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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
The Frogs continues to intrigue and to trouble. In structure it does not resemble any of Aristophanes' other plays, since the poet here inverts the sequence of scenes, contest, and parabasis he normally used; and the play does not possess, so many would argue, any overall organic unity of content. Even worse, Aristophanes' decision to make the literary contest of two tragedians the climactic issue of his comedy might be considered foolishly risky, involving him in matters dangerously ‘high-falutin’ and so conceivably boring to an audience whose intelligence he had too often cajoled to be deceived about. As if deliberately to defeat both unity and sense, Aristophanes also saw fit to add another chorus to his play, totally distinct in character from his main chorus and apparently unrelated to his theme: frogs and literature? Strangest of all, he leaves this additional chorus unseen, if not unheard, in a visual medium like the theatre where an audience in antiquity no less than today might be counted on for some prolonged laughter or applause at the sight of cleverly costumed performers hopping, croaking, and looking altogether ridiculous.
1. For a survey of the problems and a conspectus of views, Fraenkel, E., Beobach-tungen zu Aristophanes (Rome, 1962), 163ffGoogle Scholar. and 184, n. 1 may conveniently be consulted.
2. Such cajoling in the Frogs itself occurs, e.g. at 676, 700, and 1109fF. Apropos of fears about the second half of the play, it is the author’s misfortune to have heard tell of a production by the students of a college for young women which simply ended the play at the parabasis. It would be some consolation if their drastic knifing of the text could be explained as their revenge for the Ekklesiazousai.
3. Such is Fraenkel’s understanding, op. cit. 172ff.
4. Cf. Defradas, Jean, ‘Le Chant des Grenouilles’, REA 71 (1969) 23ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wills, Garry, ‘Why are the Frogs in the Frogs?’, Hermes 97 (1969), 315–16Google Scholar. Demand, Nancy, ‘The Identity of the Frogs’, CP 65 (1970), 83ffGoogle Scholar., suggests that Aristophanes intends an elaborate pun, with the frogs, phrunai, representing the comic poet who was Aristophanes’ rival in 405, Phrynichos. The problem is, though, that the frogs are always called batrachoi in the Frogs, and an unexpressed pun is a nonexistent pun.
5. Cf. Nethercut, W., ‘Dionysos’ Vote for Aeschylus’ CB 44 (1968), 81ffGoogle Scholar.; Wills, Garry, ‘Aeschylus’ Victory in the Frogs’, AJP 90 (1969), 48ffGoogle Scholar.; Sommerstein, Alan H., ‘Aristophanes, Frogs 1463–65’, CQ 24 (1974), 26ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. AH of these have interesting enough, even inspiring things to say about Aeschylus’ and Euripides’ poetry but they forget the simple and astute observation of Wycherley, R. E., ‘Aristophanes and Euripides’, G & R 15 (1946), 100Google Scholar, that the mutual criticisms offered by the poets in the agon are just that — i.e. offered by the characters — and are not necessarily Aristophanes’ own serious estimate. The excesses to which such an approach is prone can be seen by looking at the discussion of the meaning of the lêkuthion scene started by Whitman, Cedric, ‘Lêkuthion Apôlesen’, HSCP 73 (1969), 109ffGoogle Scholar., and pursued with considerably less wit and grace but with no less zeal by several others, most notably those cantankerous critters, Messrs Henderson and Penella, in a bibliography too long to mention which only succeeds in sending its readers away ‘having aged them more than a year’.
6. The chief statement of this view is by Segal, Charles, ‘The Character of Dionysos and the Unity of the Frogs’, HSCP 65 (1961), 207ffGoogle Scholar. [also collected in Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Frogs, ed. Littlefield, David J. (Englewood Cliffs, 1968), 45ffGoogle Scholar.]. A similar approach is followed by Whitman, Cedric, Aristophanes and the Comic Hero (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), 228ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. A typically individual and typically brilliant close reading of the text which insists on Dionysos’ receiving at least an elementary political lesson in the Frogs is Leo Strauss’ treatment in his Socrates and Aristophanes (New York, 1966), 236fLGoogle ScholarPubMed, esp. 245–46.
7. Birds, 785ff.
8. Think only, for a start, of Dikaiopolis, Philokleon, Peisthetairos. Cf. the excellent perceptions of Douglas Stewart in his ‘Aristophanes and the Pleasures of Anarchy’, Antioch Review 25 (1965), 189ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9. As Whitman, Aristophanes, has so eloquently taught us.
10. Cf., e.g., Whitman’s statement, ibid., 252–53, ‘the shape of the plot follows a tragic rather than a comic scheme, in that Dionysos does not seek to identify himself with the boundless … while the prime comic vehicle, speech, is clearly rejected in the person of Euripides’.
11. Those who try to bowdlerize the meaning here, making the remark refer to some actual naval captain and the god’s actually serving with him, pervert Aristophanes’ joke.
12. For the comic hero’s ‘power of recovery’ cf. Reckford, Kenneth J., ‘Desire with Hope: Aristophanes and the comic catharsis’, Ramus 3 (1974) 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who refers to Clouds 126.
13. 491. Xanthias also swears by Poseidon at 295, where once again he humorously tests his master’s courage. Dionysos can also swear by the sea god — see 1430, when Euripides has just given some advice meant to find favour with those in charge of civic interest, and 276, right after a nautical adventure.
14. As Strauss, op. cit., p. 236, astutely observes.
15. He is, that is to say, suspiciously like Aristophanes himself.
16. The point of dardaptei, 66.
17. If an actor were directed, as some commentators would want, to knock loudly, the chance for a quick bit of humour is lost, as well as an economical way to characterize Herakles before he even appears on stage. And why should Dionysos want to knock obstreperously? His being startled at the violence of Herakles’ reaction is also better and more comically understood if he knocks in a normal fashion.
18. Cf. the epic imprecation schetlie (‘O brazen wight!’) at 116 and the meant-to-be spine-tingling alliteration of pious polus (‘vast voyaging’) at 136.
19. 22. The translation is Rogers’ (London, 1902Google ScholarPubMed). All others are original.
20. 631, when he is about to be whipped by Aiakos. Typically, Dionysos knows how to impress when he has to, although he is so unimposing that his saying he is Zeus’ son does not do him much good.
21. The two obol figure would have a contemporary reference to Kleophon’s diobelia welfare fund and to the price of admission to the theatre of Dionysos.
22. This is surely, on a literal level, the raison d’ätre for the frogs’ song, as Fraenkel saw (op. cit., 182–83), and as Charon’s comment at 205–06 makes clear. Wills’ attempt (‘Why are the Frogs …’) to deny it makes for a contest over rate of stroke cannot stand. To his query why the frogs stop croaking at 267 when they say they could go on forever, the answer is simple: the voyage is over, the lake crossed. His statement that Dionysos’ shouting at the frogs ought to make them keep at it is, in fact, precisely what happens: cf. 242, 258.
23. Cf. lines 992ff., 1251ff.
24. Aeschylus, like Kratinos, is also connected with bulls: see 804.
25. For the image, hardly a novel one, cf. 361 and 704.
26. Given the development of the chorus’s thought, Rogers’ insistence, op. cit., commentary ad loc, that they mean here anybody in the wide world, seems preferable to the restricted sense of every loyal and able citizen which, e.g., W. B. Stanford proposes in his edition of the play (London, 1968Google Scholar), commentary ad loc.
27. 697–98, 693–96 (where n.b. how they began by saying ‘it is shameful’).
28. See 676, 696, 700.
29. 706ff., esp. 713–35. For the pomposity of their language here, cf. Fraenkel, op. cit., 135ff.
30. Or Aiakos, as some MSS distribute the part, himself hardly a major character either.
31. This scene ought not to be dismissed, as it often is by commentators, as some kind of gear shifting by which Aristophanes makes a prologue to the ensuing agon.
32. Of course, this need not be taken as Aristophanes’ own serious view of Sopho-clean tragedy. Nor should the brief mentions of Sophocles in the Frogs lead, as they have led C. Russo, e.g., into the thoroughly academic pondering of if, when, and how Aristophanes altered his text of the play when he learned of the poet’s death soon before production time. Cf. C. Russo, , Aristofane, Autore di Teatro (Florence, 1962), 311ffGoogle Scholar., and his article in Q. & R. 13 (1966), Iff. Finally, it is surely illicit to conclude, as Strauss does (op. cit., 248), that Sophocles’ absence from the Frogs may be due to the fact that ‘tragedy in its highest form’ is not suitable for comic treatment. Who says Sophoclean tragedy is tragedy in its highest form? And furthermore, the Sophocles spoken of in the text acknowledges Aeschylus’ claim to pre-eminence. Cf. 788ff., and for the best discussion of the crux here to date, cf. Kells, J. H., ‘Aristophanes, Frogs 788–92’, CR 14 (1964), 232ffGoogle Scholar. Shucard, S., ‘Aristophanes’ Frogs 788–90: A New Look at an Old Solution’, CP 69 (1974), 38ffGoogle Scholar., wants to reassign 1. 790 as a surprised question to Xanthias and have ekeinos legitimately refer thereby to Sophocles. But why should Xanthias be surprised, given Sophocles’ congeniality? And also why should Xanthias interrupt with what is the same question he has just asked at 786–87 and not receive from the servant at 791 as pointed a reply as he did to his preceding queries?
33. Whitman, Aristophanes, 251, says the case is prejudiced in favour of Aeschylus and cites, by way of example, Dionysos’ calling that poet polutimêt’ (‘your honour’, 851). But the god’s use of the word here is ironic, reflecting the comic awe he feigns for the imposing and impending storm of words and rant Aeschylus is apparently capable of. By contrast, Dionysos seems to address Euripides sincerely as daimoni’ andrôn (‘hallowed among men’) twice, 835 and 1227, and in the last instance refers at the same time to Euripides’ prologues as ‘ours’.
34. It surely mistakes Aristophanes’ whole point to try and determine, as some do, which quality Dionysos is supposed to apply to which poet.
35. It will be remembered that kainon (‘new-fangled’) is used of the gold coinage in the parabasis. Also, for what it is worth, Euripides can swear by Demeter (1222).
36. Dionysos also fails to realize it is a ship’s figurehead.
37. Aeschylus himself is imagistically compared to a ship (999ff.), while Euripides first puts into the scales during the weighing contest a line which expresses the wish that the ship Argo had never sailed (1382).
38. See 797ff., 1129ff., 1323ff., 937ff.
39. Cf. 782–83, 951–52, 1004–05, 1014ff., 1069ff., etc.
40. Cf. Strauss’s elucidation of the agon of the Clouds (op. cit., 29–33, esp. 49) for what must remain the classic exposition of Aristophanes’ manner in general.
41. 1136, keeping the attribution of parts as found in all the MSS save one, which assigns it to Euripides and is followed by Stanford and also by Coulon in the Bude text (Paris, 1962Google Scholar). But Euripides is hardly the type not to care, or not to care so blithely; and Aeschylus does not pick up Euripides’ accusation in 1135 until 1137, as hamartein, echoing hêmartêken (‘made a mistake’), shows. 1136 must continue the aside started at 1132.
42. 1437ff. A vexed passage troubling scholars from Aristarchos to Dörrie (Hermes 84 [1956], 296ffGoogle Scholar.) but which ought not to trouble if the scene is understood within the context of the play and the staging of 1437–41 and 1452–53 as asides is borne in mind. It seems impossible to think any interpolator could have invented the phantasy these lines contain; they are worthy of Aristophanes alone.
43. 1446–48 (Euripides):
If those citizens whom now we trust We should not trust, those whom we do not use, Use, we would be saved. The play on the verbs to trust and not to trust is obvious, as well as that on to use and not to use; note also the repetition of the relatives and the demonstratives, with those terminating in iota arranged chiastically with the other two, and the chiastic arrangement as well of the clauses of negative meaning with those of positive force. 1463–65 (Aeschylus):
Whenever they consider the enemy’s land Their land, their land the enemy’s, Means ships, and meaningless their means. Once again, chiasmus in 1464, two lines ending in the same word, and the same word bracketing the last line, with a play as well on poron and aporian. Euripides also used jingles of this sort in 1143–44. Wills’ radical excision of lines here (‘Aeschylus’ Victory’, 48–53) motivated, like the tampering of many other commentators, by the conviction that Aeschylus’ programme does ‘not seem an imaginative enough contribution to lead to Aeschylus’ victory’, is based on an a priori assumption which may not be Aristophanes’.
44. ‘Terrific! Except that the juryman, all by himself, swallows all that down’ (1466). Whitman, Aristophanes, 256, wants this line to be a reference to Dionysos as judge speaking about himself, with ‘swallow’ to mean ‘believe’, and with the god saying that only he believes the truth Aeschylus has spoken. But there is no parallel for katapinô to mean ‘believe’ in Greek the way ‘swallow’ does in English. Whitman’s one example, Acharnians 484, does not fit, for there ‘having swallowed Euripides’ does not mean having believed him but having been fortified by him as by a tonic.
45. This has been seen by Defradas, op. cit., 34ff., and by Wills, ‘Why are the Frogs …’, 316. For other speculations on the connection, cf. Whitman, Aristophanes, 249.
46. Note throughout the play the frequent and sarcastic allusions to ‘the dead above’ and to the audience as the scoundrels in hell Herakles spoke of (276) and to there being above as below more scoundrels than saints (783). This general collapsing of distinction ought to have warned critics against the attempt to insist on distinction of any real sort between the poets in the agon, to insist on symbolizing them into opposing forces of life and death, or whatever.
47. 250. It should be realized that the frogs do not teach Dionysos to row correctly.
48. Even his metre turns into their trochees.
49. Cf. 1468 (hairêsomai gar honper hê psuchê thelei?) and 1473. On the saving and politically meaningful quality of Aristophanes’ refusal to kowtow to convention, cf. Reckford, op. cit. 50ff., who says of Aristophanes, in a way wonderfully apposite to the Frogs, that ‘no question: he was worth his weight in — triremes!’ (51).
50. Though there is no explicit confirmation for this in the text, it is reasonable enough to assume, especially in view of what is overheard going on between the two at 830. Euripides’ question, then, at 1420, when he asks the purpose behind Dionysos’ wanting a poet when the god has just lied to Pluto, will be a clever instance of playing dumb.
51. Line 1475/line 2.
