He brings down to dwarfish proportions the Greeks, conquerors of Troy by treachery; he shows them brought forth by an implement of war,--he calls them "these young of a horse." As for the gods, he goes so far as to incorporate Apollo with Jupiter. He magnificently calls Apollo "the conscience of Jupiter." His familiar boldness is absolute, characteristic of sovereignty. He makes the sacrificer take Iphigenia "as a she-goat" A queen who is a faithful spouse is for him "the good house-bitch." As for Orestes, he has seen him when quite a child, and he speaks of him as "wetting his swaddling-cloths,"--_humectatio ex urina._ He even goes beyond this Latin. The expression, which we do not repeat here, is to be found in "Les Plaideurs," act III. scene 3. If you are bent upon reading the word which we hesitate to write, apply to Racine. The whole is immense and mournful. The profound despair of fate is in Æschylus. He shows in terrible lines "the impotence which chains down, as in a dream, the blind living creatures." His tragedy is nothing but the old Orphean dithyrambic suddenly launching into tears and lamentations over man. [Footnote 1: "Hebraïsmis et Syrianismis."] CHAPTER VIII. Aristophanes loved Æschylus by that law of affinity which causes Marivaux to love Racine tragedy and comedy made to understand each other. The same distracted and all-powerful breath fills Æschylus and Aristophanes. They are the two inspired spirits of the antique mask. Aristophanes, who is not yet judged, adhered to the mysteries, to Cecropian poetry, to Eleusis, to Dodona, to the Asiatic twilight, to the profound pensive dream. This dream, whence sprung the art of Egina, was at the threshold of the Ionian philosophy in Thales as well as at the threshold of the Italian philosophy in Pythagoras. It was the sphinx guarding the entrance. This sphinx has been a muse,--the great pontifical and lascivious muse of universal rut; and Aristophanes loved it This sphinx breathed tragedy into Æschylus, and comedy into Aristophanes. It had something of Cybele. The ancient sacred immodesty is in Aristophanes. At moments he has Bacchus foaming at the lips. He came from the Dionysia, or from the Aschosia, or from the great Trieteric Orgy, and he strikes one as a raving maniac of the mysteries. His wild verse resembles the bassaride hopping giddily upon bladders filled with air. Aristophanes has the sacerdotal obscurity. He is for nudity against love. He denounces the Phedras and Sthenobæas, and he creates Lysistrata.