Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/442

420 420 HISTORY OP THE of the masks of the chorus.* The same spirit of amusing novelty per- vades the whole piece. The most farcical scene is the first between two dogs, which Bdelycleon sets on foot for the gratification of his father, and in which not only is the whole judicial system of the Athenians parodied in a ludicrous manner, but also a particular law-suit between the demagogue Cleon and the general Laches appears in a comic con- trast, which must have forced a laugh from the gravest of the spectators. § 7. We have still a fifth comedy, the Peace, which is connected with the hitherto unbroken series ; it is established by a didascalia, which has been recently brought to light, that it was produced at the great Dionysia in 01. 89, 3. b.c. 421. Accordingly, this play made its appearance on the stage shortly before the peace of Nicias, which concluded the first part of the Peloponnesian war, and, as was then fully believed, was destined to put a final stop to this destructive contest among the Greek states. The subject of the Peace is essentially the same as that of the Achar- nians, except that, in the latter, peace is represented as the wish of an individual only, in the former as wished for by all. In the Acharnians, the chorus is opposed to peace ; in the Peace, it is composed of country- men of Attica, and all parts of Greece, who are full of a longing desire for peace. It must, however, be allowed, that in dramatic interest the Acharnians far excels the Peace, which is greatly wanting in the unity of a strong comic action. It must, no doubt, have been highly amusing to see how Trygeeus ascends to heaven on the back of an entirely new sort of Pegasus, — a dung beetle, — and there, amidst all kinds of dangers, in spite of the rage of the daemon of war, carries off the goddess Peace, with her fair companion?, Harvesthome and Mayday : f but the sacrifice on account of the peace, and the preparations for the marriage of Try- gseus with Harvesthome, are split up into a number of separate scenes, without any direct progress of the action, and without any great vigour of comic imagination. It is also too obvious, that Aristophanes endea- vours to diminish the tediousness of these scenes by some of those loose jokes, which never failed to produce their effect on the common people of Athens ; and it must be allowed, in general, that the poet often ex- presses better rules in respect to his rivals than he has observed in his own pieces. § 8. There is now a gap of some years in the hitherto unbroken chain of Aristophanic comedies ; but our loss is fully compensated by the Birds, which was brought out in 01. 91, 2. b.c. 414. If the Achar~ f So we venture to translate 'Osrs^a and Qiagia. J It should he added, that according to the old grammarians Eratosthenes and Crates, there were two plays hy Aristophanes with this title, though there is no indication that the one which has come down to us is not that which appeared in the vcar 421.
 * Chap. XXVII. § 5.