Frogs and Other Plays

by Aristophanes

Aristophanes is the only surviving representative of Greek Old Comedy, an exuberant form of festival drama which flourished in Athens during the fifth century BC. One of the most original playwrights in the entire Western tradition, his comedies are remarkable for their brilliant combination of fantasy and satire, their constantly inventive manipulation of language, and their use of absurd characters and plots to expose his society's institutions and values to the bracing challenge of laughter. This vibrant collection of verse translations of Aristophanes' works combines historical accuracy with a sensitive attempt to capture the rich dramatic and literary qualities of Aristophanic comedy. The volume presents Clouds, with its famous caricature of the philosopher Socrates; Women at the Thesmophoria (or Thesmophoriazusae), a work which mixes elaborate parody of tragedy with a great deal of transvestite burlesque; and Frogs, in which the dead tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides engage in a vituperative contest of 'literary criticism' of each other's plays. Featuring expansive introductions to each play and detailed explanatory notes, the volume also includes an illuminating appendix, which provides information and selected fragments from the lost plays of Aristophanes.

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Aristophanes (Greek: Αριστοφάνης; c. 446 – c. 386 BC) was an Ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.
Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates, although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher.
Aristophanes' second play, The Babylonians (now lost), was denounced by Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. It is possible that the case was argued in court, but details of the trial are not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights, the first of many plays that he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through that play's Chorus, "the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all."

Reviews

[feifei · Rating 4 out of 5]

three plays, three reviews, in descending order of seriousness

in the second half of frogs, dionysus ‘analyses’ tragedy by tearing the best of aeschylus and euripides apart to see how they stack up—literally—against each other. this reminds me of a theme that appeared in lucretius: is the relationship between wonder and knowledge a paradoxical one? socrates claims in theatetus that “philosophy begins in wonder,” but the “bright shafts of day” that chase away the “darkness of the mind” in de rerum natura remove the mystery that first motivated inquiry. professor kaldellis’s take on tragedy is that he doesn’t like it because the characters don’t make much sense, up till euripides, whose characters finally demonstrate the ability to reason when faced with an ethical dilemma. but perhaps that ability to reason is what marks euripides as the last of the great tragedians—when the tragic hero is able to rationalise, tragedy loses the divine force with which its protagonists ascend to the heights of heroism in the first place. it seems like the central question of frogs is posed in the same vein: does the act of literary criticism take out wonder from literature?

AISCHYLOS: I want to make him come to the weighing-scale challenge. This alone will fully assess our talents as poets. It’s the weight of our words that will prove the definitive test.

DIONYSOS: Come here then, both, if I really have to do this and treat the art of poets like cheese for sale!

“like cheese for sale”—aristotle’s poetics, perhaps the most famous formalized assessment of “the art of poets”, has made it possible for us to know where the milk comes from, how it is curdled, the price at which it should be sold. however, there is another layer of irony in aristophanes’s formulation of the problem, which is that he doesn’t seem to think that any of this analysis amounts to anything. aeschylus wins, but the audience must find rather unconvincing why he won over euripides (are words really worth their weight in gold?) and how that victory even matters. will reviving aeschylus really help the greeks in the peloponnesian war? because if anything is clear from the first half, it’s that dionysus has absolutely no idea what his plan is. there are not even sketches of a plan. in the end, the most sincere lines of the play are the ones uttered by the frog chorus: Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax! Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax!

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after reading this translator’s preface to the clouds, i’m convinced that socrates wasn’t actually unhappy with aristophanes for supposedly spreading anti-socrates propaganda. if aristophanes really wanted to slander him, we would not have this gem of a line:

STREPSIADES: [excited] O Sokrates! [ingratiating] O Sokratiddles!

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women at the thesmophoria is unquestionably the lewdest and most vulgar play i have ever read. he’s usually very good and consistent with the penis jokes, but he takes it to the next level when he combines penis jokes with gay jokes. the sheer number of times that a phallus is brandished around on stage would give aeschylus an aneurysm, probably. and finally at the end when he unlocks the archer, who is lewd, vulgar, AND bad at greek, we get this:

ARCHER: [pointing at Kinsman’s phallus]. Dat ding no cunty—no see wot whopper it is?

masterclass.

end note: stephen halliwell can give jonathan hall a run for his money with these transliterations.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in a burst of enthusiasm in Athens, figuring that since I loved Greek Drama so very, very much, and that I have grown up so much since I decided it was too untranslatable to enjoy, that I should read a lot of Aristophanes. Turns out grown-up me thinks Aristophanes is too hard to translate, too. Halliwell's take is a scholarly one - this verse translation focuses on giving the reader (and it is intended for readers) a good sense of how the tempo and style shifts and changes within the plays. He hasn't censored the plays - swear words abound - but the focus is on the artefact of the play itself, and the use of language. The 'art' of old comedy is on strong display here, and the footnotes are thoughtful and plentiful. Halliwell has chosen plays dealing with weightier topics - Socrates and philosophy, Euripides and Drama as a genre. In some ways, I wish that I had studied a translation like this - dick jokes have never really been my thing, and Halliwell' focus on the non-comedia aspects of the genre opened my eyes a bit. On the other however, Old Comedy was funny - in a rapid fire joke way that is still the foundation of a good modern comedy routine, and there is little of that sense here.

[Jesse Hilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Attic Greek comedy is surprisingly accessible in this translation. There are a lot of notes in the back, of course, but the major plot movement and dialogues were clear, even if you didn’t know all the names and place-names of Ancient Greece. Aristophanes could be crude and ribald as well as, I suppose you would say, sophisticated and satirical and topical. The two plays here I might have liked the best were Frogs and Clouds. Although the third, Women at the Thesmophoria, was a biting satire on sex and gender. But who could deny the comic material offered by Frogs, where Dionysus goes into the underworld to start a contest between Aeschylus and Euripidesover who was the better tragedian and writer. It was something like Horace’s Ars Poetica in that it was a demonstration of what writers should and shouldn’t do. Very funny stuff. I’m glad I read this. Now I need to read some Latin comedy.

[Gabrielle Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brekekekex Koax Koax bitches. by the time i’m done with this essay i’ll be fed up but it’s actually pretty slay