The ‘Thesmophoria,’ or great feast of Ceres and Proserpine, from which this comedy takes its name, was exclusively a women’s festival, and none of the other sex were allowed to be present at its celebration. Euripides had the reputation among his contemporaries of being a woman-hater, and he had undoubtedly said bitter things of them in many of his tragedies.[51] But to those who remember his characters of Iphigenia, and Theonöe, and the incomparable Alcestis, the reproach may well seem much too general. However, in this comedy the women of Athens are supposed to have resolved upon his condign punishment; and at this next festival they are to sit in solemn conclave, to determine the mode in which it is to be carried out. Euripides has heard of it, and is in great dismay. He goes, in the opening scene, accompanied by his father-in-law Mnesilochus, to his friend and fellow-dramatist Agathon, to beg him to go to the festival disguised in woman’s clothes, and there plead his cause for him. He would do it himself, but that he is so well known, and has such a huge rough beard, while Agathon is really very lady-like in appearance. In fact, he is used to the thing; for he always wears female attire when he has to write the female parts in his tragedies--it assists the imagination: as Richardson is said not to have felt equal to the composition of a letter to one of his lady-correspondents unless he sat down in full dress. Agathon contents himself, by way of reply, with asking his petitioner whether he ever wrote this line in a certain tragedy, in which a son requests his father to be so good as to suffer death in his stead-- Thou lovest thy life,--why not thy father too? And when Euripides cannot deny the quotation from his ‘Alcestis,’ his friend recommends him not to expect other people to run risks to get _him_ out of trouble. Upon this, Mnesilochus takes pity upon his son-in-law, and consents to undertake the necessary disguise, though it will require very close shaving--an operation which Euripides immediately sets to work to perform upon the stage, while Agathon supplies him with the necessary garments. Euripides promises that, should his advocate get into any difficulties, he will do his best to extricate him by some of those subtle devices for which his tragedies are so celebrated. He offers to pledge himself by an oath to this effect; but Mnesilochus begs it may be a mental oath only--reminding him of that unfortunate line of his which we have already found Bacchus quoting against him in ‘The Frogs’-- It was my tongue that swore, and not my mind.