Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/210

 192 ARISTOPHANES. In this Comedy the women assume the male attire, steal into the assembly, and by a majority of votes carry a new constitution^, which realizes, in part at least, the Platonic Utopia ; for there is to be a community of goods and women, and with regard to the latter the rights of the ugly are to be protected by special enactment. The play has a good deal of the old Aristophanic energy, and its indecency is as extravagant as its drollery and humour. It has the literary characteristics as well as the phallic grossness of the oldest Attic Comedy. But it is manifestly deficient in the outward appa- ratus which had set out the Comedy in its best days. The chorus is poorly equipped, and it has little to do in any respect which would have required careful training. There is no parahasis; bu1> instead of this a mere plaudite is addressed to the audience before the chorus go to supper 2. The Plutus, in its extant form, is the second edition of the play, which appeared in B. c. 388. The first edition was performed in B.C. 408. In the play, which has come down to us, we have only here and there a reminiscence of what the Old Comedy had been. The chorus is altogether insignificant. There is no poli- tical satire, and the personal attacks are directed against individuals capriciously selected. The plot is the development of a very sim- ple and perfectly general truth of allegorical morality — that if the god of riches were not blind, he would have bestowed his favours with more discrimination. In this play Plutus falls into the hands of Chremylus, a poor but most worthy citizen, who contrives to restore the blind god to the use of his eyes. The natural conse- quences follow. The good become rich, and the bad are reduced to poverty. There is a slight dash of the old Aristophanic humour in the successive pictures of these alterations in the condition of the different classes of men. But on the whole the play exhibits many symptoms not only of the change, which had come over the whole spirit of Greek comic poetry, but also of the decay of the poet's 1 It is intimated, with a good deal of point, that this transference of the govern- ment to the women was the only expedient which had not been tried among the many changes of constitution at Athens (v. 456) : idoKei yap tovto fibvov eu rfj irdXec oiiirw yeyevrjadai. a/J-iKpbv 5' VTTodecrdaL rots KpLraccri (SovXo/uLai.' Tols ao(po2s ixkv tCjv aQ(pCov fxe/j.i'rjfiei'ovs Kpiveiv i/ii' ToXs yeXQai 5' rjdeus Blo, top y^XciJV Kpivuv ifie, K. T. X.