CORNFORD, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1914

Sibl
CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME

OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT
FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY
HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE
OnWersity
Ubrary
CorneU
PA 3161.C81
The ,riQin of
o"! AtafflTwil
Cornell University
Library
The original of tiiis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in

the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022693117
THE ORIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
BY THE SAME
THE ORIGIN OF
ATTIC COMEDY
BY
FRANCIS MACDONALD CORNFORD

FBLLOW OF TBINITY COLLEGE, OAMBBIDGE
Movca (TV [i^v iroX£|J.ov5 diro)(ra|jL^VTi |i.£t' cuov

Tov <f){\ov \6fieva'0Vt
KXcCovcra Ocuv re ^dfJLOvs dvSpwv re Satras
Kal 6a\Cas |i.aKdpuv'

(Tol ^dp Td8' e^ dp^tjs picXci.
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1914
All rights reserved

-3/(0 I
TO
GILBERT MURRAY
PEEFACE
Aristotle observes that at the date from which the record of
comic poets begins, Attic Comedy had akeady 'certain definite
forms.' 1 The hypothesis put forward in this book is that these
traditional '
forms/ still clearly traceable in the constant features
of the Aristophanic play, were inherited from a ritual drama, the
content which can be reconstructed.
of Chapters ii to viii
contain the argument for this theory, and Chapter ix deals with
the paradox (if paradox it be) that the ritual drama Ipng behind
Comedy proves to be essentially of the same type as that in which
Professor Gilbert Murray has sought the origin of Tragedy.
I was not myself prepared for any such conclusion. This book
was plaimed, and part of it (now cancelled) was even written, while
I still accepted the current view that Aristophanic Comedy is a
patchwork of elements loosely pieced together, and in origin
possibly foreign to one another. A closer study of the eleven plays
convinced me that this opinion was almost wholly mistaken. The
. plays, under all their variety and extravagance, have not only a
unity of structure, but a framework of traditional incidents, which
cannot, I believe, be otherwise explained than as the surviving fabric
of a ritual plot. The hypothesis was thus forced upon me by the
facts ; but very probably it would never have occurred to me, if
I had not had in my mind Professor Murray's theory of the '

ritual
forms' in Tragedy. My debt to him is, therefore, great. The

dedication marks my sense of it, as well as my gratitude for all
that I have learnt from his imaginative and delicate interpretation

of Greek poetry.
Among owe most to Zielinski, whose Gliederung
earlier writers, I
der altattischen Komodie contained the first serious effort to account

for the unique structure of the Old Comedy. Pursuing further
^ Poetics, 5: -IjSti Si a-xil'^Td riya air^s ixoi<rTii oi Xc7i/*«i'oi airlj! iroi-qral
fiVT)fU)veiovrai,
viii THE ORIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
the Unes suggested by ZieUnski, I have reached
many conclusions
lessen my admira-
that are at variance with his ; but this does not
insight. The other
tion for his masterly handUng and fineness of
most are mentioned in the
writings from which I have learnt
BibUography.
Two have given me much help
friends Miss Jane Harrison
:
and Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook. To Mr. Cook I am particularly
indebted for allowing me to see proofs of his forthcoming book,

most important discussion of Dionysiac
Zeus, which contains a
ritual, and for consenting, with his unfaiUng generosity, to read
my manuscript at a time when the pressure of his own work was
heavy upon him. Miss Harrison has let me draw upon stores of
learning far greater than my own. My theory, moreover, Uke
Professor Murray's, rests upon conceptions which she has done
much to elucidate.
For the convenience of the reader who may be unable to carry

in hishead the plots and structure of the eleven plays, I have added
a Synopsis at the end of the volume, giving a brief summary of the
action, and indicating the occurrence of the ritual motives discussed
in the text.
That Tragedy and Comedy should have the same divine pro-
tagonist, the dying God whose defeat is a victory, the ironical
Bufioon whose folly confounds the pretence of wisdom this is a —
mystery of Dionysiac religion, the treatment of which here is neces-
sarily incomplete for this book contains no independent study
;
of the essence of Greek Tragedy. I hope some day to rettirn to

the question, and try to define further the relations which Tragedy
and Comedy have to each other, and to their common source in
ritual. Meanwhile, I shall be content if those who feel the fasci-
nation of tracing Uterary origins find in this preliminary study of
Comedy a fresh and not misleading clue to a very curious chapter
in the history of drama.
F. M. C.
TbINIIY COLLBGIi, Cambiudoii,

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY
1. The Data for Inquiry,
2. The Structure of an Aristophanic Play,
3. Some current Theories of the Origin of Comedy,
II
THE EXODOS
4. The Exodos Marriage and Kdmos,
: 8
5. The Exodoi of the Plays, . 9
6. The Problem of the final Marriage, 16
7. The Sacred Marriage, 18
8. The New Ood and the New King, . 20
9. The New Zeus in the Birds, 21
10. The Sacred Marriage of Dionysus and the Queen at Athens, 24
11. The New Zeus in the Plutus, 25
12. Trygaeus as Bellerophon in the Peace, 27
13. The New Zeus in the Clouds, 28
14. The New King in the Knights and the Frogs, 31
15. The Women Plays, 33
III
THE PHALLIC SONGS

16. Aristotle's Statements about the Origin of Comedy, 35
17. The Fourth Chapter of the Poetics, 35
18. The Phallic Song in the Acharnians, 37
19. The form and content of the Phallic Song, 38
20. The Phallophori, Ithyphalli, Autokabdali, 41
21. The same elements in the Parabasis, 45
22. The incompleteness of Aristotle's statement, 46
23. The essential content of phallic rites, 48
24. The transition to ritual drama. 51
THE OEIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
rv
SOME TYPES OP DRAMATIC FERTILITY RITUAL

PAGE
25. ClassiflcaMon of types, 53

26. The Carrying out of Death, 53
27. The Fight of Swnmer and Winter, 56
28. The Toung and the Old King, 57
29. The Death and Resurrection type, 58
30. Survivals of these rites in folk plays. 60
31. Description of the English Mummers' Play, 61
32. The Festival Plays in Northern Greece, 62
33. The ancient Armed Dance, 65
34. The Fight of Xanthus and Melanthus, 66
AGON, SACRIEICE, AND FEAST

36. The Agon contrasted with the struggle of the romantic plot, 70
36. The Characters in the Agon, 71
37. The Form of the Agon, 72
38. A '
dramatised debate,' 73
39. The Agones in the Plays, . 75
40. Summary and conclusions, 83
41. The Resurrection Motive, . 84
42. The Frogs and the Peace, . 85
43. The Rejuvenation of Demos in the Knights, 87
44. Rejuvenation in other plays, 90
45. The Sacrifice and the Feast, 93
46. Sacrifice and Feast in the Plays, 94
47. The Significance of the Sacrifice and Feast,
....
99
48. The scattering of sweetmeats to the spectators, 100
49. Conclusion, 103
VI
THE CHORUS IN AGON AND PARABASI8
60. The part of the Chorus in the Agon,
106
.51. The Function of the comic Chorus, .
107
62. Antiolioria and Epirrhematic structure,
108
53. Choral matches in abuse (aiVxpoXoyi'ai),
54. Ritual Combats for fertility,
56.
56.
The Sophistic Antilogy,
The mediaeval D6bat,
.... 110
111
114
in
CONTENTS XI
FAOU
67. The Choral Agon : the Parabasis, 120
58. The Form of the Parabasis, 121
59. The Anapaests, . 122
60. The Second Part of the Parabasis, 124
61. The Parabasis of the Lysistrata, 125
62. The Parabasis a Choral Agon, 128
63. The Second Parabasis, 130
64. Epirrhematic and Episodic ' '
composition, 131
VII
THE IMPOSTOR
65. The unwelcome Intruders, . 132
66. The Ira/postors in the Plays, 133
67. The Eiron and the Alazon, 136
68. The Minor Buffoon, 139
69. Who is the Impostor ? 140
70. The Im/postor scenes as Episodes,' '
141
71. The Analogy with the Kasperlespiel, 142
72. Punch and Judy, . 144
73. The Impostor a douhle of the Antagonist, 148
74. The Impostor in the Dragon-slaying myths. 152
VIII
THE STOCK MASKS OP THE OLD COMEDY

75. The major Impostors, 154
76. The Miles Oloriosus : 165
77. The Learned Doctor : Socrates, 156
78. The Learned Doctor : Euripides, . 162
79. The Miles Ghriosus : Aeschylus, . 163
80. The Cook : the Sausage-seller, Agoracritus, 164
81. The Parasite : Gleon, 166
82. The absence of individual characterisation, 168
83. The Age and Sex Types : the Old Man and the Young Man 171
84. The Old Woman and the Young Woman, . 174
85. The list of Stock Masks in the Old Comedy, 175
86. The Masks in the New Comedy, 175
87. Aristophanes on Vulgar Comedy,'
'
177
88. The Pdoponnesian Mime and its derivatives, 179
89. The Stock Masks in Vulgar Comedy,' '
181
90. The Stock Masks in the AteUane farce, 183
91. The Affinities of these forms of drama, 185
92. Hmo does svjch a set of stock masks originate ? 187
xa THE ORIGIN OF ATTIO COMEDY
IX
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
PAQE
93. How did Comedy and Tragedy differentiate ? 190
94. The ritual was probably indigenous, 192
The Dionysiac festivals at Athens, 193
....
95.
Plot and Character in Tragedy and Comedy : the primcuiy of Plot in
Tragedy, 195
97. The primacy of Character in Comedy, 197
The tragic Myth and the comic Logos, 199
„ 99. Character in Tragedy, 200
-9400. Character in Comedy, 201
101. Why Tragedy represents '
exalted persons^ 204
102. The germs of Tragedy and Comedy in the original 207
103. Tragedy or Comedy, a difference of emphasis. 212
^ 104. The History of the Old Comedy, 216
Synopsis of the extant Plays, 221

Bibliography, 244
Addenda, 246
Index, . 247
—
Note. The design on the title-page is copied from a coloured drawing by
George Cruikshank in Pa3Tie CoUier's Punch and Judy, London, 1870.
THE OEIGII^ OF ATTIC COMEDY
CHAPTEK I
INTRODUCTOEY
1. The Data for Inquiry
An inquiry into the origins of the Old Comedy which flourished

and dechned at Athens in the century between the Persian Wars
and the death of Aristophanes must be based partly on literary
tradition, partly on a study of the eleven plays which are the
only complete specimens left to us of this pecuhar form of art.
The literary tradition is, unfortunately, very meagre. most
Its
important data come, directly or indirectly, from Aristotle and
his school, the first serious students of hterary origins. When
to these added certain statements made by Aristophanes
are
about his own work and that of his predecessors, we have before
us the bulk of what deserves to be taken as evidence of first-rate
authority. Precious as it is, and not to be set aside without the
very strongest reasons, the consideration and reconsideration of
it by many generations of scholars have not led to very clear con-
clusions. Above all, a number of remarkable features, which are
characteristic of the Aristophanic play and distinguish it from every
other form of Comedy, are still unexplained. Until these can be
accounted for, the problem, under its most interesting aspects,
remains unsolved. ZieUnski, therefore, was well advised when he
turned from these scraps of historical tradition to a direct study
of the plays themselves, and sought to determine the laws of their
structure and composition. Many of his minor conclusions will
not stand but the method has proved unexpectedly fruitful.
;
I shall follow his example, and try to set in a clear light those
constant features of Aristophanic Comedy which make it unlike the
A
2 THE OBIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
Comedy of other lands and later days. I shall also put forward an
hypothesis to account for them. Whether this hypothesis finds
favour or not, I hope to convince the reader of the need of some
explanation more adequate to the curious nature of the facts than
any that has yet been given.
2. The Structure of an Arisiophanic Play
Of the strange characteristics of a play by Aristophanes, the

all
one which most forcibly strikes the modern reader is the Parabasis
of the Chorus —a long passage which cuts the play in two about
half way through its course and completely suspends the action.
This passage is almost wholly undramatic. It is delivered by the

Chorus and its Leaders, and it normally opens with a farewell to
the actors, who leave the stage clear till it is over, and then return
to carry on the business of the piece to the end. The Chorus,
meanwhile, turn their backs on the scene of action and advance
across the orchestra to address the audience directly —the move-
ment from which the Parabasis takes its name. The action of the
play is thus divided into two parts.
Of these two parts, the first normally consists of the Prologue, or
exposition scenes ; the Entrance of the Chorus {Parados) ; and what
is now generally called the Agon, a fierce '
contest ' between the
representatives of two parties or principles, which are in effect
the hero and villain of the whole piece. In the Acharnians, for
instance, the conflict between Peace and War in the Lysistrata,
is ;
between Man and Woman in the Wasps, between the poUtical

;
ideals of the elder and the younger generation. The victorious

principle is usually incarnated in the protagonist or hero of the
play. In this contest the interest of the first part centres and
culminates.
The second part, after the Parabasis, contains the rest of the
action. with reference to this division of the play
It is especially
that the work of previous students needs to be supplemented.
Zielinski concentrated attention on the Agon, with the result that
scholars often speak as if the business of the play were finished with
the first part, and nothing remained in the second but a string oi
'
loose burlesque scenes.' This is by no means a true account ol
the matter. When we compare the plays with one another, it is
INTRODUCTORY 3
soon evident, in the first place, that nearly all of them end with an
incident no less canonical than the Agon —a festal procession (Kdmos)
and a union which I shall call a '
Marriage '
—a use of the term
to be hereafter justified. But that is not all. We shall also find
in almost every play two other standing incidents which fall between
—
the Agon and the final Kdmos a scene of Sacrifice and a Feast.
In several of the earlier plays these form nearly the whole of the
action, and fill nearly the whole time of presentation, in the
second part. In the later plays, from the Birds onwards, plots of
a more complicated type are developed, chiefly in this latter half
of the play but still the old sequence of fixed incidents in the
;
old order remains as the substructure of the action : Agon, Sacri-

fice, Feast, Marriage Kdmos. Another regularly recurring type oj^
incident is the interruption of the Sacrifice, or the Feast, or both,
by a series of unwelcome intruders, who are successively put to
derision by the protagonist and driven away with blows. Each
of these constant incidents we shall later examine in turn, and
the proof of these statements will then be laid fully before the
reader.
Meanwhile, for the sake of clearness, it will be well to state here
the hypothesis we shall offer in explanation of these facts. It is
that this canonical plot-formula preserves the stereotyped action of

a ritual or folk drama, older than literary Comedy, and of a pattern
well knoum to us from other sources. In the absence of direct j
external evidence, -the proof of this proposition must necessarily
be cumulative, and the reader is invited to suspend his judgment
until the whole argument has been laid before him.
3. Some current Theories of the Origin of Comedy
That Comedy sprang up and took shape in connection with

Dionysiac or PhalUc ritual has never been doubted. In the older
histories of Uterature, it was customary to draw more or less imagina-
tive pictures of village feasts in honour of the God of Wine, with
processions and dances of wild disorder and drunlfen licence. We
were asked to conceive some rustic poet breaking out, when the
new wine and the general excitement had gone to his head, into
satirical sallies and buffooneries, taken up with shouts of laughter
by the crowd of reeling revellers. The ultimate matter of Attic

4 THE ORIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
Comedy was to be sought in these songs and broad jokes, varied
occasionally by a set match in abuse. M. Maurice Croiset/ who
sets before our eyes a brilliant bacchanaUan piece on these lines,
remarks, however, that in primitive Comedy, as so conceived, there
is no element of dramatic fiction/ This observation may give
'
us pause. The absence of dramatic fiction or dramatic representa-

tion {fi[firjai<;) in the original phase of any kind of drama is a grave
defect. It is as difficult to see how drama can come out of what
is not, even in germ, dramatic as it was to Anaxagoras to conceive
how hair could come out of what is not hair. M. Croiset is driven
to suppose that his drunken cortege of Attic peasants must sometimes
have indulged the natural love of mimicryin little 'scenesbouffonnes.' ^
In the absence of any direct evidence that they did, he turns to
Dorian countries and to the very doubtful tradition that Megarian
Comedy was imported into Attica in the days of Susarion. We
shall return to this Here we need only note that our
view later.
Town hypothesis stands in sharp opposition to any such theory. We

shall argue that Attic Comedy, as we know it from Aristophanes,
is constructed in the framework of what was already a drama, a
folk play and that behind this folk play lay a still earlier phase,
;
^ in which its action was dramatically presented in religious ritual.

', This view has the advantage of supposing that the element of
\^
dramatic representation was there from the very first.
Another point of difference between this hypothesis and other

current accounts is that it seeks for traces of the original form of
Comedy in the dramatic action of the plays, in the conventional
pattern of the plot. It has been more usual to regard the Parabasis
—the choral passage which breaks this action in two — as, in some
sort, the nucleus of Comedy.* Eound the Parabasis, we are told,
a number of originally disconnected comic scenes have gathered,
which, in the developed form of the art, as known to us from
1 Hist, de la lit. grecque-' (Paris, 1899), iii. 429. Mazon'a description (Essai
sur la comp. des Cmn. d'Arhl. p. 178) , is similar. So, too, is Couat's (Aristopkam
tt I'aiicienne Comidie attique', Paris, 1902, p. 14 ff.).
2 M. Croiset, op.
557, regards primitive Comedy as consisting of these
ell. p.
almost disconnected scenes, surviving in the second part of
the Aristophanio
play, while he thinks the first part manifestemeM ime extension du prologue, qui
'
avaitservi d'ahord a. Her plus etroilement les scenes suivantes et qui,

peu d «e« ' '
6tait devenu lui-mSme une partie considerable de la piece.
' The Parabasis has also been regarded as a prologue, and as an epilogue.
INTRODUCTORY 5
Aristophanes, are strung on the thread of some guiding idea.^

This view altogether ignores the plot-formula which we shall bring
to light. It is certainly not easy to see how any form of drama
worthy of the name
could come into existence by such a casual
process of aggregation. That a form of drama with a conventional
plot-formula, and such distinct features as the Agon, shoul
in this way may be frankly declared impossible.
work marks the first definite advance towards
Zielinski's brilliant
a more reasonable view. However little we may be convinced by
some of his attempts to bring recalcitrant plays into Une with the
normal type, a great step was taken when the importance of the
Agon was established. But the emphasis laid upon this moment
of the action to the exclusion of the rest, together with the contrast
—
between the two sorts of composition epirrhematic and episodic
which ZieKnski held to be characteristic of the two halves of the
play, led him to break an Aristophanic Comedy into two parts, each
of a different type. This entailed the supposition that these two
parts must at some time have been juxtaposed. Comedy must
have arisen, not merely by the confluence of two streams of influence,
but by the patching together of two kinds of dramatic performance
originally distinct. Ziehnski, accordingly, saw in the Pardbasis
the epilogue of the first part, and treated the second part as an
appendix. 2
' This seems, for instance, to be the view of Christ-Schmid {Griech. Littera-
turgesch,^, Munohen, 1908, i. 384) In diesem Teil (Parabasis) der altattischen
:
KomSdie achimmern noch deutlich kvltliche Vorgdnge aus dem alten Dionysos/est
hervor. An diesem Ilittelpunkt scMossen sich wohl, vorhergehend oder nachfolgend,
schon beim alten Volhsfest verhindingslos die cUlerlei komischen Szenen, die dann
durch die KunstkomOdie leidlich auf einen Faden gezogen warden sind und die
J. Poppelreuter passend mit den Entremeses bei den Kirchenfesten in Spanien ver-
glichen hat. Poppelreuter's theory will be criticised below, § 71.
^ Kaibel's view (s.v. Aristophanes, Pauly-Wiss. ii. 987) seems to be similar
Die Parabase redet in der Person des Dichters den Epilog . . Bis zur Parabase
.
ist sie (die Komodie) gam individuell, wie die epirrhematische Composition dieses
Teils zeigt : was hinzu kommt, lediglich urn den Umfavg zu erweitern, hat fremde
Form, die epeisodische Composition der TragOdie. Inhaltlich sind es ganz freie,
imeist possenha/te Scenen, die mit der Handhmg vor der Parabase in ideellem, after
nichi in logisch zwingtndem Zusammenhang etehen. Starkie ( Wasps, p. xxi), after
summarising Zielinski's view of the Parabasis as an epilogue, says: 'It seems
to me more probable that down to the end of the Parabasis, the Attic Comic
poets constructed their plays after the model set by Epioharmus. The succeed-
ing scenes are a survival of the old Phallic Posaenspiel, which suited too well the
iaste of the ordinary Athenian playgoer to be omitted with impunity.'
Dorian origin of
Various considerations seemed to point to a
another step along the same
these later scenes.^ Poppekeuter took
which they
Unes,when he suggested that the type of drama from
hke the Kasperlesjnel
must have come was some sort of popular play
of modern Germany. A later writer, W. Suss,^ has gone further
still, and maintained that this type of popular mime, whose influence
he detects in all the oldest form of Aristophanes']
parts of the plays, is
crept into the
Comedies, and he speaks of the Chorus as having
'
if anywhere,
mime.' Another ^ traces even the Agon, in which,
the Chorus have a real part in the action, to the non-choral Comedy
The present tendency is, thus, to
of the northern Peloponnese.
Comedy,
derive nearly all the characteristic features of Aristophanic
except the Parabasis and Exodos, from foreign sources and hardly ;
anything is left for the native tradition of Attica, beyond certain
choral dances of beast-clad mummers, known to us from early vases,

but otherwise obscure.
This theory, in some form, is now widely held, and that it contains
some elements of truth will not be denied. We shall later see good
reason to recognise certain affinities with Dorian forms of mime.
But we shall not admit that the structure of Aristophanic Comedy
could have been made by the simple juxtaposition of two blocks
of different origin. It will, I hope, become clear that there is a
unity of action running through both parts of the plays, consisting

precisely in that recurrent plot-formula which has already been
indicated. If the existence of such a structural unity can be made
out, the theory of mere juxtaposition falls to the ground at once,
We shall be compelled to suppose —what, after all, seems ante-
cedently —
much more probable that in that underlying formula o:
the action we have the fundamental framework of the origina
drama complete from beginning to end. Some amount of foreigi
influence coming in upon the top of it can then be admitted. Ii
respect, however, of the extent and importance of this foreigi
influence, our hypothesis will run directly counter to the prevalen
1 Others, however, regard the so-called 'loose scenes 'as survivals of an ol
'Ionian Possenapiel,' and suppose that it is the early part of the play that follow
the Dorian model set by Epicharmus. Cf. Starkie, Introd. to the Wasps.
^ De personarum, etc., p. 100.
' H. E. Sieokmann, de comoediae atticae primordiis (Gottingae,

1906), p. 21
W. Suss (Zur Komp. der altoUt. Kom., Eh. Mus. (1908), 12 ff.), while correctin
some of Sieckmann's statements about Epicharmus, agrees that the origin of tl
A(j<m type of composition is to be sought in Dorian lauds.
INTRODUCTORY 7
tendency, and claim not only all the principal features of plot and
stnicture, but also the main types of character as the indigenous
growth of Attic soil. We shall end by reducing the contributions
of Megarian or Dorian mime within very narrow compass.
Our task, then, is to establish the existence of the underlying
plot-formula, to discover the ritual sources from which it derives,
and to show how our results can be reconciled with such of the
external evidence of literary tradition as deserves respect.
CHAPTEE II
THE EXODOS
4. The Exodos : Marriage and Komos
Reseeving the Agon, for a later chapter, we shall begin our examina-
tion with the last term in the fixed series of incidents which make
up the plot-formula of Aristophanic Comedy. The plays regularly
end with a procession in which the Chorus marches out of the;
orchestra, conducting the chief character in triumph and singing
a song technically known as the Exodos?- The hero, moreover,
is accompanied in this Komos by a person who, perhaps because she
is (except in one play) always mute, has attracted less notice than
she deserves. This person is sometimes a nameless coiirtesan,
sometimes an allegorical She is the temporary partner of
figure.
the hero in what is, though not always in the legal sense, a
in fact
marriage. She exists solely for that purpose, and has no other part
in the action, only making her appearance in time to take her
place beside the hero in his triumphal Edmos. Superficial dissimi-
larities of hterary form and variations dictated by the needs of the
several plots have diverted attention from the fact that what is
—
fundamentally the same incident this marriage with its Edmos —
ends almost every play of Aristophanes, no matter what its subject
may be. Before we discuss its significance, the facts must be set
before the reader in detail. We shall, accordingly, pass in review
the final scenes of all the plays in their order of date. Besides
the uniform character of the concluding incident, the reader is
invited to notice several cases in which the hero is treated with
royal, and even divine, honours — hailed as a new King or a new
God.
' That this term as applied to Comedy properly denotes

the final soug, not
including the scene which precedes it, is rightly pointed out by Asoherson
Jahrb. f. klass. Philol. iv. Suppl. 3 Heft (1862), p. 423 £f., and explicitly
asserted by the Tractatus Goislmianm (Kaibel, C. 0. F. i. p. 53) eôS6s iari.
'
'
: t6
itrl Ti\(i \ey6iievov toO xopo5. Cf. Poppelreuter, de com. att. prim., p. 37 ff.
8
THE EXODOS 9
5. The Exodoi oj the Plays
The AoHAENiAiJS ends with the scene (1190 fE.) in which DikaiopoHs
and Lamachus return, the one from the banquet with the priest of
Diony3Us,at which he haswon the drinking-competitionof the Choes}
the other from the battlefield, covered with wounds and other
marks of the miseries of war. Dikaiopolis has a courtesan on each
arm there are two of them, to match the two slaves who support
;
the hobbling Lamachus. The two heroes perform a duet, Lamachus

bewaihng his discomforts in the tone of a tragic Lament, Dikaiopolis
capping him with ribald lines which set in contrast his own
enviable condition. While Lamachus calls for a surgeon, DikaiopoUs
demands to be taken to the King of the festival,^ to receive his '
'
prize, the skin of wine, which he presently holds up empty. He

then raises the cry of rrjveXKa KaXKivbKo<s (Hurrah for the Victor !),
and calls upon the Chorus to sing it as they follow him. This cry is
well known as the refrain of the K6mos Song of Archilochos,

chanted by the victor's friends in the evening procession after the
Olympian contest. It is to be noted that DikaiopoUs, like the
Olympic victor, himself leads the triumphal strain he acts as :
Eooarchos.^ Evidently, the actual Song of Archilochos, though it

is not written out, formed the Exodos of the Acharnians^
In the Knights, the victory of the Sausage-seller in the long

competition with his rivalis at last admitted by the Paphlagonian,
who resigns to him the wreath of office (1250). When he has piously
1 1143. Dikaiopolis has been dismissed by the Chorus to this banquet with
the wish rif Sk xadeiSuv fierd, raiSiaKris wpaioriTTis.
:
\
^ Perhaps, aa Starkie holds (note ad loc], the Archon Basileus, who presided
at the Lenaea.
' Find. 01. ix. 1 t4 /tiv 'Apx^^^X"" A'^^"' (pavaev 'OXuîr/?, KaWlviKos 6 r/snrXiot
:
KexâSili!, lipKe(re txBov ayefioveOffai. KU/idfovn 0lXois 'E(papp.6<TTip ativ

Kpopiov Trap'
eralpoK. Christ Victor vera ipse vice praecentoris (iâpxav) fungebatur

ad loc. :
sodalibus praeeuntis, id quod Pindarus verba aye/xoveOffai. significavit et scholiasta

hac adnotatione confirmat : Kup.dt;et Si irpds rdv toO Ai6s /Sw/iiv 6 vm-qaas p-era tuv
iplXwv, airbs ttjs i(J5^s iîjyoi/Kvos. Cf. F. M. Cornford, chapter on the Olympic '
Games,' in J. E. Harrison, Themis (Cambridge, 1912), p. 256 £f.

•
Ach. 1227. Dik. riJi'eXXa KaWlviicos.
. . Ohor. ri/veWa S^t" etrep KoKeU y',
. |
& liipiaPv, KaWlvtKOS . . . \

T'^veWd vvv &yevv6.Sa ... 1
Dilc. iireaBi vOv gSoi/res ffl
TTJi-eXXa KuXKipiKOS. \
Char. dXX' itl/d/ieada a-ijv xapi-f |
TiJi-eXXa (caXXfi/i/cos ÎSovres ffi
Kai t6v ia-Kdv. Sehol. ad loc. T^veXXa' iilp-^qp-a iici.<jieiypuT05 aiXov rb riveKKa.
KaWlviKe 'Hpd/cXees, airbs re Klb\aos, Sio.
'Apx^ôxos- rnveWa, S) x<^'p' (Si-al
alxi^-ip-b.
Zielinski, Oliederung, p. 187.

!
ejaculated '
Zeus Hellanios, thine the prize of victory '
the
Sausage-seller is hailed as kuWCviko';.^ Afteran interval of

preparation for the final festivities, filled by the Second Parahasis:
of the Chorus, the Sausage-seller reappears, calhng for religious
silence,and declaring that, Uke Medea, he has regenerated Demos
by cooking him to a new life. The Propylaea are thrown open,
and Demos is revealed in all the splendours of the old Ionian dress,
to be hailed as King of the Hellenes.' When he has proved the
'
amendment of his character by being put through a sort of political

catechism, the Sausage-seller presents him with a folding stool and
a boy to carry it. Finally he calls out Libations {al 'tirovBai),
courtesans who represent allegorically the old peace days of the
thirty-years truce.^ Demos in return invites him to dine in the
Prytaneum and gives him a green-coloured robe, such as was worn
by the King in tragedy.* Demos ordains that the defeated Paphla^"
gonian shall be degraded to the vile condition formerly held by his
rival. He calls the wretched man a Phannakos, and orders that
he shall be carried off to his trade of sausage-selhng, and exhibited
'
'
to those whom he has outraged in the days of his power.* Here

the text of the play ends ; but the Chorus can hardly have left the
orchestra in silence. It may be conjectured that it was divided

into two parties. would escort Demos with Libations
One half '
and his new favourite in triumphal procession to the Prytaneum,

probably singing the Song of Archilochos. The other half would
hound the Paphlagonian out with cries of execration, perhaps
literally treating him as a Pharmahos, a scape-goat carrying all
the evil of the city upon his head.®
' 1254 The lines are variously assigned to the

: <D xf'Pf /coXXfci/ce kt\. Chorui
or to Demosthenes.
^ Schol.ad V. 1390 claijXBoi' al SrovSal eraipoi upaiai,
:
' 1406: Stov Si ravnivl Xafiiiv ttjh ârpaxiSa. Pollux, iv. 116: i(r6TJTes /lit
rpayiKol TroixlXoy . . . rh, Si fTrijSXiJ/iaTO f uo-ris, /Sarpaxlf. . . .
* 1404 : Demos. Kai a' ivn Todruv is rd irpvTavetov KaXSi

is T7)i' ^Spav 8', IV ixeTvos i/v o <t>apixaKbs.
'iirov Sirawrivl Xaîiv Ti]v parpaxiSa'
KaKetyov iKcpepiro) Tis ihs iwi TTjy Tixvyiv,
ty' (Suaiy airSv ols iXoifiaS' ol îvoi.
^ The suggestion that the Paphlagonian
was so treated is put forward bj
Mazon, Easai aur la comp. des com. d' Aristophane (Paris, 1904), p. 47 CUon ^tait :
sans doute trains dans ôrchestra. LA, on h traitait peut-gtre comme unt
victim
expiatoire (1405, (papnaKds) ; on lui mettait dans la main un/romage,
unt galetti,
deajigues, et le choeur U suivait e» U huant et en le flagellant avec des
scillei et aittret
THE EXODOS 11
The Clouds, exceptional in this respect as in so many others, has

no Kdmos at its almost tragic close. The torches which elsewhere
light the final procession are here
used to burn the house of Socrates.
This ending was substituted in the play as we ha\e it for a different
ending in the first edition.^ It has been conjectured " that origin-
ally Socratesand Chaerephon were driven out of the theatre by
Strepsiades and Xantliias. In any case the play leads up, not to
the triumphal Kdmos of the good principle, but to the riddance or
expulsion of the evil.
In the second part of the Wasps the same situation comes twice
over. There are two chorika (1265 ff and 1450 fE) sung while the
actors are feasting or drinldng behind the scenes. At the conclusion
of each, a slave comes out to complain of the riotous behaviour of
!Philocleon, who shortly afterwards appears in a state to justify the
slaves' descriptions. On the first occasion, he is returning from
the dinner-party with a Kdmos of other guests, beating every one he
meets and quarrelling with his companions. He enters singing the
opening words of Cassandra's mad Hymenaeal in the Troades,^
plantes sauvages. (Cf. Tzetzes, C/iil. v. 726 Hippoiiai, frag. 5 and 7.) Mazon,
;
however, does not suggest the division of the Chorus into two parties, which
seems to me necessary. For the PharmaJcos, see below, p. 55. Mazon's con-
jecture is, I think, supported by Frogs 731, where the Chorus complains that
Athens uses for all her purposes the vilest politicians, ' men whom in former days
she would have thought twice before she used as pharmahoi ofcrii/ ^ irAXis irpb ' :
ToO oidi âpiMtKoiffiv eU'j pg.Sias ixp^'^'"'' ^"^

I
The Chorus exhort the people to
' change their ways {/leTaâKivTes roiis rpdirovs), (as Demos changes his in the
'
Knights) and once more make use of good men. St. Paul (1 Cor. iv. 6 ff. ) refers to
a similar ceremony (at Corinth?), where lie contrasts the Corinthians, who are
'
filled (KiKopeaiiivoi), have become rich ' (^TrXourijo-arc), and
' ' kings without us '
(xw/>i! ij/iuiv iâatXeiaare), with the apostles, designated by God to be 'last of all,
as men doomed to death (eVxarous, lis eiriffocarious), made a spectacle (Biarpov)
'
'
'
to angels and men, 'fools' (liupol) for Christ's sake, reviled {XoiSopoH/i-evot),
peisecuted (SiojKo/ievot), defamed {Sva^rifioifievoi), He ends : us Trepi.Ka9dpimTa
Tov K^fffiov iycv-qSritêv, irAvrtav Trepi\p7jfia,. K6.6apfia and Trepl^tjua are both used of
the Pharmakos. What is specially interesting to us is the contrast with the
Corinthians who have 'become kings.' Compare also the expression 'we are
made a spectacle to men and angels with the last line of the Knights h' Cdicffiv
' :
airdv oU AoijSaS' oi f^yoi.

1 Hypothesis vii., which is by Eratosthenes or some other well-informed
grammarian.
2 Biicheler, X Jahrb. Ixxxiii. 678. Cf. the last words of the Chorus, SIukc,
/SdXXe, iroie, kt\,
' 1326 : Philod. &yexe irdpex^, ktX. Schol. R. e/c Ipifddoiv Eipirldov oi Kotrdi'J/pa
and he is accompanied by a flute-girl,^ the regular mute person,
whom he addresses in the broadest language.^ Later, he enters
his house to renew his potations, during an interval covered by the

next chorihon.
Then his own slave, Xanthias, appears, to tell the Chorus that
the old spending the whole night in dancing. He is closeljl
man is
followed by Philocleon himself, in the violent motions and shocking

postures of a dance which he challenges the whole field of modern
tragedians to outdo. The three sons of Karkinos take up the
match, which thought to have been suggested by the proposed
is
K6mos of the drunken Polyphemus in Euripides' Cyclops.^ The

Chorus join in, and the whole troupe dance out of the orchestra
with such frantic flings and wild gjrrations that no breath is left
in them for further song.*
The Exodos of the Peace is in the full form of the marriage Kdmos
with its hymenaeal song. The last scene opens with the demand!
for sacred silence, while torches are brought and the bride, the
mute attendant of Peace, Fruits-of-Summer (Opora), whom the
hero, Trygaeus, has received from the hands of Hermes (706), is led
forth.* After a prayer for plenty of corn and wine and figs, for
children and all the blessings of recovered peace, Opora and her
bridegroom, carried shoulder-high, go off to the country, attended
by the Chorus singing their fescennine verses with the refrain,
'
Hymen, Hymenaee, 0.'
The Birds gives us the most elaborate and important instance

of all. Pisthetairos, the founder of the city in the air, has, upon
Prometheus' suggestion, won by
diplomatic cajolery of the divine
envoys no less a person for his bride than Basileia, the Queen of
Heaven and maiden daughter of Zeus. A messenger announces
his approach, comparing him and his bride in magnificent language
Schol. on 134:1
' iraipa ti.s iiKoXovBei avrtfi, fjv IXaxe" ck toS <TVfjnroalov.
:
His comparison of himself to an elderly Olympic victor (1381) is in aocord-

2
anoe with Bdelycleon's instructions (1190).

Gyd. 445
''
firi Kui/iov iptreiv wpo! Ka<nyf/iTovs 9i\ei
:
KiiKXaTras ijffBeU Tii)5c Bokxôu ttot-cJ;.
See vanLeeuwen, Mnem. xvi. 421 ; Starkie on Wasps, 1499.

* This seems to be the meaning of the last words, which
state that this dancing
finale is novel. See Starkie ad loc.
" Trygaeus is an old man
(856) with daughters.
THE EXODOS 13
to the Sun and Moon.^ We are told that he is brandishing the very
thunderbolt of Zeus himself ; and it becomes clear as we proceed
that he is in fact to be regarded as a new Zeus. His appearance
with his consort hailed by the Chorus with the hymenaeal song,^
is
which likens wedding to the marriage of Zeus and Hera, riding

his
in their chariot driven by Eros. The Chorus are then called upon
to celebrate his thunders and the fiery lightnings of Zeus, the dread
and glancing bolt. This they do it is Pisthetairos now who shall ;
shake the earth and give her rain with his thunderings, for he has
become master of everything that belonged to Zeus,' and even of
'
his consort, Basileia.^ Pisthetairos then calls upon his bird subjects
to follow him to heaven, and bids Basileia to take his hand in the
dance. The Chorus conduct him out with cries of victory and
rejoicing. They call him Highest of the Gods ' and break into the
'
Song of Archilochos, TyveXXa KaXK'Lvi,KO<;, which, as we have seen,

was dedicated to the honour of the Olympic victor.* Presumably,
here as in other cases, the song continued as the procession wound
out of the orchestra.
The denouement of the Lysistrata is efEected when the heroine

brings out the mute person. Reconcilement {AiaWa^rj), the love-
charm which will appease the leading states of Greece.* She then
preaches a sermon to the envoys of Sparta and Athens, whose
attention is so divided between the diplomatic situation and the
1 1709 : irpoalprxerai yip olos oSre ira/iâ^s
oiSd' i]\lov Tri\avyh aKrlvuv aiXas

TOioSTOV iêXa/i^j/cv, oXov ipx^rai
^XOiv yvyaiKbs xdWos oi (pariv 'Kiyei.v,
irdXkiiiv Kepavvbv, wTepo^Spov Ai6s /3Aos . . .
2 1720 : Ohor. aya7e, diex^, wdpaye, iripexe i^t\. . . .
Coryph. dXV i/ievaioit |

Kal ifv/^îdloicn S^x"'^' ¥'*«« 1
'î^^" ''"' '^^''
Ba(Ti\eiav.
' 1748 : ffl /iiya XP'^'^Ô" &<rTepoTTJs tpdos, |
ffi Aids &p,PpoTov lyxos !rvp<p6pov , \
a xîi-iai papvaxês \
(i/x/3po0(ipoi 0' d/ia ppovral, \
ah S5e vvv xe6va <re(ei. Aia |
U
T&vTa Kparitaas Kal Tdpedpov BaaCKeiav fjcei Ai.6s. \
'Tjnijc'T^^ôi' Si.
\
* 1763 : Chor. dXoXoXai Iri vaidv,

TifveXXn KaXKlviKos, S>
Satixbvoiv iripraTi.
Schol. ad V. 1764, tA riveWa . . . dir6 toO iipv/ivlov o5 elirei' 'Apxl>ôxos els rbv
'HpaKKia iMtra rbv iBXon Aiyôv. T-qveXKa Si KaXXivixe, xo'pe ^va^ 'Hpd/tXees airds
re (cWXoos, oixA")™ ^'Ô'
5
The Scholiast on v. 1114 says that the play was called, from this part of it,
Av<ruTTpi,TTi fj Aia\Xa7oi.
14 THE ORIGIN OP ATTIC COMEDY
attractions of the courtesan that they lapse into language am-
biguously applicable to either, and come to an understanding.
They are bidden to enter the citadel and take the oaths. After a
banquet, two of them come out, thrusting the torches of the Kdmos^
into the bystanders' faces, and reflecting with drunken sagacity oi
the wisdom of not discussing international politics till after dinner.
A Laconian envoy follows with a flute-girl and on dancing insists
with his colleagues to the honour of Artemis the Huntress and of

Sparta. The Chorus of men and women are then bidden to pair
off in couples, 2 and they dance out of the orchestra singing a hymn
to various Gods, including Zeus, with his fiery lightning, and Hera,
and celebrating the peace which the Goddess of Love and Marriage
has efiected.* The reunion of men and women in this final dance
is itself a sort of re-marriage. The song ends with shouts of victory
and Bacchic cries.*
At the end of the Thesmophoriazusae, the canonical mute person

is Elaphium, a dancing-girl, introduced, to fascinate the Policeman
and lure him from hiswatch over Euripides' kinsman, by the poet
himself, disguised as an old woman. What Kdmos is this, waking
'
me up ?
' mutters the Policeman, stirring in his slumbers. The'
girl's dance and kisses effect their purpose, and the PoUceman,
leaving his quiver as a pledge, goes off with her. Returning to find
his birds flown, he is misdirected all ways at once by the Chorus,

and the play ends with his rushing off the opposite way from his
prisoner. The Chorus make their exit with a couple of anapaestic
lines. In the light of the earlier examples, this denouement is
clearlyan adaptation of the marriage motive. Owing to the tun

'
'
given to it, there can obviously be no Kdinos Song as Exodos.
\ The Feogs ends with the torch-ht procession of the mystics,
^ 1217 : liSiv iyi) TiiXa/iiridi \

v/ias KOTaKOiJrrci) ; Sohol. ad loc. ^TiKU/idfci Xa/J-riSt
^ 1275 :Lys. aviip di Tapa yvpoiKa Kal ywj] a-Tiyroi irap' ivSpa. \
' 1285 : Chor. AIo re wvpl 4>\tyl>ixcvov, iirl re iroTvlav 6.\oxov dX^lar, |
elra SI |
5alp.ovaf, oh irt/idpTVtn XPV<^1>I^^S' oiK iTnX'fifffi.oiriv 'Ho-uxfosTr^pi r^s ayavlxfipovoi,

| |
\
1)v iirolr)<7c Beet. KiStt/jis.
* 1291 : dXaXai irj Tratôii',
alpecrd' ivu, iai

lis eiri viKi[i, Iai
euoi, dot, eiai, eiai.
THE EXODOS 15
escorting Aeschylus up from the realm of Pluto to a world which

needs a tragedian with sound political views. The necessary
conclusion is thus a resurrection, not a marriage and the marriage- ;
motive is absent.^ The Exodos is in hexameters, chanted to an

Aeschylean air. The drama ends in a serious key.
The EccLESiAZUSAE, late as it is, preserves the old pattern. A

female servant of the heroine ^ takes the place of the usual mute
person. Praxagora has sent her to fetch her husband Blepyros
to the feast which inaugurates the new regime. She appears
intoxicated ahke with Thasian wine and with the unguents of the
courtesan ^ on her hair. When Blepyros appears, armed with the
torch (1150) which will light him home again in the Kdmos, she
addresses him with the courtesan's oath by Aphrodite * and in terms
which show that Praxagora is prepared to begin at home the
practice of community of women which she has recommended.^
Blepyros, nothing loath, descends into the orchestra, while the
girl * sings '
a before-dinner song.' The choral Exodos consists of
the same Bacchic cries that end the Lysistrata.
Even in the Plutus the traditional termination survives. In

one of the latest scenes we find the motive, already used in the
Ecclesi-azusae, of the old woman and the young man who rejects
her advances. The youth comes on with wreath and torch, as if
^ That a resarrootiou, however, wis an integral part of our supposed ritual

will appear later.
^ If, that is to say, we accept (as I do) the view of van Leeuwen and others
that the persons in the last scene are the servant and the husband of Praxagora,
not two quite unknown characters. See van Leeuwen's note on p. 2 of his
edition.
3 1117, of. 525.
^ 1136. Cf. Schol. ad v. 999 : /ii t^v' KippoUrifV us eralpa oScra. to0t6 (prjiri.
' 1138 Sfias S' eKAei/ire (rvWaPovffdv /j.'

: t) ywi) \
iyav <re. Cf. the conclusion of
Praxagora's discourse in the Agon, 690 :
vaui. yip &(pBova v&vra Tapeô/iev

{bare ^s&uadels avT'^ ffTe<j)a,vi^
Trfis Tis &TeLtnv t^v S^da Xa^dv,

al 5i yvvaiKes Karii. ris SiSSovs
Trpoinriirrouffai toU iwo Selin/QV
TdSe \iôvaiV ' SeOpo Trpds rjjtiSs '
kt\.
* If we assign (with van Leeuwen) lines 1151-3, 1163-6, 1166-77 to her and
not to the Chorus.
he were going in a Kdmos.^ The last scene takes the usual form
of a procession with torches. The priest of Zeus Soter comes,
complaining that since the blind God of Wealth has received his
sight, no one will worship the elder Gods, and his occupation, as
well as his livehhood, is gone. But he is told that the only Saviour '
Zeus '
— —
Plutus himself has already come of his own accord and ;
we have seen Hermes in the previous scene arrive as a desertes

from the service of Zeus, to beg a situation in the new God's house-
hold. Nothing remains but to install Plutus in the back-chamber
of the Parthenon. Plutus is called out, and the procession forms,
The old woman is induced to take part with the promise that she
shall have her young man in the evening. The Exodos consists of
two anapaestic lines in which the Chorus declare that they will
follow in the procession with songs.
6. The Problem of the final Marriage
The above review of the whole series of Aristophanic plays

establishes that a '
accompanying Kdmos is the
marriage '
with its
canonical ending of the oldest extant Comedy. This fact has not
been sufficiently considered. The neglect is, no doubt, due to our
famiUarity with innumerable comedies, romances, and novels,
which terminate in a happy marriage. Such a finale is as regular
in these forms of literature as the death of the hero is in Tragedy
But, for reasons that will soon appear, this is not the last word
on the matter. A moment's reflection will show that, whereas a
marriage is the natural ending led up to by the whole course of
the modern romantic love-story, there is nothing whatever in the
previous incidents of an Aristophanic plot to prepare the spectator
for any such conclusion. The formula of the romantic plot ii
modern comedies and novels, reduced to its barest and most abstract
form, would be something of this sort. Two young lovers, prevented
by circumstances from attaining their desires, are, after various
dangers and adventures which bring them to the brink of despair,
at last united by a sudden turn of good fortune and live happily
ever afterwards. If illustration were needed. The History of Tom
' 1040 ; Old Woman, c'oixe S' iirl KUjxav /SuS/feij'.
Ghor. <l>aLv€Tai'
<!Ti(j)aLVOv y4 Toi Kal S^S' Ix'^" TropeiieraL.
THE EXODOS 17
Jones, which stands at the head of the great series of English novels,
is a typical instance. The tradition of this romantic plot might be
followed up through renaissance and mediaeval novels to the
romances of later antiquity, such as Daphnis and Ghloe. Another
line would lead through the learned Comedy, influenced by Plautus
and Terence, back to a common source of both traditions, the

New Comedy of the Alexandrine age. There, for the first time, in
the plays of Menander and his fellows, appears this formula of
romantic love and its fortunes, in its necessary outlines already
complete.
But, if we seek to trace its ancestry still farther back, we
shall find that its essential elements — the conception of romantic
love itself, and the various plot motives, such as the child lost or
exposed in infancy or captured by pirates and other evil-doers

are derived, not from the stock-in-trade of Aristophanes and his
predecessors, but directly from the Tragedy of Euripides. The
plays of Aristophanes ^
—and the same is true of all fifth-century
Comedy we know it are entirely free from
at Athens, so far as —
any conception The hero is normally an old man
of romantic love.
{yepcDv), who is married already and has grown-up children. The
youthful and romantic heroine is conspicuously absent. Where
there is a heroine at all —a Lysistrata or a Praxagora —she replaces
'
the hero, and she is not merely married, but distinguished for her
Ihostihty to the other sex. The courtesan or allegorical personage
' who is the female partner in the '
marriages '
we have reviewed, is
a mute figure with no other part in the action ; in no sense the

I
heroine of the play. The plots, again, do not turn on the interests
'or fortunes of love. They are concerned with the rival merits of
iwar and peace, the Athenian passion for serving on juries, the sex
i
strike as a weapon in pohtics, the founding of a city in the air, the
I
superiority of Aeschylus and the culture of his generation over the
inew culture of Euripides and the Sophists. No one, setting out to
I
read a series of comedies dealing with social and literary themes of
ithis sort and totally devoid of love-interest, would dream of expect-
iing that nearly all of them would end with a Kdmos-Tpvocession and
a marriage. There isin the nature and whole treatment of the
subjects no reason whatever for such a termination. True, the
' With the possible exception of his last play, the Cocalus, which appears to
have resembled the New Comedy.
B
18 THE OBIGIN OF ATTIC COMEBY
satirical operas of W. S. Gilbert, the Victorian Aristophanes, end in
this way ; but then they are built round the love-story of the
traditional pattern with its youthful couple, now indispensable in
the hghter forms of Comedy. Strike these characters and theii
romance out of the play, and it would be as surprising to find
Gilbert's Chorus invariably singing the curtain down to the tune

of The voice that breathed o'erEden, as it is to find the hymenad
hymn or the triumph song of the Olympic victor ending so many
of the plays of Aristophanes.
7. The Sacred Marriage

We are left, then, with a problem which cannot be lightly dis-
missed with false analogies from later forms of the comic art con-
ceived on a radically diSerent plan. This canonical marriage is
so far from being dictated by the social and literary themes of the
OIH Comedy, or demanded by the general design of the plays them-,
selves, that it cannot be regarded as the product of poetic invention,
working free from any sort of tradition. Yet it certainly cannot
be accounted for by any hterary convention known to us. I do
not see what remains but to suppose that the tradition which lies
behind this standing feature of the comic plot is not literary, hut
I
! ritual. This hypothesis cannot be proved outright. It will, how-

ever, become increasingly probable when we go on later to examine
other fixed incidents of the plot, notably the Agon, which is equally
important and no less canonical. We

have to consider
shall also
in the next chapter how this supposition squares with the literary
tradition, which for the present we have left on one side. But
before we do so, it will be well to take account of the implicatiom
of the hypothesis itself— to make out precisely what it is that w
are supposing, when we take this marriage to be the survival of one
moment in a ritual action' older than any form of comic literature,
A ritual marriage means a sacred marriage (tepo? <yd/j,o(s), as
'
'
the Greeks called it ; and in a sacred marriage the bridegroom and

bride are the representatives of divine or spiritual beings, the powers
of fertiUty in nature, however these may be conceived.^ Suci
rituals are mimetic in two ways.
1 This whole aubjeot has been so abundantly elucidated by Prazer, The Mm
Art, vol. ii. (London, 1911), that I limit myself to a bare mention
of the points
flhioh here oonoern us.
THE EXODOS 19
In the first place, their object, which is to promote fertility of

all lands, is by the methods of mimetic (' sympathetic ')
efEected
magic : a sexual union is consummated or feigned in order that
all natural powers of fertility may be stimulated to perform their
function and give increase of crops and herds and of man himself.
Between the imitative rite and the natural events it is intended to
cause there is the bond of sympathetic mimesis, consisting in the
actual likeness of the act ritually performed to the desired event.
In the second place, where the belief in spirits and Gods has
taken a more definite shape, a further element of mimesis comes in.
Instead of trusting, as of old, to the direct sympathetic operation

of their own act, the worshippers may specially designate two
individual performers to impersonate the divine husband and wife,
whose union now stands as a type for all the corresponding
processes innature. We have here the essential of dramatic
representation (mimesis) —an assumed character impersonated or
-^
incarnated in a human actor.
The pair often represent, under a more or less transparent disguise,
the two great agents of vegetable fertility, the Earth-mother and
the Heaven-father, whose rain falls in a life-giving stream into the
womb of Earth. In Greece there is the marriage of Zeus and Demeter
at Eleusis, or of Zeus and Hera in various other cities. In these
cases, the divine beingshave reached the stage of fully anthropo-
morphic development. There are also clear traces of a stage in
which the divinity was conceived in animal form, as a bull, a goat,
or a ram, and the worshippers disguised themselves in the skins of
the sacred beast. We hear of bands of dancers caUing themselves

Goats {Tpdyoi) or Rams {Tkvpoi) ^
; and, if the common account
is true, these and their congeners, the Satyrs, are very nearly
related to the sister form of drama. Tragedy. In other instances,
the spirit of fertiUty may be Dionysus himself, or the vaguer figure
of Phales, who is little more than the emblem of human procrea-
tion, the 'phallus, barely personified. We shall presently examine
Aristotle's statement that Comedy took its rise in the Phalhc per-
formances, in honour of Phales himself, who in the '
Phallic Song
was invoked to be present at the dance and procession of his wor-
shippers. In the plays of Aristophanes we find the protagonist,
'
0. Kern (Tityroi, Hermes, 1913, p. 318) concludes that Tityroi are rams,
just as T(i&yoi are he-goats.
certainly in some and possibly in all, wearing an artificial
cases
phallus as part of his costume.^ We have seen too, that he regularly
leads a Kdmos at the end, as male partner in a marriage. If we
are right in supposing that this is the survival of a ritual marriage,

little doubt can remain as to the further point that, in that case,
the protagonist in Comedy must originally have been the spirit of
fertility himself, Phales or Dionysus. Who else, indeed, can lead
the K6mos from which, in all probability. Comedy {Ktofi-mhia)
derives its name ?
8. The New God and the New King

There are some further remarkable features of Aristophanes'
plays which seem to gain a fresh significance in the light of our
hypothesis, and to these we must now turn. Where the ritual oft
a sacred marriage is performed, it is always periodic and nearlyf

always annual, for the simple reason that the fertihty of the Eartlil
needs to be renewed after every winter. The ritual, therefore,

involves a succession of human representatives, a new impersonator
of the God at each festival. The new God is also a new King—
a title still given to the May Kings, Leaf Kings, Grass Kings, whose
marriage with their Queens is celebrated at the spring and summer
festivals of modern Europe.^ Dr. Frazer's researches have shown
how the conceptions of God and King meet in the functions attri-|
buted to the King in early society, the magical control of the thundew
and rain, and, therefore, of the fertility of the Earth. One funda-
mental idea of such festivals, accordingly, is the succession of a
new divine King to one who stands for the old year whose powers
have failed in the decay of winter. We shall later have occasion
to note the varieties of dramatic symbohsm in which this idea is
expressed. It may be figured as the expulsion or death of Winter,
while Summer is brought in ; or the young King may kill the old
and marry his wife or daughter ; or, again, the God may be put to
^ Cases which seem to me indisputable are

Philooleon in the Wasps (1343),
Euripides' kinsman in the Thesmoph. (62, 239(?), 643, 1114). Trygaeus in
the
Pax seems very probable ; of. Sohol. adloc. to alSoiov SeUvmi. The wearing
(142)
of the phallus is not confined to the protagonist. It is worn, for instance, by the
Sp.irtan envoys at Lysistrata, 991. The question, which has been much
debated,
will be discussed later, p. 183.
2 See Frazer, The Magic Art, chap. a.
THE BXODOS 21
death and rise again in renewed youth, and vigour. That such
conceptions are at home in the cult of Dionysus is so well known
that we need not dwell upon the point here : some of the actual
rites willbe discussed later. What now concerns us is to point out
that in several of Aristophanes' plays this idea of the succession of
a new God or King of fertility is prominently associated with the
concluding marriage and triumph.
9. The New Zeus in the Birds
When Pisthetairos propounds to the Birds his design of founding

a new City in the air,i he begins with the startling declaration that
the Birds were once kings over all, even over Zeus himself nay, ;
their sovereignty is older than Kronos and the Titans. If they

had duly thumbed their Aesop, they would remember that the Lark
was the first bird, and, being older than the Earth itself, had nowhere
to bury her father, save in her own head. How much more are
they older than the Gods. (' Zeus,' interposes Euelpides, '
will
soon give back his sceptre to the woodpecker.') After other proofs
of the royal powers once enjoyed by the Cock over the Persians,^
the Hawk over the Greeks, and the Cuckoo over the orientals,
Pisthetairos, in the second part of his discourse, tells the Birds how
to recover their kingdom.They must fortify the air all round, like
Babylon, with baked bricks, and then, if Zeus refuse to abdicate,
declare a holy war upon heaven, debar the Gods from visiting
mortal women, and send a herald to mankind to bid them sacrifice
first to the Birds, before they offer anything to the Gods. (' Now
let Zeus thunder !
' interjects Euelpides.) If man will not respect
them, all the seed of his crops shall be eaten up by the fieldfares
and the eyes of his cattle pecked out. Then let Demeter give them
corn, if she can ! If mankind is submissive, the Birds will spare
their fruits, give them omens, find hidden treasure to enrich them,
^nd bestow on them health and lives as long as the crow's. They
will make much better kings than Zeus.' The Birds are beside
themselves with enthusiasm, and in the Parabasis they confirm
1 Birds, 462 ff.

' Later in the phy (828) Athena PoUas ia rejected aa guardian divinity of the
new CJity, and replaced by the Cook.
' 611 : Etielp. dis iroWifi Sij KpetrTovs oStoi toO AiAs iiiup âaiKeieiV.
these promises. The City is built, and the Gods are starved into
making terms.^
The final scene shows us Pisthetairos, dressed in his bridal robe,
and hailed not only as King of the new city, with the Queen of
Heaven for his bride, but also as a new Zeus a new master of the —
thunder and fertihsing rain. "VThe details here are significant,
because the whole passage institutes an elaborate comparison
between Pisthetairos and the Olympic victor.^ This analogy is
peculiarly instructive.
We have seen how the appearance of Pisthetairos and his bride,
compared by the messenger in words of almost Aeschylean
Basileia, is
grandeur, to the Sun and Moon shining in all the splendour of their
golden rays, and how, in the hymenaeal song that follows, their
wedding is likened to the marriage of Zeus and Hera, driven by
Bros in a chariot with golden reins. The same conjunction of ideas
seems to have been attached to the pair of Olympic victors the —
winner of the chariot-race and the winner of the Virgins' race at
the Heraea. As I have argued elsewhere,^ this couple, whose

prototypes are Pelops and Hippodameia in Pindar's First Olympian
Ode, were regarded as periodic representatives of Zeus and Hera,
and also as impersonating the Sun and Moon, united in one form
of that sacred marriage which was often celebrated at midsummer
feasts. Like Pelops and Hippodameia, the Sun and Moon are
represented both in art and in literature, though-rn-despite-^-natnrah~
' At 1514 Prometheus, describing their distress, says simply,
'It is all over
with Zeus (a.iroXiii'Kep 6 Zeis).
'
2 This was observed by Mr. M. S. Thompson of

Aberdeen, who, after readiug
my chapter on the Olympic Games in Miss Harrison's Themis, pointed out the
comparison in a letter to Miss Harrison, which she has kindly communicated
to me.
3 In Miss Harrison's Themii, p. 224 following a suggestion from Mr. A. B.
flf. ,
Cook. Dr. Frazer independently reached the same conclusion. He writes

{G. B.', pt. iii. p. 91) If the olive-crowned victor in the men's race at Olympia
••
'
represented Zeus, it becomes probable that the olive-crowned victor in the girls'
race, which was held every fourth year at Olympia in honour of Hera, repre-
sented in like manner the god's wife; and that in former days the two to-
gether acted the part of the god and goddess in that sacred marriage which is
known to have been celebrated in many parts of Greece. This conclusion is
confirmed by the legend that the girls' race was instituted by Hippodamia in
gratitude for her marriage with Pelops for if Pelops as victor in the chariot-race
;
represented Zeus, his bride would naturally play the part of Hera. But under
the names of Zeus and Hera the pair of Olympic victors would seem to have
really personated the Sun and Moon, who were the true heavenly bridegroom
and bride of the aucient octennial festival.'
THE EXODOS 23
-îaStej as driving The story

together in one chariot across the sky.^
of Pelops also preserves the Agon between the young King and the
old weather and fertility Eng, Oenomaus, who is slain with his own
spear. '^ The Olympic victor, as a new incarnation of Zeus, wields
his royal and divine powers of control over the weather. His
attributes are worn by Salmoneus, who defied Zeus and essayed
to mimic the sky-god's thunder.^ So, in the Birds, Pisthetairos
^
comes '
brandishing the thunderbolt, the winged shaft of Zeus,'
while all the circle of the sky is filled with the smoke of incense.
For we have already been told that Athena in
Basileia, like
Aeschylus, has the keys of her father's thunder, with which go all
the attributes of the Heaven-father.* When the Chorus are bidden-,
after theirhymenaeal song, to celebrate the thunders underground '
and the fiery liglitnings of Zeus and the dread flashing thunderbolt/ _,
they break out into a song which declares that Pisthetairos'ls now
'
master of everything that belongs to Zeus it is he who now will ' :
shake the earth with rumbUng thunders that bring the rain.^ He
is not merely like Zeus, but, transfigured in the beauty of his renewed
youth,® he is a new Zeus, a new lord of the thunders and dispenser

of the fertilising rain. He demands to be escorted to '
the floor of
'^
Zeus and his bridal bed.'

The whole point is summed up in the last words of the Exodos :
'
'
Hurrah for the victor highest of the Gods !
Trji'€A.A.a KaWivLKO^, 3>
SaLiiovtov virepraTe.
Pisthetairos, leading* the procession of the Chorus, as the Olympic

1 For references see J. E. Harrison, Themis, pp. 200, 227.
2 On the fifth century Krater figured and interpreted by A. B. Cook,
Class. Rev. xvii. (1903) p. 275 ; T/iemis, pp. 80, 223.
' 1714 : irdXXwi' Kepavvdv, Trrepoôpov Aios (3^Xos.
* 1537 Pisth. tIs ianv ^ âa'CKua ;
Prom. KoWldT-q Kbp-q
ijirep rapueOet tov Kepavvov toO Atos

ical rdW avaii-iravra , . .
Aesoh. Eum. 829 : Ath. K&yu> T^woiBa Z-qvl, koI ri Set \ifei.v ;
KoX (cXgSas olSa du/idrav piv-q BeCiv

iv ^ Kepavvos icmv e(r<ppayt(Tp.ipoi.
' See the lines quoted in the note on p. 13, u. 3.
"
1724 0eC 0cC ttjs Upas rod KdXXous. The context shows that these words
: ffl
refer to Pisthetairos, who is changed from an old man

into a youthful bride-
groom. The meaning of this rejuvenation will appear later.

' 1757 ivl Ti-iSav Aios
: Koi \ixos yap.iiKiov.
|
8 1755 : Pisth. iveaSe vvv ydp.ouTiv . . .

victor led the Komos of his friends in the evening celebrations, is
hailed in the words of the Song of Archilochos, consecrated to that

occasion. We have noted already that the same song seems to
have served for the Exodos of the Acharnians, and perhaps also of
the Knights. When we remember that the protagonist who is
f^ted in the torchlit Kdmos of Comedy, is normally also the victor
ia the Agon at the beginning of the play, we may suspect something

more than a superficial analogy between the progranmie of ritual
action which we suppose to underlie the comic plot, and the pro-
gramme of the great panhellenic festival. How complete the
analogy in fact is— whatever be the explanation —we shall see as
we proceed.
10. The Sacred Marriage of Dionysus and the Queen

at Athens
The identity of Pisthetairos' bride, Basileia, has been much

debated.^ Whoever she may be, she is certainly the partner in
a sacred marriage and her husband is a God. She is a '
Queen,'
and her husband is a new King. Mr. J. T. Sheppard has pointed
out that the last scene of the Birds could not fail to recall to the-
Athenian spectator the sacred marriage of Dionysus to the Queen-
{âaiXiaraa), the wife of the King Archon, which was annually
celebrated, perhaps at the Anthesteria.^ Whatever the date of
'
the wedding,' says Dr. Frazer, '

its object can hardly have been
any other than that of ensuring the fertiUty of the vines and other
^ Two recent contributions to the subject are J. T. Sheppard, Ws iariv t)

: '
;
/SofflXeia ' in Fasciculim loanni Willis Clark dicatus (Cantabrigiae, 1909),
pp. 529 ff. ; and A. B. Cook, Nephelokokkygia,' in Essays and Studies presented
'
to William Ridgeivay (Cambridge, 1913). Mr. Sheppard sees a reference, not only
to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera, but also to the sacred marriage of
Dionysus and the Athenian paalXiaaa. My own argument seems to confirm
this view, which is anticipated by J. E. Hirrison, Myth, ond Moil,
of Anc.
Athens (1890), p. 52.
= SeeJ. G. Frazer,(?.B. •',Jlfa(7i>.4w, vol. ii.(London,1911),p.l3Gff.,
who points
out that, while the Queen took her oath of purity at the Anthesteria, there is
no positive evidence that the marriage was held at that festival. Mr. Cook, in
his brilliant restoration of the reliefs of the stage of Phaedrus in the Athenian
theatre {Zeiis, vol. i. p. 708, pi. xl. }, finds the scene of this sacred marriage
depicted on the third slab. The four slabs represent, he believes,
(1) the birth
of Dionysus (2) his entrance into Attica ; (,S) the sacred marriage with the
;
Basilissa ; (4) Dionysus finally installed in his own theatre.

THE EXODOS 25
which Dionysus was the god. Thus both in form and

fruit-trees, of
in meaning the ceremony would answer to the nuptials of the King

and Queen of May/ It is not, of course, necessary to suppose an
exclusive reference to this ceremony the similar rite of marriage ;
between Zeus and Hera is also clearly referred to, and, as we have
argued above, probably the marriage of the pair of Olympic victors.
What is important to our argument is the indisputable fact that
the yearly ritual of Dionysus at Athens included precisely that rite
which we have supposed to be the basis of the canonical Exodos of
Aristophanes' plays.
1 1 . The New Zeus in the Plutus ^
The case of Pisthetairos does not stand alone in Aristophanes.

The Plutus likewise ends with the plain declaration that the God of
Wealth has become a new Zeus, and the reign of the old Zeus is
ended. At his first appearance,^ Plutus has no sooner disclosed
his identity than he complains that Zeus in his jealousy blinded
him in his youth, to prevent him from carrying the blessings of
wealth to the just and virtuous only. If his sight is restored, he
promises to inaugurate a new reign of justice, but he fears that, if
he does so, Zeus may blast

Chremylus protests Why, do him.^ :
'
you suppose that Zeus' kingly power and those thunderbolts of
his will be worth twopence, if you get back your sight ? To what '
does Zeus owe his rule ? To money, the gift of Plutus himself
For what do men sacrifice to him ? Without Plutus' consent,
else
they will not even be able to pay for a victim, and the Gods will
starve. Plutus single-handed can overthrow the power of Zeus,*
and all will go well with mankind. The reader will notice how
closely this argument resembles Pisthetairos' discourse to the
Birds, and the means by which the new kingdom is established
are the same the Gods are starved out and their ministers make
:
their submission. At the end of the play, not only does the priest
1
It will appear that the Plutus, though the latest of the plays, is in some
respects nearer in structure to the earliest plays than some of its predecessors.
The explanation probably lies in the fact that it is the second edition of a play
first produced in 408 (Schol. on Plutus, 173).
i
87 ff.
3 119 : Plut. 6 Zerls /J-iv oBc . . . ei |

iri/ffoir' &p ivLTplûe.
* 141 : SiffTe ToC Ai6s |
t^h Sivajuv, f/v Xviry ti, /cdTaXiio-eis fiivos.
ofZeus transfer his services to the new God, but the divine lacquey,
Hermes, after blustering threats of Zeus' vengeance on the whole
house of Chremylus, is tempted by the offer of food to take a
situation in Plutus' household.
The new Saviour Zeus is to be installed in the back-chamber of
the Parthenon. The conjunction of Zeus Soter and Athena Soteira

is known to us from inscriptions. They had a common sacrifice
at the Diisoteria,^ and one of the seats in the theatre is inscribed

with the title of their common priest.^ The obvious reason for
installing Plutus in this chamber is that it was the treasury of the
state ; and that, no doubt, is what Aristophanes intends. But, in
the light of a conjecture of Mr. Cook's,^ we may perhaps see a
further significance, curiously suitable to our own hypothesis, and,
we know to the contrary, familiar to the minds of Aristophanes
for all
and his audience. In discussing the plan of the Erechtheum, Mr.
Cook has argued that the back-chamber of the Goddess' temple was
nothing less than the room occupied by her divine husband. He
believes that when Peisistratus drove into the city with a woman
habited as Athena at his side and re-established his tyranny, he
wished the people to regard him in this light and to see the Goddess
escorting her consort to her dwelling on the Acropolis. H this is so,
we have here an historic instance of the new King going in proces-
sion with his divine bride, and Peisistratus must have reUed on the
conception being famiUar to the simple-minded folk in ritual.
To this I would add a further point. I have elsewhere * tried to
show that the sacred marriage of Kore and Pluto at Eleusis is to
1 C.I. A. ii. 469, 326.

^ G.I. A. iii. 281 : 'lepras Ai4s Sur^pos /cai 'Ad-qvas Xurdpat.
Mr. Cook kindly allows me to mention this conjecture, whioh is as yet
'
unpublished. He writes to me in a letter dated 8th September 1913 Briefly :

'
my point was this. The Ereohtheion (almost certainly), the Hekatompedon

(certainly), the earlier Parthenon (probably), and the Parthenon (certainly),
were double temples, the western part being completely cut oflT from the eastern.
Why ? Possibly because the western part was reserved originally for the king
or human consort of the goddess. The Erechtheion presupposes a palace.
Peisistratos was escorted by Athena to the Acropolis. Demetrios Poliorketes,
who posed as Zeus, was domiciled in the western part of the Parthenon.'
Wieseler {Adversaria in Aesch. Prom. V. et Ar. Aves, Gottingae, 1843, p. 124)
identified the Basileia of the Birds with Athena cf. Tz. in Lye. AL, 'AfiTji'p rm
;
jSoffiXfSi Tjj Kal BoXcvIkxi \eyofihii, Ovyarpi Si 'Bpovriov iirapxaia-g.

* F. M. Cornford, The 'Awapxal and the Meusinian Mysteries in Essays and
Studies presented to William Ridgeway (Cambridge, 1913).
THE EXODOS 27
be explained as the descent of the Corn-maiden into the under-

ground storehouse after harvest, in order that she may be fertiUsed
by the God of the grain-store and re-emerge as seed for the new
sowing in autumn. The com-
Plutus, the wealth, of a primitive
munity consists quite as much in the precious store of grain on
which the next harvest depends as in gold and silver, and we are
familiar with representations of Plutus as an infant holding the
cornucopia filled with the fruits of the year. If the back-chamber
of the Goddess' temple originally contained the store of grain as
well as other treasures, the Eleusinian sacred marriage would come
into line with Mr. Cook's conjecture. Nor is other confirmation
lacking, once more what we have said
in curious agreement with
earlier. A votive relief Long
discovered in 1893 near the Southern
Wall between Athens and Phalerum shows Echelos and Basile
(inscribed) driving together in a chariot conducted by Hermes.
It has been pointed out ^ that they are the counterparts of Pelops
and Hippodameia, and that the relief witnesses to the otherwise
unknown legend of the founding of the contests at the Athenian
Hippodrome, which was situated in Echehdai near the herdon
of Echelos. Usener ^ identified Basile with the Queen of Heaven
others maintain that she is a variant of Persephone and lady of
the underworld.^ The dispute is unimportant in either case she :
is the bride in a sacred marriage.* There is just the same ambiguity

about the divine bride of Trygaeus in the Peace, Opora, Fruits-of-
Summer; Trygaeus goes up, like Bellerophon, to heaven, receives
her from Hermes, and brings her down to earth yet she is at the ;
same time an attendant of the Goddess Eirene, who rises from

underground. When we put all these cases in conjunction, we are
perhaps justified in adding the Exodos of the Plutus to the Ust of
plays which end in a divine marriage. Whether this be so or not,
we have at any rate a clear case of the new God whose reign
supersedes that of Zeus.
12. Trygaeus as Bellerophon in the Peace

The Peace, like the Birds, is based on the general idea of the man
1 See Milchhbfer in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Echelidai.
2 GStternarmn, 230.
^ Robert and Ed. Meyer, Hermes, xxx. (1895) 286.
* Basile has actually been identified with the Basileia of the Birds by 0. Kern,
Pauly-Wiss. iii. 41.
who scales heaven to beard Zeus in his own domain, and returna
to earth with a celestial bride. Trygaeus, mounting through the

air on his dung-beetle, is modelled on the Bellerophon of Euripides'
tragedy. His '
madness," of which his slave complains, is hke that
of Salmoneus. '
He stands all day looking up at the sky, gaping
hke and abuses Zeus.^ He says, "
this, Zeus, what dost thou
mean to do ? Put down that besom do not sweep Hellas clean ;
away " 2 Resolved upon reaching the presence of the God, he

!
'
has tried various unfortunate means of scahng the sky, and at last
found his Pegasus in the reluctant and gluttonous beetle. He
means to ask Zeus himself, once for all, what his intentions
are.^ Aristophanes, as always, refrains from bringing Zeus upon
the scene. When Trygaeus asks for him, Hermes makes excuses
for his absence, and only Polemos appears. Trygaeus, of course,
carries his point with Hermes, whom he induces to help in dragging
up Peace from her underground cavern and to give him the divine
bride, whose spousals are celebrated in the hymenaeal Exodos.
The play thus presents the New Zeus motive in a milder form.
13. The New Zeus in the Clouds v

AVith the two examples before us, in the Birds and Plulus, of
plays ending with the installation of a new Zeus, we gain a fresh

light on the peculiar economy of the Clouds. This play presents
the same idea, only in an inverted form : the place of Zeus is
temporarily usurped by a new-fangled deity, Dinos, who is dethroned

at the end, while Zeus is restored.
When Strepsiades has submitted to the instructions of Socrates,
' The description

recalls the attitudfr.of Salmoneus on the vase above referred
to (p. 23, n. Salmoneus stands with head thrown back and looking upwards,
2).
while he brandishes a sword as if threatening Zeus, whose thunderbolt he holds
in his other hand.
' 56 : Sl' iifdpas yap is rhv ovpavby (SX^wk
(iiSl KEXV^^^ XotSopeiTat ry Sii
Kal (pi}(!i.v a Zed, ri iroTf (SouXeiiei iroierr ;
KariBov t6 xipTjMa" M') 'KKSpa t^v 'EXKdSa.
' 103 : Slave. . . . Sttoi TrireirBiu Siavoei.
'
Tryg. t( 5' dXXo 7' f,
ws rbv At' cs rhv ovpavdv ; . . .
iprjffd/Meros iKelvov 'EXXtJ^wv iripL

aTTaâmivTUtv rt iroLfiv /SovXeiJcrat.
THE BXODOS 29
the adept in the mysteries of the meteorosophists, and the Clouds

have made their majestic entrance, the first and greatest secret of
the new irreUgion is revealed.i^-These Clouds, says Socrates, are
the only divinities ; all the rest is rubbish. '
But Zeus,' exclaims
the astounded neophyte, '
our Olympian Zeus, is he not a God ?
'
Nonsense,' replies Socrates what do you mean by Zeus ?
;
'
There is no Zeus.' '

What do you say ? Then, who is it who
sends the rain ?
'
'
Why, the Clouds of course Did you ever see !
it rain without clouds he might as well

? If Zeus sends the rain,
send from a clear sky and give the clouds a holiday.' It is the
it
Clouds, too, whose rolling motion causes the thunder. But who '
makes them move ? Is it not Zeus ? ' '

Certainly not ; it is Dinos,
the heavenly Whirl.' '
Dinos !
—and I never knew there was no
Zeus, but Dinos now is king instead of him ^ !
'
When new doctrine has been brought to the reach of

the
Strepsiades' intelligence by homely analogies, he raises the objec-
tion Whence comes the thunderbolt, flashing with fire, that
:
'
strikes and shrivels us, and scorches where it does not kill ? This,
at any rate, is clearly sent by Zeus to fall upon the perjurers.' The
answer is forcible : we need not look far to find perjurers who have
never been blasted ; and the bolt quite as often strikes the temple
of Zeus himself or his own trees, the oaks, which cannot be guilty
of impiety. The thunderbolt is explained physically by the action
of a dry wind on the clouds.
The deposition of Zeus by the usurping Dinos leads to conse-
quences which, at the end of the play, finally revolt Strepsiades,
when he hears the same doctrine from the lips of his son. In
Pheidippides' mind it has led to the practical conclusion that there
is no harm in beating his father.^ The incident is the occasion of
the Agon,^ in which the young man all but triumphs over the old,
were it not that his offer to maintain the '
worse reason '
and prove
1 365 ff.
^ 380 : Streps. A!vos

tovtI i\e\'/i$eiv, ; 6 Zeis oiiK Siv, dXX' dvr' airov Awos
/j,'
|
vvvl pariXeiav. not accidental that ' O King Zeus

It is was formerly !
'
Strepsiades' favourite oath, Clouds 1, & ZeD âaiXeO rd XPW" t"'' "inTUv Saov,
and 153, ZeO jSao-iXeB r^s Xeirr^TT/T-os rfiy <ppevui>.
ffl Perhaps 7ra/iâ(r(Xeia 'AjraiAXi;
(1150) might be regarded as the wife of Dinos, the impious counterpart of the
Basileia of the Birds. (The Clouds are called Tra/t/SatriXeiai at 357.)
' He
has learnt from the Unjust Reason (904) that there can be no Justice,
or Zeus would have perished for binding his father Kronos.
" 1345 ff.
the Tightness of beating his mother too, brings about a revulsion
in his father. Strepsiades calls upon him to respect Zeus Patr6os.
'
Hark at you with your Zeus Patr6os cries Pheidippides !
'
'
how old-fashioned you are As if there were any Zeus There ! !
' '
is !
' affirms Strepsiades emphatically. '
There is not/ answers hia
son ;
'
Dinos has driven out Zeus, and he is King now.' ^ The old
man vehemently recants his former folUes, accusing the heavenly
Whirl of having turned his head. He calls for his slave to bring
a ladder and a mattock, and to cUmb on the philosophers' roof to

dig down, while he himself takes a torch to set it on iire.^ Thus,
it
as if armed with the pick of Zeus and the Ughtning itself, he

'
'
batters and burns the dwelling of impiety.

That this analogy is present to Aristophanes' mind seems probable
in view of the similar threats exchanged by Iris and Pisthetairos in
the Birds. The usurping new Zeus of that play has just declared that
the Birds alone are gods, and men must not sacrifice to Zeus. Iris
bids him not to excite the awful anger of heaven, lest Justice, with '
the pick of Zeus, overturn the whole race in one common destruction,
and the murky flame bring thy body and thy house to ashes.'
Pisthetairos, nothing daunted by this tragic outburst, retorts the
threat. If Zeus gives him any trouble, he will send his fire-bearing
eagles to burn down his house.^ In the Clouds, Strepsiades acts
' 1468 : 8tr. val vai KaraiSiaBriTi. irarpiSov Aia.

Ph. lio6 ye Aia iraTptôv ' ws apxaios eT.
Zei>s yap rts ^(Ttlv ;
Str. iiTT.v.
P^. ovK far', oSk, iTel

Aii'O! /3o(ri\ei5et t6v AC ^fcXjjXoKus.
' He is prompted to this by (the statue of) Hermes, whom he has asked not to
blast him for his former impiety, 1479 flP. Hermes, as usual, represents Zeus.
^ 12,38 Iris. /J.upe, p-dpc, ixtj deCbv Kivei.
: S> Spinas
Scivis, Swois |UiJ trou 7^1/os TavuiKedpov
Aios /ta^^XX^; ttcLv avaaTpi^rj AlK-q,
XiyxiJs 5^ (TMjua Kal dd/iuv Tre/jlTrrux&s
KOLTaiSaXiicrri aou AiKV/nplats jSoXais.
Pisth. . . . 5p oTo-d' Sn Zeds et /le Xvrr-^ffet Hpa,
p,i\a8pa fih airroO Kal W/joks 'Ap.^loi/os
KaraidaXJiffoi irvptpiipoKriv alerois
;
The Scholiast on this passage quotes Soph. frag. 659 [Chrises), MaxAXp Zij^Js
iâi'a<rTpa<f>iJ. The language of Cloud.'i 1486, ap-Lvii^v <j>ipuv . . . tJ riyoi Kuri-
o-KOTrT' recalls Aesoh. Again. .'525 Tôloi' Kara^Kdâvrtx. toO SiKr/iphpov
:
Aios fiaK^Wn, \
and the Scholiast perhaps refers to similar phrases in his note on

a/aviriv diri
ToO SUeXXai'.
THE BXODOS 31
as the repentant minister of the old Zeus, now reinstated after the
interregnum of inverted morality and Ucence under Dinos.^
There are thus three (or, if we count the Peace, four) plays of
Aristophanes whose chief motive is the accession of a new God to
the throne of the old Zeus. We must next turn to others, in which
the closely allied notion of the accession of a new King dominates
the plot and especially its end.
14. The New King in the Knights and the Frogs
Two other plays, the Knights and the Frogs, are ahke in that
there is in each a long struggle between two competitors for a seat
of honour, in presence of a judge who represents the Athenian
public of the fnyx (Demos) or the theatre (Dionysus). In the
Knights, the contest is, in a sense, between young and old, for the
Sausage-seller is supported by the youthful knights, while Cleon,
the Paphlagonian, appeals to the '
old men ' of the law courts.^
The competition throughout is for the seat at the pubUc table in
the Prytaneum. Cleon's enjoyment of this privilege is repeatedly
mentioned, and the transference of it to his conqueror is the last
fruit of victory.^ But, though the Sausage-seller wins the wreath
and privileges of office and is hailed as kallinikos (1254),* while his
In view of the frequency of the New Zeus motive, it is curious that the Old
1
Man, Philooleon, in the Wa$ps, in the course of his Agon with the Young Man,
his son, compares his power in the law courts to the kingdom of Zeus 620 8. :
Up' oi) /leydXriv ipxh" &PX<^ ""^ '"'''' ^'^' oiSiv iMrru, SffTis i.Koiw TailB' Hvep 6 Zeiis ; |
^v yoOv li/jieis Bopvîjaoiix^v, ttSs rU (priffiv rav vapi.l>VTwv, \

oXov §povTq rb \
I
Si.Kaa-T'fipi.ov, S> ZeO /SairiXeO. |

k&v itrTpd<j/a, iroinriôvaiv \
KdyKexiSacrlv p.' oi
I
irXoi/ToCirfs |
KoX vdvv a-eimoi. At the beginning of the Agon, he is addressed as
pleading for his kingdom Tcpl rfji xdo-T/s p,i\\o>v pa<n\eias i,vn\oyfi<rei.v
:
Bdelyoleon, beginning his reply in the Antepirrheme (662), addresses him as

Zeus dXX' : Tdrfp -fifiireps KpovlSTj. There seems to be a faint reminiscence of
ffl
the Old King, or Old Zeus, defeated by the Young.

^ 255 : Paph. Si y^pavres t/Xiao-rai, ippdrepa rpiu^SXav, . . . irapaôTjSeiTe . . .
270 : Chor. liis S' i\al;x!iv, lis 5^ p,dff6\Tjs' cldes oV inripxerai |

ucrirepel yipovras
7)p.as . . .
' 1404 : Demos, xai a' dvH toiStuiv ^s t6 irpvTavciov koKSi

'
h TT]v iSpav 8', tv' iKcTvos fjv b ipappaxhs.
Earlier references are 280, 709, 766 (where, at the beginning of Agon II., Cleon
prays that if successful he may keep his seat in the Prytaneum), 823.
* It may be noted here that in the Knights the two suitors for the favour
of Demos, who are called his 'lovers' (Ipaarai), run a race while the object of
their affections 'plays the coquette
'
: v. 1159, Saumge-seller : S.<pes dirb âX^lSav
antagonist is reduced to his rival's former menial trade, the final
triumph is reserved for has been promised by

Demos himself. He
the Sausage-seller that he shall drive in a golden chariot, wearing
a diadem and a purple robe bespangled with gold.^ In the last
scene he appears in all his glory and is saluted as '
monarch of
^
Hellas and of this land '
and '
King of the Hellenes.'
In the Frogs, ^ we learn that it is a law in the underworld that
the best representative of any noble art shall be entertained in the
Prytaneum and have the seat next to Pluto, until a greater artist
come to dispossess him. Aeschylus has held the throne of Tragedy
but now Euripides has arrived, and, emboldened by his success
with the more disreputable characters in Hades, has laid claim to
the succession. The public have demanded a trial. Sophocles,
when he arrived, behaved very differently, kissing Aeschylus with
reverence and taking his hand and Aeschylus made room for him.
;
But in the present strife Sophocles will stand as odd man out, and
dispute the victory only if it falls to Euripides. When Aeschylus
is taken back to the upper world, he bequeaths his throne during
his absence to Sophocles.*
In both these plays the main interest turns on a contest for what
is, in a democracy, the nearest equivalent to a royal throne. The
Prytaneum, containing the common hearth and household gods
of the state, was a survival Once more, too,
of the King's palace.
we find an analogy with the Olympic victor, who, at the conclusion
of the Games, was feasted in the Prytaneum.
It may be noted here that the greatest of all the demagogues,
Pericles himself, was again and again compared by the writers of
the Old Comedy to Zeus, and given the title of tyrant or king.
Kratinus calls him a tyrant born of the marriage of old Kronos
and the spirit of Eevolution, Stasis.^ Pericles is the squill-headed '
4)1.4 re xai Tovrovi, |

iVo a' eu iroiCifiev ii iVou. Demos: Spav tuvto. xpi). I
&nrov.
Paph. : l5oij. Demos : Bioir' Hv. Saus. : iiroeeiv oi'k iii. \
Demos: aXK' ^ /icyaXm
iiri tG>v ipaaruv
fiiailxovi]tru Trifiepov \
i/j; A/' ij 'yw Spitpofiai This race, which is
; ;
followed by a feast and sacriBoe in one (Neil on 1168) and the crowning of the
victor, saluted as KaWlvLKos (1254), resembles the race of suitors for the bride.
The Paphlagonian whose wreatli is taken a^^•ay is like Oenomaus, the defeated
old king.
' 967. The Sausage-seller produces an oracle to this effect.
' '
1330: Chor. 5eI|0Te riv ttjs 'EXXdSos vfuv xal ttjs 7^5 Tô-Se ixbvapxov
Xaip\ a fiaffiXeO rO>v 'BXXiJxoj;'.
» 761 ff. ' \h^:^ ff. 5 Frag. 240 K.
THE EXODOS 33
Zeus who wears the Odeum on

his head ' like a crown.^ With his
Olympian and thunders he confounds all Hellas, and
ligjitnings
carries the thunderbolt in his tongue.^ The name of Hera was
satirically bestowed on Aspasia.^ In his Nemesis Kratinus repre-
sented the loves of Pericles and Aspasia under the guise of the
amours of Zeus and Nemesis. In the Ught of our inquiry, it seems
likely that these comparisons were, if not suggested, at least helped
out, by the New Zeus motive.
15. The Women Plays

The reign of Zeus stood in the Greek mind for the existing moral
and social order its overthrow, which is the theme
; of so many of
the comedies, might be taken to symbohse, as in the Clouds, the-
breaking up of all ordinary restraints, or again, as in the Birds
and the Plutus, the restoration of the Golden Age of Justice and
Lovingkindness, that Age of Kronos which hngered in the imagina-
tion of poets, like the after-glow of a sun that had set below the
horizon of the Age of Iron. The seasonal fegtixaJs of a Satornalian
character celebrated the return, for a brief interregnum, of a
primiti ye innocence Jihat knew not shame, and a liberty that at any
other time would have been Ucentious. Social ranks were inverted,
the slave exercising authority over the master. At Rome each
household became a miniature republic, the slaves being invested
with the dignities of office. A mock king was chosen to bear rule
during the festival, Uke the mediaeval Abbot of Unreason or Lord
of Misrule.
may underhe the two plays of Aristophanes in which the
This idea
social position of men and women is reversed. In the Lysistrata
the women seize the Acropolis and refuse to have anything to do
with their husbands till the war shall be ended.* Praxagora, in the
' Frag. 71 K : 6 o-x'i'Of^âXos Zeils 'oSl irpoipx^TM \
6 UepiK\iris, TipSelov lirl toS
Kpavlov I
âv. Plutarch Vit. Per. 13 : to 'OSefoK . . . eMpa X^yovcri. yevitreai koX
/il/xruia TTJs Pa<ri\iKijs aKrjvtji, ^jrtcTTOToOcTos koI Toirif HepiKKiovs.

2 Ach. 530. Plut. Vit. Per. 8 : al fiivrot KUfxifSlai. twv t6te hilo-UKSkav aTovS-g re
TToXXAs Kal licrk yiXwTos dêiKdruv âvdis els airiv iitl Tif Myip /tdXiffra ttJc
irpoaoiwiilav SifKomi., '^povrai/' iiiv airbv Kal '

iarpdirreiv,' Sre Srniriyopolv, ' Seivip Si
Kepavvbv iv yXiiaiT'ri <pipHV ' \ey6vTiiip.

3 KratinuB, frag. 241 Plut. K : Vit. Per. 24.
* Mr. A. B. Cook points out to that the Lysistrata glances at the story of
me
the Amazons, the Areopagus to attack the Acropolis. The
who encamped on
allusion actually occurs in the Parabasis, 678, ris S' 'Afxa^6pas (rKdvei, Ss MUoiv
lypatf' iip' Xwuv inaxop^pas reus avdpiicrip.
C
34 THE ORIGIN OF ATTIC COMEBY
Ecclesiazusae, packs the assembly with women disguised in their
husbands' clothes, and by a snap vote puts her sex in absolute
authority over the state. She then estabhshes a Utopian Constitu-
tion, with a likeness, probably more than accidental, to some
features of Plato's —
EepubUc a form of government more than once
compared by its author to the Reign of Kronos in the Golden Age.
In Aristophanes, the exchange of dress between the sexes reflects
a custom which frequently marks Saturnahan festivals.^ The
general atmosphere of hcence, and in particular the sexual freedom
which marks the Old Comedy, are explained and justified by the
persistence of these associations. The Golden Age is an extra-
ordinarily frequent motive in the Old Comedy. ^
It can hardlybe a mere chance that so many of the extant plays

are based on the general idea of an inversion of the existing order.
We have seen, too, how the notion of the new God or new King is
bound up with the Sacred Marriage, in which, year by year, a fresh
representative of the power of fertihty must take the part of divine
husband in the magical sacrament. From the fact that almost every
play ends with a 'marriage,' we have conjectured that what we called
the underlying plot-formula of the Old Comedy preserves the out-
Hnes of a ritual or folk drama performed at some seasonal festival.
Other fixed features of the comic plot have still to be examined,

with results which, it is hoped, will considerably strengthen our
hypothesis. But before we turn to them, we shall break ofi here
to ask how this supposition squares with the Uterary tradition of
the origin of Comedy. At the head of this external tradition stands

Aristotle ; and from his authoritative statement we must take our
start.
^ The motive is used iu the Prologue of the Ecclesiazusae and in the

Thesmophoriazusae, where Euripides and his kinsman both disguise themselves
as women. Compare the female disguise of Pentheus, violating the mysteries of
the Maenads in the Bacchae.
^ Athenaeus, vi. 267 B S., cites on this topic the Pluti of Kratinus, the Thena
of Krates, the Amphictyones of Telecleides, the Melaileis and Persai of Phere-

Urates, the Tagenistai of Aristophanes, the Thuriopersai of Metagenes, the
/Seirewes of Nicophon. Ct. ConB,t, Aristophane, -p. 199. Add to these the GoWen
Sace of Eupolis.
CHAPTER III
THE PHALLIC SONGS

16. Aristotle's Statements about the Origin of Comedy
The loss of the second book of the Poetics, which dealt with Comedy,
leaves us in the main dependent on a few unsystematic remarks
dropped in the extant first book. It is true that the summary
known as the Tractatus Coislinianus ^ is supposed to be based on
the lost part of Aristotle's treatise ; but it tells us nothing about
^
origins. Perhaps this fact, coupled with Aristotle's own statement
that the early stages of Comedy had left no record, because it was
for a long time an amateur performance not officially recognised,
makes it fairly certain that, if the lost book of the Poetics were
recovered, it would not add to our knowledge in this particular.
We fall back, accordingly, on the well-known passage in the fourth
chapter ofBook i. A summary of the context will be useful here,
because we shall see later that the statement is incomplete, and
that this incompleteness is due to the general drift of the passage.
17. The Fourth Chapter of the Poetics
The chapter opens with a derivation of all poetry from the innate
human instinct for imjiatisce-cepigsgntaiiou (mimesis), aidedby a
natural sense of harmony and rhythm. Starting from these original
aptitudes, men, by a series of gradual improvements on their first
^
efforts, ' created poetry out of their improvisations.'
Poetry was divided into two kinds," according to the difference of
' Published by Cramer, An. Par. i. 403, and discussed by Bernays, Zwei
Abhandl. iiher d. Ar. Theorie des Dramas, Berlin, 1880. It is now printed in
Kaibel's Com. Or. Frag. i. p. 50.
2 Poet. 5, 1449 a, 37.
* iy4vvri<rav t^p irolrjcriy ix rdv aiTO(XXfSMcrii,iT<av.
^ Aristotle here follows Plato, who speaks of ' each of the two sorts of poetry,'
Theaet. 152 B, tSv ttohjtw o! S,Kpoi ttjs Toiriffews iKaripas, KU/iifSlas /ih 'Erlxap/Jios,
rpayifSlai 5i "Qp.ifpos.
36 THE OBIGESr OF ATTIC COMEDY
character in the poets. The graver sort, representing noble persons

and actions, produced hymns and panegyrics the more frivolous ;
and worthless represented the actions of the ignoble, and composed

invectives (\lr6yov<;). The natural metre for invective is the iambic
— a term, indeed, the use of which to describe this metre is derived
from these primitive invectives, for to iambise ' a person means to '
make him the object of abuse, satire, lampoon, and it was in this '
^
metre that they used to iambise one another.'
There are thus two main traditions, the graver poets writing heroic
verse, the others iambic. Homer's position is pecuUar, for his
Margites gives him a place in the ancestry of Comedy, as the Iliad

and Odyssey make him the forerunner of Tragedy. When, however,
Tragedy and Comedy made their appearance, natural inclination
and the grandeur of these new forms drew the writers of epic
to become tragedians and the writers of iambic to take to Comedy.
Aristotle now goes back to his point that poetry had its origin in
improvisation and here comes (in a parenthesis) the most important
;
statement that '

Comedy originated with the leaders of the Phalhc
Songs, which survive to this day as institutions in many of our
states.' ^ He then passes on to describe the early phases of Tragedy.

To this meagre information the Poetics adds Uttle more than that
no record had been preserved of the early stages of Comedy, though

it is implied that a long course of development lay behind the '
late
moment ' in its history when -

official recognition substituted a
regular Chorus for the amateur performers of its earlier phases —
date now fixed at 488-7. We are only told that Comedy, in that
pre-official phase, had certain definite forms (i7;;î7/iaTa), and it is
impUed that had masks, a prologue, and a plurality of actors.^
it
These last remarks we shall consider at a later stage.

' iv Tip fiirpif Toirif Note that the phrase suggests a set
id/ipilôi> dXXijXow.
match in abuse or invective. Iambi
used of prose satire, tois KariXorfiSiiv
is
W/i/3ois, Ath. X. 445 B. Gorgias is said to have remarked of Plato's dialogue

called after him, ws KaXios otSc XlXiroiv laiJ.piêi.v, Ath. xi. 505 D.
* 1449 a, 9 yevofi.ivrjt <5'> oHv dir' ipxv' airoaxeSiatmKris
: xal oiirT) [i) TfiaytfSla) —
Kai 7} icu/itpSia Kal rj /ih dTrJ tUv iâpxivTUv riv SiSipafiây, ii S^ dri tuv ri, 0ttXXu[4
& (ti Kal vvv iv jToXXors rdv irdXeuv Sianim vo/tifiyneva kot4 /UKpbv 7ji)Ji)9)) (^
rpayifidla) ktX.
" 1449 a, 37 : ol /iiu oSv t^s rpaytfiSias /ieTa/Sdireis Kai St' Siv ^y^voi-to oi \e\-^6a<rai,
T] Si Kia/UfiSia Sid t6 fii] trirouSdfetrSai i^ dpxiji (\a8cv •
Koi yiip xop^" KUHifSuii d<j/( irore
6 ipxw iSuK(v, dXX' i$c\ovTai îrav. ijSri Si irx'fll'^T& riva aiVr^s ôiJo-ijs oi "Ke^biuvm
ain-Tii TTOirfTal luirtfiOveiovTai. ris Si Tp6<Twira iiriSwKef 1j irpoXi7oiis ^ 7rXi}6i) {nroKpiTiiv
Kai S<ro TotavTa, ijyv6riTai. For these last statements see below p. 216.
THE PHALLIC SONGS 37
The statements of fact contained in this passage, though they are

sometimes lightly put aside, have the highest authority. None but
the most cogent reasons ought to make us reject them, so far as
they go. Until such reasons come to light, we shall take it as a
matter of history that Comedy had one root probably its main —
root—in the Phallika which Aristotle speaks of as a well-known
,
and widespread institution in the Greece of his own day.
18. The Phallic Song in the Acharnians
The best illustration of what Aristotle means by the Leaders

'
of
the Phallic Songs '
is provided by Aristophanes himself, who gives
us a miniature representation of the ritual in the scene which follows
the Parados of the Acharnians. This passage has often been dis-
cussed, but we must go back upon it once more, because it brings
out the point in which Aristotle's stafement needs to be supplemented.
The grim old charcoal-burners hi Acharnae, who form the Chorus
of the play, have got wind_of Amphitheos, as he was returning with
specimens of wine for libations, which are to symbolise a private
treaty of peace he had been sent to conclude between Dikaiopolis
and Sparta. The emissary has barely had time to hand over the
thirty-years' sample before his pursuers are heard in full cry
on his
tracks. Amphitheos makes a clean bolt, while Dikaiopolis retires
to his farm in the country,^ where the new-made peace enables him
to celebrate once more the Country Dionysia, intermitted during
six years of war. Pursuing their search, the Acharnians are startled
at hearing from within the farmhouse the ritual cry for silenceand ;
inferring at once that their quarry must be close at hand, they

conceal themselves to catch him when he comes out. The cry
is again heard, and DikaiopoKs appears at his
'
Silence !Silence !
'
front door, carrying a large pot and marshalUng a miniature proces-

sion, which consists of his daughter, as Kmephoros bearing on her ,
head the sacred basket containing the implements of sacrifice, and

two slaves holding erect a pole surmounted by the phalUc emblem.
When the procession has marched some way round the orchestra,
Dikaiopolis bids his daughter set down the basket, that they may
' On the change of scene see Nilsson, Siudia, 69 S. If the 'stage' of
Aristophanes had, as is probable, the- same dimensions as those of the first
permanent stage bnildings, this long narrow space would allow of two or three
scenes being set simultaneously, as in the mediaeval mysteries.
38 THE ORIGIN or ATTIC COMEDY
begin the sacrifice —a
ceremony abridged to the pouring of soup
over a celebrant, standing presumably before the
flat loaf. The
image of Dionysus set up in the theatre to watch the dramatic
performances, invokes the blessing of the God. The procession is
then re-formed and proceeds on its way, while DikaiopoUs sings the
hymn to Phales. both priest and congregation, he has

Since he is
not only to perform the part of Leader of this Phalhc Song, but
' '
also to act as his own Chorus. The form of the Song is important.
It opens with an invocation of Phales, the companion of Bacchus
in his nightly revels, who is greeted once more after six years of
neglect. This passage is no doubt sung by the '

Chorus.' It is
followed by iambic trimeters, evidently extemporised by the

'
Leader,' for they mention individuals by name. The tone and
subject are appropriate to the cult of a phallic divinity. The song
might be continued indefinitely on the same plan ; but it is inter-
rupted by the Acharnians breaking out from their hiding-place and

dispersing the procession with a shower of stones.
In spite of this curtailment, the scheme of the ritual performance
seems to be complete in outline. There is (1) a procession to the
place of sacrifice ;
^ (2) the sacrifice itself ; (3) the procession re-
sumed with a Kdmos song addressed to Phales^Tro/iTr??, Ovala,

K&/io<;, But what immediately concerns us is first the form, and
secondly the contents, of the PhalHc Song.
19. The form and content of the Phallic Song
We can now see what Aristotle means by the '

Leaders ' {i^dpxov-
re?) of the Phalhc Songs. The function of a leader, or leaders, is
characteristic of many types of popular poetry. The simplest case

of all is the work-song, or rudimentary chanty, used where some
piece of work performed by a number
of persons at the same time
needs to be regulated in a recurrent rhythm.^ Thus, when the
Chorus of farmers in the Peace are hauhng up the image of the
Goddess, Hermes acts as leader with the cry Heave-ho / ' (w eta),
'
'
"
1 Nilaaon's description of the scene [Studia, 91) ignores this first procession,
but the text (241-24:3) seems to imply it. I agree with the stage directions as
given in Starkie's edition.
' An interesting, though one-sided, study of the relations of work to poetic
rhythm will be found in Biicher's Arbf.it und Rhythmus (4 Aufl., Teubner, 1909).
repeated by the Chorus at each pull on the ropes. ^ Again, there is
the boatswain's '

0-op ' ;
but instances need not be multiplied of
so universal a custom. On the basis of this simple practical device,
it is easy to trace the growth of poetical forms like the seaman's
chanty and a host of other work-songs. There is no line dividing
these work-songs from the recurrent cries of ritual, where the work
done is the magical or religious '
dance,' as when the priests of
Baal leaped up and down at the altar ^ on Carmel, calUng from
'
'
morning even until noon, Baal, hear us A similar form ' !

'
survives in the Utanies of modern ecclesiastical use, where the priest

utters a series of short prayers, and the congregation join in a
recurrent response, -a
Another popular form, in which there are a number of leaders,' '
who improvise in succession, is the Lament. The classic instance

is the mourning for Hector at the end of the Iliad? As soon as the
body is laid upon a bed in the palace, the women gather round, and,
one after another, Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen lead the '
wailing.' Each utters her grief in eloquent words, and, as she ends,
the whole company howl together. In this case the improvised
solos are, of course, '
serious '
(airovhala, as Aristotle would say)
but on happier occasions the same form naturally lent itself to
encomia of a hghter kind for instance, the Marriage Songs ;
hymenaeal and epithalamium with their ribald stanzas and the —

refrain Hymen,'
Hymenaee ! * '
We approach still nearer to what Aristotle indicates, in the Chil-

dren's Songs which accompany the quete in the festal processions
of many countries. In these there is commonly a choral verse
sung by the whole company at every house-door as they come to it.
Then follows that other element mentioned by Aristotle, of im-
provised '
iambic,' often taking the form of imprecations upon the
householder, either of blessings if he gives liberally or of the reverse
' Schol. ad Pac. 459 : roe ''Spiiriv Kal raOra i^tipx^t" 0i\ov<ri . . . raOra ava
ixipot "Kiyerai, rb ftiv toO 'B/jjaoO KeKeiovros Kal fX/covros, rb di ruv iMbvriiiv
iwnKovbvTiiiv
2 1 Kings xviii. 26 A. V. marg.
3 xxiv. 718 3'
flf. : rîri-v aW
"EkA^ti adivoS i^rjpxe yboio (747). For the dotSoiis
epûv iUpxo^' 720 see Nilsson, ' Der Ursprung der Tragodie,' JV. Jahrb. f.
of '^-
klass. Alt. xxvii. (1911) 618 ff.

* Agathon's K6mos-aong (v. 104, Hvi Sai.iJ.bvav b kQ/xos ;) in Aristoph. Thesmoph.
101 S. is a good instance. The leader sings three or four lines alternately with
three or four lines by the Chorus.
40 THE OEIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
if he isThe Pseudo-Homeric Eiresione Song preserves the
stingy.
type, and better still the Ehodian Swallow-Song recorded by
Athenaeus.^ This last has the choral verse beginning The swallow '
has come, has come,' followed by iambic Unes in which the children
threaten to carry ofi the wife of the grudging householder, and
promise that, if he gives, he shall get much good. L. von Schroder,^
in his interpretation of Rg Veda, as a hymn belonging to a
ix. 112,
popular procession at the Soma festival, finds in the third verse,

which begins I am the Singer,' the figure of the Yorsanger and
' '
Leader of the procession who sings the stanzas of the song, while
the rest only join in the refrain,' and remarks that he is a typical
figure whose congeners appear in the European processions, such
as that of the Sword-dancers.
In the procession of the mystics, whose ritual songs form the
Parados of the Frogs, the lacchos Song consists of three stanzas
in iambic metre, each ending with the refrain invoking lacchos to
join in the procession. It is immediately followed by a passage
resembUng, no doubt, the canonical Jesting at the Bridge '
{Gephyrismos), where the procession at the Greater Mysteries rested

on its tiring journey from Athens to Eleusis.* The short stanzas of
three hues each should probably be assigned alternately to one or
more Leaders and the Chorus.* It is evident that the series might
be carried on so long as the improvisers could think of new victims,
just as I have heard a gathering of modern students sing, until
their wits were exhausted, extempore couplets at one another's
expense, with the chorus :
'
Vive la,
Vive la,
Vive la compagnie I
The marching songs of various English regiments, with their

1 viii. 360 B. For a. good diaousaion of these songs with modern parallels
see Dieterioh, Sommertag (Kleine Schr. 1911, p. 324 ff.). Examples from modem
Greece will be found in A. J. B. Waoe, ' North Greek Festivals and the Worship
of Dionysus,' Brit. Sch. Ann., xvi. (1909-10) p. 233 ff. These are used in pro-
cessions which include a mummers' play of the type described below, p. 62.
^ Mysterium u. Mimus (Leipzig, 1908), p. 451.
' Of. V. 372 ff.
x'^f" ""Ss; KainaKdnrTiov Kal xalûv Kal x^f^fwc.
. . . I am
inclined to agree with Tucker (Class. Rev. xviii. 416 ff.) that the procession
which forms the Frogs Parados is not the Eleusinian procession, but perhaps
belongs to a similar ritual at the Lesser Mysteries of Agrai. But this does not
affect our present point.
* Van Leeuwen accepts this arrangement in his edition, following Arnoldt.
ribald satire on the officers, still perpetuate the fescennine tradition

of the Roman triumph.^
The essential features, then, of the PhalKc Song are those which
we have found illustrated in the miniature specimen sung by
DikaiopoUs. In point of form, the song is divided in alternation
between a Chorus and a succession of Leaders. In point of content,
it consists Ukewise of two elements. There is first the invocation
of the God or genius of the rite, who is invited to be present among
his worshippers :
— Phales, Phales !—H3Tnen, Hymenaee !
lo, Paian ! etc.^ Second, there is the '

iambic '
element of ribaldry
or satire, improvised by the Leaders at the expense of individuals
by name. From Aristotle's statement it is clear that, in his opinion
at any rate, the iambic element of personal satire and abuse,
'
'
which he takes as the essential feature of the Old Comedy, was

derived from these improvisations, and modern students agree with
him.^
Before we consider how this statement needs to be supple-
mented, we shall glance at another type of performance, evidently
of Idndred origin, which preserved the same two features the —
iambic abuse on which Aristotle lays stress, together with the
invocation of the God of fertihty, of which he makes no mention.
20. The Phallo'phori, Ithyphalli, Autokabdali
In the well-known passage in which Athenaeus * describes various

forms of the Mime and of primitive Comedy, he quotes extracts
Similar customs lived on through the Middle Ages at church festivals,
'
especially thosewhich perpetuated the Roman Kalends. Thus, the Synod held
at Rome in 826 {canon xxxv.) speaks of bad Christians who go to church on
feast days, tallando, verba turpia decantando, choros tenendo ac ducendo, simili-
tudinem pagamorum pera'gendo. Du Mdril, Hist, de la ComMie (Paris, 186i), i.
p. 67. A good collection of similar texts from the Fathers and Church Councils
is given by B. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), vol. ii.
Appendix N.
^ Dionysus is invoked to lead the Kui/tos in Thesmoph. 987, riyov Si y' ffiS' airis
ail I
Ki<rcro^6pe Bd((X"e |
SicrTor' • iyi) di /cii/xois |
ffi î\oxlipoi.ai fiiX^pa. He is actually
called Ifo/Jôs, Eur. Bacch. 141 d d' HapX"^ Bp6fuos, of. 115, Bpi/uos Scms Ayu
Bida-ovs. Soph, Ant. 154, 6eui> W vaois x°P°^^ warmixtois irdvTa! iTriXdu/iey, o 9^/3os
3' iXeXlxOuv BdKXtos ipxoi.
Cf. Reich, DerMimus, i. 327, who points out that the other root of Comedy,
'
the Mime, was free from this element of personal abuse.

"f-xiv. 62lDflf.
42 THE ORiaiN OF ATTIC COMEBY
from two authors, Sosibios of Laconia (about 300 B.C.) and Semos
of Delos (not later than the first century B.C.), both of whom men-
tion a kind of performance closely related to the Phallic Songs
we have been studying. Sosibios confuses it with the quite distinct
varieties of the Peloponnesian Mime— the Spartan Dikelon, the
Tarentine Phlyax, etc. Semos does not make this confusion, and
he supplies us with short descriptions of what evidently are merely
local varieties of the performance in question. Athenaeus quotes
textually from Semos' book On Paeans :
'
The Autokabdali (" Improvisers "), as they are called, used to'
wear crowns of ivy and deliver extempore speeches. Later the

name " Iambi " was given both to the performers and to their
compositions.
The Ithyphalli wear masks of drunken men and wreaths
'
they have flowered sleeves and tunics with a white stripe down the
middle, and they are girt with a Tarentine mantle (a long transparent
garment) which covers them down to the ankles. They enter in
silence through the door (in the back-scene of the theatre), and
when they reach the middle of the orchestra they turn towards
the audience and say :
Come, make way for the God ;
Erect arid in full vigour.

He will pass through the midst?-
'
The wear no mask, but they put
Phallophori,' he continues, '
on a visor made of the flowers serpyllum and paideros, and above it

they wear a thick wreath of violets and ivy.^ Wrapt in thick
cloaks, they enter (the theatre), some by the side entrance, others by
the central door (in the back-scene), marching in step and saying
This song to thy glory, Bacchus, we pour,
In simple rhythm with various tune ;

Fresh is our muse and virginal
€iT€ tQ dec^' '6^\eL ycip [6 Beds']
dpdbs i<r^vdwfihos
Sia iJ,iaov /3a5/feiv.
The God, Phales, or the phallus borne erect on its pole.
of course, is
'^
(TTi(j>avov dacriiv iav Kal kIttov, like the wreath worn by Alcibiadea in the
epilogue o£ Plato's Symposium (212 b, idTeipiwaiiivov kittov ri rivi areipivifi Saffet

Kal loiv).
She has not the old songs in use,

But maiden is the song that we hegin.^
Next they ran forward and satirised persons whom they had fixed
on. They performed standing still. The bearer of the phallus . . .
was smeared with soot.' ^

'
It is evident at the first glance/ says Eeich,* '
that these Auto-
kabdali, Phallophori, Ithyphalli are not mimes, but totally distinct
from them. Their external appearance at once distinguishes them
from the mime. They appear in chorus, and have their chorus-
leader they perform a choral dance and sing a choral song in
;
dignified language ; then they ridicule individuals among the

audience, that is to say, sing derisive songs at them. Their place
is in the orchestra. The mimes, on the other hand, appear singly,
or at most in a small company, never in a Chorus they speak in ;
a burlesque style, they represent definite types and eschew iambic

ridicule ; they have nothing to do in the orchestra.'
These remarks rightly emphasise one important point about these
companies of revellers —that they are an undifferentiated Chorus,
not a body of actors assuming distinct parts. They wear a uniform
dress, which is not the grotesque costume worn by the mimes on
the Lower Italy vases. Above all, they do not wear the phallus.*
Their Sikyonian title 'Phallophori' means only that one of their
number, explicitly mentioned in Semos' description as '
the Phallo-
phoros,' carried the emblem aloft on a pole, as Xanthias and his
* aol, Bdxxf > ravSe ixovaav ayKatjô/iev,
airXovv fivB/ibv x^"''''^' al6\<j> /UXei,
Kaivdv, d,irap8ivevTov, oH ti rah irdpos
Kexp'tf'ivO'V i^Salcnv, dXX' iK'^parov
Kardpxo/J'ev rbv Hfivov,
elra TrpoarpixovTes eriiBaôv oOs hv wpoiXoiVTO, ardS-qv Si irpaTTOv. o Si
ipaKKotpbpos I8i §aSltu)v(Vi Karawaa-Bels alBd'Kif. The 'simple rhythm' is, of course,
the iambic.
^ I can see no reason to accept Poppelreuter's sceptical suggestion (De com,
ait. prim. 14) that Semos in this circumstantial description deserts truth to
illustrate Aristotle's doctrine of the ' leaders of the Phallika,' as he understood

it. The rural Phallic Songs were no doubt as familiar to Semos as they were
to Aristotle before him, and to Augustine centuries later; and why should
Semos invent all these curious details of dress and the actual text of the
hymns ?
' Der Mimus, i. 277. G-. Thiele, Anfdnge d. griech. Kom. N. Jahrb. ix.
(1902) 405 should also be consulted.

* The dress of the Ithyphalli precludes the wearing of a visible phallus, in
spite of their name.
fellow-slave carry it in Dikaiopolis' procession —the emblem called
'the God' in the song of the Ithyphalli. Their performance is evi-
dently closely akin to the third part of Dikaiopolis' ritual —the pro-
cessionresumed after the sacrifice and accompanied by the Phalhc
Song. The form and content of the Phalhc Song remain essentially
unaltered. There is first the invocation of the God, then the im-
provised '
speeches ' (pi]aei<;) or '
Iambi,' containing personal satire
'"
(rwOaa-fioi) upon individual spectators. The important change
is that the performance has been detached from the old country
ritual procession of which it once formed the concluding part, and
I
has become a stationary performance in a permanent theatre.
The authors of these descriptions do not state how they are related
to the ruder Phalhc Songs of country ritual, such as that sung by
Dikaiopolis. But it seems probable that the Phallophori, Auto-
kabdali, and the rest were guilds or societies of fashionable young
men, like the Ithyphalh, Tribalh, Autolekythi, whose drunken revels
disturbed the peaceable citizens of the Athens of Demosthenes.^
There was also a club of Fools (' The Sixty ') who met in the precinct
of Heracles at Kynosarges.^ They may, perhaps, be alluded to by
Aristophanes in the phrase AiofieiaXdôve^.^ EarUer than this,
however, we cannot trace them. We hear of an encomium sung

by the Ithyphalh at the entrance of Demetrius Poliorketes.*
Another such society was presided over by Antheas of Lindos in
Rhodes, an elderly man of good fortune, with a gift for poetry,
'
who spent his whole Ufe in the service of Dionysus, wearing Dionysiac
dress and maintaining a large company of fellow-devotees. He
was always leading a Edmos by day or night. He composed
'
Comedies {i.e. satires) and many other poems of the same sort,
'
in which he led his company who carried the phallus.' ®

'
' A
' Dem. in Oonon. liv. 14 and 39. ^ Athen. xiv. 614 D.
^ Ach. 605. Bieterich, Pukinella, p. 42^ calls this club '
eine Art Karntval-
gesellschaft,and remarks that the lobacchoi of the Athenian inscription have
'
more resemblance to such oluba than to the Orphic cults. Some dispute the
existence of the Diomean Club as early as Aristophanes' time see Starkie's ;
note on Ach. 606. * Athen. vi. 253 D.
" Athen. x. 445 A (after Philomnestos) 'Avdias 6 AlpSios w/jeo-jSiVepos icai

: . . .
ciSalfiMv duBpuiTTos cii(j>v^s re vepi wolri<riv &v TrdfTa riv /3to ^Siovwiafei', iffBIJTi. te
AioKwria/c?!' (popSiv koI iroWoiis Tpi(j>(jiv o-u/i/Sd/cxous, ii9iyiv re Kwfi.ov alel fi.€$' inUpaf
Koi viKToip . . . oSros Si koI KU/iipSlas iirolei Kal rdv &\\a woWi, iv roirifi rif rphirip
4 iîjpxe Tois 11(6' airoS (paWoôpoviri. Rohde, Griech. Roman p. 270,
iroi.T)iii.TU)v,
^
remarks that KaiufSlat would mean srMrzhafU GtdicUe, ja wold gar phaiUastisch
erfundene Brzdhlungen in Prosa, and illustrates this use of the word.
Christian writer records similar proceedings at Bphesus in connection

with the famous cult of Artemis.^ They had no doubt flourished
there since the days of Heracleitus.^
It seems likely that these clubs were to some extent analogous
to the convpagnies des fous, confriries des sots, sociitSs joyeuses, etc.,
of fifteenth-century France. These guilds were formed to carry
on the popular Feast of Fools, when the reforming party in the
Church succeeded in suppressing the official celebration. Similarly,
perhaps, the Greek societis joyeusesmay have kept up the old
popular tradition of ribaldry and personal invective, under the
emblem of Phales, when these elements were purged out of Comedy
in the fourth century. In any case these Phallophori or Autokabdali
throw no independent light on the origins of Comedy. We have
mentioned them here to show how they perpetuate the form and
contents of the Phallic Song, with its two elements of invocation
and invective.
21. The same elements in the Parabasis
The discussion of the Parabasis must be kept for a later stage

of our inquiry ; but one undeniable fact about it is in place here,
namely that, in point of content, the Parahasis closely resembles
the Phallic Songs we have studied. After the introductory Anapaests,
the rest of the Parahasis consists of an epirrhematic syzygy.' ' That
is to say, an Ode, sung by one half of the Chorus, is followed by a
*
speech called the Epirrheme, delivered by the leader of that half ;
then the other half-Chorus sing the Antode, followed by the Ant-
epirrheme, recited by their leader. We are not now concerned with
this 'epirrhematic' structure, further than to note that it is not (as it
' Martyr. S. Timoth. (Lobeck, Aglaoph. 177), rijs ''E<f}e<rlo>v iarl \el\j/ava Trjs
irpihiiv elSuXoKarpelas KaTayuyelwi' oCtw KoKov/iivoiv, lis airol rdre iK&Kovv eopr^v iv
TlHipau Ticlv iTtTeXovvTes, Tpoirx^fiara iiiv dirpeir^ iaVToti irpoffTlBeiiTes irpds Si t6 lii]
yiyviinKeadai TpoauTlots KaraKaMTToyres rd, iavrSv Tpbaiava, fibvaXi re iwiipepdiievoi

Kal eMvas elSiliXuv Kal Tiva â-fuiTa ivoKaXoSiiTes (sic) iTiivres re drdxruis i\ev9ipois
afSpiffi Kal aepvati yvvai^l.
^ Frag. 127 (Byw.) : el /ir] y^p Awvicrip ttoixv^v Ittoiovvto Kal iliivcov g.ff/i,a alioloiaiv,
iyaiSiaTara etpyaffr' S,v. wvrbs Si 'AiSijS Kal Aidwaos, Sreifi iialvovrai Kal \T]valôvaiv.
' I cannot agree with the writers who hold that Pax 1171-2, where the
Antepirrheme follows the Antode without a complete grammatical break, shows

that both passages must, at least in this play, have been delivered by the same
voices. Van Leeuwen's distribution of parts in his edition seems to me right.
issometimes said to be) identical with that of the Phallic Song, but
very different.^ It may, however, be relevant to point out here that,
apart from form, the Pardbasis contains the same two elements
invocation and invective —that we have met in the Phallic Songs and
the compositions of the Phallophori. The Ode and Antode normally
contain an invocation, either of a muse or of Gods, who are invited
to be present at the dance, the divine personages being always
selected with reference to the character of the Chorus.^ The
Epirrheme and Antepirrheme often contain the other element of
satire or some milder form of advice or exhortation. But, though
the content is 'iambic,' the metre is normally trochaic. We cannot
here go into the difficult question. how this fact is to be explained.
All that now concerns us is the fact itself : that the Parabasis
does contain these two elements— the hymn of invocation, and
some sort of satire or exhortation, delivered directly to the audience
by the Leader of a half-Chorus.
22. The incompleteness of Aristotle's statement
We have now made out what Aristotle means by the Leaders '
of the Phalhc Songs,' and traced these from country festivals of

Dionysus to regular performances of societSs joyeuses in the per-
manent theatre of the city. With the improvised satire and in-
vective used on these occasions Aristotle connects the correspond-
—
ing element in the Old Comedy an element which distinguished
it from the Comedy of his own age. If this was a conjecture, it
was an extremely acute one but it seems more likely that so
;
much of genuine tradition about the origins of Comedy was aHve

in Aristotle's time.
Against this account we have nothing to say, except that it
1 The Epirrhematic syzygy is a closed system in two balanced antiphon.=il

halves. The Phallic Song is a series of stanzas, -nhich may be continued to any
length, punctuated by a recurrent refrain sung by the whole (not the half) chorus.
We shall discuss the Epirrhematio form later.
2 Ach. 665 {Ode), deOpo MoDira . .'AxapviK-//.
. Knights, 551 (Ode), Poseidon,
patron of the Knights, and 581 (Antode), Pallas, invoked to bring Victory.
Olouds, 583 (Ode), Zeus, Poseidon, and Aether, God of the meteorosophists 595 ;
(Antode), Phoebus, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus. The Wasps, 1061 (Ode), invoke
their former selves, the ghosts of their youth. Peace, 775 (Ode), MoCcro iri /ifi/
TToX^Mous dTToxTttM^va, 796 (Antode), XctpiTcs. Birds, 737 (Ode), MoOaa \oxiMia.
Lysiatrata is exceptional see below p. 125.
; Thesmoph. 829, Ode and Antode
are wanting. Frogs, 675 (Ode), MoCtra xop'î' 'fpwc.
is uot complete, and that its author never intended it to be

so. He was thinking of the differentia of the Old Comedy, the
which sets it in polar opposition to the tradition
characteristic
of heroic encomia and the glorification of heroic Saga in Epic
and Tragedy. Hence, he pitches upon satire and invective and ;
it must be remembered that the verb K(Ofi^Seiv meant to '
satirise.' But the Comedy we know does not consist solely or

mainly of personal satire and abuse. These are and this is a —
—
fundamental point not in any way dramatic more, they involve ;
no germ out of which a drama could grow. The form into whiclT
those old rude Phalhc Songs of the country festivals could and did
develop we have before us in the performance of the Phallophori
in the theatre. These bands of young men are not actors they^ ;
have no assumed character the disguise they wear is no more

;
dramatic than the mask and domino assumed in the modern carnival,
in order to conceal the wearer's identity, while he behaves in a way
that might have unpleasant consequences if he were recognised.
From such a performance we might derive something like the
Parabasis of the Old Comedy, though even this has features which
cannot be so explained^-3ut the Parabasis is not the drama. It
merely interrupts the action of the play ; the actors leave the stage
while it is performed ; its contents are irrelevant and in no way
help out the course of the action. The element of drama here sinks
to the lowest point : the Chorus-leader in the introductory Anapaests
drops the mask completely and deUvers a message direct from the
poet to the Athenian pubUc. Nothing could be clearer than that
the play itself, with all its curious and stiff conventions of form and
plot, could not possibly grow out of the Parabasis as a nucleus.
Aristotle, moreover, never meant to say that it did.*" As we have
already insisted, he was not, in the passage we summarised, pro-

fessing to give a systematic account of the origin of Comedy. The
parenthetic statement we have illustrated refers only to the element
of personal invective ; and of that we have every reason to think

it gives a true explanation. —
But phalhc rites this is our next
point —
have another side of equal importance, of which Aristotle
says nothing, because it does not happen to be relevant to his
theme at the moment. We, however, who are looking for a com-
plete account of the beginnings of Comedy, cannot neglect this
other side, and to it we must now turn. We shall find there the
rootsand essentials of the comic drama, as opposed to the non-
dramatic performances of the Phallophori or of the Chorus in the
23. The essential content of phallic rites
It has never been doubted that the phalUc procession, with its
sacrificeand Kdmos, belongs to a well-known class of rites, to be
found all over Europe and in many other regions, and intended
to secure the fertihty of the earth and of man and beast. Plutarch ^
describes the corresponding procession in his native Boeotia as
'
of a popular and joyful character. One carried an amphora of
wine and a bough ; another dragged along a goat ; a third followed
carr5dng a basket of dried figs; and, to crown all, the phallus.'
Herodotus beheved that the institution of such festivals in Greece
^
was due to Melampus, who introduced the name of Dionysus '
and his sacrifice and the procession of the phallus.' Melampus,

he thought, had brought them from Egypt and, though this ;
affiliation may be dismissed as unhistorical, Herodotus was right

in recognising the same essential content in the processions of
Osiris. The women of Egypt, in their village festivals, carried
about puppets of a cubit in height, fitted with a phallus of nearly
the same length, moved by strings. A flute-player went before,
and the women followed, singing to Osiris.
The main purpose of these fertihty processions is well brought
out by Mr. Chambers.' He remarks that ' the customs of the village
festivalgave rise to two types of dance. There was the processional
dance of the band of worshippers in progress round their boundaries
and from field to field, from house to house, from well to well of the
village. . . . The other type of folk-dance, the ronde or " round,"
is derived from the comparatively stationary dance of the group
of worshippers around the more especially sacred objects of the
festival, such as the tree or the fire. The custom of dancing round
the Maypole has been more or less preserved wherever the Maypole
is known.'
'
Maypole or church,' he says elsewhere,* 'may represent a focus
1 Z>e cup. divit. 8. For all these ceremonies see NiUson'a Stndia, p. 90 ff.
2 ii. 49.
' Mediaeval Stage, i. 164. Mr. Chambers refers to Kogel, Oesch. d. deutschen
lAtteratur, i. i. 6. * /bid. p. 118.
of the cult at some specially sacred tree or grove in the heathen

village. But the ceremony, though it centres at these, is not
confined to them, for its whole purpose is to distribute the benign
influence over the entire community, every field, fold, pasture,
orchard and homestead thereof.
close, Probably all the. . .
primitive festivals, and certainly that of high summer, included a

lustration, in which the image or tree which stood for the fertilisa-
tion spirit was borne in solemn procession from dwelhng to dwelhng
and round all the boundaries of the village. Tacitus records the
progress of the earth-goddess Nerthus amongst the German tribes
about the mouth of the Elbe, and the dipping of the Goddess and
the drowning of her slaves in a lake at the term of the ceremony.^
So too at Upsala in Sweden the statue of Freyr went round when
winter was at an end while Sozomenes tells how, when Ulfilas
;
was preaching Christianity to the Visigoths, Athanaric sent the

image of his god abroad in a wagon, and burnt the houses of all
who refused to bow down and sacrifice. Such lustrations continue
to be a prominent feature of the folk survivals.'
Mr. Chambers' description needs to be supplemented by taking
into account precisely that other factor which Aristotle emphasises
to the exclusion of the positive element of fertihty magic. Besides
the distribution of benign influence, of which Mr. Chambers speaks,
these processions have also the converse magical intent of defeating
and driving away bad influences of every kind. The phallus itself
is no less a negative charm against e\'il spirits than a
positive agent
of fertilisation.^ But the simplest of all methods of expelhng such

malign influences of any kind is to abuse them with the most violent
language. No distinction is drawn between this and the custom of
abusing, beating, the persons or things which are to be
and even
its own, but to get
rid of them, as a carpet is beaten for no fault of
the dust out of it. Professor Margoliouth,^ illustrating Aristotle's
1 Oermania, 40.
the supposed
2
The magical potency of the phallus is well illustrated by
regarded by Kretschmer
connection of the words fascinum and î^Kapos,
or Thracian speech. It is
(EinUitung, 248*) as borrowed from lUyrian
^^T"". ^/coXoyer^ Hesyoh.,
may come
conjectured that /Sifo,, m'-h P^'^'^^^"-
de la. langm greeque (1910),
from the same source. Of. Boisacq, Did. etym.
Etym. WSrterb. s.v. fascinum. Phallic objects
s.v. pdffKavos; Walde, Latein.
are, of course, used to avert the evil eye.
3 The Poetics of Aristotle (London, 1911), p. 142.
D
division of primitive poetry into encomium and invective, observes
that Arabic poetry has never passed beyond this stage, and adds
what Aristotle did not know —that both are in origin the magical
utterance of words fraught with blessings or curses. He instances
the involuntary blessings uttered by Balaam in place of the curses
desired by his employer, and the insults by which Apollonius of
Tyana and his party got rid of a vampire on their travels.
'
The spell against a demon usually takes the form of violent
abuse.'
Examples from classical antiquity readily occur, notably in the
fescennine'^ verses sung at the Eoman triumph or the wedding
procession. The same double intent of stimulating fertihty and
averting bad influences hes at the root of many forms of festival
dance, which, when the serious purpose has died out of them, are
kept up under the sanction of old custom, and partly for the sake
of the inherent pleasurableness of obscenity. In the same way
XoiBopo'i (abuse) passes into ludus (play).^ There can be no doubt
that the element of invective and personal satire which distinguishes
the Old Comedy is from the magical abuse of
directly descended
the phallic procession, just as is due to the sexual
its obscenity
magic and it is likely that this ritual justification was well known
;
to an audience famihar with the phaUic ceremony itself. Many

centuries later, the double purpose of the phalHc procession was
quite understood by Augustine, who quotes Varro's description of
how the phallus was carried at the Liberaha on carts, at first through
the villages of Italy and later into Eome itself. '
By such means,'
he adds with pious horror, '
the God Liber had to be placated for
the success of the crops, by such means must malign influences he
1 The derivation of fescenninus iiom

fascinum ( = <pa\\6s) is still in dispute.
Walde (Lalein. Mym. WOrterb.^ p. 286) rejects it in favour of the derivation
from the town Fesoennium ; but the Roman antiquarians were alvpays tempted
to derive whatever was obscure in their customs and language from Etruria,
and may well have invented this. Cf. Hendrickson, The Dramatic Satura,'
'
etc., Amer. Journ. Phil. xv. (1894), p. 5.

2 Walde, Latein. Mym. WOrierh.^ (1910) s.v. Indo, ludus: Sehr wahrscheMich
zu gr. X(fei' 7raif«, Talôvin Hes., XbdeffSai- iiMWaaBat. His., \ot5opos
Wfouiri
' schimpfend,' \oi5opetv 'schm&hen.' So îci, 1*, 533, Prellwitz Wh. The name
of lambe is connected at Eleusis with a type of sexual dance (for which of.
Diels, Arcana Oerealia, in Miscellanea di Arch, di Storia e di Eilol. dedicata
al Prof. A. Salinas, 1907). lambe cannot be dissociated from fa/i|8os,
'
invective.
Mven from the fields' i
The Phallic Song is sung by Dikaiopolis
at the Country Dionysia, a
festival held in the villages of
Attica
soon after the winter solstice, when
the seeds of the new crop had
]ust been deposited in the ground.^
This was the critical moment
lor inducmg the powers of f ertihty and expelhng
all adverse influences
of blight and death.
24. The transition to ritual drama

In the phallic procession, the ceremonies
centre round the
sacred emblem of human fertihty, borne high
upon a pole. In
the Egyptian equivalent described by Herodotus,
the same emblem
IS the attribute of a human figure, moved by strings, the hieratic
marionette,^ aheady capable of figuring as the first
actor in a
genuine drama, the puppet-show. At the great round
lake in the
temple precinct at Sais, the sufferings of Osiris were enacted
by
night in a passion-play, perhaps by means of puppets, more
probably
by human actors.* We have here in epitome every necessary stage
linking the processional dance to the drama. In the phalhc cere-
mony of the Acharnians, not only is the emblem visibly there, but
the vaguely personified genius, Phales, is invoked to lend his unseen
presence. Let him but appear incarnate in a human form,^ and
we shall have the first actor, the hero of our supposed ritual drama,
which ends how — else should a fertihty drama end ?—in the sacred
marriage of the divine protagonist, that mystical and magical union
by which the whole creation is moved to bring forth the fruits of
the year in due season.
1 Oiv. Dei, vii.

21 Sic uidelicet Liber deus placandus J'uerat pro euenlibus
:
seminum, ab agris faacinatio repellenda. Nilsson, 8tudia, p. 93. The two

sic
aspects are illustrated by the gigantic phallus-plough with its apotropaic eyes,
carried by a row of naked men on the black-figured vase figured by Dieterich,
Mutter Erde (1905), pp. 107, 108.
^ Nilsson, loc. cit.
* See Magnin, Histoire des marionnettes, for the movable statue of a God as
the first puppet.
* Herod, ii. ITl: iv Si tj; Xf/ii'^ Tairfi to, 8elKri\a t&v TdBeav airoO vvKtis noievai,
Tk KaXiovcri iivnT'fipia, Aiyiimoi. The term SeUrjXa is the name also of the oldest
known type of drama at Sparta.
" The notion of an abstract spirit or genius incarnate in a representative,
though earlier than any drama, is of course not primitive. The abstraction
itself must first arise by a process of generalisation from repeated concrete facta.
On this process see J. E. Harrison, Ancient Art and BitucU (1913), pp. 70-73.
Here, in the very type of ritual to which Aristotle bids us look
for the origins of Comedy, we find the necessarygerm from which
could arise a form of drama strongly marked by the obscenity
intowhich positive sexual magic must degenerate, and the invective
which perpetuates the old negative element of magical aversion.
Some of the various forms which such a drama may assume will be
passed in review in the next chapter, before we return to the other
fixed features of the Aristophanic plot, which they will serve to
elucidate.
CHAPTER IV
SOME TYPES OF DRAMATIC FERTILITY RITUAL
25. Classification of types
The forms taken by the rudimentary drama of the fertility ritual

can be ranged under several heads. We shall
here mention some
of the most important, which specially concern
us because we shall
find clear traces of their influence on the comic plot. The account
will be based on fuller statements, to which the reader is referred. 1
All the varieties that we shall pass in review
symbolise the same
natural fact, which, in their primitive magical intention, they
were
designed to bring about and further by the famihar means
of
sympathetic or mimetic representation— the death of the old year
and the birth or accession of the new, the decay and suspension of
life in the frosts of winter and its release and renouveau
in spring.
Hence, in their essential core, they involve the two aspects we have
studied in the phallic ritual the expulsion of death, the induction
:
of life. The ritual ceremonies may be classed according to the

modes in which these two powers and the conflict between them is
symbolised.
26. The Carrying out of Death
In the simplest type, an power of evil, often under

efiigy of the
the name of Death, is and burnt, or thrown into the
carried out
water, or otherwise destroyed. In ancient Greece a ceremony of
this kind was held at Delphi, where a puppet called Charila was
beaten by the King with his sandal, hanged, and buried in a pre-
cipitous chasm. The rite is identical in content, and not improb-
ably even in name, with the Russian Funeral of Yarilo celebrated at
^ Frazer, G. B.', The Dying God, chap. viii. A useful short statement will
be found in Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, chap. ix. A scientific classification
—
ought to be based on the condition of society pastoral, agricultural, etc. The
tree represents fertility to the forest-dweller, the bull, ram, or goat to the
pastoral nomad, and so on. This, however, lies beyond our present scope.
63
the end of June.^ In this too, a puppet used to be put into a coffin,
carried out of the town with dirges, and buried in the fields.
Closely analogous to the Charila ceremony is the Driving out of
'
Hunger,' recorded by Plutarch, at which a household slave was

beaten with rods of a plant of cathartic powers and driven out of
doors to the words, '
Out with hunger, in with wealth and health.' ^
This simple ritual formula reminds us that such ceremonies have

commonly their other complementary half. If Hunger and Death
are driven out. Wealth and Life must also be brought in to take
their place. '
In many Silesian villages the figure of Death, after
being treated with respect, is stript of its clothes and flung with
curses into the water, or torn to pieces in a field. Then the young
folk repair to a wood, cut down a small fii-tree, peel the trunk, and
deck with festoons of evergreens, paper roses, painted egg-shells,
it
motley bits of cloth, and so forth. The tree thus adorned is called
Summer or May. Boys carry it from house to house singing appro-
priate songs and begging for presents. Among their songs is the
following :
" We have carried Death out,

We are bringing the dear Summer back,
The Summer and the May,
And all the floiuers gay." '
^
The Greeks had their Eiresione, more than once mentioned by

Aristophanes.The songs which accompanied the procession of
this Harvest May have been illustrated in the last chapter.
The festival at which the Eiresione was carried about and hung
up over the doors of houses was the early harvest festival of the
Thargelia. This feast has linlcs with the Dionysia that preceded
it in the spring : both were under the management of the same
1 Frazer, O. B.', The Dying Ood, p. 262. The identification of Charila and
Yarilo is suggested by Mr. G. Calderon, Slavonic Elements in Greek Religion,'
'
Class. Rev. xxvii. (1913), p. 80.

2 Pint. Q. Symp. vi. 8. These ceremonies and the Pharmakoi are fully
discussed by J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 95 ff. G. Murray, Rise of the ;
Greek Epic (1907), Appendix ; A

J. G. Frazer, G. B.^, The Scapegoat (London,
1913), pp. 252 ff. In the last named volume an enormous mass of eyidence is
collected bearing upon the periodic expulsion of evil and induction of good
influences, discussed in the last chapter. 0. Kern (Arch. f. Religionsxviss. xv.,
1912, 642) thinks that Ar. Plutus, 873, irikov Sri taken with its context,
/Soi/Xi/iiji',
is evidence of the existence of a ôvKl/xov ^f Aoffis at Athens in 388 B.C.

' Frazer, G. B. ', ibid. p. 246, where many parallel customs are
collected.
55
magistrate, the Archon both had cyclic choruses of
;
men and boys.
The ThargeHa illustrates in distinct ceremonies each of the two
aspects we have been considering—the induction of fruitfulness
and wealth, and the expulsion of hunger, disease,
sin, and death.
The bringing in of the new wealth of the harvest is
symbolised
in the simplest way by the procession
of the Eiresione, an olive-
branch, twined with wool, on which were hung
figs and loaves, small
vessels of wine and oil, and a drinking-cup.
It was carried by
a boy who, in order to symbohse fulness
of life and dissociation
from any contact with death, was required to be
d/i<f,ieaXv'i, the
child of hving parents. The other and darker side, the driving out
of hunger, sin, and death, was expressed in the expulsion
of the
Pharmakoi. On the 6th of Thargelioni two men, with strings of
figs hung on them, black and white to show that one was for
the
men, the other for the women, were led out of the city and set in '
an appointed place.' There cheese, barley cakes, and figs were

put in their hands, and they were ceremonially beaten on the
genital organs with leeks, branches of wild fig and other plants.
Finally, it is said, they were burnt, and their ashes were scattered
to the winds and into the sea, for a purification.^
The point we wish to emphasise is that the Pharmakos, by some*
primitive conjunction difficult for us to grasp, is a representative
both of the power of fertility and of the opposite powers of famine,
disease, impurity, death.* The ceremonies of the Pharmakos andj
the Eiresione are complementary. At the former we have the
human victim, at the latter the olive-branch, conducted in pro-
cession. Both are hung with fruits. The Eiresione, again, has
and vessels of wine and oil the Pharmakos is given
its figs, loaves, :
figs, a barley-cake, and cheese. Each has even its drinking-cup ;
for a kylix was hung on the Eiresione, that it might go drunk to

'
'
bed ; while the Pharmakos carried a phiale, the ritual theft of
which from the temple of Apollo was yearly enacted as part of
' Plutarch {8ymp. 8. 1. 1.) tella us that the 7eWfl\ia of Socrates were celebrated
on the 6th of Thargelion, those of Plato on the 7th. This implies, not that the
two philosophers were really born on those days, but that Plato was held to be
an incarnate Apollo (cf. Mommsen, Feste, 469), and— what is much more striking
—that Socrates, the purifier of men's souls, who suflfered an unjust death, was
regarded as a Pharmakos, who bore the sins of Athens on his innocent head.
2 The sources are given and discussed by Mommsen, Feste, 468 £f. ; J. E.
Harrison, Prolegomena, 95 S. ; Farnell, Cults, iv. 270 ff.

s On this point see Frazer, The Scapegoat (1913), pp. 227-8.
the ceremony. 1 The human victims, with their burden of sin and
death, are driven out and consumed with fire. Their ashes are
scattered, both to get rid of the evil and to distribute the good
fertihty charm over the fields. They cannot be brought back again.
In their place, the Eiresione branch comes in, bearing the wealth
of the year and the promise of life and food in abundance. Our
authorities do not tell us when this second ceremony occurred but ;
it is a natural conjecture that it was connected with the procession
on the second and happy day of the festival, ThargeUon 7.^

We may note here that one play of Aristophanes, the Plutus, is
on the theme Out with Poverty and hunger, in with Wealth

:
'
and health.' Wealth is brought into the house, which overflows

with abundance Poverty, who comes to make her protest and
;
plead her beneficence in the Agon, is driven away with curses, like
a PharmaJcos.
27. The Fight of Summer and Winter

evil and of good are personified
In other cases, the two powers of
as two antagonists who fight together. This clear distinction and
opposition of the two spirits is easy, because, in the succession of
the seasons, each in turn has his separate reign, the period during
which he triumphs over his rival. Thus in the towns of Sweden '
on May Day two troops of young men on horseback used to meet

as if for One of them was led by a representative
mortal combat.
of Winter clad in who threw snowballs and ice in order to
furs,
prolong the cold weather. The other troop was commanded by a
representative of Summer covered with fresh leaves and flowers.
In the sham fight which followed the party of Summer came off
victorious, and the ceremony ended with a feast.' ^
Usener * explained on these Unes the Macedonian Xandika, held
1 Euatath. II. xxii. 496, p. 1283 : ^5ov Si iraWer

elpea-idivrj avKO. (pipei koI iriovas fipTous
Kal fiiXiTOS KOTi\'r)v Kal ftaioK ^7riKpi}(roff9ai
Kal KiiXixa eiîjipov ha. fie$ijoV(Ta KaSeid-ri.
Harpoor. p. 180 Bekk., s.v. iap/j,aK6s. , . . 6Vi Si ivofui Kipiiv icTiv 6 âpfMKis,
lepis Si (piAXas toO 'AiriXXu^'os (cX^âs &\ovs iirb tuv irepl rbv 'kxiWia KaT^KeiaBij,
Kal TO, Toh QapytjKtois dYi/xeva Toirav Airo/iififi/iaTd Istlv, "Iot/jos iv i. twv 'Aw6X\uvos
iirKpaveL&v etpTjKev.
2 Cf. Mommsen, Feste, 481. » Frazer, O. .B.^, Dying
Ood, p. 254.
" 'Heilige Handlung,' Arch. f. Beligionswiss. vii. (1904) p. 301.
SOME TYPES OF DRAMATIC FERTILITY RITUAL 57
in the month Xandikos before the Spring equinox. The rite
marked the opening of the campaigning season, and was regarded
as a purification of the army. On the occasion described by Livy^
it consisted of three parts. First came the Lustration : the army
marched between the two halves of a slain dog. Then followed
the Parade {Decursus) and finally the two halves of the army
;
engaged in a sham by the two royal princes. A banquet

fight, led
and Kdmos followed in the evening.
The combat often takes forms which are still famihar as games.
The Tug-of-War, for instance, is practised among many primitive
peoples as a magical means of procuring the victory of the powers
of fertihty. A well-known case is the autumn contest among the
Central Esquimaux, in which two parties, the Ptarmigans compris-
ing all persons born in winter and the Ducks all persons born in
summer, tug at a long rope of sealskin. If the Ptarmigans are
beaten, then Summer has won the game and fine weather may be
expected in the coming winter.^ In his general remarks on
ceremonies of this type. Dr. Frazer * says :
'
We may surmise
that in many cases the two contending parties represent respec-
tively the powers of good and evil strugghng against each other for
*
the mastery.'
28. The Young and the Old King
In the battle of Summer and Winter the two powers are clearly
opposed and distinct. In other forms the good spirit and his
antagonist are felt to be, after all, only two successive representatives
of the same Here again, the explanation is obvious with
principle.
reference to the order of time. The spirit of the new year and of its
^
6 fif. in lustratione et decursu el simulacra ludicro pugnae. Cf. also Plut.
xl. ,
Vit. Alex. 31, which describes a mock battle between two parties of
Alexander's
(Suid.
followers, led by an 'Alexander' and a 'Darius.' Polyb. xxiii. 10, 17
s.v. ivayliuv). Similar sham fights in Java and Turkestan are described by
Frazer, Q. The Scapegoat (London, 1913), p. 184.
B.^',
2 The Central Eskimo,' Sixth Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Mthnol.
P. Boas, '
(Washington, 1888), p. 605 Frazer, The Dying God (London, 1911), p. 259.
;
' The Scapegoat (London, 1913), p. 180, where many instances are collected.
Mr. A. B. Coot suggests to me that some such festival Agon may

^ lie behind
myths of the contests of Heracles with Death (Alcestis) Old Age (the
the ;
found at Olympia, Olympia iv. Bronzen, pi.

earliest illustration being a bronze
xxxix. no. 699a) ; orEpiales (Sophron, frag. 70, Kaibel). The explanation would
Cf. also J. E. Harrison,
give body to what seem somewhat thin abstractions.
'Helios-Hades,' Class. Rev. xxii. (1908) 12 flf.
fertility is merely the spirit of the old year come back again. The
old year is a force of evil and obstruction, only because it has grown
old and yielded to the decay of winter. When this is remembered,
the contest may take the form of a struggle between the Old and
the Young King, ending in the death of the former and the succession
of the latter to his throne. We have already had this type before
us in the myth of Pelops, who defeats the old weather-king,
Oenomaus, and wins his daughter, Hippodameia. Oedipus, again,
kills his father Laius, marries the Queen, and succeeds to the
kingdom. There are many other similar stories of the contest
for the of a princess which carries the kingdom with it.^
hand In
must be noted, the action ends in the triumph of the
this type, it
new King and the sacred marriage with the local Earth Goddess.
Another widespread version makes the hero rescue his bride from
a monster. St. George defeats the Dragon and carries off Sabra,
the king of Egypt's daughter Perseus rescues Andromeda
;
Heracles deUvers Hesione, and so on.^ Besides the monster, the

hero in these stories often has to deal with two other forms of the
antagonist —
the wicked Old King, a Laomedon or an Burystheus,
who would defraud him of his rightful reward, and an impostor
who falsely pretends to have killed the monster and all but wins
the bride, when the hero appears in the nick of time with convincing
proof of his own claim.
29. The Death and Resurrection type

Another very important variant is that in which the same Spirit
of Life dies yearly and is brought back to Ufe. In this form the
identity of the old Year Spirit with the new is recognised still more
clearly than in the contest of the old and the new king. We cannot
here discuss the impUcations and developments of this rite, which
may, in its origin, be hnked with the mock death and resurrection
of the candidates for tribal initation,^ and undoubtedly gives rise
to a certain type of mystical '
sacrifice.' But a few points must
^See Frazer, O. B.', The Magic Art, ii. chap, xviii.
^ These legends and countless parallels are exhaustively studied in Mr.
Hartland's Legend of Ptrsetis (London, 1894). See also L. von Schroder,
VoUendung d. aruclien Mysteriums (Miinchen, 1911), p. 6.5 ff.
^ On this subject in connection with the mummeries held
by societies of
young men at Spring festivals, see H. Schurtz, Altershlassen u. Mdnnerbiinde
(Berlin, 1902), pp. 102 ff.
SOME TYPES OE DRAMATIC EERTILITY
RITUAL 69
here be noted. The first is that in this form it is the good principle
that IS slam; triumph, the necessary conclusion to
its
a ritual
designed for a beneficial purpose, must
take the form of a resurrec-
tion. Again, the kilHng may be done
either by the worshippers
themselves, who tear the representative
of the spirit to pieces
{<yrrapaîx6<;) and then lament
by a wicked antagonist
his death, or
in which case the death will be
preceded by a contest similar to
those we have passed in review. To
these points we shall return
later.
The significance of this form of fertility drama with reference

to
the origin of Tragedy has been elaborated by
Professor Gilbert
Murray,! who, while studying the fixed forms ' of the Tragic plot,
'
came to recognise in them the sequence of a ritual procedure which

he summarises as follows :
^
'1. An Agon or Contest, the Year against its Enemy, Light

against Darkness, Summer against Winter.
'
2. A Pathos of the Year-Daimon, generally a ritual or sacrificial
death, in which Adonis or Attis is slain by the tabu animal, the
Pharmakos stoned, Osiris, Dionysus, Pentheus, Orpheus, Hippolytus
torn to pieces {(nrapayfio';).
'
3. AFor this Pathos seems seldom or never to be
Messenger.
actually performed under the eyes of the audience. ... It is
announced by a messenger. " The news comes " that Pan the
Great, Thammuz, Adonis, Osiris is dead, and the dead body is often
brought in on a bier. This leads to
'
'L A Threnos or Lamentation. . . .
'
5 and 6. An Anagnorisis—discovery or recognition—of the slain
and mutilated Daimon, followed by his Eesurrection or Apotheosis
or, in some sense, his Epiphany in glory. This I shall call by the
general name Theofhany.'
Iam not now concerned with the details of this theory, though
I may be allowed to say that I am convinced that it is, in general,
true, and that it provides an indispensable root for the growth of
the tragic drama. Whether Tragedy so originated or not, at any
* The theory was, I believe, first published at the meeting of the Classical
Association on January 8, 1912 (Proceedings, vol. ix. (1912) p. 35 ff.). It is

restated in an excursus to J. E. Harrison, Themis (Cambridge, 1912), p. 341 ff.
See also Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion (Oxford, 1912), p. 46.
Excursus in J. E. Harrison, Themis, p. 341 ff.
'^
rate the Death and Resurrection play is a most important variety
of the fertility ritual drama, and it is as such that it has a place here.
Especially we must observe that the nature of this form entails
that the antagonist shall be regarded as a purely evil power. His
sole function is to cause the passion and death of the good Spirit.
It is forgotten that he had also a right to be considered as having
been, in his own day, the good Spirit himself. It is owing, however,
to this forgotten fact that his fate is sometimes identical with the
usual death of his rival. Thus Pentheus, in the Bacchae, is torn in
pieces and has his pitiful and tragic Re'cognition at the close.^
30. Survivals of these rites in folk plays
Such are some of the chief varieties of the dramatic ritual associ-
ated with the renewal of life in spring. The essential content of
them all is ultimately the same as that of the PhalUc Song, the
victory of the Spirit of Ufe over the adverse influences of bhght
and death. The only difEerence is that this Spirit, instead of being
merely invoked to be present at the procgssion of his worshippers,
is visibly embodied in the person of one of them, and his contest
with the adversary, his death and resurrection, are enacted in
jpantomime.
In modern Europe, this primitive magical ceremony has given
birth to two main types of festival performance, according as one
or other of its two elements, the choral dance or the rudimentary
drama, has tended to prevail. The Sword-dance, including the
Morris Dance, probably, as Mr. Chambers ^ argues, has its origin
here, not in the war-dance some of the figures retain traces of the
:
mock slaying or sacrifice which was the kernel of the dramatic

part. In ancient Thrace we shall presently see an instance of the
sword-dance enclosing a scene of mimic death and resurrection but :
elsewhere in Greece, the armed or Pyrrhic dance became detached.

'
'
See further below, p. 149.

'
The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i. 203. An interesting confirmation

°
of this view is supplied by a sword-dance combined with a Mummers' Play,

performed in Piedmont. It is described at length by E. Canziani and E. Rohde,
Piedmont (London, 1913), 59 ff. One figure in the dance consists of all the
sword-dancers placing their swords round Harlequin's neck. He is tried, con-
demned to death, and told that his skin will be made into a, wine-bag. He
dies and is carried out to burial by two 'Moors.' See Miss J. E. Harrison's
note ad loc.
SOME TYPES OE DRAMATIC FERTILITY RITUAL 61
Along the other
line of development, the dance
remained subordi-
nate to the dramatic action, giving
us the tvpe which survives in
the EngUsh Mummers' Play. We
shall glance at this performance
before passmg to other examples of
the same type of drama on
Greek soil.
31. Description of the English Mummers' Play

This popular drama has three parts, the Presentation,
the Drama,
the Quete.i ' In the first somebody speaks a prologue,
claiming
a welcome from the spectators, and then the leading
characters are
in turn introduced. The second consists of a fight followed by the
intervention of a doctor to revive the slain. In the third some
supernumerary characters enter and there is a collection.'
In the dramatic nucleus, '
the leading fighter is generally St.
George, who alone appears in all the versions . . . George's chief
opponent is usually one of two personages who are not absolutely
distinct from each other. One is the " Turkish Knight." ... He
is sometimes represented with a blackened face. The other is
variously called " Slasher," " Captain Slasher," " Bold Slasher,"
or, by an an obvious corruption, " Beau Slasher." Earer names
for him are " Bold Slaughterer " (Bampton), " Captain Bluster "
(Dorset), and "Swiff, Swash, and Swagger" (Chiswick). His
names fairly express his vaunting disposition, which, however, is
largely shared by the other characters in the play.' After enumerat-
ing a long hst of minor fighters on one side or the other, Mr.
Chambers continues :
'
The fighting generally takes the form of a
duel or a succession of duels. In the latter case George may fight
all comers, or he may intervene to subdue a previously successful
champion. But an important point is that he is not always vic-
torious. On the contrary, the versions in which he slays and those
in which he is slain are about equal in number. . . .
Whatever the nature of the fight, the result is always the same.
'
One or more of the champions falls, and then appears upon the
scene a Doctor, who brings the dead to life again. The central . . .
action of the play consists, then, in these two episodes of the fight
1 Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, i. 211 flf., from whom the following
descriptionis quoted. Mr. Chambers gives the text of one version in an
Appendix.
and the resurrection ; and the protagonists, so to speak, are the
heroes — a ragged troop of heroes, certainly—and the Doctor.'
Many similar ceremonies exist in northern Europe. A good
parallel is by the Whitsuntide mummery in Saxony and
furnished
Thiiringen, called Chasing the Wild Man out of the bush,' or
'
'
Fetching the Wild Man out of the wood.' A young fellow is '
enveloped in leaves or moss and called the Wild Man. He hides

in thewood, and the other lads of the village go out to seek him.
They find him, lead him captive out of the wood, and fire at him
with blank muskets. He falls Uke dead to the ground, but a lad
dressed as a doctor bleeds him, and he comes to life again. At
this they rejoice, and binding him fast on a wagon, take him to
the village, where they tell all the people how they have caught
the Wild Man. At every house they receive a gift.' ^
32. The Festival Plays in Northern Greece
Several observers have recently recorded similar mummers'

^
plays in various districts of Thrace and northern Greece, and

called attention to many remarkable points in which they resemble
Dionysiac myth and ritual. When we compare them with the
Enghsh plays, we note that the original connection with fertility
magic is much more clear, and evidently well understood by the
performers. The phallic element is still prominent the sacred ;
marriage at least equally important with the mimic death and

resurrection which interrupts it. We shall give a short description
generalised from the various instances, in some of which naturally
this or that feature is missing.
Like the Enghsh mummers, these Greek masqueraders go round
the village from house to house, demanding presents of food or
1 From Frazer, G.B.^, The Dying Got?

(1911), p. 208, after E. Sommer, Sagm,
Mdrchtn und Otbrauchtaua Sachsen und Thiiringen (Halle, 1846), pp. 154 sq. ;
W. Mannhardt, Baumhultus, pp. 335 sq. For the Doctor, as a survival of the
primitive medicine-man, magician, Soliaman, etc., see L. von Schroder,
Myiterium und Mimus (Leipzig, 1908), p. 370, who finds a humorous picture of
this seller of magical herbs in Rg Veda, 10, 97. The Doctor as a comic figure thus
goes back to the Aryan Urzeit. See also pp. 448 fl'. of the same work. We
shall return to the Doctor below, p. 156.
' K. M. Dawkins, • The Modern Carnival in Thrace and
the Cult of Dionysus,'
/. H. S., xxvi. (1906), 191 ; A. J. B. Waoe, 'North Greek Festivals,' Brit. Sch.
Ann. xvi. (1909-10), 232.
SOME TYPES OE DRAMATIC EBRTILITY RITUAL 63
money, and singing songs of the type above described, which
combine the invocation of blessings on the generous giver with
personal references to the householder and his family,
adapted to
their ages and occupations.^ In Thrace one
of them carries a
wooden phallus, afterwards used in the play, with which he knocks
at the doors, 2 and an obscene pantomime is enacted on
the straw-
heaps before the houses by a male character and another man
disguised as his wife. In the same instance the drama, proper is
prefacedby a hand-in-hand dance of all the characters, in which
the PoUcemen,' two characters carrying swords and whips, with
'
embroidered kerchiefs round their fezzes, brandish their drawn

swords.3 It may be conjectured that this is a relic of the sword-
dance accompanying the play.
This dance is followed by a sort of Vorspiel, consisting of the
mock forging of a ploughshare
by two characters, called the Gipsy
Smith and his wife. This pantomime is repeated after the play,
and then leads to the yoking of a real plough, which is drawn round
the village square, while a man walks behind scattering seed, and
cries are uttered for plenteous crops.
In the first act of the play itself, an old woman, the '
Babo,'
appears carrying in a basket a swaddled puppet, representing a
seven months' child of which she seems to be the illegitimate
mother. She declares that the baby is getting too big for the
'
basket.' The child develops a Gargantuan appetite for meat and

drink, and he demands a wife.*
This first act has in most of the recorded instances dropt out,
though the old woman, sometimes with a doll in her arms, survives
in some places.^
In the rest of the play the child, supposed to be grown to maturity,
is represented by an actor, the bridegroom, and the action consists
of his marriage with the bride, interrupted by his death and resur-
rection. The other essential character is the adversary who kills
him. In view of what has been said above about the ultimate
identity of the two antagonists, the old year and the new, it is
interesting to note, in the Thracian play recorded by Mr. Dawkins,
that the adversary is an exact double in name and dress of the
1 Waoe, p. 233 ff., quotes the text of several such songs.

2 Dawkins, p. 197. ^ Ibid. p. 198. " Ibid. p. 198.
= The sigaifioanoe of this first Act will be discussed below, p. 86.
hero, except that he carries a bow, while the hero carries a phallus.
Both wear bells tied at their waist and a mask consisting of an
entire goatskin without the horns, with holes cut for eyes and
mouth. Or the mask may be reduced to a fur cap, the face and
hands being blackened. In Thessaly^ the hero and his adversary
are differentiated. The bridegroom wears a fustanella and red
fez, carries a rusty sword, and has bells tied to waist and elbows.
The Arab has the black mask of sheep- or goatskin, a sheepskin

'
'
cloak, and sometimes a tail as well. Elsewhere these two characters

are actually reduced to one, called both bridegroom (yufi^po^) and
Arab.^ A fourth character is the Doctor {yiarpo'i), dressed in '
a black coat, a collar, and a black felt hat, to resemble a graduate

of Athens University.' Where this personage is present, it is of
course his business to resuscitate the slain hero. Some of these
characters may be multiplied : at Lechovo there are three or four
bridegrooms, at Viza two brides.^
Mr. Wace summarises this part of the action as follows :
'
A bride
is found for him (i.e. the child who has grown up), and the wedding
is celebrated, . . . but during the wedding festivities he quarrels
with one of his companions who attempts to molest the bride, and
is killed. He is then lamented by his bride and miraculously
restored to life. The interrupted festivities are resumed, and the
marriage is consummated.'
In these modern instances we find, unmistakably surviving
in northern Greece, exactly what our hypothesis requires. There
is the phalUc procession, going round the village to bring plenty
and good luck to all its inhabitants, with its Phalhc Songs invoking
blessings or improvising maledictions with personal references to
stingy householders. The procession pauses to perform a short
play, the which culminates in a marriage, evidently
action of
intended to promote fertility by magical sympathy. Before this
marriage is consummated, it is interrupted by a struggle between
the hero and a black adversary, the Turkish Knight of the English
play, in which the hero is slain and afterwards revived. The phalUc
I
procession and the sacred marriage we have already discussed at
1 Wace, p. 233. 2 Ibid. p. 239.

Mr. Dawkins, p. 199, says this doubling of the koritsi is hard to explain but
'
;
is it not because two are required to drag thejplough to which they are
yoked at the end (p. 200) ?

65
length. Presently we must
consider whether any traces of the
struggle, the death, and the resurrection can be clearly made out in
Aristophanic Comedy. But before we turn
to that question, we
shall glance at one or two evidences
that have come down to us of
similar ritual pantomimes of a popular sort
in ancient Greece, which
were associated with the armed dance, just as the
Mummers' Play
in England still has links with the Morris
dance.
33. The ancient Armed Dance

Xenophon in the Anabasis i
describes a series of dances performed
after a sacrifice and some Thracians danced in arms
feast. First
to the flute, using their swords (fidxaipai). The dance ended
with
one of them appearing to stab another, who fell and was despoiled
of his arms. The victor went o£E singing, while others carried out
the dead man, who was really unhurt.
'
' The Aenianes and
Magnetes followed with another armed dance called the Karpaia.
One performer laid aside his arms and began sowing and driving
his team, with signs of fear. Upon the appearance of a bandit,
he snatched up his weapons and fought for his oxen— all this in
rhythmical motion to the flute. Sometimes one, sometimes the
other, proved victorious. The defeated, with hands bound behind
him, was yoked and driven beside the oxen. Other local varieties
of the armed dance followed.^
The armed dance called Pjnrrhic was performed by boys in Crete,
'
'
where it was said to have been instituted by 'Koures.' ^ This dance

of the armed priests formed part of a ritual pantomime in which the
child Dionysus was screened from the jealousy of Hera. It has been
so fully discussed * that we need not dwell upon it here. We find
' vi. 1.
^ The connection between the armed dance and fertility has been elucidated
by Frazer The Scapegoat, 233
(
flf. ), who points to the primitive custom of a
number of armed men dancing that would harm the
to drive away demons
crops, while others are sowing. thus an original link between the
There is
sword-dancers and the performers of the mummers' play or other mimetic rites
promoting fertility.
3 Strabo x. 480, da-Ke7v di /cot Tofi/cf xal ivoir\l(f ipxicî-, ^v Karadetâi KovpfJTa
irpwTOV, ila-Tepov di Ktd (TwrdfocTtt tt/k Kk-qdetaav iir' airoO IlvpplxV! ^'"''^ l"l^^ '''^^
Taidii.i' ifiocpov This language seems to bear out

elvM rav wpis irdXe/iop xpW^/J'''''.
Mr. Chambers' view that the armed dance was not in origin a war-dance.
* See especially J. E. Harrison, Themis, chap. i. for the theory that the
Kouretic dance is an initiation ceremony and linked with that form of death
and resurrection ritual.
£
66 THE OBIGIK OF ATTIC COMEDY
it again at Smyrna, where, upon one occasion, the Chians attacked
the town when allmen were out on the mountains, celebrating
the
Dionysiac orgies. The attempt failed, for the men of Smyrna were
engaged in the armed dance and used their weapons to inflict on
their assailants the fate of those who interrupt Bacchic rites.^
Athenaeus ^ regarded the Pyrrhic dance as a war-dance, and such

no doubt it became in effect in Crete and Lacedaemon. But he
records that in his own time there was a Dionysiac variety, in which
the performers held narthekes, torches, and thyrsi instead of spears,
and danced the story of Dionysus and the Indians and the story of
Pentheus. The Indian expedition of Dionysus may not be earher
than the campaigns of Alexander,^ but the story of Pentheus is
older than the Greek drama, and this and kindred motives may well
have been the themes of pantomime armed dances from very early
times. At Athens the Pyrrhic dance was associated with the victory
of the Gods over the Giants, and in historic times it forms a distinct
feature of the Panathenaea, the festival of the armed Goddess.
For Pallas Bellerophon, too, seems to have performed an armed
dance on horseback before he set out to kill the Chimaera.* Here
again we probably have the mythical counterpart of a mimic
slaying of a monster, combined with a weapon dance.
34. The Fight of Xanthus and Melanthus

r We approach nearer to the origins of Athenian
still drama in
a legend attached to the cult of Dionysus of the Black Goatskin
{Melanaigis),t\i& very God whose image was brought from Eleutherae
to Athens and was annually set up in the theatre to witness the
^performance of his sacred plays. His cult was said to have been
instituted at Eleutherae by the eponymous hero, Eleuther, to
deUver his daughters from madness that had been sent upon them,
because they saw an apparition of Dionysus wearing a black
'
goatskin and they reviled liim.' ^ The story is a double of the

more famous instance of the madness sent upon the women of
' Aristid. Or. in Smym. i. 230. » 630 D.

' Kern, Pauly- Wissowa, v. 1040.
* Find. 01. xiii. 86, dvajSds S' eiSis h6vr\ia xaXKudeb iraitêv. Sohol. ad loc. . . .
fj hbirXiov Spxv'i-'' iTroiuTo is certainly the right interpretation.

' Suidas, s. V. M^Xoi'. The reviling points to a ritual aWxpoKoyla.
'
'
SOME TYPES OF DRAMATIC FERTILITY RITUAL 67
Thebea, when the God came to his own, and his own received
him not.
Another legend of this same cult tells of a duel between Xanthus
('fair man ') and Melanthus (' black man '), who is, as the story
shows, a double of Dionysus of the Black Goatskin himself.^ As ^
the two were about to fight, Melanthus saw behind his opponent
a figure wearing a black goatskin, and accused him of having brought
a second to this single combat. Xanthus, turning to look, was
killed. J
Usener,^ in the light of the spring combat of the Macedonian
Xandika, saw that this duel was the fight of the God of fight
and summer against his antagonist of darkness and winter. He

added I have no doubt that the
:
'
contest (aymv), in which Ziefinski
has taught us to see a constant and central element of the Old
Attic Comedy, was originally the regular battle of the Gods of
Summer and Winter.' This suggestion has since been taken up
by Dr. FarnelF and appUed to the origin of Tragedy. In reviewing
this theory, Mr. A. B. Keith * suppfies an important parallel from
India. '
The earliest notice of the Indian drama which we certainly
"
possess that contained in the Mahahhasya, or " great commentary
is
on the grammar of Panini, a work of about 145 B.C. In illustrating

the use of the present of the causative, the commentator
alludes
to the story ofKamsa's death at the hands of Krsna. He tells us

actually killed Kamsa—we
that it was represented by actors who
the whole being a sort of Punch-and-
may hope merely in show,
actors— and that it was represented
Judy show with human also
dialogue the feelings
by rhapsodists {granthika), who reproduced in
of the persons concerned in the

whole episode of the relations of
Kamsa and part taking one side, part the other, and the
Krsna,
having black faces, the supporters of Krsna
supporters of Kamsa
having red faces There must have been dialogue m the
recitation, and the conflict of "black" and "red" men is clearly a
the representatives of winter

remnant of a nature conflict between
black man is in this case the
and spring or summer, in which the
victim. Moreover, in the
Hindu version the play cannot have
Kamsa is killed and the young
Krsna
been altogether tragic, for
1 TTaener. OOttemamen, 21. ^. r. i. ca

See a.jv.^p.^5e.
. Slge H^dlung,- Ar.U., R.U, vH. (100^3^0.
3 Cvlts, V. 235.
is preserved. It ia fair to suppose that the primitive Attic drama
combined both elements of tragedy and comedy, and it may well
be that after all Aristotle is right in holding that the early drama
was only slowly developed into the solemn tragedy which no doubt
marks one side of the Attic drama the practice of writing satjric
;
dramas can thus best be accounted for, and it is admitted that

Aeschylus is not adverse to an admixture of somewhat broad
comedy in his tragedy.'
Returning to the same subject elsewhere, Mr. Keith ^ remarks
that Dr. Farnell has over-emphasised the seriousness of the early
ritual. '
The modern parallels from Thrace are certainly not
overburdened with sadness, and the essence of the ritual is its
double side, the tragedy of the death and the joy of the revival of
the vegetation spirit. It is much more in keeping with primitive
thought to find these sides closely alUed than to beKeve in a solemn
ritual of death alone, and the earlier mummeries, now lost, no doubt
showed in combination those elements which in separation gave us
tragedy and satyric drama.'
Dr. Farnell's apphcation of Usener's suggestion to the problem
of Tragedy is valuable and, I believe (subject to Mr. Keith's
correction), sound. But it has diverted attention from the other
problem, the origin of Comedy, to which it was applied by its author.
It may well be that the satyric drama preserves traces of an original
joyful element in the ritual or folk-play from which Tragedy may
have come. But it is, as I hope will be clear, at least equally likely
that Comedy itself has sprung, not necessarily from the same ritual,
but from one closely alhed to it and belonging to the same class.
In Tragedy, apart from the satjric plays, the element of sex magic
and consequent obscenity has, if it ever was there, been totally
suppressed. The emphasis has come to fall on the death, the
resurrection surviving only in rudiments, such as the Anagnorisis
and Theophany. In Comedy the emphasis still falls on the phalUc
element and the fertility marriage and, from that day to this,
;
not only has a marriage been the canonical end of Comedy, but
this whole form of art, together with other romantic forms which
it has influenced, has been marked all through its history by an
1 'The Origin of Trageily and the Akhyana,' Jcmr. Royal Asiatic Soc, 1912,
p. 421,which contains an admirable criticism of Ridgeway, The Origin of
Tragedy.
SOME TYPES OE DRAMATIC EBBTILITY RITTJAL 69
erotic tone, and in its lower manifestations relied openly on the

stimulus of sex attraction. This emphasis is faithfully kept in the
northern Greek folk-plays, where the marriage is still the central
act, the death and resurrection episode is a mere interruption^
But Comedy has its Agon, in which Usener has detected the old
strife of Summer and Winter, or of the new and old fertility spirits.
In the next chapter we shall study this feature, to see how far the
extant plays bear out the hypothesis.
CHAPTEK V
AGON, SACRIFICE, AND FEAST
35. The Agon contrasted with the struggle of the romantic plot
It is often remarked that every drama involves a struggle. In

the comedies and novels of modern times the hero has to traverse
dangers and difficulties before he wins his bride at the
all sorts of
denouement, and in the course of them he is led through all the

intricacies of the romantic plot. In works of a melodramatic turn,
moreover, the element of struggle takes the form of a prolonged
conflict, in which the hero is persecuted by the machinations of the
villain. Defeated at last, the wicked antagonist retires, grinding
his teeth in despair, while the hero and his bride sail into the smooth
haven of married bUss.^
With this scheme the Aristophanic plot has one point
traditional
in common. The Agon, which, together with the scenes
leading up
to it, normally occupies the first half of the play between Parados
and Pardbasis, stands in a fixed relation to the concluding marriage,
in that the bridegroom in that marriage is usually the victor in the
Agon. Here, however, the resemblance ends. For, in the Comedy
of Aristophanes, as we have seen, there is no romantic plot, no
comphcation of intrigue to be straightened out in a denouement,
no pair of lovers separated and reunited by the turns of fortune.
The contest, the Agon, is not with a favoured rival for the hand of
the bride ; nor are its dangers and difficulties occasioned by the
morose old father who exists in later Comedy to see that the course
of true love shall not run smooth. On the contrary, the hero is
often himself a morose old father, and the Agon turns, not upon his
love aSairs, but upon his political and social views. The normal
plan is that the action of the play should begin with a quarrel or
' Legrand, Daoa (Paris,

1910), p. 389, says of the New Comedy La rdiUration, :
dana le cours d'une meme piice, dea obstacles et des expedients n'empeche pas que
I'intdret ne demeure concentri sur un unique probUme, le plus souveiU, sur une sorte
de duel, engage entre deux adnersaires oudeux groupes d'adversaire'.
70
AGON, SACRIFICE, AND FEAST 71
fight, which leads as quickly as possible to the Agon proper.
This is
not, as in the romantic plot, a whole
train of action with well-
laid schemes and counter-machinations
prolonged to a denouement.
It is more like a sort of trial, with a strict
rule of procedure. The
hero, who has been attacked and even threatened with death, is
put upon his defence. He makes out his case and turns the tables
upon his accuser. The debate lasts for, perhaps, two hundred lines,
during which the action does not advance. Then, in the
second half
of the play, after the Parahasis, we are shown
the hero enjojdng
the fruits of his victory and at last led in triumph in his
marriage
procession. So far from being prolonged to the close, as it must
be in the romantic plot, the Agon is often over and the victory
proclaimed before the play is half way through, with all the rest
of the action still to come. However this extraordinary feature of
the Old Comedy is to be explained, it is certain that, in its nature
and its relation to the economy of the piece, the Agon is radically
different from the machinery of the romantic plot.
In seeking to account for it, we shall follow the clue put into our
hands by what has gone before, and see what hght can be obtained
by supposing that in the Agon we have to do with the first term
insome ritual sequence, of which the last term is a sacred marriage.
We shall begin with a description of its essential features.
36. The Characters in the Agon

Three, or sometimes four, roles are involved in the Agon : never
more than four. First there are the two Adversaries (as we shall
call For the sake of convenience, we shall distinguish them

them).
as the 'Agonist' and the 'Antagonist.' The Agonist is the hero,
who is attacked, is put on his defence, and comes off victorious.
The Antagonist is the villain, who is in the stronger position at
first, but is worsted and beaten from the field. Besides these there
is the Chorus, whose Leader directs the trial and sometimes pro-
nounces the verdict the rest of the Chorus sing their Ode and
;
Antode at the proper moments. Finally, there is in some cases a

minor character, a friend or companion of the Agonist, who plays
the part of Buffoon, interjecting remarks and anecdotes, naive,
humorous, or obscene, aside to the audience.
72 THE OBIGIN OF ATTIO COMEDY
37. The Form of the Agon
The Agon most of the plays, a perfectly definite section with
is, in
a structure as fixed and canonical as that of any other part. It is
referred to in the text as the Agon with a frequency which warrants
' '
our use of the word, since Ziehnski's work, as a technical term.^

The structure of the regular Agon is antiphonal, in two balanced
halves. First comes the Ode, in which half the Chorus, according
as their sympathies incline, encourage one or both of the adversaries
to do their utmost. Then the Leader, in the Kaiaheleicsmos, calls
on the Antagonist to speak first. The party who will ultimately
be defeated always begins.^ He opens his case in the Epirrheme,
usually interrupted by objections and questions from the Agonist.
The passage ends in a Pnigos.
The second part is parallel in form and contents. In the Anlode,
the other half-Chorus encourages the Agonist, who is called upon,
in the Antikataheleusmos, to make his defence. He does so in the
Antepirrheme, ending with an Antipnigos. Finally, in the Sphragis,
the leader of the Chorus pronounces the verdict in favour of the
Agonist.
term Agon to passages which are written
Zielinski confined the
on this formal pattern.
Consequently, he did not recognise the
existence of an Agon in the Acharnians and the Thesmophoriazusae.
The former play, however, has an Agon at the usual place, though
its form is not normal and the passage is written in iambics.' In
' E.g. Ach. 392: us (rKTJ'pii/ ayHiv oStos oiic ecSiêrai, 481: Sffov Ton dYUK'
d-ywi/iei rdxa. Knights, 688 Swus dyaviei (ppSvTi^c.
: Clouds, 958 : ijs wipi rots i/iois
cl>i\ois iarlv dyiiv fUyiiTTOs. Wasps, 633 : bpq.s yhp fis trot p,4yas itrrlv a.yil>v. Frogs,
883 : vw yap iyihv
o-o0(os 6 p.4ya! X"P" ^pJs ipyov ifdri, 785 dywva voietv airka :
niXa Kal Kplinv

K&Xeyxoy airuv ttjs rixv-qs. Frag. 331 ayd}v wp6(j>a<rtv ov d^xerai.
| :
Telmesses, frag. 3 oii yhp riee/jLev rbv aywa rdrds t6v rpinrov
:
&<nrep ritas fjv, dXXd \
Kaivav Tpayfidrai' is doubtful.

^ Knights, 335, where the Sausage-seller snatches the
first word, is no excep-
tion, for the Paphlagonian protests (oSk aO fi' (d(reis ;) and succeeds in claiming
hia right to take the lead in the Epirrheme.
' The structure is as follows :—
Ode 490-494.
;
(t KatakeUusmos : 494 eta . . . \iyei..)

Epirrheme: 496-565, monologue of Dikaiopolis,
followed by quarrel between
the Leaders of the half-Chorusea.
Antode : 566-571, calling on Lamachus.
Quasi-Antikatakeleusmos (spoken by Leader of 2nd half-Chorus) 576-7. :
Antepirrheme : 572-625, scene between Dikaiopolis and Lamachua.

Sphragis = KoiiixdTiov of Parabasis: 626, driip vik^ toTo-i Xii7oieri kt\.
the Thesmophoriazusae, the Agon is replaced
by a debate in the
women's assembly, wHch fits fairly well into the general outhne
of the normal Agon,^ though the Ode and Antode
are out of place,
the Ode being used to divide the Epirrheme between
two speakers.
The fact that the Peace contains no Agon is explained by the action
in the first part of that play being based on a different ritual, the
A.nodos of the Earth Goddess.^ Zielinski's theory of the inaugura-
tion of a statue by Pheidias is superfluous.
Such, then, are in outUne the essentials of the Agon. There are
several points to be discussed. The simplest plan will be to put
aside for the present the role of the Chorus, important though it
be, and the minor character who sometimes plays the Buffoon,
and fix our attention on the Adversaries.
38. ^ '
dramatised debate
'
Professor Butcher remarks, in a sentence often quoted :

'
A play
of Aristophanes is a dramatised debate, an arfoiv, in which the
persons represent opposing principles ; for in form the piece is
always combative, though the fight may be but a mock fight.'

This dictum is in the main true, but it is not a complete account.
In the first place, the Agon proper is not the whole play, but the
first moment in the action : and, though it is the chief and critical
moment, there are those other standing incidents already mentioned,
' ICatakeleunmos : 381-2.

Epirrheme : 383-458, divided by
Ode: 434-442.
Antepirrheme : 466-519.
Antode: 520-530.
Quasi- Sphragis : 531-2.
The fact that these two plays have Ag6nes in this wider sense was pointed
out by Weil, Etudes sur le drame antique, 290 ff. Kaibel, solely on the grounds
that there is no Agon in the Acharnians, Peace, and Thesmophoriazusae, and
that the Agon, no more than the Parabasis, has an absolutely fixed form, denies
Zielinski's view that the Agon was an integral part of the oldest Comedy
(Art. 'Aristophanes,' Pauly- Wiss., ii. 989). Neither reason seems to me to have
any weight. Dieterioh (Pulcinella, 78) says that the Agdnes of Greek Comedy
sicher zu deren alteaten Bestandttilen gelwren.
" Mazon {Essai sur la corwp. des com. d'Arist. p. 86) describes Peace, 601-705,
as an Agon, though admitting the extreme irregularity of its form.

Perhaps
all that can be said is that the substance of this passage might
well have been
put into the Agori form in a play constructed on the usual lines.
74 THE ORIGIN OF ATTIC (JOMEDY
that follow it in a regular order. In the second place, the term
'
dramatised debate ' is too mild. When Mr. StarMe ^ speaks of
the '
philosophic calm '
Agon in the Wasps, as forming an
of the '
admirable contrast with the Sturm und Drang of the preceding

scenes,' the English reader who recalls Bdelycleon's passionate
denunciations and his father's successive threats of suicide and
murder, will admire the Irishman's notion of philosophic calm in
a debate. The Agon of the Wasps, moreover, is one of the mildest.
In some plays, it is less like a debate than a criminal trial, and less
like a trial than a duel, with the two half-Choruses acting as seconds
and the Leader as umpire. It is several times preceded by an actual
fight with fists or missiles, which is somehow arrested in order that
the flushed combatants may have it out with their tongues instead.
Though the victory is finally won by argument —a term which must
include all no mere dramatised
the arsenal of invective —the Agon is '
debate ' ; it and turning-point of the play, reverses

ends in the crisis
the situation of the adversaries, and leads not to an academic

resolution, but to all the rest of the action that follows.^ Above
all, it is, as we have said, organically related to the final marriage
in which the victor is bridegroom, the triumph of the new God or
the new King.
f The hypothesis we are to consider is that the Agon had its origin
in one of those ritual contests between the representatives of

Summer and Winter, Life and Death, which we studied in the last
\_chapter. We
have seen how such ceremonies, once performed
with the serious intent of promoting the fertihty of the year an —
intent still clearly remembered in Thrace survive in folk-dramas —
northern Greece or the Mummers' Play in England.
like those of
They bear the unmistakable mark of their ritual origin. They

keep the old plot, always the same from year to year, and the old un-
varjdng characters. They have never passed into the Uterary stage,
_^but have degenerated, by an inevitable decUne, into plays or games.
When rites like these sink below the rehgious plane, the most
serious elements are naturally the first to be softened and reduced
to harmless mummery—a process, indeed, that sets in even while
The Wasps of Aristophanes, p. xv.
>
^ The central importance of the Agon is illustrated by the fact that Aristo-
phanes can describe his first play, the Banqueters, by the names of the two
adversaries in its^g'oii; Glouds, u2S ii otou yap ivSdS' iir' avSpdv, oh ijSi) Kal
:
X^yeti', I
6 Z^(i}(ppioi> re x^ KarairiJ'ywi' &pnjT^ 7jKovffdT7}P
the religious meaning is still alive. The actual death of the

human God or of the substituted victim gives place to a transparent
pretence ; the resurrection becomes a simple matter of the slain
man jumping up again. No shadow will be allowed to fall across
the general cheerfulness and the occasion.
jollity of
j
But, however such a crude procedure may suit the rustic folk-
drama, we must, of course, not expect to find in the Uterary Comedy
of Aristophanes anything so naive as the simulated death and
revival of the hero. What we do find is that the Agon is the moment
in the play at which the tone becomes most serious, though this
seriousness may no longer be rehgious, but due to the real gravity
of the poUtical and social themes, the real contemporary contest
between War and Peace or the New and Old Culture. In a general
atmosphere of very high-spirited Comedy, shot through vnth
flashes of these serious issues, a dramatic death and resurrection
of either adversary would be either too serious or too silly. The
Alcestis of Euripides shows plainly enough how difficult it is for an
artist, settingsuch a theme in a half-comic Ught, so to hold the
balance as to avoid the tragic tone on the one side and a jarring
levity on the other. In pure Comedy the situation is impossible,
unless the death is so obviously unreal that it threatens to become
childish. At the same time, if our hypothesis is sound, we might
expect to find some reminiscences of the death and resurrection
motive clinging to the Agdnes in Aristophanes. We will pass
some of in review, in order that the reader may judge

them
whether there are sufficient traces to strengthen the supposition
we were led to on other grounds.
39. The Agones in the Plays

pursuing the
In the ACHARNIANS, the stern old charcoal-burners,
of Dikaiopohs, declare that they will take their fill
peace emissary
of pelting the traitor with stones.After the episode of the phallic
missiles at Dikaiopohs,
procession they proceed to discharge their
fate with which, by the
declaring they will stone him to death— a
Dikaiopohs
way, Pentheus threatens Dionysus in the Bacchae.^
his head over a block
claims a hearing, offering to speak with
of the Chorus still shout that he shall
The more irreconcilable half
a situation in the Telefhus of
die ; until Dikaiopohs, parodying
1 356.
Euripides, rushes into his house and fetches out a carving-knife
and a coal-basket, which he threatens to butcher, if he is not heard.
This appeal works upon the softer feeUngs of the Acharnian coal-
heavers, who drop their stones and allow Dikaiopolis to fetch his
chopping-block and plead his case over it. Here the Agon would
begin,^ but that DikaiopoUs, still frightened, thinks it more prudent
to borrow the pathetic rags and beggar's outfit of Telephus from
the wardrobe of Euripides. After this episode comes the Agon.
The Antagonist, Lamachus, has not yet appeared so the Epirrheme ;
by Dikaiopolis on the rights

of the first half consists of a long speech
and wrongs of the Peloponnesian War, which divides the Chorus
against itself. The two Leaders engage in a tussle, ending in a
cry of appeal (the Antode) from the defeated party to Lamachus.
In the Antepirrheme, Dikaiopolis puts this miles gloriosus so out
of countenance thai the Chorus are converted. At the end of the
play, while Dikaiopolis feasts and triumphs, we see Lamachus, the
Antagonist, covered with wounds, hobbling to the hospital.
The first Agon in the Knights (303 ff.), again, is led up to by a scene
of fighting. The Paphlagonian has no sooner appeared, breathing
threats of death and destruction, than the Knights are invoked by
Demosthenes to the assistance of the Sausage-seller. They instantly
fall upon the Paphlagonian and beat him then match him and the ;
Sausage-seller to outdo one another in shameless screaming. The

Agon follows. The adversaries exchange the most tremendous
threats, and it ends with the Paphlagonian being again thrashed,
this time by the victorious Sausage-seller. In the second Agon
(756 fi.) the adversaries begin by each imprecating the most horrible
death upon himself, if he is not patriotic. At the end of the last
competition between the rival demagogues, the Paphlagonian,
degraded by Demos and stripped of his wreath of office, demands
to be wheeled into the house in a fainting condition, taking farewell
of his former glories in words borrowed from the dying Alcestis.^
* It is announced at this point in the words, cos (rKTJ\pip o^wv opros oix
icUhrai., 392.
^ 1250 : (& (rT4(/>ave, x^^P^^ &TnBt, Kel (r' Ukuv iyui
Xeiirw (ri S' (SAXos tis \apibv KexT-iJo-eTai,
kX^tttijs flip o6k if liSXXov, eirux^' 8' (ctDs.
Eurip. Ale. 177. Aloestis says farewell to her marriage bed :
(rii<f>piav fiiv oiiK &i> naXKov, eirvXT]! S' ffffcis.

AGON, SACRIFICE, AND FEAST
77
At the conclusion of the play, as we saw. Demos pronounces
his final doom. He is to be reduced to the vile trade
from which
his adversary has risen. Demos expressly
calls him a fhwrmakos
(1405), one of those human scape-goats who
served for the annual
expulsion of evil at the Attic Thargelia.
That the word is not, as
sometimes, a casual term of abuse, is made
slightly more probable
by an earUer passage, where the Chorus recommend
Demos to fatten
up his demagogues
pubHc victims,' and then, when he needs
'
like
a dehcate morsel, to sacrifice and make
a meal of them.i As the
expulsion of the Pharmakoi was a rite of
the same type as the
Driving out of Death or Winter, we seem here
to have something
like a reminiscence of the original
fate of the Antagonist. We
have already mentioned the probable conjecture that this ritual
of expulsion was actually parodied in the Exodos
of the Knights.^
' 1131 S.:Chor. xoSru, êV ft;- eD to«,«, d -roM' MrvSis Mwep| . . .
rpifui iv r-S irvicvl, kM' irav î, <roi rixa î'ov 6v, roirup
Svfiofflov!
I
|
Ss &y r, \
xa-X^h 9i5o-as iiriSeivvek.

I
It is true that the Scholiast's note, 1136, dTi/ioalovs
Si
rods \eyoii^vovs (papixaxois, otircp KaBalpovn ras TriXeis tQ iavrdv
04c(j,, cannot be
correct, as the Pharmakoi were not eaten or fattened up for
that purpose (cf.
Mommsen, Feste, p. 475) ; but the analogy is close between the fattening up
of
sacred animals for sacrifice and the common custom of allowing a
Saturnalian
victim a period of unlimited self-indulgence before his death ; and,
for all we
know, the Pharmakoi may have been given this alleviation, as the corresponding
victim at Marseilles was alendus anno integro publicis sumptibus (Serv. Aen,
3, 57).
Note also that, just before the Chorus give Demos this advice, Demos himself
has said I choose to maintain one thief as my TpatrrdTTis, and when he is full
:
'
I hoist and beat him.' {KXiTrrovrd re fioiXo/iai Tp4(pety '4va wpo<rT6.Triv toutov 6'
\ I
&Ta.vy T\4m, S.pa.! iirdraâ. ) The Pharmakos was, according to legend, a thief
|
who robbed Apollo's temple, and this ritual theft was represented yearly at the
Thargelia (Harpocr. s.v. (pap/j.aKis) as embodying the sins of all Athens, he
;
was a sort of irpo(TrdTT]s toO S-^/xov and he was beaten, as he was led out of the
;
city. Again, in the Antode of the Agon (400), the Chorus express the delight
they would feel if Cleon were made to disgorge {iK^dXois tt)v IvOeatv), and they
say that 'the son of loulios' {whoever he was) would in his delight lijTraioi'la-ai.
Kal /SaKx^^ffX"" po'i"- It may be worth while to point out that, at the
expulsion of the Pharmakoi at Apollo's festival, Iti iraidv would be appropriate
and that the Pharmakoi were called criâKxoi or ai/jLâKxai. (Helladios, Phot.
Bibl. 279, p. 534, Bdkk. Both readings have MS. authority). The Scholiast
on Knights, 408, saya that the KKdSoi carried by the mystae were called /Sd/côi,
and Hesych. (s.v.) tells us of a KpaStrjs v6/ios sung while the Pharmakoi were led
in procession and beaten Kpddais khI Sptois. I conjecture that the song indicated
in itiTraiuvla-aL and ;8aKx^^'"fX<"' ?""' ^*^ t^'" xpaSlris v6p,o!.
2 We the driving away of the Proboulos loaded with grave-

may compare
ornaments, at the end of the Agon in the Lysistrata (see below, p. 81), and the
similar expulsion of the Informer of the Plutus (below, p. 136), decorated with
the cast-off cloak and shoes of the Just Man. Both these resemble the expulsion
of the Pharmakos.
78 THE ORIGIN 01" ATTIC COMEDY
The final Agon in the Clouds^ is preceded by the scene in which
Pheidippides beats his father Strepsiades on the stage —a proceeding
which he all but justifies in the ensuing debate. It is interesting
that this contest between father and son contains two allusions
to the Agon between Admetus and Pheres in the Alcestis —a passage
itself barely intelhgible except in the light of the old ritual conflict
of the Young King claiming to supersede the outworn Old King.^
Pheidippides would be completely victorious, were it not that at
the last moment he turns Strepsiades against him by declaring
that he will beat his mother too. This leads to Strepsiades'
reconversion and the vengeance he executes on the house of
Socrates, who is, in reahty though not in form, the Antagonist
and principle of evil in the play. We have already noted the
suggestions that Strepsiades is a sort of minister of the restored
Zeus, blasting the priest of the usurping Dinos.
Earlier in the play, the usual place of the Agon,^ between Parodos
and Parabasis, is occupied by the instruction of the neophyte
Strepsiades in the mysteries of philosophy. It is curious to note
that at this point of the action, just where it is to be looked for,-
we and resurrection of the hero. When

find something like a death
the prehminary instruction is ended (497), Strepsiades is bidden
to lay aside his upper garment and enter the low-browed sanctuary
of thought.* He expresses horror at the idea of becoming half- '
dead '
{rffiiOvrjs:) Hke the palUd and skinny Chaerephon, and asks
for a honey-cake to appease the subterranean guardians of this
'
Cave of Trophonius.' ^ Those who were to go down into the real
1345 ff. The earlier ^grora between the two Reasons will be considered later.
1
^
1416 KKi,ov<n iraUes, Traripa d' od KXdeiy doKcTs
:
;
Ale. 691 x^'/'f "P""" 'P'^î TaT^pa S' oi xalpeiv SoKeU

:
1420 Streps. dXX' oiSa-fioO vofiiêrai Tbv iraTipa raSra waaxci-v.

:
Ale. 683 oi yap r-arpiôy rivS' iS€^dp,ijv vbp.ov

: iralSav -wpoBvijaKeLV iraTipas ovi' \
' Mazon (p. 54) speaks of Clouds, 358-475, as an Agon ; but the use of the term
seems to me indefensible.
^ The door of the Phrontisterion is' so low that Strepsiades kicks it instead of
knocking : t^v 66pav XeXd/cTiKas, 136. It ma3- be that a similar reason makes
Dionysus, at Pluto's door in the Frogs, ask how they knock at doors in this '
country,' 460 il7e S-f; rlva. Tp6irov rijv Bipav K6\pa ; rlva
: jtus heiS' dpa KbwTovatv ; \
oiTlX'^pi'Ol ',
' 507 : 56s ixoi iicKtT0UTTa.v rpdrepop, m diSoiK' 4yii

eiatii Karaâlvuv Hjawep ^s Tpoipwviov.
The Scholiast says that at the real Cave of Trophonius, oi /iuoi//tei/oi KaBitovrai
iirl ToO <Tr6iiaTos yvuvol, Pausanias, ix. 39, tells us the ritual dress was a linen
tunic. Of. Clouds, 498 : Soer. ,
yvfivois elmhat vopdêrai.
Cave of Trophonius drank first of the waters of Lethe and Mnemosyne,

that they might forget what they knew before and remember what
was revealed to them in their trance below. There seems to be a
reference to this when Socrates, just after the Parabasis, calls
Strepsiades out again '
to the hght,' complaining that the old boor
is so oblivious that he has forgotten all he has learnt, before learning
it. At any rate, we know from trustworthy sources ^ that those
who were brave enough to consult that subterranean oracle at
Lebadeia went through an experience which was made to resemble
death as closely as was consistent with an actual return to life.
When the consultant emerged, dazed and barely conscious, he was
seated on the throne of Memory the equivalent of which in the —
Clouds is the pallet-bed {aa-KdvT7i<;) which Strepsiades is bidden to
—
bring out with him and when he had told what he had seen and
heard, he was carried by his friends to the house of the Agathos
Daimon and Agathe Tyche. Later, he recovered his wits and the
power to laugh returned.
Further on in the play (1113) Strepsiades' son likewise submits
to the philosopher's instructions. After the first Agon, in which

the Just and Unjust Eeasons contend for his soul, Pheidippides
enters the Cave of Thought, to emerge soon afterwards, transformed
into the likeness of a pale and disputatious sophist. The words of
the text clearly indicate an actual change of mask.^ Overjoyed at
this transfiguration, Strepsiades, singing a Kdmos Song (iyKoyfioov),
carries off his son in triumph, in order to feast him within.
In the Wasps, the Agon is again introduced by a fight, in which

the Acharnians
the Chorus attack the Agonist Bdelycleon, as
attacked DikaiopoUs. For all the 'philosophic calm' of the
order that
Agon, Philocleon, before it begins, calls for a sword in
Later, he threatens
he may fall upon it, Uke Ajax, if he is defeated.^
defeated and converted
instead to murder Bdelycleon, if he is not
collected and discussed in J. E. Harrison, Themis,
1
The principal evidence is
V- 508 ff.
2 1 Streps, to to, riKvov, lii loO lov.
170 :
(is TJSo/ial aov -irpCiTO. tt]v yp6av ISdiv.
vvv /liv y' ISelf el Tpuirov iâprnnKis

KdvTL\oyiK6i . . •
eiri ToO vpoiTiSixov r' iarlv 'ArTLxiv /SX^ttos.
PMod. «»' ^'*« T^ >"" **"'

3 522 : „ ,,
Treptreffovfiai rcf iltpet.
^v y&p TfTTieu Xiyup 0-01/,
by his son's arguments.^ Bdelycleon's exposure of the slavery
that is masked as democratic freedom reduces the old man to a
fainting condition. The sword drops from his nerveless hand.^
Already his eyes are fixed on a better land of everlasting service

on the jury, and his soul is taking flight, when his son coaxes
him back to Ufe with the promise of a private lawcourt at his own
fireside.^ Philocleon's words are full of reminiscences of the
languishing heroes and heroines of Euripides.* In this passage we
come as near as possible to a sort of simulated death and revival.
In the Birds there is the regular pitched battle between the

Chorus and the Agonist, Pisthetairos ; but when a truce has been
sworn, things go smoothly ; for the Hoopoe, who plays the
Antagonist, is already convinced. He merely puts objections
and leading questions, and the Birds are easily persuaded. The
Hoopoe, it may be noticed, is the old King of the Birds, and a
metamorphosis of one of the ancient kings of Athens. The Agon
is between the old King and the new who succeeds to his position.
The Lysistrata has both a quarrel between the two halves of

the Chorus and also a fight between the Proboulos with his poUce-
men and the women supporters In the Agon (476 fE.) of the heroine.
the Proboulos Towards the end, Lysistrata
plays Antagonist.
launches into a serious and even pathetic description of what war
means to women. The veteran returned can easily find a wife
but the young maiden's time is short in which to get married
once it is past, she may sit and watch for omens of the lover that will
not come." The Proboulos interrupts but Lysistrata cuts him ;
short with the surprising question Why on earth he does not die. :
* 653 : Phiiocl. ei fx^ yap 6irojs SofXeiJw '716, tovtI rax^ws /xe 5t5d|ets,
ovK l(TTLV Siras oixl Teev/}êis, k&v xpv avKayxvuv fi' dvix^ffBai.
'^
714 : Phiiocl. ot/j,oi tL irlvovB' ; ws vdpKij fiov Karh ttjs xîpis (caTaxftrai,
Koi t6 J/0OS oij Sipafmi jcar^x"''. 'i'^'^' 'Ij^V /xaXBaKds elfu.
' 765 : eiceiffe (to Hades) fxiv juijicM ^dSi^, dXX' hedSe
aiiroC fji^vuv SiKaiê Totatv oi/f^rats.
1751: Kelyoiv Ipcmai, xeWi. yevol/xav kt\. Sohol. 4^ 'iTToKirov 'EipiirlSov (230).
Alcesiis, 866 iKeivutp ^pa/xat kt\.
756 : <nreOS' S> ^j/vxi- toO yitoi ypvxi ; |
Trdpts Si (Tui^pL Schol. vapa ra 4k BcWepo-
^dfrov Taipei Tavra.
763 :
TouTo Si \
"AiStjs diaKpiveT. Eurip. Kpô-crai, frag. 465 (N^), <"Ai5);s>
« 695.
There is nothing to prevent him there is a place for you (to be

:
'
buried in) ; a can be had for money

coffin a honey-cake (for ;
Cerberus) I will make for you with my own hands here is a funeral ;
wreath for you.' Lysistrata and her companion Kalonike load

him
with the usual grave-ornaments and him that Charon is waiting tell
for him.^ The Prohoulos goes ofi to show himself thus arrayed to
his colleagues. Lysistrata calls after him to know if he is going
to complain that the women have not laid him out for burial, and
promises to come on the third day and do the customary offices.
This passage, which can hardly be said to be led up to by anything
in the preceding context,^ is dramatically a very odd and unexpected
device for getting the Antagonist off the stage.
In the Thesmophoriazusae, the Agon takes the form of a debate

in the women's Bcclesia. It is preceded by a parody of the ritual
prayer, invoking destruction on any man who commits various
offences inconvenient to women (331 ff.). In the Agon itself, the
hero, disguised as a kinsman Euripides with
woman, defends his
such an outrageous justification of the poet's attacks on the sex

as to lead to his detection. He is tied up to a plaiik and only saves
himself from being burnt to death by the infuriated women by
repeating Dikaiopolis' trick, borrowed from the Telephus, of seizing
a child from the arms of one of them and threatening to kill it.
Though the child turns out to be an ilUcit skin of wine, the ruse is
successful and the hero is finally saved, Hke a second Andromeda,

by the tragedian.
The Agon in the Frogs ends in the resurrection of the Agonist
1
501 : £jys, <rti 5k Sri tI fiaOCiv ovk diroflj'ijVKeis
Xoiptov iffri' (Topiy C)V7)aW

HeXiTovTrav iyib Kai St] fidâi.
XajSJ ravrl Kai irre^di'miroi.

Kalonike (?) Kai ravTaai SHai. trap' i/t-ov.
Kai TOVTOvyl \a/3e rbv aTi<j>avov.
ToD Sei; tI TodeTs; xii/Jei 's ttip vavv.
6 Xd/jwi' ire KoKeT,
ai Si KwXieis cLviyeffSat. ktX.

Siiss, meira. -af«s., 1908, p. 16.
ForthedistributionofpartsseeW.
end of the first half of the Agon
2 la the counterpart of this passage, at the
companion offer the Prohoulos n woman s veil and
(530 ff) Lysistrata and her
wool-basket, telling him to leave war to
women. Is it fanciful to recall that
Dionysus' antagonist in the Bacchae, is dressed as a woman, before
Pentheus,
of the women?
he is led out to his death at the hands
F
Aeschylus, wHle the Antagonist Euripides complains that he is
'left for dead' in the underworld ^— a phrase which gains point

if we suppose a reminiscence that such had originally been the
Antagonist's fate. Dionysus replies to this appeal with a quotation
from a play of Euripides' own, the Polyidos, which itself turned on
a death and resurrection motive :
Who knows if to be living he not death ?
In the Frogs, as in the Clouds, the principal Agon is postponed to

the second part of the play ; but, just as in the Clouds we found
a sort of death and resurrection at the point where the Agon usually
comes, so at the same point in the Frogs, before the Pardbasis,
there is the scene in which Dionysus and his slave submit to
torture, as a test of their respective claims to divinity.The trial
is They are carried off to be judged by Pluto himself
inconclusive.
and Persephone, and the true God comes off victorious. The torture
scene contains what sounds hke even a verbal echo of the trial of
Dionysus by Pentheus in the Bacchae.^
The Agon of the Ecclesiazusae is imperfect,^ as there is no violent

opposition to the pohtical projects of Praxagora. Blepyros merely
puts objections, hke the Hoopoe in the Birds. He is convinced,
and all goes forward peacefully.
In the Agon of the Plutus, the Antagonist, Poverty, gets the

better in the argument but she is driven away with curses to
;
'
the crows '

or '
to the pillory '
(604). Her real adversary. Wealth,
is not confronted with her in the Agon, which is accordingly im-
perfect in form. But, as we have already noted,* the expulsion
of Poverty is balanced by the bringing in of Wealth, as the driving
out of the PharmaJcos had its counterpart in the carrjdng in of the
Eiresione.
• 1476 Eur. Hi (rx^rXie, irepi6êi /ie di) TeBvT/KdTa

:
;
Dion. tIs olSev el rb {ijv ixiv itm KarBaveTv kt\.

CI. J. E. Harrison, 'Sophocles, lchnevita,e, etc' in JEssaps and Studies presented
to W. Ridgeway (Cambridge, 1913), p. 149.
^ 628 Dion, ayopeiu rivl i/ik fi?) âaavlêai dddvarov Sit'. el Se fi-f),
;
| oiV6s |
aeavrbv alriu. Van Leeuwen ad loc. cites Bacchae, 504, aiSd /ne Seiv aoxppovav fji.-ij
ou <T(ii<l>po<xiv
' Ode (571-S80) ; KataMeusmos (581-2) ; Epirrheme anipnigos (583-709). The

other half of the structure is wanting.
' Above, p. 56.
40. Summary and conclusions
To sum up the results of this survey. In five plays (Acharnians,

Knights, Wasps, Birds, Lysistrata) the Chorus before the Agon
make a violent assault upon one or other of the adversaries and
threaten him with death. In the Acharnians and Lysistrata the
two halves of the Chorus also quarrel among themselves. After
the Agon, one or other of the adversaries is wounded (finale of the
Acharnians) ; is beaten by his adversary and the Chorus, and finally
degraded and expelled as if he were a Pharmakos (Knights) ; endures

the terrors of a descent into the Cave of Trophonius (Clouds ^)
faints almost to death and is recalled to Ufe, after threatening to

kill first himseM and then his son (Wasps) ; is adorned for burial
(Lysistrata) ; and only saved from death by a ruse
tied to a plank
(Thesmophoriazusae) left for dead in Hades, while his adversary
;
' '
is brought back to life (Frogs) driven away with curses, as Hunger

;
or Death was driven out, while Wealth is brought in instead

(Plutus).
The strength of this evidence may be variously estimated. No
one instance taken by itself would have much weight but when
;
all are taken together, and it is seen how constant this motive is,
it appears to me that the probabihty that we have

here survivals
of an original simulated death of one or other adversary is con-
siderably stronger than we should expect to find it, even if we knew

on other grounds that the hypothesis were true. Granted that
an Old Comedy play is a dramatised debate'—a fact which itself,
'
possible for a debate,

of course, calls for explanation— still it is
moment, to be
even on political topics of burning interest at the
conducted without so much murderous violence,
which not seldom
good-tempered Comedy among
goes beyond the ordinary limits of
In point of taste, there is no reason to suppose
a civilised people.
of Sophocles and Euripides
that the audience wHch enjoyed the plays
audience which applauded Menander a
was much ruder than the
On the whole, it seems probable that the physical
century later.
violence and horseplay of the Old

Comedy, Uke the element of
to be explamed as part of the
personal satire and the obscenity, is
1 Not after the Ago,i proper, where he is

merely beaten, but at the point
before the Parabasis.
where the Agon usually comes, just
84 THE OBIGIN OP ATTIC COMEDY
inheritance from the crudities of folk-drama. It is not at all
unlikely that a theatrical pubUc who were more squeamish about

physical violence in Tragedy than any modern Europeans, may
have felt that nothing but the sanction of tradition would excuse
any of the three features mentioned. Since two of them the —
personal invective and the indecency —are admittedly traceable
to the phalUc origin of Comedy, it seems likely that the third is
also derived from a motive which we have seen to be altogether
in place in any dramatic form of the same ritual of the expulsion
of evil and the induction of the powers of fertihty.
41. The Resurrection Motive

So far we have been concerned to show that there are sufficient
traces left in the Agon to warrant our supposing that this regular
feature of the comic plot originally, in its ritual form, led to the
death of one or other of the Adversaries, followed, at the end of the
play, by the marriage and triumph of that one who represents
the good principle, the King of the festival, the God or Fertihty
Spirit himself. drama we have had chiefly in view is
The type of
that in which the evil principle of Death or Hunger or Winter,
which is driven out or slain, is represented by the Antagonist, who
in the plays becomes the discomfited villain. But we must not lose
sight of another type, which we have already had before us in the
English Mummers' Play, the folk-plays of northern Greece, and the
ancient Thracian armed dance, where it is the representative of
the good principle that is killed by the evil, and afterwards brought
back to life. If we look again at the series of Aristophanic plays,
we shall not merely find isolated vestiges of this motive of resurrec-
tion, or rebirth, or renewal of hfe, but we shall see how it governs,
in several cases, the general com'se of the action after the Agon.
We must here draw a distinction hitherto neglected. We must
now put aside the cases in which the Antagonist, or evil principle,
is maltreated and expelled, and turn to those in which it is the
good principle, the hero, who passes through the danger of death
or is represented as renewing his Ufe or youth.^ By the '
hero
is meant the person who is led in triumph at the end as a partner
in the sacred marriage.
^ The two typea can of oourae be combined.

42. The Progs and the Peace

The only play which ends with an actual resurrection of the
good adversary in the Agon is the Frogs. This is also the only
.play in which Dionysus takes a leading part but it is hardly fair ;
to lay much stress upon it, because the whole conception of the
plot demands that it shall be modelled on a Descent into Hades.
We cannot, however, pass it over without remarking that we have
here another point of contact with the Athenian Lenaea. In the
ritual that lay behind these Descents —or one form of that ritual
it was the male power of fertility who went down to bring back
from the underworld either his mother or his bride. Orpheus
fetches Eurydice Heracles recovers Alcestis from the clutches
;
of Death. At Lerna the Argives said that Dionysus went down

to Hades through the Lake Alkyonia to bring up his mother,
Semele and yearly rites were performed there by night.^ It is
;
across a lake, tenanted by the Frogs, that Dionysus of the Limnae

descends to bring up the tragedian.^
In the closely alUed ritual of the Lenaea, the male divinity figured
as a child. 'At the Lenaean contests of Dionysus,' we are told;^
" Call ye the God," and the
'
the daiduchos, holding a torch, says :
" lacchos, child of Semele, Giver of wealth." ' It

hearers shout :
is highly probable that, in response to this evocation, the infant
God appeared in his mother's arms from some cave or artificial
mound. The '

Giver of wealth ' would hold his cornucopia. The
child
type is that of the famous statue of Eirene, bearing the
Eesurrection of the Mother, the
Plutus. This ritual combined the
Earth-Goddess, from her winter sojourn beneath the ground, with
the New Birth of the Child, the wealth and promise of the coming
year.
Now the scheme of this Anodos ritual is the basis of the first
<pa.<rLV 'kpyeloi Aiivvaov Is Tbv"AiSvv

1 Paua 37, 5: r^" 'AXuvoviav U^v-qv, Si' ^s
ii
Farnell, Culls, v. 183. Of. Paus. ii. 31, 2
A9«^ He'iJiiXv Ipi.iovra.
Aristophanes used a similar motive in the lost
2 Gerytades, which a deputa- m
was sent by the poets to the dead poets in Hades, Athen. xu. 551 a. It
tion
(Meineke, Com^c^, i. 84), and by
was used also by Pherekrates in his Krapatali
where he is said to have resuscitated
Bupolis in his Demoi (Mein. ibid. 126),
several statesmen from the underworld. _ „ , ,
i" toIs Ai,volVco« ayuxr. toxj Aio^wou

_
3 Schol R. Ar. Frogs, 479 (cdXei Scbv :

. . .
vol. 669
See A. B. Cook, Zeus (Cambridge, 1914),
ff.
.. p.
'Ukx^ T\ovroS6ra.'
86 THE OEiam OF ATTIC COMEDY
part of the Peace. The image of Eirene is dragged up by the
Chorus of farmers, apparently out of an cave or mound artificial
in the orchestra. The Chorus, it may be noted, are armed with

the same agricultural tools (a^vpai.) that are used by the Satjrs
on the vases which represent the Anodos of Gaia.^ Hermes
presides over the operation, as he does over the Anodos of
Pherophatta on the Dresden hrater.'^ The Peace is the only play
which has no Agon. Its exceptional economy is explained by its
being modelled on a Lenaean ceremony in which no contest was
involved.
In discussing the various types of fertihty drama in Chapter iv
we omitted this type, for the sake of simpUcity. The Eising of the
Earth-Mother with her new-born child involves a symbolism dis-
tinctfrom that of the contest, death, and resurrection of the God.

But the two symboUsms can be combined they are only, as it ;
were, two acts in the drama of the divine life. The miraculous
Birth of the wonder-child can be followed by his death at maturity.
There is some ground for believing that this sequence actually
existed in the ritual of the Lenaea, for that included also '
the
Rending (a-Trapayixo^) of Dionysus,' at least as the theme of a
' ^
rustic chant.'
Now, it is a very striking fact that the same sequence is pre-
served in the folk-play observed by Mr. Dawldns in Thrace.* It
will be remembered that the first act of that drama showed us the
Old Woman, called Babo, nursing her infant {' Liknites'), who, like
Dionysus, is the seven-months child of no known human father.
The child grows to maturity with miraculous speed —a constant
trait of these divine infants, which may be illustrated from the
^ Peace, 566 : vr) At' ii yap irÔpa \ainrpbv ^v Up' eâwXio-fiivTi. Schol. ad loc.
vo^fl-ai SetTOP x'P^" <"t""P'''^ txpvTa, aXs ôKoKoirodai.. This olod-beating gives . . .
its title to the navSJipa ^ 'SipvpoKhiroi of Sophocles.Robert (' Pandora, .ffermes,

C. '
xlix, 1914, 17 ff. ) points out that Pandora at her Anodos, represented on the
Oxford Krater (/. H. S. xxi. 1901, PI. 1 J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 281,
;
fig. 72), is veiled as a bride. He calls attention to the deliverance of Peace in

Aristophanes as founded on this nature-myth of the release of the Earth-Goddess
in spring from her winter prison.
^ Jahrb. d. k. d. arch. Inst. viii. (1893) 166. The vase is figured also in
J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena (1903), p. 277, fig. 68.
' Schol. Clem. Al. Protrept. p. 297, 4 (Stahlin) Xijyaifoi'Tas" AypoiK^K^ ifS^ :
iirl T(^ Xt;!**^ t^So/jJvrf, ^ Kal aiir^ TepieTxev Thv AtopiJcrou ffivapayjxbv. Parnell, Cutis,
V. 176 ; A. B. Cook, Ztui, vol. i. p. 672. * Above, p. 63.
AGON", SACRIFICE, AND FEAST 87
newly discovered Ichneutai of Sophocles.^ In the
Old Woman we
must recognise the Earth-Mother, and in the sordid
pantomime of
this first part of the play a last survival
of the supernatural birth
and growth of Dionysus. In the Peace the infant is not
mentioned,
though he may have
been represented, as Plutus, in the arms of
the statue of Eirene. His r61e is aheady occupied by
Trygaeua,
who is to become the bridegroom of the final marriage. The rarity
of this motive is soon accounted for. The birth of an infant and
his miraculous growth to maturity are not easily represented in
Comedy that has once passed out of the naive crudities of folk-
drama.
43. The Rejuvenation of Demos in the Knights
The Peace and the Frogs have given us one point of contact
with Dionysiac ritual; the Knights provides another, no less
curious. In the English Mummers' Play the resurrection of St.
George, foully slain by the Turkish Knight, is effected by the
Noble Doctor, who can cure
'
All sorts of diseases,
Whateve?' you pleases.'
The same figure appears in the northern Greek folk-plays and in

similar performances in Germany and elsewhere. The Doctor in
Aristophanes' Plutus is no less a person than Asclepius, the God
of Medicine himself, who was slain by the thunder of Zeus for raising
1 256 ff. Kyllene describes the divine birth of Hermes in her cave, and
how she has nursed him (Xi-kvItlp rpoipiiv). He grows daily to her amaze-
ment, and attains maturity in six days, ofiTru yhp Iktov 9jp,ap iKiretpaff/ihos yvlots \
ipelBei jraidos e(s tj^t)! i.K/j.'^v. It may be worth while to point out a possible
parallel in the case of Veiovis, the youthful Jupiter, to whom March 7 (six days
after the beginning of the old Roman year) was sacred. The Epiphany of Christ,
who, according to the Protevangelion, was born in a cave in his father's absence,
is on January 6. This manifestation on the sixth day may explain the obscure
phrase used of lamos in Pindar, 01. vi. 53, where the king's servants tell him
that 'they had seen or heard nothing of the child that had been born five days,'
Tol S' o<St' Siv iKoua-ai \
oOt' ISeiv eiixovTO TrefiwTatoi' yeyevriixivov. As the servants
could not know this fact, the words are unless they have a ritual
pointless,
meaning. Compare also the miraculous growth of the infant Zeus Callim. :
hymn. Zeus 55, koXcI niv vîev, KaXi. 8' lTpa(pes, oipivie Zeu. |
6|i> S' av-fipijo-as, raxiyol
dXX' Iti iraidvis iibv i(ppiircrao iravra riXeia.
Si TOt fiXdov tovXoi. I
The situation in
Sophocles' Ichneutai has been discussed by J. E. Harrison in Essays and Studies
presented to W. Ridgeway (Cambridge, 1913).
the dead to life.^ He is not, of course, a character in the play
but Plutus recovers his sight at his temple. We shall later find
other traces of the Doctor in very impoltant parts in the Old Comedy.
Meanwhile, we turn to the allied figure of the Cook, who performs
upon the hero of the Knights a magical ceremony of rejuvenation.
The Knights ends with a burst of splendour. After the Second
Parabasis, the ex-Sausage-seller, Agoracritus, adorned with the
symbols of his newly-won ofiS.ce, comes out and calls for a paean
over the good fortune of Athens. Presently the gates of the
Propylaea be fiung wide and reveal Demos, arrayed in the
will
old Ionian attire, such as he wore when he dined with Aristides or
Miltiades, to be hailed as King of Hellas. The Sausage-seller comes
first to prepare us for this amazing transformation, which is so
complete that Demos '
does not know what he was hke before,
nor what sort of things he used to do, or he would think the Sausage-
seller a God to have so reformed him.' ^ How has this transfigure-
ment, this rejuvenation of the grim, testy, deaf old rufi&an been
effected ? The Sausage-seller himseK has done it by the exercise
of his art as I have boiled your Demos and changed his
Cook :
'
ugliness to The trade of the Sausage-seller, who is

beauty.' ^
repeatedly called a Cook {fiwyeipos;), has, in fact, been chosen solely

' '
in order that he may render this last brilhant service to Demos.

We do not need the Schohast to remind us that Medea more than
once performed the same operation of turning an old man into a
youth in the flower of his age, by boihng his dismembered hmbs
in a cauldron.* Aeson, Jason, and Pehas were all submitted to
this treatment.
Schol. ad. Eurip. Ale. 1, dvicrTtj yhp luj/ievos roi)s re^j'turas. The Scholiast
adds that Asolepiua was said to have resurrected. various persons: Hippolytus
(Apollodorus) Glaucus (Amelesagoras)
j Tyndareus (Panyasis) Hymenaeus ; ;
(the Orphios) ; the Phineidae (Phylarchus) Orion (Telesarohus). Stesichorus ;
said it was on account of Kapaneus and Lycurgus.'

'
Pherekydes in his history '
says that he raises to life those who die at Delphi ;

Polyarchus of Cyrene that '
he healed the daughters of Proetus, and for that was struck by the thunderbolt.
''
1336 : Saus. dXX' ffi ;uA' oiK ottrff' otos ijirS' airii Tdpos
oi55' oV ?5/)0S' ifi^ yap vofillôis &v Be&v.
' 1321 . rbv Arifiov 40f^7)i7as koK&v i^ alffxpoO ireirolriKa.
iifiiv The Argument
recognises that this is a rejuvenation tov dWavTowtlAov rov A^/xop dêîJffai/Tos
:
ftra veitrrepov iâvTrjs h Toimpavh yeyovhra irpodyovTos.

* Schol. 1321 : dêîjcras' KnXuJs, lis fi.dyei,pos. iicnrep i) MtjScio Xiyerai, uis /ih
AfffxuXos liTTopeT (Nauck^ frag. 50, Aiovia-ov rpoôl) rds rpotpois toO AiokiVou
i(t>e'l'TI<raa-a dvavedtrai Troiijtroi /tterd tuv dfSpuv air&v. lit Si 6 70i>s NiiTTous 7ron}(ras
But not so generally recognised that these stories
it is
reflect a
rite of regeneration or resurrection,
which has an established place
m the cycle of Dionysiac ritual. I have argued
elsewhere i that
the story of the boiling of Pelops, who is taken
to be simply a double
of Pelias, is to be so explained; and Mr.
Cook 2 has collected the
evidence for the 'cauldron of apotheosis ' and carried
the explana-
tion much further. The argument is too intricate to be repeated
here. It leads Mr. Cook to conjecture that the original Thraco-
Phrygian ceremony of the death and resurrection of Dionysus
involved a ritual boiUng of the God, in the form of a kid, in milk,
preparatory to the sacramental eating of his flesh. ' Let us suppose,
then, that the early Thraco-Phrygian " kings," the Titanes
of the
myth, after kilUng Dionysos as a kid, pitched him into their cauldron
and boiled him in milk with a view to his being born again. The
mystic who aspired to be one with his god underwent, or at least
claimed to have undergone, a like ordeal.^ He had fallen as a
slain kid into a milky cauldron henceforward he was called " a :
god instead of a mortal." * '
The legends ultimately based on this ritual, the stories of Pelops,

Pelias, Aeson,and the rest, have come down to us in forms which
date from a time when their original meaning had been forgotten.
There is naturally some degree of confusion. A neophyte who was
actually boiled would have taxed the skill of cook or medicine-man
to restore him to Hfe. Miss Harrison points out to me that boiUng

was a very early and economical form of cooking. On Dartmoor
the stones which used to be heated and dropped into their cooking-
pots by the primitive inhabitants are still to be found in the hut-
Kal rhv Aicova, X^ytav oiirojs' KiniKa d' Atcova 6tjk£ tpiXop Kdpov Tj^dtovTa |
jTJpas
dTTof i)<racr' elSviriffi wpavldeffffi, \
<pdp/uiKa irdW (^j/ova' hi x/juo-eioiiri "Ki^Tjaiv. (Nosti,
frag 6, Kinkel. ) êpexiSris Si Kal Tî/xoiplSris rbv 'Ida-ova, The Argument of
Eurip. Medea has almost the same statement.
^ In a chapter on the ' Olympic Games in J. E. Harrison, Themis, p. 243 ff.
'
Zeus (Cambridge, 1914), vol. i. p. 676.

'^
^ Thus Mr. Cook explains the mystic formula ' A kid, I have fallen into
:
milk,' of which certainly no simpler explanation has been offered.

* Mr. Cook kindly calls my attention to a curious piece of evidence which has
come to light too late for inclusion in his forthcoming Zeus. An inscription
from Salonioa, published in the BuU. Oorr. Hell, xxxvii. (1913) 97 ff., mentions
a female yaKa.KTr]tj>6pos and an 6,pxi-IJ.a'y\_ei.']peis in connection with a 'Cave-Father.'
The suggestion that the inscription is Mithraic is not supported, so far as I know,
by any known instance of a Cook or arch-Cook as a functionary in Mithraic
ritual.
circles. The sacramental victim destined to be eaten in the com-
munal meal would be boiled. The burnt sacrifice, consumed and
offered only to the Gods, comes later. The boihng, therefore, may
be regarded as the primitive sacrifice or sacrament. The God who
was torn to pieces, boiled, and eaten could not literally rise again,
though a simulated resurrection might be contrived by some mum-
mery comparable with the old Bouphonia ritual at Athens, where
the slain ox was flayed, and his skin, stuffed with straw, was set
up on its legs and yoked to a plough. To the candidate for the re-
birth of initiation, who must undergo what his God had suffered,
the process could be still further tempered by rehgious fiction.
I venture to think that Mr. Cook's hypothesis is strengthened by
the instance of Demos in the Knights, who renews his youth in the
Sausage-seller's cauldron and emerges as a new King and (as the
parallel cases allow us to add) a new God, ready for his marriage.
No wonder he does not know what manner of man he was before.
When the scene is read in this hght, there is a certain ritual air
about the catechism through which his restorer puts him, to ascer-
tain whether his heart too is changed and he will amend his life.
The passage may be compared with the solemn fines in which

Plutus, his sight restored, declares that he did not know what
sort of men he had consorted with in his blindness, and that
now he will reverse his whole manner of life and conduct.^ A
Cook who can perform such miraculous operations is manifestly _a
magician, and his profession coalesces with that of the Doctor in
the primitive functions of the medicine-man —a figure who, as
we shall see later, stands out in the dim past behind the Doctor
who revives the slain in the folk-plays.
44. Rejuvenation in other 'plays
This turning of an old man youth is by no means confined

into a
to the Knights. It was the principal theme of the lost play called
Old Age. In this comedy the Chorus appears to have consisted
otois flp* d.vdp(i)Trois ^vvujv i\dv6avoVf

Toils djious Si Trjs ^/iijs 6/iiX(os
^êuYoy, elSihs oiSiv t& tXtJ/iwi' ^7(5.
uis odr' €K€iv' dp* o^fre raOr' 6p6ujs ^dpwv'

dXX' aird wdyra ir6.\iv dvatrrp^âs iydj
Se(Jft) ri \onr6v kt\.
of old men who threw ofE their age, as the serpent casts his slough
and behaved themselves with youthful i
licence and indecorum;!
Memeke remarks that the hero must have been an old
man himself,
and deduces from the fragments that he expelled
his wife from the
house and married a young woman—the marriage
motive akeady
famiHar to us. 2 Two of the fragments may possibly indicate that
the process of rejuvenation was performed
by a Cook.^ We should
then have a comic parallel to Medea's boiUng of the whole
Chorus
in Aeschylus' Nurses of Dionysus.* The
same motive was used
again in the Amphiaraus, where a superstitious old
man goes on
pilgrimage to Oropus, to recover his youth by
Incubation in
the temple, as Plutus recovers his sight- jn the temple of
-
Asclepius.^
But, besides these cases, it is the usual thing for Aristophanes'
elderly heroes in the course of the play to throw off the slough
of
sour and morose old age, and emerge at the end carrjdng their
youthful behaviour to the point of scandal. In the Wasps, for
instance, we see Bdelycleon converting his deplorable old parent
to the dress and manners of a smart young man about town, with
more success than he had bargained for. At the dinner-party
the old man outdoes the wildest young aristocrats.® He appears
' Ar. frag. 178 Dind. =Athen. iii. 109 F: Kpipavlrqi/- roirov nvrj/ioveici
A.pLffTO<)>i.v'r)i iv T'qpg,' iroie? Si \iyoii(Tav AproinSKiv SiripTra<T/j.huv airfji tQi/ UpTuiv virb
tQv to yrjpa^ dTTQâX^vruv
— tovtI tI ijf TO irpcLy/j-a ; Sepnovs, & TiKvor.
— dX\' ^ ira.pa<ppov€is ; Kptâvlras, & t^kvov.
Meiueke, Frag. Com. Graec, ii. 994. Frag. 192 Dind. = Sehol. Nieand.
2
Theriac. v. 295 Kal 'Ap. iy ry Trripg, yvvdiKa Trot^tras îrl ^615701;? 6vuv dxovfihtjv
:
irapdyGi tlvo. ipQvTa aiJr^s, ^ Kal ipe8lôv<rd <f>i^ffL Trp6s aiiTbv'
diroirXevaTôv iwl t6v v^jxcfiiov
t^ yafJ.oOfj,at T^fiepov.
' Frag. 184 Dind. = Pollux x. 104: 'Api(iTO<pdvovs 70D1' iv 'JirTivinv 6 ixdyeipos
\ey€L ^/iaxatpiSioif Te irXifiyas' itjairep Kal iv TtfiTif}pg,6 aiiros jroL'rjTi^s etptjKe ' KoiriSi twp
IMyeipiKiSv.' When this reference to the cook's knife is taken in conjunction

with Frag. 185a as restored by Fritzsoh iyifS' diroXoTlêiv ye Kal rdw' dvBpdKuv,
:
itseems certain that a cook was a character in the play, and possible that he
rejuvenated the old men by peeling off their skins, as if they were snakes. See
below, note 5.
* Above, p. 88.
° See Kaibel, s.v. 'Aristophanes' in Pauly-Wiss. ii. 979, citing frag. 102
Dind. = Erotian, 93, 8 Kl. Ae^rjplSos' iiievdSovi dToffipfiaTos, Svep iarl to tQv
i<j>€<i>v XeySfievov yrjpas, tis Kal 'ApuTTOtpdvris iv 'A/iîapdif. Hesych. Tv/ivoTepos
Xe^ripidos- 'ApiffT0<pdi/7}s tpr/a-l, TV(p\6Tepos Xefir/pldo!. la-n di XejlTjpls ri tov 6<pcw! yyjpas
Sii. rb Xiiros ehai. ° 1300.

92 THE ORIGIN OV ATTIC COMEDY
dancing and thrusting his reveller's torch in the iace of a fellow-
guest, who threatens legal proceedings,
'
though you are such a
very young man !
' ^ In his speech to the courtesan he says ^ :
'
As
soon as my son is dead I will have you for my concubine ; at
present I am not master of my own fortune ; I am so young, and
they keep such a sharp eye on me. It 's my son who looks after
me ; he 's such a crabbed old skinflint, and so he 's afraid of my
wasting it. You see, I 'm the only father he 's got.' All through
these scenes the fun hes in the reversed positions of son and father
Bdelycleon reproving his parent for youthful extravagances.*
Strepsiades in the Clouds is another instance. He goes to school
instead of his son, and assimilates the latest thing in culture to such
purpose that at their next meeting he accuses the fashionable
youth of being quite out of date.* It is worth noting that this
rejuvenation is begun by Socrates performing the hocus-pocus of
—
mystic initiation a ceremony of new birth, the details of which
make the patient fear that he is going to be sacrificed like Athamas.
As Strepsiades after his initiation disappears into the Cave of '
Trophonius,' the Chorus, singing farewell, congratulate him on

having put off his years and '
dyed his nature in the colours of
^
newer things.'
Both and in the Wasps the plot turns upon the
in the Clouds
contrast and conflict of the older and younger generations and their
ideals, and of course too much stress must not be laid on these
•'instances. But it is certainly a curious feature which distinguishes

Aristophanes' plays from all other forms of Comedy, that they
present a whole series of heroes who are old men and behave as
such at the beginning, while at the end they are more or less trans-
(_figured into youthful bridegrooms. When Trygaeus returns from
heaven, the Chorus sing that the old man seems to have found '
'
happiness and prosperity. What will you say, then, says Trygaeus,
'
'
'
when you see me in my glory as a bridegroom ? All will envy '
'
you, old man, when you have become a youth once more and are
' 1333 : veavia^.

Kel ff(l>6Sp' cI ^ Sohol. 1353 fuiiehai rois veavlsKovi. :
' Cf. Starkie'snote on Wasps, 1367 complete reversal of their original

:
'
A
positions. The father has become the Bdelycleon of the beginning of the play,
and attributes to the new Philooleou the tastes of the old.'
* 821 tppoyets ipxauKi.
:
° 512 : eirvxlt yhoiTO TavlSpdnrifi, Stl irpo^Kay \

els /3a9i> t^s ^XikJos |
pewripots
tV <)>i(riy av\ToS vpAyiMCiv xpairiferai | Kal ao<t>lav iiraffKeT,
AGON, SACRBFICB, AND FEAST 93
anointed with myrrh.' i

The case of Trygaeus is not exceptional,
but typical : Dikaiopolis, Demos, Strepsiades, Philocleon, Pisthe-
tairus, Blepyrus, Plutus — all these undergo, in some sense, a
similar rejuvenation. This is not an obvious course for the action
of a comedy to take, and that not once or twice, but so normally
that we find it in eight out of the eleven extant plays, while of the
remainder, one (the Frogs) leads up to the resurrection of the elder I
poet, another (the Lysistrata) has no male hero at all. Such are
the facts. Whether the explanation here ofEered is right or wrong,
we are justified in insisting that some explanation is required.^
45. The Sacrifice and the Feast
There is a further point of considerable importance for the com-

pletion of our argument. The hypothesis we have been following i
throughout, has been based on the observation that, as a matter

of fact, underlying the plots of a whole series of comedies on very
diverse themes, we can distinctly make out the framework of a
regular series of incidents. The hypothesis is that these form the
moments in a ritual procedure. have now examined the first We J
and the last terms in this series— the Agon and the Marriage. The
ritual, if ritual it be, begins with a fierce and deadly, conflict of two
adversaries ends with the marriage and triumph of the victor.
; it
Between these two points we have looked for traces of that resur-
rection or rebirth which, in known instances of the kind of ritual
drama we are considering, follows the conflict and death of the
Agonist. We must now go back to the actual plots of the plays
1 Peace, 856 : Chor. fiSai/ioviKios y' 6 irpeir-

ûrris, Sffa 7' &S' iSeh,
TCL vvv TaSe irpdrTei,
Tryrj. tI Stjt' iirei.Sci.i' vv/icpioy fi.' Spare Xainrpon ovra ;
Chor. ^7j\(^bs ^trei, y^pov,

affîs vios wv TraKiy
fiip(^ KdTciXeLirTOS.
2 The rejuvenation motive occurs in the Bacchae in the persons of Cadmus

Kal Kpdra ff£?<rai woXidy
and Teiresias 184 ttoi Se? xopî^^", ^roJ Ka.8iffr6.pai irbSa ; ;
Wm
\
:
^7nXeX^<r/xe9' yjpo.re, d.res.

ifTiyoO ri noi 7^/"-" T^/ô""-', Te^.Tâ- . . . |
Kayi, yap v§C Kainxîp-fi<ro, x"/-"". Van Leeuwen

Teir rair' ip.ol ,r<i<rxe« fipa" |
cites these lines to illustrate the

song of the Mystics in the Frogs 345 yd^v :
d' irwv iraXaiwy hiavrovs. Cf.

^6X\era.iycpivro>V dwoffeiovrai di Uâs XPO''iov,
\
|
(Parabasis) 669 vO, Sei vO, d,'v^r,<,ai

the Chorus of Old Men in the Lysistrata :
KiizoffdaacBai. ri yijpas t65«.

irdMP KivarrepiSffat irav rb <rw>a \
and point out what are the regular incidents which fill in the outHne
of the underlying plot —the ritual plot, as we suppose it to be
between the Agon at the beginning and the Marriage at the end.
It is in this part of the play, between the Parabasis and the Exodos,
that the comphcated plots of the later plays are developed. But
underneath this diversity we can discern one or both of two incidents
which in the earUer plays, apart from interrupting episodes, consti-
tute the whole, or nearly the whole, of the action between the Agon
and the final Kdmos. These are a scene of Sacrifice and prayer,
and the cooking and eating of a Feast.^
Before we consider the possible ritual significance, the facts must
be set before the reader.
46. Sacrifice and Feast in the Plays
In the AcHAKNiANS the Sacrifice motive is combined with the

Agon. Dikaiopohs pleads his case with his head over the chopping-
block —a cooking utensil for cutting up meat.^ There is also the
threatened sacrifice of the coal-scuttle, which wins him a hearing.
After the Agon and Parabasis, the action is divided into two
chief parts. which Dikaiopohs
First, there is the series of scenes in
holds his market. These come under the head of preparations

for sacrifice and feast. The Megarian disguises his daughters as
pigs for the mysteries, and he maintains that they are old enough
for sacrifice, at any The sacrifice motive is
rate, to Aphrodite.^
thus given a comic turn. The Boeotian brings game and eels for
the feast afterwards prepared by Dikaiopohs. Then, after the
Second Parabasis, the Feast of the Choes is proclaimed, and
Dikaiopohs sets about cooldng on the stage the dehcacies he has
'
For the Fea^t as a standing incident preceding the K6mos in the second
part of an Old Comedy play, cf. Pint. Lucullus 39, l<rTi d' oSv toO AouKoiiXXou
îov, Kaddirep dpxaâs KajfitfiSias, avayvvpat to, fiev irpwra TroXtrefas naX arpaTTjyias, ra.
S' CffTepo Trirovi Kal Seiirva Kal fiovovovxl (ciijUous Kai \afiwiSas Kal iraiSiciV fi7ra<rav.
This notice is important because it refers to the Old Comedy in general, not
merely to Aristophanes. Owing to the accident that so many of the comic
fragments are preserved in the Deipnosophists, there are abundant traces of
the frequency of the Feast motive throughout the Old Comedy, comparatively
few of the other standing incidents.
^ Sohol. 318 ^TTifiji/os KaXeiToi 6 fiayeipiKos Kop/uSs,
4<l>' oS rd. xpia cvyKbirTovm.
' 764 xolpovi ixvcTiKis. 784 Dik. dXX' oide 8i<n.ij.b^ icriv airttyl. Meg. a6. niv
TTf 5' ovxl Simiibs iari ; , . (celXXio-ros îttoi x^'^po^ 'AippoSlrq. SAeiv.
AGON, SACEIMCB, AND FEAST 95
purchased.i The cooking is interrupted by unwelcome intruders.
Next, Dikaiopolis is invited to the banquet
held by the Priest of
Dionysus, at which he wins the prize wine-skin
of the drinking
competition. This carries us to his final appearance
as victor with
his courtesans.
In the Knights the last competition between the suitors for

the
favour of Demos begins with a race (1158 fE.), followed by a feast
which also a sacrifice.
is The Paphlagonian is first in fetching a
chair forDemos, but his rival provides the table. When the former
produces a cake kneaded of barley grain 2 from Pylos, the Sausage-
seller has ready a bread-spoon moulded by tt^ ivory hands of
Athena herself.^ The soup also has been made by Pallas; as
Phobesistrate she ofiers fish, as Obrimopatra other viands of a some-
what coarse character, and so on. The Sausage-seller wins the
match by steaUng a dish of hare which his rival had in reserve,
and offering it as his own. The Paphlagonian is beaten and
deprived of his official wreath.
The rest of the action consists only of the Cooking of Demos,
which takes place the stage during the Second Parabasis, and
ofi
the last scene, already described, in which the rejuvenated hero

isbrought out and leads away his new favourite to feast in the
Prytaneum.
The structure of the Clouds, as we have seen, is abnormal but ;
we have already noted the initiation scene which the neophyte

mistakes for a sacrifice like that of Athamas, and his '
death and
resurrection,' when he goes down to the Cave of Trophonius.' '
The feast, interrupted by unwelcome intruders, comes at its usual

place, going on * behind the scenes up to the moment where the
1 1015: Chorus. iJKovffas ws /iayeipiKun

KOH^WS T€ Kal S€nrV7)TLKitj$
avTc^ dcaKoveirat. ;
''
The term 6\al is used, elsewhere always applied to barley grain used in
sacrifice.
' Neil on 1168 says: 'The idea that a feast and a sacrifice are one runs
through the passage but here the goddess almost waits upon Demos with
:
offerings, and gets little thanks or respect. Probably the scene is suggested by
the banquet given to the citizens of Athens at the Panathenaea after the
hecatomb offered to Athena on the Acropolis, G. I. A., ii. 307.'
* 1212-1320.
old man rushes out screaming under his son's blows. Then follows
the Agon and the concluding scene.
In the Wasps we find again the normal order of events. The

Agon, as we have seen, leaves Philocleon in a fainting condition,
bidding farewell to his soul. When his son's cajoleries have at last
brought him back to life with the promise of a domestic law-court,

and all is ready for the Dog Trial, Bdelycleon calls for myrtle-
boughs and incense, which he offers while the Chorus sing a solemn
Paean to Apollo. He then prays to the Agyieus before his door
to bless the new rite they are inaugurating, and to turn the old
juror's heart to a milder temper. The Chorus add their prayers
for a blessing on these new beginnings.' ^ The serious tone of
'
this whole passage makes it an amusing preface to the criminal

prosecution of a house-dog for steahng cheese. The trial ends in a
verdict of acquittal, which, in spite of Philocleon's regeneration,
is almost too much for him. He faints again, and is supported
by his son into the house.
The Parahasis follows, and after it the action consists of prepara-
tions for feasting (1221-1264), the dinner-party itself, behind the
scenes (1265-1291), the K6mos, interrupted by unwelcome intruders
(1292-1449), the renewed feasting at Philocleon's house (1450-1481),
and the final scene of dancing.
In the Peace, the fijst half of the play, as we have seen, is modelled
on the ritual Anodos of the Earth Goddess. It ends with Trygaeus
setting out, with the two brides, Opora and Theoria, on his return
from heaven to earth. After the Parahasis we see him arrive.
He sends his own bride into the house to be prepared for the wedding,
and hands over Theoria to the Chairman of the Council.
Then follow the preparations for a sacrifice to Peace. The sacri-
fice, accompanied by a long prayer, is conducted up to the point
where the sheep is to be slain, but this final act is transferred to

behind the scenes on the excuse that the altar of Peace must not be
stained with blood.
Trygaeus is ordering the thighs to be cooked for the feast, when
the unwelcome intruder appears in the person of an oracle-monger
' 885 ; Ghor. ^vvevxi/J'CcSa, <TaOTd> aoi. KAirfSoiiev

viataLV Apxa-ts.
attracted by the smell of roast meat.
The victim is cut up and
cooked, while the greedy visitor is kept
at bay and finally driven
away with blows.
During the subsequent scenes the feast goes on
inside, and various
dealers in the weapons of war are disposed of.
The remains of the sacrificial feast are eaten on
the stage by the
Chorus (1311). Then follows immediately the
concluding Kdmos,
and the Marriage hymn.
The Birds follows the same hues. After the Agon and Pamhasis,
a sacrifice is begun to inaugurate the new city (810). Pisthetairos
intones a long prayer to the new feathered deities of the air
but ;
the proceedings are so interrupted by a long series of intruders

that, as in the Peace, the final slajdng of the goat has to be done
behind the scenes (1057). This sacrifice fills the space between the
firstand second Parahasis.
Further on, we come to the cooking scene, greedily watched by
the three envoys from the Gods, who are starving for lack of sacrifices.
The offer of a free breakfast at once wins over Heracles and leads
to a happy conclusion of the negotiations. This cooking scene is
an especially good instance of a fixed motive. It is separated by
a considerable interval from the sacrifice, with which it has no
connection. The birds cooked by Pisthetairos are explained to be
criminals condemned to death for revolt against the patriotic
birds (1583). When Heracles has concluded the bargain and invites
the hero to go with him to heaven and fetch his bride, Pisthetairos
says the dishes will come in very well for the marriage-feast (1688)
but no marriage-feast is actually held. The cooking is introduced
partly for the sake of the glutton Heracles —a favourite comic
motive.
In the Lysistbata the conflict continues well on into the second

part of the play. The men and women who compose the two halves
of the Chorus are not reconciled till the Second Parahasis.^ There
is no sacrifice but the feast, at which the envoys are entertained
;
in the Acropohs, comes in its usual place and leads to the final
Kdmos.
In the Thesmophoriazusab we have, after the Agon, the mock

1 1014-1071.
G
98 THE ORIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDl
sacrifice of the wine-skin illicitly introduced in the disguise of baby-
clothes by one women —the motive borrowed from
of the the
Telephus, and used before in the Achamians. By this ruse the
herb saves himself from being burnt ahve. After this the plot
is continued on the Knes of Perseus' rescue of Andromeda. There
is no feast ; but we have seen how the '
marriage '
motive is used
to cheat the pohceman of his prisoner.
The chief Agon in the Frogs falls in the second part of the play.
It is preceded by a sacrifice of incense, a prayer addressed to the
Muses by the Chorus, and an invocation of Demeter by Aeschylus
and of Aether by Euripides.
After the Agon Dionysus and Aeschylus are entertained by
Pluto at a farewell feast, and the play ends with their departure
to the upper world.
In the EccLESiAZUSAE the place usually filled by the sacrifice is

occupied by the curious scene in which the Neighbour marshals
his household goods in the street in the form of the Panathenaic
may conduct them as offerings to the common
procession, so that he
store of the new community. It almost looks as if this odd motive,
amusing as it is, were suggested by the canonical requirement of
some sort of sacrificial scene at this point of the action.
Then the Herald comes to invite all the citizens to a feast, which
continues behind the scenes until the end of the play. The Chorus
and the well-disposed spectators are also invited to the banquet
(1138 ff.).
In the Plutus a sacrifice of a pig, a ram, and a goat is celebrated

upon the return of the hero from his miraculous cure (819), and the
Karaxva-fiaTa are poured over him (789 fE.).
The Just Man comes to dedicate the old coat and shoes of his
days of poverty now to be ended. The hungry Sycophant, scenting
the cooking of the feast inside the house, is driven away. Then,
after the episode of the old woman and her young lover, the starving
Hermes appUes for a share in the good victuals and the post of
footman, and the priest of Zeus is allowed to join in the final
procession to install the new God.
47. The Significance of the Sacrifice and Feast

This review of the course of the action in the second half of the
several plays can leavelittle doubt that a Sacrifice and its usual
sequel, the cooking and eating of a Feast, are incidents no less

canonical than those we have examined earlier. They fill in the
outline of the action between the Agon at the beginning and the
Marriage at the end.
If the hypothesis we have so far followed is true, the sacrifice
and feast occupying this fixed position are open to two construc-
tions. In the first place they can be regarded, as they sometimes
are in the actual plays, as celebrating the victory of the successful
adversary in the Agon. They will then complete the parallel
between our supposed ritual drama and the procedure at the Olympic
Games. The victors in these contests, after their Agon, ofiered
solemn sacrifice at the altar of Zeus, and then went to the banquet
in the Prytaneum and the torchht Kdmos.
But we have seen sufficient traces of an older form of ritual
in which it is the God himself, in human or animal form, who is
the victim. He is dismembered, and the pieces

body are of his
either devoured raw in a savage omophagy, or cooked and eaten

in a sacramental feast. Or again, in yet simpler forms, the frag-
ments of the divine body are distributed among the worshippers

to be placed in stall and manger, or strewn upon the fields for the
fertilisation of the crops. In all these cases, the fundamental need
is the same ; the essential purpose is that of the phalhc rites, which
aim at spreading the benign influence as widely as possible, so that
all members of the community may have their share.
This dispersal, moreover, is the prelude to a resurrection. The

scattered limbs of Osiris are reverently collected and the God returns
to life. Zagreus, cooked in the Titans' cauldron, Pelops, boiled
and partly eaten at the feast of Tantalus, Uve again. Indeed,
ifMr. Cook's conjecture be sound, the rite of cooking, symboUcally
performed upon the initiate in his bath of milk, is actually the
means of regeneration.
Let us suppose, then, that the original ritual Agon was of the type
in which the good principle is slain and
then brought back to life.
In the comedies this principle is represented by the hero or the

sympathetic adversary, who triumphs at the close. A fair number
of the plays have shown us something like a death and resurrection
of this personage. Demos
cooked into renewed youth is Strep- ;
siades goes down into his Cave of Trophonius Philocleon faints ;
to the point of death Euripides' kinsman is crucified on his plank,

;
all but burnt ahve, and rescued by the author of the Andromeda
Aeschylus is fetched up from the underworld by the God of Tragedy
Plutus has his sight restored by the painful therapeutics of the
God of Medicine. Unless our hypothesis is false from beginning
to end, we cannot refuse to see in the canonical sacrifice a survival
of the original death of the divine Agonist, and in the scenes of
cooking and feasting that follow with such surprising regularity,
the sacramental meal and the cauldron of apotheosis through
which the God passes to his resurrection.
48, The scattering of sweetmeats to the spectators
In support of this interpretation, the Plutus preserves, I believe,

a curious piece of evidence. At the first appearance of the divine
hero after his sight has been restored, he is met by the wife of
Chremylus, who offers to pour over him, 'according to custom,'
the Karaxvo'/Ji'aTa, which appear to be figs and other fruits brought
in a basket.^ Plutus prevents her. be more decent, he
It will
says, to go inside the house and perform this ceremony at the
hearth, '
as the custom is.' Then for a moment he drops his mask
and speaks for the poet. '
Besides,' he adds, '
in that way we shall
escape that piece of vulgarity. It would not be seemly for our
author to force a laugh from his audience, in return for figs and
sweetmeats thrown to them.' '
Very true,' repKes the woman
'
there 's Dexinikos akeady rising in his place to snatch at the
2
figs.'
The scholium on this passage rightly refers to the Prologue of

the Wasps,^ where Aristophanes has mentioned this very '
piece
^ The Scholiast on 791 oalU them Tpayfiiiara,
^ 796 : iTeiTo, xal t&v <p6pToy (Kipiyoi-iicv &v.
oi yap TpeTwSis iCTi T(f di.Sa<rKA\(fi
la-XiSia Kal rpuyiXta rois Beoiiiivots
vpoâKdvr' iri roiirois etr' dvayxdêip 7^X01'.
' Wasps 58 : yip oix ^(tt' oire Kipv' Ik ôpfilSos
ii/uv
SoiXw dtappiTToSvTe rois deu/U^vois.

At Ach. 805 Dikaiopolis orders figs to be brought for the Megarian's pig-
daughters iveyKira tis ?c5o«e» rCiv l<rx.dSuv tois xotpiStoiviv.
:
S.pa rpiiômai
|
AGON, SAOEIFIOE, AND FEAST 101
of vulgarity ' among the devices of the older Comedy which he

intends to abandon :
'
We shall not have a pair of slaves scattering^
nuts from a basket among the audience.' The Plutus shows us
the moment in the proceedings when this distribution occurred.
Note that the woman says nothing about scattering her figs among
the audience she offers to pour them over Plutus. But he takes
;
it as a matter of course that they will afterwards be thrown to the

spectators, and speaks of avoiding '
that vulgarity ' before it has
been even mentioned. No doubt such a custom would be kept
up by Aristophanes' '
vulgar ' predecessors for reasons easily under-
stood ; but, given the place it occupies in the Plutus, it may well
be that it had its origin in the distribution of things that had been
in contact with the sacred victim and were charged with his benefi-
cent influence, and perhaps, earlier still, of the fragments of the
victim himself.!
This suggestion is strengthened by the scene of sacrifice in the
Peace. Trygaeus is just about to kill the sheep and has poured
water over its head. He orders the slave Xanthias to take from
the basket the barley grains {KpiOdt) for sprinkling, and to throw
some of them to the spectators.^ The Chorus is next drenched
/3aâ( I
oiov poei&ôva' . Starkie [ad loc.) suggests that the figs were here thrown
to the audience, who are suddenly treated as pigs. This is pure conjecture
but if it is Boiind, we may note that there is the same play on the meaning of
ipipivSos (801, Sohol. ^Tratfe irpbs ri alSoiov toO av5pb$, iirel Kal ipipivBov airb
KoKoOin) as there is in the Peace on the meaning of Kpifffi (see below).
1 of pouring KaTaxuaiiara over a newly married pair when they
The custom
firstentered their house, and over a new slave on entering the house of his
master, might be explained on similar lines. The object might be to get the
newcomers into communion with the existing household, by a sort of symbolic
communal feast. As they could not be eaten themselves, objects that had been
in contact with them were substituted. See p. 102, n. 1 on the oSKbxvrai.
At the Apaturia, another rite of the admission of a new member to a group,
portions of the victim were distributed. The iirapxal of boiled 6(TTpia at the
inauguration of a new statue or altar (Schol. on Peace 923, jci^âis iSpvTiov) may
have had a similar meanitig.
^ 962 : Tryg. Kal rois Bearatt piTTTe tSv KpiBuv.
Slave. iSoiJ.
Tryg. ISuxas ijSri
Slave. VT) rbv 'Epurjv iiare ye

Toiriav Saomip elcri. t&v Beaiiivuv
oiiK SffTiv oiSels SffTis oi KpiB^v ^x"-
Tryg. oi)x ".l yvvaiiUs 7' O.aôv.
Slave. o-^^- e^s iavipav
SibiTovffLV airats UpSpes.
Schol. ad. V. 965 : irpis rriv KpiBriv iralêi, &ti. rb twv aySpiiv alSoiov KpiBw ftc7oi'.
with more than the usual dose of lustral water. Both the ritual
actions here parodied are intended to make the onlookers partakers

of the rite. Later on, the spectators are directly invited to share
In the feast that follows the sacrifice/ as they are again in the
Ecclesiazusae (1141), and the Chorus actually finish the remains
of the feast on the stage just before the Exodos.
Van Leeuwen on the above passage innocently says that the
barley grains cannot have been really scattered among the spec-
tators, because, in the Wasps and the Plwtus, the poet forswears
the distribution of sweetmeats to the audience. Aristophanes,
however, is not to be taken too strictly at his word. All the other
devices of his '
vulgar ' predecessors which he renounces, he uses
himself whenever he chooses.^ In view of the punning use of the
word xpiOai in our passage, I suspect that Uttle barley-cakes in
the form of phalli were tossed to the lower tiers of spectators.' I
conclude that this distribution, which was a regular incident in the
'
vulgar Comedy ' of Aristophanes' predecessors, may have been
a survival from the old ritual, in which originally portions of the
slain God, and later grain that had been sprinkled over the sacrifi-
cial victim, were given to the worshippers to be used for spreading
the beneficent infiuence of the fertiUty rite throughout the
community.*
^ 1115 : dye St] dearal deOpo (jvcnrXayxveieTe

fxera vt^v.
1 suspect that this intention of making the congregation partakers of the rite
lay behind the oi)X6x'""<", which consisted of KpiBai and salt (Eustath. on II. i.
449, p. 132, 23 ol ov\6xvTai od\al i]<rav, Tovr^ffrt Kpidal fiera dXw*', As iw^xeov Tois
:
ôjfiois Tpb T^s iepovpylas, iTroiovv S^ toOto fj iroXv-nX-^dsLaf Kapirdv oiuvi^Sfispoij dv

a,wa.pxoX olov al oiXal airal irpocrriyovTo, i) kt\. ). Plutarch says they were used by
'most of the Greeks' at their 'very ancient sacrifices' • oi TrXeicrToi rCiv 'KW-fivav
trpds Tas irdw iraXaLOLS Ovirias ixP^^'^^ '"^^^ KpidaTSf airapx^f^vti^v tuv iroKirwv. This
would fit in with the view that the more ancient form of sacrifice was a
communal meal at which the God was eaten. When the burnt sacrifice came
in, the ouXixi""'" became meaningless, and were merely poured on the altar.
2
See below, p. 183.
Compare the distribution by the King of grain and pulse to both strangers
^
and citizens at the Charila ceremony at Delphi, Plut. Qu. Graec. xii. Cakes in
the form of the male and female sex-organs were used at the Haloa (Schol. on
Lucian, Dial. Merelr. vii. 4) and other kindred festivals. Mr. A. B. Cook
informs me that they are still handed about at Easter in Italy.
^ In connection with the scattering of sweetmeats, Couat (.4»'i«iop/ia)ie, etc.
p. 18) calls attention to the obscure story in Athen. ix. 406 D ff., that Hegemon
of ThasoB, a contemporary of Aloibiades, uarjXOi irore xoi et's to Biarpov SiScufkoiv
49. Conclusion
The outline of our supposed ritual plot is now complete. Starting

from Aristotle's authoritative statement, we sought the nucleus
of Comedy in the PhalUc ceremonies, illustrated by Aristophanes
himself in the rites performed by Dikaiopolis at his Country Dionysia.
We found there, in barest outhne, a ritual procedure in three parts.
(1) The procession of the worshippers of Phales moves on its way,
carrying the emblem of the God on a pole and the instruments of
sacrifice. (2) It pauses at some fixed place for the sacrifice, accom-
panied by a prayer to Dionysus. (3) The procession moves on

again singing the Phalhc Song. This K6mos hymn reflects the
two essential elements invocation and induction of the good in-
:
fluence or spirit, magical abuse and expulsion of the evil. The

same two elements we found perpetuated in the comic Pa/rdbasis.
In the Agon which regularly precedes the Pa/rahasis we now have
come to see the equivalent of the sacrifice which precedes the
Phalhc Song. The Agon is the beginning of the sacrifice in its
primitive dramatic form— the conflict between the good and evil
principles. Summer and Winter, Life and Death. The good
dismembered, cooked and eaten in the communal
spirit is slain,
feast, and yet brought back to hfe. These acts survive in the
standing features of the comic plot between the Pardbasis and the
Exodos. Finally comes the sacred Marriage of the risen God,
restored to and youth to be the husband of the Mother Goddess.

life
This marriage is the necessary consummation of the PhalUc

ritual,
KwniÛav UBuv ^wr w\r,pe, to iii&TLov'ois îWav ds "> ipxharpav bcaTropav iirol-qat
Toil! ffeards. Koi dXlyov SiaXiiriiv etire'

Udoi fih o'ide- jSoXX^TW S' eiTi.s OiXef
iyadiv Si k&h x"/"™! k&v Bipn. (paKTJ.
(*a/ci7 was a nickname of Hegemon).
The anecdote is told on the occasion of
game, and x^rpai containing <paKv and njol. One
the handing round of roast
have share of the âxij, or at least of the x^rpo. itself, /x'!
guest says Let us: a
Qi<!<.ov HT^f.o.a. Another asks ris S a^j;
Kal \ieoi9 Tcs iixQ. §.p.ii<TeTai Ka.Ti Thv
:
\MvTi âU^rtfs saying he knows the Eleusinian BaXX,r^5. Then this anecdote
^ ;
Memeke {.Com^c^,
Trepi Trj, Apx^la, Ko,^<fSla,.
is quoted from Chamaileon, iv (kt^
i 214) remarks on Athen. xv. 699 A, yiyp^'Pe U Kal Koi,upSUy d, Ti. apx-uou
as Hegemon lived in the period of the
Old
^^.7M0o"« ^M.w, that,
Tp&ôv, ^.
point to a form of Comedy older
Comedy, the phrase eh Thv &pxalov Tpbôv may
Did Hegemon provide his stones for a ôKXryri, between
than Câtinus.
of the actors by the Chorus in the
audience and performers, like the pelting
Acharnians prologue V
which, when it takes a dramatic form, simulates the union of Heaven
and Earth for the renewal of all life in Spring.
Our discussion of the Agon is, however, not yet complete for ;
we have simplified it by omitting the part played in the contest by

the Chorus. This omission must now be made good and we must
;
also consider the literary form in which the primitive ritual action
is clothed.
CHAPTEK VI
THE CHORUS IN AGON AND PARABASIS

50. The part of the Chorus in the Agon
ZiELiNSKi, in his discussion of the cast of the Agon, started

from a remark in Lucian's tract On not giving easy credence to
Slander, to the effect that in slander, '

as in comedies,' three roles
are involved : the slanderer, the slandered, and the third person
who listens to the slander.^ The phrase '
as in comedies ' must
refer to the Agon, in which the third person is certainly the Chorus.
In three cases {Knights, the two Reasons in the Clouds, Frogs) an
individual judge —
Demos, Pheidippides, Dionysus is chosen —
but even here, Ziehnski says, the judge is really in the second
instance the Chorus, and in the third the pubhc. These individual
judges, if they speak at all in the course of the Agon, speak not
as judges but in the character of Buffoon —a part taken in other
plays by a separate person, who interposes humorous asides, un-
noticed by the principal speakers. The function of the Chorus,
according to Zielinski, is to keep the lists for the combat, as agono-
thetes or rhabduchus. The Leader opens and closes the debate.
But in the Epirrhemes themselves the Chorus generally does not

intervene.^ The part of the Chorus thus mainly consists in opening
the debate {Katakeleusmos), encouraging the adversaries to do their
best {Ode and Antode), and pronouncing the verdict {Sphragis).
If, however, we consider, not their formal function, but their
attitude of mind, we shall find that this is very far from the im-
1
Zielinski, GUederung, 112. Luoian, op. cit., 6 TpiQv S' ivruv tuv Trpoadnruv,
:
KaBdTrep iv raU Ka/i<fSlais, rod SiafiiWovTos Kal toD SiapaWo/i^vov, xal toC irpis Sy 57
5toj3o\7) yiyyerai.
2 Zielinski maintained (GUederung, 117 ff.) that the Chorus never
speaks in
the Epirrhemes. This opinion is criticised by J. W. White (An Unrecognised
Actor, etc., p. 117), who allows the Chorus to speak

where the arguments are
mainly addressed to it, as in the Birds. This, however, does not apply to
the
typical Agon, in which two actors are the adversaries. Mr. White gives the
evidence of the MSS.

106
partiality of a judge or of the steward of a contest. We have
seen how often the Agon is preluded by a scene in which the Chorus
attack one or other of the adversaries with fists or missiles. In
every play, when the Agon opens, the Chorus is either more or less
violently on the side of one of the adversaries against the other,
or else divided against itself, one half taking each side. Where it
is on the side of the victorious principle, as in the Knights, it
remains so throughout the play. Where it is at first hostile to the

Agonist, as in the Wasps or the Birds, it is converted by his argu-
ments and changes over. Where it is divided against itself, as
in the Lysistrata, it remains divided at the end of the Agon. There
is no instance of an impartial Chorus, except perhaps in the Frogs,
and there the r61e of the Chorus is negligible, for they take no part
in the action, and there is an individual judge, Dionysus, who repre-

sents the Athenian public in their character of theatre-goers. There
is thus a curious contrast between the formal function of the Chorus
as stewards of the conflict and their attitude of mind, which is,
almost without exception, violently partisan.^

The pursuit of our hypothesis demands that we should make out
what was the original ritual function of the Chorus. The first point
must be to make sure that it had such a function that there was —
any Chorus at all in the type of phallic ritual from which we suppose
Comedy to have sprung. On this head there can be no doubt.
The presence of a Chorus is guaranteed by the Parahasis, which
in point of structure hangs together with the Agon and the other
epirrhematic parts. The epirrhematic structure is absolutely
unintelUgible except as based on the division of the Chorus into
two halves {Antichoria) ^ without a Chorus this peculiar arrange-
:
ment could not exist. As the function of the Chorus dwindles

and fades out in the Middle and New Comedy, epirrhematic structure
necessarily disappears. To judge from that part of the develop-
ment which we can trace, the presumption is that the further back
we could go, the more important the r61e of the Chorus would be
' The Chorus in the Clouds have a quite exceptional position, which has been
described as that of 'passive but malignant onlookers (Starkie on Clouds, 1113).
'
In the Agon they are impartial, merely calling on each speaker in turn.
Strepsiades turns upon them, considered as deities of the sophists, at the end
but they tell him coldly that he has only himself to thank, and that they have
been leading him on, that he may learn to feav the Gods.
= See below, § 52.
THE OHORTJS IN AGON AND PABABASIS 107
found to be. There can be no question that the original ritual,

if ritual there was, involved a Chorus.
51. The Function of the comic Chorus
When we pass to the next question : what part that Chorus"'

played, we must first allow for the difference between a dramatic
performance in presence of a body of spectators and a rehgious
ceremony, in which all who are present take part and the mere
onlooker is altogether left out of account. A rite needs no audience
and, when a rite passes out of the purely rehgious stage into the
dramatic or spectacular, the performers acquire a new relation to
the body of spectators, who have now gathered to watch, but not
to take any active part in, the proceedings. The congregation or
band of worshippers now becomes a Chorus, standing in an inter-
mediary position between the actors, still absorbed in the action,
and the spectators, who are only concerned in the drama by way
of sympathetic contemplation.
^
So far, what we have said applies to the Chorus in Comedy and
in Tragedy ahke. But here a vital difference comes into view.
The comic Chorus has not, from the standpoint of art, the justifica-
tion and utiUty which kept the Chorus ahve in Tragedy to the
last days of the ancient drama. In Tragedy it is needed for a
high function, not to be so well fulfilled by any other means.
It has to utter emotions that can be expressed only in lyric poetry,
to say things which the audience longs to have said, but which
cannot be said by any character on the stage. For this purpose
a homogeneous Chorus is needed: there is one common feeling,
one common thought, that craves for utterance. The twelve
members of the tragic Chorus always had, and must have, the
same dress, the same mask, the same sex, age, and character. Their
function, too, and need never decay.
is integral,
Nothing of appUes to the comic Chorus. The audience here

this
can completely reUeve their feelings in laughter; there are no

thoughts or emotions stirred that he too deep for stage dialogue,
no remoter universal meaning to be caught only in the passionate
images of lyric poetry. From this point of view to compare, as
ZieUnski does, the structure of the second part of an Aristophanic
play with the '
episodic ' structure of Tragedy is quite misleading.
After the Agon and Pamhasis, the comic Chorus has no part in the
action until the Exodos ; it is merely waiting for the moment to
form the final procession of the Kdmos. But, unlike the Chorus
in Tragedy, it has also nothing relevant to say. Its sole business
is to keep the audience amused through intervals during which

something is done off the stage. It fills up the gap with funny
anecdotes or anything the author can think of but it might just :
as well be silentand execute a comic dance. In the latest plays

of Aristophanes this is recognised. The irrelevant little lyrics
no longer appear. The omission is not a symptom of dechne.
The earUer plays, as plays, would lose nothing if the practice had
been changed a generation sooner.
It is in the first half of the play, or wherever the Agon occurs,
that the Chorus is wanted ; and here, as we have seen, it has a
relation on the one on the other to the audience.
side to the action,
It is evident, too, that when we ask what its original function
in ritiial can have been, one of these —the relation to the audience
—has to be discounted, as a thing which only springs into
existence when the performance ceases to be a rite and becomes a
spectacle.
'
When we set our problem in that hght, we see how to explain
the contrast between the judicial function and the partisan sym-
pathies of an Aristophanic Chorus. Their sympathies belong to
them as characters in the play and are dictated by their mask.
The Knights are for the Sausage-seller, because they support the
character of young Athenian aristocrats, who prefer any demagogue,
however shameless, to the particular demagogue they know, as
conservatives in the frying-pan sometimes cry out for the fire.
On the other hand, their judicial functions fall to the Chorus as

some part of it that part,
representatives of the audience, or of —
namely, to which the Agonist's arguments are to be addressed.
The Wasps, for Demos, in its
instance, stand for the Athenian
juridical capacity. As such, it is their business to hear what
Bdelycleon has to tell them of how they are hoodwinked by their
adored leaders. They must sheathe their stings, hush their buzzing,
and listen for their own good. But all this is incidental to the
drama considered as a spectacle. In a word, the judicial function
of the Chorus belongs to the spectacular stage and must be elimi-
nated. The probability remains that their partisan sympathies
THE OHOETJS IN AGON AND PABABASIS 109
survive from their original function as
participants in the ritual
drama without an audience.
>
52. Antichoria and Epirrhematic structure
This probabihty
is raised almost to certainty by
considerations
urged by Ziehnski, and now, perhaps, generally accepted.^
Arai-
cAona—the division of the Chorus into two halves performing
antiphonally— is, as Ziehnski says,^ 'the soul of epirrhematic
composition.' In other words, the whole structure of the most"^
important part of the play implies this opposition between the two
half-Choruses. This division explains the fact that the comic
Chorus is twice the size of the tragic. It has twenty-four members,
including two Leaders. Moreover, in one extant play (the
its
Lysistrata), the two haK-Choruses have distinct masks twelve are :
men, twelve women. If we consider that in the thirty-two extant"

tragedies and in all the others whose cast is known from the frag-
ments there is not a single case of a Chorus with more than one
mask,3 the fact that such a thing is possible at all in Comedy is a
strong argument that it was traditional. Another instance is
affordedby the Odysses of Aristophanes' predecessor, Kratinus,

which held to have had a Chorus of twelve Companions of
is
Odysseus and twelve Cyclopes.* There is, further, the case of the
Acharnians, where the Chorus, though uniform in mask, is divided
against itself, and the two Leaders actually quarrel and fight in the
course of the Agon. Still fainter traces survive in those Agdnes
where each half of the Chorus in turn encourages, in Ode and Antode,
^ They are endorsed by the high authority of Kaibel {Hermes, xxx. p. 80) who
regards the double Chorus in the oldest art form of Comedy as a certain fact.
See also J. W. White, An Unrecognised Actor, etc., Harvard Studies in Class.
Philol., xvii. (1906), 106.
2 Oliederung, 272.
^Kaibel (Hermes, xxx. p. 88) thinks that a double chorus of Nymphs and
their ' husbands' (Satyrs) was required for Aeschylus' Aioviaov rpoipot; but that
was a satyrio drama, not a tragedy.
* Kaibel, loc. cit. There is an odd hint of a double Chorus in the Knights.
At the beginning of the Parados (247 ff. ) the first half-Chorus of young Knights
enters and attacks Cleon. He calls out for help to the Old Men of the law-
courts (255 a yipovT€s ifl\i.a<XTal
: Trapa/Sojjffeifi', lis vt' avSpuv riirToiiai. f ww-
. . .
fjLoTwv).The audience must have expected the second half-Chorus to consist of

these old men ; but to Cleon's dismay, when they appear at 258, they turn out
to be twelve more knights. Do you join in the attack on me ?' gasps Cleon
' :
ivveirlKfiffS' iyneVs ; of. Mazon, Mssai, p. 36,

^
one of the two adversaries to do his best. It has been pointed out
that in this respect again there is a significant contrast between the
T comic Chorus and the tragic. In Tragedy, where there is an Agon,
in the sense of a set debate between two characters, of the kind
so common in Euripides, the Chorus always do what they can to
soothe and pacify the adversaries. In Comedy, on the contrary,
they always incite them to greater efforts. Once more, the inference
is that in Comedy we have to do with two opposed bands, each
ôf which encourages a champion. There is thus a strong prob-
abihty that in the earher forms of Comedy the Agon was a contest
between the Leaders of two bands distinct and opposed in
character, like the men and women in the Lysistrata.^
53. Choral matches in abuse (ala-xpoôyiai)
fertility cults of Greece there is good evidence for the

In the
ritualcustom of two or more companies of worshippers engaging in
a set match of abuse. Herodotus ^ tells us that the two Earth-
Goddesses, Damia and Auxesia, at Aegina were propitiated by
abusive Choruses or dances of women. Ten men were designated
for each Goddess, to arrange these choral performances but the :
abuse was directed, not at any man, but at the women of the place.'
'
The same ceremonies were in use at Epidauros, and apparently

connected with rites described as secret (dpprjTot Ipovpjiat), and
'
'
probably of a phallic nature. At Troezen the women worshippers of

the same Goddesses did not hmit themselves to the exchange of
abuse, but pelted one another with stones.* At a more famous
seat of the same cult, Eleusis itself, the women at the winter Haloa
abused one another and we hear also of an ancestral Agon,' the
;
'
nature of which is unfortunately unknown.^ At Eleusis the young

men also held a mimic battle every year, known as the Pelting
(BaWr]Tv<s).^ We approach still nearer to the double Chorus with
' Weil, Etudes sur le drame antique, p. 303.

^ This ia Zielinski's conclusion, Gliederung, 312.
= Hdt. V. 83. 4 Pans. ii.
32, 2.
° Farnell, Ctdts, iii. 315 ff. Frazer, G. B.^, Spirits of the Com, etc., vol.
; i.
p. 61.
" Horn. Hym. Dem. 236. Mr. A. B. Cook suggests to me that this word
might help out the rather poor joke at Ach. 234, where the Koryphaeua bids his
followers ^Xiwti.v BaXXiJ^'aSc, when they are pelting Dikaiopolia with stones.
THE CHORUS IN AGON AND PARABASIS 111
its two masks in the cult of Apollo at Anaphe,
in whose honour
there was a ritual of ' strife and abuse '
carried on between parties
ot men and women.i The abuse
flung at the passers-by or at one
another by the worshippers riding in carts
at the K6mos of the
Choes, m
the Eleusinian procession, and at the
Lenaea, may have
been unorganised.
54. Ritual Combats for fertility
The custom more or less serious battles, as a means

of holding
of promoting the fertiUty of the crops, has been illustrated
by
Mannhardt from Europe and by Dr. Frazer from various other
parts of the world.^ Sometimes it is the blood drawn from
the com-
batants that is sprinkled on the fields, sometimes the portions
of
the dismembered representative of the principle of Life,
whether
in human or animal form or in the shape of a puppet. No clear
hue can be drawn between these contests of two bands and the
1 Apoll. Rhod. iv. 1726:
rds 5' alirxpols ^pues iTiiTTO^haKOv iireffaiv
'X}êiri yridbavpoi.' y\vKep^ S' ifCKalero to'ktlv
Keproixl-q Kal veiKOS iirea^liKov. ix Si vv Kelv-qs
/loXirris ypiliuv viiaif ivL Tola yvva^Kes
ipdpdffi SripidavTai, 8t' 'AwSWuva SuijXais
AlyX'^TTtv 'Avd^T)s riii-qopov iXdcKUvrai,
/ioXirijs implies that regular choral songs of abuse were performed.
^ Suidas s.v. t4 ^k rav afM^wv <TKii/i/w,Ta. 'ABiiVQai. yap iv t^ tuv Xowv iopry ol
KU/itffoj'Tes iirl tuv dfiaûv roils diravTSivTai IckutttSv re Kal i\oiS6povv. rb Si airb
Kal ToTs ATpalois ScrTepov iirolow. (It is oonceivable that oi iiravTuvTes might
mean a party of people who met
the procession and made a show of resisting it.
See the instance next quoted from Egypt.) Sti iwl rijs d/iaîjs (ixoiJ/tcyai ai
yvyaTKes oi Tuv 'ABrinatup, iirhv els ra 'EXevcrlvia i^dSiôv els to, /i^7aXa iiVdTTjpia,
iXoiSbpovD dW-fjXas iv ry dS<fi.
^ Mannhardt, SaumJcuUus, 548 flf. ; Frazer on Pausanias, ii.
30, 4. Add to
these G. Calderon, 'Slavonic Elements in Greek Religion,' Class. Eev. xxvii.
(1913), p. 79 ff., who describes fighting between two organised parties as a common
feature of Slavonic spring-rites. The Russian Spring-fight is sometimes
'
enacted by two parties of women, with their hair flying, like the Maenads, and,
where the body of the Whitsun doll is made of straw, it is torn up when
victory declares itself, and scattered over the fields in order to distribute the
productive energy concentrated in the figure. The existence of such a custom
among the Thracians would afford the moat satisfying explanation for the
frequency of the legend of a man being torn in pieces in connection with Dionysian
rites, as Orpheus, Pentheus, and Dionysus himself.' Doutt^, Edig. et Mcigie
dans I'A/rique du Nord, p. 554 ffi, describes the game of Koura, in North Africa,
a kind of ritual football played generally in spring, sometimes in seasons of
drought, and in many places reserved to the t'olba {savants, clercs). Cf. the
games played by Abbots and Canons of the Mediaeval Church.
beating or killing of some individual victim for the double purpose
of purification ' (the expulsion of evil influences) and the pro-
'
motion of fertility. A faded survival may be seen in the battles

of flowers or confetti which accompany the modern Carnival.
Herodotus ^ describes a ritual battle at Papremis in Egypt which
isconnected with a procession and a sacred marriage. The priests
of the God identified by Herodotus with Ares, armed with clubs,
took their stand at the doors of the temple in the evening. Opposite
them were drawn up more than a thousand votaries, also with clubs.
On the day before the festival, the image of the God in his shrine
was drawn in a four-wheeled car by a few of the priests to another
sacred building. Others, supported by the votaries, opposed his
entrance. In the fight that followed heads were often broken.
The myth was that the mother of the God once dwelt in this temple.
The God, reared apart from his parents, desired, on reaching man-
hood, to have intercourse with his mother. Her attendants, to
whom he was a stranger, shut him out. But he went to another
city and collected a band of men by whose aid he forced his way
in. The myth shows that the occasion of the procession was a
divine marriage.
Another ritual combat which is specially interesting because the
two parties, Uke so many of the beast Choruses in Attic Comedy,
are disguised as animals, is cited by Du Meril. A Coma-pa, deux '
troupes d'acteurs, distingues les uns des autres par la peau d'un
animal dont la tete est ramenee sur leur front, viennent encore se ranger
en bataille ; des propositions d' arrangement sont faites, discwtees par
I'autre, et difinitivement repoussees ; alors un signal est donne, et le
combat s'engage au milieu des cris de guerre. Aprks une lutte acharnee
la victoire se diclare pour le parti qui porte des peaux de daim ; les
vaincus abandonnent le champ de bataille, et les vainqueurs y tracent

^
avec un long baton la figure d'un animal.'
In the Indian example, above described,* of the battle between
the supporters ofKamsa and Krsna, the black party and the red,
we have the choral Agon combined with the dramatised death of
one of the individual adversaries. At Orchomenos the women
called Okiai performed some Dionysiac rite which involved the
1 ii. 63.
^ From a letter of Don Urrutia on the antiquities of Cinaoa-mecallo in the
Athence-um, 13 Dec. 1856, p. 1537. '
P. 67,
dismemberment of a youth.i Whether they engaged in
a battle
with their husbands,' the Psoloeis (' Sooty Ones
'
'), we do not know.
But it is certainly curious that these Oleiai are '
daughters of
Mmyas '—belong, that is to say, to the old
Minyan stock, with which
Melanthus, the antagonist of Xanthus in the Agon at Eleutherae,
is connected, as a Neleid.^ The conjunction makes it not improb-
able that behind these scattered notices lies a ceremony
identical
in essence with the Indian battle of the parties of
and Krsm, Kama
involving a choral
Agon and a duel of the two antagonists represen-
ing Winter and Summer. The intimate connection of the Chorus
in Comedy with the Agon and the division of it into two parties
make necessary to presuppose a ritual of this type.
it
The Agon
proper, the duel of the adversaries, has already been
discussed. We have seen in it the survival of a ritual combat of
the two champions, on its way to become a mere debate, but still
keeping sufficient traces of the time when it ended in the real or
simulated death of one of the combatants.^ In this debate the
' Plut. Qu. Or. xxxviii.
'•*
Farnell, Gvlts, v. 236. For Xanthus and Melanthus, see above, p. 67.
At Eleutherae also there is
trace of the choral oicrxpoXoyia in the statement
«.
that the daughters of Eleuther ' reviled ' the apparition of the God of the Black
Goatskin. Above, p. 66.
' added that two Ag6nes in the plays are prefaced by a rapid inter-
It should be
change of abuse in short metre. The Sausage-seller and the Paphlagonian inter-
change threats, Knights, 284 ff. So do the two Reasons, Clouds, 889 Birds, 386 ff.
flf.
is somewhat similar. Strepsiades describes a similar passage between himself and

his son before their Agon, Clouds, 1375, 'diros irpbs Siros iipuSbiieada. Aeschylus
and Euripides are heard engaged in a XoiSopTiff/jiis before they appear (Frogs, 758),
and Dionysus tells Aeschylus not to \oidope!<r8ai, but to argue the case out (857).
It is tempting to see in these \oiSopri(rp.ol the preliminary brags of the two
champions, familiar in the folk-plays, and illustrated by Harleian MS. 1197,
where a champion presents himself singing ;
/ ame a Knighte,
and menes tofigliie,
and artnet well ame I ;
lo, here I stand
with swerd in hand,

my manhood /or to try.
Another champion answers
Thow marciall wite,
that menes tofighte,
and sete upon me so,
lo, here I stand

with swird in hand
to dvbbelle evrey bloue.
Then the fight begins.

H
though integral, has dwindled in most cases to
r61e of the Chorus,
something between the functions of seconds in a duel and of judges
in a contest. The main interest lies in the arguments of the two
actors. But we shall presently argue that in the Pardbasis,
__
immediately following the individual Agon, Attic Comedy probably
preserves a survival of the choral contest or match in abuse. We
shall suppose, in fact, that the original ritual contained a combat
between two parties, representing Summer and Winter, with their
two champions, one of whom was dramatically slain by the
other, and that, while the duel of the two champions gives the
Agon, the contest of their supporters remains in the purely choral
I Pardbasis.
Before we turn to the Parabasis, however, something more must
be said of the Agon proper and of its affinities with some species of
a large' class of hterature which takes the form of a debate. In
particular,we have to meet the possible objection that the comic
Agon has no ritual origin, but is sufficiently explained as modelled
on debates of a forensic or rhetorical type.
55. The Sophistic Antilogy
The first Agon in the Clouds, which we have so far left out of
account, is a contest for the soul of Pheidippides, held between
the two Reasons or Arguments (Logoi), the Just and the Unjust.
In the Prologue of the play Strepsiades says he has heard teU that
the Sophists have a pair of Arguments, the stronger (or better,'
' '
KpeiTTwv), whatever that may be,and the weaker (or worse,' '
r^TTcov). Of these two it is said that the weaker wins, by pleading

the more unjust cause.' ^ Strepsiades wishes to send Pheidippides
to learn this weaker, or worse, or unjust, argument, so that he may
be able to save his father from paying his debts.
The old man has heard and misinterpreted the famous profession
of the first and greatest of the sophists. We are told of Protagoras
of Abdera that he was the first to maintain that for every argument '
there is a counter-argument,' or that '

on every subject two argu-
' 112 : Streps, ehat. Trap' airois (fiacnv i/itpa tw Xi-yu,

rbv KpdTTOv', SffTis iarl, Kal rbv liTTOva.
Toirow rim irepov Tolv \6yoi,v, rbv iJTTOva,
viKoiv Xiyovri, (jyaai riSiKiirepa.
THE OHOEUS IN AGON AND PARABASIS 115
ments can be made out/ ^ He accordingly composed a series

of '
Antilogies,' or specimen arguments on both sides of a number
of questions. We can form an idea of these from the anonymous
Dialexeis or Pairs of Arguments {Siaa-ol Xoyoi), written in the Doric
dialect soon after 404 b.c.^ In these the first argument supports
a paradoxical thesis, such as that Good and Evil are the same
'
the second supplies the refutation. was Protagoras' profession It '
[eTrajyeX/xa) that he could make the weaker (or worse) argument

'
the stronger (or better) ' and teach his pupils the same art.^ Now,
it is clear that a teacher who lived to a considerable age in the
enjoyment many cities of
of general respect in Greece, cannot have
professed to make the argument which was 'worse ' in a moral
sense, win over the '
better.' He must have used Kpeirrmv and
•^TTfov in their other sense of '
stronger and weaker,' with no
'
"
moral impUcation. What he was prepared to do, as a teacher of

rhetoric, both sides of any question and show how the
was to take
intrinsically weaker case could be strengthened so as actually to
be a match for the stronger,' which had common sense on its side
'
to start with. The enemies of the sophists, wilfully or innocently,

took better ' and worse in a moral sense, and represented the
' '
'
sophists as teaching the art of making the wrong side triumph over
the right. And, of course, as Plato and Isocrates complained, the
weapon they put into their pupils' hands could be turned to such
uses.
In the Clouds, the two Arguments, the better and the worse,
identified simply with the Just and the Unjust, are
produced in
presence of Pheidippides.* It
person to have out their quarrel in
the unsympathetic principle, the
is to be noted that in this Agon
Uparayopov TpoKarapâvros, Travrl

1
Clem Alex Strom, vi. 65 : "EXXijc^s <pa(n.
for this whole subject, the mter-

J,rb, Jpiyimros d.r.««M^ôu» &\M\o.s. See.
Protagoras in H. Gomperz, SopMshk u. Ehetorik, Leipzig
esting discussion of
Voreohratiker^ vol. ii. p. 635 ff. For

"»^These are printed by Diels, Frag. d.
to earlier literature see Gomperz, op. at. p. 138 fl.
a discussion and references
Kpdrn^ Koui.y rour
1402 a, 23 Kal t6 rbv ^ttco S^ Uyov
iar^.
3 Ar Rhet b 24, :
Protagoras: dvr.XoT^cra. (321 d.r.X^fac 1040

Certain terms seem to refer to
^
and 1007, a.r.X^T"-)
recall his Antilogiai. (Cf. Frogs, 878, d.«Xo-yoC-«, 998
title of Protagoras' work, Kara-
£1, r6. d«ard,3X,ro. Uyoy, of, the
1229,
jSdXXovres.
worse Eeason, speaks second and is victorious. The same is true
of the other between father and son.

Agon in the play, Pheidip-
pides there offers his father the choice of whichever argument he
prefers, the better or the worse. The worse falls to himself, and he
almost succeeds in his undertaking to make it prevail.^ That the
second speaker should be victorious is the rule in all Aristophanes'
Agdnes, but it is only in the Clouds that the evil or unsjmipathetic
side wins. This is of a piece with the inverted economy of the whole
play. It illustrates the sophist's misunderstood profession of
making the worse argument the stronger.
The influence of Protagoras and the sophistic Antilogy is traceable
also in Euripides. The best instance occurred in a lost play, the
Antiope, where the twins, Zethus and Amphion, argued each in
favour of his own manner of life in a way that reminds one of Cain
and Abel. A fragment survives in which some speaker says, There '
is no subject on which one who is a clever speaker could not set up
an Agon of twin arguments.' ^ Euripides has given us in many

plays a proof of his own cleverness in this art.^
1 have gone into these details of the Sophistic Agon with a view
to the possible objection that the Agon in Comedy and Tragedy is
derived from the tradition of Rhetoric and has no root in ritual.
The objection, however, is easily met. The Agon exists already
^ 1334 ; Pheid. ^ywy' diroSei^w Ka.i (re viK-qtro) \iytav.

Streps. TOVTL ffb viK'/jtrets ;
Pheid. TToXO ye Kal pq.5L0j$.
eXoO 5' oirhTepov rotv \6yoLV ôuXei Xeyeiv.

Streps. TToioLV \6yoiV ;
Pheid. rhv KpelrTov^ ^ rhv iJTTOva.

1444 : Pheid. ri S' ijv ix'^" îv iJTra |
X670!' <re viK^cra Xiyav \
ttji' firiTip' us
TTL)TTeiv xpetttp ;
2 Eurip. Antiopt, frag. 189 N".

iK toctJs Hv Tis Tpdyixaros SurirQv Myav
ct-ytSpa deir' &v, el \4yet.v eiT] (TO(pbs.
Cf . P. Decharme, Euripide et I'esprit de son thidtre (Paris, 1893), p. 47 ff. ;
Starkie, Clouds, p. 333.

' Compare Androm,, 957, atxpiiv n XPW'> '''oO SiSofairos ^poroOs |
\A70us aKoiem
T&v ivavTlar irapa, with Wasps, 725, ?? irou (ro06s ^v So-tis (<pacKev, irplv 4>/ ifiipoiv
/iSBoy iKoiffys \
ovk &v SiKda-ais. Heracles, 204 (Amphitryon's
withLyous), dyiliv
Xiôi /iff oUe Toiai trois inavrlav yvdijiriv lx<>^'"- 'w'' KaSedTiiiTwv iripi.
\ This last is
a good instance of an Agon or dihat which strikes the modern reader as very
imdramatic. The tyrant and Heracles' aged father, who, with the rest of
Heracles' family, is threatened with instant death, argue the question whether
it is braver to fight with a bow or with a spear.
THE CHORTJS IN AGON AND PARAEASIS 117
in the Sicilian Mime of Epicharmus, the senior contemporary of

Aeschylus.^ Among the titles of his works we find Land and Sea,
Logos and Logina, which were certainly Agdnes or Debates. In

this form of literature, Comedy was in the field before Ehetoric.
Another species which flourished on Sicilian soil was the pastoral
Agon, familiar in Bucolic poetry. There is evidence to connect
this, as well as the SiciUan Mime, with ruder forms native to the
Peloponnese and perhaps associated with ritual.^ Since Sicily was

the principal home of the art of Ehetoric, the probability is that,
ifany borrowing took place, it was the rhetoricians who took the
Agon form from the Mime. The form itself is popular and much
older than the sophistic movement. This conclusion is borne out
by very close analogies in mediaeval literature. _\
56. The mediaeval Debat
The Middle Ages in Europe produced a similar literature of

debates.^There was the Provencal tenso (French ten^n), in
'
which two speakers freely discussed a given subject, each taking

the point of view which seems good to him. And there was the
joc-partitz or partimen (French jeu-parti or parture), in which the
challenger proposed a theme, indicated two opposed attitudes
towards it, and gave his opponent his choice to maintain one or the
other.' * Again, of the dits and fabliaux dialogues Mr. Chambers
says These dialogues naturally tend to become of the nature of
:
'
disputes, and they merge into that special kind of dit, the dibat or
disputoison proper. The debat is a kind of poetical controversy
put into the mouths of two types or two personified abstractions,
1 Chriat-Sehmid, Or. Lit.' (Miinohen, 1908) i. p. 378, givea Epicharmus' date

as circ. 550-460.
to Theocritus connects the origin of Bucolic poetry with
the
2
The Argument
cult of Artemis in Lacedaemon (Karyatis), at Tindaris in Sicily, and at
Syracuse. It describes contests of peasants wearing wreaths
and staghorns and
of animals, a wallet
holding \ay(i,poXa. They had loaves stamped with figures
full of vautTTT^pfda, and wine in a goatskin.
For all this subject see Knaaok,
Bukolik,'
'
who follows up the connections with ritual and the
Pauly-Wiss. s.v.
various other forma of iyiiv, ffiyxpms, etc.

3 See Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, i. p. 78 ff., from whom I borrow
the above
statements. . t i i.
improvised verbal tourna-
Mr. Chambers adds that these were originally
4
however, hia remarks
ments, and have nothing to say to the drama. See,
presently quoted on the ddbats.
each of wMch pleads the cause of its own superiority, while in
the end the decision is not unfrequently referred to an umpire in

the fashion familiar in the eclogues of Theocritus. The debats
thus bear a strong resemblance to the lyric tenons and jeux-partis

already mentioned. Like the chansons, they probably owe some-
thing to the folk festivals with their " flytings " and seasonal songs.'
This last hint is followed up by Mr. Chambers later on.^ Discuss-
ing the various ways in which the Spring renouveau may be dramati-
cally represented, he says :
'
Finally there is a fairly widespread
spring custom of holding a dramatic fight between two parties, one
clad in green to represent summer, the other in straw or fur to
represent winter. Waldron describes this in the Isle of Man
Olaus Magnus in Sweden. Grimm says that it is found in various
districts on both sides of the middle Ehine. Perhaps both this
dramatic battle and that of the Coventry Hox Tuesday owe their
origin to the struggle for the fertiUsing head of a sacrificial animal,

which also issued in football and similar games. Dr. Frazer quotes
several instances from all parts of the world in which a mock fight,
or an interchange of abuse and raillery taking the place of an actual
fight, serves as a crop-charm. The summer and winter battle
gave to Uterature a famous type of neo-Latin and Eomance debat.
In one of the most interesting forms of this, the eighth or ninth
century Conflictus Veris et Hiemis, the subject of dispute is the
cuckoo, which Spring praises and Winter chides, while the shepherds
declare that he must be drowned or stolen away, because summer
Cometh not. The cuckoo is everywhere a characteristic bird of
spring, and his coming was probably a primitive signal for the high
summer festival.'
Mr. Chambers might have cited '

the dialogue that the two
learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo,'
which '
should have followed in the end of the show ' presented by
Armado in the last scene of Love's Labour's Lost. '
This side is
Hiems, Winter ; this Ver, the Spring ; the one maintained by the
owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.' Then follow those
marvellous songs of Spring and Winter :
'
When daisies pied and violets blue,' etc.
and
'
When icicles hang hy the wall,' etc.
1 P. 187.
THE OHOEUS IN AGON AND PARABASIS 119
Dieterich ^ connects the Agdnes of Comedy, which, he says, were

certainly among its and were probably common
oldest constituents,
to the old '
Satyrpoasen Lower Italy, and Attica, with
' of Sicily,
these ancient and modern debats. Having little independent know-
ledge of mediaeval literature, I welcome the high authority of a
writer so learned and intelligent as Mr. Chambers, in tracing them
back to the battle of Summer and Winter. But it is more than
a conjecture. Dr. Frazer gives a translation of such a debat still
actually in use. In some parts of Bavaria the boys who play the
'
parts of Winter and Summer act their httle drama in every house
that they visit, and engage in a war of words before they come to
blows, each of them vaunting the pleasures and benefits of the
season he represents and disparaging those of the other. The
dialogue is in verse. A few couplets may serve as specimens :
Summer
Green, green a?-e the meadows wherever I pass,
And tJie mowers are bust/ among the grass.
Winter
White, white are the meadoios wherever I go.
And the sledges glide hissing across the snow.
Summer
/ 'II climb up where the red cherries glow.
the tree
And Winter can stand by himself down below.
Winter
With yoii I will climb the cherry-tree tall.
Its branches will kindle the fire in the hall.'
After some more verses in which the antagonists

warm up and
threaten one another, the dialogue ends thus :
Winter
'
Summer, for all yov/r bluster and brag,
You 'd not dare to carry a hen in a bag.
Summer
Winter, your chatter no more can I stay,
delay.
I'll TcicTi and I'll cuff you without
Pulcinella, 78.
Here ensues a between the two little boys, in which Summer
scuffle
gets the best of it, and turns Winter out of the house. But soon
the beaten champion of Winter peeps in at the door and says with
a humble and crestfallen air :
Summer, dear Summer, I'm under your ban,

For you are the master and I am the man.
To which Summer replies :
'Tis a capital an excellent plan,

notion,
If I am the master and you are the man.

So come, my dear Winter, and give me your hand,
We 'II travel together to Summer Land.' ^
There can be httle doubt, then, that the dSbat as a Uterary form
goes back to these seasonal Agdnes from which we have derived
the Agon in Comedy. The rhetorical Antilogy may have had an
independent origin or have been based on this popular type. But
there is no ground for deriving from it the comic or tragic Agon,
though in the latter part of the fifth century the influence of rhetoric
may have been felt by the dramatic writers.^
57. The Choral Agon : the Parabasis
The Agon, as we have studied it in the last two sections, is a debate

between individual representatives of two abstract principles. As
such it flourished in the Sicihan Mime of Epicharmiis, which had
no Chorus.^ But we must not forget the Chorus in Attic Comedy,
the two parties who support the opposed champions. Besides the
Agon between two individuals, there were also, in the fertihty cults,
the choral matches in abuse {ala-'x^poXajiai) and set battles of two
' O. B.\ The Dying Ood (London, 1911), 255. A dialogue in verse between
representatives of Summer and Winter is spoken at Hartlieb in Silesia, near
Breslau (Note).
" Perhaps a, further trace of this influence may be seen in the tendency to
regard (1) the speech in the first half as an M8(i.î.s, (2) the reply in the second
a,3an IXeyxo!. (1) Knights, 334 {Katalceleusmos) v On Seiôv. Clouds, 934,: Koi-yph.
d.'SX' iirldeiâi. ai. 949 {Odt), vvv delêTof. 1333, ?7M7' avoSelûi. Wasps, 548
(opening of Epirrheme), iiroSel^w. (2) Knights, 843 flf. {Antep. ), in SXeyxos form.
Clouds, 1043 {Antep.), ani^j/M lis iXiy^w.
. . . Frogs, 857 (Dionysus to Aeschylus
before the Agon) iXeyx' i\iyxov XoiSopeiaeai S' oi irpiTvei.
:
3 Epioharmus' pieces are called dpi/iara there is no reason to believe that the
;
term KUfi^Sla was applied to them. There was in fact no (cu/iot.

bands of people. This brings us to the consideration
of a very
important feature of the Old Comedy, which we
have so far left
abnost out of account— the Parabasis. We shall
next inquire
what grounds there are for supposing that this is a survival of
an
old choral Agon, which has remained embedded in
the structure
of the play, alongside of, and normally next after,
the individual
Agon we have so far dealt with.
The Parabasis presents a difficult problem, for we may suspect
that its form, as we know it in Aristophanes, has been modified
and adapted to new uses in the
long course of development that
liesbehind the extant plays. We shall begin by describing its
normal structure and contents, and then consider whether we can
make out what modifications it must have undergone.
58. The Form of the Parabasis
In point of structure, the Parabasis has a strict canonical form.^

In the plays where it is complete, it falls into two parts and the ; ;
^mperfect Parabases of other plays consist of one or more -portions

of the same regular scheme. .
1. The first part opens with a few lines (Kommation) in which

the Leader of the Chorus, after wishing good speed to the retiring
actors, orders his Chorus to make their 'advance' towards the
spectators. When this movement is executed, he deUvers an
address to the audience, composed in the long anapaestic measure,
and called by Aristophanes '
the Anapaests.' Here the mask is
dropt and with it all pretence of dramatic illusion. The Leader
delivers a message from the poet to the Athenian people, setting
the transcendant merits of the author ia contrast with the ridiculous
inferiority of his rivals, and claiming credit for the services he has
rendered in exposing those abominable rogues, his poUtical opponents
and the prophets of contemporary culture. The speech appro-
priately ends in a peroration called pnigos, because it was to be
delivered in one breath with increasing rapidity, the voice, perhaps,

rising to a scream capable of drowning any demonstrations of
disapproval from the adherents of demagogue or sophist.
2. The second part has the epirrhematic structure already
described. The Chorus of twenty-four is divided into two halves,
each with its Leader —the Koryphaeus (who also leads the whole
Chorus when undivided) and the Parastates. The two halves
perform antiphonally as follows :
An Ode, sung by one half-Chorus, is followed by an Epirrheme,

probably recited by its Leader. Then the other half-Chorus
responds with the Antode, metrically equivalent to the Ode, and its
Leader speaks the Antepirrheme. In this part qf the Parabasis,
though Efinheme and Antepirrheme are usually addressed to the
audience, the Chorus speak in character. The Knights praise
'
their horses the Clouds complain, on the Moon's behalf, of the
'
;
irregularities of the Athenian Calendar, and so on.

When this is over, the actors, without preface, return ffnd
the business of the play is resumed as if it had never been
interrupted.
A feature so extraordinary as this, and, as judged by modern

standards, so injurious to the conduct of a drama, naturally
attracted the attention of critics, and even tended to divert
attention from other features no less important. If we are looking
out for survivals, for elements of form or content which no dramatist
unhampered by tradition would be hkely to invent, here is perhaps
the clearest instance we shall find. The Parabasis, moreover, is
the first of Comedy to decay. Com-
the formal features of the Old
plete in the Acharnians, the Knights, the Clouds,^ the Wasps, and
the Birds, aheady in the Peace the Parabasis has lost its Epirrheme
and Antepirrheme in the Thesmophoriazusae, Ode, Antode, and
;
Antepirrheme are omitted ; the Frogs has lost the whole of the first
part ; and in the Ecclesiazusae and Pltitus, the Parabasis has

vanished altogether. With its stiff canonical structure, it has all
the air of a piece of ritual procedure awkwardly interrupting the

course of the play. It will be convenient to consider the two parts
separately.
59. The Anapaests
The introductory Anapaests, spoken by the Leader of the whole

Chorus, are not, save for an occasional reference to
some objection-
^ In the Glouds, of which we possess only a revised edition, a passage in

Eupolideans (with no pnigos) replaces the Anapaests otherwise the form : is
oomplete.
THE CHORUS IK AGOK AND PABABASIS 123
able character, iambic ' or abusive in tone.^ In the five earliest

'
plays {Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps, Peace) they contain

a eulogy or defence of the author. In the two remaining plays
which possess this passage at all {Birds, Thesmophoriazusae) the
Koryphaeus speaks in character. The Leader of the Birds recounts
their divine originand boasts of their services to mankind. The
Leader of the Thesmophoriazusae says, Let us eulogise ourselves,'
'
and delivers an apology for women. The content of thel

Anapaests is thus generally eulogistic, either of the poet or of the
Chorus. ^ ^
It has been doubted whether the poet's oration on his own behalf
was an original feature of the Parabasis. Poppelreuter ^ points
out that the Anapaests in the earUest extant play, the Acharnians,
begin with the statement that Aristophanes has never before come
forward to tell his audience how clever he is but that now the ;
calumnies of his detractors make it necessary. Again, in the last

play which contains a speech of this kind, the Peace, he declares
that a comedian who praises himself in the Anapaests ought to be
beaten ; though, after observing that, if any poet deserves eulogy, it
is Aristophanes, he proceeds in the usual strain. I cannot, however,

agree with Poppelreuter's inference. In the former of these passages
it does not seem to me that Aristophanes is announcing an innovation
in the practice of comedians generally, but rather that he is taking

credit for having abstained hitherto from an existing custom. How
far back the custom went we cannot say. _ .^
The essential character of the Anapaests should, perhaps, be

found, not in the nature of their contents, but rather in the practice
of directly addressing the audience. Elsewhere in drama this isj,
especially characteristic of the prologue ; and it may be that the
Anapaests stand in this relation to the second, epirrhematic, part.
Whatever sort of performance Ues behind that second part —
question presently to be raised—a short introductory speech,
delivered by the Chorus Leader, would be a natural preface. The
Anapaest is a marching rhythm; and it is obvious to compare
the anapaestic Hues spoken by the Koryphaeus as the tragic Chorus
It is true that the Anapaests of the KnigUs blame the Athenians
1 for their
treatment of comic poets ; but chiefly to show what difficulties Aristophanes has
faced. The Anapaests of the Wasps also blame the spectators (1016), but con-
sist almost entirely of boasting.
2 De com. att. prim., 33.
enters the orchestra— a passage which, in the oldest known type of
Tragedy, serves the purpose of a prologue. The Swppliants and

the Persae of Aeschylus both open with a simple statement in
anapaestic dimeters,^ explaining who the Chorus are and why they
come.*
But, if the Anapests are a prologue, they are, of course, not a
prologue to the play as a whole, the main action of which is abeady
half over. The play, as we have it, has a prologue of its own, in
which again the audience is directly addressed by one of the actors,
and informed of the necessary facts. The Anapaests give the author
a second chance of speaking straight to the spectators, this time
without pretence of disguise and on subjects not connected with
the action. That this should be done in an epilogue would be
intelUgible, and as the epilogue of the oldest form of the play
ZieUnski regarded the Parabasis. To this, however, there is the
fatal objection that the action which has culminated in the Agon
is resumed after the Parabasis, and moves through the other fixed
incidents to the Exodos, its necessary termination.
The conclusion to which our argument points is that the
Anapaests represent an originally brief prologue to the second
part of the Parabasis. This, however we interpret it, certainly
stands in isolation from the action of the play, 'which it simply
interrupts.*
60. The Second Part of the Parabasis
It is, at any rate, generally agreed that the second, epirrhematic,

part is the core of the Parabasis. It survives in cases where the
1 The Kommation prefacing the (tetrameter) Anapaests of the Knights Para-

basis is in anapaestic dimeters.
" Poppelreuter {op. cit. 34) regards the Anapaests in this light. Of. also
Croiset, Hist, de la lit. grecque, in. 507. It has been pointed out that a frag-
ment of Kratinus in anapaestic tetrameters, described as iv
(306) ipxS rod
dpifiaros,resembles Aristophanes' addresses to the audience in the Anapaests
(Starkie, Wasps, p. x).
" The Anapaests have been compared to the introductory
lines spoken by the
Phallophori as they entered the orchestra (above, p. 42). There is certainly
one curious point of resemblance. The Phallophori insist on t\ie freshness of
what they are going to say. A similar claim is a commonplace of the Anapaests
in Aristophanes. Even the simile of the virgin muse is echoed in the
Eupolideans which take the place of the Anapaests in the Clouds, 537, lis Si
aiitppuv iarl (p6<ru (<j5e i) Kw/i(fi5(a) cuiypaaBe, etc.
THE CHORUS IN AGON ANB PARABASIS 125
Anapaests have dropt away.i Its contents have abeady been

described in another context, ^ where
it was pointed out that the
Ode and Antode contain the element of invocation or induction
of a benign influence, while Epirrheme and Antepirrheme are
normally iambic in tone, either abusive or more mildly critical
'
'
or hortatory .3 The two elements, invocation and invective, are

those of the Phallic Song but the form is not the same. In the
;
PhalHc Song and kindred popular types, we find the introductory

invocation followed by an unUmited series of improvised stanzas,
punctuated by a choral refrain. This is totally different from the
epirrhematic '
syzygy,' a closed system of balanced antiphonal
parts, based, as we have
on Antichoria, the division of the
seen,
double Chorus into two halves. If this form is original and it —
is strictly adhered to *
—we cannot see in the Parabasis a survival
of the Phallic Song, the structure of which is rather preserved in
the Exodos.
61. The Parabasis of the Lysistrata
Now, we have already seen, earher in this chapter, that Antichoria,

'
the soul of epirrhematic composition,' almost certainly points
back to a time when the Chorus was not merely divided into two
halves, but consisted of two opposed companies with different
characters or masks. In one of the extant plays, the Lysistrata,
this is actually the case. The Chorus consists of twelve Old Men
and twelve Old Women. If we accept the strong arguments,
which show that this is the original type, it is clear that in the
Lysistrata, if anywhere, we are likely to find an earher form of the
1 Cf. Sohmid, Zur Oesch. des griech. Ditliyramhus (Tiibingen, 1901), 13 Nur :
der sweite (Teil) ist in alien Parabasen, volUlamdig odtr wenigstens {in den
Thesmophoriaz.) stiickweise, vorhanden, wdhrend der erste in den FrSschen vSllig
fehlt. Daraus wird man folgen dilrfen, dass der zweite Teil der ursprung-
lichere ist.
Âbove, p. 45.
3 E.g. Ach. 676 {Epirrheme), ti€ij.ip6/j.eirea TJj T6\ei. Clouds, 576 {Epirrheme),
ifiiv ij,eii4>6ne(rBa, 610 {Antep.) Bv/Mlveiv

^âff/ce (^ (reMvv)- Lys. 648, tj iriXti
wapalveaai. Thesm. 830, ttAXV &y al yvmixet vfieis iv SUr, ne/i^palixed' &v rolffw |
Frogs, 686 {Epirrheme), rbv lephv x"?^" SUaidv iirrt xp^rrd. ry v6\ei
dySpAnv. |
iv/Mirapaiyelv xal diddiTKetv.

* Sometimes parts are missing, and once {Lysistrata) there are two Epir-
rhematic syzygies; but the structure, though in these instances imperfect or

repeated, is always the same.
Parabasis than in the other plays. In point of fact, it is unique
in structure and in contents.-^
In the first place, the Anapaests are wanting. In this respect
the Lysistrata is not singular ; but if we are right in supposing that
the form of the Parabasis in this play is more primitive, we gain
some support here view that the Anapaests were not an
for our
important part of the original performance. Their absence in this
instance is easily accounted for. The two parts of the Chorus are
in fierce antagonism to one another ; consequently they have no
common Leader who can be authorised to make a long address to
the audience on behalf of them all, or of the poet speaking through
them. And such a speech would be out of place, as prefacing the
quarrel which follows.^
The Parabasis consists of two epirrhematic syzygies of the type
already described. The men speak in the first half of each, the
women in the second. Each half of the first syzygy is prefaced
by a Kommation of two fines, in which the Leaders of the men and
women bid their followers lay aside their outer garment.^ It is
interesting tocompare the passages in other plays where this order

is given by the Chorus Leader. In the Acharnians it comes in the
Komtnation which prefaces the Anapaests of the Parabasis.*^ But
1 That this passage is a Parabasis was held \>y AVestphal. Its form is the
same as that of the Frogs Parabasis, except that it is double. Other authorities
have denied it the name, because there are no Anapaests and therefore (it is
argued) no advance towards the audience' (irapaâifeiv irp6s to Biarpov). The
'
objection is met by arguments advanced below. The Anapaestic address from

the vinited Chorus to the audience can only exist where the Chorus is united,
and where there is an audience (Biarpov) towards which they can advance. In
the ritual stage neither condition would be satisfied. The use oi Parabasis' '
as a technical term has no authority earlier than the lexicographers and

scholiasts.
' The Argument of the play notes that the Chorus is not united till the
Second Parabasis, - passage described as follows : oi Sk yipovres eis Tadrdi' rais
yvvat^lv aTOKaTatrrdpTes eVa xop^^ ^k rys dixoptas dTroreXoCo't.
' 614 : Kor, ovKir' (pyov iyKadeiiduv Sans iar' i\ei8€pos,
dX\' îravaSviitfied' Avdpes rovrCfil Tt^ irpdypiaTL.
634 : Par. oiK &p' elffiivra ff' of/caS' i) TCKOvaa yvtlxrerai.

&XKh 8il>iJ.e<r8' S> 0IXai ypies raSl irpuTov xiM"'.
That this and the similar passages presently quoted refer to the taking ofif of
the masic suggested by Christ-Schmid, Gr. Lit. i. p. 384, mit abgenommener
(as '
MasTce') is an interpretation quite unwarranted by the texts. Poppelreuter

(de com. att. prim. p. 34) pointed out that Zielinski's view of the meaning of
diroSCrai was wrong.
* Ach. 627 dXK' dToSvvres tois dvairal<rTOis iTla/iev.
;
THE CHORUS IN AGON AND PARA BASIS 127
in the Wasps and the Thesmophoriazusae the order is given earUer,

in each case at the point where the Chorus are about to attack the
protagonist.! The purpose is manifestly to free the limbs of the
Chorus for violent action.^ In the two instances quoted, this action
isa fight with the protagonist in the Lysistrata it is a sort of battle-
;
dance between the two halves of the Chorus.

After this prelude, the Men sing their Ode. They declare their
suspicions that the women, perhaps instigated by Sparta, are
plotting to set up a female '
tyranny,' ^ and deprive them of the
dearly loved wages they earn as jurors in the law courts. In the
Epirrheme the Leader says it is monstrous that women should set
up to give political advice. Men will never submit, but emulate
the tyrannicides and wear swords hidden in myrtle-boughs. The
Koryphaeus in conclusion offers to smite the Leader of the Old
Women on the cheek.*
In Antode and Antepirrheme the Women reply. After the Komma-
tion, bidding them lay aside their upper garments, they enumerate
their claims to offer advice to Athens. They have taken part in
the Hersephoria at seven years old, danced as bears in saffron robes
to Brauronia, and gone through other ceremonies been baptized, —
as it were, and confirmed into membership of the state. Their
Leader in the Antepirrheme continues in the same strain. Why
should be grudged the privilege of advising a state to which
women
they have contributed their quota in producing men ? The service
compares favourably with what the old greybeards have done. She
retorts the threat by offering to strike the Koryphaeus on the jaw
with her boot.^
In the Ode of the second syzygy the Old Men complain that this
is insolence. Things will go from bad to worse, unless energetic
Wasps, 408 (between the Parados and the Agon, where the Wasps attack
1
Philocleon) aXKa ealniria Xa^dfres (âKbvres, suprascr. in B.) iis rdx^CTa, TaiSia,
:
eelre Kal poare. Whether \a^6vTes or âUfres be read, the cloaks of the
, . .
Chorus, not of the boys (who would not wear them), must be meant. Of.
Starkie, ad loc. Thesm. 655 (after the Debate and before the Parabasis. The
are seeking the disguised intruder. The seizure of Euripides'
kinsman
women
follows) ^v!;oJo-afi4vas eH K&vSpelm tCiv 0' l/iaHav &Todia-as fiyT-eiK. . . .
:
XPV I
|
2 Of. Peace, 729 (Kommatimi before Anapaests), where the Chorus hand over
their agricultural tools to attendants.
5 The phrase 'IiTTTiou rvpavvlSos is, of course, obscene. Cf. Wasps, 502.
* irardâs (-fai oodd.) TTJ<rde ypabs t't}V yvdOov.
635 : TTJs Bedts Ix^pcis
5 g5g ;
d Si Xinriyireis tI /tie,
T<?5e y' a,4ii)KTif irardôi rif KoBbpvif T-ijv yvdBov.

measures are taken. Pitching their shirts after their cloaks/ they
callupon one another to renew their youthful vigour. The next
thing, says the Koryphaeus in the Efirrheme, is that women will
take to fighting by sea and on horseback like the Amazons. They
ought to be seized by the neck and put in the pillory.^
The Women respond with suitable threats in the Atvtode, and
imitate the men in casting ofi another garment.^ The Efirrheme
keeps up the fighting tone. There will be no end of the men's
mischievous decrees, till some one catches them by the leg and
breaks their necks.*
So the Parabasis ends. The feud is kept up till the Second
Parabasis (1014), where the two parties are somewhat suddenly
reconciled, and resume their cast-ofE garments.^
62. The Parabasis a Choral Agon

It is, I think, abundantly clear that this Parabasis is a choral
Agon —something between a battle-dance and a debat between
Man and Woman on the question of woman's rights. The epirrhe-
matic form isand explained by the different characters
justified
of the two halves In the Parabases of the other plays,
of the Chorus.
where the Chorus, though it may have quarrelled earlier,® is uniform
in character and at one when the Parabasis opens, this epirrhematic
form of the second and principal part has not the same motive and
justification. The critical or hortatory Epirrhemes are addressed
not by one half to the other, but by the Chorus as a whole to the
audience. Why should there be two of them, dehvered by different
Leaders ? The Odes again are harmonious invocations of appro-
priate deities or muses, which might equally well be sung by all
in unison, as they would be in Tragedy. The inference seems
clear that the Lysistrata preserves the earlier type, and that the
^ 662 : dXXa t7]V iôjfilS' iKSvdjfieSa.

' 680 : dXXi Toiirwc XPI" A'Tao-S;' is reTprjuivov ^ffKov
iyKaBap/jJuTu \a,p6yTas Tovropi rbv aixiva.
' 686 : dXX4 xîMf 's '»' yvaiKes daTTOV ^Kdvii/isSa.
* 704 : Koix^ nil vaia-qtrBe tuv \j/ri(j>i.<TiJ,iT(i>v Toiruv, irplv &v
Tov ffxiXovs ifjias 'Kaîliv tis iKTpa.x'riîffri ipipav.
' 1021 : The Leader of the Women offers to help the Koryphaeus on with
his shirt.
« As in the Achamians, where the two Leaders fight in the middle of the
Agon.
Parahasis is a choral Agon, following immediately after the indi-

vidual Agon, where, as we should expect, the role of the Chorus
tends to become a merely judicial function, while the two individual
adversaries fight out the main issue.
Some of the Parabases have something of the character of a d6bat.
The Old Men in the Acharnians (676 fi.) contrast the helplessness
of Age with the cleverness and shamelessness of Youth. The Young
Men in the Knights (565 ff .) praise the warriors of the older generation,
but maintain that they are not inferior themselves. The Wasps,
again (1071), contrast their ancient valour against the Persians with
the idleness of those drones of the present day who sit at home and
steal the tribute. The Parahasis of the Birds (752 if.) sets forth
the advantages of bird-hfe as against human ways. In the
Thesmophoriazusae, the Parahasis contrasts the services rendered
to the state by women with those of men.^
Our hypothesis, then, is that the Agon and Parahasis have

difEerentiated out of one original performance consisting of a ritual
between two parties, each with its champion. The two
conflict
bands would spend themselves in a fight with sticks or stones or
in a match of abuse, giving rise to the later hterary forms such as
the debat. The two champions. Summer and Winter, or the Old
Year and the New,^ would be engaged in a dramatic duel, ending
in the death and resurrection of one of them. In the Old
Comedy
debate, though
as we know it, this duel has itself become a verbal
retaining traces of its dramatic action. The debate being
concluded
reconciled, there can usually be no
in the Agon and the parties
this feature, while
further debate in the Parahasis. Accordingly,
now meaningless, is turned to other
keeping its canonical form,
Phallophori, no longer abuse one another
uses. The Chorus, like the ;
In the invocatory odes we may

so they criticise the spectators.
made by each of the two
perhaps see a survival of the appeals
parties to its own champion. The Anapaests may represent the
di, Ki.VTLTi.eS,iiev irpbs

iKaarov,
iaeU S' -fiiMas. ffKer^dixeea
r^ r^ 7'"'««*' ''«' ^^"5''*' "'^'""'' ^''^''"''' ''!^-
,rapafldXXou<ra. ,
uncertain, but at is temptmg to see
2 Numerical speculations are always very
twelvein Attic Comedy, the
in the two half-choruses of
^^^^^^^^'^l^l'}'' ^'^.
(Dr.Û^t Rh. Mus 1903), 354 ff.) that
Lnd the New Years. Usener suggested
represented the trietenc penod of the Lenaea, ^
the twenty-four choreutae
I
original prologue to tlie whole performance, introducing the two
parties and their leaders, whose conflict in the Agon-Parahasis
opens the action and leads on to the Kdmos of the Exodos.
63. The Second Parabasis

The seven earUest plays contain a Second Parabasis. This
^
normally consists simply of an epirrhematic syzygy. In the Clouds
it is reduced to one Epirrheme, containing an appeal to the judges
to award the prize to the Chorus. Similar appeals are made in the
Antepirrheme of the Second Parabasis of the Birds, ^ and the final
chorus of the Ecclesiazusae,^ a play which has no Parabasis. In

the Knights * the Epirrheme contains personal abuse ; the Antepi-
rrheme a curious dialogue between the Athenian warships, attacking
the pohticians who would send them on an aggressive expedition.
The corresponding passage in the Wasps ^ again consists of satire
on individuals. The Birds ® demand the instant execution of the
poulterer, and promise all sorts of blessings to the judges if they
award them the prize.
In the Acharnians and the Peace, the Second Parabasis is
practically a dibat. The Peace, in Epirrheme and Antepirrheme,
contrasts the comforts and delights of farm life with the miseries
of the campaigning season, when one is ordered about by a swag-
gering colonel, hated of the Gods. So again, in the Acharnians,''
the Chorus praise Dikaiopolis for restoring a sort of golden age
when war shall be no more, and declare that they are not too
old for the enjoyment of peace. They reject Polemos, and hail
'
Reconcilement '
{Diallage).
Finally there is the Second Parabasis of the Lysistrata, where
the two halves of the Chorus, hitherto at bitter feud, come to a
iêconcihation. In the Ode and Antode,^ which follow the spoken
part, the Men declare that they will not abuse any one, and offer
1115
1 fif. 2 1101 flf.
3 1154 ff. There are also appeals for victory in the pnigos of the Anapaests in
Parabasis i. of the Knights (544), and in the same part of Parabasis i. of the
Peace (760 ffi). All these passages, with their promises of reward if the play
suooeeda, and threats of punishment if it fails, recall the popular
songs (above
mentioned, p. 39) usual in seasonal processions.
' 1264 flf. » 1265 ff. 6 1072 flf. 1
97J ff.
^ 1040: dXXa vwl (Tirhdo/Mal troi Kal rb Xowfo oiK4n
oSre dpddu (jiKavpov oiSip oi6' v(p' i/j.ut> ireiffo/iat.
THE CHORUS IN AGON AND PABABASIS 131
to lend any one money, not to be repaid if peace is concluded. The

Women ironically offer food and hospitality of other kinds.i
seems possible that, as our argument about the Pa/rabasis
It '
suggests, this reconciliation is the original motive of the Second

Parabasis, providing a bridge between the original combat in the
Parabasis and the united procession of the Exodos.^ In the other
^
cases, the Second Parabasis appears to be a mere reduplication oT"

the first. When that was modified in the way we supposed, the
second would no longer be needed for its original purpose.
64. JEJpirrhematic and '

Episodic ' composition
It only remains to point out that our theory provides a satis-
factory explanation of the fact that epirrhematic composition
prevails normally in the first part of the play, and is generally
dropped in the second, except where the Agon is postponed to the
end. Zielinski's view that two distinct types of composition, with
different origins, are simply juxtaposed is by no means acceptable.
It is very difficult to believe that any form of drama could arise
by such a process, and the supposition is excluded in this case by
the unity of plot. We merely require to see that the early
part of the play, the kernel consisting of Agon and Parabasis, is
epirrhematic because the Chorus was divided into opposed parties
until these two contests were over. They were then reconciled
and could act as a united whole, hke the Chorus in Tragedy. Hence,
the later choriha are generally sung in unison. But the composition
isnot ' episodic/ The choriha are, as a rule, inserted, not to divide
scene from scene, but merely at any point where some interval,
covering an action behind the scenes, has somehow to be filled.
Between the chorika there may be many scenes following one
another without a break. The analogy with the tragic episode,'
'
originally always marked by the entrance of a new character, is

misleading. It may be noted, as an important point of difierence"^
between Comedy and Tragedy, that Tragedy has no trace of the
choral Agon. The comedies end with the procession of the
united)
victor's Kdmos. Epirrhematic structure has dis-
Chorus in the
appeared, and the type of composition illustrated by the Phallic
Song becomes appropriate to the Exodos.

1 Further on (1188 £f.) the same strain is continued in an Ode and Antode.
2 Of. the Argument of the Lysistrata quoted above, p. 126, note 2.
CHAPTEE VII
THE IMPOSTOR
65. The unwelcome Intruders
There is one more constant motive in Aristophanes' comedies,
still to be accounted for —the unwelcome intruders who so often
thrust themselves upon the hero in the second part of the play.
These impertinents arrive when the victory of the Agon is already
won. The scene of sacrifice, cooking, or feasting has no sooner
begun than an oracle-monger, a poet, an informer, presents himself
to interrupt the proceedings or to claim a part in the good things.
Often there is a whole string of them. As they drop from the blue
and have done nothing to earn a share, their generic character is
—
that of Impostor [dXai^wv) an epithet several times flung at them
by the exasperated hero. Their common fate is a well-deserved
rebuff. When they have made an exhibition of themselves, they
are driven off with abuse, frequently seconded by blows. The
Impostors are always pitted against the hero, who draws out their
absurdities with mocking irony.
We will begin, as usual, by passing in review the scenes in which
these characters appear. We shall consider only those which fall
between Parabasis and Exodos. There are a few other scenes m
the comedies framed on the same pattern ;i but the great majority
fall in the second half of the play.
1 Achamians (Prologue), 64 ff. Dikaiopolis plays buffoon to the Envoys [tuv

dXaôvevi/.iTtjiv, 87 ; (ri> iJ.h iXaîivd fiiyas, 109) ; the scenes with Euripides
(interpolated where the ^ôm should begin, 393 ff.) and Lamachus (substituted
for the Antepirrheme of the Agon, 572 ff.) ; Euripides' Kinsman and Agathon,
Thesmoph. (Prologue), 95 ff., similar to Dikaiopolis and Euripides in the Achar-
nians. These scenes are plainly mere episodes interpolated in the normal
structure, not fixed incidents. The scenes between Strepsiades and Socrates in
the Olouds will be discussed in the next chapter. In all these scenes, except the
first in the Achamians, the persons derided are characters
with historic names,
not, like the bulk of the Impostors, typical representatives of a
prof ession— a '
poet,' '
a priest,' etc.
132
THE IMPOSTOR 133
66. The Impostors in the Plays
After the Pwrahasis in the Achaenians, when Dikaiopolis is
holding his private market, the action falls into two parallel scenes,
in which the Megarian brings his daughters for sale as pigs, the
Boeotian hiseels and feathered game. In the first scene an Informer
comes to denounce this contraband trading. He is soon expelled
by the market officials prudently provided by Dikaiopohs, with
'
'
a view to such intrusions, in the shape of stout leathern thongs.

In the second scene another fellow of the same trade, this time a
real person, Nicarchus, comes poking round, just as Dikaiopohs
has suggested that the Boeotian should take in payment for his
wares some article of export characteristically Athenian. An
Informer will do even better than the famous pottery of Attica or
the sardines of Phalerum. Nicarchus is tied up and packed in
straw, as if he were a jar, and the miserable bundle is tossed from
hand to hand before it is carried ofi by the purchaser. Then,

Lamachus' servant offers money from his master for a share of
Dikaiopohs' game and eels. He is refused, and the hero carries
ofi his merchandise into the house. The Second Parabasis follows.
As soon as it is over, the Herald proclaims the Choes, and Dikaio-
pohs comes bustUng out to begin Ms cooking on the stage. Im-
mediately a poor Farmer, who has lost in the war the yoke of oxen
that were his sole support, begs in vain for a drop of the Hbation-
wine that symbolises the peace concluded by Dikaiopolis for himself
alone. The Groomsman from a marriage just celebrated is better
received, because he brings an offering of some meat from the

wedding-feast but his request would be refused, were it not for
;
a message from the bride, dehvered in a whisper by the Bridesmaid
who accompanies him.
In the Clouds the two money-lenders, Pasias and Amynias, inter-

rupt the feast at which Strepsiades celebrates with his son their
short-Uved alhance for the discomfiture of all creditors. Though
paid,i they are treated
these two claimants have every right to be
impostors,' and confounded by means of the sophisms
' learnt
as
and 31. This

Strepsiades' debts to them are mentioned in the Prologue, 21
I
is prepared for by earlier
the only case where the appearance of Impostors
'
'
is
mention in the play, unless we count Peace, 447.
from Socrates, backed up in the second instance by the application
of a horse-goad, borrowed by the old man from his sporting son.
In the Wasps the progress of Philocleon in his Kdmos from the

home is interrupted by
dinner-party to the renewed potations at
two claimants for justice. A Bakerwoman complains that the
drunken old man has ruined her by striking her with his torch
'
'
and spilhng her loaves.^ Philocleon is seeking to distract her mind

with a fable from Aesop and other anecdotes none too coherent,
when another person, attended by a summoner, appears to tell
him of his action of battery. The stream of anecdote is diverted
upon this newcomer but, as matters begin to look serious,
;
Bdelycleon takes the law into his own hands and carries ofE the
aged reprobate bodily into the house, the door banging upon the
middle of the story of what happened to Aesop when he went to
Delphi.
In the Peace Trygaeus is cooking after the sacrifice, when a laurel-

crowned personage is seen approaching. What an impostor he '
looks !
' says the slave, taking him for a diviner. ^ It turns out to
be Hierocles, the oracle-monger, who claims to share in the meal
cooked under his nose. A last and desperate attempt to snatch
some of the meat, while his servant simultaneously tries to steal
a cushion, leads to both being driven ofi under a shower of blows.
The next incident is This is interrupted by
the marriage-feast.
two contrasted pairs The pruninghook-maker and
of craftsmen.
the cooper, grateful for the restoration of peace, bring wedding
gifts and are sent to join the feast inside. The maker of helmet-
crests laments that he and his friend, the spear-maker, are ruined
but this pair and a number of other weapon-manufacturers ^ are
derided and dismissed with contumely.
^ This incident appears to have been used again in the
comedy entitled Old
Age, which seems to have turned principally on the motive of the Old Men
renewing their youth and behaving outrageously, like Philocleon Geras, :
frag. 178, Dind. Athen. iii. 109 F, KpifiavlTriy' toijtov ixyq/xoveiei A. iv Tqpq.- ttoiei
3i \^yov<7av aprbiroiKiv diripirafj^^Viav aijr^s rujp dprujif virb Ttov rd y^pm a-KoâXbvToiv'
—tovtX tI Jiv rh TrpcLy/xa ; 8ep/i.o6s, S) riKvov.
— aXK' fi irapatfipoveh ;
—KpiâvLras, Si riKvov.
^ 1045 : Trygaeus addresses him, Si aXa^Siv (1069), and
us iXaîiv (palverai.
says, TivBrjs el (tA Kal iKa^Siv avZ/p. wa? airbv ^tt^xw ''<? {"^XVi 'o" oKa^dva (1120).
|
' How many weapon-makers appear in this scene is disputed

; but the point
is of 1)0 importance to us.

THE IMPOSTOR 135
The Birds has the longest list of Impostors. The Sacrifice,^

immediately after the Parabasis, attracts a priest, who is no sooner
got rid of than a poet comes with an ode prepared long since '
for the city that has only just been founded. Being a poet, he is
less harshly treated than usual and, being a frigid poet, he receives
;
a shirt and jerkin, borrowed from a slave. The next comer, the
inevitable oracle-monger, is discomfited by an oracle, extemporised
by which declares in Pythian hexameters that, if an
Pisthetairos,
'
impostor comes unbidden, he is to be beaten.^ This divine
'
command is reUgiously carried out. The mathematician Meton

next appears, armed with an enormous pair of compasses and the
scheme of rational town-planning, based on a central market-place
with radiating avenues, which is now adopted by the designers of
garden cities. But he is before his time, and jdelds to a forcible
request to measure himself into the middle of next week.^ An
Inspector, who announces himself as duly appointed by lot to an
office in Cloudcuckootown, is beaten ; and so is a Hawker of Acts
of ParHament, who enters reading aloud extracts from a brand-new
constitution for the city. This last pair of intruders are too much
for Pisthetairos' patience. He goes inside to finish his sacrifice
in peace.
But the plague breaks out again later. A young man attracted
by the morality of bird-life, which, as he understands, allows the
young to peck and strangle their parents, appUes for citizenship.
Pisthetairos points to a statute which enjoins that the young storks
shall nourish their father, and the young man is about to retire
disappointed, when Pisthetairos offers to arm him with the crest

and spurs of a cock, and sends him ofi to fight in the Thracian war.
Kinesias, the dithyrambic poet, next appHes for nightingale's wings
on which to soar in pursuit of inspiration. An Informer seeks

wings to carry him on his less creditable mission among the islands
of the Athenian empire. Pisthetairos lends wings to his flight in
another sort.
In the later plays the traces of this Impostor motive are faint,
1 airhp eTrjjv S.kK7IT0S li)V di/dponros aKaîiv, ktK.

983 :
cToS^ty aTavras rois

Meton comes under the head of all these impostors
3 ' ' :
The Inspector is announced as a âpdapiTraWosJlOSl),

6.\a^6ms SoxeT, 1016.
presumably as swaggeringly dressed.
as the plot now proceeds on more complicated lines. The Plxjtus
has an Impostor of the old type —the Informer who laments that
his occupation is gone, now that wealth goes to just men only.
He is evidently '
dying of an ox-hunger,' ^ and he scents the meat
roasting for the feast inside. He is stripped of his coat and shoes,
made to put on the old cloak which the Just Man has brought
as a votive oSering to the God of his new fortunes, while the same
person's old shoes are clapt to his forehead, Uke the votive offerings
hung on oHve-trees by persons saved from shipwreck. Thus
decorated, he is told to run to the baths and get what warmth he
can there, as the Just Man formerly had been driven to do. This
reversal of the positions of the two men recalls the end of the
Knights, where the Paphlagonian, degraded to his rival's former
trade, is similarly bidden to go and drink the waste water of the
baths.^ Finally, at the end of the Plutus, the two starving appU-
cants, Hermes and the Priest of Zeus, are allowed to gain a footing
in the new divine establishment. The Just Man and the amorous
Old Woman are treated by Karion and Chremylus with the ironical
derision regularly accorded to Impostors and they may be added ;
to the Kst.
, r-
From this review it is clear that the Impostor's standing role is

to disturb the scenes of sacrifice, cooking, or feasting, between
Parahasis and Exodos. This motive is so constant in the earlier
plays that we have as good reason to look for a ritual origin as
\ in the case of any other fixed feature of the plot.
Before turning to this problem, we must consider the role of the
hero in these scenes. In all the earlier plays it is he who is assailed
by the Impostors, and, with few exceptions, he deals with them in
'
a uniform manner, with a mixture of Irony and Buffoonery ' ' '
which must now be analysed.
67. The Eiron and the Alazon
Aristotle seems to have classified the characters in Comedy under

three heads : the Buffoon {bomolochos), the Ironical type {eiron),
' 873 : SijXou Sti /3avXi/xi(i. See above, p. 54, note 2.

= UOl. See below, p. 151.
THE EMPOSTOB 137
and the Impostor {alazony The Impostor
we already know
we shall return to him presently. The Buffoon
and the eiron are
more closely alhed in Aristotle's view than a modern
reader might
expect. They stand together in opposition to the Impostor in all
his forms. It will be remembered that in the Ethics 2
the Ironical
man and the Impostor or swaggerer confront one another in the
two vicious extremes which flank the virtuous mean of
Truthfulness.
While the Impostor claims to possess higher quaUties than
he has,"
the Ironical man is given to making himself out
worse than he is.
This is a generahsed description, meant to cover all types of self"
depreciation, many forms of which are not comic. In Comedy the
special kind of Irony practised by the Impostor's opponent is feigned
stupidity. The word eiron itself in the fifth century appears to'
mean '
cunning '
or (more exactly) '
sly.' ^ Especially it meant
the man who masks his batteries of deceit behind a show of ordinary
good nature * or indulges a secret pride and conceit of wisdom,
;
while he affects ignorance and self-depreciation, but lets you see

all the while that he could enKghten you if he chose, and so makes
a mock of you.^ It was for putting on these airs that Socrates was .
^ The evidence
the Tractatus CoisUniamts, 6 (Kaibel, O. G. F. i. 52; see
ia
above, p. 35, note 1)
^di] Ku/iifdias rd re /SwynoXix" âi toi dpoiviKi. naX ri. tCiv
:
i,\a^6vuy. Cf. At. Mth. Nic. 1108a 21, 17 Si wpoa-iroliia-is ii fxh iiri ri fietjôn
&\alôi/ela Kai 6 ^x"" "iirijv dXafti)/, ri Si iirl rb IXarTov elpuvda Kal dpoiv. irepl Si
rh i]Si rb fiiv iv ttmSi^ 6 fiiv /iiaoi eirpdireXos Kal 17 Sidffeais eirpaweXia, i) Si iirepôXij
PufioXoxia Kal b âv j3w/io\6x"S, 6 Si iWeliraii aypoMs ris ktX. See also Rhetoric,
iii. 18, quoted below, p. 138, note 3.
^ Nîc. £/th. 1127a 21, SokH Stj 6 pîf dXaîov TrpotriroiTjTiKbs rwv ivSbûjv elvai Kal
p.^ virapxbvTiOV Kal ptêi^bvtujv ^ vTrdpx^t, b Si e'lpojv dydiraXiv dpvHffdai to, virdpxovra ij
iXoTTOi woietv, 6 Se p,i<Tos aiOiKaffrbs Tts S>v AXrjBevTiKbs, ktX.

See on this question 0. Ribbeck, Ueber den Begriffdes dpoiv, Ehein. Mus.
^
xxxi. (1876), 381 ff. The word occurs first in Comedy. Clouds, 449, p.dcBX'ns
dpav yXoibs dXaîSiv in a list of words expressing every sort of rhetorical cunning
and trickery ; Wasps, 174, ol'av n-pbtl>ai!iv KadTJKet/, us elpwviKus, ' cunningly,'
'
slily ; Philemon, 89, 6, ofe Ict' aXdir?)^ ri fiiv dpav r-ff îirei 17 S' aiBiKaaros.
.'
Heaych., elpwveia' dirdTri yXeiri. Photius, KaTeipoiveierai- SoXuviTai. Ribbeck,

Alazon, 5, conjectures that Kratinus first introduced the term dXafiiy to the
stage, citing Bekk. Anec. Or., 374, 19, AXa^îiv iirep^(pavos, y/zeva-T^s Kal Kop.irajT'^s.
oStu Kparlvos (fr. 380 K.). 'AXaôvia occurs in Aristoxenus of Selinus
(Hephaest. 49, 6), but Kaibel condemns the verse as spurious {G. O. P., i. 87).
''
Plato, Laws, 908 D Soldiiav p-iv naBdirep drepos, ei^vijs Si iiriKaXoipievos, SbXov
:
Kal ifiSpas irK^prqi.

^ Plato, Krat., 384 A : ip,od ipariavTos Kal wpoSup.ovp.irov elSivai Sti Tori \4yei,
oUre i,iro<rait>ei oiSiv elpuveverai re Trpbs pie, irpom-oioip.evbs rt airbi iv iavT(fi Siavoi!<r$ai.
lis elSiis wepl airoO. Hence x'^^'^V is given as a gloss on dpwvela by Hesych. and
Suidas.
accused of '
irony ' by his enemies.^ The eiron who victimises the
Impostors masks his cleverness under a show of clownish dulness.
He is a fox in the sheep's clothing of a buffoon. His attitude is
precisely expressed by Demos in a passage of cynical, and even
sinister, self-revelation to the Knights, at a moment when the stage
is clear of the two impostors who are competing for his favour. In
the previous scene Demos has feigned simpUcity almost to the
point of idiocy, and when the two rogues are gone, the Chorus
reproach him for being so easily deceived by flattery his wits ;
must be wool-gathering. Demos replies that his wits are safer than
those sheltered by the young Knights' curled locks. He is letting
the rascals feed fat before he gobbles them up. ' I play the simpleton
\ like this on purpose.' ^ Thus, in the concrete character-type as it
exists in the Old Comedy, '

buffoonery ' {^m/ioXo'x^La) is only the
outer wear of and the Ironical BufEoon is in exact anti-
'
irony ' ;
thesis to the Impostor, who covers inward cowardice and folly

under a vain pretence of bravery and wisdom. Hence, we find
Aristotle, when he is thinking of Comedy, speaking as if there were
only a minor shade of diSerence between Irony and Buffoonery.
In the Rhetoric^ he says that the one is more consistent with the
character and position of a gentleman than the other, since the
ironical jester makes fun for his own private satisfaction, whereas
the buffoon does it to amuse others.* In the Old Comedy, the
Impostor's opponent, though it must be owned that he is not, in
most senses of the word, a very gentlemanly person, comes rather
under the head of the eiron. All the fun he makes is for his own
amusement. But it is often fun of the scurrilous sort that, in a
dependent character, would be called buffoonery.' So he combines '
both types, and we have, over against the Impostor, one character
- onl)'^ —the Ironical Buffoon.
1 Thrasymaohus in Plato, Sep. 337 A and (playfully) Alcibiades, Symp.
, ;
216 D, dpavevbixevot Si Kal Talâv iravTo. Thv îov irpis to>)s av6piinvovs SiarcXei.
^ 1123 4yCi 5' eKi^)v ravr' ^Xt^tdfw.
:
' lii. 18, 1419 b 8 Sffridi i; dpuvda û/xoXox'as (\eveepturrepov 6 /liv yci,p oiVoC
:
^pe/ca TTOtei rb ye'KoioVj 6 5^ ôjfjio\6xos ir^pov.

Buffoonery here, no doubt, means specially the scurrilities of the parasites,
^
those unhappy creatures who earned a place at the tables of the rich by allow-
ing themselves to be a butt for every sort of joke and indignity. For the con-
nection of jSw/ioXox'a with the /ciXa| or vapaairot see Ribbeck, Kolax, 15. Mr.
Cook points out to me that Battus and Korydon in Theocritus' pastoral mime
{Idyl iv.) are respectively good examples of the eiron and the aijroilcos. The
scene belongs to the Mime tradition.
THE IMPOSTOB 139
68. The Minor Buffoon

If the hero, as a person of independent
position, is more eiron
than BufEoon, or at least both at once, buffoonery
pure and simple
ISthe role of a subordinate character, in some way attached
to the
hero as friend or attendant. A word must be said here
about this
minor figure.^
In the Knights he is a slave, Demosthenes, who resigns the r61e
to his master. Demos, as soon as the Xanthias
latter appears.
has a similar function in the Wasfs. Euelpides, in the Birds, is
a friend of the hero, and acts bufioon in the first part of the play,
where Pisthetairos has a serious cause to plead. He is then dis-
missed, and Pisthetairos deals with the Impostors in the second
part. Lysistrata again is a serious character, and remains so
throughout the play. Her supporter, Kalonike, plays the clown.
In the Frogs we again find a slave, Xanthias, who disappears and
gives way to his master, Dionysus, in the second part. Praxagora
in the Boclesiazusae holds the same position as Lysistrata —the
serious leader of an enterprise, with supporters who play the fool
in the Assembly scene. But the principal buffoon is her husband,
Blepyrus, throughout the play. In the second part the Neighbour
is The Plutus again
subtly ironical in his scene with the Miser.
has Karion, whoon the way to become the cunning slave who
is
controls the plot of later Comedy. In the remaining plays, the

hero himself acts the Buffoon whenever occasion arises, shpping
on the mask as soon as any sort of Impostor presents himself to
invite derision. Dikaiopolis, Strepsiades, Philooleon,^ Trygaeus,
Euripides' Kinsman in the Thesmophoriazusae — all these old men
are ready to assume the role of affected simphcity, to tell scurrilous
anecdotes, to interject obscene comments and humorous asides.
In view of these facts, I incline to think that the subordinate

buffoon who attends the more serious heroes has, so to say, no
independent existence. He is a mere delegate on whom this side
of the hero's role is devolved in situations where the hero himself
has to keep up a less farcical character. Hence his services are J
' W. Siiss {De personarum, etc., pt. iv., and Zur Kompos. d. altattischen
Komodie, Rh. Mus. 1908) has studied this figure in an interesting way but his ;
general conclusions differ radically from those maintained in this book.

^ The Wasps has also the slave-buffoon Xanthias, but his buffoonery is con-
fined to the prologue.

generally needed only till the Agon is over, and the hero, released
from the arduous part of his action, can play the fool to his own
and every one's content. This deputy clown is marked off as a
distinct type only in that he always in a subordinate position,
is
never master of the situation as the Eiron is. Hence he is the

Bufioon, pure and simple, as defined by Aristotle the ungentlemanly —
person who makes fun for the amusement of others. We may
dismiss him here, and confine ourselves to the two principals :
the hero as Ironical Buffoon, and his antithesis, the Impostor.
69. Who is the Impostor ?
In studying the Impostors and their constant role, we must keep

steadily in view two essential points.
The first is their common characteristic. They are in general
impudent and absurd pretenders, and that in two ways. In the
first place, they put up a claim to share in advantages and delights
which they have done nothing to deserve. In the writings of

the philosophers 'Alazon' is almost synonymous with 'liar.'' The
two words are constantly coupled in Plato ^ and in Aristotle the ;
vice of imposture or swaggering occupies one extreme in opposition

[,to the mean of '
truthfulness.' Secondly, the Impostors are
distinguished among themselves in a bewildering variety of pro-
fessional types, as priest, oracle-monger, petty official, informer,
and so on without hmit. Under one or another of these characters,
each boasts of his special merits, so that we have a whole gallery
of quacks and humbugs standing for various professional classes
in society. It is this secondary peculiarity that has attracted the
attention of students, to the neglect of another, which, in the hght
of our whole argument, will be seen to be at least of equal importance.
This other essential of the Impostor is that, in all the scenes
we lately reviewed, he stands in a fixed relation to the regular
course of the action. He is essentially the unwelcome intruder
who interrupts sacrifice, cooking, or feast, and claims an undeserved
share in the fruits of victory. When we put aside the superficial
• 1 Cf. Ribbeck, Alazon, who cites (p. 4) Eep. 490 a, 560b, y//evdeis S^ koE
dXof6i'es Lysis, 218 D, ô/SoC/iai nî &<nrep avOpdnrois dXafio-i \6701s ncrl toioAtois
;
eKTerux^fa/iej' Gorg. 525 A, viri \(/ev&ovs koX aXaôvdas ; Hipp. Min. 369, dXttî'
;
as synonym of TroXiJTpoTros and \pev5ris. Bekk., Anec. Gr. p. 374, 20, nXdToii' Si
dXafiffti/ ifrl ToB ^j/cvaTois.
THE IMPOSTOR 141
variety of his outward guise, this is the single part he takes in

the
underlying action; and the constancy of its recurrence suggests
that it is integral to the original scheme. No explanation of
him can be satisfactory which, does not account for both these
characteristics.
because the current view explains only the variety, not
It is
the constant role of the Impostor, that it seems insufficient. It
is based partly upon an analogy with modern puppet-plays, which
we shall presently see to be misleading, partly on certain statements

of ancient grammarians, which have been thought to refer to these
scenes as '
episodic,' and so not integral to the action of the play.
These two grounds must first be examined, before we go on to
our own explanation.
'
70. The Impostor scenes as '
Episodes
been rightly pointed out that, in the usage of ancient

It has
scholarship, the term episode,' as applied to a scene in Comedy,
'
'
had a different sense from its more famihar use to denote the acts '
in a Tragedy. We find episode defined as

'
properly a scene '
'
inserted in a comedy outside the argument of the play for the sake
of causing laughter.' ^ On the strength of this definition, and of
a somewhat obscure statement in which Tzetzes ^ speaks of the
earliest Attic comedians as bringing on their characters with no '
sort of order' (draKTw?), Poppeheuter^ treated the later scenes of
an Aristophanic comedy as mere interludes, farcical scenes inter-

spersed between the sections of an old choral dance-poem, the
Parahasis, Second Parabasis, Stasima, and Exodos.
This view was, no doubt, also partly suggested by the traditional
account of the growth of Tragedy from a choral lyric. Until very
lately historians of hterature were content to describe this develop-
'
ment in some such terms as these Gradually the custom arose :

'
(a phrase consecrated to the concealment of ignorance) of a single

'
1
See Poppelreuter, who cites Et. Mag., p. 356, iireurSSion Kvplas ftev rh iv
KUfiieSltf iinêpdnevop Ty Spi/iarc yi\uros x^P'" ^S'^ ^?s vTroBiirem, and a similar
gloss in Suldas, s.v. He does not notice that Aristotle's use of the word
iireLffoSiJiSris comes near to implying this
sense.
2 Kaibel, C. G. F., i. p. 18 rai yap ol
: h
t§ 'AttikS TrpioTOV a-vo-TrijdiJ.evotTb
iiri.T'^devp.a T?s ' Ku^t:fi^las—^(ray d^ ol vipl SowapWa—t4 irp6<ru7ra iriKTUs ehfiyov
KoX yiXwi p fiSvos T» KaTMKtvaibiievov. On this see below, p. 216.

3 De Com. Att. Prim., p. 41.
member of the Chorus delivering a speech in the intervals of the
song and dance, to give the performers a rest. Aeschylus added
a second actor, thus making dialogue possible/ and so on. . . .
We have but just come to see that this is not a conceivable process
by which the great tragic drama we know, with its rigid conven-
tional forms, could possibly have come to exist. One object of
this book is to show that just the same impossibilities confront the
corresponding theory for Comedy. The Alazon scenes are not
disconnected burlesque episodes. The Impostors, as we have
insisted, stand in one definite relation to the main action. So far
as action goes, each is the merest reduphcation of the one before.
Why should burlesque episodes be framed on this monotonous
pattern ? What makes these scenes '
episodic,' in the only sense
in which they really are so, is just this reduphcation. The course
of the action is interrupted again and again in a series of indefinite
length, which might be cut down to one scene, or cut out altogether,
without injuring what the grammarians call the argument of the'
play.' The effect is repeated for the best possible reason because
it is funny
— ' The scenes are
for the sake of causing laughter.'
:
'
episodes in the sense of excrescences
' but, if we call them so,;
we must not be misled into speaking as if the latter half of an

—
Aristophanic play had no plot no main action on which these
excrescences can grow.
71. The Analogy with the Kasperlespiel
The second foundation of the current theory is an analogy which

may turn out not to bear examination.
Dr. J. Poppelreuter, taking a walk one day in vico Brandobur- '
gensi,'paused to watch a puppet-show known and beloved in

Germany under the name of Kasperlespiel. The drama opened
with a short prologue, in which Kasperle himself explained who he
was, his circumstances, the scene of action, and how the one thing
he wanted was rest and quiet. But no sooner
wish expressed is his
than his repose is disturbed by a string of troublesome visitors, a
,
tax-collector, a Polish Jew hawker, and other popular types, who
give him not a moment's peace. He amuses himself awhile at
the expense of each in turn, with side references, much appreciated
by the street audience, to local affairs, and then drives each from his
THE IMPOSTOR 143
presence with derision and a shower of
blows. As Dr. Poppekeuter
looked on, the vision of the Impostor scenes in Aristophanes sprang
into his mind, and this conjunction gave birth to the
hypothesis
that these scenes must be rehcs of
popular dramas of the same
type m
Greece—an hypothesis which he proceeded to
develop
with much learning and ingenuity in his well-known tract,
De Comoediae Atticae primordiis particulae duae, pubhshed at Berlin
in 1893.
H.
Eeich, who adopts Poppeheuter's view,
gives a similar
description of Kasperle's performances, seen by
him as a child at
Magdeburg.i Kasperle had no sooner appeared and
given a short
account of himself, than a series of popular types
presented them-
selves,and ' one short scene followed another, without any story
running through to connect them.' 2 A soldier, a Jew,
a pohceman
successively came, then Kasperle's shrewish wife, and finally the
Devil and Death. Each and all were driven ofi by Kasperle's
tongue, reinforced by his truncheon. But, last of all, came the
wicked Mother-in-law, who proved too much for the hero and put
him to flight.
The Mother-in-law may certainly be cut out as a modern addition.
The drama then culminates in the triumph of Kasperle over the
Devil and Death. About this chmax there can be no mistake it ;
shows that Kasperle is simply the double of a hero whom EngHsh

scholars no less tenderly remember. Punch. The presence of the
shrewish wife confirms the identification. Now, however dis-
connected the scenes of the German puppet-play may have seemed
to the eyes of Poppelreuter and Keich, the English drama of Punch
and Judy has unmistakable traces of a regular plot, though the
traditional incidents have certainly suffered a good deal of disloca-
tion, and all manner of new episodes have been, and no doubt
still are, interpolated by individual puppet-players. That being
so, this drama, in spite of certain resemblances to the Impostor
scenes, does not furnish a type consisting solely of 'disconnected
burlesque episodes.' As the plot, moreover, is very curious, and the
type of drama is, in other ways, instructive, we shall describe it in
detail.
1 Ber Mimus, i. 689. See also W. Siiss, De Personarum, etc. , p. 64.

2 '
Mne
hurze Scene reiht sich an die andere, ohne dass sie durch eine zu Grunde
Uegende Fabelmit einander verkniipft wdren.'
144 THE ORIGm OF ATTIC COMEDY
72. Punch and Judy

Punch came to England at least as early as the seventeenth
century.^ His greatest days were in the reign of Queen Anne,
when he enjoyed such popularity that his attractions thinned the
congregations of St. Paul's Church in Covent Garden, and even
threatened the receipts of the neighbouring Opera-house.^ Later
in the eighteenth century we hear of more serious developments of
this puppet-show. It took to representing regular comedies. The
master of the puppet-show encountered by Tom Jones and Mr.
Partridge on their travels ^ performed with great regularity"
and decency the fine and serious part of the Provoked Husband
and it was indeed a very grave and solemn entertainment, without
any low wit, or humour, or jests or, to do it no more than justice,
;
without anything which could provoke a laugh.' The master's

speech to Jones deserves to be quoted, both for its charm and for
its curious likeness to certain passages in which Aristophanes
boasts of his own improvements upon the vulgar Comedy ' of his '
predecessors.*
'
He said, " The present age was not improved in anything so much
as in their puppet-shows ; which, by throwing out Punch and his
wife Joan, and such idle trumpery, were at last brought to be a
rational entertainment. I remember," said he, " when I first took
to the business, there was a great deal of low stuff that did very
well to make but was never calculated to improve
folks laugh ;
the morals of young people, which certainly ought to be principally

aimed at in every puppet-show for why may not good and instruc-
:
tive lessons be conveyed in this way, as well as any other ? My

figures are as big as the fife, and they represent the life in every
particular and I question not but people rise from my little drama
;
as much improved as they do from the great."

" I would by no means degrade the ingenuity of your profession,"
'
answered Jones, " but I should have been glad to have seen my old
' According to E. K. Chambers (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 160) the earliest English
notice of Punch in England is in the overseers' books of St. Martin'a-in-the-
Fields for 1666 and 1667. Puppet-plays were, of course, well known in the
sixteenth century, and are frequently mentioned, under the name of ' motions,'
by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Elizabethans.
2 Spectator, No. 14; Tatler, No. 115.
s Fielding, The History

of Tom /ones, Bk. xii. chap. v.
* See below, p. 177.
THE IMPOSTOR 145
acquaintance master Punch for all that ; and so far from improv-
ing, I think, by leaving out him and his merry wife Joan, you have
spoiled your puppet-show."
These
life-size marionettes do not seem to have had a long
career. Punch and his merry but shrewish wife resumed their
place, and have held their little stage to the present day. A text
of the play was taken down by Mr. Payne Collier ^ in 1828, mostly
from the performance as given by an old Itahan wayfaring '
puppet-showman of the name of Piccini,' who had perambulated '
town and county for the last forty or fifty years.' Piccini's version
is interpolated with songs and airs from recent operas, but the
main outhnes of his plot are traditional, and are guaranteed by a

ballad called Punch's Pranks, dating from about 1790, and a sonnet
of Lord Byron's.
The reader who has forgotten his Punch may be glad of a summary
of the action, in order that he may judge for himself whether it
really does contain traces of an old broken-down plot, or can pro-

perly be described as a series of disconnected burlesque scenes.
Act Punch deUvers the prologue. The dog Toby appears and
I.
bites his nose. Punch complains to Toby's master, Scaramouch,

whose head he knocks clean off his shoulders. He then calls Judy
to bring the baby, which, when its mother has gone, he throws out
of window. Upon her remonstrating with a stick, he kills her too,
and goes ofE with Pretty Polly (a mute person, supposed to be the
daughter of the gentleman who quarrels with Punch for his per-
formances on a sheep-bell, presently to be mentioned).
II. Punch appears with his horse. Hector, intending
to ride
Act
and [Here, in the Ballad, follow his travels in
see Pretty Polly.
are found to resist him.^]
foreign lands, where only three females
Hector, however, throws him, and Punch, declaring that he is a
While this person is looking for his
dead man, calls the Doctor.
Punch kicks him in the eye and leaps up. The Doctor
injuries.
applies a dose of the stick, but is made to take his own physic and
fifth edition, London, 1870, p. 62

The scenes are
1 Punch and My,
in twenty-four coloured drawings by George Crmkshank,
admirably illustrated
made from performance recorded.
the actual
A
copy of one of them is repro-
duced on the title-page of this book. c, ,,r> •

E-
2 The three chaste females are borrowed from Spenser's Sctuire of Dames, Faery
I, iii. 7.
K
killed. Punch then fetches a sheep-bell and rings it violently,
while he sings and dances. A gentleman's servant comes to com-
plain of the noise. He too is slain.
Act III. A bUnd beggar, who appears to be dressed as a friar,

asks for alms and is beaten The Constable comes with a
off.^
warrant to arrest Punch for kilhng Scaramouch. Punch knocks

him down, and also his officer. The executioner, Jack Ketch,
wearing a tall fur cap like a busby, with the help of the other two
minions of the law, succeeds in marching Punch off to prison. A
curtain then rises at the back, showing the hero rubbing his nose
against the bars. A gibbet and a coffin are brought. Punch
tricks Jack Ketch into hanging himself, and the executioner is put
in the coffin and carried out.
Finally, the Devil appears, a terrible figure with horns and long
claws and a tail. He appears to be dressed entirely in a black skin
and looks very hke a goat. A terrific combat rages for a long time,
ending in the defeat of the Devil. Punch v^hirls him round in the
air on his stick, shouting '
Huzza ! Huzza ! ike Devil 's dead /
This conclusion perhaps justifies the master of the puppet-show's

view that the play was '
not calculated to improve the morals of
young people.' It is certainly traditional. Dr. Johnson in the last
note on Richard III. in his edition of Shakespeare (1765) records
that he has seen '
the devil very lustily belaboured by Punch.'
Payne ColUer ^ mentions a marionette-player who had religious
scruples about making Punch kill the Devil ; but his audience were
so attached to the canonical ending that they hooted and mishandled
him. The defeat of the Devil is in striking contrast to the regular
termination of the Morahties, in which the Old Vice (in whom some
have seen a forerunner of Punch) is, hke Judas and Dr. Faustus,
carried off by the Devil to Hell. Magnin^ suggests that the
reversal dates from the incident in Ben Jonson's The Devil is an
Ass,^ where Iniquity carries off Satan but this conjecture may not
;
be meant, and certainly ought not to be taken, seriously.

The early history of Punch's drama is, unfortunately, lost. But,
' This personage is the only unwelcome intruder who corresponds to the
Impostor of the comedies, appearing for no reason, and making a claim which the
hero treats as impudent. 2 Punch and Judy,
66.
* HUtoire dea Marionnettes, 251. Act. v. Scene iv.
•*
THE IMPOSTOR 147
whatever be the historic origin of its plot, it cannot be denied that

it has surprising likenesses to the folk-plays we reviewed earlier.
There is the scene of the hero's simulated death and revival by

the Doctor, and a fierce Agon with an adversary dressed as a black
goat. These incidents, and perhaps some of the others, appear to
be the d&yris of an old fixed plot, oddly resembling a type now
familiar to us. At any rate, the performance was not a string of
disconnected scenes, all of the same pattern.
The comparison turns out unexpectedly, fruitful, and, if there
is any analogy, it supports our own view of the Aristophanic play
as against Poppelreuter's. In both dramas there is, or was, a fixed
conventional plot running through the whole. Both have the
Agon as a principal incident. Further, in the case of Punch, the
mono|;onous repetition of the beating and kilUng of one character
after another has probably spread (no doubt, from its inherent
pleasantness) from the fight with the Devil to the other episodes.
Here the Enghsh Mummers' Play presents an exact, and perhaps
not fortuitous, parallel.^ The original Agon in this instance must
have been a duel between St. George and a single antagonist, be
he the Turkish Knight or Captain Bluster. In the actual plays,
the two adversaries have been indefinitely multiphed into a whole
miscellany of heroes, and the duel into a series of correspond-
ing length, giving rise to the same monotony of structure and
incident. When these minor combatants are not named after
heroes (Alexander, Hector, King Alfred, etc.) or historical characters

(Bonaparte, King of Prussia, Nelson, Wolfe, etc.), they are simply
called 'Knight,' VaUant Soldier,' 'Noble Captain,'
'Soldier,' '
Bold Prince,' Gracious King.' They are manifest doubles

' ' of
Captain Bluster, whose

the chief antagonist. Captain Slasher or
his vaunting
names, as Mr. Chambers remarks, 'fairly express
disposition, which, however, is largely shared by
the other characters
There could not be a clearer illustration of the
in the play.'
multiplied Alazon.
a single performer
In the puppet-show of the humbler sort, where
almost impossible to present more
holds a puppet in each hand, it is
For this simple reason. Punch and

than two characters at once.
But the reason does not
Judy consists of a series of duologues.
and the (at first sight) similar monotony
apply to Uving actors ;
1
See Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, i. 206 £f.
148 THE OKIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
of the duelling scenes of the Mummers' Play is more probably-
due to the process of multipUcation. The Mummers' Play, at any
rate, has certainly not passed through the puppet-show stage ;
whereas it is by no means certain that the plot of Punch and Judy

has not come from a folk-play with living actors. The normal
flow of influence sets that way — from the living stage to the
miniature scene of the marionettes. Thus we have seen the master
of the show in Tom Jones replacing Punch's antics by the fine and
serious part of the Provoked Husband.
Our conclusion, then, is that the Impostor scenes are not to be

explained as derived from the puppet-play and that they are no
;
more disconnected than the scenes

' '
of Punch and Judy, but a good
deal less so, in that all the Impostors have one fixed relation to the
action, one function running through all their superficial variety,
and one corresponding generic character swaggering imposture. —

We may henceforth telescope them into a single character the —
Impostor.
73. The Impostor a double of the Antagonist
The Impostor in Aristophanes, as we have seen, has three

essentials : (1) he interrupts the sacrifice or wedding-feast, and
claims a share in the fruits of the Agonist's victory ; (2) he has a
vaunting, boastful, swaggering disposition ; (3) he is regularly
mocked, beaten, or otherwise mishandled, and driven away. We
have also found reason to suggest that he may be in some way a
double of the Antagonist. We naturally look for further light to
Dionysiac myth and ritual, where, I believe, we shall find the figure
we seek to identify.
The special type we be that in which the God
shall turn to, will
and and a conflict is fought out between
his adversary are distinct,
them. But here we must bear in mind the curious confusion by
which the enemy of the God is also a double of the God himself.
This arises from the very nature of rites which involve the ritual
kiUing, dismemberment, and eating of the divine victim, in animal,
and earlier still in human, form. This is done by the worshippers
themselves in a frenzied enthusiasm which lifts what seems from the
outside a cruel and bloody act to the plane of a mysterious rite of
THE IMPOSTOR 149
communion. As civilisation gains over barbarism, the mystery

grows more obscure. Why must the God suffer and die ? Must
it not be in commemoration of his passion at
the hands of some
cruel enemy, some persecutor of his worshippers and profaner of
his cult ? The very band of devotees who still celebrate the rites
comfort themselves by turning it into a drama, a passion-play that
is still a religious service. Year by year they re-enact the awful
mystery but they transfer the seeming guilt to the soldiery of
;
the wicked tyrant, who is nothing but the God transformed to a

devil, that he may lead his own worshippers against himself. Out
of this strange evolution of religious experience arise the figures of
Pentheus and his Thracian counterpart, Lycurgus ^
; of Melanthus,
the black and treacherous opponent of the Fair God ; of the wicked
Titans who tear Zagreus in pieces and eat his flesh, and others of
the same stamp. And, because the enemy is the God himself, his
fate is the same, the very likeness ministering satisfaction to the
desire of vengeance. The Antagonist so conceived has all the traits
we noted as essential to the Impostor. (1) He disturbs and outrages
the rites which no profane eye should see.^ (2) He vaunts his
insolent authority in boasts, whose vanity the power of the God
will expose. (3) He is set at nought, beaten, bUnded, slain, torn
to pieces, cast out, or, like the Titans, blasted to ashes.
The case of Pentheus, represented by Euripides in the Bacchae
with close fidelity to the tradition followed before him by Aeschylus,^
is a sufiicient In this play the disturbance of the rites
illustration.
by profane intruders occurs twice over. First, the herdsmen

conceal themselves in a thicket to spy upon the worship of the
wild women. When they show themselves, and try to lay hands
on the Queen and her attendants, they are hunted by the Maenads
armed with the thyrsus, and only just escape being torn in pieces
{a-'irapayfi6<;), when the women turn upon their cattle instead.* As
the women rush with flaming hair through the country, the villagers
attack them with weapons ; but they are repelled and wounded
1 Lycurgus was identified as eiii Bild des Winters in Preller-Robert, Gr.-Myth.'^

688, and connected with the conflict of Summer and Winter.
2 This trait belongs also to Lycurgus' brother, Boutes, who carried oflf the
the God's
Nurses of Dionysus on Mount Drios, while they were celebrating
orgies. Smitten with madness he flung himself into a well (Died. v. 50).
Cf. for this point G. Murray, Euripides and his Age
3 (London, 1913), p. 181 ff.
»
Bacch. 734 iifiels fiev oSv 4>e6yopTes iîkiâiiev Baxx"" airapayiJ.bv.
: |
with the thyrsi^ Pentheus, on hearing it, calls out his army ;
but
he is beguiled into going alone and in womanly disguise. '
Eager
to what ought not to be seen/ ^ the
see '
crafty spy ' suffers
the fate which his herdsmen had escaped. In another version,

preserved in the Lenai attributed to Theocritus, the three thiasoi
of women are worshipping at twelve altars —three for Semele, and
nine for Dionysus —when the rash intruder is discovered. Autonoe
overturns with her foot the sacred objects which no profane eye
might see. Pentheus is chased and torn to pieces.
Throughout the Bacchae Pentheus appears to the eyes of
Dionysus' worshippers as the insolent and vainly boastful fighter '
against God.' * He is warned by Cadmus to remember the fate of

Actaeon, torn to pieces for vaunting himself superior to Artemis.*
The God beguiles him with ironical gentleness, makes a mock of him,^
and lures It has been pointed out that, when
him to his death.
Pentheus on the tree to be the mark of the wild women's
is set aloft
missiles, he suffers a sort of crucifixion. The Thebans were bidden
by the Delphic oracle to honour that tree on which Pentheus was
hanged, ^
' as if it were a God.'
1 Bacch. 758.
^ Ibid. 912 : ai rbv irpbBvixov 6vd' &, fiJi] -ype^v ofrnv. 956 : S6\ioii /taiviSuv Kard-
(XKOTOV,
' Prologue V. 44, Ilei'Se? ... |
3s 6eoii.axet to, Kar' i/j,i Kal (nrovSdv diro |
liBet u',
iv e^xa's t' oiiaii.o'i jixdav (xî, Cf. 325 (Teiresias) ov deotj.ax'qaoi. 374 (Chorus)
difis oix offlav O^piv is riv Bpd/juov, 387, dxaXti'Ui' trTO/idTUv kt\. 516 (Dlmi.) rCivt'
&iroLv^ v^pLCTfidrtav |
/ieTei(7i îSvvabs tre.
^ 336 : 6/)^s Thv 'Akt^wi'os &d\i.ov fji6pov,
6v uj/A6(rtrot c/ciiXa/ces A? idpi^paro

dieffirdtravTO, Kpeiaffot/' h Kvvayiats
Âprifiidos eXvat KoixirdffavT' ^ h ipydaiv.
''
616 : Dion. ravTCL kclI Ka66^pia^ aiirbvy 6rL fi€ deafieiêiv doKuv
oOk ^dtyei^ oW ^'âd^ ^/Ac5j/, iXiritnv S* ipdffKCTO.
854 : Dion, xpsf" 5^ viv YAura Oriffatois i<p\c!v.
" Cf. Farnell, Cults, v. 168, who also explains the epithet ai'70;86Xos, 'goat-
shooter,' of Dionysus at Potniai by the theory that the animal was hung up as '
a mark to be shot at, just as the figure of Pentheus served as a target for the
Maenads.' We are reminded, too, of Euripides' Kinsman, tied up to a plank by
the infuriated Thesmophoriazusae, whose rites he had profaned. The elaborate
dance and song which accompany the search for this intruder (655 ff. ) have a
sort of ritual air, as if a formal search for the profane had preceded the mystical
service. The language is serious, and recalls that which the Bacchae use of
Pentheus. Cf. Thesmoph. 668 : ^v ydp /xe XdO-y dpdaas dv6a-i.a |
Silxrei t6 SUriv Kal
Trpbs Toiruf \
Tois (SXXois dvSpdaiv ^ffrai, \
irapdSiiyn' S^piuf idlKiav i-' fyywv \
ddiuv re
TpbTraV I
0i)(rei S' ilvai re fleois <j>avepi^s, \
Seffci t' ijSri \
raatv &v0piI>Tois ae^lletv
dal/iovas, ktX, with Bacchae 373, 537, and many other passages.
THE IMPOSTOR 151
There is yet another aspect in which the Antagonist-Impostor

is seen to be ultimately identical with the suffering God. In dis-
cussing the expulsion of the PharmaJcoi at the Thargelia we called
attention to the undoubted fact that these miserable victims at
once represented the beneficent powers of fertiUty and the adverse
influences of famine, death, and impurity. We have seen, too,
how more than one Antagonist in the plays, notably Cleon in the
Knights and Poverty in the Plutus, are treated as PharmaJcoi and
hounded off the scene with execrations. The treatment of the
Informer in the Plutus is closely analogous. He is dressed in the
symbols of poverty cast off by the Just Man, as if he were visibly
to carry away upon Wealth has come to
his person the evils that
expel, as a personification of that which he is said to
'
Ox-hunger '
show signs of.^ In the dying representative of fertihty and life,'
who also bears upon his head, as a scapegoat, the sins and evils
of his people, we have throughout had before us the same funda-

mental combination of ideas—induction of good and expulsion of
evil—that lie at the root of Comedy with its two elements of invoca-
tion and invective, abeady impUcit in the PhalUc Songs. The\

revilingand expulsion of the Antagonist-Impostor is the darker
counterpart of the Kdmos which brings in the new God, victorious
over him in the Agon.^
We have thus found a place for the Impostor in our supposed

ritual plot. In a serious form of the old passion-play the fate of
1
873 : SriXov Sti ôuXi/iip. See above, p. 54, for Kern's suggestion that the
reference is to an actual 'Driving out of Ox-hunger' at Athens. According to
the Encyd. Britannica, ed. U
s.v. 'Punch," the older Punchinello
fought . . .
Weariness.' This statement

with allegorical figures representing Want and
reflects popular Agdnea of the type we
bears out our view that Punch and Judy
are considering. ,, , , ,i,fln\
2 Compare the end Bacchae where Agave, after the KaUs d^wv
of the (116^),
dâ/caXoO<ra Bd/cx'o" rbv
comes in the Jc6mo8 of the 'Victor' Dionysus:
• •
SdKpvcc vrnvPope-iriv KaWiv^KO. Kêî'b. iêwpdkuree, <rT6j>ov Is

aU5) ;
KoXKlvcKO., V
Mkdvo. (11611 ; d^x^<r8e kQ,xov eilov Bôv (1167) ; S^fo^c" <riyKU,iio:' (1173), and calls
vS. Bolva, (1184), before the horrible
on the Chorus to share the feast: Mêxe
Pentheus, the disturber of the rites.
truth breaks on her that the victim is
accidental that the last anecdote with which Philoc eon
It is perhaps, not
is the story of how Aesop stole a
puts off his Impostors in the Wasps (1446)
Delphi. Aesop was stoned for this offence, or flung from a rock
phiale at
on Wasps, 1446). The story is an
Su de sera num. vindUÎ A, and Schol.
of ^phiale at Athens, cf. Parnell, Cults,
obvious double of the Pharmakos' theft
iv. 274, 281.
the disturber of the rites might well be perpetuated as a warning
to the profane to keep clear of secret mysteries and as an example
to all enemies of the God. Where the drama degenerated into a
popular mummery, the incident would give an iuAdting opening
for horseplay. Passing into the inheritance of Comedy, the mask
of the Impostor neatly fits all those pretenders whose conceit of
cleverness or ofany outstanding quality marks them out as butts
forwhat the Greeks called fhthonos the jealousy of the average —
man for whatever, truly or falsely, sets up to be above his level.-^
74. The Impostor in the Dragon-slaying myths
In the long series of stories examined by Mr. Hartland in his
Legend of Perseus, the Impostor plays a constant role. When

the modest young hero has slain the monster, and so earned the hand
of the princess he has dehvered, there regularly appears an impostor
who claims to have performed the deed, and isonly confuted when
the hero pulls out an indisputable proof, very commonly the tongue
or tongues of the slain monster, which he has kept in his wallet.
The story of Alkathoos of Megara is typical. ^ Alkathoos, son of
Pelops, banished from Elis for kilKng his brother Chrysippus,
came and there slew the Lion of Cithaeron which had
to Megara,
terrorised the country and torn to pieces the king's son, Euippos.
The king's servants sent on the hunt claimed the honour of the
victory. Alkathoos, however, produced the beast's tongue, and
put the impostors to confusion. Thenceforth the king, after
sacrificing to the Gods, placed the tongue last on the altars.
In the story of Perseus himself,^ the impostor is PMneus, the
broj;her of Kepheus and uncle of Andromeda, to whom he had been
betrothed. He plotted against Perseus, but he and his fellow
conspirators were turned to stone by the Gorgon's head. Ovid *
adds a long description of how Phineus broke in upon the wedding
feast to claim the bride. He ensconced himself behind an altar,
and a bloody battle raged between his supporters and the party
of Perseus, in which two hundred were slain and two hundred
more turned to stone when Perseus showed the Gorgon's head
' For this iraiSi/cis 096i'os, see below, p. 209.
2 Dieuohidas, frag. 8, ap. Sohol. ApoU. Rhod. i. 517 ; Paus. i. 41, 3 ; Hartland,
Legend of Permus (London, 1896), ili. 172.
' ApoUod. li. 4, 3. * Metavi., v. 1 ff.
THE IMPOSTOR 153
and ended the fray. Whether this story is based on Euripides'

Andromeda or not is disputed, but the figure of Phineus is older than
Euripides.^ „,
by Mr. Hart-
It is a curious fact that out of 101 stories classified
land,^ in which the Impostor appears, he is in 25 instances in some
—
way a black man a charcoal-burner (16), a negro, or moor (7), or
a chimney-sweep (2). Add to this that in some versions of thej
'
story the hero is murdered by the villain, but brought to Ufe again
by some beasts, his faithful friends, who apply to the corpse a
certain healing herb or the water of life.' ^ When we remember
the black-masked Antagonist of the northern Greek plays, who
breaks in upon the wedding celebrations, molests the bride, and
kills the hero, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the Impostor
motive in these been influenced by the folk play. In
stories has
the Mdrchen of the Dragon-slaying he temporarily triumphs over
the hero, whose exaggerated modesty and humble exterior often
set him in contrast to the swaggering impostor, as the eiron is con-
trasted with the alazon. Even when the hero is not slain by the
impostor, the recognition of his true character at his final triumph
is analogous to the recognition [dvajvwpiai'i) of the tragic hero,
in
which we have learnt to see the epiphany of the risen God.* This
motive passed from Tragedy to the New Comedy, and thence
into the long tradition of romance, where the hero of high
birth
is exposed or lost in infancy, brought up in humble circumstances,
persecuted by the villain, and finally restored to the exalted rank
which brings him within reach of his bride.
1
See Jessen, s.v. 'Phineus' in Roscher, Lex. Myth. col. 2355.
' Frazer on Paua. i; 41, 3.
2 Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 203 ff.
^ See above, p. 59.
CHAPTER VIII
THE STOCK MASKS OF THE OLD COMEDY

75. The, major Impostors
In dealing with the Impostor we have so far considered only those

minor grotesques who flit across the scene in the second part of
the play ; and we have conjectured that they are doubles of
the Antagonist. In this chapter we have to study the alazones
of the higher order, that is to say, those characters, other than the
hero, who play a leading part in the action. These too are all of
them touched with some form of pretentiousness, swagger, conceit,

which makes them ridiculous and incurs the irony of the hero-
bufioon. But, besides being, in this wider sense, alazones, they
can be more closely defined under specific heads. What we shall
try to bring out is that these characters —especially certain very
important ones, who bear historical names—are made to wear
one or another of a definite set of stock masks. They are, to the
almost complete sacrifice of realistic portraiture, conformed to the
traditional traits of these masks, which we shall seek to define.
When we have completed the collection, we shall turn to the question
how these masks came to be fixed in the convention of the Old
Comedy, and what bearing their presence there has upon our main
hypothesis.
The characters we shall first examine are Lamachus, Socrates,
Euripides, Aeschylus, Cleon, and Cleon's adversary, the Sausage-
sellerAgoracritus. This is a complete hst of all the characters
with historic names who play a leading part in the extant comedies
of Aristophanes. '^
All of them, with one exception, figure as
' Lamachus [Ach.) ; Socrates {Oloiuis)
Euripides (Thesm., Frogs; and, as
;
minor impostor, Ach.); Aeschylus (i^Vogrs); Cleon and Agoracritus ( &jgrAjs). The
hero of the Thesmophoriazusae appears in many editions as 'Mnesiloohus,' but
there is no good authority for the name. Van Leeuwen points out that no
definite person is intended, only a Kinsman of Euripides.
'
The minor historical
'
characters are the 'Impostors,' Theorus, Nicarchus (Ach.); Pasias, Amynias

(Knights) ; Hierocles {Peace) ; Meton {Birds), Kinesias {Birds, Lys.), Kleisthenes,
Agathon (Thesm.) the Slaves, Demosthenes and Nikias {Knights)
; ; and Socrates'
pupil, Chaerephon {Clouds).
THE STOCK MASKS 0¥ THE OLD COMEDY 155
Agon of one or another of the plays. The excep-

adversaries in the
tion—Socrates—proves the rule; for Socrates, as we saw, is in
effectthe principle of evil in the Clouds, that principle which, in the
abstract form of the Unjust Eeason, actually takes part in the first
of the two Agdnes in the play. We shall find that all these characters,
not excepting Aeschylus, belong to the general class of alazones ;
and, further, that they can be classified under several subordinate

heads, the stock masks we spoke of.
76. The Miles Gloriosus : Lamachus

In Lamachus, the Antagonist who stands for the war-party in
the Acharnians, every one recognises a figure familiar throughout
the whole history of Comedy —the Swaggering Soldier. Ivo Bruns ^
has pointed out that Lamachus, at the date of this play, was not
an important member of the war-party. He was very young, and
his poverty made him obscure.^ He appears to have been picked
out for the sake of his name, which might be rendered VaUant'
Soldier,' and lends itself to puns on /ta%i?. Such character as he

has belongs entirely to the miles gloriosus,^ the ancestor of Pyrgo-
pohnices and of Ancient Pistol, the Capitano of Itahan Comedy.
In the fourth century this alazon * took on traits borrowed from the
wandering condottieri who sold their swords wherever they were in
request, and came back from their travels in distant countries with
tremendous stories of their prowess and of their conquests of female
hearts. The campaigns of Alexander must have made them only
too familiar in every Greek city. But their prototype in extant
literature Lamachus, who comes blustering in to crush Dikaiopolis'

is
plea for peace with the tragic bombast inherited by all his descen-
1 Das literariscTie Portrat, Berl. (1896), pp. 152 S.
2 Plut. Alcib. 17 and 21 ; Ar. Acham. 601, veaflas.
3 Bruns, op. cit, 153: Nichts lamachisch ist als der Name. Im Orunde
p.
liegt die grotesJce Fratze des Eenommistm im Mend, des
hungernden und siohnenden
Prahlhaiises, ein Wesen so unwirUich wie sein Pendant Dihaeopolis, etc.
The
Son of Lamachus is brought into the Peace, to be rebuked by Trygaeus
for
1293, 6,vipbt ôvXoiidxov Kal K\m(niidxou tivos vl6s. dveppe koI

singing of war : \
Tois \oyxo<pl>poi(rii' ?«' i'iv. Schol. ad v. 1290: Aa/idx""' roO del pov\o/ihov
hraiie Si vapd, to tAos toO Ai£;UOXos dvSnaTos. Peace 304
Tj/iipa yap :
tidXâBai..
^JAajuêK TJSe luaoXd/rnxos.
« Aristotle, Mth. N. iii. 7, 8 : SoKeT 5k Kal dXofiy eTyai 6 Bpaais Kal TrfioffToii/Ti/cds
"iiras ôiXerat (PalveaBai.- ii>
dvSpetai- lis oBv ixeivoi (o dvSpiiOs) iripl ra 4>opepd ?x">
oTs oSk Sivarai. (/.tueTTM- SiJ Kal eMv ol iroXKol air&v BaaffiSeAoi..
dants. A terrific crest of plumes (' boastard's feathers ?
' queries
Dikaiopolis ^) nods over Ms helmet, and the emblem on his shield
is the Gorgon's head, as if he posed as a second Perseus and would
strike his enemies to stone. What is especially interesting to us
is Lamachus is properly the Antagonist in the Acharnians,
that, while
in place of the Antepirrheme of the Agon is substituted a duologue
of the regular pattern, in which DikaiopoKs plays Buffoon, and uses
his irony to discountenance this bragging Impostor, and beat
'
'
him from the field of argument. In Lamachus, then, we have our

first instance of the same person playing the part of Antagonist
in the general scheme of the play, and treated in the way in which
the Impostors are regularly dealt with.^ The Antagonist, in a word,
is here an Impostor of the major type and this may be taken to ;
support the view that the minor Impostors of the last chapter are
only doubles of the Antagonist.
77. The Learned Doctor: Socrates
A second stock mask, at least equally important, is that of the

Learned Doctor, ancestor of the scholasticus of later comic anecdote ^
and kinsman of the Dottore in Itahan Comedy. Shakespeare has
him as the schoolmaster Holophernes, to whom, with his friend
the parson Sir Nathaniel, Goodman Dull, the constable, plays
buffoon.* In the Merry Wives he is Doctor Caius, whose extra-
ordinary lingo is supposed to be the dialect of a ' French physician.' ^
In fifth-century Athens he is the '

Sophist.' This word had a wide
sense. Its very form (o-o^jo-tj;?) may imply the man who makes a
profession of any sort of exceptional skill or learning, including the
artist, the 'artiste,' ^ the poet, and, above all, the higher teachers
of Greece, the professors of culture. These were not commonly
^ 589 : &pa KOiiiraKaKiOov ;
At Adi. 959 Lamachus' servant offers money for a share of Dikaiopolis'

^
feast, and is refused. Lamachus here figures as an Impostor of the ordinary

type.
See Reich, Der Mimus, i. 454 ff. on Philistion's Philogelos,
'
Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 11, a good example of the BuSoon- Alazoji scene.
"^
» The physician who talks dialect is, as we shall see

(p. 181), a very ancient
figure in the Mime tradition.
" Pindar uses croipla seriously of his own art of poetry,
and (roîo-TiJs later
came to denote what we call artistes,' professional entertainers, etc. See
'
Athen. xiv. 621 v, where it is a general term applicable to the Italian mimes
called Phlyakes and the Phallophori, Autokabdali, etc.
THE STOCK MASKS OF THE OLD COMEDY 157
distinguished from the men we now call ' '
philosophers ; indeed,
any serious students, such as the great medical school
of Cos, would
come under the name.i There is, accordingly, nothing
surprising
m the fact that this mask of the learned pedant is worn in Aristo-
phanes' plays by
Socrates and also by Euripides, the two great
symbolic representatives of all that Aristophanes thought
dangerous
in the culture of the younger generation. The same mask also fits
minor impostors hke Meton the mathematician, 2 the ragged
poet
of the Birds, and so on. These are professed exponents
of Sophia.
The glaringly unhistorical picture of Socrates in the Clouds has
excited the wonder of many generations. Not only does the poet
attribute to the philosopher many opinions and forms of speculation
of which the historic Socrates was notoriously innocent, but
what is equally surprising, though less often noticed—he does not
avail himself of many
which would seem to ofier most
real traits
attractive material for satire and caricature.^ The famous dai-
monion, the midwife mother and the obstetric theory of education,*
the Silenus-like figure and countenance with its prominent eyes
—
and snub-nose ^ all these are left untouched. It may, perhaps,
^ Of. the list in the Clouds, 331, irXetffTOUs aSrai ^bcKovai. a-o^/urTd^ \
dovpio/iipms
(Lampon, who founded Thurii at the bidding of an oracle), laTpoTix""-^
(Hippocrates and other physicians), o-(f>payidovvxapyoKo/jiTiTas (philosophical dilet-
tanti), KVuXiijiv Sk xo/aw" q-aiMTOKiixirras (dithyrambic poets), di/Spas /j,eTcwpocfihaKa5
(natural philosophers). Of. also Meineke's note on Kratinus, ArchilocM frag, ii.,
oTov aotpitTTuv fffiijvos aveStcjiTjaare (of poets and musicians). Compare Aristotle's
third class of akaôves in Eth. N. iv. 7,13 oJ nipSovs {Ivena 6,\aôvev6/j,eyot) &p Kai
:
dirdXavffis icm Toh ir^Xas Kal & dLaXaSelp ^ffrt fj.7j

6vTa, oXov fiaPTiv, ao<pbv, larpov.
^ Plutarch, vit. Alcib. xvii., records the legend that 'Socrates the philosopher
and Meton the astronomer both augured ill of the Sicilian expedition, Socrates
'
being warned by his familiar spirit, Meton either by reasonable forecast or some
kind of divination. Meton feigned madness, and, taking a torch, made as if
he would burn down his house, or, as others say, actually burned it.
' This is pointed out clearly by W. Siiss in his excellent dissertation De
personarum antiq. com. Att. usu atque, origine, Bonn 1905, from which I have
borrowed freely here.
^ Unless we count e^-fifi^XwKas (137) and Toi^Ti/j.^Xufn.ii'ov (139). Professor Taylor
(Varia Socratica, 1911, Essay iv.) seems to me to make far too much of a few
points like this. I differ altogether from his conclusion that the Glouds is a '
historical document of the first rank (p. 174). '
= Siiss {op. cit.) disputes the use of portrait masks in the Old Comedy, arguing
that the conventional grotesque masks of the Comedy of Menander could not
have been invented for realistic plays of that type, but must have been
traditional on the Attic stage. Anyhow, the above-mentioned features are not
referred to in the text of the Clouds. For the general point see below,
p. 169.
be inferred from various passages that Socrates was actually
represented as a pale and emaciated skeleton like his disciple
Chaerephon.^
The secret of these curious facts was found when it was shown
that the Socrates and Euripides of Aristophanes have several
traits in common which the two actual men certainly did not share,
and that these traits belong to the stock mask of the Learned
alazon.^ The epithet 'Impostor' is twice in the play apphed to
the philosophers,* who, in striking contrast with the real practice
of Socrates, are supposed to dispense mysterious doctrines inside
their Cave of Trophonius. The mask worn by these lean and
unwashed ascetics is not individually characterised it belongs :
to all philosophers on the comic stage,* as well as to the other types

we have above enumerated.
With regard to the portrayal of Socrates in the Clouds, there
isone special consideration which ought to put us very much on
our guard against errors due to mistaking this representation for
a likeness. It is more than possible that the mask of the learned
sophist, as we see it in this play, isinfluenced by some corresponding
figure in the SiciUan Mime of the school of Epicharmus. Now,
in Sicily and Lower
most famous exponents of secret
Italy, the
wisdom were the Pythagoreans, a mystical and religious school
not clearly distinguishable from the Orphic sectaries. The founder,
Pythagoras, is said to have been the first man to call himself a
philosopher, a '
lover of wisdom," disclaiming the title of '
wise
man ' {ao<p6';) with what must have seemed to his enemies an
'
ironical ' mock modesty, flattering a secret pride.^ The austerities
of the Pythagorean Ufe made their school the constant butt of the
1 Ll. 1112, 1011-1018 may imply this, as Siiss thinks (p. 11).
- The Scholiast on Clouds, 363, where the Chorus praise Socrates, Sn Ppeveia.
r' iv raiffiv oSoTs, is explicit : (Mv iari tvv aXal^dvoiv. Cf. Schol. on Lysistr. 8S7,
^pevdieTai.' dXafoi/i/fws epi-KTerai. See for this subject Ribbeck, Alazmi, pp. 11 ff.
3 102 ; Pheid. roils dXafiras
Toi>s uix/3iu»'i'as Totis dvvirod/iTovs Xêis,
dv KaKoSat/uov XwKparrjs /cai Xaipeipuv.
Schol. ad loc. : 6.\(il;6vas- . . . eUlrras S^ Tois <f>i.\o(r6ôvs dXafivas /caXei, iwel
X^yeiv iwayy^Woi/Tai. irepl i&v oix {(raaif. ij Sri ae/xvci ôvtes ijfl9i; dXafixf s SokoOo-iv.
1492 : Streps, sei <r^6dp' etc' aXa^6ves.
* omnes enim philosophi scenici secundum regtilam certae cuiusdam
Siisa, p. 28,
normae mutati sunt.

= See F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy
(1912), p. 186, note 3.
writers of the Middle Coinedy,i who laughed at their pallor, their

vegetarian diet, their alleged dishke of washing, and above all their
priggish pietism. Theseus in Euripides' Hippolytus expresses the

plain man's distrust of this form of alazoneia, as it showed itself
in the Orphic.^ If we are right in suspecting that the traits of the

'
Sophist's ' mask were partly made up in the Sicilian Mime,* it
follows that the Clouds gives no support whatever to any theory

that the real Socrates was tinged with Orphism or Pythagoreanism.
The special features borrowed from these schools or sects belong
to the mask itself, not to any of the historic characters who are made
by Aristophanes to wear it.
Some ancient critics saw clearly enough that Socrates is a '

'
mask, and not a portrait. The author of the scholium on Clouds,

96, puts the whole point in a nutshell. Commenting on the hne
where Strepsiades speaks of the philosophers as the men who say '
the sky is an oven he says '

This was anticipated by Kratinus
; :
'
in his play, the Panoptai, who says it in satirising the philosopher

Hippon.* Hence some conjecture that Aristophanes was not led
to compose the Clouds to satisfy any enmity, considering that he
has not merely put in no individual or appropriate trait, but has
not even taken up any accusation which appUes to Socrates. The
two accusations he does put forward are calling the sky an oven, :
and professing to be able to teach the weaker as well as the stronger

argument. The former of these might be brought against any
c
1
The passages are collected in Diels, Fragmente d. Vorsokrr (1906),
i. p. 291 S.
2
948 a-i Sti Beounv lis irepiafftis S>v &v^p
îvu ; ail aii}(j>poiv KoX KaKwv dKriparos ;
ovK &v viffol/xr]'' ToitTi aois Kd/nrois ^7(»i
deoiai, TpoffSels &iia$lav tppoveiv xaKus.

fijdri vvv otfxet Kol Si' dîx"^ ^"P^s
o-iToist KaTT^Xcu', 'Opîa t' HvaKr' (xuv

pdKxeve TToXXSc ypa/ji.iJidTiiiv ti/j-Qv Kairvovs'
iirel y' ^\7}09i)S. Tois Sk Taioirovs 4yii

<peiyuv irpocpavSi irdffi. Bripeiovcn ykp
alaxp^ fxrixaviiiievoi..
cefivois \6yoi(ny,
3 Aristotle, Poetics, 5, tells us that the influence
of Epicharmus and Phormis
important way in the days of Krates, a genera-
affected Attic Comedy in a very
earlier than Aristophanes. See below, p. 217.
tion
* Probably, then, the Learned Pedant was
akeady familiar to theoomic
the Connus oi Ameipsias, produced the m
stage of Kratinus. The Chorus
in
Clouds, consisted of 0ô.n^ra.. Cf. Starkie
sanie year as the first edition of the
on Glovds, 94, (ppavnaT-fipiov.
philosopher ; the latter does not touch philosophy at all. The philo-
sophers do not profess to make able speakers ; that is rather the
speciahty of rhetoric' This is a very enUghtened piece of criticism.
It may safely be said that, if the name '
Socrates '
did not occur in
the text of the play, so far from our being tempted to identify the
philosopher of the Clouds with Socrates, any competent student could
convincingly prove,first, that no individual sophist or philosopher
was here portrayed, and second, that while Protagoras, Prodicus,

Archelaus, Diogenes of ApoUonia, and others have all contributed
something to the mixture, the real Socrates has contributed hardly
anything. If the hst of dramatis personae in the MSS. had con-
tained the name Socrates, some editor with universal approval
would have substituted 'A Sophist.'
This casting of the Sophist or Philosopher for the role of Learned
Impostor helps to explain the pecuUar economy of the Clouds.
The two Agdnes in this play (between the Just and Unjust
Eeason, and Strepsiades and Pheidippides) are both postponed
to the second half, after the Parabasis. The main bulk of the
earher part is constructed on the lines of the duologue of Bufioon
and Impostor. Its theme is the instruction of Strepsiades by the
Dottore, Socrates. For nearly six hundred hnes^ these two are
(apart from the Chorus) the sole interlocutors. Strepsiades plays
Buffoon with all the regular accompaniments of this role —the
afEected stupidity, the broad jokes and asides, and so forth. Socrates
has the pontifical airs of the pedant, and the intolerable conceit
of superior wisdom, which, when disclosed, turns out to be either
blasphemous or absurdly trivial. Just as in the idea of the play
we have already pointed out an inversion of the New Zeus motive,
so its structure too is an inversion of the regular plan, the Agon
being kept to the end. This exceptional arrangement is dictated
by the subject. The
between the elder and younger
struggle
generation, the father and son, cannot be fought out till the pre-
tensions of the sophist have been completely exposed and for this ;
exposure the Bufioon-Impostor type of scene is appropriate. In

form, then, the Agon is not between Strepsiades and Socrates
but, as we have said before, Socrates is in spirit the Antagonist
' The last scene of the Prologue (221 ff.), the Parados,
the long scene in
Anapaests (314-456), an iambic scene (478-509), and two iambic scenes after the
Parabasis, down to 812, where Pheidippides enters.
or principle of evil.
So, here again, we have a case in which the
arch-Impostor and the Antagonist are identical. The destruction
of his house, if not of himself, by fire, is
an appropriate
ending, if we think of the Antagonist-Impostor as, in a sense,
a
Pharmakos.
Oneof the most curious things in all literary history is the way
in which Plato, writing philosophy in dialogue form under the
influence of the SiciUan Mime as practised by Sophron, exactly
reversed the role of Socrates, and spent his early life as a man of
letters in setting his
master before us in the opposite character of
the eiron.^ Socrates was to him the one man in the Greece of
Aristophanes' days who really practised the Delphic precept Know '
thyself —that
precept which, in his analysis of the spectator's
emotion in witnessing Comedy,^ he says is violated by every type
of impostor. Socrates alone did not profess to know what he did not
know, and his devoted follower wrests the weapon from his enemies'
hands and turns it against themselves. They had attacked Socrates
for his '
irony,' in which their meaner spirits could only read the
hidden pride that apes humihty. Plato would show them what
this irony really was and as a consequence of his treating S.:5Crates
;
in this light, the word irony lost its necessarily bad association
'
'
with cunning of a low sort and came to acquire the meaning it

has to-day. A dialogue such as the Euthydemus is simply a farcical
mime, exposing the alazoneia of the two sophists, Euthydemus and
Dionysodorus, in a spirit not far removed from Aristophanic Comedy.^
' Xenophon already has Socrates as the converter of all sorts of cUazones to
better ways {Memorabilia, i. 7 iviviceîineffa S^ el koX dXafoveias iTorpitTuv Toit
:
trvp6iiTas ApeT^s but his tone, as usual, is the evangelist's,

^Tri/icXetirflai irpoiTpeirev),
not the mime-writer's, and he sees Socrates as a preacher, not as an Eiron.

2 This'passage is quoted at length below, p. 209. »*|
' It is worth noticing that Socrates in the Euthydemus (277 d) represents the
sophists as initiators, executing a. preliminary dance of dialectic round the

bewildered young Kleinias, as the Korybants dance round the novice in the
ceremony called 6p6vuffis. This is taken straight from the initiation scene of the
Clouds, where Socrates puts Strepsiades through this very ceremony. Still more
curious, in the same connection, is the later passage (285 A £f. ) where Socrates
says that if the sophists know how to ' destroy (iôWiyai) men in the sense of
'
turning them from foolish rogues into wise and good people— and evidently they
do possess this art of destruction {(peSpov riva rat S\eepov)—theii, if the young
men shrink from the ordeal, he himself, being old, will submit to Dionysodorus,'
as if to Medea the Golohian. Let him destroy me, and if he pleases boil me,
provided he will turn me out a good man This motive of regeneration by
!
'
cooking an old man into a youth we have also seen in Aristophanic Comedy.
L
^
The Socrates who will live for ever is the Socrates of Plato, a figure
as different from the hero of Xenophon's well-meaning and dull
gospel as the philosophised Christ of St. John is from the Christ of
the synoptics. He is a work of art, the creation of a great dramatic
genius. How much is due to the creator we shall never know

but we shall do well to think sometimes of Plato as a mime-writer,
casting Socrates for the role of eiron. At any rate, it is not hkely
that we can add anything whatever to our knowledge of the historic
^lôcrates from the Clouds.
78. The Learned Doctor : Euripides
The mask, then, to which the name '

Socrates '
is here attached
is that of the pretender to more than ordinary wisdom or cleverness
{(To^ba). It fits just as well that other archpriest of cleverness,
Euripides, whose dialectics filled the common man with suspicion
tinged with awe —a feehng that they were altogether '
too clever
by half.' We can, indeed, never be sure that our picture of Euripides
as the austere hermit of the cave on Salamis is not, like almost all
the anecdotes of his career, an invention of the same comic tradition
which shows us Socrates as the pale and lean mystagogue of the
Cave of Thought. It is not for nothing,' says Socrates in the
'
Republic, that Tragedy in general is regarded as sophon, and

'
Euripides as pre-eminent in Tragedy.' ^ To later ages Euripides

was known as '
the philosopher of the stage.' ^ The ancients called
him, after their manner, '
the pupil of Anaxagoras, Prodicus, and
Protagoras, and the companion of Socrates.' ^ When the moderns
add Diogenes of ApoUonia, we have very much the group of sophists
who go make up the Socrates of the Clouds. Perhaps it was
to ' '
this Socrates who never went to the theatre except to hear a

'
'
new piece by Euripides.*

This other great example of the Learned Impostor comes before
us as Antagonist in the Frogs. Euripides has there some of the
' Rep. viii. 568 A : ovk irbs ... ^; re rpayifiSla iXus (To<t>bv SoksT clmi Kal 6
Ei5/)i7rf5i/s 5La<p4pti>i' iv adTjj.
Atheu. iv. 158 E, where Euripides, Socrates, and Diogenes
^ 6 (TKiji'i/cJs tj)i\6<ro<l>o!,
are all quoted as recommending a sparing diet ; xiv. 561 A, Euripides is quoted
for the philosophic doctrine of Love. Sext. Emp. Math. i. 288.
^ Vita, i. 10, Sohw. : dxouo-TJjs yeyijicnos 'Avaâydpav Kal UpoSUov Kal UpuraySpov
Kal XuKpirov! iratpos. * Aelian,
V. H. ii. 13.
traits of the same stock mask. To mention one instance his :
pedantic (and false) objection to the prologue of the Choephori:

that 7]Km and Karepxofiai are two words for one meaning, and the
same cavil against the phrase icXvet,v uKova-at. These are of a
piece with his disquisition to his Kinsman in the Thesmophoriazusae
on the difference between seeing and hearing/ and again with the
grammatical subtleties of Socrates, who complains of the use of
the same word in Greek for cock and hen.^
79. The Miles Qloriosus : Aeschylus
Euripides' adversary in the Frogs, Aeschylus, though of course

more sympathetically treated, still wears, like all these other
historical personaUties, a stock mask. It is the visage surmounted
by the dreadful crest of the Soldier. The untranslatable chorus
which precedes the entrance of the adversaries is full of the thunder
of war, '
the strife of words with glancing helmets and plumes of
horsehair,' and the bellowing of the champion whose mane '
bristles
to a crest on his shaggy neck.' * He enters literally bellowing

threats of destruction, and is with difficulty quieted down into
inarticulate rumbUngs. Euripides, at the beginning of the Agon
proper, at once opens by offering to prove that Aeschylus is
fire
an alazon and a cheat,* who bluffed his audience with effects stolen
from Phrynichus. Then he stuffed his plays with phrases Uke '
shields made of twelve thicknesses of ox-hide, with terrific eyebrows

and crests and bogey faces, Scamanders and trenches, and bronze-
wrought griffins upon shields.' Dionysus admits he has lain
awake at nights wondering what kind of bird a horse-cock '
1 Thesmoph. 5 flf. This instance is taken from Suss, op. cit. p. 21. Of. also
Mazon, p. 126.
2 Clouds, 659. I take this opportunity of suggesting a restoration of the lines
which must have been lost after 661, as follows :
Streps. iXk' olS' iymye T&ppev', el p,T] iMivo/ia.!.-
oKeKTpiav
Kptis, rpAyos, ravpos, Kiav, . . . 661
<Socr. ivlaxes aKSa ttus to, d'^Xe' aB (caXefs ;
'
Streps, rdye e-rjKe', ots, at^, /Sous, Kiuv, aXeKTpiav . . .>

Socr. opfs S x<£(rx«s ; i"^'' ''£ BifKuav KaXets 662
iXeKTpiova Kara raiirb Koi rbv (ippeva.
3 818 : ô-rot 5' IttvoUûv re Xbyuv KopvBaloKa vekri crx^pSaKdiiuv re Tapa^6na

ipyuv Ml^^^' 2T7ro/3<iô;'a ^ptfaj S' airoKS/iOV Xo^mj
. .
a^CKiinara. t' . . . .
XoiriaiJxeco X"'™'') 'f'^- «,„...,

„ v ,
iUyâ ^v dXafuic Kal (jihai. 919, dXafoyeias.

i/tt
* 908 rovToi' Si Tpwr'
: \ uis
(Mppaledryon) might be.^ Euripides next brags of having exercised
the arts of the Learned Doctor on the body of Tragedy, '
swollen
as she was with vauntings and indigestible language.' He put her
on a spare diet to take down her weight, and then fed her up again
with monodies and a simple democratic style of dialogue.^
Aeschylus in his reply boasts that the audience he bequeathed to
Euripides breathed spears, and shafts, and white-plumed crests,
'
and casques, and greaves, and seven-oxhide courage,' because he

showed them the Seven against Thebes, a drama full of Ares,' and '
the Persians. He was the successor of Homer, who taught the

arming of men and produced so many heroes, Lamachus among
them,
r To us the plays of Aeschylus do not seem so exclusively warhke.
The explanation is that we have here the Vahant Soldier breathing
scorn upon the Learned Doctor. The economy of the Frogs is like
that of the Knights. Each play shows us two alazones of different
types competing for the favour of the Athenian pubhc of the theatre
L(Pionysus) or of the Pnyx (Demos). The rivals try to outdo one
another in boasting, while their judge plays the parenthetic part
of Bufioon, and makes a mock of both.
80. The Cook : the Sausage-seller, Agoracritus
We turn next to the two adversaries of the Knights, whose title
to the epithet alazon will not be disputed. We have already

pointed out that the Sausage-seller is essentially a Cook, his trade
being chosen that he may exercise his art in the rejuvenation of
Demos. Here it must be added that, throughout the tradition of
the SiciUan Mime and of the later Comedy of Greece and Eome,
^ The hippalectryon oonies again in the description of the triple-crested officer
n the Peace (Parah. II. ), 1177, fcSra <j>eiya irpSros Siawep |ou96s iTToXem-pviiv roiis |
X60OIIS ffeluv. \6<t>os is of course used both of the cock's comb and of the
horse's mane and the helmet crest was made of horse-hair (i)r7r4Xo0os).
;
^ 939 (Eurip. : aXK' ilis -rrapiXaôv t^v t^X""!" vapk ffoO rb Trpuror eiBM |
o/5oCiro>' iirti KoinraffiiotTUji Kal prffiaTav iirax6tip, |tcxvara /ih TpumcTov airrjv Kal
rb pdpos d0erXov |
iTuWlois Kal irepi.TaTois Kal TCVTMottn Xewois . . elr' avirpeôv
|
fiovifSlaii ktK.
This cathartic treatment may be compared with the cathartic method of

Socrates,whose purging of the false conceit of wisdom is compared to the
methods of the physician in Plato, Sophist, 230c. In the 'Apology of
Protagoras (in Plato's Theaetetus, 166 b), which is probably based on what
'
Protagoras actually said, the sophist as educator is a physician of the soul,

compared to the doctor who gives health to the body.
the Cook is one of the principal species of alazon.^ An exponent

of the art in a play of Alexis ^ claims that the Cook should be enrolled
among the '
sophists,' alike as professor of a learned subject and as
artist. Others assert that the Cook must needs be a philosopher
and a psychologist, and indeed that the culinary art embraces the
whole catalogue of human sciences. Like the Doctor, he dehghts
in using archaic and unintelhgible terms, and draws on the Homeric
vocabulary fiepo'ire<; for '
persons,' BaiTvfji,eov for '
guest,' /îjXa for
'
ovXoxvTai for salt,' etc.^ There are evidences in the
sheep,' ' •'
fragments of Epicharmus that the mask of the Learned Cook

belongs also to the Sicilian Mime, and he has an ancestor in the
Maison of the Megarian farce, who must have figured in scenes of
heroic travesty with the glutton Heracles. ._ \
The scheme of the Knights demands that the Sausage-seller shall

be a cook of the lowest possible station. He is not a cordon-hku,
and his culture is deficient ; but he makes great play with the
technicalities of his trade,* and exhausts the unpleasant part of its
vocabulary in threats of what he will do to his opponent. At any
rate, we have the same grounds as in the other cases to suppose
that he is primarily the Cook, and only secondarily Agoracritus.
Ivo Bruns ^ points out that the historic name is not given till the
whole contest is over (v. 1259) ; up to that moment he is nothing
more than '
a Sausage-seller.' Then, as the agent of the great
metamorphosis of Demos that follows, he himself is transfigured
to the height of his new dignity.
1 Athen. vii. 290b : aXaôviKiv S' iarl irav rb tCiv /iayeipav (jtOXov. Poseidippus,
Xopeiovffai. frag. 24 M
twv T]Smii.aT<jiv: \
iravTOiv KpaTia-rSv ianv ex fiayeipiKr; |
dXaôrela. See Ribbeok, Alazon, pp. 18 ff. ; Legrand, Daos (Paris, 1910), 125 S.,
where the references are collected.

° Frag. 146, 14 : els rois ao(pi.ctTa.s top /iiycLpov iyyp64>a.
3 Alexis, frag. 140, 377 F oiSh ^ttuv twv larpuv ei's
16. Athenaeus ix. :
a\aôv€i.av These magnificent pretensions of the

Kal 6 Trapa 7,i>nr6.Tpif fiayeipos.
Cook explain the prominence of the art of Cookery, as an analogue of Rhetoric,
actual mime or comedy
in the Gorgias, where, by the way, Plato may have some
in view when he suggests an Agon between Doctor
and Cook iri p,h otv rriv :
îXriCTa atria tv cibiiari. eldivat,

larpiK^v ii d<poTrouKT, vTodiSvKe Kal TpaawoidTai. rd
re Kal larpbv ^ h dpSpdnp olirto, dvo'^Tots
&(tt' d Uoi iv TTOiffi Siayoivli^creaL iôirothv
<riTlwy Kal voPVPV, o larpbs
&ffwep oi waTSe, irbrepos iTalei nepl rHy xPVrrQy ^ o
diôTTOiis, Xi/i.? &y dToeaveh rhv larpbv.
The metaphor in i«5^5v« ('impersonate )
cf. W. H. Thompson, Qorgia.^,
ad he. (464 d).
is taken from the stage :
fidyapoi \iyei, 294,

* This is repeatedly pointed out in the ScUlia, vv. 289, us
1236.
301, 315, 345, 370, 372, 414, 708, 919-22, 1083,
5 Lit. Portrdt, p. 169 ff.
81. The Parasite : Gleon
Cleon, the Paphlagonian (' wind-bag ') in the Knights, is nothing

if not an impostor and a braggart.^ His special type seems to be
that of the Flatterer (Kolax).^ In the prologue the slave describes
him as follows. Demos has bought a slave, a Paphlagonian
'
tanner, a slanderous rascal of the deepest dye. This windy hide-

bag, as soon as hehad mastered the old man's weaknesses, began to
lick the boots of his lord and master, to fawn, and wheedle, and
flatter, and humbug him with scraps of the subtlest leather-parings.'
He induces Demos to sit down to dinner, sets before him deUcacies

prepared by the other slaves, and takes all the credit for instance, ;
the Spartan cake which the speaker (who represents the General,
Demosthenes) had kneaded at Pylos. Then he drives away the
other slaves, and will suffer no one else to attend to his master,
but ' stands over Demos at his dinner with a leather fly -flap to scare
away the pohticians,' ^ He croons oracles to soothe the supersti-
tious old fellow when he has reduced him to a state of imbecil-
; and,
ity, mahgns his fellow-slaves and gets them whipped, not forgetting
to blackmail them under promise of his protection.

It is not clear whether the mask of the fawning Parasite is native
to Attic Comedy. More probably it took shape in societies of a

more aristocratic type. The word for Flatterer {kolax) originally
meant simply a courtier or attendant, and was appUed in an honour-
able sense * to the companions of princes in the East and in Asia
Minor. Thus, we hear from Klearchos of Soli ^ that all the princes
of Cyprus entertained holakes of good birth
— ' a possession very
suitable to a tyrant.' All these kolaJces were descended from two
1 He ia called dXafuK by the Chorus in the Parados (269), and himBelf

threatens to harass his adversary with his swaggerings wepteXtf : a' dXofoj'eiais,
290.
^ Schol. on KnigMs, is : xiKaWeV . . iKoXdKcve ydp. 50, toDto, 07;(ri, KoXaicciJwv
^Xeye t6v Atjîov, etc.
' 59: ^vp<rLvr]v l^w SeiTrcoOi/Tos Ferris AirocroîT rois pijro/jas. Athen. vi. 257 b,
I
describing the xiXa/ces in attendance on a yonng man, speaks of one as scaring off
the flies. Cleon is said to perform the same service to the old jurymen in the
Wasps, 596 : KXiuv 6 XfKpaJiSd/uos . . . ^vXimi. Sid x^'P^s ^X^ '"'' âs p^vlas
* For TrapdiriTos as an honourable title Athenaeus (vi. 234

c ff. ) cites various
authorities including a decree of Aloibiades in the Heraoleum at Kynosarges,
referring to the irapdiriroi who figured in Aristophanes' AoiroXeir.
^ Athen. vi. 255 f. Cf. Eibbeck, Kolax, p. 5 ff.
families at Salamis, the Gerginoiand the Promalanges, of whom

the former acted as the King's Ears, picking up
whatever they
could hear in pubUc places, while the latter sifted their reports.^
From such base occupations the Max acquired his menial humiUty^
of character, which shrinks from no dirty work, as it ministers to
the pride and vanity of its royal patron.^
At Athens, Eibbeck ^ remarks, the term kolax seems to have
been introduced not long before Aristophanes' time. Prominent_^
Kimon and the Syracusan Kephalos,
citizens of great wealth, like
kept open house, and no doubt were surrounded by a miniature
court of dependants, who had some of the character of the eastern
parasite. The type seems to have been fixed on the stage of Old
Comedy in the Kolahes of
EupoUs (422 b. c), which had a whole
chorus them, dancing attendance on the notorious son of
of
Hipponicus.^ In the Knights, the Athenian Demos is emphatically 4,
warned of its resemblance to a tyrant, and represented with traits

that might be borrowed from those Cyprian and Asiatic princes
described by Klearchos. Where the sovereign people is tyrant,
there the demagogue plays the mean and fawning part of courtier.
Aristotle* draws out the comparison at length. In the extreme
type of democracy, he says, where the decrees of the people, and not
the written constitution, are the final authority, demagogues make
their appearance, and the Demos becomes a monarch. Hence
kolakes are held in honour. The position of the Demos is analogous
to the tyranny of a sole ruler the demagogue is the counterpart
;
of the flattering courtier.^ This passage brings out that the figure^
of the kolax comes from a monarchical and aristocratic type of
society. The mask is transferred to the flattering demagogue by^
way of analogy. Probably it came into Attic Comedy from the
^ Klearchos says : Trii> KoKaKelav ravreici woulv to, ijOr] tSsv koKAkuv Kara^povriTtKuv
6vTuiv tQv irepl airoifs . . . ffTjfieiov d^ rd Taz^ {jTO/z^veiv elddras oTa ToXfJLWffi. Td d^
Tuv KoKaKevoiUvuv ifupvaoinivuv Tjj'/coXaKeijt, xaiii/ous koX Kevois ttoiowto (?), irivTOiv
iv {jirepoxv ""a/)' airoh iiroXa/i^dveaSai, KarajKevdl^cadai, Athen. vi. 255 D.

" Kolax, p. 9.
3 Mein., Comici, i. 135.
* Politics, Z (A), iv. 3ff., 1292a, 4ff. Ribbeok, Kolax, p. 10.

i d' odv ToiovTos S^/jlos, &t£ /xdvapxes &v, fT/rei jiovapxelv Sia rb &pxe(T6ai. iirb
5 jxtj
vifiov, Kal yberai 5£0-n-OTi.K6s, liVre ol KdXaKes IvTi/wi, xal itrTtv 6 Srip.os oBtos iviXo-ôv
Tuv novapxiSiv T-T? TvpavvlSi. Sib Kal rb ^Bos rb airb . . . Kal 6 dvp.ayoyyb<: Kal 6
K6\ai ol airol Kal&viXoyov. Knights 1111, ffi A^/ie /caXî' 7' ?xets |
i-pxiv, bre irAvra
&v\ep(»Troi. SeSlaul a' (ba\irep &vSpa Tipavvov. \

dXV eiirap&yayoi d \
eaTrcvbficpis tc
Xai\peis KiiawaTdi/ieyos. ...

stage of Epicharmus and the courtly society of Syracuse. Epi-
charmus, in his Hofe or Wealth,^ has aheady a full-length picture
of the Parasite, that humbler variety of kolax who earned a place
at the tables of the great by making fun and submitting to every
sort of indignity.
The passage quoted above from the prologue of the Knights refers
to the great instance of Cleon's alazoneia —that boast which the

sober Thucydides calls '
mad,' though he has recorded its success.^
When Cleon undertook to capture the Spartans at Sphacteria

within three weeks, and did so, he was bitterly attacked. Thucy-
didesmakes out that his success was due to luck * Aristophanes ;
represents him as stealing the palm of victory from Demosthenes,

who had done all the hard work.* In this respect he is like the
Impostors who claim an unmerited share of the feast in so many
Aristophanic plays. His fate at the end of the Knights, as we have
seen, is r.lmost identical with that of the typical Impostor of the
Plutus.^
82. The absence of individual characterisation
Of all these major Impostors with historical names —Lamachus,

Socrates, Euripides, Aeschylus, Agoracritus, Cleon —the only one
represented by anything Hke a recognisable portrait is Cleon. It
is just in this case, too, that Aristophanes expKcitly says that the
mask worn by the actor was not a portrait of the demagogue's
real features.* Why
not ? The excuse that no costumier could
be found who was willing to make anything so terrific as a portrait-
mask of Cleon, is a joke and not to be taken Kterally. As Aristo-
phanes says, Cleon will be recognised anyhow.' The identity
'
' Frag. 34, 35, Kaibel. Athen. vi. 235 B.

^ Thuc. iv. 39, 3, Kal toO KX^wcos Kalirep /iai>i.iiSr}s ottra ^ lnr6(7x«ns iriptj. Sohol.
on Knights, 76, ird\iv ttjs XliiXov /i^ynvrjTai, iird 6 KWwc iv air-j s-vvex^s ^XafoveiJtTo.
' Cf. F. M. Gornford, Thucydides MytUsloricm (London, 1907), chaps, vi. and
vii.
* Knights, 54, 1200, etc.
' See above, p. 151. Knights, 1401, kIlk tuv âXavelav tUtiu t6 "KoirpLov. Plut.
951, Just Man: Kal ix-qv, iveiSii rijp jroi'OTrXfoj' rijv in^v \ fxw /SaSffets, els ri
âXaveiov rpê, |
lireir' iKct Kopv(pam iffrriKi^s 64poV |
Kal iyOi yap eCxov ttJi- a-Taa-tP
Tairriv vori.
° Knights, 230, Kal ii^ SiSid'' oiyip iariv i^riKaaixAvos.
iirb ToS y&p airbv oiBels ij6e\e
Sôi;s
Tuv CKsvoiroidv ehdirai, Tivnis ye /xî/

yvu(rffi^(TeTai' t6 ykp Biarpov Seîliv.
of the Paphlagonian is transparent indeed,, he is actually named

;
later in the play (976). The addition of a portrait-mask could

add nothing whatever to any danger there might be to the author
or producer of the Knights. I unders"tand this passage to mean,
not that portrait-masks were usual in the Old Comedy,^ but that
the Paphlagonian's character is so exceptionally Uke the real Cleon
that the audience might expect to see Cleon's actual features. They
are reassured by being told that nothing so frightful is to be
anticipated.^
If Cleon's features were not reproduced, much less would there
be any point in having a portrait-mask for any other of these
characters with historical names for, as we have seen, the ;
individual characteristics of the actual men are not brought upon

the stage. The clearest case is '
Socrates.' Is it likely that the
actor would be dressed in the well-known Silenus-like visage and
figure of Socrates, when almost everything he had and do
to say
was notoriously foreign to the real philosopher's nature and pur-
suits
? So again is it with Euripides. Nearly all the personal
jokes at his expense —his greengrocer mother, his unfaithful wife,
^ That the Old Comedy had portrait-masks is alleged by Pollux, iv. 143, and
PlatoniuB v. Siacfi. KOifj,. 13, iv fih yap ry irdXaig, eficafoc ret Trpoa-airela rots KUfUfi-
SoviJ.ivoi.1, Xva irplv n xal Tois iiwoKpiTO-i elTeiv o Kup,ifSoiiievoi ex ttjs o/iOiirT/Tos riji
6\j/eus KardS-riXos »• But coupled with the absurd remark that

this statement is
in the Middle and New Comedies the masks were specially made not to look
like any human beings at all, for fear that they should by chance resemble some
'Macedonian official.' The New Comedy masks, as any one can see, represent
certain stock characters with definite traits of temperament, conventionally
expressed by exaggeration of feature. No 'Macedonian official' could have
been such a fool as to think that any individual was pointed at in the irate
or, if he had
fathers, prodigal sons, pandars, etc., of this Comedy of manners ;
the distorted features of the mask would not have protected the
thought so,
author.
2 Cleon's mask may have been specially copied from representations of
Typhon, to whom he repeatedly
is compared Knighta, 511, the Chorus say of
:
causes bad
Aristophanes yeyyaiws vpbs rbv Ti;0S xapfl Kal tt)v ipiii\r,i>. Typhon
<"»
winds so does 6 Ua4>Uta<' (Paphlagon) Knights, 430 ff. {Ckon), ?|eiM' y^P
;
;
Kal ptiyas KaBUis, opioO Taparroiv ttjv re yw ical TW BdXaTTav eiKTJ

\ap.Trpbs fjSr;
m
\
kt\., where the metaphor is drawn out at

some length. He bursts ont
thunder {iXatrl^povr' dpappr,ypt,s iirr,, 626), and raises a
wave before him {CiBCv
Tap&TTWv Kal kvk&v, 692) ; his 'smoky boastings' {ôXoKoiî^lai, 696)
KoKbKviia Kal
of Typhon was
might recall the ôUa^ Kepavvh or the volcano. The conqueror
either Zeus or Heracles, to whom Aristophanes
likens himself his conflict m
at Wai>ps, 1030 ff., where Cleon is a complicated monster with a
with Cleon,
heads,' like snakes curling round his head.
As flatterer,
'hundred flatterers'
1030
Cleon is compared to the dog. KnigUi, 416, 1017, 1023,
fi'.
and so forth —were false and known to be false by every one in the
theatre. If Aristophanes had meant to put the real Socrates or the
real Euripides on the stage, he would have drawn the character
with that amount of distorted resemblance which is necessary to
caricature. Then the visible features might or might not be added,
according to the prevaihng convention of the stage. But, in point
of fact, his Socrates and Euripides are not caricatures at all so :
far from there being an exaggerated likeness, there is no likeness

^whatever. The names are affixed to stock characters with tradi-
j_tional traits. It is incredible that the visible masks should have
been reahstic particularly if we remember that the original purpose
;
of the mask was probably to disguise the performer's face,^ and its
later use was to express the traits of the stock character represented.
The whole history of ancient portraiture, which hardly presents
a single reahstic hkeness before the end of the fifth century, is against
the portrait-mask in Old Comedy.
Shakespeare's treatment of Sir John Falstafi is a parallel case.
Of the real Sir John FastoM, the magnificent knight ' who
'
bequeathed estates to Magdalen College, Oxford, Fuller ^ writes :
'
To avouch him by many arguments vahant is to maintain that the
sun is bright.' He adds that '
the stage has been overbold with
his memory, making him a thrasonical puff, and emblem of mock
valour.' The truth is, of course, that this great comic figure owes
his character and features, his wit, his cowardice, his devotion to
sack and to Doll Tearsheet, even his baldness and round belly,
not to the valiant benefactor of Magdalen but to the stock mask
of the Bufioon, with some borrowings, jjarhaps, from that
thrasonical puff, the Boastful Soldier.^ Shakespeare did not send
his property man to study portraits of Sir
John Fastolf. Neither,
we may be sure, did Aristophanes tell his
mask-maker to copy the
features of Euripides, or Aeschylus, or Lamachus. We must imagine
all these historical characters wearing masks conventionally belong-
1 Cf. Demoath., Falsa Legal., 433 : toO Karapirov Kvpij^luvos, Ss ey rais TrofiwaU
&vev ToO vpocilnrov KUiidjêi,
2 Worthies of England (1811), ii. p. 131.
' Der Mimas, i. p. 863 ff. I do not know whether the analogy has
Cf. Eeich,
been noticed between the scenes in Henry IV. where the Chief Justice
expostulates with Falstaff, and the episode in some versions of Punch and Judy,
in which the Chief Justice appears, after the discomfiture of Jack Ketch, to
arrest Punch, and is derided in the usual way. See Payne Collier, p. 89 note.
ing to the stock types they severally assume—the Boastful Soldier,

the Learned Doctor, the Cook, the Parasite.
83. The Age and Sex Types : the Old Man and the Young Man
When we look at the remaining stock characters of the Old
Comedy, four other types emerge, forming a group characterised
—
not by profession, but by sex and age the Old Man, the Young i
Man, the Old Woman and the Young Woman. We must consider
the members of this group in turn.
We have already seen how the hero of an Aristophanic play is
normally an old man at the beginning, who turns at the end into
a young man, the radiant bridegroom of the Exodos.^ We have
also explained this extraordinary rejuvenation motive by reference
to our supposed ritual in which the Old Year is transformed into the
New. The ritual and the corresponding legends show us that, accord-
ing as the symbolism varies, the Young Man may either be the Old
Man restored to youth, or a distinct person, his successor. In the
latter case, the Young King (Pelops, Oedipus) kills the Old, and
takes the throne with the hand of his wife (Jocasta) or daughter
(Hippodameia). In the plays of Aristophanes, besides the normal
type with the rejuvenated Old Man, we also find in the Clouds
and Wasps the other possibility, the Father and Son. Even here
the rejuvenation motive is still prominent. Strepsiades tries to
assimilate the culture, Philocleon the manners, of the younger
generation. A further interesting point is that in both plays the
principal Agonbetween Father and Son. The son beats his
is
father in the Clouds, and all but kills him in the Wasps.
What here concerns us, however, is that the Young Man is, so
rejuvenated parent. He
to say, identical with his reformed and
ia everytHng that his old father
is not at the outset, and tries to^
become The Young Man has not, in fact, a distinct

at the end.
traditional mask, but is made up of traits
opposed to his father's^
names-Philocleon, Bdelycleon
In one of the two cases, the very
Strepsiades is
-are coined to symboUse the contradiction. If
it is probable
1 leaves the stage before this transformation,
As the hero always
that an actual change of mask was usual. It seems certain m
the cases of
whose entries are announced beforehand,
Demos and Pisthetairos {Birds, 1723),
may be instantly recognised with their new features.
so that they
a stingy rustic, Pheidippides must be an elegant spendthrift.^
PLilocleon is a morose old boor so Bdelycleon is haughty ^ and
;
fashionable. The traits of the Old Man, on the other hand, recur
_^
so regularly as to show that we have to do with a stock mask. The
description of Demos in the prologue of the Knights is typical.'
'
Our master,' says the slave, is a boor in temper, who Uves on '
beans, a testy and morose old man, and rather deaf.' He is super-
stitious and easily deceived by his cunning slave, whose slanders
cause him to beat the other slaves unmercifully.* The Old Men
in the remaining plays are substantially the same type, with one or
another trait thrown into reUef as the subject demands.
Rusticity and boorishness (arypoiKLu) are a constant feature.
Dikaiopolis is a countryman, hating the town to which the war
has confined him. His boorishness is softened for the sake of
contrast with the Acharnians, who have all the more rough and
unpleasant features of the mask. Strepsiades, Uke Georges Dandin,
is the rustic who has married a city madam.^ His son complains
of his moroseness.® He is thrifty to the point of stinginess
another fixed trait of this mask—and
wished to call his son Pheido-
nides, on the principle of the Shandean Hypothesis. He beats
his slave for putting too large a wick in the lamp.'' His superstition
' Cf. Arg. I. to Clouds : vpe(r0uTTis yip iaTiv AypoiKO! ixôfievoi TritiSi dcmicoD
^povy}Htt.Tos yefiovTi Kal t^s eiyevelas eh Tro\vTi\eiai> dTToXeXovjcoTi.
- Wasps, 135 : ûv rpiirovs ippvcLy}xotxeiJ,vi,Kovs ti,v6.s.
^ 40 : vi^v yap iaTi deaTrorris

dypoiKos ipyrfv, Kuo/iorpiif, i,Kp6,xo\o!,
Arjfios irvKviTris, SidKoKov yepbvnov
* 61: fSci Sk xp^lôvs (o UaifAaydiv)' 6 Si yipav mfivWiq.. \

6 5' aurov us opq.
liep-UKKoaKdra, | t^xov TeiroiT/rai. Tois yap li/Sov diyriKpus \
'pevSrj SiapdWei. K^ra
IMSTtyoineea i]ficTs. The word irnKKoav is used again where the Paphlagonian
\
says he ia not afraid so long as ri toC S^/iou irpda-airov /i,aKKo$ KaBi)iJ.evov (376).
Neil remarks {ad loc.) The look on the mask of Demos is foretold.'
:
'
^ Glouds, 43 : Streps, i/iol yap Jjv iypoiKos tjSiittos /3(os . . .
M.eyaK\iom rod iieyaKXiovs

lireir' ly-qiia
d5eX0i5î' S.ypoiKos &v 4^ Atrreois.

* 35 Pheid. irebr, ffl Trdre/p,
tI dvcTKoKaheiS ;
' 56 : Servant. ^Xaioi' ijiuv ovk lve(7T' iv rtp Xi'xi'V.

Streps, ot/ioi' tI y&p /ioi rbv irbTTjv ^ttci \ixvov ;
3eDp' A9' IVo »c\di)S.

Servant. 5ia t( S^ra KXaiaofxai ;
Streps.
vaxeidv hcriBd.! BpvaWlSav. Sri rSiv
This little episode seems designed to bring in the slave-beating motive. It is
repeated in the Parados of the Wasps, 248 ff. Cf. Silas, de Pcrsonarum, 113.
and credulity need no detailed illustration.
Philocleon is the same
type, with the moroseness i
and quick temper exaggerated to
waspishness. The bean-soup which he so
enjoys in his private
law-court is a link between him and Demos, the '
eater of beans.' 2
It the countryman's favourite diet. Trygaeus
is
is more like
Dikaiopolis, a comparatively genial countryman,^
though capable
of hurUng strong language at Zeus for '
sweeping Hellas with the
besom of war.' Pisthetairos is DikaiopoUs again, only still
more
genial and witty.
We need not pursue the series further. As we follow this
character through the plays, we see clearly enough why
Demos
is the only old man who keeps nearly true to type,
as the
morose, testy, old boor. In all the other plays we have
traced him
through, the Old Man's part is the one which Aristophanes
has
written for himself, no matter whether he acted it or not.
Hence
it breaks through the traditional mask, and flowers with much
of the charm and genius of its creator, like the parts that MoUere
wrote for himself in his hghter plays. In the same way, Falstaff
and Mr. Pickwick, who were originally cast for the mask of the
Bald Fool, and designed to be no more than the cause that wit is
in other men, became witty in themselves, lovable, and even wise.
Instances hke these are the best measure we have for creative
genius. The stock mask can be defined in half-a-dozen adjectives,
which no more make a living character than half-a-dozen clothes
make a man. Any dullard can put a dummy inside them and make
it walk and talk upon the stage. In Aristophanes we can see the
dummy touched into life, and the features behind the mask working
with a play of expression very different from the traditional angry I
glare of the morose Old Man.

The Young Man, we possess, is a minor character.
in the plays
He is never the hero. Overshadowed all through by his father,
he is eclipsed at the end, where the old man becomes the bridegroom
^ 106, iirb SvaKoXlai, 942 ovk a3 ffi iraijet x^'^fris fi" Kal SiffKoXos, 873
(7Tpv<t>viv KOl Tpivivov ^8os, 883 iravffdfict'ov t^s SvaKoKlas aTrb riji dpy^s t^v &Ka\-q(l>r)v
2 Knights, 41 Kva/wrpd^, of course, refers primarily to the beans used as

:
counters at elections ; but Dieterioh sees a secondary reference to the 0a/f^ of

Wasps, 814, and points to the analogy of Jean Potage, Hans Wurst, etc., and
other interesting associations, Pulcinella, p. 90.
^ Pax, 190. He introduces himself to Hermes as Tpvyaios 'A$p.ovei!, &fjnrc\-
ovpyis 5ef lis, | o6 aVKOtfi&vrrii oiS' ipaariis irpayfiira;!.

174 THE OEIGnsr OF ATTIC COMEDY
and enjoys the final triumph. The Young Man, of course, has a
long and brilliant future before him in later Comedy, where he will
have his revenge and throw his morose and stingy parent into the
shade. Into that tradition he will carry on his traits of superior
manners, fashionable tastes, and prodigahty. But in the Old
Comedy he seems to acquire these as the antithesis of his parent,
rather than to have a long tradition behind him.
84. The Old Woman and the Young Woman

The Young Woman, as we have seen, hardly appears at all in
Aristophanes, except as the mute person introduced
to be the
bride at the end. She starts into being to pair off with the hero,
as suddenly as her bridegroom is transformed into a suitable mate.
A marriage there has to be, because it is the canonical ending
essential to the ritual of fertility ; but, as nothing in the plot leads
up to it, this female figure has to be conjured into existence just
in time to take her place in the Kdmos. We have indeed one hint
foreshadowing the romantic heroine, in the ' Young Woman ' of
the Ecclesiazusae who disputes the new legal claims of the Old
Woman to the attentions of the Young Man. But this incident
out of the plot. The Young Woman is no heroine,
arises necessarily
and has no further part in the action.
In the two Women plays, the heroines, Praxagora and Lysistrata,
and their companions are married women, apparently in the prime
of life ; for Praxagora, disguised in
male costume, is described by
an unsuspecting witness As a handsome youth with a fair skin.' ^
'
They do not appear to be stock characters, but owe their existence

to the scheme of the plays, which demand a female protagonist.
The most that can be said is that they contribute some hints for
the shrews and termagants of later drama.
The Old Woman, on the other hand, though not a prominent
person in Aristophanes, is ruthlessly caricatured on conventional
lines. 2 Besides her wrinkles and other unpleasant physical traits,

she is regularly drunken and amorous, as well as
shrewish. The
Paralasis of the Clovds gives us definite evidence that she was
a
1 Eccles. 427. Lysistrata (591) speaks as a woman still young.
When she
is called ypavs (506), it is only an insult, which has misled
Suss, De Personarum,
125.
^ See Siiss, De Personarum, 121 ff.
stock figure. Aristophanes there accuses Eupolis of having dragged

the drunken old woman into his Maricas in order that she might
'
'
dance the Jmrdax. He adds that EupoUs had stolen her from
Phryniohus, who had put her in the place of Andromeda in a
parody of the Perseus story. She seems to have figured in another
Comedy as the mother of Hyperbolus.^
85. The list of Stock Masks in the Old Comedy

We have thus collected a Uttle gallery of stock masks :
Aa Old Man, a rustic, testy, morose, stingy, given to beating his

slaves.
An Old Woman, wrinkled and hideous, amorous and drunken,
who dances the kordax.
A Young Woman, a mute person, who appears only as bride in
the final marriage.
A Learned Doctor or Pedant, lean, pale, remote from the world
(Socrates, Euripides).
A Cook (AgoracrituS).
A Parasite (Cleon), probably borrowed from the Dorian tradition,
and the Mime of Epicharmus and his school.
A Swaggering Soldier (Lamachus, Aeschylus).
A
Comic Slave, or pair of slaves (the two slaves in the Knights,
Wasps, Peace, etc. Xanthias in the Frogs, who offers in the prologue
to go through the traditional antics. The minor Bufioon (Euelpides,
etc.), of other plays may take his place, as attendant of the hero).
[The Impostor can hardly be called a stock mask. He is multi-
plied into an indefinite variety of professional types. These, again,
are not stock masks, but generalised from life. They all fill suc-
cessively one fixed role in the main action.]
Before considering this list further, we will glance at the masks

in the New Comedy and observe how this group of types Uves on in
the more compUcated and refined drama of ordinary life.
86. The Masks in the New Comedy

Pollux 2 has preserved a long Ust of the masks worn in the New
Comedy. They are classified under five heads: Old Men (9),
1 Clouds, 555 : irpoa-eels airrv ypaOv fiediai^v rod K6p5aKos otvex', ft"
ipiviX"^ iriiXai irewoliijx' , ^v Ti ktjtos HcrBicv.
and Schol. ad loe. ^ iv. 143.

Young Men (11), Slaves (7), Old Women (3), Young Women (14).
In each group there are minor gradations of age, and varieties of
complexion and feature, which conventionally represented differences
of temperament and character. If we look through this list and
pick out those that are also distinguished by their profession, we

shall find nearly all the stock masks we are now familiar with —all,
in fact, except the Learned Doctor.

Old Men. — There are two varieties of Pappos. The only old man
with a specified profession is the Pandar {nropvoôa-Ko'i), who has
a bald forehead or pate, with crisp, curly hair, a long beard, the eye-
brows drawn together and one of them raised, a slight grin on his
lips, and the expression of a busybody. This figure, of course,
belongs to the romantic plots of New Comedy.
Young Men. — The Rustic youth (dypoiKo<i) has a dark complexion,
broad lips, snub nose, and hair cut in a ring. Next to him comes
the Swaggering Soldier (a-TparidTrj^ koI aXa^cov), whose special
characteristic is the hair which nods in a crest over his brow, giving
the mask its technical name,
Shaken-over (eVto-eta-ro?).^ Oddly
' '
enough we remember
(if Xanthus and Melanthus), there are two
varieties one dark {fii\a<;) with black hair, and one fair (âv66<i)
:
and more dehcate. Then come the Flatterer {Koka^) and the
Parasite {irapdaLTO';), both dark-skinned, hook-nosed, and luxurious.
They are only sUghtly distinguished the Parasite by his crushed :
ears and more cheerful expression, the Flatterer by brows drawn

up with a more malignant look. The Sicilian parasite makes a
third.
Slaves. —Among these are mentioned the two old Dorian masks
of the Henchman {Oepdiroav) or Coolc, Maison and Tettix. Both
are bald, but Maison is fair, Tettix dark, with a few black locks.
Old PFomew.— These are distinguished simply as the Lean, the
Fat, and the snub-nosed Housewife.
Young Tfomen.—Apart from the Maidservants, the only profes-
^ The earlier meaning of iwia-eUiv is to ' shake something at or
some- agaiiist
one,' to scare them. 11. iv. 167 : Zeis . . avrbs
ai^Wa Troo-ii'.
. Iffuro-elijcrij' IpefivTiv
Luc. Dial. Dear. xix. 1 iinirelovaa rbv \b<j>ov iKirXJiTTei, /ic. We are reminded
:
of the apotropaic Gorgon masks, the oldest in the series of masks found in the
Artemisium at Sparta (Brit. Sch. Arm. xii. 1905-6, p. 338 and PI. x.-xii.). The
later masks are indubitably dramatic. It is quite possible that the terrific mask
of the Soldier developed directly from the Gorgon mask. Lamachus has the
Gorgon on his shield. If the Soldier is the Antagonist, he stands for the
apotropaic side of the ritual.
sional designation is that of the Courtesan, of whom there are six

varieties.
The only omission we noted —that of the Learned Doctor — is
made good by the fragments of The physician

the actual plays.^
can be traced through several poets of the Middle Comedy to the
Doctor {'larpof) of Philemon, the Parasitus medicus of Plautus, and
a fragment of Diphilus,^ where he promises his patient a speedy
cure —or death. We see him at his best in the Menaechmi of
Plautus, where he arrives after a studied delay; questions his guide
by the way with a parade of technical expressions ; is confident
of saving his patient before he has seen him ; when he does see
him, declares it to be a difficult case ; asks absurd questions for
his diagnosis ; looks solemn at the answers, talks much and does
nothing. He has lost no symptom of alazoneia.
The long-bearded and austere Philosopher, whose profession of
despising the world is consistent with a discriminating palate, also
figured in the New Comedy.
The various minor types of quack
and charlatan, the diviners, sorcerers, and mendicant priests, are
known from the titles of plays in which they must have taken
a leading role.
Thus we can trace our old group of stock masks among the more
varied figures of the laterGreek and Koman stage. We must now
turn back to Aristophanes and the evidence he suppUes which may
throw light upon their origin.
'
87. Aristophanes on '
Vulgar Comedy
In several passages Aristophanes, in the course of pointing out
his own superior merits, refers to certain stale tricks and characters
what he calls
'
vulgar Comedy ' {<j)oprLKr) Kajj^mUa).^ He makes
of
it clear that the Athenian
pubHc was getting tired of these stereo-
typed antics, and he claims credit for giving Comedy
a wider range,
a larger construction, and newer themes.

Parabasis of
The first is from the speech of the Koryphaeus in the
which in substance a preface to the second
the Clouds—a passage is
edition of a play unsuccessful in its original form. He maintains

{oro^mraT exeiv) of his comedies and
that the Clouds is the wittiest
1 The evidence is collected by Legrand, Daos (Paris, 1910), p. 127 fl'.
' Erag. 98.

Meineke, Comtci, i. 223.
»
On the meaning of <l>opTiK6! of.
M
cost him the most pains ;
yet it was defeated by a crew of
vulgarians.^ So much the worse for the wit of his audience ; but
still he will not desert the cause of the clever. So, like Blectra,
his Comedy comes now to seek the lost brotherhood of wit.
'
And see how modest she is. To begin with, she comes before
you not decorated with that broad, red-tipped thing of stitched
leather (the phallus), to raise a laugh among the children ; then,
there is no jeering at the Bald-head, no high-kicking Kordax ; and
the old man who speaks his lines shall not beat the bystander with
his stick to conceal the badness of his jokes.
does My Comedy
"
not rush upon the scene with torches in her hands, screaming lou
lou !
" ; she comes with full trust in herself and her verses.
'
Yet, for all that I am a poet of this stamp, I do not put on airs
I do not seek to cheat you by bringing the same old thing on the
stage again and again. No I show my wit by the fresh notions
;
I continually introduce, no two of them alike and all of them clever.'
The prologue is in the same strain

of the next play, the Wasps, :
'
Come had better explain the
then,' says the slave Xanthias, '
I
plot to the audience, with just these few hints by way of preface.
They must not expect from us anything so very tremendous but ;
still it shall not be laughter thieved from Megara. We have not

a brace of slaves scattering nuts from a basket to the audience
not Heracles cheated of his dinner ; nor again, yet another mauling
of Euripides ; nor shall we make another mincemeat of Cleon,
even he has to thank pure luck for an aureole of victory. Ours
if
is a simple plot with a moral to it, not too clever for the likes of
you, but still wittier than Comedy of that vulgar sort.'
In the Parabasis of the Peace (734 fl.) the Leader claims blessings
on the poet
'
For he alone has put an end to his rivals' everlasting jokes
about rags and warfare upon fleas he was the first to depose ;
and drive off the stage that Heracles of theirs, who kneads his cakes
or goes hungry he dismissed those runaway slaves, and deceitful
;
slaves, and slaves who get beaten on purpose that their fellow-slave
may crack a jest at their stripes and then ask " Poor wretch, :
what is the matter with your skin ? Has the whip invaded your
THE STOCK MASKS OF THE OLB COMEDY 179
ribs in full force and devastated your back ? " He made away
vdth all rubbish and vulgarity and
this low tomfoolery, and
created for you a. noble art, building high its towered walls with
fine verses and fine ideas and jokes not of the market-place.'
He
adds that his satire did not fly at small game, but attacked
no less a monster than Cleon.
88. The Peloponnesian Mime and its derivatives
We here enter upon difficult and disputed ground, to traverse

which would lead us too far from the main purpose of this book.
The reader will have noticed the reference in the Wasps prologue
to a laugh stolen from Megara.' Similar expressions occur in
'
fragments of two other poets of the Old Comedy. Bcphantides ^

says he is ashamed to make his play like a product of Megara.'
'
Eupohs, 2 Aristophanes' rival and qontemporary, speaks of a joke

as being brutaland dull, like a joke from Megara, that would only
draw a laugh from a child. Add to this Aristotle's statement that
the invention of Comedy was claimed by the Dorians. The
inhabitants of Megara in central Greece asserted that it arose
among themselves when their city became a democracy (about
600 B.C.) and their colonists in Sicily alleged that their poet
;
Epicharmus was a good deal earher than Chionides and Magnes,

(the great poets of the first generation of officially recognised
Comedy at Athens).' In support of this claim a tradition some-
where arose that Susarion, the reputed founder of Comedy, came
from Tripodiskos in Megara but Clement of Alexandria speaks
;
of him as belonging to Ikaria in Attica, and this is supported by the

Parian Marble.* Susarion, therefore, had better be left out of
account. If the Dorian claimants of Comedy could have pointed
'
Frag. 2 K Me-ya/jiK^s
: Kw/Ujidias gir/i' <oi)> SUi/j,'
|
-Qaxwhix-qv to Spdfia
•
\
MeyapiKiy iroety. See Kaibel, G. G. F. i. 75 ; Meineke, Comici, i. 18 ff.

,
2 Tipo<xiri.\Ti.oi, frag. 244 K

(Sohol. Wasps, 57) rb irKanii! iaO^yks xai M^yapiKov
:
Kal tr(p6dpa tj/vxpi" yeXgi yap as op^s ra iraidla,

\
'
* Poetics,
3, 1448a, 29, 5i6 Kal ivrnroioOi'Tai. ttjs re rpayifiSlas Kal Trjs KoifUfdias
ol Aapieh' TTJs /iiv ykp KU/MiiSlas ol Meyapets o'i re ivraOBa (is ttjs irap' avroisM
dv/iOKparlas yevoiiivrii Kal ol ex SiKeXlas, ^KeWev yap fjv 'Eirixap/ios 6 ttoiijt^s ttoXXij;
irpdrepos &v Xiuvldov Kal MAyvTiTOS.
* For this point see Kaibel, G. G. F., i.p. 77. Marmor Parium, 39 (ed.
Jacoby, pp. 13, 105), d0' oi5 iv 'kB[,iv']ai.i KaûlMv xoM^s iTliBt, [arriJffivlTwv
wpii]Tui/ 'Ixapiiiav, eufidvTos 2ov(rapiavos, Kal S.e\ov MBri irpuTov IcrxiSulf] Aptnxob']
Kal otyov fielTjptiT-fis.

to him, they would not have had to fall back on Bpich^mus and
^
a very dubious etymology of the word '
Comedy.'
The question whether the vulgar Comedy referred to by ' '
Aristophanes came to Athens from Megara, or existed at both places

independently, is not of much importance here.^ What we can
make out from Aristophanes' own description is that it had certaic
stock masks and other pecuharities which are common to a burlesque
form of drama traceable at Megara, in the Peloponnese, and in Magna
Graecia. This variety of Mime flourished under the name of PhlyaTt
at Tarentum, whither it may have been originally imported by the
pre-Dorian settlers from Sparta.* It appears to have existed foi
centuries on the humble level of popular farce, probably extempo-

rised by the actors, and first reaching the height of written litera-
ture in the hands of Ehinthon, in the days of the first two Ptolemies,
The Tarentine Phlyax can certainly be affiliated to the type ol
performance known as Deikelon at the parent-city, Sparta. Oui

knowledge of this drama is very scanty. It was an early form
of Mime,* and evidently of a crude and popular character. Sosibius,"
^ Poetics, ibid.
''
In the next chapter we shall argue for an indigenous origin of Attic
Comedy.
' Of. Bethe, Prolegomena, 49. Mr. Cook reminds me that one of the vases re
presenting scenes of the Phlyakes' drama (Wieseler, Denkm. ix. 14=Baumpi6ter
fig. 1828, figured also in Haigh's Attic Theatre, p. 155), shows an Agonhetyreei
Daidalos and Eneualios (both inscribed) who are fighting with spears anr
shields, in the presence of Hera (inscr.) seated on a throne and evidently to b(
the bride of the victor. Eneualios has the high-crested helmet of the Valiant
Soldier while Daidalos, the prince of ' Sophists,' may be taken as the Learnec
;
Doctor. Pauly-Wiss. s.v. Daidalos, 1995.

* Hesych. SlKr}\ov : irapd AdKwffi SlKrjKov, (pd^na, Sîs, elSuXov, filiiyjiia, iBev xai
fjiifJioK6yos Trapd Ad/cwtJt deLKTjXUras^ Id. deiKTfKiKTai' fiLfnjral Trapa AdKojffL

Suid. Si/o)Xi(7TOV, Kal /u/niXSiV e1S6s iffri xai/iySfas, lis ip^<ri 2<ii<rtpws 6 AiKav.
Plut., Lac. Apoph., 212 7, KaWiirirtSas 6 deiKrjXlKTas' oStoi Sk AaKeSai/j^vtoi Toi:
fil/ious /caXoOo-t. This last passage makes it clear that the SclKriKoy was not a
puppet-play.
^ Athen. xiv. 621 D : irapd 5^ AaKeSai/jiovloi! kiji/uktjs iraiSias tJk tis rplnro'.
TToXaiis, fit 07)(r4 Suirl/Sios, oiK 8,ya,v a-n-ovdtuos, itre 5<j Kav Toirots to Xirbv t^s ZirdpT?)!
/iETaSiwKO^Jirrjs. i/ufiuro ydp tk iv eiireXei tJ X^fei KX^WTOvris nvas irilipav i
^tviKov larphv tommtI Xiyovra, u>s "AXefis iv HiavSpayopiionivrj . . . ^KaXoCi/To S^ o

Hendvres tt)i/ ToiaiTrfV ttoiJioi' Trapd to?s Ad/cwcri 5iK»;Xiff7-o(, ws &ii ris ax^voToioii eftri
KoX /u/itiTis. This passage has recently been discussed by Reich, Der Mimm
i. 231 ff. ; G. Thiele, Anfange d. griech. Komiidie, N. Jahrb. ii. (1902), 405 ff.
Schnabel, Kordax, 51 ff., whose theory of ritual theft is criticised by C. Frankel

Rhein. Mus. Ixvii. (1912), 94 ff. The further study of the masks found a
Sparta in the Orthia Sanctuary (B. S. A., xii. 3SS ff., and Plates x-xii) ma;
throw some light on the deikelon.
a Laconian writer of about 300 B.C., describes it as an ancient '
form of comic entertainment of no very dignified character.^ A '
performer/ he says, would represent, in vulgar language (dialect

'
may be meant), people stealing fruit, or a foreign doctor saying

the sort of things that Alexis, following this tradition, puts in his_
Mandragorizomene.' In the speech which he goes on to quote from

Alexis' comedy, some character remarks that we will never listen
to a doctor who calls his drugs and implements by their names
as pronounced in our own dialect but if he puts on a foreign accent,
;
we all think him a wonder. It has often been remarked that here
we seem to have our earliest ghmpse of the stock mask worn by the
Learned Doctor, the remotest ancestor of the Italian Dottore, of
Doctor Caius, and of the Medecin malgri lui?-
Another branch was established as early as the sixth century
at Syracuse. Here the creator of the literary Mime was Bpi-
charmus, a contemporary of Aeschylus, who achieved such fame
that in Plato's time he could be called the Eng of Comedy.^
This brilhant tradition undoubtedly affected Comedy at Athens.
Aristotle seems to date its influence from the time of Krates,

about a generation earUer than Aristophanes. But this highly
developed literary Mime is not now certainly

in question. It is
not what Aristophanes means by vulgar

' Comedy.' To study that
we must go back behind literary developments to the popular
farces, and first of all see what Aristophanes' own expressions

imply.
89. The Stock Masks in '

Vulgar Comedy
One thing is transparently clear. This ' vulgar Comedy ' possessed
stock masks. the Comic Slave in two varieties the stupid

There is :
slave whose function is to get beaten, and the cunning slave who
passes on to him the beatings he himself has deserved, and makes a

mock of his writhings. There is the Bald-head—the stupidus calms
—a mask under which I suspect that Aristophanes himself, whom
of dialect also appears in the
Of Siiss, De Persmarum, 29. The imitation
1
speech of the pilgrims at Delos,

dance of the KoCpa. A,X.d5es, who mimicked the
the Learned Doctor s ]argon
hvmn Apoll. 162. The most delightful specimen of
of the Mala.de Imaginaire: SavanUss%rm Doctore^,
' \
the final Intermedt

is
medicvnae Profesmres, qui hie assemblaii
\
esHsj \
M vos, altri messôres, etc.
,roi^<re«s e/car^pas, /cc;/t<i>5ms
2 Plato, Theaet., 152 B rwv ttoi^tSp o! S.Kpoi
:
rr,,
fiiv ''ErlxapiiO!, rpayii-Slas d^

"O/xripo^.
182 THE OKIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY
Nature had afflicted with baldness at a very early age, was ridiculed
by Eupolis. Baldness is a fixed trait of the Parasite.^ There is
the glutton Heracles, cheated of his dinner —a constant figure in
Dorian Mime and in the Satyr plays, the two forms in which travesty
of the heroic saga flourished all through their history. He figures
in the Alcestis of Euripides, where, precisely because he is not

cheated of his dinner, he saves the situation. Aristophanes uses
him in the Birds. ^ Finally, there is the irascible Old Man, who
beats any handy bystander with we may add
his stick. To these
from the Megarian tradition the Cook or Henchman {depaTrmv).^
The name attached to this mask was Maison.'' Tradition also says
'
that this was the name of an actor. There is here no contradiction.

In the history of the Italian Commedia deW arte there are famous
who went throughout life by the
instances of celebrated actors
name of the mask
which they played.* Other obscurer masks
in
are Myllus, Acco, and Macco.^ This, then, is one essential trait
common to the '
vulgar Comedy ' which Aristophanes professed
to shake off and the popular farces of Megara, the Peloponnese,
and Magna Graecia they all possessed a set of stock masks.
:
Analogy warrants the supposition that they started with a small

group of these fixed types, to which others were then added by the
genius of individual actors, as we know to have happened in the
Commedia dell' arte.
Aristophanes also mentions two other features which Unk the
'
vulgar Comedy ' Mime the Kordax and
to the Peloponnesian —
the leathern phallus worn by the actors. As these are not relevant
to our present discussion we shall pass over them briefly. The
Kordax has been discussed at length by Schnabel,* who has identified
certain figures in this dance, described in hterature, with the poses
of three actors pictured on a red-figured amphora found in an
Etruscan grave at Corneto. He has further identified the roles
1Dieterioh, Pukinella, 38 ; Sohnabel, Kordax, 21.
'Also in the lost Aiolosikon, and probably in the Daitahis. Cratinus also
(frag. 308) complains that the repetition of this motive made life not worth
living. The Scholiast on Peace 740, who records this, mentions as other tedious
motives Ai6m<ros deL\6s (used in the Frogs) Kal /uoix^s Zeis.
' Athen. xiv. 659 A. Kaibel, C. O. F., i. p. 76.
* There is also the well known case of T. Maccius Plautus,
whose name is
borrowed from Maccus, the buffoon of the Atellane farces; Leo, Plautin.
Forsch. 71. Dieterich, Pukinella, 84 and 86 gives other parallels.
= See Dieterioh, Pukinella,, 38 ff. « Kordax, 1910.
of these actors as the Parasite, the Baldheaded Fool, and the Comic
Slave. The dance itself is linked with the Peloponnesian cult of
Artemis, the ancient Goddess of fertiUty.
The question whether the actor in fifth-century Athenian Comedy
wore an artificial phallus as part of his uniform dress has been the
subject of a long controversy .^ Without going into all the argu-
ments for and against, I shall be content to express my own view.
Aristophanes' professed renunciation of this article of costume
seems to imply definitely that it was familiar on the Attic stage,
and that the public were getting tired of jokes about it. His
professions must not be taken too seriously, for not only does he
in the extant plays use all the other '
vulgar devices ' which he
condemns, 2 but the use of the phallus itself seems to me certain
in the case of some of his own characters.^ The probable con-
clusion seems to be that it had been a traditional part of the actor's
dress, as it is of the Phlyakes', and that Aristophanes, and perhaps
Eupolis too, were trying to get rid of it, but did not altogether
succeed. No doubt
was still popular with the less refined part
it
of their audience, and

it had behind it a religious tradition. Our
own hypothesis that the first protagonist was Phales himself
squares well with these conclusions.
90. The Stock masks in the Atellane farce
The group of stock masks is likewise an essential feature of the
Atellane farces, performed in the old Oscan dialect by the citizens

of Atella inCampania, and transplanted in the third century B.C.
toKome. So far as we know, the characters in these plays never
had personal names, but were always called after their mask.
The chief character was Maccus, a name not to be separated from
^ The dispute may be followed through the writings of Korte, Loeschoke,
Bethe, Thiele, and C. Frankel mentioned in the Bibliography. I wish here to

protest against the deliberate omission of the artificial phallus in the illustra-
tions in Haigh's A ttic Theatre,^ 257, though it is mentioned in the text. This
garbling of soientifio evidence (in the interests of whom or what ?) seems to me
indefensible.
lariov Si Sti irdpra S(ra \iyv els iavrbv
a So explicitly Sohol. on Glouds, 542, Slv
retvei. rois ixh yd-p <j>a\riTai elfffyayev iv rri Avffi<rTp6.TTi, rbv 5k xSpSaKa ii> toii
2<pri^l, rois 5k 0oXok/)oi>s iv Wp'^vv, -r^" ^^
vpea^driiv iv 'Opvin, rhs 5k S?5as Kal t5 loi
iv Ne^^Xois roirpuToy. The note is not well-informed, but the genera! point is
true.
3 See above, p. 20.
the Greek Mukku).^ He is the stwpidus of the Mime. A second
was Bucco, whose large cheeks betokened, it would seem, folly-
even more than greed. ^ Third comes the Old Man, Pappus (in
Oscan, Casnar),^ a name borrowed from Greek Comedy or from
the Silenopappos, who is the constant stock mask in the Satyr plays.
The fourth is Dossennus, the '
hunch-back," who is none other than
the Learned Doctor. He played a chief part in the Philosophia of
Pomponius, and appeared as a schoolmaster in the same author's
Maccus as a Virgin. The passing stranger is bidden to read his
'
wisdom in his epitaph quoted by Seneca.*
'
To these four Dieterieh, by an ingenious combination, has added

Cicirrus, the '
cock.' At a dinner-party on Horace's journey to
Brundisium, the guests of Cocceius were entertained by a match
in abuse between a scicrra, Sarmentus, and an Oscan, Messius,
who is called a cicirrus.^ Hesychius ^ glosses this word as meaning
'
cock.' Now, the cock lent its features — its comb, its hooked
beak, its feathers —to various types of Alazon : it symbolised,
in fact, any type of coxcombry.' But, above all, the cock was '
a fighter. The Agon of Greek Comedy is several times compared
' The derivative jiaxKoav is twice used in the Knights, once of Demos (62),
once of the people whom he personifies, 395, Paph. oi diSoix ijicii, ?io! cLv ^ rb
pov\e\n-/ipiov \
Kal rb toS S^q/xov TrpbffUTOV /laKKoq KaBiiixevov. For these masks see
Dieterieh, Pulcinella, 84 if.,and Marx in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Atdlanae fabulae.
^ Apul. de mag. 81 (Helm) omnes isti quos nominaui . . si cum hoc una
.
Eufini fallacia contendantur, macci prorsus et huccones uidebuntur. Plaut,

Bacch. 1088 stvlti ttolidi fatui fungi iardi blenni biKcones. Script, physiogn. i.
412, 7 (Forster), al Se Xiav fiaxpai {Tapeiai) ip\vi,puv Kal /iOTaioX67u;'. The fat
cheeks are borrowed from the pig, who in Greece stands for stupidity (a/iaSla).
^ Varro, Ling. Lat. vii. 29, item significant in Atellanis cdiquot Pappum senem,
quod Osci Casnar appellant.

* Ep. xiv. 1 (89), 7 Sapientia est quam Graeci ao<l>lav uocant.
: hoc uerho
Eomani quoque utebantur quod et togatae tibi antiquae probabunt et inscriptus
. . .
Dossenni monumento titulus :

Hospes resiste el sophian Dossenni lege.
' Hor. Sat. i. 5, 51 ff. :
nunc mihi paucis

Sannenti scurrae pugnam Messique cicirri
Musa uelim memores, et quo patre natus uterque
Contulerit litis : Messi clarum genus Osci . . .
Dieterieh,' Fu^cineKa, 94, adds that a name, it must have been a if Cicirrus is
cognomen from the stage, as Maoous and Dossennus were names of historical
persons (ibid. p. 84).
^ Hesych. Klxippof iXeKrpiiay.
; KiVica' dXexropfs. kIkkos' iXcRTpviiv, kX^ttjs.
to a cock-fight i
a cock-fight is sculptured on
:
the chair of the
priest of Dionysus in the Athenian theatre. A vase from Lower
Italy 2 shows us two comic actors, armed
with spear and shield,
marching one behind the other. The leader is a handsome youth,
crested with what looks an enormous cock's comb his follower
like ;
is a hideous dwarf with the prominent

belly and phallus of the
Phlyax. He too has huge feathers standing upright on his hehnet.
The youth is manifestly a miles gloriosus, and he reminds us of the
terrific crest ofLamachus.^ Putting all these facts together, we
may perhaps conjecture that the Oscan Cicinus figured in this
character in the Atellane plays. At any rate we may be sure that
he was some kind of Impostor. It is curious that he should be
pitted against a Buffoon {scurra) in the after-dinner dialogue at
the house of Cocceius.
91. The Affinities of these forms of drama

If we now tabulate the lists of stock masks in the vulgar Comedy
'
repudiated by Aristophanes, Aristophanes' own plays, and the

Atellane farces, the results show a verv close resemblance :
Vulgar Comedy.
Many writers an historic
have speculated as to the possibility of
connection between the Atellane plays and the Commedia dell'

arte of modern Italy, especially the Neapolitan plays which are
still in vogue in the very district which contains Atella.^ Cautious
scholars limit themselves to pointing out the extraordinarily close
resemblance of the two forms. Among the bewildering variety of
local personages in the modern ItaHan plays, some of the principal
stock masks of our list emerge :
The Buffoon : Pulcinella, Arlecchino, etc.

The Dottore.
The Capitano : Capitan Matamoros, Capitan Fracassa, etc.
The Old Man : Pantalone.

we have the phenomenon on which
In this form of drama also
we have laid stress in this chapter a group of stock masks, the :
members of which appear in all sorts of comic situations, and take

on the traits of appropriate professional or social types. Thus the
plays of Carlo Sigismondo Capece (born in Eome 1652) included
Pulcinella podestd, Pulcinella negromante, Pulcinella gravida,
Pulcinella finta statua, which are exactly Uke the titles of Atellane
plays : Maccus miles, Maccus sequester, Maccus virgo, Bucco aucto-
ratus, Bucco adoptatus, Pappus praeteritus, etc.^ The plays of
Aristophanes are, of course, not to be classed under the same head
—the presence of a Chorus is a marked point of difference —but
it should now be clear that they have strong Some of
affinities.
the comedies would not be unrecognisable, if we re-named them

with titles on the same pattern :
The Old Man as peacemaker (Acharnians).

The Parasite and the Cook as demagogues (Knights).
The Doctor as philosopher (Clouds).
The Old Man as juryman (Wasps).
The Old Man as Bellerophon (Peace).
The Old Man as founder of a city (Birds).
The Soldier and the Doctor as poets (Frogs).
This nomenclature would, of course, overemphasise the stock
masks ; but it serves to bring out the unquestionable fact that
Aristophanes' plays are deeply imbued in the tradition of a type
of drama which closely resembled the Greek farces of the Peloponnese
' See Soherillo, La commedia dell' arte in Italia ; Dieterich, Pulcinella, 251 S. ;
Reich, Der Mimu^, i. QH^ ff. ^ Dieterich, Pulcinella, p. 262.

THTD STOCK MASKS OF THE OLD OOMEDY 187
and Magna Graecia and their ItaUan congeners, and which appears
to be nothing else than that ' vulgar
Comedy/ whether Megarian
or indigenous, which Aristophanes so
ostentatiously repudiates.
He certainly protests too loudly ; but all that he really asserts is
consistent with the truth about his own plays. He has not broken
with the tradition altogether : the stock masks still obUterate the
real features of his Socrates, his Euripides, and the rest. But he
has got beyond the stale antics and lazzi, the wearisome jokes about
fleas and beaten slaves not that he cuts these out altogether, but
;
that he has added an astonishing wealth of new notions, no two '
alike and all of them clever.'
92. How does such a set of stock masks originate ?
What are we to make of this '

vulgar Comedy ' ? It is now
universally assumed that it consisted solely of disconnected farcical
scenes, interspersed between the choral songs. I have aheady
questioned this current opinion, which hangs together with a false
view of the second part of the Aristophanic play. Partly, too,
it issuggested by the later development of the literary Mime,
those short realistic scenes which we find in mimes of Theocritus
and Herodas, and no doubt who gave
in their predecessor, Sophron,
Plato the idea of writing philosophy in mime form. The vulgar '
Comedy ' was evidently something much cruder not a psycho- —

logical study of social types in dramatic form, but a primitive
popular farce, no more subtle and refined than Punch and Judy.
Above all, the characters in it were not drawn direct from life, but
were stock masks, belonging, moreover, it would seem, to a definite

group with fixed relations to one another.
The question how such a group can originate is one that I have
never seen discussed. In the modern instances the origin appears
to be unknown and the question of their derivation, through
;
channels now only to be guessed at, from ancient types, is still

unsettled. It was possible for Marx, writing on the Atellane plays
before 1896,^ to dismiss any historic connection of the Commedia
dell' arte with the Oscan plays on the ground that similar figures
occur in the Turkish puppet-play, Karagoz. But since the publica-

tion of Eeich's researches in 1903 this consideration cannot be
1
In Pauly- Wisiowa, vol. ii. s.v. ' Atellanae fabulae.'
taken as final, for Reich looks to Byzantium as a centre from which
the late Greek Mime could have spread to Italy on the one side
and to Moslem countries on the other. If, therefore, we are con-
sidering the independent origination of such types of drama, we

must leave the modern instances out of account.
How, then, the existence of this group of stock masks to be
is
explained ? The analogies we have pointed out show us that they

are not a casual assemblage, but a definite set of six or seven
characters, each sharply distinct from every other. The same
set, moreover, recurs in different places, though, of course, with
local modifications and additions The Buffoon, the Doctor or
:
Cook, the Soldier, the Parasite, the Old Man, the Old Woman.
This group furnishes the stock masks for the major characters in
who carry on the main business of the plot,
Aristophanes' plays,
[
ifwe add to them the Young Man (in two plays), and the Young
',
Woman, the mute bride of the final marriage. The Parasite may,
i
perhaps, be ruled out as borrowed from the Dorian tradition.
But what of the remainder ?
For my own part, I cannot conceive how such a troupe should

come to exist, in the first instance, except as actors in a fixed plot
—a definite action which demanded just those characters, and in
which each had and function. This proposition,
his proper place
if true, is very important for our subject. It seems to be so

obvious that its not being a commonplace makes me think I may
have overlooked some other possibility. The troape of English
Mummers, the similar set of characters in the Northern Greek
festival plays stare us in the face. By it must
this time, moreover,
have occurred to the reader that they are fundamentally the same
troupe as we have made out behind the Aristophanic play, lending
their masks to one or another of the major characters. They
drama of the marriage of the
are the set required for the fertiUty
Old Year transformed into the New, that marriage which is inter-
rupted by the death and revival of the hero.
In that drama we can and
distinguish their original functions,
set each due relation to the constant action. The Old
one in his
Man and the Young Man are the Old and New Year they may :
both appear and fight one another, or the Old may be turned into
the Young. The Swaggering Soldier is Captain Bluster, the
antagonist who kills the bridegroom. The Doctor recalls him to
life, or the Cook transmutes him from age to youth. This magical
process of regeneration, as we have seen, is only a special variety
of death and resurrection. The Cook is a magician, a dealer in
enchanted herbs, a medicine-man. As such, he is not, in origin,
distinct from the Learned Doctor. These two characters are
alternative. The Young Woman is the mute bride of the marriage.
The Old Woman is properly the Mother, who appears in the opening
scene of the Thracian play, nurses her miraculous child, and dis-
appears. In most of the versions this prehminary scene has dropt
out, leaving the Old Woman without a function : and accordingly
we find that she does not figure as a major character, either in
Aristophanes or in the Atellane plays. This incident of the
miraculous birth was, from its nature, sure to drop out in the
transition from the childish make-believe of folk drama to Uterary
Comedy.^ In a comedy the hero cannot always be born in the first
act and married in the last. Nor can the miraculously rapid growth
to maturity, which recurs so often in legend, be represented on the
stage. It can only be described, as in fact it is in the newly dis-
covered Satyr-play, the Ichneutae of Sophocles. Clearly this old
bound to disappear, and with it fades the figure
ritual induction is
of the Old Woman, whose function is gone. She remains only
as the drunken and amorous hag who dances the Kordax. The
rest of the play from the Agon at the beginning to the Marriage at
the end requires just those other dramatis personae that we have
enumerated. It can hardly be an accident that, with the addition
of the Parasite, they provide the stock masks for Aristophanes'
historical characters. wj
of the northern Greek festival plays

1
The Old "Woman is missing in several
recorded by Mr. Waoe. See above, p. 63.
CHAPTER IX
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
93. How did Comedy and Tragedy differentiate ?
If the conclusions to which so many converging lines of argument

have led us are in substance true, Athenian Comedy arose out of a
ritual drama essentially the same in type as that from which Professor
Murray derives Athenian Tragedy. The case for this origin of
Comedy seems to me the clearer and more convincing of the two ;
and it reinforces Professor Murray's hypothesis. That the traces

of the old ritual motives should be easier to make out in Comedy
is what we should expect for, as we shall see, the type of
just ;
drama which is the more careless of form and structure, and

interested rather in character than in plot, naturally has less reason
to obliterate its The two theories help one
primitive outhnes.
another, and, if be regarded as proved, it would be in
either could
a fair way to carry the other with it. For, that the two types of
drama which were presented to the same audience at the same
festivals of Dionysus should have had their origins in different
cults, is a thesis so paradoxical that only the most cogent proof
could recommend it to serious attention. We cannot, at this stage,
enter upon the whole difficult problem of the beginnings of Tragedy.
Here, as hitherto, I shall provisionally assume that Professor
Murray's hypothesis is, in the main, true, and pass on to a question
which I may reasonably be required to answer. It is this : Given
that Tragedy andComedy have come from the same type of ritual
drama, how and why did they part and take their divergent routes
towards forms of art so widely different ?
Before I attempt to answer this question, a word must be said
about certain factors in any such problem which have so far been
left out of account. Any one who states a theorv of the historic
190
COMEDY AND TRAGEDY 191
origin of any form of art is sure
to be attacked for neglecting the
creative power of individual men of
genius, and-something that
lies deeper still— the common
impulse obscurely felt by the men
of a certain society at a certain time, the
common need that their
apprehension of life, its laughter and its terror,
shall find some
expression in art. Such a criticism may
be just. This book
would deserve it, if I were for a moment to delude myself or the
reader with the suggestion that there is nothing in
the Agamemnon
of Aeschylus or the Birds of Aristophanes,
of which the germ is
not akeady present in Punch and Jtidy. If it is necessary to
disclaim anything so absurd, it shall here be set down that" our
argument does not suppose the original ritual drama or the
degenerate folk-play which may have followed it to have contained,
even in germ, either the wit of Aristophanes or the wisdom of
Aeschylus, either the comic or the tragic perception of life. It
admits, moreover, thatall these factors were needed, as independent
and original forces, to shape fifth-century drama. But there is a

good reason for excluding them, so far as possible, from a scientific"
discussion of historic origins. To admit them is to offer the
unknown in explanation of the known.
That Aeschylus was a
genius is patent enough ; but to say that Tragedy owes its exist-
ence to that genius and its creative or inventive powers is to leave
us no wiser than we were. It is certain, indeed, that such a state-
ment must be in great measure true; but in what measure, we
can only find out by discovering what Aeschylus did not invent.
It may be true, again, that the tragic apprehension of life was
astir in men's minds and ready to be brought to birth. But
sociology has not yet discovered what conditions favour the growth
of a tragic or a comic drama, though we might vaguely indicate
a few special causes ; conceivable that there may be
and it is
movements which the most complete sociology

of spiritual life
will never describe in general terms. We may, therefore, put
these considerations aside, and confine ourselves to those rude
beginnings whose existence we have inferred from features of the
comic drama which no individual genius could have invented.
All that we are bound to do is to indicate how Comedy and
Tragedy, if their sources lay so close together, could have become
so different.
94. The ritvMl was probably indigenous
That the ritual which lay behind Tragedy was native to Attica,
in the sense that it existed as ritual in that country before the
drama grew out of it, is generally admitted. I can see no serious
reason to doubt that the same holds of Comedy. The Dorian
claim is not supported by Aristotle
on the contrary he points
:
to the PhalKc Songs still existing in many Greek states,' and

'
certainly existing in Attica, as we know from the Acharnians.

So far as ancient tradition is concerned, the theory of Dorian
origin rests more than the unquestioned fact that Epi-
on little
charmus was writing mimes in Sicily before Comedy was officially

recognised at Athens ; Aristophanes' reference to '
laughter stolen
from Megara and the similar allusions in other Old Comedy poets
'
;
and a few statements of later grammarians which lie under strong

•"suspicion of having been invented to explain those allusions. As
for the works of Epicharmus, we now know them to belong to a
different species of drama, clearly distinguished from Attic Comedy
! by the absence of any Chorus. That they influenced the Athenian
writers from about the middle of the fifth century is asserted by
Aristotle and is no doubt true. But few would now look to the
Sicihan Mime as the main source of Attic Comedy. There is,
however, the Peloponnesian farce, from which the Mime in Sicily
and Southern Italy was derived. Was the laughter of Attic
Comedy by way of Megara ?
stolen from the Peloponnese
It must be admitted that we do not know what is meant by the
references to thebad quality of Megarian jokes. Perhaps Megara
was despised because her Comedy never grew out of the vulgar '
stage which the Athenian writers boasted of having left behind.

It must be remembered that Megara is the nearest Dorian city
to Attica, and had actually belonged to Athens for nearly the whole
of the fifteen years preceding the birth of Aristophanes (460/59
446/5). The loss of the two Megarian ports under the treaty of
Thirty Years' Peace was a severe blow to Athenian commercial
relations with western Greece and it is with a series of drastic
;
measures against Megara the Peloponnesian war opens.

that
When the comic writers of this generation refer contemptuously
to Megarian humour, it is more natural to take them as meaning
'
jokes good enough for those stupid Dorians anywhere south and
west of Eleusis/ than to suppose that they
allude to any importa-
tion of Dorian Comedy into Attica a
century or more before their
time.i The references were quite enough to set the late
gram-
marians upon the tale that Susarion invented
Comedy at Megara""
' '
and brought it to Athens. This legend is refuted by the

considâ-
tions that the Dorian farce neverhad a Chorus, whereas the Chorus
is integralin Attic Comedy, and
that, as we have shown, the whole
structure of the plays hangs together, so that the
parts in which
the Chorus plays an important role cannot be separated
from the
rest. The modern beUevers in Megarian influence are generally
disposed to see only or chiefly in what we have called the Impostor
it
Scenes, and to regard these as borrowed from a different

type of
drama. Our own hypothesis regards the Impostor as integral,
but could very well admit some degree of influence from the
Peloponnesian farce, traceable, perhaps, in the multiphcation of
the Impostor into professional types. In the main, however, the''
theory we have put forward is against the wholesale importation
of undigested fragments from an ahen tradition —a process which
in any case is difficult to conceive. The unity
Comedy, of the plot in
be estabhshed, is almost fatal to such a view and our whole
if it ;
argument tends to support the supposition that the ritual drama

out of which Aristophanic Comedy grew was native to Attica.
\
95. The Dionysiac festivals at Athens

Friendly critics, to whom I have communicated the argument^
of this book, have urged that I ought to investigate the thorny
question of the Dionysiac festivals at Athens, and identify the
ritual basis of Comedy with the actual rites of some one of them.^ ,
But I am not convinced that any such demonstration is required.

In the we have no ground for supposing that the folk-
first place
play which lay behind Comedy took shape in the city of Athens
at all. The best tradition that we have connects both Susarion,
1 It must be noted also that, where Aristophanes names any writers of

'
vulgar Comedy who used the stale antics he repudiates, these writers are his
'
own predecessors and contemporaries of the ^ttic stage Phrynichus, Lykis, :
Ameipsias (Frogs, 13); the &vSp€^ (popriKol who defeated the Clmds (524),
Eupolis, Phrynichus, Hermippus {Clouds, 553).
2 The sources are collected and discussed by Nilsson, Studia de Dion, atticis.
The most reoeut treatment of the subject will be found in Mr. A. B. Cook's
ZeuK, vol. i. (Cambridge, 1914), pp. 665-718.
N
the reputed founder of Comedy, and Thespis, the founder of
Tragedy, not with Athens, but with Ikaria, an outlying centre of

Dionysiac worship. The phalhc ceremonies of DikaiopoUs in the
Acharnians, again, take place at the Country Dionysia, though I
am willing to believe that this festival was no more than the rustic
equivalent of the Lenaea. Such processions and rude mummers'
plays are more likely to survive in country villages than in cities.
It will be remembered how St. Augustine speaks of the corre-

sponding Italian Libemlia as celebrated in the fields
'
and later '
brought into Rome itself. The Enghsh Morris Dance and play of
St. George must be sought in the remotest hamlets in the larger ;
centres of population they are only now beginning to exist as

dehberate importations. Why should we not accept' the tradition
that Comedy was imported from Ikaria to Athens ?
The ritual of the Lenaea itself hved on as ritual it never, so far ;
as we know, sank to the plane of a degenerate folk-play. The natural

inference is that Attic Comedy did not arise directly out of that
actual festival, which maintained its ceremonies at the rehgious
level. The Great Dionysia, again, has not the air of a primitive
feast at all. It was probably the artificial creation of Peisistratus'
desire to have a great musical festival at a season of the year when
it was possible for foreigners to be present and see the glories of
Athens.^ At the Anthesteria there is nothing to show that either
tragedies or comedies were ever performed. Everything seems
to point to a country origin of Comedy, in a folk drama like the
modern festival plays of Northern Greece, which somehow became
important enough to claim official admission to the Great Dionysia
in the time of the Persian wars. If it first took shape in the
Country Dionysia (say) at Ikaria, its many points of resemblance
to the Lenaean ritual are explained.^
Leaving the question of the Dionysiac festivals, then, to more

Mr. Cook urges that the performance of the Dithyramb may be the original
>
nucleus of the Great Dionysia and older than Peisistratus. I am willing to

admit this possibility.
^ The Dorian claimants of Comedy would not have argued from a derivation
of the word from Kii/iri, ' village ( Arist. Poet. 14:48a, 35), if Comedy had not been
'
thought to have had a rural origin. Probably no independent value is to be

attached to the strange stories told by later grammarians of the farmers who
oame into the town to avenge themselves on the citizens by lampooning them,
Sohol. in Dion, Thrac, p. 747 (Kaibel, O. G. F. i. p. 12).
competent hands,^ we will go back to our problem of the divergence

of Tragedy and Comedy, with the assumption that the ritual drama
behind each was essentially the same in content, though not
necessarily performed at the same season of the year,
9j6. Plot and Character in Tragedy and Comedy :
the primacy of Plot in Tragedy
There is a very wise sentence in the Poetics,^ in which Aristotle

speaks of Tragedy as growing, like a Uving thing, through many
changes, into the fulness of its perfect form, and then coming to
a standstill. Of the inner principle of this growth, the tragic
vision of and the impulse driving the dramatic artist to seek
life
ever a more complete expression for it, we have decided to say

as little as possible ; but, for our present question of the diverging
tendencies of Tragedy and Comedy, it becomes important to look
at the general course taken by each, so far as we can observe it.
Here Aristotle will help us again, with another observation which
goes deeper, perhaps, than he knew.
'
In discussing the general characteristics of Tragedy, Aristotle

insists at some length on the fact that the action, or plot, is primary,
the characters secondary. The persons in the play,' he says, do

' '
not go thTough the action in order to give a representation of their

characters, but they include the representation of character for the
sake of the action. Accordingly, the events or plot are the essential
thing for which Tragedy exists— its end and the end is always ;
the most important thing.* A tragedy cannot exist without an
action ; it can exist without characters. The tragedies of most

of the moderns are characterless. . . . One may string together a
series of speeches which exhibit character, excellently composed
style and thought, and yet not produce the true
tragic
both in
A play which is inferior in this respect, but has a plot or
effect.
1 Mr Cook's brilliant reconstruction of the Lenaean

ritual and the light he
cults {Zeus, vol. i. pp. 665 ff.) has been of the
has thrown upon it from kindred
however, convinced by his ingenious theory
greatest service to me. I am not,
relations of the four Dionysiao festivals.
of the mutual
2 ttoXXAs /leraôUi fi^rapaUOffa v
Tpay^Sta imvcaro, eTrei fox^
1449a, 14, Kal
20 otf/cow Sttws to ^dv l>.iH.M<->^ra<. irpArrovinP, aWa ra ê-q

s Poetics 6 1450 a, :
combination of events, much more successful. may be^ Be- . . .
ginners attain precision of style and exactness of character-drawing

sooner than success in plot-construction. The same might be said
of nearly all the earUest dramatists. The first essential, then, the
soul (as it were) of Tragedy is the plot the characters come second.^ ;
It is much the same as in painting an artist may lay on the most :
beautiful colours at haphazard, and not give so much pleasure as

if he drew a portrait in mere outhne. The very essence of Tragedy
is to be a representation of action it is, above all, for the sake of ;
the action that the persons concerned in it are represented.'

It is the fashion now to sneer at Aristotle, largely because certain
general statements in which he formulates the actual practice of
Greek tragedians have been injudiciously quoted as if they were
rules intended to bind all future writers of serious
drama. If we
avoid this elementary mistake, we shall find his observations of
the facts of ancient Tragedy extraordinarily acute. But the piece
of criticism just quoted has a wider application. That action is
primary, character secondary, seems to be true of any drama,
ancient or modern, that can be called tragic.
Tragedy must represent the way of the world, the movement of
Uf e, the worlnngs of destiny, the end that grows inevitably out of a
given beginning, as a plant or animal grows out of its germ.^ The
sense of internal structural necessity seems indispensable to the
'
ApX^l /i^" oHu Kal oiov ^vxh o /'OBos ttJs rpayiiiSlas, deiirepoi/ d^ to. ijSi).
^ I believe that this metaphor of development into the 'full-grown' form
(0i}(ris TeXeia) is in Aristotle's mind vpheu he says that the action represented in
Tragedy must be reXeia Kal SXt; {Poetics, 7).
S\ov is defined as t6 ?xo'' °-Px¥ ™!
fi^<rov Ka.1 Te\evTi/iii. In the same chapter, discussing the question of magnitude
(lJ.4yeeos), he compares a plot to a living creature (fifJov). He is there following
Plato, Phaedrus, 264 C : Sdv irdi/ra Xiyoi/ flffi-ep jTôv irweffTdviu <rCi/j.d n ^X""''''"-
alirbv airov, &<rre fi-fir' dXXa iii<Ta r' ^fi!» koX dxpa,
dfc^tfiaXop etpai. li-qr' dirovv,
irpiirovT' dXXiiXois /cai ru 6\(f yeypafifiha. The last phrase is repeated with
reference to the structure of the tragic plot, Phaedrus 268 D Sophocles and :
Euripides would laugh, ef tis oi'erai TpayifSlav iSXXo ti flvai fi t^v tovtuv irvffTaa-iv,
7rp4-iroviTai> a.X\-/j\oi.s re Kal rep «X(j) avviiTTaiiivriv. At Poetics 23 init. Aristotle
repeats the comparison to a living thing with reference to Epic ' The plots :
should be constructed as in a tragedy, and deal with a single action that is whole
and cdmplete— 7re/)l /xlay irpa^m S\r}v khI reXelav (xovaav dpx^v Kal ixiaa Kal t^Xos,
W (liaircp ôp iv &\ov
olKetav ijdovî>. In an animal the seed is the dpxi),'
ttol-q tt)v
the full-grown form the TeXeuriJ or riXos. Similarly, the end of the tragic plot is
related to its beginning as fruit to seed: Aesch. Pers., 821, Oppts ydp HafSoCa'
iKdpiruxrev iTTix"" |
"Attjs, SBev TdyKapwov iâ/j.^ Oipos. The end is implicit
{Svyd/J.ci) in the beginning and unfolds out into its fulness.
COMEDY ANB TRAGEDY 197
tragic effect. It is not really absent even where the fatal moment
is a clash between the unaccountable spontaneity of will and the
stroke of bUnd chance. There is still the feeUng that such things
must be ;
^ and chance itself no sooner ceased to be a power of
malignant purpose than it was resolved into inexorable law.
There is no room for accidents that are insignificant, in other
words, pa/rticular accidents, without what Aristotle calls a 'uni-
versal' meaning.
Among such particular accidents we must reckon all the richness
of individuality which any real person has, in so far as it is irrele-
vant to the action. The weaker a tragedian is, the more he will
be tempted to make his characters look real and life-like, by admit-
ting these casual traits. The stronger he is, the more his characters
will possess the inner coherence, or rather the indivisible unity,
which belongs, not to the hfe-Hke, but to the living and, by virtue ;
of this unity, his characters may be indefinitely rich without

irrelevance, or any sacrifice of the sense of necessity. Still, it
remains true that the character is dominated and dictated by the

action or '
experience '
—
the Greek language is happy in having
one word {trpa^L's) for both these meanings.
97. The primacy of Character in Comedy
Nothing of all this applies to Comedy. It is true that the

spectator may have an some turn of
exquisite dehght in foreseeing
events to which the characters in the play are advancing bUndly
but, in general, the most unexpected incidents are the most amusing. ^
Fortune was the acknowledged divinity of the New Comedy î
and accident has always been allowed a large place in the comic
plot. In the construction we may demand neatness and a lightlxi
balanced symmetry; but no one wants a sense of closely knit
necessity. In proportion as this is present. Comedy approaches the
borderland where it can no longer be clearly distinguished from
Tragedy, and both terms lose their application and had better be
1
Marcus Aurelius, xi. 6, At first tragedies were brought on the stage as a
'
means of reminding men of the things which happen to them, and

that it is
things to happen so, and that, if you are delighted with
according to nature for
which takes
what is shown on the stage, you should not te troubled with that
place on the larger stage' (Long's Translation).
» On this subject cf. Legrand, Daos (Lyon, Paris, 1910), pp. 392 fl.
dropt. The earliest Comedy is the furthest removed from this
stage. The Attic comedians learnt the lesson of plot-construction
from the tragic poets, with some help from the SiciUan Mime.
The intrigue plot of the New Comedy is an inheritance from
Euripides, not from Aristophanes or any of his predecessors in the
fifth century, with the possible exception of Krates.^ The Old
Comedy in general is content with a much laxer construction. It
is not primarily the representation of an '

action ' or '
experience,'
to which character is secondary, but its bent is always towards
the representation of a set of characters, turned loose to bring
labout the action by their interplay. In the still laxer form of
the novel, great writers have often described how their characters
seem to come alive and take the action into their own hands, carry-
ing it to conclusions undesigned by their creator.
The extreme of is found in the
this concentration on character
Mime, which stands at the opposite pole to Tragedy. As practised
by the Alexandrian writers, the Mime has no action at all it repre- ;
sents a few characters in a situation which does not change. The

interest is entirely focussed on the study of character, and no
preoccupation with larger issues stands in the way of extreme
realism. It seems to be an essentially Dorian product, holding
up to the absurdities of Nature the mirror of a commonsense
Sophrosyne —a mirror which can faithfully reflect the actual, but
distorts the heroic into the grotesque ugUness of travesty. These
two traditions —the imitative representation of real life and
burlesque of the heroic saga —run through the whole history of the
Mime. Outside those Umits it never moved ; inside them it reached
its peculiar glory of reahstic character-study. It has no background
and no perspective. In our own hterature the most perfect expo-
nent of this sort of art is Jane Austen. Her amazingly close
observation; her sceptical distrust of the romantic; her resolute
avoidance of any lapse into tragic moods or into that moralising
from which no male English novelist can refrain the narrowness ;
of her stage, on which English Uf e at the turn of the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries goes forward as if the French Eevolution
had never happened and Napoleon never been born all this is —
characteristic of the Mime, though she may never have read
Theocritus, and Herodas had not been discovered.
' ôr Krates, see below, p . 217.
98. The tragic Myth and the comic Logos
The Old Comedy stands somewhere between Tragedy, with its

all-important plot, and Mime, where the interest is solely in
character. As contrasted with Tragedy, it is indifferent to plot^'
construction, and for that very reason Comedy keeps nearer to
the old ritual outhne. The tragedian had to take some traditional
story (' myth ') with its quasi-historic characters, and, although
he might modify details and even invent new characters, he could
not alter the most important incidents. The treatment of such
a myth necessarily obUterated the sequence of incidents which
formed the primitive ritual scheme. These survive, in general, rather
as conventional motives, or '
fixed forms,' such as the messenger
speech or the theophany. -In Comedy, on the other hand, the
'
plots were not myths,' but -'were freely invented. The proper
'
term for the comic plot is not mythos, but logos} The term seems
to mean the '
theme,' or '
idea,' of the piece. There is no suggestion
of a closely spun web of incidents running all through. Whereas
the Euripidean prologue will foretell the whole general course of
the action to the end, the prologue in Aristophanes only states
the main idea. In the Peace, for instance, Trygaeus' slave tells
the audience no more than that his master is mad and has procured
a dung-beetle to carry him, hke Bellerophon, to heaven. Aristo-
phanes repeatedly boasts of the novelty of his ideas.^ His method
is to take some general theme {logos), such as the notion of a strike
of women in favour of peace, and to illustrate it by the most
amusing incidents he can devise. For such a purpose no well-
knit intrigue is required. Consequently, the traditional framework
of the ritual plot serves well enough. Any artist— above all a
Greek artist—will sooner adapt a conventional scheme to his own

Hence__it)
ends than exercise invention where it is not wanted.
Wasps, 54 (Prologue), (pepe vvv KaTsiwui toIs eâruls rby \6yov, 64 dX\'
1
Kg.
ecTTLV -iiiuv \oylSi.ov yvi^" ô"- -P««<:e, 50 (Prologue), ^7"^ Si rby Uyoy ye . .
.
df oi yhp Sel KeKpi<l>Bai. tov Uyoo. Kratinus,

4>pd(T0>. Cf. Lysistrata, 119, -Kiyo^/i'
Odysses, 144. Antiph. frag. 191. ,„,,., .
rpU raOr' daiyi^v, a\\ &d rai.ds

2 Glouds, 547, oW
v^Las f^Tui •kawaTS.y dls Kal \
oiSkv 6.\\-h\o.^<nv d,.oias Kai iriâs Beîis.

Wasps, 1044.
idias elaifî^v <ro0ifoMa', I
roi, fnroSyra, KaLv6y tc Xê^p Kdfeu-

KCLiVOTirais Smvola^s, 1053 rS;- 7roi7,rfi^ . . .
Laws, 816 E, mentions this novelty as if it were a

pf-rKei.- Scdes. 578. Plato,
tc irepl aura rw, p.ip.viUro,v
recognised principle in Comedy, Ka^vbp Si id
ât^-caffa. :
it is not relevant to his

own point in the context.
"comes about that the very freedom of the comic plot left standing
the old soafEolding which Tragedy, bound to its epic sources and
itself requiring the utmost internal coherence, was obliged to
break up.^
99. Character in Tragedy
Turning from plot to character, we find again that Comedy

alike enjoys a greaterfreedom than Tragedy, and, as a consequence,
departs less from the old tradition. In Tragedy, as Aristotle says,
'
the persons in the play do not go through their action (or '
experi-
ence ') in order to give a representation of their characters ; they
include a representation of character for the sake of the action."
The tragic poet starts with a given action, the experience of a
certain group of legendary persons. These persons generally have
only that one context, in which their whole being moves : they
are the people who went through just that great and significant
experience (ot irpaTTovre';). Their very names —Agamemnon,
Clytaemnestra, Aegisthus, Cassandra^bring that action at once
before us, and nothing else.^ They come (so to say) as supporting
this action, which is itself the primary thing. It dictates their
characters, demanding that these shall be moulded to fit the
experience they must carry through to its traditional end. Hence,
the tragedians were forced to create characters capable of doing
and suffering what the story relates. The action requires certain
' These remarks, of course, apply chiefly to the earlier plays of Aristophanes.
In some of the later, the beginnings of a new tendency appear, ultimately to

triumph in the New Comedy, of whose poets it can be truly said, KaTa^xoXoCcTai
TtivTss irepl ras iirod^ffeis. Anon, de Com. (Kaibel, O. G. F., i. p. 9). (This state-
ment is actually made of the writers of the Middle Comedy.
^ The comedian Antiphanes {Uolijo-n ii. 90 K) complains that tragedians have
this very advantage :
IJ.a.Kiipi6v ânv tj Tpay^dla
TToi-qfj-ti Kara wdvT\ d ye irpQiTov ol \6yoL
uwd TUiv dearuiv elffiv iyvo^pifffi^voij
irplv Ka.1 Tiv' elirelv ujff0' inrop.VT}iTai p^bvov
5ei Thv iroi-qT-r)v. OtSitrovv yap + 0a) . . . f

Tct 5' ctWa Trdir' iffactv' 6 Tarrjp ^Vdtos,
p.r}T'i)p 'loKdaryj, duyar^pe^, TrarSes rives .
Tjfuv d^ raDr' oi)/f ^(Tth/, dXXct trdvra Set

eipeTf, (!v6/aaTa Kai.i>d . . .
. . . Kdirttra to. 8npKr]p,^va

jrpdTepoVj rd uup TrapbvTO., t^v KaTaaTpo(piijv^
COMEDY AND TEAGEDY 201
motives the characters must be such as can have those motives,

;
and, further, such that those motives will be the characteristic

motives. So the tragic poet must work from action to motive,
and from motive to character. These causes led to the creation
of types which had never before appeared in Uterature, and could
not have been conceived except by a man of genius working under
these stern necessities. We may instance the heroic maiden,
Antigone, and a whole gallery of women in Euripides.These
are not taken from the Epic, still less from ordinary Athenian
life ; for we know from Aristophanes how they startled and scanda-
lised Athenian society. Once invented, these characters, of course,
became types for the imitation of inferior artists. But originally
they were imaginative creations. The effect was to enlarge and'
deepen knowledge of human nature, by discovering possibilities
of character and motive that lie within its compass, but are
rarely shown in common life, and are beyond the power of observa-
tion of ordinary men, who, indeed, not seldom remain unable to
conceive them, even when the artist has put them before their
eyes.
100. Character in Comedy

The comic poet had no such impulse driving him to explore the
rarer possibilities of noble and heroic natures. His eye is fixed,
not on what towers above the ordinary man and often escapes
his comprehension, but on what hes beneath him, so that he can
look down upon it and see all round it, with an amused contempt
and a flattered sense of superiority. The characters can take the
primary place and shape the incidents as they please. Human
nature is so complex and infinitely various, that, wherever writers
are not bound by the demands of a given plot, they always tend
either to group people in certain classes of stock types, or to copy
individual characters from the life and let them bring about the
action as they will. Aristophanes inherited, as we have seen, a
small group of stock characters or masks, and there were no
exigencies of plot to force him to abandon them. Accordingly,
he
Advance could only take place in the
used them again and again.
interesting to trace its stages.
direction of realism. It is
^
The general formula of progress for Comedy is a steady drift
from Mysterv to Mime. We saw how the original group of stockj

masks were the characters required for a certain unvarying ritual
action. They were at first serious, and even awful, figures in a
religious mystery the God who every year is born and dies and
:
rises again, his Mother and his Bride, the Antagonist who kills him,
the Medicine-man who restores him to hfe. When the drama lost
its serious magical intent, probably the Antagonist and the Doctor
were the first to become grotesque. The Antagonist, because he

was the villain, was a fit mark for contempt his idle vaunts and
:
final discomfiture could easily be made ridiculous. In the same

way Pontius Pilate soon turns to a comic character in the mediaeval
Mysteries. The Medicine-man, power declines and
again, as his
his own back on the
faith begins to fail him, has always fallen
pretentious trappings of his art, while to others he becomes more
and more obviously a humbug and a quack. His unintelligible
spells begin to sound like gibberish his paraphernaUa of herbs
;
and magic implements begins to look hke a pitiful collection of

rubbish his wild gesticulations become the hocus-pocus of a con-
;
jurer. These two figures gave rise to two professional types, the
Swaggering Soldier and the Learned Doctor, the false pretenders
to superior courage and more than mortal wisdom. The medicine-
man, moreover, combined a number of arts that later become
distinct. His magic herbs pass into the remedies of the physician ;
his hocus-pocus lives on in the ceremonials of the priest his incanta- ;
tions and carmina make him the ancestor of the oracle-monger

and the poet. He generates, in fact, many of those minor pro-
fessional types we find as the alazones in Aristophanes' plays. So
we pass from the stock mask of ritual to the gallery of professional
types, whose special traits in the literary stage of drama are, of
course, filled in from observation of ordinary life. Their appeal
depends on their generalised likeness to the impostors who walk
common light of every day.
the streets of the city in the
A taken when the age and sex types undergo a
further step is
similar subdivision. This leads to a classification, not of profes-

sional types, but of types of human character in general what —
the Greeks called ethology. We have seen how in the New Comedy
the Old Man is subdivided into nine varieties, each with a mask
conventionally featured to express a certain character. There is
the harsh father, the benevolent old gentleman, the old miser,
distinguished by his close-cropped hair, and so forth. The Young
COMEDY AND TBAGEDY 203
—
Man, again, includes eleven types the boorish youth, the delicate
youth with a soft white skin, the swarthy and black-haired youth
who perpetuates the Swaggering Soldier, etc. The beginnings of
this sort of differentiation can be traced in the latest plays of
Aristophanes. The Ecclesiazusae, for instance, has four elderly men
Blepyrus, husband of Praxagora Chremes Blepyius' whimsical
; ;
neighbour ; and his suspicious and parsimonious friend.^ These

persons are, of course, necessarily discriminated into types of
character. The last-named, in particular, might stand for the
portrait of the Parsimonious Man. Aristotle ^ holds that Comedy,
when it name of poetry, represents universal types
deserves the
or abstracts of human character. The statements of poetry are
universal, and by a universal statement I mean the sort of things
'
that such and such a hind of man will probably or necessarily say
and do, which is the aim of poetry, though it affixes proper names
to the characters. ... In Comedy this has now become clear
{i.e. since the New Comedy superseded the Old) they first compose ;
a story with probable incidents, and then give it a basis of any

proper names that come to hand, instead of writing Uke the old
iambic poets about particular persons.' The characters, in fact,'
have personal names only because people have them in real life.
Their true names would be descriptive of character, as indeed they
often were in the New Comedy (Thraso, PyrgopoUnices, etc.), and as
they were again in EngUsh plays and novels from the seventeenth
century onwards (Mr. Allworthy, Sir Courtly Nice, etc.).
Along this channel we reach the literature of Characters,' which
'
has a long history starting from Theophrastus. Even Theophrastus'

master gave the name of Ethica to the philosophical treatment of
morals, as if the analysis of character-types, to which he devotes
Aristotle
so large a part of his treatise, were the central interest.
borrows much, and Theophrastus still more, from the comic stage.^.
Beyond this point Comedy in ancient times did not move ;
nor,
indeed, can it ever really pass out of that stage. The difference
former
between a great comedian and a small one is not that the
mere types.
puts real individual characters on the stage, the latter
R calls this last &\\os 0«S«X(5s. See Van Leeuwen on line

1
The corrector of
B.g " Poetics, 9.
pp. 305 ^9oX67os, dpera\6705, ^loXiyos

See Reich, Der Mimm, i. chap.
» iv. ff.
are all terms applied to the mimes.

It is that the lesser puts together a bundle of qualities which
man
never coalesce into a personaUty, while the genius creates a per-
sonality from within. But that personality remains what Aristotle
calls universal.' It is a permanent possibility of human nature,

independent of its accidental trappings of time and country. It
is only the vulgar and corrupt realism of the modern stage that
could ever disguise this fact for a moment. The ancient drama
wisely preserved the mask, which suppressed so far as possible the
individuality and the accidental features of the actor, and repre-
sented in a conventional language of signs what the poet wished
to be represented — the universal character. The masks, which
modern writers wonder at,^ were retained, not because the theatres
were so large as to make it impossible to follow the play of feature
on a Hving face, but because the Greek spectator was trained in a
which taught him, when he went to the theatre, to
tradition of art
look for something more important than the damnable faces of
the celebrated Mr. So-and-so. It is no pedantic archaism, but a
profound understanding of drama, that leads the greatest artist
now interested in the production of plays to revert to the use of
masks, and even to hanker after substituting the marionette for
the living actor.^ It might be well if the revival of Greek plays
in the modern theatre could be prohibited until the pubUc had
learnt to tolerate nothing more reahstic than the masked and
styUsed, puppet-hke, figures that trod, with stilted gait, the stage
of Aeschylus and Euripides.
101. Why Tragedy represents '

exalted persons
'
Such, then, are the general tendencies whose drift carries Comedy
and Tragedy along their divergent ways. Comedy is, in the main,
bent upon character, and becomes, in the hands of Menander, the
mirror of society. Its end now, though not at the first,' is to ' '
show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very
age and body of the time his form and pressure.' The mirror is
no magic mirror, capable of reveaUng far distant times and unknown
regions. The scene is commonly Athens the time, the present.^l ;
' See, for instance, Haigh, Atlic Theatre,''' 262.

2 E. Gordon Craig, The Art of the Theatre, London, 1911.
^ Schol. in Dion. Thrac. (Kaibel, C. O. F., i. p. 11, 1. 25), haêpa Si
KUjX'fiSla rpayifiSlas Sti 17 rpayifSla ?xf ' ("li i.Tra.yy€\lav
l(rTopla.v Tr/adjt ui/ ytvop.ivav,
T) Si Kui;n(j)(5£a irXiaixara irepi^xî ^MTiKiv irpayn&Twv.
The atmospliere must be in the broad hght of common day. When

Comedy touched the figures of heroic legend, it was to shatter their
subUmity and degrade them below the level of decent human beings
— to make Ajax as vulgar as Thersites, and much more stupid.
--The Gods in Aristophanes, again, are always inferior to the human
protagonist. These figures that might threaten to trail some clouds
of glory from above and beyond the mortal scene, must be not
merely brought down to the same footing with the human characters,
but thrust still lower. The part of Dionysus in the Frogs is a good
illustration. The effeminate coward of the first half of the play
becomes the almost idiotic buffoon of the second. Yet, there is
just one moment where we are in danger of recalling that he is,
—
after all, a God the hnes in which he forbids Pluto's servant to
torture him at his peril, for I am an immortal, Dionysus, son of
'
Zeus.' ^ The impression is gone again in a flash but it serves to ;
show how assiduously Aristophanes has watched against this risk

elsewhere, and to make us feel one reason why Comedy must either
avoid the Gods and heroes altogether, or set them at a heavy
discount.
"
Tragedy, on the other hand, is anything but the mirror of con-
temporary society. On the stage of Aeschylus all the principal
characters are in a greater or less degree divine, Olympian Gods
and Kings and Queens of the legendary past, who were either
divinities that had come to be thought of as heroic men and women,
or men and women who had come to be worshipped after death as
demigods. The interval which separates these august persons from

the Olympians above them is hardly greater than that which
separates them on the other side from the minor characters, who
have not the divinity of rank. These last have no personal names :
they are
they are 'a Herald,' 'a Nurse,' and so on. Further,
definitely marked off by a considerable degree of reahsm, and often
which Tragedy,
by comic touches. They stand at the hmit beyond
a mirror
as conceived by Aeschylus, will not move
towards holding
up on to that
up to ordinary life. They are human types,
caught
dyopeiu, t.W
1
628 : Dion.
âaavlêiv AddvaToy 6vt'- el di /ii),
ifik ixTi
aurJs (reavriv airiw.
Servant. '^^T"' Sf tI ;
Addvaros dval 4>-niu Ai6i'i/ffos

At6s.
Dion.
higher plane, where their haK-divine masters and mistresses can
\_jvâlk in the company of undying Gods.
Why does ancient Tragedy require this heroic atmosphere ?
Why was it, in Aristotle's words, ' a representation of exalted
persons ' (/it'/iT^cri? a-jrovSaicov) ? When the French critics of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries interpret this phrase to mean
that ' Tragedy represented the life of princes Comedy served to ;
depict the actions of the people,' ^ we are disposed to set them

down as snobs or, at the best, courtiers. But we may reflect that
Shakespeare, who was not troubled by Aristotelian canons, followed

the rule and Shakespeare, though he accepted contemporary views
;
of the divinity that hedged a king, was neither a courtier nor a snob.
The French critics were not entirely wrong, even as interpreters
of Aristotle's meaning. The persons in Greek tragedy are royal
for a better reason than any secondary cause, such as Peisistratus'
encouragement of the Epic at Athens. They are royal because
at one time to be a King was to be half a God, and these divine
princes can therefore tread the same stage with the higher Gods,
whose will directs the course of human life and is itself immediately
overshadowed by the ultimate power of Destiny.
Here the argument connects with our previous point the —
primacy of the plot in Tragedy. Tragedy does not seek to ape
the manners or portray the characters of everyday society its ;
function is to represent the destiny of man, the turning wheel of

Time and Fate. To accomplish this, it must roll away the parti-
coloured screen, the motley surface of social custom, the fashions
and accidents of the place and the hour, and open to our sight a
vision of man's life and death, which the bravest can hardly endure
to contemplate until it is redeemed by art.^ Greek Tragedy, thanks
to the pecuHar genius of Greek religion, had the great advantage
of being able to bring upon its stage in visible form the divine powers
at work behind the screen. Only the innermost mystery is never
unveiled, whether it be called Zeus, whoever he be,' or Destiny,
'
Moira, to whom Zeus himself had once been subject. With this
reservation, however, we can be allowed to see the figures of the
' D'Aubignao, La pratique du thidtre, ii. oh. 10. This, and Daoier's notes to
the same effect (on Poet. v. 4 and xiii.), are quoted by Butoher, Aristotle's
Theory of Poetry^ (hondon, 1S98), p. 2,38.
^ Cf. Nietzsche, Oebnrt der TragSdie.
Gods themselves ; and the human actors, whose experience we

read in the awful hght thrown upon it from those supernatural
forms, must be magnified to the scale of those heroes who held
converse with Gods and fought with them on the plains of Troy
and Thebes.^
— 7
The above contrast between Tragedy and Comedy is based upon

observation of the course they actually followed on the way to
what Aristotle calls their '
perfect forms '
—the fully reahsed
two species of dramatic art, starting from a given
possibilities of
convention and growing up in a given environment. The nature
of the impulses which were the inner principles of this growth we
shall not here try to analyse. We must be content to infer their
existence from their effects, without asking the further question,
what it is that drives men, at certain times and places, to seek and
find expression for the tragic or the comic vision of life. All that
we have tried to indicate is an effect of the inherent difference
—
between these two visions the consequent divergence of the two
species of drama. What remains to be shown, in the interests of^
our hypothesis, is that the original dramatic ritual we have supposed
to lie at the root of both, contained the germs, however imphcit
and undeveloped, from which both might spring. To some degree
we have done this already ; but we can now set the matter in a
more general light.
102. The germs of Tragedy and Comedy in the original ritual
Professor Murray has pointed out the affinity between the re-
theme of our supposed
current hfe-story of the Year Spirit, the
doctrine of Huhris, of the Insolence
ritual, and that deep-rooted
wheel of Time and Judgment
that brings vengeance on itself as the
inexorably turns, in which the Greek
found the tragic philosophy
of life. He savs ^ 'The hfe of the Year-Daemon, as it seems to

:
a story of Pride and Punish-

be reflected in^Tragedy, is generally
Each Year arrives, waxes great, commits the sm of Hubris,
ment.
thrown by an aclmirable study of
1
On this whole subject much light is
Art and anesthetic Prmciple, by
"Psychi=-1 Distance" as a Factor in
Psychology, v. (1912), p. S7.
E BuUough, The British Jourml of York, 1912), p. 47. Of. the same
^^Fo^rsLges of Oreelc migim (New
his Age (London, 1913),
chapter iii.
author's Euripides and
and then is slain. The death is deserved but the slaying is a sin;
:
hence comes the next Year as Avenger, or as the Wronged One

re-risen " they all pay retribution for their injustice one to another
:
''
according to the ordinance of time." ^ Our supposed ritual, '
accordingly, as a representation of the cycle of seasonal life, of the
annual conflict of Summer and Winter, provides the essential

structure of the tragic plot, the fundamental conception of the
{tragic reversal or peripeteia.
Turning from this abstract scheme of action to its inner, psycho-
logical aspect, we have the doctrine of Hubris, the fatal pride or

Insolence that provokes the Jealousy (Phthonos) of superhuman
powers, and brings about its own destruction. This theory is the
product of rehgious reflection. It suggests a tragic analogy between
the succession of life and death in Nature and the rise and fall of
the great ones among mankind. The kings of the earth whose
dizzy exaltation upsets their moral balance are, like those old divine
kings of fertility, cut off lest their waning strength should bring
famine upon their people.
In Tragedy, the hero's enemy is his own Hubris ; the conflict
between this disastrous passion and its opposite, Sophrosyne, is
fought out in his own breast. Thus, in the developed form of the
two adversaries in the Agon are united in one person
tragic art, the ;
though outside and above him there is always the watching Jealousy
of immortal powers —
Zeus, who abases the proud and exalts the
lowly. But, in our review of the various forms of the ritual drama,
we saw how the God comes
to be doubled into the two adversaries
— the suffering and triumphant Dionysus, and Pentheus, who,
I
after insolently threatening his worshippers and breaking in upon
1 their secret rites, himself endures the fate of the God. In this type,
the element of Hubris, which brought the Year to its wintry ruin,
is detached from the hero to become the characteristic of his double,
the Antagonist, carrying with it the penalty of injustice, while the

God triumphs as his own avenger. Further, we were led into this
subject by our study of the Impostor, the impertinent intruder
who molests the comic hero, and in whom we recognised a dupUcate
' As this quotation from Anaximander reminds us, the war of hot and cold,
wet and dry— the conflict of Summer and Winter, conceived in a more abstract
—
form as a feud between the elements lies behind a great deal of Greek scien-
tific speculation. This point is elaborated in F. M. Cornford, From T!ili[iion to
Philosophy (London, 1912).
of the evil adversary in the Agon. The common note of all the'
Impostors was Alazoneia. What now becomes clear is that Alazoneia
is the comic counterpart of the tragic Hubris.^ That the two
conceptions were associated in the Greek mind is evident from an
interesting discussing in Plato.
Analysing in the Philebus ^ those pleasures which are '

impure
'
in the sense of being mixed with pain, Plato takes, among other
illustrations, the pleasures of the theatre. In witnessing Tragedy
we enjoy our tears. The admixture of pain in the pleasure of
Comedy is more obscure, and leads him into an analysis of the
Ridiculous. _
The Ridiculous derives its essence from the failure of some vice
or defect to obey the Delphic precept, '
Know thyself.' ^ Three
principal types are those who overvalue themselves in respect of
external fortune, bodily advantages, or mental virtues, and think
themselves richer, handsomer, or wiser than they are.* (We may
note in passing that this is only a more exact statement of the
definition of the Alazon, given by Xenophon's Cyrus :
'
The name
of Alazon should, I think, be given to those who affect to be richer
or braver than they are, or undertake to do things beyond their
powers.' ^)
Such persons, continues Plato, when their conceit is not backed

by power so as to make them formidable and hateful, are merely
ridiculous. The pleasure we feel in laughing at absurd pretensions
is, however, mixed with a painful element of phthonos
^ (there is ;
1 If, with Suidas van L.), we read at Birds 824, IV ol $eol rois
(fort, rede,
77)7e;'ers |
Codd. KaBvTeprjKivTia-ai' iXaôiiela is used to
d\afoyeu6/teyous (-;'oi ) ,
describe the Hubris of the Titans in their war with Heaven.

2 P. 47 flf.
= This is, of course, the tragic failure also, the blindness that goes with
insolent presumption.
J
This is based on the philosophic distinction of {a) external goods from
internal, whether (b) of body or (c) of soul.
= Xen. Cyrop. ii. 2, 12 6 lih yap dXccfui'
: ^fjioiye SoKet Syo/ia Keia-eai iirl roU
Kal dvBpeioT^pois, Kal voiiiaav
wpocriroiov/ihois Kal TrXovaioiripois ehai el<n ft ii.^
Imvol d(Ti.v in(TXvoviJ.hois. Ar. K

N. ii.
ij
7, 1108 a : v di wpoirTrolriais i, i>.h M

iXaôpela. Mag. mor., 1193 a 6 t'.î' y^p dXafiiy iirrii' 6 jrXeiu Twf
Tb pi.eTôi' :
elSi.a, & ^^ otSev. Note this last Socratic

iwafyxbvTuiv air^ Kpc^TOioifieôs dmi. ^
touch.
6 Phileb. 49 a rby mdiKby (pBifov.
:
TeXS^ras S.pa riiJ.as £7ri tois twv <l>l}.av
50 A :
,-.,-. ^„
yeXoiois i XiTos, Kcpdvyvpras vSov7,y ,pBbi,v,

Mirv A» ¥oAv avyK^pavvivu.
<t>yi<rlv
That <j,eivos is painful has beeu admitted at 48 B.

a tinge of bitterness that is found also in envy and jealousy and
what the Germans call Schadenfreude). The pleasure of Comedy
is, thus, no less mixed than the pleasure of Tragedy, where we enjoy
our tears.
It will, I think, be clear that the analysis which takes this
somewhat unexpected form, is suggested by the now familiar

antithesis of Eiron and Alazon. What is particularly curious ^s
that Plato finds, in the spectator of Comedy that phthonos which
is similar in more than name to the feeling excited by the tragic
Hubris.^
'
We saw how, in Comedy, Alazoneia finds its match in the mocking
/ Irony of the hero, who draws out the Impostor's absurdities and
seta them at naught. If, with that antithesis in mind, we read
'
Pentheus' examination of Dionysus in the Bacchae,^ we shall find

there the tragic counterpart of the ironical hero confronting the
'
boastful Impostor. The calmness of Pentheus' prisoner ; his
modesty and a miraculous birth ^
in claiming a divine mission ;
the exasperating coolness with which he speaks of a secret wisdom

not to be profaned to the dull ears that can hear only the
wisdom of this world {a-o<f>i,a) * the secure contempt, veiled under;
an almost gentle demeanour, all this makes a masterpiece of —

'
irony,' which seems prophetic of two more famous scenes still
to come in history Socrates in presence of his Athenian judges,
:
and Christ before Pilate. Pentheus is reduced to blustering

threats, and the scene ends with a warning that he will pay for his
Hubris.^
The relation of the two actors in this scene is the unmistakable
analogue of the relation of Eiron and Alazon. In general, however,
as we said, the tragic adversaries. Hubris and Sophrosyne, fight
1 i)/3/)isand dXafoveia are coupled in the comparison of the soul to a two-horsed

chariot. The bad horse is S^peus Kal dXafoyetas ^raipos, the good is niiijs IpaffTTji
/ierA troiippoffiprjs Kal aldoDs {Phaednis, 253 D e).
434 ff.
2
'''
Dion, oi K6fi,iro! oMe/s' pq.Siou 5' diruv rdSe.
461 ;
* The Bacchanals disclaim the vulgar form of ^66vos towards

<7o0/a rd 0-004^ :
oi; êoi/u, 1005 but elsewhere they speak of <70<pla in the same breath with
J
Hubris 395 rb a-o^6v 5' oi <ro:pla, t6 re |Ui) BvTjTa. ippovew. 427 ffo0d>' S' dTr^xîK
:
TTparlSa ippha re wepiaoSii/ rapa (jtaruv' t6 ttXÂos ti Tt to /pavXdTepov i»6iua-e XPVTa.l

re, t6S* Av Sexolp.av.
* 516 : drdp roi twi'5' iSiroii'' v^pi(xp,6,T{av |
/xirufft Ai6>'ii(r6s it'. . . .
their battle within the hero's breast. Here is a point of difierence
from Comedy. The Sophrosyne of Comedy is the spirit of genial
sanity, in all its range
from the flicker of Ughtning reason and the
flash of wit,through the large humour of common sense, down to
the antics of the fool, making ironical play with every form of
absurdity. Its antagonist is pretence, assumption, arrogance,
conceit, all the less serious and tragic species of imposture. The
adversaries here are incompatible and must remain distinct. The
duel of Comedy is everlastingly fought out between them.
This difference between Tragedy and Comedy leads to a furtheT
consequence. Tragedy, bent on reveahng the working of human
destiny, keeps to the fundamental conception of the old ritual plot.
The stories it borrows from heroic legend are such as illustrate
this conception ;
^ the characters are created to fit the ' experience '
they must undergo. Comedy, on the other hand, has no concern

with the course of destiny. The substructure of the old plot is
kept, just because it is when its
a matter of indifference, and,
serious element is toned down and
happy conclusion emphasised,
its
it serves well enough. Comedy is bent on character, and fastens

on those stock masks which Tragedy was bound to discard. It
is in this Uttle group of Alazones that she finds her legitimate
prey. Progress consists in subdividing them into minor species
of absurdity by that way we have traced, through a study, first
of professional types, and finally of types of human character in
general.
To sum up. The drama provided Tragedy with the

old ritual
abstract conception or movement of its plot, and the philosophy
of Hubris. It provided Comedy with the stock masks which could
serve as a basis for its ever subtler classification of all that is
ridiculous in human character ; while the outhnes of the ritual

plot were retained in the Old Comedy, because they were sufficient
for its purposes. It appears, then, that, if the inner impulses of

the two kinds of drama are such as we described, the supposed
ritual did contain the essential germs out of which each could grow
to its full form.
to a small
Aristotle [Poetics, 14 fin. ) notes that Tragedies are restricted
'
1
... in which such horrors have occurred,' but he

number of (heroic) families
could not know the reason.
103. Tragedy or Comedy, a difference of emphasis
I
Not only did our supposed ritual drama provide Tragedy with
its essential conception, and Comedy with its opportunity for
character-study; it is also true that its central incidents could

be given a sad or happy turn, according as emphasis were thrown
on the conflict and death of the hero, or on the jojrful resurrection
and marriage that followed. This difference of emphasis was already
present, at the rehgious stage, among the various local forms of the
ritual. Thus, in the Asiatic cults, the sorrowful element seems to
have predominated. We remember those untimely lamentations
for Adonis which cast a shadow of ill omen over the departure of
the Sicilian expedition. They were commanded to take ship
'
on the day of the celebration of the feast of Adonia, on the which

the custom is that women do set up in divers parts of the city,
in the middest of the streets, images hke to dead corses which they
carry to burial, and they represent the mournings and lamentations
made at the funerals of the dead, with blubbering, and beating
themselves, in token of the sorrow the goddess Venus made for
the death of her friend Adonis.' ^ From the Babylonian Descent

of Ishtar to Bion's Elegy and Shelley's Adonais, the name and
fate of Adonis or Tammuz have always kept their solemn and
mournful associations. If any form of literary drama had arisen
in this cult, it would certainly have been tragic in tone. Yet,

in the ritual there is only a difference of emphasis. The resurrection
and epiphany of the risen God with his divine bride is the necessary
conclusion, as surely as the spring must follow the winter.^ If
the death, instead of dominating the story, had dwindled, as it has
in the Thracian folk-drama and the Mummers' Play, to a piece of
frivolous pantomime, while the marriage and the triumphal K6mos
of the reunited lovers had become the prominent features, we
should then have the basis for Comedy of the Aristophanic type,
with its strongly marked sexual element and its riotous conclusion,
jdrowning any serious note that is still to be heard in the Agon.
It must not be forgotten, too, that, though for us the word
'
tragic has come to possess an atmosphere of pervading sadness,
'
the happy ending was normal in the trilogies of Aeschylus and ;
1 Plutarch, rii. Alcib. xviii. North's version expands the Greek : 'A.Siiivlav
yap eh ros 7ifi4pa,s cKslvas KaBriKbvrav efSuXo TroXXaxoO viKpois iKKoiu,ôiJ.ivoii S/xoia
wpoliKeiMTO rats yviia,i.^l, Kal rocâs i/unoOvTO KOTrTA/ieKai Kai Bpifvovt JSoc.
" On this point see Frazer, Adonis Auis Oairii (1906), chap. i.
in Aristotle's time it was still debatable whether a tragedy should

not end happily, the critics blaming Euripides for his preference
of what Aristotle, like ourselves, regards as the truly tragic close.^
What historic causes made Tragedy take the serious turn is a
question that cannot be followed up here. One thing is evident
that Tragedy is the exceptional phenomenon that calls for some
special explanation. The Indian drama, which is said to have
had a religious origin in the cult of Krishna,^ the youthful favourite
of shepherdesses and victor over the demons, dehberately pro-
hibits the tragic ending. The plays of Kahdasa and of the other
writers of the Sanskrit classical drama are romantic in atmosphere,
full of tenderness and pathos, as well as of humour, but the tragic
tone is absent, and the ending happy. True Tragedy has very
rarely made its appearance at all. In the modern world, it has
been always, directly or indirectly, influenced by Greek and
Eoman drama. There seems to be no parallel to its independent
growth in Greece ; and this fact makes the problem of its origin
there pecuharly difficult to solve. _
It is certain that, in general, the type of dramatic ritual we have
studied, wherehas passed into the phase of folk-drama, has lost
it
its seriousness and degenerated into buffoonery.^ There is reason
1 Ar. Poetics, 13, 1453a, 23, 5i6 xal ol KvpLirlSrj iyKaXoOvres aiirb ajxapTdvovaiv 8t(.
TOVTO 5/)f iy raij Tpaytfidiais Kal voWal avrov ds Svarvxlav Ti\nnSi<!i.v.
2
S. LiSvi, Le tUdtre Indien (Paris, 1890), says that the first positive document
attesting dramatic representations in India associates them with Krishna ; and
that the Classical drama (Kalidasa, etc.) was due to a revival of Krishnaism.
We must, however, allow for the ritual dramas detected by Schroder in the
dialogue hymns of the Eg-Veda (Mysterium und Mimus, Leipzig, 1908).
Fragments of Indian palm-leaf MSS. found in Central Asia prove that dramatic
literature of substantially the same chief characteristics as the Sanskrit
classical
drama flourished in the first, or first and early second centuries a.d.,
Encycl. of Belig^
three or four centuries before Kalidasa (Rapson in Hastings'
and Ethics, s.v. Drama). The 'processional' folk-plays called Yatras,\
celebrating the life of Krishna and especially his love for Kadha,
more resemble
what we have supposed to lie behind Greek Comedy.
3 an excellent discussion in Doutte, Relig. el Mayie dans I'Afriquedu
Cf.
nord, p. 533 ff., and especially the following: Le
drame poignant du sacrifice
a disparn, n'est plus [qu'} nne cirimonie ridicule: Venterre-
d'un'dieu, si la foi
ment grotesque d'un personnage fantaisiste. nous M
avons dans les camavals
rehgieuse, vidie de sa
I'exemple plus typique de ce que devient une cirimonie
le
die tombe dans le burlesque, a cause de ce contraste de joie et de

croyance:
tristesse et d cause aussi de son
caractire inexpliqui, c'est-A-dire diraisonnable
qu'elle n'est plus qu'une activitd
inuhle, ce qui est la
et elk devient unjeu, parce
ccmphqutr mdifimment,
definition dujeu. JDes lors, tile pent se surcharger et se
comme toute manifestation estMtiqiie.
to believe that the same holds true of the stage of development
that lies behind the Tragedy of Aeschylus. Aristotle ^ quite clearly
states that Tragedy had emerged from a phase which he calls
satyric/ in which the plots were slight ' or trivial, and the style '
was ludicrous.' The metre used was the trochaic tetrameter,

'
'
*
because the poetry was satjTic and more connected with dancing
than it was later. He implies also that this phase had lasted for
a long time ; for he says that it was '
late ' in its progress that
Tragedy acquired its proper tone of stateUness and dignity.
Without going further into the historic problems, I will here
express the opinion that, if Tragedy had declined to this level, ' '
its dignity and stateliness can only have been conferred upon it
by the deliberate and conscious effort of individual poets, probably

under the direction of Peisistratus. The process may have involved
the expurgation of that side of the drama which was most obviously
connected with fertility.
^^^
On however, it may be noted that if the emblem of
this point,
round which Tragedy centred was the goat, the human
fertility
sexual element could not be so strongly marked as in Comedy,

where the emblem was the phallus. A deity in goat form can be
torn to pieces, mourned, sacramentally eaten, and resurrected
but the drama will not end with a marriage. ^ For that we require
a representative in human form, a Phales. Moreover, once the
protagonist is human, he cannot, when civilisation has come, really
be killed and torn to pieces as a goat can. The death and resur-
' Poetics, i : '4ti. Si rb fifyeOos' ck ixiKpQiv ixiOoiv Kai Xefeois yeXolas Sii. t6 ix
(rarvpiKoO /MTaâXeiu d^^ airâeixvivOT], to -re iihpoii iK Terpaiiirpov laixîiov iyiviTO.
ri fiiv yap irpCiTOV Terpafiirpip expuvTo Sia to aaTvpiKîi Kal dpxri<TTi.KoiTipav ctvai
rijp irol-ri<nv. As fUKpwv fiidwv immediately follows the term fiiycBos, which means
'amplitude,' 'grandeur,' rather than mere length, fiiKpSv probably means
'petty," slight," trivial,' rather than 'short,' as it is commonly rendered. I
am convinced that ck caTvpiKoO /iera/SaXe?)' does not mean that Tragedy developed
out of a form like the Satyric dramas known to us, a century later, from
Sophocles' Ichneutae and Euripides' Cyclops. This form, on the contrary, appears
to be modelled on Tragedy. I take Sia rb h
a-arvpiKoS /ieTapaXelv 6\pi aireae/ivOvev
to be nearly equivalent to saying, ' it changed from satyric to dignified,' as it
Aristotle had written iK traTupmov aep-vov fi.cTiâ\ef (cf.
Phys. y 5, 205 a 6,
eis
irdvra yci.p ficTafidWei e| irnvrlou eh ivavTiov, otov

BepnoO eh ^vxpiv). 'Writing in «
his compressed way, Aristotle substitutes i.wcireiji.viii'eri to convey the additional
idea that it reached the seriousness appi-opriate to it in its fined form {d?ro-). I
doubt if the phrase (as contrasted with iK toS crar. /lera/S.) can have any other
meaning.
^ Except possibly at an extremely primitive stage of ritual.
rection must become a mummery, and this —the solemn and

mournful part of the performance —will inevitably decay and lose
its The marriage, on the other hand, can be
serious meaning.
retained and cast its joyful and licentious atmosphere over the
whole proceedings. We seem here to make out one of the con-
ditions which led to the Song of the Goat becoming tragic, while
the mummeries of the Phallic procession found their natural issue

in Comedy. J
^._]
But we cannot, I believe, dispense with the supposition of a

conscious rescue of Tragedy from its '
satyrio '
phase —a deliberate
expulsion of those elements which distinguish the satyric drama
from the tragic plays to which it was so closely linked. The
conclusion that concerns our present argument is that there is
good reason to believe that, if we could see a tragedy '

' of the time
before Aeschylus and Peisistratus, we might find that was a
it
performance not much more serious and dignified than the Old
^
Comedy.
The various considerations we have put forward have, perhaps,

removed any objection that may have been felt to the derivation
of Comedy and Tragedy from similar ritual performances. All
that remains is to point out that our theory of the descent of
Comedy is consistent with such literary tradition of its history as
we possess.
104. The History of the Old Comedy
In the case of Comedy we have not to suppose any such violent

conjecture
break with the popular tradition of the folk-play as I
to have been deUberately effected for Tragedy.
The history of
Comedy down to the appearance of Aristophanes (427 B.C.) may

be divided into three periods.^
I. The first, or prehistoric, period ends at 488-7, the date at
form of drama.
which the archon first granted a Chorus to
this
that this date falls at a
Aristotle ^ must be right when he says
' development. We cannot guess for how many
late '
point in its
centuries the Phallic processions

had wound through the villages
This sketch, of course, omits

1 many important facts and details which are
not relevant to our theme.
««"«"-
2 Poetics^ 5, 14496 1, xop^v KWi^^gSdv 6fi tot( o Apx""
of Attica, pausing in the market-place or before the house doors, as-
tkey do in Northern Greece, to perform their rude Mummers'
still
Play. Behind that again lies the period during which the ritual
drama was still a serious religious ceremony, annually performed
for the fertility of man and beast and crop. At some time
faith in its magical efficacy died out, perhaps under the influence
of some new incoming system of belief, just as Christianity in its
day brought about the degradation into folk-plays and May games
of many an ancient pagan rite. How long Comedy existed on
this lower level of folk-drama we cannot say. The examples still
lingering on in modern Europe show that no Umit can be set to
the persistence of such survivals but, on the other hand, it may ;
have been only for a comparatively short time. What Aristotle

tells us is that the performers were '
amateurs ' {edeXovrai), and
that Comedy '
already had certain definite forms (o-i^?7/i,aTa) when
the record of its poets begins." He also seems to imply that in this
first period it had a plurality of actors, masks, and a prologue.^

The word translated '
definite forms '
is somewhat vague, but it
appears to mean '

outHnes,' ^ and it may fairly be taken to include
conventional features such as the Agon, the Parabasis, the Kdmos,
etc. The '
pluraHty of actors ' and their '
masks '
we have tried
to identify.
II. To the second period belong the first generation of officially
recognised poets, of whom we know not much more than Aristo-

phanes himself tells us in the Knights.^ The fragments attributed
to Chionides, Magnes, Ecphantides, if genuine at all, are too slight
to give us any idea of the form of their plays. If Tzetzes means
this generation of poets by the School of
'
Susarion,' we can interpret"
his statement that '
they brought their characters on the scene
^ Poetics, 5, 1449& 2, -fjS-r] S^ crx^jM^Tci rtva auTrjs ixo^<n]S oi \ey6fievoL ai)r^s TroLTjTal
fivrjfioveuovTOiL. risair^dojKsv ij irpoXdyovs ^ itXtj^t; viroKpiTtov Kal Haa
d^ irpbaonra
Toiavra Since the details of external representation must have been
fp/vbTjrat.
recorded from the date of official recognition, we may inffer that the features
named are older. Of. Starkie, Wasps, p. ix. The statements of later writers
who profess to know what Aristotle says was not known in his day may be
ignored.
^ See Bywater on Poetics, 14486, 36, rh t^s KufiifiSLas
o-x'JM'"'" Tpwros vTriSei^cv,
'marked out for us the great outlines of Comedy.' Plato, Lmos, 737 D, (tx-Zi/uitos
'iveKa Kal iTroypa(l>rjs. In the text above discussed Bywater renders ax^p'ô-Ta
'
definite forms.'
^ V. 520 £f. If the Scholiast is right, Aristophanes refers to plays by ilagnes
entitled Bap(3i7i(rTaI,"0pi'iSes, \v5ol, S['î'ts, BarpAx"'-
without orderly arrangement ' ^ as implying that in the Comedy

of this date the old plotwas broken down and so interpolated with
episodes as to appear plotless, like Punch and Judy.
Ill, In the third period the greatest names are Kratinua and
Krates, both of whom first appeared about the middle of the
century. The only play of Kratinus about which we have enough
information to allow of any reconstruction of its form is the Jlvrivi].^
The poet, replying to attacks upon his drunkenness, represented
himself as the husband of personified Comedy. She threatened
him with divorce and a process for ill-treatment. Implored by
the poet's friends not to act too hastily, she stated her case against
him and complained that he gave himself up to her rival. Drunken-
ness. (Here there was evidently an Agon.) After hearing the
oration of Comedy, the friends take counsel how to cure Eaatinus,
who urges that good poetry cannot be written by a water-drinker.
Whether he was cured, and how, we do not know but we may ;
conjecture with certainty that the play must have ended with a
reconciliation and re-marriage of Comedy and Kratinus.^ The plot
fits neatly into the same scheme that we have traced in Aristophanes.
^ Of Krates Aristotle* makes the important statement that he
was the first Athenian poet to drop the iambic element of invec-
' '
tive and compose plots or fables of a universal character.

He '
'
took this step under the influence of the Sicilian poets Epicharmus
and Phormis. It has often been observed that the fragments of
Krates and Pherekrates are hardly distinguishable from the manner
of the New Comedy ; and there is no trace in Krates of personal
attacks upon individuals. Aristotle seems to assert two things.
The first that Krates dropped that element of invective
is
Aristotle found the distinguishing mark of the

Old Attic
in which
because,
Comedy. This point specially interested the philosopher,
16, oi iv ri? 'ArTui? ^pSnov

Kû^vîo^^ (Kaibel, C. G. F., 18),
1 i. iii.
Tzetzes, tt.
ixbvos
Poppelreuter {De Com. Mt.
rd Kara^KevaHiêvov.
ArdKTO,, dariyo. Kal yi\o>s fiv
must mean the poets of Magnes generation,

Prim p. 32) argues that the author
,
and that the words ô-ax So«™p(«â

. .
may be interpolated.
.
2 See Meineke, Comici, i. 48, whose reconstruction I

quote.
grecque, iii. 480 sans doute Vaffaire jimisa^t fa,
Cf. Croiset, Hist, de la
:
^ lit.
Ka.e6\ov iroieTv 'K6yovs Kal /iidovs.

in his view, the representation of the '
universal '
(' not what
actually happens, but the sort of thing that may happen ') is the
special function of poetry, as contrasted, for instance, with history.
Hence, the Old Comedy, in so far as it consisted of invective against
real persons, was not poetry at all, or, as we should say, not art.
As a piece of aesthetic theory, this an interesting judgment

is
but from our own standpoint in this book it is of minor importance.

We must certainly not be misled into supposing that Comedy
before Krates consisted entirely or mainly of personal invective
and we must remember that this element is still prominent in
Aristophanes' earlier plays. The Sicilian influence is less marked
in the younger poet, and it is quite probable that the structure of
his plays is nearer to the old pattern.
Aristotle's second statement about Krates seems to be that he
introduced the custom of inventing or '
composing ' plots (-Trooeiv
Xoyovi KoX /Mvdov;). This is generally assumed to imply that

Comedy before Krates But it is
must have had no plot at all.
equally consistent with our own view that Comedy then had still
in broken outline the old ritual scheme with its constant features.
When Krates began to compose new imaginative plots, he may
have been doing for Comedy something analogous to what Thespis
or Aeschylus did for Tragedy, moving away from the old ritual
formula towards a fresh variety of subjects and characters. But
though Krates, under Syracusan influence, Hfted the '
vulgar
Comedy ' of his predecessors to a higher plane, he did not banish
the old stock masks and farcical incidents from the comic stage.
The tradition of them was still alive in the next generation ; for
Aristophanes can boast of expurgating them, while in reality he
kept them all, though in a very subordinate place. In this respect,
again, Aristophanes is not the successor of Krates, but goes back
to the older tradition. Krates, in fact, seems to stand outside
the direct line, as one who attempted
to import the Sicihan Mime,
which already had a long history of independent development.^
The Scholiast on Knights, 538, remarks that Krates aimed especially at

'
giving pleasure. afUKpa iiroici xoi irepve tovs aKpoaTa^, ypaipuv rjSia.
: Aristotle
uses the same expression in contrasting the New with the Old Comedy, Eth.
Nic. IV. viii. 7, 1128a 25, iroTipoii ovu rbv eUaKilnrTODTa bpuTriov rif \4yav fi^j awperri
i\ev9eplij> ^ T(f fir) XuTreij' rix a,Ko6ovTa ^ koi WpTrfiv ; so also Euanthins, ii. 6, râr
KUnipSiav . . . quae minus amaritudinis spectatorihus et eadem opera multum
delectationia afferret.
The attempt was premature, and only bore fruit later, when
Aristophanes had shown the best that could be made of the old
indigenous form inherited from ritual. We are told that in the
Cocalus, which is conjectured to have been Aristophanes' last play,
he introduced the new plot motives (including the Eecognition,' '
borrowed from Tragedy) that were later used by Menander.^
That Aristotle should have said nothing of that primitive religious

drama we have hypothetically is in no way surprising.
reconstituted,
In the Poetics he was not concerned with ritual origins. His
mention of the Dithyramb and of the Phallic Song comes in a
parenthesis and to the cult of Dionysus he makes no further
;
reference. Treating analytically the plays he had read or seen,

he fixes upon the '
iambic element ' as the differentia marking
off the Old Comedy from the Comedy of his own time, which was,
in his view, a higher form of art, just because it eschev.cd personal
invective and was purely a universal representation of human
character. How much more he knew or might have inferred
about the earliest stages of Comedy we cannot tell. He may
have known as little as Boileau knew of the beginnings of the
modern French theatre. This celebrated critic could write :
'
Chez nos devots Ayeux le TMdtre ahhorrc
Fut longtemps dans la France un plaisir ignore,
and represent the Mysteries and Miracles as played by une Troupe

grossi^re de Pelerins, who were expelled for their devote imprudence.
If Boileau could be so ignorant of two centuries of ecclesiastical
drama, of which tens of thousands of lines were in existence, we

need not wonder if Aristotle did not know that the plays of
Chionides and Magnes retained traces of a broken-down ritual
plot, and that yet fainter traces survived in Aristophanes. And,
if he did know it, he had no occasion to mention it. There is,
so far as I can see, nothing in Aristotle's positive statements that
is inconsistent with the hypothesis of this book, which I now
commend to the reader's judgment.
1
Vita Aristoph. (Dindorf, Poetae Scenici/' p. 25), Trai/TdTrao-ic ^/tXeXoiiri/Us
Sid, TO&rav airwv (iSiOV y&p KO>ix(fSlas
rb aK<iirTei.v Twi.s)
rrii aXris tSiv KaiJ.vStSii>
ela&yei <t>Bopb.v Kai &ya.yi'wpi(rtil>f Kai t&XM

vdi/ra & ^fiiAuo-e
typafe KiiKdXov, iv y
'M.ivaySpos.
Many literary critics seem to think that an hypothesis about
obscure and remote questions of history can be refuted by a simple
demand for the production of more evidence than in fact exists.
The demand is as easy to make as it is impossible to satisfy. But
the true test of an hypothesis, if it cannot be shown to conflict
with known truths, is the number of facts that it correlates and
explains. The question left for the reader's consideration is whether,
after following our argument, he understands better the form and
features of this strange phenomenon, Aristophanic Comedy.
SYNOPSIS OF THE EXTANT PLAYS
ABBEEVIATIONS
(£.iS.)=Epirrhematio Syzygy.
{AL.)=Alazon (Impostor), Scene of the type described above in § 65.
The ritual motives are indicated by capital

letters FIGHT, AGON,
:
SACRIFICE, NEW ZEUS (KING), COOKING, FEAST, MARRIAGE

(COURTESAN, BRIDE), KOMOS.
222 SYNOPSIS OF THE EXTANT PLAYS
ACHARNIANS (425 B.C. Lenaea)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon : Dikaiopolis (Old Man, Buffoon).
Lamachus (Soldier).
Chorus : Acharnians (Old Men).
Impostors : An Envoy. An Informer.

Pseudartabas. Nicarchus.
Theorus. A Farmer.
Euripides. A Groomsman.
Minor Characters : A Herald. A Megarian and his
Amphitheos. Daughters.
Dikaiopolis' Daughter. A Boeotian.
Euripides' Servant. Messengers.
Mute Persons Courtesans (Exodos), etc.
Prologue. Dikaiopolis, alone in the Pnyx, complains that

every one is late for the Assembly. He will obstruct any dis-
cussion except proposals of peace with Sparta.
The Assembly meets. his divine commis-
Amphitheos declares
sion to make peace. He Dikaiopohs protesting.
is ejected,
(AL.) An Envoy, returned from Persia, introduces a bogus
Persian official, the King's Eye, Pseudartabas. Dikaiopolis
derides them.
Dikaiopohs sends Amphitheos to make a private peace for him
with Sparta.
(AL.) Theorus, returned from an embassy to Thrace, introduces
some sham Thracians. Dikaiopohs exposes them.
Amphitheos brings back three samples of peace-hbations.
Dikaiopohs choses the thirty years' brand and retires to his farm
to celebrate the Country Dionysia.
204. Parodos. (E.S.) The Acharnian charcoal-burners hunt for

the traitor Amphitheos, whom they have sighted on his way from
Sparta.
Dikaiopolis comes out of his house, leading the PhalHo Pro-
cession. The PhalUc Song.
(E.S.) The Acharnians pelt D. with stones (FIGHT). He
pleads for a hearing, and brings out a coal-basket, which he
threatens to SACRIFICE. The Chorus relent.
(E.S.) D. offers to plead with his head over a chopping-block,
which he fetches. Still frightened, he asks leave to get a pathetic
costume.
(AL.) D. begs from Euripides the stage-dress of Telephus.
ACHARNIANS 223
490. AGON {Ef.). Dikaiopolis pleads for peace with Sparta. He
converts Half-Chorus i. Their Leader FIGHTS with the other
Leader, whose party call for Lamachus. [AL.Ântef.) Lamachus
is mocked by D., who converts the Chorus and declares he will
open a private market with the state's enemies, Megara and
Boeotia.
626. Parabasis (Anaj).). Aristophanes' candour a benefit to Athens.

Muse of Acharnae invoked.
{E.S.) Grievances of old men,
harassed by young lawyers.
719. Scene. Dikaiopolis opens his market. A Megarian offers his

daughters for sale as pigs for SACRIFICE.
{AL.) An Informer who comes to denounce the contraband
traffic is driven away.
Chorikon. Dikaiopolis is congratulated. He will not be vexed
by various objectionable persons (satirised by name).
Scene. A Boeotian brings game and eels.
[AL.) Nicarchus, an Informer, is seized and packed up like
pottery.
Lyrical Dialogue, during which Nicarchus is beaten or
tossed from hand to hand.
{AL.) Lamachus' Servant asks for a share of D.'s purchases
for the Choes Feast, and is refused. D. carries his purchases
inside.
971. Parabasis ii. (E.S.) Contrast of Peace and War. (Prepara-

tions for FEAST within.)
1000. Scene. A Herald proclaims the drinking competition of the

Choes. Dikaiopolis begins COOKING.
{E.S.) {AL.) A
Farmer is refused a share of the peace-libatioo
wine.
{AL.) A
Groomsman ofiers meat from a wedding feast. The
Bridesmaid is given some wine for the Bride.
Messenger i. summons Lamachus to go on duty.
Messenger ii. invites Dikaiopolis to FEAST with the priest of
Dionysus.
Lamachus arms himself Dikaiopolis packs his hamper.
;
{Exeunt.)
1143. CHORiiiON {Anaf. dimeters). The Chorus bid them farewell.

Abuse of Antimachus, a stingy choregus.
1174. Scene. Lamachus' Servant announces his return, wounded.
Lamachus enters hobbling between two slaves; Dikaiopolis,
with two COURTESANS, claims the wine-skin won in the Choes
competition. He calls on the Chorus to salute him as Victor
(KaXkiviKOi). . . 1 o ±
ExoDOS. The Chorus escort Dikaiopobs, singing the Song of
Arcbilochus (KOMOS).
KNIGHTS (424 b.c. Lenaea)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon : A Sausage-seller, Agoracritus (Cook).
A PapUagonian Slave, Cleon (Parasite).
Chorus : Kniglits ( Young Men).

Judge in Agon ii. : Demos (Old Man, Buffoon).
Minor Buffoon : First Slave, Demosttenes.

Second Slave, Nikias.
Mute Persons : Libations (Courtesans in Exodos).
Prologue. Tte two slaves, Demosthenes and Nikias, com-

plain of the PapUagonian. A Sausage-seller, destined by oracle
to oust him, is persuaded of his mission but frightened ; when
he appears. Demosthenes calls the Knights to the rescue.
242. Parodos. The Knights rush in and beat the PapUagonian

(FIGHT). He and the Sausage-seller threaten one another.
303. AGON The PapUagonian and Sausage-seller accuse one
I.
another. The PapUagonian is again beaten.

Scene. He declares he will go to the Council and denounce
the conspiracy against him. The Sausage-seller follows Um.
488. Parabasis (Ana-p.). The merits of Aristophanes, and the

ingratitude of the Athenians to the comic poets.
(E.S.) Poseidon invoked. Praise of the men of old the young ;
Knights will do as well. Pallas invoked. Praise of the Knights'

'
horses.'
611. Scene. (E.S.) The Sausage-seller, in a messenger-speech, tells

of Us PapUagonian at the Council.
victory over the
The PapUagonian returns. They wiU appeal to the people.
Demos comes.
756. AGON II. With Demos as judge, they compete for Us favour.
The Sausage-seller is declared victorious.
942. Scene. Demos transfers his seal-ring to the Sausage-seller.

Both rivals go to fetch oracles.
Chorikon. The Knights exult over the PapUagonian's defeat.
Scene. The rivals quote their oracles. Again the Sausage-
seller prevails. . They go to get a feast for Demos.
Chorikon. Demos tells the Knights he is playing the fool
on purpose.
KNIGHTS 225
Scene. The rivals race to provide Demos' FEAST. They

serve various dishes. The wreath of office is transferred from
the Paphlagonian to the Sausage-seller, who is saluted as
KaXXlVLKOI.
1264. Paeabasis ii. {E.S.) Personal abuse. Dialogue of the

warships.
1316. Scene. The Sausage-seller announces his success in COOKING

Demos to a new life. Demos hailed as KING. The Sausage-
seller produces COUETESANS (' Libations
'), and is invited to
FEAST in the Prytaneum. The Paphlagonian is degraded.

ExoDOS (wanting).
CLOUDS (423 b.c. Dionysia)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon ii. : Strepsiades {Old Man, Buffoon).
Pheidippides {Young Man).
Chorus Clouds (Women).
Socrates {Learned Doctor).
.Adversaries in Agon i. : Just Reason.

Unjust Reason.
Impostors Pasias.
Ainynias.
Minor Characters : Strepsiades' Servant.

Disciples of Socrates.
Prologue. Strepsiades and Pheidippides in bed. Strepsiades

iâkes complaining of his debts incurred by his son's prodigality,
and his mistake in marrying a city lady. Ph eidippides refuses
OjlWlA'5 to go to the Philosophers and learn how to plead, the uiiJUBt'
^ I 'Tâ.iisfiT'^/repRiaês decides to go himself. Disciple admits A .
(^f him. Socrates is seen, hanging in a basket. Socrates initiates

^vâg^£_Strepsiade3.
263j^]PARopos. {E.S.) Socrates invokes the Clouds, who are heard
^ •<!^mgmir /^t/^l'S
Lê*'''' -'Scene. The Clouds appear. Socrates expounds their nature.
V
^ They Gods ZEUg does not existy ^ The Clouds
are the only :
y^^ ^ make rain and thunder. Dinos is JUIJNU. litrepsiades abjures all
^
'
other Gods. He is bidden to lay aside his cloak and enters the
'
Cave of Trophonius.'
Paeabasis {Eupolideans). Rebuke to the audience for not"/

approving the first edition of the Clouds.
{E.S.) I nvocation of Zeus^P oseidonj Aether, Helios. The
Clouds complam that tney'axenot worshipped. Invocation of
Phoebus, Artemis, Athena, Dionysus. The Moon's complaint
of the irregularity of the calendar. -J
Scene. {E.S.) Socrates calls out Strepsiade^ into the Ught.

He instructs him in metric and grammar, and sets him to think
1 Strepsiades invents devices to avoid paying his
for himself.
^y , Socrates refusing to teach him more, he goes to persuade
debts.
'
yj(' Pheidippides to come as pupil.
CLOUDS 227
Strepsiades brings Pheidippides and tells him there is no Zeus

and other things he has learnt. Socrates says the Two Eeasons
shall instruct Pheidippides.
889. AGON I. {Anap. dimeters). The Two Reasons abuse and

threaten one another.
The Just Reason praises the old-fashioned education the ;
Unjust attacks it and praises the modern. I'he JusFKeason is

worsted and surrenders.
Pheidippides goes with the Unjust Reason into Socrates' house.
1113. Parabasis II. (Epirrheme only). The Clouds promise the judges
rewardsif they give them the prize threaten them, if they do
;
not. Jp^rnlle^ /y ^/*Vt^f t^^

1131. Scene. Strepsiades is told by Socrates that Pheidippides has
learnt his lesson. Pheidippides appears, transformed to a pale
sophist. Strepsiades, singing aKOMOS song, takes him in to
FEAST.
{A.L.) Pasias serves a summons for debt on Strepsiades, who
confounds him with sophisms.
(A.L.) Amynias claims payment of a debt. He is driven away
with a horse-goad.
1303, Chorikon {while FEAST goes on within). The Chorus foretell

that Strepsiades will repent his son's new training.
1321. Strepsiades rushes out, pursued and beaten by Pheidippides, \
who undertakes to justify father-beating.

AGON II. Strepsiades recounts their quarrel at the Feast.
Pheidippides proves the justice of chastising one's father.
Strepsiades, however, is revolted by his offering to prove that
one should beat one's mother.
1453. Scene. Strepsiades recants his atheism. ZEUS is KING.

Advised by the Statue of Hermes, Strepsiades bums and pulls
down Socrates' house.
^^QDaS:, The Coryphaeus encourages Strepsiades to smite
the atheists.
WASPS (422 B.C. Lenaea)
DRAMATIS PERSONAB
Adversaries in Agon : Bdelycleon ( Young Man).
PMlocleon (Old Man, Buffoon).
Chorus : Wasps (Old Men).
Second Chorus Boys.
Minor Buffoon : First Slave, Xanthias.

Second Slave, Sosias.
Impostors A Bakerwoman.
A Prosecutor.
Mute Persons : A Courtesan.
Two Dogs, etc.
Prologue. XantMas and Sosias watcMng the house

Night.
to prevent PMlocleon from escaping to the law-court. Bdely-
cleon keeps guard on the roof. PMlocleon tries to escape but is
shut in.
230. Paeodos. The Chorus of old jurymen come with lanterns to

fetch PMlocleon.
They serenade him. He replies in a monody.
(E.S.) Learning that he is imprisoned, they tell him to let him-
self down by a rope.
(E.S.) The Chorus FIGHT Bdelycleon and the slaves, and are
beaten off. Bdelycleon induces them to Hsten. PMlocleon calls
for a sword, to commit suicide if he is beaten in argument.
526. AGON. PMlocleon dilates on the kingly power of the old

jurors. The juryman is a KING, not inferior to ZEUS he ;
thunders and lightens.

Bdelycleon shows him that he is really the slave of the poli-
ticians. The Wasps are converted, and PMlocleon nearly faints.
729. Choeikon (Anaf. dimeters). The Chorus urge PMlocleon to
change his ways. PMlocleon says farewell to Ms soul.
Scene. Bdelycleon promises Mm
a law-court at home, and
arranges one. Sosias drags in the dog Labes, who has stolen
some cheese. The other dog will prosecute. Fire, myrtle boughs,
and incense are brought for SACRIFICE. The Chorus sing a
paean of peace, and Bdelycleon prays that the old man's heart
may be softened.
WASPS 229
Scene. The Dog Trial. Philocleon, overcome by Labes'

acquittal, is led in by his son, who promises to take him every-
where with him.
1009. Paeabasis (Anap.). Aristophanes' services to Athens.

(E.S.) The Wasps regret their lost youth, and recall its glories
in the Persian wars. How they are hke wasps.
1122. Scene. Bdelycleon tries to dress Philocleon to go out to
dinner and teaches him refined manners. They go to dinner
(FEAST).
1265. Paeabasis ii. (E.S. imperfect.) Personal satire.
1292. Scene. Xanthias describes Philooleon's outrageous behaviour

at the dinner-party. He is coming in KOMOS. Philocleon
appears, singing and striking all he meets with his torch. He
promises a COURTESAN to take her for his concubine when his
son dies.
(AL.) A Bakerwoman, whose stall he has upset, claims redress.
Philocleon derides her.
(AL.) A Prosecutor summons him for assault. Philocleon
tells him anecdotes, till he is carried into the house by his son.
(FEAST continued within.)
Choeikon. The Wasps congratulate the old man on his
changed nature.
1474. Scene. Xanthias describes Philocleon's drunken behaviour.

He challenging all tragedians to dance. The sons of
enters,
Karkinus dance against him.
ExoDOS. The Chorus join in and dance out of the orchestra.
PEACE (421 B.C. Dionysia)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Trygaeus {Old Man, Buffoon).
War {Soldier).
Tumult, his attendant.
Chorus : Farmers {Old Men).
Minor Buffoon : First Slave.

Second Slave.
Hermes.
Impostors : Hierooles, a priest.

A Pruninghook-maker.
A Cooper {mule).
Several Weapon-makers.
Minor Characters : Trygaeus' Daughters.

Two Boys.
Mute Persons Peace.
Opera {Bride in Exodos).
Theoria, etc.
Peologue. Two slaves prepare food for Trygaeus' dung-

beetle. Trygaeus starts on its back to go and ask ZEUS why he
troubles Greece with war. Deaf to the appeals of his young
daughters, he ascends to Zeus' house. Hermes tells him the Gods
are away from home and War has imprisoned Peace in a cave.
;
War enters with a mortar in which to bray the cities of Greece.

He makes a salad of leeks (Prasiai), onions (Megara), cheese (Sicily),
and honey (Attica), and sends Tumult to fetch a pestle (Cleon)
from Athens but Cleon is dead, and so is Brasidas. Exit War.
;
Trygaeus calls the Greeks to bring tools to extricate Peace.
301. Paeodos. The Chorus of Farmers comes and dances for joy.
{E.S.) Hermes threatens Trygaeus with death if he digs up

Peace ; but the appeals of Trygaeus and the Chorus induce him
to help. Hermes ofiers libations, and Trygaeus prays for peace
and curses the warUke.
{E.S.) Led by Hermes, the Chorus drag out Peace, attended by
Opora and Theoria. (ANODOS.) They all salute hei-.
Hermes tells how Peace was lost. Peace asks questions through
Hermes about the state of Athens. Hermes gives Opora to
Trygaeus and sends Theoria to the Council. Trygaeus departs
to return to earth.
PEACE 231
729. Parabasis {Anap.). The merits of Aristophanes,
(Ode and Antode). Invocation of the Muse.
819. (E.S.) Trygaeuscomes to earth with Opora and Theoria. He

tellsXanthias what he has seen on the way, and orders him to
prepare Opora for their marriage. He gives Theoria to the
President of the Council.
{E.S.) Trygaeus and Xanthias fetch an altar and a sheep to
SACRIFICE for the installation of Peace. The
sacrifice is con-
ducted : barley sprinkled over the audience, lustral water over
the Chorus. Trygaeus prays to Peace. The sheep is led in to be
sacrificed. Trygaeus prepares for COOKING.
(AL.) Hierocles, an oracle-mongering priest, is refused a share.
He and his acolyte try to steal, but are beaten off.
1127. Parabasis ir. (E.S.) The pleasures of Peace contrasted with
the discomforts of War.
1191. Trygaeus adorned for his marriage, gives orders for the wedding
FEAST, held within.
(AL.) A
Pruninghook-maker and a Cooper bring presents in
gratitude, and are sent in to feast.
(AL.) Makers of hehnet-crests, breastplates, trumpets, helmets,
and spears are dismissed with derision.
Two boys, sons of Lamachus and Kleonymus, come to practise
songs for the feast. The former is driven away for singing of war ;
the latter sent in to sing of peace. The Chorus eat the rest of the
sacrificial FEAST.
1316. ExoDOS. Trygaeus and Opora are conducted in the
MAERIAGE KOMOS, with hymeneal song.
232 SYNOPSIS OV THE EXTANT PLAYS
BIRDS (414 B.C. Dionysia)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon : Pisthetairos {Old Man, Buffoon)
Hoopoe.
Chorus : Birds.
Minor Buffoon Buelpides (Old Man).
Imfostors : A Dithyiambic Poet. A Hawker of Acts of

An Oracle-monger. Parliament.
Meton, a mathema- A Youth.
tician. Kinesias, a poet.
An Inspector. An Informer.
Minor Characters The Hoopoe's Iris.
Servant. Prometheus.
A Priest. Poseidon.
Two Messengers. Triballos.
A Sentinel. Heracles.
A Herald.
Mute Persons Basileia {Bride in Exodos), etc.
Prologue. Pisthetairos and Euelpides are seeking the country

of the Birds, to found a new city there. They knock at the
Hoopoe's door and send his jervant to fetch him. The Hoopoe
questions them. Pisthetairos proposes that the Birds shall
fortify the air and so control Gods and men. The Hoopoe calls
the Nightingale to help him summon the Birds.
260. Paeodos. Four Birds enter, followed by the whole Chorus,

who take alarm at the sight of two men.
{E.S.) The Birds prepare to tear to pieces the men, who en-
trench themselves in their baggage. (FIGHT.) The Hoopoe
intervenes and persuades the Birds to make truce and hsten.
451. AGON. Pisthetairos tells how the Birds were once KINGS
before ZEUS, now persecuted by men. They must fortify the
air and demand their kingdom back. If Zeus refuses, starve out
the Gods if men refuse, eat all their crops if they consent, give
; ;
them help. The Birds agree.

The Hoopoe welcomes the men to his house and brings in the
Nightingale.
BIRDS 233
676. 'Parasasis (Ana/p.). Tke Tteogony of the Birds. Tte benefits
they will give to man,
he acknowledges their divinity.
if
(E.S.) Invocation of the Muse of the thicket. Advantages of
Bird-Kfe over human Ufe.
801. Scene. Pisthetairos and Euelpides return, winged. They

name the new city Nephelokokkygia. Euelpides is dismissed to
superintend the building.
(E.S.) Pisthetairos and a priest conduct the SACRIFICE.
The priest is driven away. The Sacrifice is interrupted by—
(AL.) a Dithyrambic Poet, who receives a tunic ;
{AL.) an Oracle-monger, driven away ;

(AL.) Meton, the mathematician, beaten ;
(AL.) an Inspector, beaten ;
(AL.) a Hawker of Acts of ParHament, beaten.

Pisthetairos, in despair, orders the sacrifice to be finished within,
1058. Paeabasis n. AH will now worship the Birds. They set a

priceon the poulterer's head. Dehghts of bird-hfe. Rewards
promised to judges for victory penalties threatened for defeat.
;
1118. Messenger i. describes the building of the walls. A Sentinel

announces that a messenger from the Gods has passed the fines.
'
(E.S.) Iris, on her way to earth, is arrested. She threatens
destruction by the lightning and pick of Zeus, and is turned back
with contumely.
A Herald brings a crown from mankind and announces that
crowds are coming to share in bird-hfe. Pisthetairos sends for
baskets of wings.
1313. Chorikon, while wings are brought.
(AL.) A Youth, who wants to strangle his father, is armed as
a cock and sent to war.
(AL.) Kinesias, a dithyrambic poet, derided.
(AL.) An Informer, beaten.
1470. Choeikon. Personal satire.
Scene. (E.S.) tells Pisthetairos that the Gods

Prometheus
are starving and will send envoys. He is to insist on getting the
sceptre of Zeus and Basileia for his wife.- Satirical Ode. Posei-
don, Heracles, and the Triballos come as envoys. Pisthetairos
comes out and begins COOKING, and bribes the envoys. They
take Pisthetairos to heaven in a wedding garment. Satirical
Antode.
1706. Messenger ii. announces the return of the rejuvenated Pisthe-
tairos with his BRIDE Basileia.
ExoDOS. A Hymeneal song salutes Pisthetairos as the NEW
ZEUS, lord of thunder and hghtning, and koAAivikos. KOMOS.
LYSISTRATA (411 b.c. Lenaea)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon : Lysistrata, an Athenian wife.
A ProboTilos.
Chorus (double) / Twelve Old Men.

Twelve Old Women.
Minor Buffoon : Kalonike, an Athenian wife.
Minor Characters : Myrrhine, an Athenian wife.

Lampito, a Spartan wife.
Kinesias.
Attenian legates.
Spartan legates.
Mute Persons : Reconcilement (' Bride '), etc.
Prologue. The Slope of the Acropolis outside the Propylaea.

Lysistrata teUs Kalonike she has summoned the women to pro-
pound a plan for stopping the war. When they come, she suggests
a strike of wives. With Lampito's support she persuades them.
They take the oath on a cup of wine. The old women have seized
the Acropohs. The rest go in to help.
254. Parodos. The Half-Chorus of Old Men come with faggots to

burn the women out of the Acropolis. They hght a fire. The
Half-Chorus of Women bring buckets of water. The two Leaders
FIGHT.
A Proboulos with Policemen, armed with crowbars, is about
to attack the gates,when Lysistrata and three Old Women come
out. The Pohcemen try to arrest them. The women from
inside rush out and FIGHT, putting the Pohcemen to flight.
476. AGON. The Proboulos questions Lysistrata, who states the

women's grievances. At the end the women ofier him grave
ornaments, and he goes to show himself so decked to his colleagues.
The women retire into the Acropohs.
614. Parabasis. (E.S.) The Halt-Chorus of Men lay aside their
cloaks and threaten the women. The women do the same. They
dispute whether women shovdd take part in pohtics.
(E.S.) Throwing ofi other garments, the two parties threaten
and defy each other.
706. Scene. Lysistrata announces that the women are deserting.

Several women try to steal away. Lysistrata produces an oracle
of victory and persuades them to re-enter the Acropohs.
LYSISTBATA 235
781. Chorikon. The two Half-Ctoruses tell satirical anecdotes at

the expense of men and women, and threaten each other.
829. Scene. Kinesias comes for his wife Myrrhine. She comes out
and deludes him. He laments.
Scene. A Herald from Sparta describes the distress of the
men there. He and Kinesias agree to get peace legates appointed.
1014. Paeabasis II. The two Half-Choruses make up their quarrel
and resume their garments. The Men offer money, the Women
food, to the spectators.
1073. The Spartan and Athenian legates meet to discuss peace.

Lysistrata produces Eeconcilement (' BEIDE ') and brings them
to terms. She invites them to feast in the Acropolis and
afterwards to take each man his wife and go home.
1189. Choeikon. The Men and Women renew their ofiers of money
and food to the spectators. (FEAST within.)
1216. Scene. The Athenian legates come out after the feast in
KOMOS with torches. The Spartans follow with a flute-player
and perform a dance.
ExoDOS. Lysistrata bids the men and women to pair ofi with
one another (' MAERIAGE '). They dance ofi singing to various
divinities, including Zeus and Hera and Aphrodite, who has
reconciled them.
THESMOPHORIAZUSAE (? 411 b.c. Dionysia)
DRAMATIS PERSONAB
Adversaries in quasi-Agon : Euripides' Kinsman (Old Man, Buf-
foon).
Mikka, ivife of Kleonymus.
Chorus : The Women at the Thesmophoria.
Euripides (Learned Doctor).
Minor Characters : an Old Woman.

Kritylla,
Second Woman.
ELleisthenes.
A Prytanis.
A Policeman.
Agathon's Servant.
A Herald.
Impostor (in Prologue) :_ Agathon, the tragic poet.
Mute Persons : Elaphium, a courtesan (last scene),
etc.
Prologue. Euripides takes his Kinsman to Agathon's house.

The Servant tells them Agathon is coming out to compose in the
sun. The women at the Thesmophoria are to hold a meeting to
destroy Euripides for traducing their sex in his plays. Euripides
wishes to persuade Agathon to go, disguised as a woman, and
plead for him.
(AL.) Agathon is wheeled out on a sofa, composing a pro-
cessional song. He is dressed as a woman, so as to sympathise
with the heroine of the tragedy he is writing. The Kmsman
mocks him. Agathon refuses. The Kinsman, offering to go
instead, borrows female dress from Agathon.
Euripides swears to rescue him, if necessary. The Kinsman
goes to the Thesmophorium and sits down among the women.
295. Parodos. a Priestess recites a prayer. The Chorus invoke

Gods. Parody of the ritual curse on evil-doers.
371. Quasi-AGON. a Herald opens the Assembly. Mikka de-
nounces Euripides for exposing the peccadilloes of women. (Ode)
The Chorus approve. Another woman seconds. The Kinsman
defends Euripides, as not having told a tenth of the wickednesses
of women. (Antode) The Chorus protest.
THESMOPHORIAZTJSAE 237
533. Scene. Mikka demands punislimeiit of the Kinsman,
who
replieswith more charges. They struggle. (FIGHT.)
Scene. Kleisthenes brings word of a rumour that a Kinsman
of Euripides has gained admittance in disguise. The Kinsman
is detected. Kleisthenes goes to tell the Prytaneis.
655. The Chorus lay aside their upper garments and search the
orchestra for other intruders.
(E.S.) The Kinsman seizes a baby from a woman and takes
refuge at the altar. He threatens to SACRIFICE it. The
women fetch faggots to burn him. The baby turns out to be a
winesldn. The Kinsman sacrifices it.
Kritylla mounts guard, while Mikka goes to find the Prytaneis.
785. Paeabasis (Anap.). A defence of women.

(Efirrheme) Their grievance against men.
846. Scene. The Kinsman pretends to be Euripides' Helen.

Euripides comes as his own Menelaus. Before they can escape
a Prytanis arrives with a Policeman. Exit Euripides. The
Kinsman is taken in to be tied up to a plank.
947. Chorikon. A ritual roimd dance and song.
1001. Scene. The Kinsman, tied to his plank, is brought out and
guarded by the Policeman. While the Policeman is gone to fetch
a mat for himself, the Kinsman parodies the monody of Andro-
meda in Euripides' play. The PoUceman returns. Euripides
appears as Perseus, but fails to release him and goes to invent a
new plan. The Pohceman goes to sleep.
1136. Chorikon. Invocation of Pallas and the two Goddesses.
1160. Scene. Euripides, disguised as an old woman, makî terms

with the Chorus, promising never to attack women again. He
makes Elaphium (a COURTESAN) dance and seduce the Police-
man from his watch. Euripides releases his Kinsman and they
escape. The PoUceman returning is misdirected by the Chorus
and runs the wrong way after his prisoner.
ExoDOS. The Chorus march out.
FEOGS (405 B.C. Lenam)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon : Aeschylus {Soldier).
Euripides {Learned Doctor).
Chorus Mystics.
Judge in Agon : Dionysus {Buffoon).
Minor Buffoon : Xanthias, a slave.
Minor Characters : Pluto.

Heracles.
A Dead Man.
Charon.
Pluto's Porter.
Persephone's Maid.
A Hostess.
Plathane, her maid.
Mute Persons : Women in Dionysiac Procession.

Policemen, etc.
Prologue. Dionysus, with honskin and club, and Xanthias

go to the house of Heracles, and consult him about going to
Hades to fetch up Euripides. A Dead Man refuses to carry
their luggage. Charon takes Dionysus across the lake, while the
Frogs sing. The Chorus of Mystics is heard singing the lacchos
Song.
354. Parodos. The Chorus sing processional hymns and satirical

songs. They point out Pluto's House to Dionysus.
460. Scene. Dionysus knocks and announces himself as Heracles.
Terrified at the threats of Pluto's Porter, he changes dress with
Xanthias.
Scene. (E.S.) Persephone's Maid welcomes '
Heracles,' and
invites him
to feast. When she goes in Dionysus insists on
changing back.
Ode. The Chorus congratulate Dionysus, and he plumes
himself.
Scene. A
Hostess, defrauded by Heracles on his former visit,
threatens Dionysus. He changes dress with Xanthias again.
Antode. Chorus warn Xanthias to be brave. He professes
courage.
FROGS 239
Scene. The Porter reappears and orders slaves to seize and

bind Xanthias, wto offers his slave (Dionysus) for torture.
'
'
Dionysus declares himself. The Porter beats both to test which

is divine (QuASi-AGON). Unable to decide, he carries them ofE
to be judged by Pluto and Persephone.
674. Paeabasis. {E.S.) Invocation of Muse and personal satire.

Pohtical advice. Personal Satire. Political advice.
738. Scene. Dionysus has won the case. The Porter fraternises
with Xanthias. Aeschylus and Euripides are heard abusing
one another. Euripides has challenged Aeschylus' right to the
throne of Tragedy. Dionysus is to judge between them.
Choeikon. The Chorus forecast the respective styles of the
adversaries.
Scene. Aeschylus and Euripides enter abusing one another.
Dionysus quiets them and calls for fire and incense. He SACRI-
FICES. The Chorus sing to the Muses. Aeschylus prays to
Demeter, Euripides to Aether, etc.
895. AGON. Euripides attacks Aeschylus as a pompous humbug,,

and boasts of his own plainer style and sophistio artifices.
Aeschylus boasts of having made Athens warlike, criticises
Euripides' love-sick heroines and beggar kings, and accuses him
of corrupting youth.
1099. Choeikon. The Chorus incite the adversaries to further

efforts.
Scene. Euripides criticises the Choephori prologue. Aeschy-

lus derides the prologues of Euripides.
Scene. They parody each other's lyrics.
Scene. The weighing of lines.
Scene. Pluto appears. Dionysus asks the poets to give
pohtical advice, and gives judgment for Aeschylus. Pluto invites
them to FEAST before they start.
Choeikon. The Chorus approve. (FEAST within.)
1500. ExoDOS. Pluto gives Aeschylus a sword, a noose, and poison for
various pohticians. Aeschylus leaves his THRONE
to Sophocles
during Ms absence. The Chorus conduct Dionysus and Aeschylus
in torchht PROCESSION, singing in Aeschylean style.
ECCLESIAZUSAE (1 392 e.g. Lenaea)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon : Praxagora, wife of Blefyrm.
Blepyius {Old Man, Buffoon).
Chorus Women (Wives).
Minor Buffoon : A Neighbour (Old Man).
Minor Characters : Two Wives.

Chiemes (Old Man).
A Parsimonious Man (Old Man).
A Herald.
Three Old WomenWoman).(Old
A Young Woman Young Woman).
(
Epigenes Young Man).

(
Praxagora's Maid (Exodos).
Prologue. Praxagora, disguised as a man, comes out of her

house before dawn. Other women arrive, likewise disguised.
Their plot is to pack the Assembly and vote the supreme power
to women. They hold a meeting for practice. Praxagora
rehearses her speech, and they go to the Pnyx.
285. Paeodos. The Women sing as they march to the Assembly.

(Exeunt.)
311. Scene. Blepyrus comes out of his house in his wife's clothes.
His Neighbour talks to him out of window, and goes to the
Assembly.
Scene. Chremes describes the meeting to Blepyrus. The
Women's plot has succeeded.
478. Paeodos ii. The Women return and take ofi their male dis-
guise.
Scene. Praxagora, about to restore her husband's clothes,
meets Blepyrus coming out. He tells her the result of the
Assembly. She says she will explain the advantages of female
rule.
571. AGON. Encouraged by the Chorus, Praxagora propounds

her scheme of Communism and convinces Blepyrus.
She goes to the market-place to organise the new republic.
Dance of the Chorus.
ECCLESIAZUSAE 241
730. Scene. Tte Neighbour marshals his household goods in a

Panathenaic PEOCESSION to the common store. A Parsimoni-
ous Man declares he wiU not surrender his.
A Herald summons all citizens to FEAST.
The two men go, the Neighbour carrying his goods.
877. Scene. An Old Woman and a Young Woman, leaning out of

opposite windows, sing against each other to attract the yoimg
men. Epigenes comes. He and the Young Woman make love
in song.
The Old Woman comes out and claims him under the new law.
A second and a third Old Woman, each older and uglier than the
last, dispute over him and drag him ofE.
1112. Scene. Praxagora's Maid, tipsy and anointed like a COUR-

TESAN, comes to fetch Blepyrus and the Chorus to the FEAST.
ExoDOS. The Chorus appeal to the judges for victory. The
Maid sings and dances out with Blepyrus, followed by the Chorus
uttering Bacchic cries (KOMOS).
PLUTUS (388 B.C.)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Adversaries in Agon : Chremylus (Old Man, Buffoon).
Poverty (Old Woman).
Wealtt (Old Man).

Chorus : Farmers (Old Men).
Minor Buffoon : Karion, a slave.

(in Agon) : Blepsidemus (Old Man).
Impostors : A Just Man.

An Informer.
An Old Woman.
Hermes.
Priest of Zeus Soter.
Minor Characters : Chremylus' Wife.

A Young Man.
—
Note. ^This classification is only rougli. Thus, Chremylus deals with
some of the Impostors, Karion with others. The old distinctions are
breaking down.
Peologue. Chremylus returning with his slave Karion from

Delphi, where the oracle has told him to follow the first person he
sees, follows a blind old man, who turns out to be Wealth. He
has been blinded from his youth by Zeus, that he may not go only
to the just. Chremylus persuades him that if he can recover his
sight he need not fear ZEUS, whose KINGDOM
rests on wealth.
Karion is sent to fetch the Farmers to share the new prosperity.
Chremylus takes Wealth into his house.
253. Paeodos. Karion brings the Farmers and tells them that
Chremylus will make them rich. He dances with them.
322. Scene. Chremylus asks the Chorus to help. Blepsidemus,

who has heard Chremylus' new wealth, suspects him of having
of
stolen it, but is convinced that it is Wealth himself. They are
going to take Wealth to the temj^ of Asclepius, when Poverty
meets them.
Scene. Poverty indignantly denounces them for plotting
to drive her out and ofiers to convince them that this would be
;
a misfortune to mankind.
PliUTUS 243
487. AGON. Poverty argues that equaHty of wealtli would mean
universal idleness and tie loss of all the arts of
civilisation and
virtues. She is driven away with curses.
Chremylus and Blepsidemus take Wealth to the temple of
Asclepius.
_ P>NCE of the Chorus.

"627. • Scene. Karion announces that Wealth's sight is restored, and
describes the cure to Chremylus' Wife.
771. Scene. Chremylus comes with Wealth, who solemnly re-
nounces his" former ways. Chremylus' Wife ofEers to pour the
KaTa.xva-fi.aTa over him but they go inside for this ceremony.
;
802. Scene. Karion describes how the house is filled with plenty
and Chremylus is making SACRIFICE within.
(AL.) A Just Man comes to dedicate his old cloak and shoes.
{AL.) An
Informer laments that his occupation is gone. He
scents the FEAST
within. Karion despoils him of his fine
clothes and drives him away, decorated with the Just Man's old
cloak and shoes. Karion and the Just Man go inside to pray to
Wealth.
959. {AL.) An Woman complains that a Young Man, now

Old
grown has deserted her. Chremylus derides her. The
rich,
Young Man comes with torch and wreath for a Komos, and
treats her insultingly. They go in together.
{AL>) Hermes comes, threatening the vengeance of Zeus but ;
the prospect of food tempts him to take service under Plutus.
1171. Scene. The Priest of Zeus Soter, also starving, is told that
Plutus is the NEW ZEUS, and joins in a torchUt PEOCESSION
to install him in the Parthenon. The Old Woman carries the
XVTpai.
ExoDOS. The Chorus join the procession with Songs (KOMOS).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This list only includes some of the more important recent works which I
have found particularly useful.
Bethe, E., Prolegomena z. Geschichte d. Theaters in Alierthum (1896).
Chambers, E. K., The Mediaeval Stage, Oxford (1903).

Cook, A. B., Zeus, vol. i., Cambridge (1914).
Dawkins, R. M., The Modern Carnival in Thrace, J. H. S. xxvi. (1906), 191.
DiETEElCH, A., Pnlcinella, Leipzig (1897).

Die Entstehung der Tragodie, Arohiv f. Religionswiss. xi. 163 flf.
(1908).
PABNEii, L. R., Cults of the Greek States, v. (1909).

Fkankel, C, Korinthische Posse, Rhein. Mus. Ixvii. (1912) 94.
Peazbk, J. G., The Golden Bough, ed. 3 (1911-1913).
Harbison, J. E., Themis, Cambridge (1912).
Kaibbl, G., Art. Aristophanes in Pauly-Wissowa, ii. (1896).
Keith, A. B., Review of FarnelVs Cults, vol. v.. Classical Quarterly, iv. (1910)
282.
The Origin of Tragedy and the Akhydna, Journ. Royal Asiatic Soc.
XV. (1912) p. 411.
KoKTE, A., Studien zur alten Eomodie, Arch. Jahrb. viii. (1893) 61.
Leorand, Ph.-E., Daos, Lyon, Paris (1910).

Loeschoke, G., Korinthische Vase mit d. Biickfiihrung des Hephaistos, Ath.
Mitth. xix. (1894) 510.
Mazon, p., Essai sur la composition des Comidies d' Aristophane, Paris (1904).
Murray, G., Excursus on Forms preserved in Greek Tragedy,
the Ritual in
J. E. Harrison, Themis, Cambridge (1912).
NiLSSON, M. P., Studia de Dionysiis Atticis, Lundae (1900).
Der Ursprung der Tragodie, N. Jahrb. xxvii. (1911) 609.
Poppelbbuter, J., De comoediae atticae primordiis, Berlin (1893).

Peetjss, K. T., Der ddmanische Ursprung d. griech. Dramas, N. Jahrb. (1906)
161.
Reich, H., Der Mimus, i. (1903).

RiBBEOK, 0., TJeber den Begriffdes e'lpav, Rhein. Mus. xxi. (1876) 381.
Alazon, Leipzig (1882).
Kolax, Abhandl. d. K. S. GeseUsoh. d. Wissensch. xxi.
— Agroikos, Abhandl. d. K. S. Gesellsch. d. Wissensch. xxiii.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 245
SCHNABEL, H., Kordax, 1910.
ScheSdee, L. von, Myslerium u. Mimus im Bigveda, Leipzig (1908).
Vollendung dea ariachen Myateriuma in Bayreuth, Miinohen (1911).
Starkie, W. J. M., The Waaps of Aristophanea (1897).
The Achamiana of Ariatophanea (1909).
The Olouda of Aristophanes (1911).
St)ss, W., De personarwm antiquae eomoediae atticae uau atque origine (Diss.),
Bonnae (1905).
Zur Komposition der altattiachen Komodie, Rhein Mus. (1908) 12.
TniEiiE, G., Anfdnge d. griechiaehen EomSdie, N. Jahrb. ix. (1902) 405.
UsENEE, H., Heilige Handhmg, Arohiv f. Religionswiss. vii. (1904) 281.
Waoe, a. J. B., Nwth Greek Festivals, Brit. Sck Ann. xvi. (1909-10) 232.
ZiEiiiNSKi, T., Oliederung d. cdtattischen KomMie, Leipzig (1885).

[ Quaestionea Comicae, 1886, I have not been able to obtain sight
of this work.]
ADDENDA
To § 43. On the question of rejuvenation or regeneration by a
magical boiling, an article by E. Maass, Aschylus und Aristophanes,
in N. Jahrb. f. d. klass. Altertum, xxxi. (1913) 627 fF., contains a
wealth of illustration from very various sources.
To § 103. Since this book was printed I have come to see more
clearly what the significance and the original content of the Satyr-
play must have been. If Tragedy and Comedy are based on the
same ritual outlines, the Satyr-play at the end of the tetralogy must
stand for the Sacred Marriage and its Komos, which form the finale of
Comedy. I suspect that Thespian Tragedy was still only emerging
from the Satyric phase and contained the elements
'
' of grotesqueness
and obscenity which mark the fertility aspect' of the old dromenon.
Aeschylus, I believe, deliberately invented the tetralogy, expelling all
this side of the performance from the tragic part and relegating it to
an appendix, the Satyr-play. The scheme would then be
Comedy : Agon. Death and Eesurrection. Marriage K6mos,
Tragedy : Aeschylean trilogy with happy ending. Satyr-play.
The Epic heroes, whose connection with fertility was due to a

fusion of their cult in many places with that of the old nameless local
daemons of fertility, were thus cleared once more of these associations.
Tragedy stops short of the Marriage, emphasising the Death and
keeping a survival of the joyful Eesurrection in the happy ending
and the Theophany. Professor Murray, starting from the fixed
forms of Tragedy, naturally overlooked the Marriage; but Comedy
supplies this necessary end, and thus explains the original intent of
the Satyr-play.
216
INDEX
Abusb, Choral matches in, 110 ; at Eleu- Antagonist, defined, 71; multiplied into
therae, 113 ; in fertility rites, 118. Impostors, 147 S. ; as double of the God,
Acharnians, Exodos, 9 Prologue (Phallic ; 148, 208; treated like Impostor, 156,
Song), 37 ; Agon in, 72 Agon in, de- ; 161, 168.
scribed, 75 ; Sacrifice and Feast, 94 ; half- Antheas of Lindos, 44.
Choruses fight, 109 ; Parabasis, 122, 123, Antichoria, implied by Epirrhematic form,
129 ; Second Parabasis, 130 ; Impostors 106, 109.
in, 133 ; Lamachus in, 155 ; Old Man in, Antilogy, sophistic, 114.
172. 'AToSwai., 126.
Adonis ritual, 212, Arohilochos, Song of, 9, 10, 13, 23.
Aeschylus, Nurses of Dionysus, 88, 91, Aristotle, on beginnings of
Comedy, 35 ff. ;
109 ; as Soldier in Frogs, 163. his statement incomplete, 46 on Irony ;
Aesop, aPbarmakos, 151. and Buffoonery, 136, 138 on demagogue;
Agon, position in the Play, 2 emphasised ; as Parasite, 167; on plot in Tragedy,

by Zielinski, 5 AgSnes of Heracles, 57
; ;
195 ; on Satyric phase of Tragedy, 214
;
ajid battle of Summer and Winter, 67 ;

on history of Comedy, 216 ff.
form and meaning of, 70 ff. characters ; Armed Dance, in ancient Thrace, 65.
in, 71 structure of, 72 as dramatised
; ;
' Atellane Farce, stock masks in, 183.
debate,' 73 ; Agones in Comedy reviewed, Autokabdali, described by Semos, 41.
75 as survival of death in folk play, 75
;
in original ritual, 99 Chorus in, 105 ff.; ; Bacchae of Euripides. See Pentheus.
individual Judge in, 105 as contest of ; Baldheaded Pool, in 'Vulgar Comedy,'
two leaders of bauds, 110 in Euripides, ; 178, 181 on Corneto amphora, 183.
;
116 ; in Sicilian Mime, 117 in Bucolic ; BaWrjTis, at Troezen and Eleusis, 110.
poetry, 1 17 Parabasis as Choral, 120
;
;
Basile and Echelos, 27.
no Choral Agon in Tragedy, 131 in ; Basileia, 12 as bride of New Zeus, 22.
;
Punch and Judy, 147 on Phlyax vase, ;

Beans, countryman's diet, 173.
180 compared to cook-fight, 184 con-
; ; Bellerophon, armed dance of, 66.
flict in Tragedy internal, 208 in Comedy ; Birds, Exodos, 12 New Zeus in, 21 Agon
; ;
external, 210 ; in Kratinus, 217. in, described, 80 Sacrifice and Feast,

;
'Agonist' and 'Antagonist,' 71. 97; Parabasis, 122, 123; Second Para-
Aiolosikon of Aristophanes, 182. basis, 130 Impostors in, 136 Old Man
; ;
Alazon, see Impostor. in, 173.

Alazoneia, defined by Aristotle, 137 de- ; Birth of Wonderchild, 86, 87.
fined by Xenophon, 209 comic counter- ; Black man, in Dragon- slaying stories, 153.
part of Hubris, 209. Boileau, 219.
Alcestis, 75 ; Agon in, 78. Boiling, in primitive sacrament, 90.
Alkathoos, 152. Boulimos, 54.
Ameipsias, Gonnus, 159. Boutes, 149.
Amphiaraus of Aristophanes, Rejuvenation Bucco, 184.
in, 91. Bucolic Agon, 117.
Anagnorisis, of modest hero, 153. Buffoon, in Agon, 105 ; distinguished from
Anapaests, in Parabasis, 121 ff. ; as pro- Eiron, 136, 138 masks irony in Comedy,
;
logue to second part, 123. 138 ; minor, 139 ; minor, in Agon, 71.
Anodos, in Peace, 73, 86 ; ritual at Lenaea,
— 85.
Vases, 86.
Careyino out of Death,
Chambers, E. K., 48.
53.
247
Character, historic characters in Aristo- Commedia dell' arte, masks in, 182, 186.
phanes, 154 ; dictated by action in Cook, rejuvenates Demos, 88 ; in Salonika
Tragedy, 197, 200 is primary in ; inscription, 89 ; or Doctor, as medicine-
Comedy, 197 and in Mime, 198 ; man, 90, 189 ; in Geras, 91 ; stock mask
development from stoclc types in in Knighls, 164 ; in Mime and later
Comedy, 201 professional types, 202 ;
Comedy, 165; as 'sophist,' 165; and
age and sex types subdivided, 202; Doctor in Oorgias, 165 ; Maison, 182.
'
universal in Comedy, 203 literature
' ; Cook, A. B. on opisthodomos, 26 ; on
,
of Characters, 203. Agones of Heracles, 57 ; on Thrako-

Charila, 53. Phrygian ritual, 89.
Children's Songs in qiiete, 39. Cooking, a means of rejuvenation, 161.
Chorus, role in Agon, 105 its partisan ; Craig, E. Gordon, 204.
sympathies, 106 comes from ritual, ; Croiset, M., 4.
106 functions in Comedy and Tragedy,
;
107; its judicial function, 108; double

in Comedy, 109 ; cases of two masks, Daitaleits of Aristophanes, 182.
109 ; incite adversaries in Agon, 110 ;
Dance, processional and round, 48.
abusive, in ritual, 110 ; double in Lysis- Death. See Carrying out.
trata, 125; of twenty-four in Comedy Death and Resurrection in fertility ritual,
possibly=2xl2 montlis, 129. 58 in Agon of Comedy, 75 ff.
;
Oioirrus, 184. Debats, mediaeval, 117.

Cleon, his maslc in Knights, 168 ;
perhaps Deikelon in Egypt, 51 Sosibius on,
;
copied from Typhon, 169. 180.

Clouds, Exodos, 11 ; New Zeus in, 28 ;
AijAta5es KoOpttL, 181.
Second Agon in, 78 ; descent intoPhron- Demos, a 'tyrant,' 167.
tisterion, 78 ; Sacrifice and Feast, 95 Dialexeis, 115.
attitude of Chorus in, 106 Agon i. of ; Dinos, asNew Zeus, 28.
two Reasons, 114 Parabasis, 122, 123, ; DIomeialazones, 44.
177 Second Parabasis, 130 Impostors
; ; Dionysia, Country, in Achaniians, 37;
in, 133 Socrates as Doctor in, 156
;
;
Dionysiac festivals, 193.
duologue scenes in early part, 160 ; initi- Doctor, in English Mummers' Play, 61, 87
ation scene, paralleled in Euthydevms, in N. Greek folk plays, 64 in Plntus, ;
161 ; 11. 661-2 restored, 163 ; Old Man 87 ; in Ftmch and Judy, 145, 147 in ;
in, 171, 172. Kratinus, 159Ameipsias, 159

; in
Goccdus. of Aristophanes resembled New Socrates in Clouds, 156 ; talks dialect,
Comedy, 219. 156, 181 ; mask of Philosophers, 158
Cock, Cioirrus, 184. perhaps influenced by Sicilian Mime,
Comedy, current theories of origin, 3 if. 1 58 Euripides in Frogs, 162 and Cook
; ;
derived from K6mos, 20 ; beginnings in Uorgias, 165; in Middle and New

according to
35 date of Aristotle, ; Comedy, 177 ; Daedalus on Phlya.\
official recognition, 36 ; Old, its essence Vase, 180 Dosseunus in Atellane, 184
;
;
invective (Aristotle), 46 satire, 44, 47 ; ; as Medicine-man, 90, 189 ; becomes

function of Chorus in, 107 meaning of ; grotesque, 202.
Episode in, 141
'
how differentiated
' ; Dorians, claim to invent Comedy, 179,
from Tragedy, 190 if. probably came ; 192.
from indigenous ritual, 192 ; a country Dosseunus, 184.
product, 194 character primary in, ;
197 ; admits accident, 197 has novel ;
plots, 199; keeps ritual outline, 199 ; Ecclcsiaûsac, Exodos, 15 inversion of ;
careless of plot, 199, 211 ; development social order

in, 34 ; Agon in, 82
of characters in, 201 ; represents uni- Sacrifice and Feast, 98 ; Old and Young
.versal types, degrades gods and 203 ; Woman in, 174 Praxagora in, 174
; ;
heroes, 205 ; the comic spirit, Sophro- Old Men in, 203.
syne, 211 ; emphasises marriage, 212 Echelos and Basile, 27.
history of, 215 definite forms of early ;
'
' Eiresione ceremony, 54.
Comedy, 216. Eiron. Sec Irony.
INDEX 249
Eleutlieiae, Melanaigis at, 66. Uippolytus, 159.
Epiohannus, 158, 165, 181, 192 Ag&nes in ; Hubris, 207; tragic counterpart ol Ala-
his plays, 117 Hope or Wealth, 168
; zoneia, 208.
influence ou Old Comedy, 217.
Epiphany on 6th day, 87.
Epirrhematic structure, implies Anti- Iambic Element, dropped by Krates,
choria, 106, 109 in Parabasis, 121
; 217.
explained, 131. Iambus, and invective, 36, 42.
Epirrhematic Syzygy, form of, 45. lamos (Find. 01. vi. 53), 87.
Episode, applied to Impostor scenes, 141 Ichneutai of Sophocles, 87.
meaning in Comedy, 141. Ikaria, 194.
Episodic Composition, a misnomer in Impostor (Alazon). as fixed motive, 132
Comedy, 107, 131. in the plays, 133 essential traits of,
;
Ethology, 202. 140 ; variety of types, 140 ; multiplica-

Eupolis, Kolakes, 167 ; Maricas, 175. tion
of, 147 a double of the Antagon-
;
Euripides, as Doctor, 162, 163, 164. 148 ; treated like Pharmakos, 151
ist, :
Exalted persons in Tragedy, 204. iu Dragon-slaying myths, 152; types

Exarohos, of Komos Song, 9, 24 ; iu derived from medicine-man, 202.
popular songs, etc. , 33. Indian Drama, 213.
Bxodos, meaning, 8 Exodoi of plays, 9 ff.
;
Irony (Eiron), of Socrates, 137, 161
of Demos in Knights, 138 ; of Dionysus
in Bacchae, 150, 210 Eiron distin- ;
Faistakf, as Bald Buffoon, 170, 173.

guished from Buffoon, 137, 138 ; defined
B^rnell, on Tragedy, 67.
by Aristotle, 137 as feigned stupidity,
;
Feast, a fixed incident, 3, 93 its original ;

137.
meaning in the ritual, 99.
Ithyphalli, described by Semos, 41
Fertility Ritual, dramatic forms of, 53 ff.
abuse in, 110 ; combats in. 111, 118 ;
source of stock masks, 188 ; and doctrine

Jane Austen, 198.
of Hubris, 207 contains germs of both
;
Tragedy and Comedy, 207 ; degenerates

into buffoonery, 213.
Kalidasa, 213.
Fesoennine, 60. Karasa and Krsna, 67, 112.
Folk plays, 60 ff. ; in N. Greece, 62 ; as
Karpaia, 65.
degenerate ritual, 74, 213. Kasperlespiel, 142.
Frogs, Exodos, 14 Parodos, 40 ; Agon in,
;
Katakeleusmos in Agon, 72.
described, 81 ; trial scene in place of
Karaxi(riMTa in Plutus, 100.
Agon, 82 ; Resurrection motive in, 85 Keith, A. B., on origin of Tragedy, 67.
Sacrifice and Feast, 98 ; Parabasis, 122
Kid, fallen into milk, 89.
Euripides as Doctor in, 162 ; Aeschylus King, New, in seasonal festivals, 20 ; in
as Soldier in, 163 ; Dionysus in, 205.
Knights, 31 ; in Frogs, 31 ; battle of
Young and Old, 67.
Knights, Exodos, 9 ; Ag&nes in, 76 ; Phar-
GSras of Aristophanes, rejuvenation in,
makos in Exodos, 77 rejuvenation of ;
90, 134.
Demos, 87 Sacrifice and Feast, 95
;
Oerytades of Aristophanes, resurrection

hint ofdouble Chorus in, 109 ; Parabasis,
in, 85.
122, 123;Second Parabasis, 130; end,
Golden Age, and Women Plays, 33.
compared with Plutus, 136 Cook as ;
Gorgon mask, 176.
stock mask 164 ; Cleon as Parasite
in,
Great Dionysia, 194.
in, 166 Demos, a 'tyrant,' 167 ; 1. 230
;
(Cleon's mask), 168 Old Man in, 172. ;
Hegemon of Thasos, 102.

Kolax. See Parasite.
Heracles, Ag6nes of, 67 ; the Glutton, 178 ;
Komos, a fixed incident, 3.
in Mime and Satyr plays, 182 ; in Alcestis, Kordax, 182.
182; in Birds, 97, 182. Kore and Pluto at Eleusis, 26.
Iiippalactryon, 164. KpaSlrii fofios, 77.
II
250 THE OEIGIK OF ATTIC COMEDY
Krates, position in history of Comedy, 217. Mime, Peloponnesian, 6, 179 ; Sicilian,
Kratinus, Odysses, 109 Panoplai, 159 ; Agon in, 117 ; at Syracuse, 181 ; stock
TIvtIvti, 217. masks in, 182 ; essentially Dorian, 198
primacy of character in, 198.
Mimesis in Sacred Marriage, 19.
Lamachus in Acharnians Agon, 76 ; as
Miraculous growth of divine Child, 86,
Miles Gloriosus, 155.
Rend- Morris dance, 60.
Lenaea, 194 ; Anodes Ritual at, 85 ;
ing of Dionysus, 86.

Mummers' Play in England, 61 ; multi-
plication of incidents, 147.
Liberalia, 50, 194.
Murray, on origin of Tragedy, 59, 246.
Logos, =plot in Comedy, 199.
Aoi5op)jcr^6s, before Agon, 113.
Myth, in Tragedy, 199.
Lycurgus, 149.
LyHstrata, Exodos, 13 inversion of social ;
New Comedy, stock masks in, 175 ; sub-
order in, 33 ; Agon in, described, 80 ; division of types in, 202.
SacriBce and Feast, 97 ; double Chorus
in, 109 ; Parabasis discussed, 125 Oedipus, 58.
Second Parabasis, 130 ; Lysistrata in, Old Man, stock mask of, iu Old Comedy,
174. 171 Aristophanes' favourite part, 173
;
;
in New Comedy, 176 in Vulgar ; '
Macco, 182 ; and Maccus, 184.

Comedy,' 182 subdivided in New
;
Maccus, 183. Comedy, 176, 202.

Maison, 165, 182 ; mask in New Comedy, Old Woman, in Thracian folk play, 87;
stock mask in Old Comedy, 174; in
176.
Margoliouth, 49. New Comedy, 176 as Mother, 189. ;
Marionette, hieratic, 51. Oleiai at Orchonienos, 112.
Marriage, as fixed ending, 3, 8 £f. ; of Zeus Olympic Victor, as Exarchos, 9, 24

and Hera, 13, 14, 19, 22, 25; of Zeus Victors as Zeus and Hera, or Sun and
and Demeter, 19 not romantic motive, ;
Moon, 22 ; feasted in Prytaneum, 32
16 Sacred, 18 of Dionysus and Queen, sacrifice and feast of, 99.
; ;
Osiris, and phallic processions, 48

24 at Bleusis, 26 still end of Comedy,
; ; sufier- ;
68 and Satyr-play, 246.

;
ings of, 51.
Masks, changed in course of play (Clouds), OvKoxira.!., 102.
79 no portrait masks in Old Comedy,

;
157, 169 in New Comedy, 169, 175

; Pappos, 184 ; in New Comedy, 176.
original purpose of, 170; stock, list Parabasis, position in the Play, 2; re-
of, in Old Comedy, 175
found at ; garded as nucleus, 4 ; as epilogue,' 5 '
;
Sparta, 176 stock masks in ;Vulgar '

contains invocation and invective, 45
Comedy,' 181 in other forms of ; undramatic character of, 47 ; as survival
Mime, 182; created by actors, 182; of Choral Agon, 114, 120 ff. form of, ;
in Atellane farce, 183 in Vulgar ;

'
described, 121 Anapaests, 121 ff. not an
; ;
Comedy,' Aristophanes and Atellane, epilogue, 124 Epirrhematic part of, 124
;
compared, 185 in Commedia dell' arte,

; in Lysistrata, 125; sometimes like a
186 ; stock, traceable to fertility ritual, debat, 129.
187 ; Age and Sex types subdivided, Parabasis, Second, form and contents of,
202 ; wisely kept in ancient drama, 204. 130 appeal for victory in, 130 ; as a
;
See Soldier, Doctor, Parasite, Cook, di'bat, 130 ; reconciliation in Lysistrata,

Old Man, Young Man, Old Woman, 131.
Young Woman, Slave (Comic). Parasite (Kolax),and 'buffoonery,' 138;
Medea rejuvenates old men, 88. Cleon in Knights as, 166 as courtier, ;
Medicine-man becomes grotesque, 202 166; as mask on Attic stage, 167; and
See Doctor, Cook. demagogue, 167; perhaps from Sicilian
Megara, 'laugh stolen from M.,' 179, 192. Mime, 168; mask iu New Comedy, 176
Melampus, 48. baldness of, 182 on Corneto amphora,
;
Melanaigis, 66. 183.

Meton, 157. Parthenon, Opisthodomos, 26.
INDEX 251
Peace, Exodos, 12 ; New Zeua motive in, Pnigos, 121.
27 ; why no Agon in, 73, 86 ; Anodos Poverty, in Plutus as Pharmakos, 56.
in, 85 ; Sacrifice and Feast, 96 ; scatter- Protagoras, Antilogies of, 114.
ing of barley-grains to spectators, 101 Punch and Judy, 143 if.
Parabasis, 122, 123 Second Parabasis, ; Punch fights Want and Weariness, 161.
130; Impostors in, 134; Old Man in, Pyrrhic dance, 60, 65.
173 ; Parabasis, on ' Vulgar Comedy,' Pythagoreans, typical philosophers in
178. Magna Graeoia, 158.
Peisistratus, as husband of Athena, 26.
Pelops, and Hippodameia, 22, 58 boiling ;
Realism, growth of in Comedy, 201 of

of, 89. ;
modern stage, 204 in minor character.s ;

Pentheus, in Bacchae, 60 ; double of
in Tragedy, 205.
Dionysus, 149, 208 ; crucified by
Regeneration rite by boiling, 89.
Maenads, 150.
Rejuvenation, of Pisthetairos, 23 ; of
Pericles, as Zeus, 32.
Demos in Knights, 87 ; by Medea, 88,
Phales as first protagonist, 19, 61, 183
=Phallus, 42.
91 ; in Qtras, 90 ; in AmphiaroMs, 91
in Was'ps, 91 ; in Clouds, 92
in Peace,
Phallic rites, their essence, 48. ;
92 ; in Bacchae, 93 ; a constant motive,

Phallic Song, in Poetics iv. 36 ; in .4 char-
93; in Plato, Euthydemus, 161; mask
nians, 37 form and content of, 38 with
; ;
probably changed for, 171.

N. Greek folk play, 64 form not that of ;
Resurrection, as finale of Frogs, 16 ; motive

Parabasis, 125.
in Comedy, 84; in lost plays, 85; ritual
Phallophori, described by Semos, 41 ; not
of boiling, 89.
actors, 43, 47.
Rhinthon, ISO.
Phallus, = Phales, 19 ; worn by actors, 20,
Ridiculous, the, analysed by Plato, 209.
182 ; and Phallophori, 43 as charm ;
Ritual Combats, 111 ; in modem Europe,

against evil, 49 mentioned in Clouds
;
118.
Parabasis, 178.
Pharmakos, in Knights Exodos, 10, 77,
151 ; iv. 6 ff , 11
in 1 Cor, ceremony .
; Saceed Mabeiage. See Marriage.
at 55 ; Poverty as, 151
Thargelia, Sacrifice, as fixed motive, 3, 93 ; its original
Antagonist-Impostor as, 151 ; Aesop as, meaning in the ritual, 99,
151. Salmoneus, 23, 28.
Philosophers, in mask of Doctor, 158. Satyricdrama and Tragedy, 68, 246 ;
phase
Phineus, 152. of Tragedy, 214.
Phlyax, 180 ; Soldier in, 185. Semele, Anodos of, 85.
Phthonos, excited by Hubris and Alazoneia, Semos of Delos on Phallophori, etc. , 42.
208 ; in spectator of Comedy, 209. Sheppard, J. T., 24.
Pickwick, Mr., as Bald Fool, 173. Silenopappos, 184.
Plato, as Mime Buthydemus,
writer, 161 ; Slave, Comic, stock mask in Old Comedy,
161 ; on tragic and comic emotions, 175 ; in New Comedy, 176 ; in Vulgar '
209. Comedy,' 178, 181 ; on Corneto amphora,

Plot, with fixed incidents, 3 ; Romantic, 183.
16 ;
primary In Tragedy, 195 ; secondary Socrates, Doctor in Clouds, 156 ; not a
in Comedy, 198 ; = Logos in Comedy, caricature, 157 ;
position in Clouds,
Myth in Tragedy, 199 ; novelty of in 160; turned into Biron by Plato, 161 :
Comedy, 199 ; ritual plot survives more cathartic method, 164.

in Comedy than in Tragedy, 199 ; dic- Soldier, stock mask of, 155 Lamachus, ;
tates character in Tragedy, 200. 155 ; Aeschylus in Frogs, 163 mask iu ;
Plutus, Exodos, 15 ; New Zeus in, 25 New Comedy (iirlau(TToi), 176 ; Gorgon
expulsion of Poverty, 56 ; Agon in, mask, 176 Eneualios on Phlyax Vase,
;
described, 82; restoration of Plutus' 180 on Lower Italy Vase, 185

; the ;
sight, conversion of Plutus, 90

87 ;
Antagonist become grotesque, 202.
Sacrifice and Feast, 98; scattering of Sophist, meaning of, 156.
sweetmeats, 100 ; Impostors in, 136 Sphragis in Agon, 72.

Informer treated as Pharmakos, 151. 2<p!)pa and <r(pvpoK6TOi, 86.
Summer and Winter, battle of, 20, 56, 113, Trophonius, Cave of, 78.
114 ; and debats, 118. Tug-of-war, 57.

Susariou, i, 179, 193, 216.
Sweetmeats, scattering of, 100.
Veiovis, 87.
Sword-dance, 60. Vulgar Comedy, scattering of sweetmeats
in, 101 ; Aristophanes on, 177 stock ;
masks in, 181.

Thahoelia, 54, 77.
Tlieophrastus, 203. Wasps, Exodos, 11; Agon in, described,
Thesmophoriazwsae, Exodos, 14 ; Agon in, 79 Sacrifice and Feast 96 Parabasis,
; ; ;
72 ;Agon in, described, 81 ; Sacrifice 122, 123; Second Parabasis, 130; Im-
and Feast, 97 ; Parabasis, 122, 123. postors in, 134 Old Man in, 171, 173
; ;
Thessalian folk plays, 62. Prologue on Vulgar Comedy,' 178.

'
Thracian folk play, 62, 86, 189. Winter, Expulsion of, 20. Ste Summer
Tityroi, as Rams, 19. and Winter.
Tragedy, Murray on '
fixed forms ' of, 59 ;
origin of (Farnell), function of

Xakdika, 56, 67.
67 ;
Chorus Chorus pacify adver-

Xanthus and Melanthus at Eleutherae, 66,
in, 1 07 ;
113, 149.
saries in Agon, 110 no traces of Choral ;
Agon, 131 usual account of its growth,

;
Yarilo, 53.
141 primacy of plot in, 195 sense of
; ;
Young Man, not itock mask in Old
necessity in, 196; has mythical plot,
Comedy, 171 a minor figure, 173 in
; ;
199 survival of 'fixed forms,' 199 new
; ;
New Comedy, 174, 176 subdivided, ;
characters invented in, 201 represents ;

203.
'exalted persons,' 204; minor charac-
Young Woman, in Old Comedy, 174
ters (comic) in, 205 not the mirror of ;
in New Comedy, 176
life, 205, 206 germ of, in fertility
;
ritual, 207 tragic conflict internal,

; ZAQKEtJS, 149.
208 emphasises death, 212
; happy ; Zeus, pick of {Clouds), 30.
ending in Aeschylus, 212 the excep- ; New, in Birds, 13, 21 in Pluius, ;
tional phenomenon, 213 Satyric phase ; 25 ; in Peace, 28 ; in Clouds, 28 ; and

of, 214 the goat, 214 and Satyr-play,
; ; Pericles, 33.
246. Zeus Soter in Plutus, 16 ; and Athena
Tragoi, 19. Soteira, 26.
Triballi, 44. Zielinski, 1, 2, 5 ; on Agon, 105.
Printed by T. ami A. Constabi.r, Printors to His Majesty

at the Edinburgh Univtraity Frees
Telegrams :
j , ^r ,
"Scholarly, Reg. London." '''' ^"^ +3 Maddox Street,
Telephone :
^°'''^ ^''^^t' London, W.
No. 1883 Mayfair. February, 1914.
Mr. Edward Arnold's

SPRING
ANNOUNCEMENTS, 1914.
KULU AND LAHOUL.

an account of ms Xatest Climbing Journeys in tbe
ibimalaâ.
By LIEUT.-COL. THE HON. C. G. BRUCE, M.V.O.
6th Gurkha Rifles Author of "Twenty Years
; in the Himalaya."
WitU Numewus Illustrations from the Author's Photographs.
One Volume. Demy 8w. 12s. 6d. net.
It has been said that no one can ever hope to know more than
a few corners of the Himalaya. Yet an exception must surely be
made in favour of Colonel Bruce. Outside Nepal there is no
considerable section of the range, from Sikkim to Chitral and
Hunza, with which he has not some personal acquaintance, while
of Nepal itself he knows as much as is possible for a European.
This has been shown in his valuable earlier work, " Twenty
Years in the Himalaya," in which he describes his varied experi-
ences as a mountaineer and an officer of the Gurkhas, including
ascents in the company of Conway, Mummery, Longstaff, and
other well-known climbers.
In his latest expedition Colonel Bruce filled up his most con-
siderable outstanding gap by a thorough exploration of the
.
mountains of Kulu and Lahoul, which have hitherto been neg-

lected by climbers. The country visited lies nearly due north of
Simla, in the centre of the group of small states which intervene
between Garhwal and Kashrnir, and a very large amount of most
interesting ground was covered in the six months spent there.
The record is not a mere tale of mountaineering achievement, for
the author treats his subject lightly, and at the same times brings
his wide knowledge of native life into play in describing the history
and folklore of the two districts. Mrs. Bruce contributes a
chapter on " A Lady's Point of View."
LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD,

: 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.
2 Mr. Edward Arnold's Spring Announcements.
A CLIMBER IN NEW ZEALAND.

By MALCOLM ROSS, A.C., F.R.G.S.
With numerous beautiful Illustrations. Demy 8w.

Probable price, 15s. net.
A work dealing with climbs and exploration in the New

Zealand Alps. As one of the founders and Vice-President of the
New Zealand Alpine Club, and editor of its journal, the author is
well qualified to write on the subject of climbing and mountain
exploration in his native land.
The charm and adventures attendant upon exploration in the
Alps of a new country are most graphically described. Indeed,
there is not a dull page in the whole book, while some of the
adventures were of quite a thrilling nature. The book is some-
thing more than a mere record of ascents. From beginning to
end it has quite a literary flavour, and there is, also, running
through its pages a quaint vein of humour and philosophy. Such
chapters as " Above the Plains" and " An Interlude " will appeal
to a wide circle of readers. Mrs. Malcolm Ross, a well-known
New Zealand authoress, comes into the book a good deal, and
her amusing descriptions of camp cookery and of the Kea, or
mountain parrot, add to the interest of the work of her daring
and talented husband. The author has illustrated his book with
some very excellent and artistic pictures from his own photographs.
HANNIBAL ONCE MORE.

By DOUGLAS W. FRESHFIELD, M.A.,
Vice-President of the Royal Geographical Society Treasurer of the Hellenic
;
AND Roman Societies formerly President of the Alpine Club Author of " The
; ;
Exploration of the Caucasus," "Round Kinchinjunga," etc.
Illustrated. 8to. 55. net.
In this little volume Mr. Freshfield has put into final shape
the results of his study of the famous and still-debated question :
" By which Pass did Hannibal cross the Alps ? " The literature
which has grown up round this intricate subject is surprisingly
extensive, and various solutions have been propounded and
upheld, with remarkable warmth and tenacity, by a host of
scholars, historians, geographers, military men, and mountaineers.
Mr. Freshfield has a solution of his own, which, however, he puts
forward in no dogmatic spirit, but in such a fashion that his book
is practically a lucid review of the whole matter in each of its
many aspects. To an extensive acquaintance with ancient and
Mr. Edward Arnold's Spring Announcements.
3
modern geographical literature he unites a wide and varied
ex-
perience as an alpine climber and a traveller,
and a minute
topographical knowledge of the regions under discussion;
and
these qualifications— in which many of his predecessors in the
same field of inquiry have been conspicuously lacking— enable him
to throw much new light on a perennially fascinating
problem.
THE LIFE OF
Admiral sir harry rawson,
G.C.B., G.C.M.G.
By LIEUT. GEOFFREY RAWSON, R.I.M.
With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
This book, which has been written by a relative of the late

'Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, gives a deeply interesting account
of the Admiral's long and varied career in China, the Near East,
Africa and Australia.
Entering the Navy as long ago as 1857, when the sailing ship
I
still held the seas, Sir Harry, as a young cadet, thirteen years of
age, took part in the China War of 1858-60, being present in the
Calcutta's launch at the capture of the Taku forts.
In 1863, when only nineteen years of age, he held Ning-po for
three months against the rebels, with 1,300 Chinese troops under
his command. He served for two commissions as Commander
of the battleship Hercules, and acted as Flag-captain in both the
Channel and Mediterranean Squadrons.
1 During the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, he acted as principal
Transport officer, and after his promotion to Flag rank, was
appointed Commander-in-Chief on the Cape Station, 1895-98.
Whilst holding this important position, he landed the Naval
Brigade which captured Mweli, the stronghold of a rebel Arab
chief; part of his squadron bombarded the palace at Zanzibar
and, in 1897, he commanded the famous expedition for the capture
of Benin, which was successfully accomplished.
^ For more than two years he commanded the Channel Squadron,
and the work contains a chapter devoted to the naval manoeuvres
of I goo.
The book terminates with a well-told account of Sir Harry's
Governorship of New South Wales, and a chapter on his short-
lived but no less famous brother, Commander Wyatt Rawson,
Who led the historic night march over the desert to Tel-el-Kebir.
RICHARD CORFIELD OF
SOMALILAND.
By H. F. PREVOST-BATTERSBY,
War Correspondent of the "Morning Post" in South Africa and Somaliland.
Illustrated. Demy 8vo.
It was the news of his death that made the world acquainted
with Corfield's name, but everyone who had served with him
knew him as a man of extraordinary charm, with some secret
source of power which had an amazing influence over savage
peoples, and regarded a notable future as assured to him.
He had gone as a mere boy to the South African War, serving
afterwards in the South African Constabulary. He had just
returned home on leave from his five years' service when he was
appointed to the new Tribal Militia being raised in Somaliland.
He remained there till the country was evacuated, and the militia
disbanded, in 1910, acquiring a remarkable reputation for hand-
ling the most " difficult " natives in Africa.
He was at once transferred to Northern Nigeria, and after a
year's work, signalized by striking successes with the pagan
tribes, was specially requisitioned to raise and command a force
of camelry, to which the governance of Somaliland was to be
entrusted. In nine months he performed miracles in a country
literallyreeking with blood, 100,000 of the inhabitants having
been massacred since the country was evacuated, and restored in
that short time the confidence of the natives in the honour of the
British Government.
He lost his life in a gallant attempt to check a Dervish raid,
which was spreading fresh ruin over the country but those who ;
read his life will discover that his action touched a much deeper
issue than the succour of a starving people. He died for
—
England's old ways of honour for the keeping of faith to unfor-
tunate dependents, for his country's good name.
TEACHING FOR LADS.

jFor use in Bible Classes anC> Confirmation Classes.
By the REV. PETER GREEN, M.A.,
Rector of St. Philip's, Salford, and Canon of Manchester ;
Author of *' How to Deal with Lads," "How to Deal with Men."
Crown 8vo. as. 6d. net.
This book is intended primarily for the use of those who have
to give instruction to boys in Sunday Schools, Church Lads'
Mr. Edward Arnold's Spring
Announcements.
5
Brigades' Bible Classes, and
similar institutions and ha. h^^n
'' ^ *'?"'* ^^° '^^^ ^^^"y P^^t his theories

L the têst Tn hi f
ireshness ahnlt
freshness S ^^
P-^ri""^ wo'^ks there has been found a
about his whole treatment of the
subject that is most
stimulatmg and it may be confidently
asserted that reade^ of
peruSr ""' "'" '"'"^ ^^""^ ^''^'^'^ -^

profit fror^^?s
THE ORIGIN OF ATTIC COMEDY.

By F. M. CORNFORD,
^=<:turee of Trinity College, Cambridge;
Author of
ok '^FîSV"
From Religion to Philosophy," "Thucydides
Mythistoticus," etc.
One Volume. Demy 8vo. 8s. 6d. net.
This book tries to show that the peculiar structure and features
of Aristophanic Comedy can be explained by
an hypothesis like
that by which Professor Gilbert Murray explains the
form of
Greek Tragedy. A detailed examination of the extant plays
brmgs to light, under all their variety, a plot-formula composed
.
of 3. regular sequence of incidents Agon, Sacrifice, Feast,
:
Marriage, Kdmos. The theory is that this canonical sequence

presents the stereotyped action of a folk-drama (like the English
Mummer's Play), which itself preserves the outline of a well-
known seasonal ritual. This ritual turns out to be substantially
identical with that which, according to Professor Murray, lies
behind Tragedy. The stock masks in the Old Comedy are shown
to be the essential characters in the supposed folk-drama. On
this view, various features of Aristophanic Comedy, such as the
Agon and Parabasis, about which widely different views are now
held, can be satisfactorily explained. It follows also that Aris-
tophanic Comedy is not a patchwork of heterogeneous elements,
but a coherent whole, and in all probability a native growth of
Attic soil. Athenian Comedy and Tragedy have a common
source in ritual of the same fundamental type. The causes of
their differentiation —
a problem of great interest in the history of
drama —are treated in the last chapter.
The book intended, not only for classical scholars, but for all
is
readers interested in the origin and growth of the drama. Greek
has been confined to the footnotes, and a synopsis of the plots of
Aristophanes' plays has been added, to enable the ordinary reader
to follow the argument.
6 Mr. Edward Arnold's Spring Announcements
THE REVIVAL OF THE RELIGIOUS

LIFE.
By FATHER PAUL BULL,
Of the House of the Resurrection, Mirfield.
Crown Sw. 3s. 6d. net.
The purpose of the author of this volume is to give an outline

sketch of the ideals of the Religious Life, and the attempts to
realize that life in history, and to trace the various manifestations
and interpretations of the ascetic and mystic spirit of the Gospel.
Father Bull has spent twenty-two years of his life in trying to
realize these ideals, and feels that both the infinite joy of the
attempts and also his consciousness of abysmal failure may have
qualified him to offer an opinion on the glory and the perils of
—
the Religious Life the word " Religious " being here used in its
original technical sense for a corporate life under rule. In urging
the need for a fuller revival of the Religious Life for men in the
English Church, the author deprecates mere imitation of what has
been done in past times and in other lands, and considers it im-
portant to accumulate as soon as possible a body of experience,
to discuss principles and see what adaptations of these principles
are necessary to meet modern conditions. The book should
prove of great interest and utility to all who are concerned with
the religious tendencies of our times.
ESSAYS ON FAITH AND

IMMORTALITY.
By GEORGE TYRRELL.
Arranged, with Introduction, by M. D. PETRE, his
Biographer.
Ont Volume. Crown 8vo. 5s, net.
This volume comprises, for the most part, matter hitherto un-
published which existed in the form of notes and essays amongst
the MSS. which Father Tyrrell left behind him. To this have
been added a few articles already published, either in England or
abroad, in various periodicals, but which are not now easily
obtainable, and which possess a certain importance. One of these
latter essays, in particular, has attained considerable celebrity,
—
and is yet almost unprocurable namely, the one entitled " A
Mr. Edward Arnold's Spring Announcements.
y
Perverted Devotion," which played so large a part in the drama
of Its author's hfe.
The essays have been divided into two parts, of which the first
may be said roughly to deal with problems of faith, the second
with the ever-recurrmg problem and mystery of personal
immor-
tahty. This second part is specially characteristic of George
Tyrrell's mind, with its spiritual tact and delicate
power of
intuition. Some of the many to whom this question is the ques-
tion of all questions will find in these essays, not a scientific
answer to their difficulties, but illuminating hints and suggestions
to help them in their own search. The essays, in fact, as a
whole, are not definite treatises, but the musings and gropings of
a deeply spiritual mind in its quest of truth.
NEW NOVEL
BARBARA LYNN.
By EMILY JENKINSON,
Author of " Silverwool," " The Soul of Unrest," etc.
Crown 8ot. 6s.
In " Barbara Lynn " the author returns to the English Lake
—
District the scene of her novel " Silverwool "; and from the first
page, where the reader is taken to the " Lonely Steading in the
Dale," right on to the end, he is not only surrounded by the
mighty hills and vast solitudes of Nature, but made to feel the
pulse of romance and tragedy. " Barbara Lynn " shows a distinct
advance in the work of this gifted young writer. The style, as in
her earlier books, is powerful, individual, lucid. There is the
same love of wild and majestic scenery, and power to convey
impressions of it to others the same knowledge of human
;
character and of sympathy with country folk, and capacity to

enter into their lives and experiences. But with these gifts,
which have already given distinction to Miss Emily Jenkinson's
work, we hear a deeper chord struck in " Barbara Lynn." It
comes out especially in the presentation of the character of the
girl whose name gives the title to the story. Barbara Lynn is a
splendid creature and the picture of her spiritual victory, her
;
mysticism and self-sacrifice, is something unique in current works

of fiction. In our judgment this is a book, not merely to delight
readers for a season, but to remain a notable contribution to our
literature for a long time to come.
3mportant Boohs IReccntl^ Jesucb.

LORD LYONS A : Record of British Diplomacy.
By LORD NEWTON. 2 vols. 30S. net.
" A great biography, a classical record of the career of one of the greatest of British
Ambassadors." Saturday Review.
Life and Letters of George Villiers,

FOURTH EARL OF CLARENDON.
By Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart. 2 vols. 30S. net.
" Not since Lord Morley's Life of Gladstone' was published have we had so useful a con-
'
tribution as this book to the history of the Victorian era. " Daily Chronicle.
PRIMATE ALEXANDER : Archbishop of Armagh.

Edited by ELEANOR ALEXANDER. 13s. 6d. net.
Third Impression.
"A book thatmost likeable, besides having a great charm that the reader
is will certainly
appreciate, even when he cannot exactly define its quality.'' Spectator.
WILLIAM AUGUSTUS, DUKE OF CUMBER-

LAND : His Early Life and Times, 1721-1748.
By the Hon. EVAN CHARTERIS. 12s. 6d. net.
" Mr. Charteris has the gift of making his characters live he is at once vivid and impartial.
;
His analysis of Cumberland's military campaigns are especially lucid." Daily MaiL
A CIVIL SERVANT IN BURMA.

By Sir HERBERT T. WHITE, K.C.I.E. 12s. 6d. net.
" It contains some of the best descriptions of Burma and the Burmese people we have ever
met." Outlook.
SPLENDID FAILURES,
By HARRY GRAHAM. los. 6d. net.
" Weshould imagine that few, even among well-read men and women, could read this
volume without learning something they did not know before."— 7zw«j.
THIRTY YEARS IN KASHMIR.

By ARTHUR NEVE. F.R.C.S. With Illustrations. I3s. 6d. net.
" Another of the splendid contributions to gôâphical and ethnological science, by which
alone missionary endeavour would be more than justified." Outlook.
SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES.
ByCONSTANCE MAUD. Author of " Wagner's Heroes," and MARY
MAUD. Illustrated. 5s. net.
New and. Revised, Edition.
PAINTING IN THE FAR EAST.

By LAURENCE BINYON. With 40 Plates. Crown 4to. 2IS. net.
LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD,

: 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.

CORNFORD, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1914

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

CORNFORD, The Origin of Attic Comedy, 1914

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Sibl

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME

The original of tiiis book is in

tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in

FRANCIS MACDONALD CORNFORD

Movca (TV [i^v iroX£|J.ov5 diro)(ra|jL^VTi |i.£t' cuov

KXcCovcra Ocuv re ^dfJLOvs dvSpwv re Satras

Kal 6a\Cas |i.aKdpuv'

All rights reserved

I had not had in my mind Professor Murray's theory of the '

forms' in Tragedy. My debt to him is, therefore, great. The

that I have learnt from his imaginative and delicate interpretation

der altattischen Komodie contained the first serious effort to account

^ Poetics, 5: -IjSti Si a-xil'^Td riya air^s ixoi<rTii oi Xc7i/*«i'oi airlj! iroi-qral

and Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook. To Mr. Cook I am particularly

indebted for allowing me to see proofs of his forthcoming book,

For the convenience of the reader who may be unable to carry

of the essence of Greek Tragedy. I hope some day to rettirn to

TbINIIY COLLBGIi, Cambiudoii,

THE PHALLIC SONGS

SOME TYPES OP DRAMATIC FERTILITY RITUAL

25. ClassiflcaMon of types, 53

AGON, SACRIEICE, AND FEAST

THE STOCK MASKS OP THE OLD COMEDY

Synopsis of the extant Plays, 221

An inquiry into the origins of the Old Comedy which flourished

2. The Structure of an Arisiophanic Play

Of the strange characteristics of a play by Aristophanes, the

This passage is almost wholly undramatic. It is delivered by the

between Man and Woman in the Wasps, between the poUtical

ideals of the elder and the younger generation. The victorious

old order remains as the substructure of the action : Agon, Sacri-

that this canonical plot-formula preserves the stereotyped action of

3. Some current Theories of the Origin of Comedy

That Comedy sprang up and took shape in connection with

by the crowd of reeling revellers. The ultimate matter of Attic

us pause. The absence of dramatic fiction or dramatic representa-

Town hypothesis stands in sharp opposition to any such theory. We

^ in which its action was dramatically presented in religious ritual.

Another point of difference between this hypothesis and other

avaitservi d'ahord a. Her plus etroilement les scenes suivantes et qui,

Aristophanes, are strung on the thread of some guiding idea.^

anything is left for the native tradition of Attica, beyond certain

choral dances of beast-clad mummers, known to us from early vases,

unity of action running through both parts of the plays, consisting

' H. E. Sieokmann, de comoediae atticae primordiis (Gottingae,

' That this term as applied to Comedy properly denotes

5. The Exodoi oj the Plays

the hobbling Lamachus. The two heroes perform a duet, Lamachus

prize, the skin of wine, which he presently holds up empty. He

well known as the refrain of the K6mos Song of Archilochos,

Eooarchos.^ Evidently, the actual Song of Archilochos, though it

In the Knights, the victory of the Sausage-seller in the long

Kex^aSili!, lipKe(re txBov ayefioveOffai. KU/idfovn 0lXois 'E(papp.6<TTip ativ

eralpoK. Christ Victor vera ipse vice praecentoris (i^apxav) fungebatur

sodalibus praeeuntis, id quod Pindarus verba aye/xoveOffai. significavit et scholiasta

Games,' in J. E. Harrison, Themis (Cambridge, 1912), p. 256 £f.

& liipiaPv, KaWlvtKOS . . . \

Zielinski, Oliederung, p. 187.

Sausage-seller is hailed as kuWCviko';.^ Afteran interval of

amendment of his character by being put through a sort of political

to those whom he has outraged in the days of his power.* Here

orchestra in silence. It may be conjectured that it was divided