Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/280

250 about 385 B. C. He was an "Athenian of the Athenians." He belonged to the conservative party, and seemed opposed to every sign of democracy or innovation.

It was on this ground that he was so bitter an enemy of the poet Euripides, who had deviated from the established path of tragedy. The Frogs, presented to the public in 405 B. C. shortly after the death of both Sophocles and Euripides, is the culmination of the attack upon the latter. In this play Dionysus goes down to Hades to bring back a poet, since all the great poets of Athens were now dead, and his festivals, at which all plays were presented, were left without fitting celebration. Aeschylus and Euripides contend in the lower world for the palm of tragedy, which Sophocles yields without a contest to the former, and it is at length awarded to Aeschylus.

In the Birds, an earlier play of 414 B. C., Peithetaerus (Plausible) and Euelpides (Hopeful), two enterprising Athenians, who are weary of the unending lawsuits in their own town, persuade the birds under the leadership of King Hoopoe to build a city—Cloud-cuckooborough —in mid-air. This cuts off the gods from men, and causes the gods so much inconvenience that they send envoys to treat with the birds. Finally Peithetaerus marries Basileia (Princess), the daughter of Zeus. The play was probably intended in part to ridicule the ambition of the Athenians in making the disastrous expedition which went the year before against Syracuse under Alcibiades and Nicias; but it is as fanciful as the "Midsummer Night's Dream."

The following translations are by John Hookham Frere. Often they are free paraphrases, strongly contrasted with Mr. Browning's literalness.