The Eleven Comedies Vol 1 Part 40

[307] The G.o.ddess of fruits.

[308] Aristophanes personifies under this name the sacred ceremonies in general which peace would allow to be celebrated with due pomp. Opora and Theoria come on the stage in the wake of Peace, clothed and decked out as courtesans.

[309] Aristophanes has already shown us the husbandmen and workers in peaceful trades pulling at the rope to extricate Peace, while the armourers hindered them by pulling the other way.

[310] An allusion to Lamachus' shield.

[311] Having been commissioned to execute a statue of Athene, Phidias was accused of having stolen part of the gold given him out of the public treasury for its decoration. Rewarded for his work by calumny and banishment, he resolved to make a finer statue than his Athene, and executed one for the temple of Elis, that of the Olympian Zeus, which was considered one of the wonders of the world.

[312] He had issued a decree, which forbade the admission of any Megarian on Attic soil, and also all trade with that people. The Megarians, who obtained all their provisions from Athens, were thus almost reduced to starvation.

[313] That is, the vineyards were ravaged from the very outset of the war, and this increased the animosity.

[314] Driven in from the country parts by the Lacedaemonian invaders.

[315] The demagogues, who distributed the slender dole given to the poor, and by that means exercised undue power over them.

[316] Meaning, the side of the Spartans.

[317] Cleon.

[318] It was Hermes who conducted the souls of the dead down to the lower regions.

[319] The Spartans had thrice offered to make peace after the Pylos disaster.

[320] i.e. dominated by Cleon.

[321] There is a pun here, that cannot be rendered, between [Greek: apobolimaios], which means, one who throws away his weapons, and [Greek: upobolimaios], which signifies, a supposit.i.tious child.

[322] Simonides was very avaricious, and sold his pen to the highest bidder. It seems that Sophocles had also started writing for gain.

[323] i.e. he would recoil from no risk to turn an honest penny.

[324] A comic poet as well known for his love of wine as for his writings; he died in 431 B.C., the first year of the war, at the age of ninety-seven.

[325] Opora was the G.o.ddess of fruits.

[326] The Scholiast says fruit may be eaten with impunity in great quant.i.ties if care is taken to drink a decoction of this herb afterwards.

[327] Theoria is confided to the care of the Senate, because it was this body who named the [Greek: The_orhoi], deputies appointed to go and consult the oracles beyond the Attic borders or to be present at feasts and games.

[328] The great festivals, e.g. the Dionysia, lasted three days. Those in honour of the return of Peace, which was so much desired, could not last a shorter time.

[329] In spite of what he says, Aristophanes has not always disdained this sort of low comedy-for instance, his Heracles in 'The Birds.'

[330] A celebrated Athenian courtesan of Aristophanes' day.

[331] Cleon. These four verses are here repeated from the parabasis of 'The Wasps,' produced 423 B.C., the year before this play.

[332] Shafts aimed at certain poets, who used their renown as a means of seducing young men to grant them pederastic favours.

[333] The poet supplied everything needful for the production of his piece-vases, dresses, masks, etc.

[334] Aristophanes was bald himself, it would seem.

[335] Carcinus and his three sons were both poets and dancers. (See the closing scene of 'The Wasps.') Perhaps relying little on the literary value of their work, it seems that they sought to please the people by the magnificence of its staging.

[336] He had written a piece called 'The Mice,' which he succeeded with great difficulty in getting played, but it met with no success.

[337] This pa.s.sage really follows on the invocation, "Oh, Muse! drive the War," etc., from which indeed it is only divided by the interpolated criticism aimed at Carcinus.

[338] The Scholiast informs us that these verses are borrowed from a poet of the sixth century B.C.

[339] Sons of Philocles, of the family of Aeschylus, tragic writers, derided by Aristophanes as bad poets and notorious gluttons.

[340] The Gorgons were represented with great teeth, and therefore the same name was given to gluttons. The Harpies, to whom the two voracious poets are also compared, were monsters with the face of a woman, the body of a vulture and hooked beak and claws.

[341] A tragic and dithyrambic poet, who had written many pieces, which had met with great success at Athens.

[342] The shooting stars.

[343] That is, men's tools;-we can set her to 'f.e.l.l.a.t.e.'

[344] It has already been mentioned that the sons of Carcinus were dancers.

[345] It was customary at weddings, says Menander, to give the bride a sesame-cake as an emblem of fruitfulness, because sesame is the most fruitful of all seeds.

[346] An Attic town on the east coast, noted for a magnificent temple, in which stood the statue of Artemis, which Orestes and Iphigenia had brought from the Tauric Chersonese and also for the Brauronia, festivals that were celebrated every four years in honour of the G.o.ddess. This was one of the festivals which the Attic people kept with the greatest pomp, and was an occasion for debauchery.

[347] Compet.i.tors intending to take part in the great Olympic, Isthmian and other games took with them a tent, wherein to camp in the open. Further, there is an obscene allusion which the actor indicates by gesture, pointing to the girl's privates, signifying there is the lodging where he would fain find a delightful abode. The 'Isthmus' is the perineum, the narrow s.p.a.ce betwixt a.n.u.s and cunnus.

[348] He was a 'cunnilingue,' as we gather also from what Aristophanes says of his infamous habits in the 'Knights.'

[349] Doubtless the vessels and other sacrificial objects and implements with which Theoria was laden in her character of presiding deity at religious ceremonies.

[350] The whole pa.s.sage is full of obscene double entendres. Theoria throughout is spoken of in words applicable to either of her twofold character-as a sacred, religious feast, and as a lady of pleasure.

[351] Where the meats were cooked after sacrifice; Trygaeus points to Theoria's privates, marking the secondary obscene sense he means to convey.

[352] "Or otherwise"-that is, with the standing p.e.n.i.s. The whole sentence contains a series of allusions to different 'modes of love.'

[353] One of the offices of the Prytanes was to introduce those who asked admission to the Senate, but it would seem that none could obtain this favour without payment. Without this, a thousand excuses would be made; for instance, it would be a public holiday, and consequently the Senate could receive no one. As there was some festival nearly every day, he whose purse would not open might have to wait a very long while.

[354] This was only offered to lesser deities.

[355] In the Greek we have a play upon the similarity of the words, [Greek: bous], a bull, and [Greek: boan], to shout the battle cry.

[356] Theagenes, of the Piraeus, a hideous, coa.r.s.e, debauched and evil-living character of the day.