Page:Aristophanes (Collins).djvu/46

36

Perchance to prove more fortunate than me;

But greater rascal he can never be."

Here the action of the drama might have ended; but the dramatist had not yet driven his moral home. He had to show what Athens might yet be if she could get rid of the incubus of her demagogues. A choral ode is introduced—quite independent, as is so often the case, of the subject of the comedy—chiefly perhaps, in this case, in order to give opportunity for what we must conclude was a change of scene. The doors in the flat, as we should call it, are thrown open, and disclose to view the citadel of Athens. There, seated on a throne, no longer in his shabby clothes, but in a magnificent robe, and glorious in renewed youth, sits Demus, such as he was in the days of Miltiades and Aristides. His new minister has a secret like Medea's, and has boiled him young again. "The good old times are come again," as he declares, thanks to his liberator. There shall be no more ruling by favour and corruption; right shall be might, and he will listen to no more flatterers. To crown the whole, his new minister leads forth Peace—beautiful Peace, in propria persona, hitherto hid away a close prisoner in the house of the Paphlagonian—and presents her to Demus in all her charms. And with this grand tableau the drama closes; it is not difficult