inspired by a much more serious purpose than is commonly supposed.
Aristophanes is no mere vulgar buffoon, and most of his obscenity is an
empty parade made necessary by the conditions of the Attic stage which
Aristophanes himself in the course of his career rendered obsolete. He
was a member of the Socratic Circle (the famous Symposium ends with
Socrates expounding to Agathon and Aristophanes the nature of tragedy
and comedy, and explaining the essential similarity of their functions),
and in his early manhood he fell under the spell of the great tragedian.
Of all his comedies there is hardly one which in language, music, and
dramatic technique does not reveal the intimate harmony that exists
between the two men. Aristophanes and Euripides, like our Shelley,
were born to be lyric poets, and they both possess the divine gift of
melody. But they were interested in so many other things, in politics, in
feminism, and in social reform, that art with them often takes the second
place. As men they are incomparably greater than such self-centred
poets as Sophocles; as artists they neither aim at nor achieve his
academic perfection. Their methods are curiously alike, and it is because
Aristophanes knows Euripides so well, and is in such intimate sympathy
with him, that the constant parody of the Euripidean style in the
comedies never becomes wearisome.
Parody, gross humour, indecency even, these were the qualities that a
comic poet at Athens had necessarily to display, and Aristophanes, having
chosen his medium of expression, is compelled to obey the restrictions
of the comic stage. Moreover, it is obvious that he enjoys indulging his
humour to the utmost. The wit of Euripides is restrained and ironical,
with something of the bitterness of old age; Aristophanes in most of his
plays has the exuberance of youthful spirits and an overflowing stock of
fantastic inventions.
But a dramatist, even a comic dramatist, however fantastic and inventive
his humour may be, must have some foundation of serious purpose, and that
foundation Aristophanes takes very largely from Euripides. His three
chief themes are the same as those of the tragedian: firstly, that war
is a curse—it is useful perhaps for politicians and soldiers, but only
brings disaster to real workers; secondly, that a belief in gods made
in mortal shape is absurd—such a belief will certainly lead to farcical
situations, which if treated realistically will be excellent material
for a comic poet; thirdly, that women are as capable, intellectually and
morally, as men—their experience of house-management especially fits them
for carrying on the business of a State, and a feminist administration
might solve many problems that have proved too hard for men. The first of
these themes appears in the plot of the _Acharnians_, the _Peace_, and
the _Knights_; the second in the _Birds_, the _Frogs_, and the _Plutus_;
the feminist plays are the _Women at the Festival_, the _Lysistrata_, and
the _Women in Assembly_.
It is obvious that the treatment of these themes in tragedy and comedy
will be different; but the initial point of view is very much the same.
As for the abuse of Euripides, and there is plenty in the comedies, it is
merely part of the comic game, and it is foolish to take it seriously.
Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, and Socrates were all close friends, as
intimate one with the other as are our leading politicians, and to speak
of Aristophanes ‘attacking’ Euripides and Socrates is to misread the
situation.
It is not to be supposed that all the members of the Socratic Circle
thought alike on all subjects, and even as regards feminism there are
some points of difference between Euripides and Aristophanes. The
comic poet is rather interested in the woman’s cause than devoted to
it, and in many of his plays he certainly hesitates between the gross
realism of the phallic god and the new ideas of feminist doctrine.
Often, too, in his theatre women occupy as insignificant a place as
they did in the actual life of his time. In the _Wasps_, for example,
Philocleon’s household apparently consists of his grown-up son and the
attendant slaves: nothing is said of wife or daughter. In the _Knights_,
‘Demos’—John Bull—has no Mrs. Bull to keep him company: his domestic
arrangements are in the hands of men slaves. In the _Clouds_ there is
a vivid picture of Socrates at home: house, furniture, and pupils are
all described, but nothing of Xanthippë. So in the _Acharnians_ and the
_Peace_ we have household scenes, but no women take part in the action:
the women are there, but they are persons of no importance. Trygæus,
before setting off on his adventurous voyage, bids an affectionate
farewell to his little children, but for his wife he has no message. The
Megarian sells his two daughters for a handful of leeks and a measure of
salt, and then prays to all his saints that he may be lucky enough to get
as good a price for his mother and his wife.
A realist, depicting life at Athens in the fifth century, was compelled
to give women an insignificant rôle, but even in this group of plays
Aristophanes makes one exception, the exception, perhaps, that proves the
rule, for even under the harem system the masterful woman will sometimes
come to the front, and Haroun al Raschid goes in fear of Zobeida. In
the _Clouds_, Strepsiades is married and by no means independent of his
wife: the lady is mentioned, although she takes no part in the play,
and the reasons of this difference are instructive. Strepsiades himself
is a person of inferior social position, lacking both in will-power
and intellectual force; his wife is a woman of property, the daughter
of a noble family and herself of determined character. Using all these
advantages, she is just able to hold her own with her feeble, foolish
husband, and to insist at least on a compromise when their opinions
differ.
But it is possible to make too much of the absence of women characters,
for the conditions of performance at the Lenæan festival were all against
feminine interests, and even though the plot of many of the comedies
has little to do with women, there are constant flashes that reveal the
author’s feminist sympathies. Of all the episodes in the _Birds_ there is
none quite so freshly humorous as the arrest of Iris, the girl messenger
of the Gods, and even in the midst of the fierce political raillery of
the _Knights_ there comes the delicious interlude of the lady triremes
meeting in council; the old stager Nauphantë, addressing the assembly
first and revealing the goings-on of the Government, followed by the shy
young thing ‘who has never come near men,’ and is determined to keep her
independence, ‘heaven forfend, no man shall ever be my master.’ Indeed,
considering the state of Athens and the necessity that lay upon a comic
poet of suiting the tastes of his audience, the real surprise is that
no less than three of the remaining eleven plays—the _Lysistrata_, the
_Women at the Festival_, and the _Women in Assembly_—should be concerned
with the feminist movement and be written in open advocacy of the women’s
cause.
The Women at the Festival—_Thesmophoriazusæ_—is the lightest of the
three, and is really a very brilliantly written feminist ‘revue.’
Euripides is the ‘compare,’ and in various disguises takes part in most
of the incidents. He has heard that the women, now assembled in their own
festival to which no men are admitted, intend to have him put to death,
firstly for being a playwright and secondly as a slanderer of womenkind.
He goes round to his friends to save him (the scene is a parody on the
_Alcestis_), and first of all to his fellow-dramatist, Agathon. But
Agathon, whose music is then burlesqued, is too much like a woman to be
of any assistance. He is another of the inner Socratic Circle, but in the
way of jest the most infamous conduct is imputed to him: his appearance
is as ambiguous as his morals, and all he can do for Euripides is to
lend him some articles of women’s dress for the purpose of a disguise.
So Euripides has to fall back on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, the
buffoon of the piece, and there follows one of those scenes of disrobing
with which we are familiar on the modern stage. The old gentleman is
undressed, shaved all over and arrayed in woman’s garments, i.e., he
exchanges his rough white blanket for a finer yellow one; winds a
band-corset round his breast and puts on a hair-net and bonnet. He is now
to all appearances a woman and goes to the Thesmophorian Festival to find
out the details of the women’s proposal.
The women assemble, and in an elaborate burlesque of a public meeting
recount their grievances against Euripides. It is because of the poet
that men have become so suspicious: they scent a lover everywhere, spy
on their wives, and lock up the store cupboards. Old men who once would
take young wives now remain unmarried, for the poet has told them, ‘When
an old man marries a young wife, the lady is master.’ Finally, by his
atheistical doctrines, Euripides has ruined many an honest flower-girl,
for men do not offer garlands now to the gods. Then Mnesilochus gets up
for the defence. ‘I detest the fellow as much as you do,’ he says; ‘but
it is unreasonable to be annoyed with him for talking about one or two
of our weaknesses—we have ten thousand which he has never mentioned.’
He then proceeds to dilate on some of the frailties which Euripides has
omitted; but he is stopped by his angry audience. ‘There is nothing so
bad as a woman who is naturally shameless’—the chorus say—‘_except it be
a woman_.’
A fierce discussion begins, until their arguments are interrupted by the
appearance of Cleisthenes, one of those womanish men so unpleasantly
familiar in Athens, who tells the assembly that a real man is among
them. Suspicion at once falls on Mnesilochus; he is discovered by plain
evidence to be of the male sex, and is seized by the women. He makes a
gallant attempt to escape by snatching a baby from a woman’s lap, and
holding it to ransom (a parody on Euripides’ _Telephus_); but, when he
unfastens the child’s wrappings, it is not a baby, but a leather skin,
full of wine, which the lady has brought for her private refreshment
during the proceedings. He then decides to send to Euripides for help,
and a parody of the _Palamedes_ ends the first part of the play.
The intermezzo, as we might call it, between the two acts is a humorous
statement of the women’s case on strict Euripidean lines:
Each and every one [the chorus sings] abuses the tribe of
women: we are everything that is bad. Well, then, _why do you
marry us_? Why do you keep us indoors, as though we were
something very, very precious? Why, if we peep out of a window,
does every man want to get a good view of our face? As a matter
of fact, women are better than men, not worse; they are less
greedy, less dishonest, less vulgar; lastly, they alone are the
_mothers_ of heroes.
The second act is a series of attempts by Euripides to rescue his
defender. In the first episode the tragedian appears disguised as the
Menelaus of his Helen. Old Mnesilochus is the fair but frail queen, and
the scene is _supposed_ to change to Egypt. But the women refuse to let
their captive free, and he is finally handed over to a north-country
policeman, an illiterate gentleman with a very strong accent. On him
Euripides tries the effect of another tragedy. Disguised as Perseus he
insists that Mnesilochus is the captive maiden, Andromeda, and that
he has come to release her. But the policeman proves obdurate. Then
Euripides plays his last card. Remembering that all policemen have a
_faiblesse_ for the weaker sex, he disguises himself as an old woman,
and comes in, leading by the hand a young and attractive female. The
policeman begins at once to soften, and when the plump flute-girl sits
down on his knee he capitulates, murmuring, ‘What a swaät toöng: it’s
reaäl Attic hoöney!’ A last vestige of professional caution makes him
ask the old lady her name. Euripides, having to choose a title, chooses
a good one, and says, ‘Artemisia,’ which the policeman enters as
‘Artamouxia’ in his note-book, and then, handing over the custody of his
prisoner to the old lady he retires indoors with his young acquaintance.
The other pair hasten to make their escape, and the play ends with the
policeman’s despairing cry, ‘Artamouxia, Artamouxia, where are you?’
The _Lysistrata_, ‘breaker up of armies,’ is a much stronger play, and
the heroine is a masterpiece of dramatic characterisation. From the
beginning of the action, when she stands in the darkness waiting for
the women she has summoned, and frowning with impatience—‘although a
frown spoils her looks,’ as her one companion tells her—until the end,
when, her purpose accomplished, she can say, ‘Let man stand by woman and
woman by man. Good luck to all, and pray God that we make no more of
these mistakes,’ she is a real living woman. If Aristophanes had written
nothing else, _Lysistrata_ shows that he understood the female mind
almost as well as Euripides himself: better far than most women authors,
except only the incomparable Jane, to whose Emma in masterfulness and
independence the Athenian lady bears a close resemblance. The plot of
the play is simple. Under the lead of Lysistrata the women of Athens
make a league with the women of Sparta, Bœotia, Corinth, and the other
Greek States (for the solidarity of women is one of the key-notes of
the play), to stop the war. For this purpose they put into effect both
active and passive measures: they bind themselves by oath to have no
further intercourse with their husbands until peace is made (the women at
first object, but under the lead of the athletic Spartan finally agree),
and they also seize the Acropolis with the treasury. The old men left
at home, and the officials, for most of the men are at the war, try to
use force; but Lysistrata has marshalled and drilled her women. In a
very vivid scene the men attack, but, ‘Up guards, and at them!’ cries
Lysistrata; and the forces of male law and order, as represented by the
Scythian policemen, are put to ignominious flight. Then the men think it
expedient to propose a friendly meeting, and the ‘conversation’ between
Lysistrata and the Chief Commissioner is the most instructive part of the
play.
‘Why have you seized the treasury?’ he asks. Lysistrata explains that
all wars depend on financial considerations, and that the women mean to
stop supplies. His argument, that women have no administrative skill or
financial knowledge, is countered by the plain facts of home management.
‘It is not the same thing,’ says the Commissioner; ‘this is a war fund.’
Then Lysistrata declares that the war has to stop—now, at once.
In our retiring modesty we have put up long enough with what
you men have been doing. You would not let us speak, but we
have not been at all satisfied with you. _We_ knew what was
going on, although we stay indoors. Over and over again we
were told of some new big mistake you had made. With pain in
our hearts we would put on a smile and ask, ‘What have you
done to-day about the peace?’ ‘But—what’s that to you?’ our
man would say. ‘Hold your tongue.’ And so I did, then (says
Lysistrata), but I am not going to now. I have heard the strain
quite long enough, ‘Men must see to war’s alarms.’ This is my
version of the tune: ‘Women shall see to war’s alarms’; and
if you listen to my advice you will not be troubled by war’s
alarms any more. All you have to do is to hold your tongue, as
we used to do.
At this the Commissioner breaks in furiously: ‘You accursed baggage, I
hold my tongue before you! Why, you are wearing a veil now to hide your
face. May I die rather.’ But his anger does him little good.
‘If that is your difficulty,’ says Lysistrata, ‘take my veil’—and she
puts it on his head—‘and now hold your tongue; moreover, here is my
wool-basket, so you may munch beans and card the wool; for now “Women,
women never shall be slaves.”’ And so the scene ends with the triumphant
chorus.
Between this, the first act, and the second there is a short interval
of time; and when we see Lysistrata again she is having some difficulty
in keeping her women together and away from their husbands. ‘You long
for your men,’ she says; ‘don’t you think they are longing for you? I am
sure they are finding the nights very hard. Hold out, good friends, and
bear it for a little while longer.’ Her arguments are successful, and
soon the first man comes in, with a baby in his arms, prepared to submit
to any terms. But till the peace is made, no arrangement is possible and
the poor husband goes away unsatisfied. Finally, a joint deputation of
Spartans and Athenians appear before Lysistrata. She, as a woman, and
therefore, she says, a person of sense, has no difficulty in arranging
for them terms of peace which are satisfactory to both sides; and so the
play ends with a ‘necklace’ dance, men and women dancing hand in hand.
But this brief summary gives little idea of all the devices of
stage-craft in which the _Lysistrata_ abounds. It is eminently an acting
play, and can still fill a theatre. The language is certainly gross and
its heroine is entirely lacking in modest reticence, but a glance at the
French adaptation by M. Donnay, of the Academy, and especially at the
additional episodes there introduced, will prove that grossness is not
the worst thing in the world, and that a quiet tongue does not always
mean a virtuous mind.
The Women in Assembly, _Ecclesiazusæ_, is much less vigorous. Written
twenty years later than the _Lysistrata_, it shows plain signs of old
age and failing powers. Euripides and Socrates have both passed away;
the Socratic Circle has broken up. Tragedy is dead, and comedy is dying,
for Aristophanes has lost most of that ‘vis comica’ which was his most
wonderful possession. The influence of Plato is substituted for the
influence of Euripides, and the play is a parody of feminist theories as
they are developed in the Republic.
The construction, however, is poor: the action halts and changes midway
in the play; the first part is effective enough, but it would be more
effective if we did not remember the _Lysistrata_, whose themes it
repeats with less vigour.
At the beginning of the play Praxagora is waiting in the darkness for
the women she has summoned to appear. They have resolved to disguise
themselves as men, and to attend the assembly which has been called for
that morning. There they are to propose and carry a resolution that the
State shall be handed over to the management of women. Presently they
begin to assemble; their husbands are safely in bed and asleep, for their
wives have taken measures that they should have a restful night. Sticks,
cloaks, shoes, and false beards are produced and adjusted, but before
they set out to pack the assembly Praxagora proposes a rehearsal of their
arguments. The ladies who have confined their attention to _looking_ like
men prove not very expert at speaking in the male style, and Praxagora
herself has to give them a sample speech.
Things go wrong [she says] because we choose our government
on wrong principles. It is a government by classes, and every
one considers his own personal interests. Public money is paid
away for private gain. A government of women would alter all
this, for women by experience in house management know how to
get full value for money. Secondly, women are conservative,
and would never agree to any violent change in the finances or
the tariff; they are natural economists, and specious cries
of fair trade would have no effect upon them. Thirdly, as war
ministers, they are certain to be successful; their experience
in providing meals will ensure that the soldiers are well fed,
and they are not likely to risk unduly the lives of their
own sons. Lastly, women are so used to trickery that it will
be very hard to trick them. _Therefore_, without any further
talking or inquiry as to what women are likely to do, the best
thing is to entrust them with the government.
The women by the end of the speech have learnt their parts, and with
one last instruction to thrust their elbows into the face of any
policeman who tries to interfere they all set out for the assembly.
Then Blepyrus, the elderly husband of Praxagora, appears, and the play
begins to deteriorate, for it is one of the most dexterous touches in the
_Lysistrata_ that the husbands are for the most part away from home, and
therefore can take no part in the action. Blepyrus and his neighbours
have found that their wives have disappeared together with their cloaks
and shoes. While they are standing in doubt they hear strange news. The
assembly convened that morning to consider the vital question of State
reform is already over; it was so well attended and so punctual to time
that many men came too late to vote or to receive their attendance fee.
A resolution has been passed unanimously that tailors shall provide
clothes and bakers bread, free gratis to all; and, furthermore, that the
government shall be in the hands of women. A good-looking young man, who
made a most effective speech, was chiefly responsible for this change
of policy. He pointed out that women could keep a secret far better
than men; that they were in the habit of trusting one another, and that
they never would be likely to plot against the government; moreover,
everything but woman-government had been tried already without much
success, and the experiment was well worth making. Blepyrus and his
friends acquiesce in the _fait accompli_, and when Praxagora returns she
learns from her husband that women are now in authority. The socialistic
State begins at once to take shape. Praxagora decrees a community of
property—land, food, slaves, belong now to the State—every one possesses
everything. Women are part of the community of goods, but to avoid
disputes the less well-favoured women and men are to have the first
choice of partners, and such unions are purely temporary. Law courts,
gambling saloons, and night clubs are all summarily closed; for these
appurtenances of civilisation are incompatible either with socialism
or feminism. The difficulty of work is disposed of by the convenient
institution of slavery, and a _régime_ of universal happiness and
feasting begins.
Thus far the first section of the play. The second part, which is very
inferior, attempts to show the working of the new system. Praxagora
disappears, and the characters are mere mechanical figures. A man, A;
a man, B; a young man; a young woman; three old women. The scenes are
coarse and uninteresting, nor is the prosiness of the dialogue relieved
by any of the vivid touches of humour which mark the poet’s earlier
plays. Finally, this section, like the first, ends with a banquet, given
by the State, and open to all.
The _Ecclesiazusæ_ is plainly inspired by Plato’s theories of communism
and feminism as we have them now in the _Republic_ and the _Laws_.
A further example of the connection between the comedian and the
philosopher is the Aristophanic tale of the origin of sex in Plato’s
Symposium. The story—a Platonic myth with a difference—is so good a
specimen both of Aristophanes’ humour and of the gay fashion in which the
Greeks anticipate modern science that it is a pity its length prevents
quotation.
In ancient days [according to Aristophanes] there were not two
sexes but three, the children of the sun, the earth, and the
moon. Men were round in shape, with four feet and hands, two
faces, and they were able both to walk and to roll. In the
pride of their strength they rebelled against heaven, and Zeus
cut them in twain. Apollo was bidden to heal the places, but
the two halves pined one for the other, and so in pity the god
turned their bodies round, and men became in shape such as we
see them now.
There are many other details, but the most striking point in the story
is the recognition of the original identity of sex. The man and the
woman are not separate and opposite, but rather complementary halves of
one organism, which once included both; they are a divided whole, and
that is why men and women yearn one for the other. How far the tale is
Aristophanes’ invention, how far Plato’s, cannot be decided, but the
doctrine of the identity of sex-qualification is the common possession
of all the Socratic Circle, and forms as clearly the basis of Plato’s
serious philosophy as it does of the humorous apologue of Aristophanes.
XI.—PLATO