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144 trouble, to come and help him according to promise. And from this point the whole action of the piece becomes the broadest burlesque upon the tragedies of that author, which only an Athenian audience, to whom every scene and almost every line was familiar, could fully appreciate. Indeed no comedy of Aristophanes illustrates so strongly what the character of this audience was, and how, with all their love for coarseness and buffoonery, the poet saw in the masses who filled that vast amphitheatre a literary "public" the like of which was never seen before or since.

How then is the prisoner to communicate his situation to Euripides? He will do what that poet makes his own "Palamedes" do in the tragedy—write a message containing his sad story upon the oars, and throw them out. But there are no oars likely to be found in the temple. He substitutes some little images of the gods, which are at hand, and throws them off the stage—a double blow at the alleged profanity of the tragedian and at his far-fetched devices.

The interval is filled up by a song from the Chorus of Women, the first part of which is light and playful enough, and so thoroughly modern in its tone that it does not lose much in a free translation:—

They're always abusing the women.

As a terrible plague to men:

They say we're the root of all evil,

And repeat it again and again;

Of war, and quarrels, and bloodshed,

All mischief, be what it may:

And pray, then, why do you marry us.

If we're all the plagues you say?