 Acheron: the Netherworld.
785 The Cocytus (wailing) was one of the four rivers in Hades and became a name for Hades itself. The other rivers were: Lethe (oblivion), Phlegethon (fire), Styx (abomination). It was across the Styx that Charon ferried the dead. § A monster, half woman and half serpent.
786 Jeffrey Henderson’s brilliant rendering in the Loeb translation.
787 Melite was a deme near Athens where Heracles had a temple. It seems that the spendthrift son of Hipponious, Gallias, had also once rigged himself up as Heracles and was ridiculed by the playwright Cratinua as a whipped slave.
788 Zeus disguised himself as Amphitryon, the husband of Alcmene, and produced Heracles by her.
789 A friend of Socrates and praised by Aristotle. He was a leading politician who acquired a reputation of always landing on his feet in any crisis and was nicknamed “Buskin”—a boot that fits either foot. (In 404 B.C., however, he would be forced to drink hemlock by his rival Critias.)
790 A pointed anachronism: Cleon, friend of the people and leading politician of the 420s B.C., had been dead some seventeen years.
791 Cleon was succeeded by Hyperbolus, who died in 411 B.C.—i.e., about six years before the production of Frogs.
792 After the Athenian naval victory over the Spartans at Arginusae in 406 B.C., many sailors were lost in a storm. Archedemus was one of the demagogues who persuaded the Assembly to punish the commanders for carelessness. Eight of them were senselessly put to death.
793 Names typical of the Scythian archer police.
794 A famous sixth century B.C. poet from Ephesus in Asia Minor.
795 A fragment from Sophocles’ lost Laocön.
796 For the antistrophe see page 573.
797 Although some parts of this Chorus are difficult to unravel, the gist of it is both a warning and a prophecy presaging the downfall of the neodemocratic politician Cleophon, who in spite of his success was resented by many as not being a true Athenian and stemming from “barbarian” Thrace. Though he was largely responsible for the restoration of democracy in 410 B.C., he was finally brought down on false charges by antidemocratic forces in 405 B.C. (after the second performance of Frogs) and put to death.
798 Phrynichus was a leader of the oligarchical party, which was overthrown in 410 B.C., and he was assassinated. Meanwhile many citizens who had supported the oligarchy lost their citizenship.
799 In 427 B.C., the Plataeans, whose city had been destroyed by the Spartans, were given Athenian citizenship. Aristophanes compares this to the granting of freedom to the slave sailors who fought in the victorious battle of Arginusae.
800 I’m not sure what “misjudgment” is intended. Is it the implied presumption of leaping from slave to freeman; or is it an echo of the aftermath of Arginusae, when the leaders of the fleet were charged with not doing enough to save lives following the storm after the battle; or is it the brutal decision of the Assembly to put those leaders to death? Finally, is it for having supported Phrynichus?
801 Little is known about him except that he served as a secretary to the Assembly in 410/9 B.C.
802 The traditional coinage was made of silver from the Laureium mines, largely incapacitated since the enemy occupation of Deceleia. New coins were issued in 407/6 B.C. (Loeb)
803 Sophocles had just died the previous year (406 B.C.), in his early nineties, leaving Aristophanes with a problem (and probably a regret). It was too late to put him into Frogs, which was already in production.
804 Quoting probably a line of Aeschylus.
805 It would seem that the sacrifice of a black lamb was a defense against bad weather.
806 For the antistrophe see page 584.
807
A tragic writer who flourished a little before Aeschylus—not to be confused with Phrynichus the general and Phrynichus the flatterer.
808 Parodying a line from Euripides’ Hippolytus. It is not known in what play Aeschylus talks of a “swooping hippocockerell.”
809 Well known for his ugliness.
810 A fellow poet and friend of Euripides.