Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/55

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Moreover I've appointed constables,

With lawful and sufficient straps and thongs,

To keep the peace, and to coerce and punish

All spies and vagabonds and informing people.

Come, now for the column, with the terms of peace

Inscribed upon it! I must fetch it out,

And fix it here in the centre of my market. [Exit.

A writer in the Quarterly Review for July 1820 (not a very different person from the writer of this note) adduces the two scenes immediately following, as instances, amongst others, of that tendency to generalisation which, as he contends, was no less predominant in the mind of Aristophanes than in that of Shakspeare. In reference to this principle it is observed of the following scenes, that "the two country people who are introduced as attending Dicæopolis's market, are not merely a Megarian and a Theban distinguished by a difference of dialect and behaviour; they are the two extremes of rustic character—the one (the Megarian) depressed by indigence into meanness, is shifting and selfish, with habits of coarse fraud and vulgar jocularity. The Theban is the direct opposite—a primitive, hearty, frank, unsuspicious, easy-minded fellow; he comes to market with his followers, in a kind of old-fashioned rustic triumph, with his bag-pipers attending him: Dicæopolis (the Athenian, the medium between the two extremes before described) immediately exhibits his superior refinement, by suppressing their minstrelsy; and the honest Theban, instead of being offended, joins in condemning them. He then displays his wares, and the Athenian, with a burlesque tragical rant, takes one of his best articles (a Copaic eel) and delivers it to his own attendants to be conveyed within doors. The Theban, with great simplicity, asks how he is to be paid for it; and the Athenian, in a tone of grave superiority, but with some awkwardness, informs him that he claims it as a toil due to the market. The Theban does not remonstrate, but after some conversation agrees to dispose of all his wares, and to take other goods in return; but here a difficulty arises, for the same articles which the Athenian proposes in exchange happen to be equally abundant in Bœotia. The scene here passes into burlesque, but it is a burlesque expressive of the character which is assigned to the Theban; a character of primitive simplicity, utterly unacquainted with all the pests by which existence was poisoned in the corrupt community of Athens. A common sycophant or informer is proposed as an article which the Athenian soil produced in great abundance, but which would be considered as a rarity in Bœotia. The Theban agrees to the exchange, saying, that if he could get such an animal to take home, he thinks he could make a handsome profit by exhibiting him." The scene which immediately follows (that of the Megarian) has been slightly modified, without detriment, it must be hoped, to the genuine humour of the original, perhaps even with advantage; since the attention of the English reader is not distracted by that strange contrast of ancient and modern manners, which strikes the reader of the original with an impression, wholly disproportionate to the intention of the Author, and destructive of that general harmony and breadth of effect which he had intended to produce, and which, as far as his contemporaries were concerned, he had succeeded in producing.