No More Learning

[404] The mortar in which hemlock was pounded.

[405] An allusion to the effect of hemlock.

[406] A quarter of Athens where the Lampadephoria was held in honour of
Athene, Hephaestus, and Prometheus, because the first had given the
mortals oil, the second had invented the lamp, and the third had stolen
fire from heaven. The principal part of this festival consisted in the
_lampadedromia_, or torch-race. This name was given to a race in which
the competitors for the prize ran with a torch in their hand; it was
essential that the goal should be reached with the torch still alight.
The signal for starting was given by throwing a torch from the top of the
tower mentioned a few verses later on.

[407] Theseus had descended into Hades with Pirithous to fetch away
Persephone. Aristophanes doubtless wishes to say that in consequence of
this descent Pluto established a toll across Acheron, in order to render
access to his kingdom less easy, and so that the poor and the greedy, who
could not or would not pay, might be kept out.

[408] Morsimus was a minor poet, who is also mentioned with disdain in
'The Knights,' and is there called the son of Philocles. Aristophanes
jestingly likens anyone who helps to disseminate his verses to the worst
of criminals.

[409] The Pyrrhic dance was a lively and quick-step dance. Cinesias was
not a dancer, but a dithyrambic poet, who declaimed with much
gesticulation and movement that one might almost think he was performing
this dance.

[410] Those initiated into the Mysteries of Demeter, who, according to
the belief of the ancients, enjoyed a kind of beatitude after death.

[411] Xanthias, his strength exhausted and his patience gone, prepares to
lay down his load. Asses were used for the conveyance from Athens to
Eleusis of everything that was necessary for the celebration of the
Mysteries.
They were often overladen, and from this fact arose the
proverb here used by Xanthias, as indicating any heavy burden.

[412] The Ancients believed that meeting this or that person or thing at
the outset of a journey was of good or bad omen. The superstition is not
entirely dead even to-day.

[413] Dionysus had seated himself _on_ instead of _at_ the oar.

[414] One of the titles given to Dionysus, because of the worship
accorded him at Nysa, a town in Ethiopia, where he was brought up by the
nymphs.

[415] This was the third day of the Anthesteria or feasts of Dionysus.
All kinds of vegetables were cooked in pots and offered to Dionysus and
Athene. It was also the day of the dramatic contests.

[416] Dionysus' temple, the Lenaeum, was situated in the district of
Athens known as the _Linnae_, or Marshes, on the south side of the
Acropolis.

[417] He points to the audience.

[418] A spectre, which Hecate sent to frighten men. It took all kinds of
hideous shapes. It was exorcised by abuse.

[419] This was one of the monstrosities which credulity attributed to the
Empusa.

[420] He is addressing a priest of Bacchus, who occupied a seat reserved
for him in the first row of the audience.

[421] A verse from the Orestes of Euripides.