addressed to Battis are generally admitted to have been modelled, in
form, at any rate, on the _Lyde_ of Antimachus; and it does not seem
unjustifiable to infer from this that their spirit and their general
character were also, in the main, similar. The way in which the two poets
are coupled by Ovid (_Trist._ i. 6, 1) seems to support this view, and,
as we have already seen, there is no evidence to the contrary.[201] To
sum up, then: the conclusions arrived at are briefly as follows:
(1) In extant Greek poetry there is no trace of romantic love-poetry
addressed to women, prior to the time of Asclepiades and Philetas.
(2) In the works of these writers this element suddenly appears, not in
the nature of an experiment, but as a leading motive—an almost sure proof
that they were not the originators of it.
(3) The _Lyde_ of Antimachus was a work of such a kind, both in nature
and in circumstances of production, that there is every reason to believe
that it was a romantic love-poem.
(4) Philetas and Asclepiades were notoriously admirers of the _Lyde_ of
Antimachus.
(5) Therefore there is reason to believe that the romantic element
appearing in their poems was due to the influence of Antimachus, who may
thus be regarded as the originator of the romantic element in literature.
_Vale, lector benevole, si quidem huc usque mecum perveneris._
WOMEN IN GREEK COMEDY
I. THE CLASSIFICATION OF COMEDY
The classification of Greek Comedy has been, from the earliest times,
a subject of dispute. The ancient critics, for the most part, divided
comedy into two classes only—the Old Comedy, which has a _parabasis_, and
the New Comedy, which has none. According to these critics, the acme of
the Old Comedy was reached during the Peloponnesian War, that of the New
Comedy during the reign of Alexander. That this system of classification,
though sound as far as it goes, is not an adequate one, will be admitted
by every student of the subject, and need not be further discussed.
The alternative division of comedy into three classes, corresponding
roughly to the sixth, seventh, and eighth so-called periods of Greek
literature[202]—a scheme of arrangement that has on the whole been most
generally accepted in modern times—is also not a very satisfactory
one; for, apart from the initial objection that it, like all similar
chronological arrangements, is far too rigid to be applied to anything
so intangible as a literary tendency, there is the further and graver
objection that there is really no essential difference whatever between
the comedies performed at Athens during the reign of Philip and those
performed there in the time of Alexander.
The _Orge_ of Menander, produced in the year after the death of the
latter monarch, might have been produced, as far as one can judge of its
character by its remains, in any year of the previous fifty.
At the same time, however, it is certain that a division of comedy
into three classes rather than two is necessary; for that the work of,
say, Apollodorus Carystius, differs as much from that of Antiphanes as
anything the latter ever wrote does from the work of Eupolis, is a fact
that no one acquainted with the subject is likely to question.
The only satisfactory system of classification is that based, not on
style or chronology, but on subject. Greek comedy falls naturally into
three great divisions—the Political, the Social, and the Romantic,[203]
and, to come at once to the point, these three divisions are
characterised by three distinct ways of regarding women. The Political
Comedy practically ignores women altogether; the Social Comedy admits
the fascination of woman’s society as an incident in a man’s life;
the Romantic Comedy claims woman’s love as the one topic of absorbing
interest for men.
And here it may at once be observed that the relation between the first
two forms of art is somewhat different from that which exists between
them and the last. The Social Comedy was the natural and logical
development of the original primitive comedy, and the Comedy of Cratinus,
with its political motive, was but a temporary branch of the art, which,
though growing at one time to such striking proportions as well nigh to
conceal the parent stem, yet never actually prevented the growth and
development of the latter. The Romantic Comedy, on the other hand, was
the result, not of development, but of revolution. It was a deliberate
attempt (undertaken in the first instance, it would seem, by a single man
of genius) to inoculate the old Athenian drama with those romantic ideas
which were by this time beginning to be freely expressed in various other
parts of Greece, and to combine the teaching of the epic erotic legends,
which were in essence ideal, with the realism of Social Comedy.[204]
This being the case, one would not unnaturally expect to find a more
decided line of cleavage between the writers of the two last phases of
Comedy than is apparent in the previous case. And this is unquestionably
so. Throughout the fifth century we find political and social comedy
flourishing side by side, the great mass of the comedians being equally
at home in either branch of the art, while, towards the close of that
century and at the beginning of the next, the boundary line between the
writers of “Old” and “Middle” Comedy is notoriously a very faint one.
At the end of the fourth century, on the other hand, the victory of
the Romantic Comedy was rapid and well-nigh complete, while there is
generally no difficulty in saying without hesitation to which of the
two classes, the modern or the old-fashioned, any given play of the
transition belonged.[205]
But while the most satisfactory classification of Greek Comedy is
unquestionably one on the lines suggested above, the ordinary division
into Old, Middle, and New Comedy, is so generally recognised that it has
seemed to me inadvisable to ignore it altogether, and so these terms
will be found occurring repeatedly in the following pages. To avoid the
possibility of any misunderstanding, however, it may be remarked that
the term, “New Comedy,” will always be used in the sense of romantic
comedy. The term, “Middle Comedy,” will be used in its ordinary sense,
except that it will be extended to cover all works, irrespective of
author, which are akin to the school of Antiphanes and Eubulus. The
unsatisfactory term, “Old Comedy,” will only be used in those passages
where the context renders its meaning unmistakable.
II. THE ORIGIN OF COMEDY.
Comedy was, in its origin, as seems indeed necessary from its nature,
social rather than political. The scenes which the first comic actors
aimed at depicting appear, beyond doubt, to have been representations of
amusing incidents in the everyday life of ordinary people, and were in
no way concerned with state policy; while the personalities with which
this form of entertainment originally abounded, were aimed rather at
rival actors than at well-known public characters, and had nothing at
all in common with political lampoons. It is true that Comedy generally
received its chief impulses at times of great popular license under
democracies,[206] but this fact really means no more than that, at
such periods, the amusements of the people received greater attention
than would be the case under a tyranny or an oligarchy. No doubt these
extempore slanging-matches became, at an early time already, very
general in character, and contained, among other promiscuous allusions,
occasional references, probably none too complimentary, to important
contemporary events or personages; but that this was not their main
feature, nor that which supplied their chief interest, seems shown,
_inter alia_, by the fact that the first artistic development they
received at the hands of Epicharmus was by no means in this direction.
Nor, indeed, do the earliest Attic comedies appear to have been political
in character, the few fragments of them which survive seeming, in every
case, to deal with social subjects.[207]
The first writer to make Comedy political—that is, the first writer to
give to the “Old” Comedy of Athens that which is, by modern readers,
generally regarded as its most essential characteristic—was Cratinus.
He, abandoning in great part that endeavour to amuse which had been the
primary object of his predecessors, deliberately made use of Comedy as a
political party engine, or, as he would perhaps have preferred to call
it, as a means of attacking those who did harm to the state.[208] The
success of the new element thus imported seems to have been very great;
but, at the same time, it must not be supposed that the work of Cratinus
was all of this nature. In the first place, some of his plays were of
a distinctly general character. Thus the _Odysses_ was a simple parody
of the _Odyssey_ of Homer, and, as such, was the distinct forerunner
of a class of piece very common in the Social Comedy of the fourth
century.[209] The _Cleobulinae_, with its enigmas, is equally suggestive
of another feature of the same period of art. In like manner, the
_Panoptae_, with its attacks on the philosopher Hippo, the _Seriphii_,
with its mythological allusions, and the _Horae_, with its apparent
discussions of tragedy, all point to the direction in which lay the true
development of the art of Comedy.[210]
But, popular as the indiscriminate mud-throwing of Cratinus undoubtedly
was with a large section of that cultured Athenian audience which one
is taught to admire, a certain reaction was, in course of time, almost
inevitable; and such a reaction was actually furnished by the comedies of
Crates. Crates is described as the first Attic comedian to develop Comedy
on the lines of Epicharmus, and to introduce a plot with apparently
fictitious or allegorical characters, instead of merely bringing public
characters on the stage and making them ridiculous.[211]
From a very early period, therefore, Comedy at Athens falls into two
classes, the personal, which is usually also political, and the general
or social, though the line of demarcation is not, of course, a very rigid
one, since writers of the latter class would seldom feel much hesitation
in attacking anyone who had made himself particularly obnoxious to them,
even if he were a political character, while those of the former were
also frequently compelled, for equally personal reasons, to set a limit
to their righteous indignation. Thus Pherecrates, the most important
of the actual imitators of Crates,[212] is by no means averse to an
occasional personality, while a writer of the very opposite school,
Hermippus, was yet the author of the _Athenas Gonae_.[213] Plato and
Aristophanes are, of course, equally striking instances of the same fact
occurring at a later date.
From the preceding paragraphs, which might have been considerably
extended, had it not lain somewhat outside the present subject to extend
them, one fact at least will be abundantly clear. That system of treating
subjects rather than persons as material for comedy which is sometimes
spoken of as a distinctive feature of “Middle” Comedy (using that term in
its chronological sense), had already been in vogue at Athens from the
very earliest times; in fact, what are commonly called “Old” and “Middle”
Comedy are, in spirit, intimately associated with one another, and the
most important differences between them are in purely external matters,
brought about by external causes.[214]
This fact will not be without its importance in considering our immediate
subject. In the first place, it will cause us to find in the early
Athenian comedy two distinct ways of regarding women, which, while
contemporaneous, have very little else in common with one another.
The comedy of the school of Cratinus,[215] being concerned with
public characters and with them alone, naturally ignores women almost
entirely.[216] The comedy of the school of Crates, on the other hand, is
very similar in its treatment of women to the comedy of the beginning
of the fourth century, except that, in so far as the position of women
in Athenian society was a less important one in the middle of the fifth
century than it was some seventy years later, the female element is not
such a pronounced feature of these early works as it is of the later.
A detailed examination of the treatment of women in early comedy, as far
as such is possible by means of the fragments, will serve to illustrate
the foregoing somewhat general remarks.
III. EARLY COMEDY.
Cratinus, in that work at any rate which is truly characteristic of his
genius, is entirely engrossed in public affairs, and in attacking the
characters of public men. It is not, therefore, surprising to find that
in his plays women are almost entirely ignored. The one notable exception
is Aspasia, who is, it is true, alluded to more than once, and that in
no very complimentary terms; but this is, of course, only what one would
expect of an opponent of Pericles.[217] The poet’s views of married
life are sufficiently illustrated by his _Pytine_. It is, however,
to be observed that, in those of his plays which, from legislative
causes, approximated more closely to the contemporary social comedy, the
female element is more apparent, though even here it is never really
prominent. Thus the _Cleobulinae_ appears to have introduced a chorus of
women propounding enigmas, while both the _Nemesis_ and the _Seriphii_
contained at least allusions to erotic mythological incidents.[218]
The other early poets of the political school are still more barren of
references to women; indeed the fragments of Teleclides, Hermippus, and
Eupolis,[219] put together, do not furnish a single noticeable instance.
It is otherwise, as already remarked, with the school of Crates. The
fragments of Crates himself do not indeed furnish much of interest in
this connection, except, perhaps, the rather _risqué_ remarks in _Fr.
Incert._ 3 and 4, but from Pherecrates there is more to be learnt. In
the first place, three of his plays, the _Corianno_, _Thalatta_, and
_Petale_, are named after Hetaerae, a common enough feature in later
times, but rare at this early period; while the first two of these, at
any rate, were evidently devoted to a study of the life of this class of
person. Thus the _Corianno_ describes (_Fr._ 1, 2, 3, 4) the drinking
propensities of its heroine;[220] while the _Thalatta_ gives one even
further particulars, _Fr._ 7 describing the arrival at Thalatta’s house
of her lover[221] (perhaps the Epilesmon, the “Absent-minded Man,” from
whom the piece had its second title), and _Fr._ 2, 3, and 5 their supper
together, while _Fr._ 4 shows clearly that a lover’s quarrel of some sort
duly found its place in the piece.[222] Of the _Petale_ no important
fragment remains. Whether the _Pannychis_ dealt with one of those
incidents which are so common in New Comedy, it is impossible to say.
IV. ARISTOPHANES.
The remains of Pherecrates, therefore, notwithstanding their very meagre
character, supply ample evidence that, at this period already, some of
the most popular characters and scenes of early fourth-century comedy had
found a place on the Athenian stage[223]; but a still more interesting
field of study is furnished by those poets who belong to the period of
transition which commences with the decline of the Athenian power, and
more especially by those who began life as adherents of the personal and
political school of Cratinus, and were afterwards compelled, by force
of circumstances, to identify themselves with a different style of art.
Foremost among these is, of course, the name of Aristophanes. The earlier
plays of Aristophanes contain few allusions to women, and throughout his
works it may be doubted whether he ever introduced a female character on
the stage except with the ultimate intention of leading up to some form
of indecency. At the same time, since the fact that his plays have been
preserved affords a better opportunity of judging of his views than is
to be had in the case of any other writer of the period, it will perhaps
be well to examine some of his characteristics in greater detail.
The first and, perhaps, the most striking feature in the Aristophanic
treatment of women—a feature which is very prominent indeed in certain
plays—is the respect which the poet professes to feel for women’s
judgment and powers of organisation. Thus, in the _Lysistrata_, the
treaty between Athens and Sparta, which is admitted on all sides to be
desirable, can only be brought about through the intervention of a woman.
Similarly, in the _Ecclesiazusae_, when the government of the city has
fallen into a deplorable state, it is reorganised by the women, and their
scheme of reorganisation is, we are given to understand, a complete
success, for the time being at any rate. Again, in the lost play of the
_Scenas Catalambanusae_, there seems little doubt that the motive of the
action was an appeal on the part of the poet from the male audience who
had not appreciated him, to a female audience which he expected to find
endowed with better taste.
All this is very pleasing as far as it goes. The question is:—How far
is this respect professed for women, genuine? Enquiry would seem to
show that very little of it, if any, is genuine at all. Of the _Scenas
Catalambanusae_ it is impossible to speak with certainty,[224] but, as
for the other two plays mentioned above, it is hard to believe that the
women are introduced for any other purpose than that of leading up to
the various scenes of indecency which afford the main interest of both
pieces. The climax of the _Lysistrata_ is the pathetic speech of Cinesias
(865 _seqq._), that of the _Ecclesiazusae_ the struggle between the γραῦς
and the νεανίς (877 _seqq._), and neither of these scenes can be said to
show much respect for female nature. As for the success of the women’s
efforts in both these plays, it is perhaps sufficient to observe that in
each case the poet’s main object was to point out the advantages of a
particular course of action, not to suggest any novel method of procedure
by means of which this course was to be adopted. The political object of
both comedies is merely to attack the government of the day. No one who
has ever read these plays would be likely to argue that they advocated
the extension of the franchise to women, or indeed concerned themselves
in any way with any subject of the kind. To put it shortly, the women are
introduced for indecency’s sake, and their revolutions succeed simply
because they are revolutions against the existing order of things, an
order of which Aristophanes did not approve. It would be as reasonable to
suppose that the _Aves_ was a serious piece of advice to the Athenians to
consult with birds about the management of the State, as to assume that
the _Ecclesiazusae_ meant to imply that the views of women were really
worthy of consideration or adoption.
The incessant allusions in these plays, no less than in others, to
the incontinence,[225] the drunkenness, and the various other faults
with which it was usual at the time to tax women—allusions which
frequently take the form of frank confessions on the part of the women
themselves—are so numerous that there is no need to quote any of them.
Another rather striking feature is the way in which several of the plays
of Aristophanes conclude with the wedding of one of the characters—a
feature at first sight very suggestive of the comedy typical of a much
later period. The best known instance of this is perhaps in the _Eirene_,
but the same seems to have been the case in the _Polyidus_ (where the
successful soothsayer is rewarded with the hand of the king’s daughter,
Phaedra), and in the _Geras_, where the hero, having been miraculously
restored to youth, repudiates his former wife, and marries one more
suited to his recently acquired—or lost—years. It must, however, be
observed that in none of these plays, as far as one can see, is the
wedding of the hero by any means the logical result of the action of the
piece; it is merely an incidental episode introduced, in the _Eirene_ at
any rate, and very possibly also in the others, simply with the view of
providing the chorus with an effective exit. In the _Polyidus_, moreover,
it is clear that though Minos gives his daughter as a reward, he has his
own opinion as to the value of the gift, an opinion which is hardly
complimentary to Phaedra[226]; while in the _Geras_ there can be little
reasonable doubt that the connubial arrangements were made the occasion
for a plentiful supply of obscenities, _quae nunc desiderantur_, if
one can use the words in such a connection.[227] One must be careful,
therefore, not to exaggerate the importance of this feature in the
Aristophanic treatment of women, though it cannot, of course, be denied
that to introduce a wedding at all on the stage was a distinct advance on
strict Athenian views with reference to such events.[228]
Aristophanes was above all things, by profession at least, a
conservative and a _laudator temporis acti_; but, strangely enough,
this characteristic of his is but little noticeable in his treatment of
women. Nothing would have been more natural, one would have thought, than
that he should, in the course of some of his highly-coloured pictures
of primeval felicity before the days of Euripides and the philosophers,
have dwelt upon the purity of ancient family life and the chastity of
a previous generation of women, in contrast to that present depravity
to which he makes such frequent allusion. But, true to his Athenian
temperament, he never follows any such line, nor indeed does he ever take
up high ground on this subject. Ready as he is to moralise seriously on
other matters, even on matters so distinctly erotic as the relations of
man to man,[229] his tone with regard to women is invariably flippant.
Women are, above all things, conservative:
μοιχοὺς ἔχουσιν ἔνδον ὥσπερ καὶ πρὸ τοῦ. (_Eccles._ 225.)
Euripides may have made rude remarks about women, but his suggestions are
politeness itself compared with what might have been said.[230] Indeed,
the main charge of the women against Euripides in the _Thesmophoriazusae_
is not that he has maligned them, but that he has opened the eyes of
their husbands to what they actually do.[231] It is needless to multiply
instances; the general tendency is plain. Woman in Aristophanes is
invariably an object of ridicule. So incapable was he of treating her
otherwise, that his one ideal woman, Eirene, for whom the knight-errant
Trygaeus flies up to heaven on the dung-beetle, was a colossal failure,
a κολοσσικὸν ἄγαλμα that was the general laughing-stock of his
contemporaries.[232]
This being so, there is but little need to dwell on such “erotic”
passages as do occur, here and there in his works, between men and
women. Such scenes, of which the best instance is perhaps that in the
_Ecclesiazusae_ (877 _seqq._), are never the main motive of the plot;
they are merely more or less irrelevant incidents, developed or not
according to the chances they afford for the introduction of amusing
indecencies. In these scenes Aristophanes is often to be seen at his
very best, but they cannot of course be drawn upon with the object of
supplying evidence as to his real views of women, except in so far as
they serve still further to emphasise what has already been said as to
the poet’s disinclination to deal seriously with the subject of women
at all. Indeed, his view of the proper relation between love and art is
sufficiently illustrated by the famous argument in the _Ranae_ (1043
_seqq._) between Aeschylus and Euripides, where, after the former has
stated with pride:
οὐδ’ οἶδ’ οὐδεὶς ἥντιν’ ἐρῶσαν πώποτ’ ἐποίησα γυναῖκα,
and the latter has defended his own erotic treatment on the ground that
it is realistic:
πότερον δ’ οὐκ ὄντα λόγον τοῦτον περὶ τῆς Φαίδρας ξυνέθηκα;
the answer comes back:
μὰ Δί’, ἀλλ’ ὄντ’· ἀλλ’ ἀποκρύπτειν χρὴ τὸ πονηρὸν τόν γε ποιητήν.
The treatment of erotic subjects in a realistic manner is not the
business of a true poet!
V. THE COCALUS.
With this before one, it would seem hardly necessary to say anything
further about the erotic element in Aristophanes. There is, however, one
play of his—the last, or last but one, that he wrote—which seems at
first sight to differ so entirely in spirit from the rest, that it is
well worthy of separate notice.