No More Learning

[390] Heracles cannot believe it. Dionysus had no repute for bravery. His
cowardice is one of the subjects for jesting which we shall most often
come upon in 'The Frogs. '

[391] A tragedy by Euripides, produced some years earlier, some fragments
of which are quoted by Aristophanes in his 'Thesmophoriazusae. '

[392] An actor of immense stature.

[393] The gluttony of Heracles was a byword. See 'The Birds. '

[394] Euripides, weary, it is said, of the ridicule and envy with which
he was assailed in Athens, had retired in his old age to the court of
Archelaus, King of Macedonia, where he had met with the utmost
hospitality. We are assured that he perished through being torn to pieces
by dogs, which set upon him in a lonely spot. His death occurred in 407
B. C. , the year before the production of 'The Frogs. '

[395] This is a hemistich, the Scholiast says, from Euripides.

[396] The son of Sophocles. Once, during his father's lifetime, he gained
the prize for tragedy, but it was suspected that the piece itself was
largely the work of Sophocles himself.
It is for this reason that
Dionysus wishes to try him when he is dependent on his own resources, now
that his father is dead. The death of the latter was quite recent at the
time of the production of 'The Frogs,' and the fact lent all the greater
interest to this piece.

[397] Agathon was a contemporary of Euripides, and is mentioned in terms
of praise by Aristotle for his delineation of the character of Achilles,
presumably in his tragedy of 'Telephus. ' From the fragments which remain
of this author it appears that his style was replete with ornament,
particularly antithesis.

[398] Son of Caminus, an inferior poet, often made the butt of
Aristophanes' jeers.

[399] A poet apparently, unknown.

[400] Expressions used by Euripides in different tragedies.

[401] Parody of a verse in Euripides' 'Andromeda,' a lost play.

[402] Heracles, being such a glutton, must be a past master in matters of
cookery, but this does not justify him in posing as a dramatic critic.

[403] Xanthias, bent double beneath his load, gets more and more out of
patience with his master's endless talk with Heracles.

[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.