Is Polite Society Polite? and Other Essays

by Julia Ward Howe

I do not know which of the plays of Aristophanes is considered the best by those who are competent to speak authoritatively upon their merits; but of those that I know, this drama of "The Frogs" seems to me to exhibit most fully the scope and extent of his comic power. Condescending in parts to what is called low comedy,—i.e., the farcical, based upon the sense of what all know and experience,—it rises elsewhere to the highest domain of literary criticism and expression.

The action between Bacchus and his slave forcibly reminds us of Cervantes, though master and man alike have in them more of Sancho Panza than of Quixote. In the journey to the palace of Pluto, I see the prototype of what the great mediæval poet called "The Divine Comedy." I find in both the same weird imagination, the same curious interbraiding of the ridiculous and the grandiose. This, of course, with the difference that the Greek poet affords us only a brief view of Hell, while Dante detains us long enough to give us a realizing sense of what it is, or might be. This same mingling of the awful and the grotesque suggests to me passages in our own Hawthorne, similarly at home with the supernatural, which underlies the story of "The Scarlet Letter," and flashes out in "The Celestial Railroad." But I must come back to Dante, who can amuse us with the tricks of demons, and can lift us to the music of the spheres. So Aristophanes can show us, on the one hand, the humorous relations of a coward and a clown; and, on the other, can put into the mouth of the great Æschylus such words as he might fitly have spoken.

Perhaps the very extravagance of fun is carried even further in the drama of "The Birds" than in those already quoted from. Its conceits are, at any rate, most original, and, so far as I know, it is without prototype or parallel in its matter and manner.

The argument of the play can be briefly stated. Peisthetairus, an Athenian citizen, dissatisfied with the state of things in his own country, visits the Hoopœ with the intention of securing his assistance in founding a new state, the dominion of the birds. He takes with him a good-natured simpleton of a friend, Well-hoping, by name. Now the Hoopœ in question, according to the old legend, had been known in a previous state of being as Tereus, King of Thrace, and the metamorphosis which changed him to a bird had changed his subjects also into representatives of the various feathered tribes. These, however, far from sharing the polite and hospitable character of their master, become enraged at the intrusion of the strangers, and propose to attack them in military style. The visitors seize a spit, the lid of a pot, and various other culinary articles, and prepare to make what defence they may, while the birds "present beaks," and prepare to charge. The Hoopœ here interposes, and claims their attention for the project which Peisthetairus has to unfold.

The wily Athenian begins his address with prodigious flattery, calling the feathered folk "a people of sovereigns," more ancient of origin than man, his deities, or his world. In support of this last clause, he quotes a fable of Æsop, who narrates that the lark was embarrassed to bury his father, because the earth did not exist at the time of his death. Sovereignty, of old, belonged to the birds. The stride of the cock sufficiently shows his royal origin, and his authority is still made evident by the alacrity with which the whole slumbering world responds to his morning reveille. The kite once reigned in Greece; the cuckoo in Sidon and Egypt. Jupiter has usurped the eagle's command, but dares not appear without him, while

Each of the gods had his separate fowl,—

Apollo the hawk and Minerva the owl.

Peisthetairus proposes that, in order to recover their lost sovereignty, the birds shall build in the air a strongly fortified city. This done, they shall send a herald to Jove to demand his immediate abdication. If the celestials refuse to govern themselves accordingly, they are to be blockaded. This blockade seems presently to obtain, and heavenly Iris, flying across the sky on a message from the gods, is caught, arraigned, and declared worthy of death,—the penalty of non-observance. The prospective city receives the name of "Nephelococcagia," and this is scarcely decided upon before a poet arrives to celebrate in an ode the mighty Nephelococcagia state.

Then comes a soothsayer to order the appropriate sacrifices; then an astronomer, with instruments to measure the due proportions of the city; then a would-be parricide, who announces himself as a lover of the bird empire, and especially of that law which allows a man to beat his father. Peisthetairus confesses that, in the bird domain, the chicken is sometimes applauded for clapper-clawing the old cock. When, however, his visitor expresses a wish to throttle his parent and seize upon his estate, Peisthetairus refers him to the law of the storks, by which the son is under obligation to feed and maintain the parent. This law, he says, prevails in Nephelococcagia, and the parricide accordingly betakes himself elsewhere.

All this admirable fooling ends in the complete success of the birds. Jupiter sends an embassy to treat for peace, and by a curious juggle, imitating, no doubt, the political processes of those days, Peisthetairus becomes recognized as the lawful sovereign of Nephelococcagia, and receives, on his demand, the hand of Jupiter's favorite queen in marriage.

I have given my time too fully to the Greek poet to be able to make any extended comparison between his works and those of the Elizabethan dramatists. But from the plays which trifle so with the grim facts of nature, I can fly to the "Midsummer Night's Dream," and alight for a moment on one of its golden branches. Shakespeare's Athenian clowns are rather Aristophanic in color. The play of "Pyramus and Thisbe" might have formed one interlude on that very stage which had in sight the glories of the Parthenon. The exquisite poetry which redeems their nonsense has its parallel in the lovely "Chorus of the Clouds," the ode to Peace, and other glimpses of the serious Aristophanes, which here and there look out from behind the mask of the comedian.