The momentous period in the history of Greece during which Aristophanes began to write, forms the ground-work, more or less, of so many of his Comedies, that it is impossible to understand them, far less to appreciate their point, without some acquaintance with its leading events. All men’s thoughts were occupied by the great contest for supremacy between the rival states of Athens and Sparta, known as the Peloponnesian War. It is not necessary here to enter into details; but the position of the Athenians during the earlier years of the struggle must be briefly described. Their strength lay chiefly in their fleet; in the other arms of war they were confessedly no match for Sparta and her confederate allies. The heavy-armed Spartan infantry, like the black Spanish bands of the fifteenth century, was almost irresistible in the field. Year after year the invaders marched through the Isthmus into Attica, or were landed in strong detachments on different points of the coast, while the powerful Boeotian cavalry swept all the champaign, burning the towns and villages, cutting down the crops, destroying vines and olive-groves,—carrying this work of devastation almost up to the very walls of Athens. For no serious attempt was made to resist these periodical invasions. The strategy of the Athenians was much the same as it had been when the Persian hosts swept down upon them fifty years before. Again they withdrew themselves and all their movable property within the city walls, and allowed the invaders to overrun the country with impunity. Their flocks and herds were removed into the islands on the coasts, where, so long as Athens was mistress of the sea, they would be in comparative safety. It was a heavy demand upon their patriotism; but, as before, they submitted to it, trusting that the trial would be but brief, and nerved to it by the stirring words of their great leader Pericles. The ruinous sacrifice, and even the personal suffering, involved in this forced migration of a rural population into a city wholly inadequate to accommodate them, may easily be imagined, even if it had not been forcibly described by the great historian of those times. Some carried with them the timber framework of their houses, and set it up in such vacant spaces as they could find. Others built for themselves little “chambers on the wall,” or occupied the outer courts of the temples, or were content with booths and tents set up under the Long Walls which connected the city with the harbour of PirÆus. Some—if our comic satirist is to be trusted—were even fain to sleep in tubs and hen-coops. Provisions grew dear and scarce. Pestilence broke out in the overcrowded city; and in the second and third years of the war, the Great Plague carried off, out of their comparatively small population, above 10,000 of all ranks. The lands were either left unsown, or sown only to be ravaged before harvest-time by the enemy. No wonder that, as year after year passed, and brought no respite from suffering to the harassed citizens, they began to ask each other how long this was to last, and whether even national honour was worth purchasing at this heavy cost. Even the hard-won victories and the successful blows struck by their admirals at various points on their enemies’ coasts failed to reconcile the less warlike spirits to the continuance of the struggle. Popular orators like Cleon, fiery captains like Alcibiades, still carried the majority with them when they called for new levies and prophesied a triumphant issue; but there was a party at Athens, not so loud but still very audible, who said that such men had personal ambitions of their own to serve, and who had begun to sigh for “peace at any price.”

But it needed a pressure of calamity far greater than the present to keep a good citizen of Athens away from the theatre. If the times were gloomy, so much the more need of a little honest diversion. And if the war party were too strong for him to resist in the public assembly, at least he could have his laugh out against them when caricatured on the stage. It has been already shown that the comic drama was to the Athenians what a free press is to modern commonwealths. As the government of France under Louis XIV. was said to have been “a despotism tempered by epigrams,” so the power of the popular leaders over the democracy of Athens found a wholesome check in the free speech—not to say the licence—accorded to the comedian. Sentiments which it might have been dangerous to express in the public assembly were enunciated in the most plain-spoken language by the actor in the new burlesque. The bolder the attack was, and the harder the hitting, the more the audience were pleased. Nor was it at all necessary, in order to the spectator’s keen enjoyment of the piece, that he should agree with its politics. Many an admirer of the war policy of Lamachus laughed heartily enough, we may be sure, at his presentment on the stage in the caricature of military costume in which the actor dressed the part: just as many a modern Englishman has enjoyed the political caricatures of “H. B.,” or the cartoons in ‘Punch,’ not a whit the less because the satire was pointed against the recognised leaders of his own party. It is probable that Aristophanes was himself earnestly opposed to the continuance of the war, and spoke his own sentiments on this point by the mouth of his characters; but the prevalent disgust at the hardships of this long-continued siege—for such it practically was—would in any case be a tempting subject for the professed writer of burlesques; and the caricature of a leading politician, if cleverly drawn, is always a success for the author. To win the verdict of popular applause, which was the great aim of an Athenian play-writer, he must above all things hit the popular taste.

The Peloponnesian War lasted for twenty-nine years—during most of the time for which our dramatist held possession of the stage. Nearly all his comedies which have come down to us abound, as we should naturally expect, in allusions to the one absorbing interest of the day. But three of them—‘The Acharnians,’ ‘The Peace,’ and ‘Lysistrata,’—are founded entirely on what was the great public question of the day—How long was this grinding war to continue? when should Athens see again the blessings of peace? Treated in various grotesque and amusing forms, one serious and important political moral underlies them all.

THE ACHARNIANS.

‘The Acharnians’ might indeed have fairly claimed the first place here, on the ground that it was the earliest in date of the eleven comedies of Aristophanes which have been preserved to us. Independently of its great literary merits, it would have a special interest of its own, as being the most ancient specimen of comedy of any kind which has reached us. It was first acted at the great LenÆan festival held annually in honour of Bacchus, in February of the year 425 B.C., when the war had already lasted between six and seven years. It took its name from AcharnÆ, one of the “demes,” or country boroughs of Attica, about seven miles north of Athens; and the Chorus in the play is supposed to consist of old men belonging to the district. AcharnÆ was the largest, the most fertile, and the most populous of all the demes, supplying a contingent of 3000 heavy-armed soldiers to the Athenian army. It lay right in the invader’s path in his march from the Spartan frontier upon the city of Athens: and when, in the first year of the war, the Spartan forces bivouacked in its corn-fields and olive-grounds, and set fire to its homesteads, the smoke of their burning and the camp of the destroying enemy could be seen from the city walls. The effect was nearly being that which the Spartan king Archidamus had desired. The Athenians—and more especially the men of AcharnÆ, now cooped within the fortifications of the capital—clamoured loudly to be led out to battle; and it needed all the influence of Pericles to restrain them from risking an engagement in which he knew they would be no match for the invaders. The Acharnians, therefore, had their national hostility to the Spartans yet more imbittered by their own private sufferings. Yet it was not unnatural that a sober-minded and peaceful yeoman of the district, remembering what his native canton had suffered and was likely to suffer again, should strongly object to the continuance of a war carried on at such a cost. His zeal for the national glory of Athens and his indignation against her enemies might be strong: but the love of home and property is a large component in most men’s patriotism. He was an Athenian by all means—but an Acharnian first.

Such a man is DicÆopolis, the hero of this burlesque. He has been too long cooped up in Athens, while his patrimony is being ruined: and in the first scene he comes up to the Pnyx—the place where the public assembly was held—grumbling at things in general, and the war in particular. The members of the Committee on Public Affairs come, as usual, very late to business—every one, in this city life, is so lazy, as the Acharnian declares: but when business does begin, an incident occurs which interests him very much indeed. One Amphitheus—a personage who claims to be immortal by virtue of divine origin—announces that he has obtained, perhaps on that ground, special permission from the gods to negotiate a peace with Sparta. But there is one serious obstacle; nothing can be done in this world, even by demigods, without money, and he would have the Committee supply him with enough for his long journey. Such an outrageous request is only answered on the part of the authorities by a call for “Police!” and the applicant, in spite of the remonstrances of DicÆopolis at such unworthy treatment of a public benefactor, is summarily hustled out of court. DicÆopolis, however, follows him, and giving him eight shillings—or thereabouts—to defray his expenses on the road, bids him haste to Sparta and bring back with him, if possible, a private treaty of peace—for himself, his wife and children, and maid-servant. Meanwhile the “House” is occupied with the reception of certain High Commissioners who have returned from different foreign embassies. Some have been to ask help from Persia, and have brought back with them “the Great King’s Eye, Sham-artabas” (DicÆopolis is inclined to look upon him as a sham altogether)—who is, in fact, all eye, as far as the mask-maker’s art can make him so. He talks a jargon even more unintelligible than modern diplomatic communications, which the envoys explain to mean that the king will send the Athenians a subsidy of gold, but which DicÆopolis interprets in quite a contrary sense. Others have come back from a mission to Thrace, and have brought with them a sample of the warlike auxiliaries which Sitalces, prince of that country (who had a sort of Athenomania), is going to send to their aid—at two shillings a-day; some ragamuffin tribe whose appearance on the stage was no doubt highly ludicrous, and whose character is somewhat like that of Falstaff’s recruits, or Bombastes Furioso’s “brave army,” since their first exploit is to steal DicÆopolis’s luncheon: a palpable warning against putting trust in foreign hirelings.

Within a space of time so brief as to be conceivable upon the stage only, Amphitheus has returned from Sparta, to the great joy of DicÆopolis. His mission has been successful. But he is quite out of breath; for the Acharnians, finding out what his business is, have hunted and pelted him up to the very walls of Athens. “Peace, indeed! a pretty fellow you are, to negotiate a peace with our enemies after all our vines and corn-fields have been destroyed!” He has escaped them, however, for the present, and has brought back with him three samples of Treaties—in three separate wine-skins. The contents are of various growth and quality.[18]

He leaves the stage on these festive thoughts intent. The scene changes to the open country in the district of AcharnÆ, and here what we must consider as the second act of the play begins. The Chorus of ancient villagers—robust old fellows, “tough as oak, men who have fought at Marathon” in their day—rush in, in chase of the negotiators of this hateful treaty. Moving backwards and forwards with quick step in measured time across the wide orchestra (which, it must be remembered, was their proper domain), they chant a strain of which the rhythm, at least, is fairly preserved in Mr Frere’s translation:—

Then they separate into two bodies, mutually urging each other to the pursuit, and leave the scene in different directions as DicÆopolis reappears. He is come to hold a private festival on his own account to Bacchus, in thanksgiving for the Peace which he, at all events, is to enjoy from henceforward. But he will have everything done in regular order, so far as his resources admit, with all the pomp and solemnity of a public festival. His daughter is to act as “Canephora,” or basket-bearer, carrying the sacred emblems of the god—a privilege which the fairest and noblest maidens of Athens were proud to claim—and her mother exhorts her to move and behave herself like a lady,—if on this occasion only. Their single slave is to follow behind with other mystic emblems. But a spectacle is nothing, as DicÆopolis feels, without spectators; so he bids his wife go indoors, and mount upon the house-top to see the procession pass. Next to a caricature of their great men, an Athenian audience enjoyed a caricature of their religion. They had this much of excuse, that Paganism was full of tempting themes for burlesque, of which their comic dramatists liberally availed themselves. But in truth there is a temptation to burlesque and parody presented by all religions, more or less, on their external side. Romanism and Puritanism have met with very similar treatment amongst ourselves; and one has only to refer to the old miracle-plays, and such celebrations as the FÊte d’Ane, to be convinced how closely in such matters jest and earnest lie side by side.

But the festivities are very soon interrupted. The Acharnians have scented their prey at last, and rush in upon the celebrant with a shower of stones. DicÆopolis begs to know what crime he has committed. They soon let him know it: he has presumed to separate his private interest from the public cause, and to make a private treaty with the detested Spartans. They will listen to no explanation:—

Well,—yes, he is, if they will only listen to him; and so confident is he of the justice of his views, that he undertakes to plead his cause with his head laid upon a chopping-block, with full permission to his opponents to cut it off at once if he fails to convince them. Even this scanty grace the indignant Acharnians are unwilling to allow him, until he fortunately lays his hand upon an important hostage, whose life shall, he declares, be forfeited the moment they proceed to violence. He produces what looks like a cradle, and might contain a baby. It is really nothing more or less than a basket of charcoal—the local product and staple merchandise of AcharnÆ. “Lo,” says he to his irate antagonists, throwing himself into a tragic attitude and brandishing a dagger—“Lo, I will stab your darling to the heart!” The joke seems so very feeble in itself, that it is necessary to bear in mind that a well-known “situation” in a lost tragedy of Euripides (Telephus), which would have been fresh in the memory of an audience of such inveterate play-goers, is here burlesqued for their amusement. The threat brings the Acharnians to terms at once; they lay down their stones, and prepare to listen to argument, even in apology for the detested Spartans. The chopping-block is brought out; but before DicÆopolis begins to plead, he remembers that he is not provided with one very important requisite for a prisoner on trial for his life. He ought to be clothed in “a most pathetical and heart-rending dress”—to move the compassion of his judges. Will they allow him just to step over the way and borrow one from that great tragedian Euripides, who keeps a whole wardrobe of pathetic costumes for his great characters? They give him leave; and as Euripides—most conveniently for dramatic purposes—appears to live close by, DicÆopolis proceeds at once to knock at the door of his lodging, and a servant answers from within. The humour of the scene which follows must have been irresistible to an audience who were familiar with every one of the characters mentioned, and who enjoyed the caricature none the less because they had, no doubt, applauded the tragic original.

After some further suggestions on the part of Euripides of other tragic characters, whose piteous “get-up” might excite the compassion of audience or judges, it turns out that the costume on which the applicant has set his heart is that in which Telephus the Mysian, in the tragedy which bears his name, pleads before Achilles, to beg that warrior to heal, as his touch alone could do, the wound which he had made. The whole scene should be read, if not in the original, then in Mr Frere’s admirable translation. DicÆopolis begs Euripides to lend him certain other valuable stage properties, one after the other: a beggar’s staff,—a little shabby basket,—a broken-lipped pitcher. The tragedian grows out of patience at last at this wholesale plagiarism of his dramatic repertory:—

This parting shot at the tragedian’s family antecedents (for his mother was said to have been a herb-woman) is quite in the style of Athenian wit, which was nothing if not personal. Euripides very naturally orders the door to be shut in the face of this uncivil intruder,—who has got all he wanted, however. Clad in the appropriate costume, he lays his head on the chopping-block, while one of the Chorus stands over him with an axe; and in this ludicrous position makes one of those addresses to the audience which were usual in these comedies, in which the poet assumes for the moment his own character, and takes the house into his personal confidence. As he has already told Euripides,—

He will venture upon a little plain-speaking to his fellow-Athenians, upon a very delicate subject, as he is well aware. But at this January festival, unlike the greater one in March, no foreigners were likely to be present, so that all that was said might be considered as between friends.

He goes on to mention other aggressions on the part of his own countrymen—to wit, the carrying off from Megara a young woman, no great loss to any community in point of personal character, but still a Megarian—aggressions not of much importance in themselves, but such as he feels sure no high-spirited nation could be expected to put up with:—

why, as he says, the whole nation would have flown to arms at once to avenge the insult.

At this point he is interrupted. One party of the Acharnians are for making short work with such a blasphemer. But the other Semi-chorus vow that he says nothing but the truth, and dare them to lay hands upon him. A struggle ensues, and the war faction call aloud for Lamachus—the “Great Captain” of the day. And that general, being ready within call (as every one is who is required for stage purposes), makes his appearance in grand military costume, with an enormous crest towering over his helmet, and a gorgon’s head of gigantic dimensions upon his shield. He speaks in heroics, as befits him:—

DicÆopolis is paralysed at the terrible vision, and humbly begs pardon of the hero for what he has said. Lamachus bids him repeat his words:—

And, to the general’s great disgust, he pretends to use it to tickle his throat. He is so terribly frightened he must be sick. Lamachus draws his sword, and makes at the scoffer; but in the tussle the general (to the great amusement, no doubt, of the audience) gets the worst of it. He indignantly demands to know who this vulgar fellow is, who has no respect for dignities:—

He appeals to his audience—did any of them ever get sent out as High Commissioners, with large salaries, like Lamachus? Not one of them. The whole administration of the Athenian war office is nothing but rank jobbery. The general, finding the argument taking a rather personal and unpleasant turn, goes off, with loud threats of what he will do to the Spartans; and DicÆopolis, assuming his own acquittal by the Acharnians, proclaims, on the strength of his private treaty of peace, a free and open market on his farm for Megarians and Thebans, and all the Peloponnesian Greeks.

An interval between what we should call the acts of the play is filled up by a “Parabasis” as it was termed—a chant in which the Chorus pleads the author’s cause with the audience. By his comedy of ‘The Babylonians,’ produced the year before, he had drawn upon him, as has been already said, the wrath of Cleon and his party, and they had even gone so far as to bring an indictment against him for treason against the state. And he now, by the mouth of the Chorus, makes a kind of half-apology for his former boldness, and assures the spectators that he has never been really disloyal to Athens. As to Cleon the tanner—he will “cut him into shoe-soles for the Knights;” and we have already seen how he kept his word.

When the regular action of the comedy is resumed, DicÆopolis has opened his free market. The first who comes to take advantage of it is an unfortunate Megarian, who has been reduced to poverty by the war. His native district, lying midway between the two powerful neighbours, had in its perplexity taken what they thought the strongest side, had put an Athenian garrison to the sword, and had suffered terribly from the vengeance of the Athenians in consequence. They had been excluded, on pain of death, from all ports and markets within the Athenian rule, and twice in every year orders were given to march into their territory and destroy their crops. The misery to which the wretched inhabitants were thus reduced is described with a grim humour. The Megarian, having nothing else left to dispose of, has brought his two little daughters to market for sale.

After some jokes upon the subject, not over-refined, DicÆopolis becomes the purchaser of the pair for a peck of salt and a rope of onions. He is sending the Megarian home rejoicing, and wishing that he could make as good a bargain for his wife and his mother as well, when that curse of the Athenian commonwealth, an informer, comes upon the scene. He at once denounces the pigs as contraband; but DicÆopolis calls the constables to remove him—he will have no informers in his market. The next visitor is a Theban, a hearty, good-humoured yeoman, but who disgusts DicÆopolis by bringing with him two or three pipers, whom the master of the market bids hold their noise and be off; Boeotian music, we are to understand, being always excruciating to the fine Athenian ear. The new-comer has brought with him, to barter for Athenian produce, fish, wild-fowl, and game of all kinds, including grasshoppers, hedgehogs, weasels, and—writing-tables. But what attracts the attention of DicÆopolis most is some splendid Copaic eels.[22] He has not seen their sweet faces, he vows, for six years or more—never since this cursed war began. He selects the finest, and calls at once for brazier and bellows to cook it. The Boeotian naturally asks to be paid for this pick of his basket; but DicÆopolis explains to him that he takes it by the landlord’s right, as “market-toll.” For the rest of the lot, however, he shall have payment in Athenian wares. “What will he take?—sprats? crockery?” Nay, they have plenty of these things at home, says the Theban; he would prefer some sort of article that is plentiful in Attica and scarce at Thebes. A bright idea strikes DicÆopolis at once:—

Apropos to the notion, an informer makes his appearance, and DicÆopolis stealthily points him out to the Boeotian. “He’s small,” remarks the latter, in depreciation. “Yes,” replies the Athenian; “but every inch of him is thoroughly bad.” As the man, intent on his vocation, is investigating the stranger’s goods, and calling witnesses to this breach of the law, DicÆopolis gives the signal, and in a trice he is seized, tied up with ropes and straw like a large jar, and after a few hearty kicks—administered to him just to see whether he rings sound or not—this choice specimen of Athenian produce is hoisted on the shoulders of a slave, and carried off as a curiosity to Thebes.

The concluding scene brings out in strong contrast the delights of peace and the miseries of war. General Lamachus has heard of the new market, and cannot resist the temptation to taste once more some of its now contraband luxuries. He sends a slave to buy for him a three-shilling eel. But no eel shall the man of war get from DicÆopolis—no, not if he would give his gorgon-faced shield for it; and the messenger has to return to his master empty. A farmer who has lost his oxen in one of the raids made by the enemy, and has heard of the private supply of Peace which is in the possession of DicÆopolis, comes to buy a small measure of it for himself, even if not of the strongest quality—the “five-years’ sort” would do. But he asks in vain. Next arrives a messenger from a newly-married bridegroom, who has a natural dislike under the circumstances to go on military service. Would DicÆopolis oblige him with a little of this blessed balsam, so that he may stay at home this one campaign?

While DicÆopolis is continuing his culinary preparations for the banquet which is to close the festival—preparations in which the old gentlemen of the Chorus, in spite of their objections to the truce, take a very lively interest—a messenger comes in hot haste to summon Lamachus. The Boeotians are meditating an attack on the frontier, hoping to take the Athenians at disadvantage at this time of national holiday. It is snowing hard; but the orders of the commanders-in-chief are imperative, and Lamachus must go to the front. And at this moment comes another messenger to call DicÆopolis to the banquet, which stays only for him. A long antithetic dialogue follows, pleasant, it must be supposed, to Athenian ears, who delighted in such word-fencing, tiresome to English readers. Lamachus orders out his knapsack; DicÆopolis bids his slave bring his dinner-service. The general, cursing all commanders-in-chief, calls for his plume; the Acharnian for roast pigeons. Lamachus calls for his spear; DicÆopolis for the meat-spit. The hero whirls his gorgon shield round; the other mimics the performance with a large cheese-cake. Losing patience at last, partly through envy of such good fare, and partly at the mocking tone of the other, Lamachus threatens him with his weapon; DicÆopolis defends himself with the spit, like Bailie Nicol Jarvie with his hot poker; and so, after this passage of broad farce, the scene closes—the general shouldering his knapsack and marching off into the snow-storm, while the other packs up his contribution to the public supper, at which he hastens to take his place.

A brief interval, filled by a choral ode, allows time enough in dramatic imagination for Lamachus’s expedition and for DicÆopolis’s feast. A messenger from the army rushes in hot haste upon the stage, and knocks loudly at the door of the former. “Hot-water, lint, plaister, splints!” The general has been wounded. In leaping a ditch he has sprained his ankle and broken his head; and here he comes. As the discomfited warrior limps in on the one side, groaning and complaining, DicÆopolis, with a train of joyous revellers, enters on the other. He does not spare his jests and mockeries upon the other’s miserable condition; and the piece closes with a tableau sufficiently suggestive of the advantages of peace over war—the general, supported by his attendants, having his wounds dressed, and roaring with pain, occupying one side of the stage; while the Acharnian revellers, crowned with garlands, shout their joyous drinking-songs to Bacchus on the other.

THE PEACE.

‘The Peace’ was brought out four years after ‘The Acharnians,’ when the war had already lasted ten years. This was not long before the conclusion of that treaty between the two great contending powers which men hoped was to hold good for fifty years, known as the Peace of Nicias. The leading idea of the plot is the same as in the previous comedy; the intense longing, on the part of the more domestic and less ambitious citizens, for relief from the prolonged miseries of the war.

TrygÆus,—whose name suggests the lost merriment of the vintage,—finding no help in men, has resolved to undertake an expedition in his own person, to heaven, to expostulate with Jupiter for allowing this wretched state of things to go on. With this object in view (after some previous attempts with a ladder, which, owing to the want of anything like a point d’appui, have naturally resulted in some awkward falls), he has fed and trained a dung-beetle, which is to carry him up to the Olympian throne; there being an ancient fable to the effect that the creature had once upon a time made his way there in pursuit of his enemy the eagle.[23] It is a burlesque upon the aerial journey of Bellerophon on Pegasus, as represented in one of the popular tragedies of Euripides; and TrygÆus addresses his strange steed as his “little Pegasus” accordingly. Mounted in this strange fashion, to the great alarm of his two daughters, he makes his appearance on the stage, and is raised bodily through the air, with many soothing speeches to the beetle, and a private “aside” to the machinist of the theatre to take great care of him, lest like his predecessor Bellerophon he should fall down and break his leg, and so furnish Euripides with another crippled hero for a tragedy. By some change of scenery he is next represented as having reached the door of Jupiter’s palace, where Mercury, as the servant in waiting, comes out to answer his knock.

No doubt it was: Aristophanes is writing history here with quite as much accuracy as most historians. Mercury goes on to explain to his visitor that the Greeks are never likely to see Peace again: War has cast her into a deep pit (which he points out), and heaped great stones upon her: and he has now got an enormous mortar, in which he proposes to pound all the cities of Greece, if he can only find a pestle big enough for his purpose. “But hark!” says Mercury—“I do believe he’s coming out! I must be off.” And while the god escapes, and TrygÆus hides himself in affright from the terrible presence, War, a grim giant in full panoply, and wearing, no doubt, the most truculent-looking mask which the theatrical artist could furnish, comes upon the scene, followed by his man Tumult, who lugs a huge mortar with him. Into this vessel War proceeds to throw various ingredients, which represent the several towns and states which were the principal sufferers in the late campaigns: leeks for PrasiÆ, garlic for Megara, cheese for Sicily. When he goes on to add some Attic honey to his olio, TrygÆus can scarcely restrain himself from giving vent aloud to the remonstrance which he utters in an “aside”—not to use so terribly expensive an article. Tumult is forthwith despatched (with a cuff on the head for his slowness) to fetch a pestle of sufficient weight for his master’s purpose. He goes to Athens first; but their great war-pestle has just been lost—Cleon, the mainstay of the war party, has been killed in battle at Amphipolis, in Thrace. The messenger is next despatched to Sparta, but returns with no better success: the Spartans had lent their pestle to the Thracians, and Brasidas had fallen, with the Athenian general, in that same battle at Amphipolis. TrygÆus, who all this while has been trembling in his hiding-place, begins to take heart, while War retires with his slave to manufacture a new pestle for himself. Now, in his absence, is the great opportunity to rescue Peace from her imprisonment. TrygÆus shouts to all good Greeks, especially the farmers, the tradesmen, and the working classes, to come to his aid; and a motley Chorus, equipped with shovels, ropes, and crow-bars, appear in answer to his call. They give him a good deal of annoyance, however, because, true to their stage business as Chorus, instead of setting to work at once they will waste the precious minutes in dancing and singing,—a most incongruous proceeding, as he observes, when everything depends upon speed and silence; an amusing sarcasm from a writer of what we may call operatic burlesque upon the conventional absurdities which are even more patent in our modern serious opera than in Athenian comedy. At last they go to work in earnest, and succeed in bribing Mercury, who returns when War is out of the way, to help them. But to get Peace out of the pit requires, as TrygÆus tells them, “a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether.” And first the Boeotians will not pull, and then the Argives, and then the Megarians; and Lamachus, the impersonation of the war party at Athens here as in ‘The Acharnians,’ gets in the way, and has to be removed; until at last the “country party”—the husbandmen—lay hold with a will, and Peace, with her companions “Plenty” and “Holiday,” represented also by two beautiful women, is drawn up from the pit, and hailed with great joy by TrygÆus and the Chorus. But Peace, for a while, stands silent and indignant in the midst of their congratulations. She will not open her lips, says Mercury, in the presence of this audience. She has confided the reason to him in a whisper—for she never speaks throughout the play: she is angry at having been thrice rejected by vote in the Athenian assembly when she offered herself to them after the affair of Pylos. But she is soon so far appeased, that with her two fair companions she accompanies TrygÆus to earth. The beetle remains behind—having received an appointment to run under Jupiter’s chariot and carry the lightning.

The last act—which, as is commonly the case with these comedies, is quite supplementary to what we moderns should call the catastrophe of the piece—takes place in front of TrygÆus’s country house, where he celebrates his nuptials with the fair OpÓra (Plenty), whom Mercury has presented to him as the reward of his good service. The festival held on the occasion is represented on the stage with a detail which was probably not tedious to an Athenian audience. All who ply peaceful arts and trades are freely welcomed to it; while those who make their gain by war—the sooth-sayer who promulgates his warlike oracles to delude men’s minds, the trumpeter, the armourer, and the singer of war-songs—are all dismissed by the triumphant vine-dresser with ignominy and contempt.

One little point in this play is worth notice, as a trait of generous temper on the part of the dramatist. Cleon, his great personal enemy, was now dead. He has not been able to restrain himself from aiming a blow at him even now, as one of those whom he looks upon, justly or unjustly, as the authors of the miseries of Greece. But he holds his hand half-way. When Mercury is descanting upon some of these evils which went near to the ruin of Athens, he is made to say that “the Tanner”—i.e., Cleon—was the cause of them. TrygÆus interrupts him,—

This forbearance towards his dead enemy is turned off, it is true, with a jest to the effect that anything bad which Mercury could say of him now would be a reproach to that ghostly company of which the god had especial charge; but even under the sarcasm we may willingly think there lies a recognition of the great principle, that the faults of the dead should be buried with them.

Lysistrata.

The comedy of ‘Lysistrata,’ which was produced some ten years later, deals with the same subject from quite a different point of view. The war has now lasted twenty-one years. The women of Athens have grown hopeless of any termination of it so long as the management of affairs is left in the hands of the men, and impatient of the privations which its continuance involves. They determine, under the leading of the clever Lysistrata,[24] wife to one of the magistrates, to take the question into their own hands. They resolve upon a voluntary separation from their husbands—a practical divorce a mensa et thoro—until peace with Sparta shall be proclaimed. The meeting of these fair conspirators is called very early in the morning, while the husbands (at least such few of them as the campaign has left at home) are in bed and asleep. By a liberal stage licence, the women of Sparta (who talk a very broad Doric), of Corinth, and Boeotia, and, in fact, the female representatives generally of all Greece, attend the gathering, in spite of distance and of the existence of the war. All take an oath to observe this self-denying ordinance strictly—not without an amusing amount of reluctance on the part of some weaker spirits, which is at last overcome by the firm example of a Spartan lady. It is resolved that a body of the elder matrons shall seize the Acropolis, and make themselves masters of the public treasury. These form one of the two Choruses in the play, the other being composed of the old men of Athens. The latter proceed (with a good deal of comic difficulty, owing to the steepness of the ascent and their shortness of breath) to attack the Acropolis, armed with torches and fagots and pans of charcoal, with which they hope to smoke out the occupants. But the women have provided themselves with buckets of water, which they empty on the heads of their assailants, who soon retire discomfited to call the police. But the police are in their turn repulsed by these resolute insurgents, whom they do not exactly know how to deal with. At last a member of the Public Committee comes forward to parley, and a dialogue takes place between him and Lysistrata. Why, he asks, have they thus taken possession of the citadel? They have resolved henceforth to manage the public revenues themselves, is the reply, and not allow them to be applied to carrying on this ruinous war. That is no business for women, argues the magistrate. “Why not?” says Lysistrata; “the wives have long had the management of the private purses of the husbands, to the great advantage of both.” In short, the women have made up their minds to have their voice no longer ignored, as hitherto, in questions of peace and war. Their remonstrances have always been met with the taunt that “war is the business of men;” and to any question they have ventured to ask their husbands on such points, the answer has always been the old cry—old as the days of Homer—“Go spin, you jade, go spin!”[25] But they will put up with it no longer. As they have always had wit enough to clear the tangled threads in their work, so they have no doubt of settling all these difficulties and complications in international disputes, if it is left to them. But what concern, her opponent asks, can women have with war, who contribute nothing to its dangers and hardships? “Contribute, indeed!” says the lady—“we contribute the sons who carry it on.” And she throws down to her adversary her hood, her basket, and her spindle, and bids him “go home and card wool,”—it is all such old men are fit for; henceforth the proverb (of the men’s making) shall be reversed,—“War shall be the care of the women.” The magistrate retires, not having got the best of it, very naturally, in an encounter of words; and the Chorus of elders raise the cry—well known as a popular partisan-cry at Athens, and sure to call forth a hearty laugh in such juxtaposition—that the women are designing to “set up a Tyranny!”

But poor Lysistrata soon has her troubles. Her unworthy recruits are fast deserting her. They are going off to their husbands in the most sneaking manner—creeping out through the little hole under the citadel which led to the celebrated cave of Pan, and letting themselves down from the walls by ropes at the risk of breaking their necks. Those who are caught all have excellent excuses. One has some fleeces of fine Milesian wool at home which must be seen to,—she is sure the moths are eating them. Another has urgent occasion for the doctor; a third cannot sleep alone for fear of the owls—of which, as every one knows, there were really a great many at Athens. The husbands, too, are getting uncomfortable without their housekeepers; there is no one to cook their victuals; and one poor soul comes and humbly entreats his wife at least to come home to wash and dress the baby.

It is becoming plain that either the war or the wives’ resolution will soon give way, when there arrives an embassy from Sparta. They cannot stand this general strike of the wives. They are agreed already with their enemies the Athenians on one point—as to the women—that the old Greek comedian’s[26] proverb, which we have borrowed and translated freely, is true,—

They are come to offer terms of peace. When two parties are already of one mind, as Lysistrata observes, they are not long in coming to an understanding. A treaty is made on the spot, with remarkably few preliminaries. The Spartan ambassadors are carried off at once to an entertainment in the Acropolis under the presidency of Lysistrata; and the Athenians find, as is so often the case when those who have been the bitterest opponents become better acquainted, that the Spartans are excellent fellows in their cups—nay, positively entertaining, as one of the plenipotentiaries who returns from the banquet declares; which last would be quite a new characteristic, to the ears of an Athenian audience, of their slow and steady neighbours. So charmed are the Chorus with the effect of a little wholesome conviviality upon national temper, that they deliver it as their decided opinion that in future all embassies to foreign states should be fairly drunk before they set out. When men are sober, they are critical and suspicious, and put a wrong interpretation on things, and stand upon their dignity; but under the genial influence of good liquor there is a disposition to make everything pleasant. And so, with two choric hymns, chanted by Spartans and Athenians in turn—so bright and graceful that they would seem out of place in such wild company, but that we know the poet meant them to herald the joy with which a real Peace would be welcomed—this broad extravaganza ends.

For the humour is indeed of the broadest, in some passages, even for Aristophanes. But in spite of coarse language, it has been justly said by modern critics in the poet’s defence, that the moral of the piece is honest and true. The longing for that domestic happiness which has been interrupted and shattered by twenty years of incessant war, is a far more wholesome sentiment, in its nature and effects, than very much of modern sentiment which passes under finer names.