Clouds - Wasps - Peace

I read clouds, which is supposed to be Aristophenes best. At least by his account. He was a little bitter in not winning a prize and revised it a little to scold the audience. This is the only version that survives.

This was what I expected. Despite this being some revered ancient text, it is filled with fart, poop, and dick jokes, and frequently was funny enough to make me laugh. It is also culturally relevant to ~500bc. Socrates was an object of ridicule. The Athenians were a bit uncomfortable with their new found wealth. The young did not respect the old(even then, lol).

This book opened my mind and for that 5 stars.

Last year I read the wasps as that is what we were seeing for the King's Greek play. This year they are doing the clouds. I have to say I liked the clouds better. I don't normally get much out of reading Greek comedies, I find the humour just a bit too strange. This one though was much more relatable. A man in debt who was regretting marrying a woman above his station. The fake university where people learn all about false arguments was quite funny, I liked how they dismissed the gods. Unfortunately this was a play with an all male cast (go figure as it was all about education and philosophy which weren't really options for women back then). Normally gender divisions are my favourite subject in Greek plays so this wasn't quite as interesting for me.

I read this as it was this years Greek play that we are going to see at Kings in a couple of days. I have to say while I am quite fond of a lot of the Greek tragedies this is only the 2nd comedy I've read and I do not think they hold up as well. There seemed to be much less about the society that was being criticised that could relate to anything today. Without the cultural context it was hard to see the humour. I am looking forward to it being performed though as I expect it will work much better on stage than in a book.

Henderson comes very close to the Loeb standard of literalism while offering a readable, and maybe even production-worthy translation. His Aristophanes flows, and is even occasionally funny. This would seem to be the minimum qualification for a comedy translation, but humor does not translate easily, and when combined with Aristophanes' penchant for puns and word play the task of translation becomes an even greater challenge. Athenian comedy was crass and explicitly obscene (by today's standards) but there are subtler aspects to Aristophanes' cynicism that become apparent on close reading, and Henderson lets these shine through.

I read only one extended passage in Greek (the scene in Wasps where Grabes [Λάβης] the dog is accused of theft and put on trial by “Demadogue”) but I was impressed by Henderson’s inventiveness -- but at the same time he stays pretty close to the text. This is hard to do with Aristophanes, so reading more than one translation is a good idea. This is a good one.

This is an excellent translation and a joy to read.

The second volume of Aristophanes' plays, featuring Henderson's translations of Clouds, Wasps, and Peace alongside the Greek text, provides a rich addition to the reader's understanding of Athenian comedy. The volume includes introductions to each play, extensive footnotes, bibliographies, and an index. I highly recommend this collection for its valuable supplementary material and Henderson's translations, which, in my judgment, more accurately capture the comedic language for a modern reader compared to the previous translation by Rogers.
The plays are written during the Peleponnesian war, in the years and months leading up to Nicias' peace treaty of 421 BCE and reflect the prevailing political climate. One way to relate them to teach other is to understand them all as part of Aristophanes' analysis of the role of influential figures in the downfall of Athens. Each play seems to zoom in on different aspects or mileus of public life, offering a satirical exploration of intellectuals, the court system, and the gods' role in the war.

The Clouds is Aristophanes portrait and criticism of 'intellectuals' - first and foremost of Socrates. Strepsiades, a simple man is the hero of the play who got into debt because of his sons' expensive hobby of horse racing. Desperate to get rid of his of the creditors, he enrolls in the thinkery - a culty, exclusive school in which young men are asked to worship the Clouds as goods, conduct strange experiments, walk around naked and receive questionable lessons in rhetoric. Full of hope that this education he will allow him to win any legal case, he soon gets kicked out by Socrates for his poor intellectual abilities. Strepsiades’ son Pheidippides takes over his father’s place at the thinkery and quickly finishes his lessnons in oratory. Once the creditors visit Strepsiades, however, the young man is of not only of no help but also hitting his old man. It dawns on Strepsiades that the young man’s education worsened his situation instead of improving it and the play ends with Strepsiades setting fire to the thinkery.
The reader to the play is left with the simple message that it backfires to choose 'the easy route'. Aristophanes presents it on two narrative levels: It is both bad for Strepsiades to want to solve his problems through unjust means, but also for Socrates and his school who makes unjustified claims about the value of the education he offers and who ultimately gets set on fire. 'The Clouds' depiction of Socrates' and his circle is funny on the surface as well as full subtle details and jokes about his teachings on a deeper level. Some familiarity with Socrates as a person and a philosopher will help in appreciating Aristophanes genius in forming his comedic character but a serious admirer of Socrates might stub her toe on the presentation of the man as mostly teaching useless and ridiculous things.

Like Strepsiades, Lovecleon, the hero of 'the Wasps' has a vice: a severe case of jury addiction. He is obsessed with hearing cases, much to the dismay of his son Loathecleon who decides to lock him up so that he can't attend the courtrooms anymore. One night, however, Lovecleons fellow jurors, a Chorus of Wasps, persuade him to escape through the window. The noise wakes Loathecleon up and outside, a quarrel occurs between the son and the jurymen-wasps. Father and son agree to have the jurymen-wasps decide who is right after listening to the arguments on both sides. Loathecleon can persuade the jury that Lovecleon should step down from his jury activities and, as a compromise, lets him judge household matters in a private courtroom in the backyard. But he goes a bit too far when he asks his father to not just stop his jury duties but also to become a cultivated figure by joining him in a gentlemen’s symposium. From there, everything goes wrong: Lovecleon overdrinks, assaults his son’s sophisticated friends, and steals one of the flute girls from the party.
The Wasps is a quick and entertaining read. I particularly enjoyed Aristophanes idea of a character who is addicted to an essentially rational activity like judging cases. The play prompts some interesting questions about self-constraint and addiction (for instance: Did Lovecleon know about his tendency to overindulge not only in judging but also in alcohol and was therefore right in the first debate?). Still, among the three great plays of this volume it has to be my least favorite one.

In the final comedy of this volume, Trygaeus, the play's hero decides to confront the god father Zeus about the ongoing war. As he knows it to be unlikely that Zeus will come visit him, he thinks of a way to get to heaven instead. At the market, he buys a gigantic beetle, puts a bridle on it and rides it to where he beliefs Zeus to sit on his throne. Once Trygaeus reaches heaven, however, he gets informed by Hermesthat the gods have left their former dwelling place. He himself has essentially become a janitor who looks after some things that they have left behind. Trygaeus inquires about the gods reasons to flee Greece and Hermes explains that they were annoyed that all the possibilities they provided for peace were ignored. The comedic hero learns that the god War has taken over Zeuses old home and has thrown Peace into a deep, dark cavern, to keep humans from getting her back. But Trydaeus is not intimidated by War and summons farmers, merchants, carpenters, craftsmen, immigrants, and foreigners to help him dig and pull Peace out of the hole. With some help from Hermes, but mostly due to the strength and will of the farmers, Peace and her two companions are set free. Trygaeus returns home by foot, with one of Peaces companions as a bride and preforms a sacrifice. When he returns home and his slave notices how happy his old master seems, he replies

And rightly, no? For I alone rode on beetle-back and saved the Greeks, who now can all live safely in the countryside, screwing and snoozing.

Before Trygaeus can fully rest and enjoy his life with his new bride, however, his creativity is required a last time: he needs to think of how all the people working in the war-industry can make a living now - a small tasks for a man flying to the gods on a beetle's back.
Some of the play’s ideas, like Peace being a statue, apparently have been considered clumsy by some audiences. Even if the play is not the most elegantly structured or even the most innovative (although the beetle seems quite innovative to me) it seems impossible to truly dislike it. Not only for the charming character of Trygaeus, his determination and simple wish for a better life, but for being so unapologetically idealistic. Especially in this current time, the message of this play of the possibilitiy of peace and that it might take only one quixotic person to bring it about, seems as relevant and heartfelt as ever. I call on everyone who still thinks that old comedy is just an accumulation of fart-jokes or who doubts that it can profoundly move, to read my favorite play, Peace.

Aristophanes must surely be one of the greatest playwrights of all time. Each play has three parts. First an action sequence. Secondly, the chorus harrangs the audience, insulting the author's enemies and lamenting the fickleness of his supporters. Finally, the actors return for songs, speeches and rituals.

This new Loeb translation is bawdy and brilliant, as it should be.

Τὰς τοῦ Ἀριστοφάνους Σφῆκας ἀνέγνων, τῆς Εἰρήνης, οὔσης γὰρ ἐν τῷ αὐτῳ βιβλίῳ, τῆς ὑποθέσεως ἠρξάμην. οὐ μὲν ἐνόησα ἀναγιγνώσκειν τοῦτο τὸ δρᾶμα, ἐθαυμασάμην δὲ τῶν λόγων ὥστε παύεσθαι οὐκ ἐδυνησάμην. ἐδοκεῖ γάρ μοι ἄτοπόν τε καὶ δεινὸν, καὶ μυστικὸν σχεδόν.

Τρυγαῖος ἐπὶ κανθάρου ἀναφέρεται εἰς τὸν ἐν οὐρανῷ οἶκον τὸν τῶν θεῶν. ἀλλ' οἱ θεοὶ ἀποίχονται · τῷ Ἑρμῇ ἐντυγχάνει, ὃς φάσκει τοὺς θεοὺς εἰς τὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀνώτατα ἀποφυγεῖν διὰ τοὺς φιλονείκους ἕλληνας. ὁ Πόλεμος νῦν ἐνθαῦτα οἰκεῖ, ἡ Εἰρήνη, ἄγαλμα οὖσα, ἐν ἄντρῷ κατορώρυκται, κτλ.

Τὸ δρᾶμα δῆθεν σύγκειται ἐκ τῶν περὶ φαλλούς τε κόπρον τε σκωμμάτων. μάτην δ' ἔδοξα ἄλλως.