This gives Balaustion a chance to ask if in his last play, later than the one Euthukles had seen, he had smoothed this ancient club of comedy he speaks of into a more human and less brutal implement of warfare, and was it a conviction of this new method he might use in comedy which was the something that happened at the feast. Aristophanes, as usual when he is cornered, makes no direct reply, but asks if Euthukles saw his last play, to which Balaustion frankly replies that having seen the first he never cared to see the following. Aristophanes avows he can show cause why he wrote them, but glances off in a sarcastic reference to Euripides, whose art he says belongs to the closet or the cave, not to the world. He prefers to stick to the old forms of art and make Athens happy in what coarse way she desires. He then proceeds to enlarge upon what that is. Then he changes again and asks with various excursions into side issues (for example: the rise of comedy; how it is now being regarded by the government, which favors tragedy, giving him another chance for a dig at Euripides) if he is the man likely to be satisfied to be classed merely a comic poet since he wrote the "Birds?" Balaustion encourages him a little here, and, cheered up, he goes on to tell how he gave the people draught divine in "Wasps" and "Grasshoppers," and how he praised peace by showing the kind of pleasures one may have when peace reigns--and still at every opportunity casting slurs at the tragic muse, especially Euripides. He goes on describing his play until he touches on some of the sarcasms which make Balaustion wince. Then he turns about and declares he loathes as much as she does the things of which he tells, but his attempts at bringing comedy up to a high level having failed, he is obliged to give the Athenians what they want, a smartened up version of the "Thesmaphoriazousai," which had failed the year before. He describes his triumph with this which was being celebrated at the supper when the something happened which is now at last described--namely, the entrance of Sophocles, who announces that he intends to commemorate the death of Euripides by having his chorus clothed in black and ungarlanded at the performance of his play next month. This startling scene, being prepared for and not brought in until Aristophanes has done much talking, seems to throw a sudden flash of reality into the poem. Ill-natured criticism, Aristophanes shows, follows on the part of the feasters, though Aristophanes' mood is one of sudden recognition of the value of Euripides. But when he, sobered for the time being, proposes a toast to the Tragic Muse, the feasters consider it a joke. He quickly accepts the situation, and comes off triumphant by proposing a toast to both muses.