5 stars
First Sentence: The eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes are all that we have, apart from fragments preserved on papyri or quoted by other ancient writers, of one of the most remarkable branches of the literature of antiquity, the Old Comedy of Athens.
Thoughts: This translation is from the 1970s as opposed to An Anthology of Greek Drama from 1949. Why is this important? Because the dirty parts are out in the open for all to see in plain English, not hidden under a thin veneer of Latin. And this being Greek comedy, there are a lot of dirty parts.
The introduction goes over Aristophanes’ life, his works, the people he lampooned in his plays, and how comedies were staged in ancient Greece. A key part of the male costumes was a fake oversize phallus, something Aristophanes made good use of. As did the other comedy writers, I’d assume, but they aren’t important right now.
While there are eleven Aristophanes plays left today, this book only has three of them, none of which is The Frogs. I’ve heard of that play my whole life but to date I haven’t read it. {adds to quest list}
The first play is The Acharnians, written during one of the many, many wars between Athens and Sparta. It’s set in the town of Acharnae, eight miles north of Athens. Dikaiopolis has had quite enough of all this warring and fighting, but no one else seems inclined to put a stop to it. He manages to negotiate a peace with Sparta for himself and his family alone. He immediately takes advantage of his extremely local cease fire to stage a Dionysia parade around his house. The party is interrupted by the chorus in the form of charcoal burners. Dikaiopolis holds them off by taking a basket of charcoal hostage. They threaten to kill him so he goes over to the playwright Euripides’ house for a quick round of riffing Euripides’ plays. Dikaiopolis borrows a beggar’s costume from him which he wears while he pleads his case by making fun of yet another of Euripides’ plays.
Once Dikaiopolis wins his case against the chorus, he goes back to showing off how he’s at peace. He sets up a private market selling things that are banned in the Athenian markets. A beggar shows up trying to sell his three daughters as pigs in a poke. “Piglet” in ancient Greek was slang for female genitalia so the next twenty minutes or so are nonstop dirty jokes. In the end everyone gets drunk because why not.
The Clouds was a flop when it was originally produced, probably because it isn’t the kind of madcap dirty jokeathon people expected from Aristophanes. It’s more dark humor without the happy drunken ending of the other plays. The play that exists now is Aristophanes’ partial revision. He was trying to get it restaged, but that never happened because of reasons lost to antiquity.
The play is parodying the new philosophers, here represented by Socrates. Strepsiades is tired of his son Pheidippes lounging around and spending all his money on horses. All those horses got Strepsiades into debt and he both can’t and doesn’t want to pay up. He hears that the philosophers have a method of arguing for Wrong that will get him out of his obligations, so he goes down to Socrates’ school to learn how to do it. Strepsiades is a very poor student and only succeeds in driving Socrates to distraction. The chorus appears in the form of clouds to watch the proceedings. They keep egging Strepsiades along, but it turns out they’re not really on his side.
We discussed Lysistrata in An Anthology of Greek Drama so there’s no need to go over the play again. Instead, I’ll show you what I mean about the more “modern” translation. Let’s revisit Robinson’s interpretation of the perfume scene between Myrrhine and Cinesias:
CINESIAS: Damn the man who first concocted perfume!
MYRRHINE: (returning with another flask) Here, try this flask.
C: I’ve got another one all ready for you. Come, you wretch, lie down and stop bringing me things.
M: All right; I’m taking off my shoes. But, my dear, see that you vote for peace.
C: (absently) I’ll consider it. (Myrrhine runs to the Acropolis.) I’m ruined! The wench has skinned me and run away! (chanting in tragic style) Alas, Alas! Deceived, my poor little child, how shall I nurture thee? Where’s Cynalopes? I needs must hire a nurse!
And here’s how Alan Sommerstein translated it:
C: A curse on the man who invented perfume!
M: (returning with another scent bottle, slender and cylindrical in shape) Here, take this bottle.
C: (pointing to his phallus) I’ve got too much bottle already! Now just lie down, damn you, and don’t bring me anything more for any reason.
M: I will, I swear. I’m taking my shoes off now. But, darling, don’t forget to vote for making peace!
C: I’ll think it over. (He stretches out his arm to draw Myrrhine towards him. It clasps empty air, and, turning his head, he sees her vanishing into the Acropolis. He leaps to his feet.) She’s gone! She’s done me and diddled me! Just when I was all ripe and peeled for her, she ran away! (Sings)
O what, tell me what, is there left for me to do?
And, robbed of her beauty, who’s there for me to screw?
Philostratus, I need you, do come and help me quick:
Could I please hire a nurse for my poor young orphan prick?
The Eclectic Reviewer 