STYLE OF ARISTOPHANES.—In weighing the merits of Aristophanes, it must be remembered that many of his peculiar beauties cannot be translated, and that we lose his local hits from our inability to see things from an Athenian standpoint. He is often indelicate in his allusions; he is as ready with town slang and the cant of the shop as with the most elegant phrase. But Attic salt seasons the whole, and none ever handled the versatile Greek tongue more deftly. In his command of language, he is equalled only by Plato, who felt the comic poet’s power when he said that in the soul of Aristophanes the Graces sought an imperishable shrine. Amid all his humor and buffoonery sparkles genius of the highest order. His aim seems to have been to elevate his art. Some of the improvements he claimed to have introduced, are thus set forth in an address which he puts into the mouth of the leader of the chorus in his “Peace:”— “It was he that indignantly swept from the stage the paltry ignoble device Of a Hercules needy and seedy and greedy, a vagabond sturdy and stout, Now baking his bread, now swindling instead, now beaten and battered about. And freedom he gave to the lacrimose slave who was wont with a howl to rush in, And all for the sake of a joke which they make on the wounds which disfigure his skin. Such vulgar contemptible lumber at once he bade from the drama depart, And then, like an edifice stately and grand, he raised and ennobled the art.” THOROLD ROGERS. Aristophanes outlived the license of the old comedy, which died with liberty. When in 404 B.C. the popular government was overthrown, and Thirty Tyrants, supported by Sparta, lorded it over Athens, a statute was passed making personal attacks on the stage capital offences; an actor who defied the law was actually starved to death. Thenceforth the comic poet dared not individualize the object of his satire; he tilted against vice and folly in general, or thrust at his intended victims indirectly under assumed names. Aristophanes died about 380 B.C. No other comic poet could vie with him during his lifetime; none worthy to be his successor arose after his death, for “Nature broke the mould in which he was cast.” Of fifty-four comedies from his pen, eleven remain entire. THE ACHARNIANS 425 B.C. THE KNIGHTS 424 ” THE CLOUDS 423 ” THE WASPS 422 ” The persons constituting the chorus were girt in tightly about the waist, to make them as wasp-like as possible in appearance; skewers did service as stings. PEACE 421 ” THE BIRDS 414 ” LYSISTRATA 411 ” THE WOMEN CELEBRATING THE FEAST OF CERES 411 ” Ridicule of Euripides is the staple of this play.