The Eleven Comedies, vol 1 | Page 6

the Great Dionysia or the minor celebration of the Lenaea, and
were in a sense religious ceremonials--at any rate under distinct
religious sanction. The representations were held in the Great Theatre
of Dionysus, under the slope of the Acropolis, extensive remains of
which still exist; several plays were brought out at each festival in
competition, and prizes, first and second, were awarded to the most

successful productions--rewards which were the object of the most
intense ambition.
Next to nothing is known of the private life of Aristophanes, and that
little, beyond the two or three main facts given below, is highly dubious,
not to say apocryphal. He was born about 444 B.C., probably at Athens.
His father held property in Aegina, and the family may very likely have
come originally from that island. At any rate, this much is certain, that
the author's arch-enemy Cleon made more than one judicial attempt to
prove him of alien birth and therefore not properly entitled to the rights
of Athenian citizenship; but in this he entirely failed. The great
Comedian had three sons, but of these and their career history says
nothing whatever. Such incidents and anecdotes of our author's literary
life as have come down to us are all connected with one or other of the
several plays, and will be found alluded to in the special Introductions
prefixed to these. He died about 380 B.C.--the best and central years of
his life and work thus coinciding with the great national period of stress
and struggle, the Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C. He continued to
produce plays for the Athenian stage for the long period of thirty-seven
years; though only eleven Comedies, out of a reputed total of forty,
have survived.
A word or two as to existing translations of Aristophanes. These, the
English ones at any rate, leave much to be desired; indeed it is not too
much to say that there is no version of our Author in the language
which gives the general reader anything like an adequate notion of
these Plays. We speak of prose renderings. Aristophanes has been far
more fortunate in his verse translators--Mitchell, who published four
Comedies in this form in 1822, old-fashioned, but still helpful,
Hookham Frere, five plays (1871), both scholarly and spirited, and last
but not least, Mr. Bickley Rogers, whose excellent versions have
appeared at intervals since 1867. But from their very nature these
cannot afford anything like an exact idea of the 'ipsissima verba' of the
Comedies, while all slur over or omit altogether passages in any way
'risqué.' There remains only our old friend 'Bohn' ("The Comedies of
Aristophanes; a literal Translation by W. J. Hickie"), and what stuff
'Bohn' is! By very dint of downright literalness--though not, by-the-bye,

always downright accuracy--any true notion of the Author's meaning is
quite obscured. The letter kills the spirit.
The French prose versions are very good. That by C. Poyard (in the
series of "Chefs-d'oeuvre des Littératures Anciennes") combines
scholarly precision with an easy, racy, vernacular style in a way that
seems impossible to any but a French scholar.
The order here adopted for the successive plays differs slightly from
that observed in most editions; but as these latter do not agree amongst
themselves, this small assumption of licence appears not unwarrantable.
Chronologically 'The Acharnians' (426 B.C.) should come first; but it
seems more convenient to group it with the two other "Comedies of the
War," the whole trilogy dealing with the hardships involved by the
struggle with the Lacedaemonians and the longings of the Athenian
people for the blessings of peace. This leaves 'The Knights' to open the
whole series--the most important politically of all Aristophanes'
productions, embodying as it does his trenchant attack on the great
demagogue Cleon and striking the keynote of the author's general
attitude as advocate of old-fashioned conservatism against the new
democracy, its reckless 'Imperialism' and the unscrupulous and
self-seeking policy, so the aristocratic party deemed it, of its accredited
leaders.
Order, as thus rearranged, approximate date, and motif (in brief) of each
of the eleven Comedies are given below:
'The Knights': 424 B.C.--eighth year of the War. Attacks Cleon, the
Progressives, and the War policy generally.
Comedies of the War:--
'The Acharnians': 426 B.C.--sixth year of the War. Insists on the
miseries consequent on the War, especially affecting the rural
population, as represented by the Acharnian Dicaeopolis and his fellow
demesmen. Incidentally makes fun of the tragedian Euripides.
'Peace': 422 B.C.--tenth year of the War. Further insists on the same

theme, and enlarges on the blessings of Peace. The hero Trygaeus flies
to Olympus, mounted on a beetle, to bring back the goddess Peace to
earth.
'Lysistrata': 411 B.C.--twenty-first year of the War. A burlesque
conspiracy entered into by the confederated women of Hellas, led by
Lysistrata the Athenian,