Page:Aristophanes (Collins).djvu/147

Rh we can even now quite appreciate, Æschylus, in the hands of Aristophanes, does not spare his competitor.

Euripides retorts upon his rival the use of "break-neck words, which it is not easy to find the meaning of"—a charge which some modern schoolboys would be quite ready to support. The two poets proceed, at the request of the arbitrator, each to recite passages from their tragedies for the other to criticise: and if we suppose, as we have every right to do, that the voice and gestures of some well-known popular tragedian were cleverly mimicked at the same time, we should then have an entertainment of a very similar kind to that which Foote and Matthews, and in later days Robson, afforded to an English audience by their remarkable imitations.

After various trials of skill, a huge pair of scales is produced, and the verses of each candidate are weighed, as a test of their comparative value. Still Bacchus cannot decide. At last he puts to each a political question—perhaps the question of the day—which has formed the subject of pointed allusion more than once in the course of the play.