The Eleven Comedies, vol 1 | Page 4

for its own sake, even when the point told against
themselves, this people of mockers felt convinced the Gods appreciated
raillery just as well as men did. Moreover, the Greeks do not appear to
have had any very strong attachment to Paganism as a matter of
dogmatic belief. To say nothing of the enlightened classes, who saw in
this vast hierarchy of divinities only an ingenious allegory, the
populace even was mainly concerned with the processions and songs

and dances, the banquets and spectacular shows and all the external
pomp and splendour of a cult the magnificence and varied rites of
which amused its curiosity. But serious faith, ardent devotion, dogmatic
discussion, is there a trace of these things? A sensual and poetic type of
religion, Paganism was accepted at Athens only by the imagination, not
by the reason; its ceremonies were duly performed, without any real
piety touching the heart. Thus the audience felt no call to champion the
cause of their deities when held up to ribaldry on the open stage; they
left them to defend themselves--if they could.
Thus Aristophanes, we see, covered the whole field of thought; he
scourged whatever was vicious or ridiculous, whether before the altars
of the Gods, in the schools of the Sophists, or on the Orators' platform.
But the wider the duty he undertook, the harder it became to fulfil this
duty adequately. How satisfy a public made up of so many and such
diverse elements, so sharply contrasted by birth, fortune, education,
opinion, interest? How hold sway over a body of spectators, who were
at the same time judges? To succeed in the task he was bound to be
master of all styles of diction--at one and the same time a dainty poet
and a diverting buffoon. It is just this universality of genius, this
combination of the most eminent and various qualities, that has won
Aristophanes a place apart among satirists; and if it be true to say that
well-written works never die, the style alone of his Comedies would
have assured their immortality.
No writer, indeed, has been more pre-eminent in that simple, clear,
precise, elegant diction that is the peculiar glory of Attic literature, the
brilliant yet concise quality of which the authors of no other Greek city
were quite able to attain. He shows, each in its due turn, vigour and
suppleness of language, he exercises a sure and spontaneous choice of
correct terms, the proper combination of harmonious phrases, he goes
straight to his object, he aims well and hits hard, even when he seems
to be merely grazing the surface. Under his apparent negligence lies
concealed the high perfection of accomplished art. This applies to the
dialogues. In the choruses, Aristophanes speaks the tongue of Pindar
and Sophocles; he follows the footsteps of those two mighty masters of
the choric hymn into the highest regions of poetry; his lyric style is

bold, impetuous, abounding in verve and brilliance, yet without the
high-flown inspiration ever involving a lapse from good taste.
One of the forms in which he is fondest of clothing his conceptions is
allegory; it may truly lie said that the stage of Aristophanes is a series
of caricatures where every idea has taken on a corporeal presentment
and is reproduced under human lineaments. To personify the abstract
notion, to dress it up in the shape of an animated being for its better
comprehension by the public, is in fact a proceeding altogether in
harmony with the customs and conventions of Ancient Comedy. The
Comic Poet never spares us a single detail of everyday life, no matter
how commonplace or degrading; he pushes the materialistic delineation
of the passions and vices to the extreme limit of obscene gesture and
the most cynical shamelessness of word and act.
This scorn of propriety, this unchecked licence of speech, has often
been made a subject of reproach against Aristophanes, and it appears to
the best modern critics that the poet would have been not a whit less
diverting or effective had he respected the dictates of common decency.
But it is only fair, surely, before finally condemning our Author, to
consider whether the times in which he lived, the origin itself of the
Greek Comedy, and the constitution of the audience, do not entitle him
at any rate to claim the benefit of extenuating circumstances. We must
not forget that Comedy owes its birth to those festivals at which
Priapus was adored side by side with Bacchus, and that 'Phallophoria'
(carrying the symbols of generation in procession) still existed as a
religious rite at the date when Aristophanes was composing his plays.
Nor must we forget that theatrical performances were at Athens
forbidden pleasures to women and children. Above all we should take
full account of the code