The Eleven Comedies, vol 1 | Page 5

of social custom and morality then prevailing.
The Ancients never understood modesty quite in the same way as our
refined modern civilization does; they spoke of everything without the
smallest reticence, and expressions which would revolt the least
squeamish amongst ourselves did not surprise or shock the most
fastidious. We ought not, therefore, to blame too severely the Comic
Poet, who after all was only following in this respect the habits of his
age; and if his pictures are often repulsively bestial, let us lay most

blame to the account of a state of society which deserved to be painted
in such odiously black colours. Doubtless Aristophanes might have
given less Prominence to these cynical representations, instead of
revelling in them, as he really seems to have done; men of taste and
refinement, and there must have been such even among his audience,
would have thought all the better of him! But it was the populace filled
the bulk of the benches, and the populace loved coarse laughter and
filthy words. The Poet supplied what the majority demanded; he was
not the man to sacrifice one of the easiest and surest means of winning
applause and popularity.
Aristophanes enjoyed an ample share of glory in his lifetime, and
posterity has ratified the verdict given by his contemporaries. The
epitaph is well-known which Plato composed for him, after his death:
"The Graces, seeking an imperishable sanctuary, found the soul of
Aristophanes." Such eulogy may appear excessive to one who
re-peruses after the lapse of twenty centuries these pictures of a
vanished world. But if, despite the profound differences of custom,
taste and opinion which separate our own age from that of the Greeks,
despite the obscurity of a host of passages whose especial point lay in
their reference to some topic of the moment, and which inevitably leave
us cold at the present day--if, despite all this, we still feel ourselves
carried away, charmed, diverted, dominated by this dazzling verve,
these copious outpourings of imagination, wit and poesy, let us try to
realize in thought what must have been the unbounded pleasure of an
Athenian audience listening to one of our Author's satires. Then every
detail was realized, every nuance of criticism appreciated; every
allusion told, and the model was often actually sitting in the semicircle
of the auditorium facing the copy at that time being presented on the
stage. "What a passion of excitement! What transports of enthusiasm
and angry protest! What bursts of uncontrollable merriment! What
thunders of applause! How the Comic Poet must have felt himself a
King, indeed, in presence of these popular storms which, like the god
of the sea, he could arouse and allay at his good will and pleasure!"[2]
To return for a moment to the coarseness of language so often pointed
to as a blot in Aristophanes. "The great comedian has been censured

and apologized for on this ground, over and over again. His personal
exculpation must always rest upon the fact, that the wildest licence in
which he indulged was not only recognized as permissible, but actually
enjoined as part of the ceremonial at these festivals of Bacchus; that it
was not only in accordance with public taste, but was consecrated as a
part of the national religion.... But the coarseness of Aristophanes is not
corrupting. There is nothing immoral in his plots, nothing really
dangerous in his broadest humour. Compared with some of our old
English dramatists, he is morality itself. And when we remember the
plots of some French and English plays which now attract fashionable
audiences, and the character of some modern French and English
novels not unfrequently found (at any rate in England) upon
drawing-room tables, the least that can be said is, that we had better not
cast stones at Aristophanes."[3] Moreover, it should be borne in mind
that Athenian custom did not sanction the presence of women--at least
women of reputable character--at these performances.
The particular plays, though none are free from it, which most abound
in this ribald fun--for fun it always is, never mere pruriency for its own
sake, Aristophanes has a deal of the old 'esprit gaulois' about him--are
the 'Peace' and, as might be expected from its theme, lending itself so
readily to suggestive allusions and situations, above all the 'Lysistrata.'
The 'Thesmophoriazusae' and 'Ecclesiazusae' also take ample toll in this
sort of the 'risqué' situations incidental to their plots, the dressing up of
men as women in the former, and of women as men in the latter.
Needless to say, no faithful translator will emasculate his author by
expurgation, and the reader will here find Aristophanes' Comedies as
Aristophanes wrote them, not as Mrs. Grundy might wish him to have
written them.
These performances took place at the Festivals of Dionysus (Bacchus),
either