"'Beauty wins not love for woman from the yokemate of her life: Many an one by goodness wins it; for to each true-hearted wife, Knit in love unto her husband, is Discretion's secret told. These her gifts are: though her lord be all uncomely to behold, To her heart and eyes shall he be comely, so her wit be sound; ('Tis not eyes that judge the _man_; within is true discernment found): Whensoever he speaks, or holds his peace, shall she his sense commend, Prompt with sweet suggestion when with speech he fain would please a friend: Glad she is, if aught untoward hap, to show she feels his care: Joy and sorrow of the husband aye the loyal wife will share: Yea, if thou art sick, in spirit will thy wife be sick with thee, Bear the half of all thy burdens--naught unsweet accounteth she: For with those we love our duty bids us taste the cup of bliss Not alone, the cup of sorrow also--what is love but this?'" The ill-deserved reputation of being a misogynist which attaches to Euripides is due, not to his own plays, but to the satire and drollery of his rival, the comedian Aristophanes, who, in B. C. 411 or 410, produced the _Thesmophoriazusae_, a play so cleverly constructed that, while it seemed to defend the female sex against the charges of Euripides, really presented them in a more disgusting light. Aristophanes represents the world of women as thrown into consternation and revolt through the production of the tragedies of Euripides, such as the _Hippolytus_, wherein the female sex is so severely arraigned. Unable to endure his accusations, an assembly of women is called at the Thesmophoria to plan the destruction of their arch enemy. Euripides, however, hears of the assembly, and prevails on his father-in-law, Mnesilochus, to disguise himself as a woman and seek admittance, that he may plead the cause of the tragedian. The humor of the debate lies in the fact that, after several women have roundly abused Euripides for slandering their sex, Mnesilochus, attired in rustic female garb, eloquently reminds them of the truths which Euripides might have divulged had he chosen to do so. One sin after another is glibly and facetiously piled up against the feminine record, until the few calumnies attributed to Euripides seem insignificant beside the mountain of crimes and foibles the supposed matron heaps up against her sisters. The picture which Aristophanes, in his clever bit of satire, presents of the women of his day is an exceedingly repulsive one. They are represented as profligate, licentious, stupid, fond of drink, thieves and liars. No other Greek writer has given them so base a character. But we must remember that we are reading comedy. "The point of the _Thesmophoriazusae_, so far as the women are concerned, is that, while Aristophanes pretends to pillory Euripides for his abuse of them, his own satire is far more searching and penetrates more deeply into the secrets of domestic life."