Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/434

412 412 HISTORY OF THE sycophants he drives away from his market ; the other, the little Nicar- chus, he hinds up in a bundle, and packs him on the hack of the Boeotian, who shows a desire to take him away as a laughable little monkey. Now begins, on a sudden, the Athenian feast of the pitchers (theXosc). Lamachus* in vain sends to Dicseopolis for some of his purchases, in order that he may keep the feast merrily ; the good citizen keeps every thing to himself, and the chorus, which is now quite converted, admires the prudence of Dicpeopolis, and the happiness he has gained by it. In the midst of his preparations for a sumptuous banquet, others beg for some share of his peace ; he returns a gruff answer to a countryman whose cattle have been harried by the Boeotians ; but he behaves a little more civilly to a bride who wants to keep her husband at home. Mean- while, various messages are brought ; to Lamachus, that he must march against the Boeotians, who are going to make an inroad into Attica at the time of the feast of the Glides ; to Dicseopolis, that he must go to the priest of Bacchus, in order to assist him in celebrating the feast of the Choes. Aristophanes works out this contrast in a very amusing manner, by making Dicscopolis parody every word which Lamachus utters as he is preparing for war, so as to transfer it to his own festivities; and when, after a short time which the chorus fills up by a satirical song, Lamachus is brought back from the war wounded, and supported by two servants, Dicfcopolis meets him in a happy state of intoxication, and leaning on two damsels of easy virtue, and so celebrates his triumph over the wounded warrior in a very conspicuous manner. To sa^ nothing of the pithy humour of the style, and the beautiful rhythms and happy turns of the choral songs, it must be allowed that this series of scenes has been devised with genial merriment from beginning to end, and that they must have produced a highly comic effect, especially if the scenery, costumes, dances, and music were worthy of the conceptions and language of the poet. The piece, if correctly understood, is nothing but a Bacchic revelry, full of farce and wantonness ; for although the conception of it may rest upon a moral foundation, yet the author is, throughout the piece, utterly devoid of seriousness and sobriety, and in every representation, as well of the victorious as of the defeated party, follows the impulses of an unrestrained love of mirth. At most, Aristophanes expresses his own sentiments in the parabasis : in the other parts of the play we cannot safely recognize the opinions of the poet in the deceitful mirror of his comedy. § 4.. The following year (01. 88, 4. b.c. 424) is distinguished in the name, A«-^«^«; : otherwise, Phormio, Demosthenes, Paches, and other Athenian heroes might just as well have been substituted for him.
 * That Lamachus is only a representative of the warlike spirits is clear from his