Frogs

by Aristophanes

  What follows is a parody of Euripidean choral lyrics. The basic metre is aeolic. While the passage is metrically coherent and the language predominantly tragic, its sense and stylistic excesses are ridiculous. The presence of trivial subject-matter – spiders and their webs – and non sequiturs render the whole parody grotesque and ludicrous.

  130. You halcyons… droplets: The opening lines from Euripides’ Hypsipyle (fr. 856).

  131. Where the flute-loving… dark-blue rams: From Euripides’ Electra 435ff.

  132. Gleaming delight… child: Based on Euripides’ Hypsipyle. The first two lines belong together (fr. 765), while the last line seems to look to a climactic moment when Hypsipyle is reunited with one of her sons.

  133. Did you notice that foot… That one too: Aeschylus tries to point out a Euripidean metrical feature he dislikes (one which he exemplifies in the last line of his lyric parody) but Dionysus takes the word ‘foot’ literally, and looks at the feet of Euripides’ ‘Muse’. There was, in the original production, clearly some sort of visual humour involving the ‘Muse’ at this point. After saying ‘Fling your arms’, she probably does this herself to one of the characters onstage (Dionysus or Euripides are the most likely candidates).

  134. Cyrene: Well-known prostitute, to whom Aeschylus refers subsequently; she is mentioned in Women (98).

  135. what his solo arias are like: Such long monodies, without corresponding strophe and antistrophe, are a distinctive feature of late Euripidean tragedy (see, e.g., Orestes 1369–1502). Aeschylus aims to show how Euripides brings ‘everyday things’ (Frogs 959) onto the stage. The elevated style of the monody quickly descends into the ridiculous, dealing as it does with the mundane theft of a cockerel (possibly a retort to Euripides’ earlier criticism of Aeschylus for mentioning a cock in a tragedy in 935). There is also parodying of general Euripidean characteristics and (adapted) quotation of specific passages. Euripidean idiosyncrasies include a preoccupation with night, visions and dreams (‘dire dream… shadowy Hades… sable night… horrific sight… Shrouded in blackness… this dream’), a fondness for oxymoron (‘shining gloom… life and yet no life’) and melodramatic repetition (‘Murder, murder… bereft, bereft… falling, falling’).

  136. Spi-i-i-i-nning some flax… round: These lines resemble the description of Helen in Orestes 1431–3.

  137. O Cretans… arrows: The first line of this stanza (possibly more) is taken from Euripides’ Cretans. The reference to Cretans with their bows and arrows may also allude to the Athenian police force, known as ‘Archers’.

  138. If only the Argo… its way: Euripides quotes the opening line of his Medea.

  139. The watery vale… graze: Aeschylus quotes from his Philoctetes (fr. 249).

  140. Persuasion… the word: Euripides quotes from his Antigone (fr. 170).

  141. Of all the gods… no gifts: Aeschylus quotes from Niobe (fr. 161).

  142. Achilles threw… a four: The origin of this line is uncertain. Humour arises from bathos. The opening words ‘Achilles threw’, which anticipate something weighty such as a boulder, are followed by a low-scoring throw in a dice game (the game involved throwing three dice, three sixes being the highest score).

  143. He lifted up… iron: Euripides’ line is from Meleager (fr. 531).

  144. Chariot… was piled: Aeschlyus’ line is from Glaucus ofPotniae (fr. 38).

  145. hundred Egyptians couldn’t lift that lot: The Greeks associated the Egyptians with hard labour.

  146. One’s so wise, and the other I just love: It is not clear here which remark applies to which poet. The question has been debated since antiquity.

  147. Alcibiades: Nephew of Pericles, belonging to the distinguished clan of the Alcmaeonids. Known for his aristocratic airs, physical beauty and (supposedly charming) lisp, he was friends with Socrates and was by far the most flamboyant, controversial and unpredictable of the Athenian leaders of his day. After his arrest (along with several others) in 415 for profaning the Mysteries, he escaped and went over to the Spartans, whom he helped to gain the upper hand in the war until he fell out of favour because of an alleged affair with the wife of one of the Spartan kings. In 411 he had dealings both with the oligarchs who seized power in Athens and with the Persians. The following year, as general, he defeated the oligarchs and had some success against the Spartans at sea, as a result of which he was reinstated in Athens in 407. But Alcibiades’ enemies stripped him of his position and he withdrew to a fortress in the Hellespont. At the time of Frogs, uncertainty remained as to what should be done about him.

  148. one speaks so discerningly… distinctly: It is not clear which description applies to which poet; it is hard even to tell whether or not Aristophanes intends the remarks to be ambivalent. The two Greek words sophōs and saphōs have various different nuances: sophōs can mean wisely, discerningly, cleverly, shrewdly, and so on; saphōs can mean lucidly, eloquently, distinctly, emphatically or, merely, well. The fact that the adjective sophōs is also used of one of the poets in line 1413 – there, as here, it is unclear to which of the two it is applied – does not make matters any clearer.

  149. I have something I’d like to… if we do the opposite: The Greek text here comprises two sets of lines, one belonging to the original script and the other to the revised script (for the play’s second production). Barrett primarily follows Stanford’s 1963 edition of the text but with some omissions and alterations. Here I have followed the revised script according to A. H. Sommerstein’s 1996 edition. For discussions of textual problems with the passage, see the commentary on the relevant lines in K. J. Dover’s 1993 edition of the text, and also A. H. Sommerstein’s argument in Tragedy, Comedy, Polis, eds. A. H. Sommerstein et al. (Bari, 1993).

  150. They must regard… wealth is woe: Aeschylus’ advice, namely to be prepared to concede land and trust in naval superiority, is very similar to that of Pericles (according to Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War), given nearly thirty years before Frogs.

  151. I’ll judge… soul desires: The line, which is tragic in rhythm and style, is very probably a Euripidean quotation.

  152. It was my tongue that swore: Dionysus quotes the first half of Euripides’ Hippolytus 612 (with greater accuracy than his earlier attempt in 101–2).

  153. What’s shameful… view it?: Another Euripidean line from Aeolus (fr. 19). By changing the last word slightly, from chromenois (‘those who do it’) to theomenois (‘those who view it’, i.e., the audience), Dionysus gives the line a metatheatrical twist. Euripides’ disbelieving question in the previous line may also be taken from a Euripidean play.

  154. Who knows… death is life?: From Euripides’ Polyidus (fr. 638). This line, which is alluded to earlier (Frogs 1038), is particularly apt as the action among the dead seems every bit as lively as the world above.

  155. To fritter… a fool: Euripides and Socrates are seen as key figures of the intellectual avant-garde, a group that suffers much ridicule from comic playwrights.

  156. Nicomachus: A man of this name was involved in the codification and public inscription of the laws in 410 and 403; this may be him.

  157. Myrmex… Archenomus: Both unknown.

  158. Adeimantus: Cousin of Alcibiades; he was general in 406/5.

  159. Spirits of the darkness… his way: Adapted from Aeschylus’ Glaucus ofPotniae (fr. 36).

  160. To the city’s counsels… lend: Adapted from the exodos, or Exit-Song, of Eumenides (1012–13), the final play of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, in which Athena wishes the citizens of Athens well.

 

 

 
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