No More Learning

[532] i. e. that a country can always be invaded and that the fleet alone
is a safe refuge. This is the same advice as that given by Pericles, and
which Thucydides expresses thus, "Let your country be devastated, or even
devastate it yourself, and set sail for Laconia with your fleet. "

[533] An allusion to the fees of the dicasts, or jurymen; we have already
seen that at this period it was two obols, and later three.

[534] A half-line from Euripides' 'Hippolytus. ' The full line is: [Greek:
h_e gl_ott' om_omok', h_e de phr_en an_omotos,] "my tongue has taken an
oath, but my mind is unsworn," a bit of casuistry which the critics were
never tired of bringing up against the author.

[535] A verse from the 'Aeolus' of Euripides, but slightly altered.
Euripides said, "Why is is shameful, if the spectators, who enjoy it, do
not think so? "

[536] A verse from the 'Phrixus' of Euripides; what follows is a parody.

[537] We have already seen Aeschylus pretending that it was possible to
adapt any foolish expression one liked to the verses of Euripides: "a
little bottle, a little bag, a little fleece. "

[538] Pluto speaks as though he were an Athenian himself.

[539] That they should hang themselves. Cleophon is said to have been an
influential alien resident who was opposed to concluding peace; Myrmex
and Nicomachus were two officials guilty of peculation of public funds;
Archenomus is unknown.

[540] He would brand them as fugitive slaves, if, despite his orders,
they refused to come down.
[541] An Athenian admiral.

[542] The real name of the father of Adimantus was Leucolophides, which
Aristophanes jestingly turns into Leucolophus, i. e. _White Crest_.

[543] i. e. in a foreign country; Cleophon, as we have just seen, was not
an Athenian.




THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE

or

The Women's Festival




INTRODUCTION

Like the 'Lysistrata,' the 'Thesmophoriazusae, or Women's Festival,' and
the next following play, the 'Ecclesiazusae, or Women in Council' are
comedies in which the fair sex play a great part, and also resemble that
extremely _scabreux_ production in the plentiful crop of doubtful 'double
entendres' and highly suggestive situations they contain.

The play has more of a proper intrigue and formal denouement than is
general with our Author's pieces, which, like modern extravaganzas and
musical comedies, are often strung on a very slender thread of plot. The
idea of the 'Thesmophoriazusae' is as follows.

Euripides is summoned as a notorious woman-hater and detractor of the
female sex to appear for trial and judgment before the women of Athens
assembled to celebrate the Thesmophoria, a festival held in honour of the
goddesses Demeter and Persephone, from which men were rigidly excluded.
The poet is terror-stricken, and endeavours to persuade his confr? re, the
tragedian Agathon, to attend the meeting in the guise of a woman to plead
his cause, Agathon's notorious effeminacy of costume and way of life
lending itself to the deception; but the latter refuses point-blank. He
then prevails on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, to do him this favour,
and shaves, depilates, and dresses him up accordingly. But so far from
throwing oil on the troubled waters, Mnesilochus indulges in a long
harangue full of violent abuse of the whole sex, and relates some
scandalous stories of the naughty ways of peccant wives. The assembly
suspects at once there is a man amongst them, and on examination of the
old fellow's person, this is proved to be the case.