The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning. Edward Berdoe
“Tell the rest who may!” He had not tried to match the muse and sing for gods; he sang for men, and of the things of common life. He bids this couple farewell till the following year, and departs. In a year many things had happened. Aristophanes had produced his play, The Frogs. It had been rapturously applauded, and the author had been crowned; he is now the people’s “best friend.” He had satirised Euripides more vindictively than before; he had satirised even the gods and the Eleusinian Mysteries; and, in the midst of the “frog merriment,” Lysander, the Spartan, had captured Athens, and his first word to the people was, “Pull down your long walls: the place needs none!” He gave them three days to wreck their proud bulwarks, and the people stood stupefied, stonier than their walls. The time expired, and when Lysander saw they had done nothing, he ordered all Athens to be levelled in the dust. Then stood forth Euthukles, Balaustion’s husband, and “flung that choice flower,” a snatch of a tragedy of Euripides, the Electra; then —
“Because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparté’s brood,
And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros’ breast,
And poetry is power, and Euthukles
Had faith therein to, full face, fling the same —
Sudden, the ice thaw!”
And the assembled foe cried, “Reverence Elektra! Let stand Athenai!” and so, as Euripides had saved the Athenian exiles in Syracuse harbour, now he saved Athens herself. But her brave long walls were destroyed, destroyed to sound of flute and lyre, wrecked to the kordax step, and laid in the dust to the mocking laughter of a Comedy-chorus. And so no longer would Balaustion remain to see the shame of the beloved city. “Back to Rhodes!” she cried. “There are no gods, no gods! Glory to God – who saves Euripides!” [The long walls of Athens consisted of the wall to Phalerum on the east, about four miles long, and of the wall to the harbour of Piraeus on the west, about four and a half miles long; between these two, at a short distance from the latter and parallel to it, another wall was erected, thus making two walls leading to the Piraeus, with a narrow passage between them. The entire circuit of the walls was nearly twenty-two miles, of which about five and a half miles belonged to the city, nine and a half to the long walls, and seven miles to Piraeus, Munychia, and Phalerum.]
Plutarch, in his life of Lysander, tells how Euripides saved Athens from destruction and the Athenians from slavery: – “After Lysander had taken from the Athenians all their ships except twelve, and their fortifications were delivered up to him, he entered their city on the sixteenth of the month Munychon (April), the very day they had overthrown the barbarians in the naval fight at Salamis. He presently set himself to change their form of government; and finding that the people resented his proposal, he told them ‘that they had violated the terms of their capitulation, for their walls were still standing after the time fixed for the demolishing of them was passed; and that, since they had broken the first articles, they must expect new ones from the council.’ Some say he really did propose, in the council of the allies, to reduce the Athenians to slavery; and that Erianthis, a Theban officer, gave it as his opinion that the city should be levelled with the ground, and the spot on which it stood turned to pasturage. Afterwards, however, when the general officers met at an entertainment, a musician of Phocis happened to begin a chorus in the Electra of Euripides, the first lines of which are these —
‘Unhappy daughter of the great Atrides,
Thy straw-crowned palace I approach.’
The whole company were greatly moved at this incident, and could not help reflecting how barbarous a thing it would be to raze that noble city, which had produced so many great and illustrious men. Lysander, however, finding the Athenians entirely in his power, collected the musicians of the city, and having joined to them the band belonging to the camp, pulled down the walls, and burned the ships, to the sound of their instruments.”
Notes. [The pages are those of the complete edition, in 16 vols.] – P. 3, Euthukles, the husband of Balaustion, whom she met first at Syracuse. p. 4, Koré, the daughter of Ceres, the same as Proserpine. p. 6, Peiraios, the principal harbour of Athens, with which it was connected by the long walls; “walls, long double-range Themistoklean”: after Themistocles, the Athenian general, who planned the fortifications of Athens; Dikast and heliast: the Dikast was the judge (dike, a suit, was the term for a civil process); the heliasts were jurors, and in the flourishing period of the democracy numbered six thousand. p. 7, Kordax-step, a lascivious comic dance: to perform it off the stage was regarded as a sign of intoxication or profligacy; Propulaia, a court or vestibule of the Acropolis at Athens; Pnux, a place at Athens set apart for holding assemblies: it was built on a rock; Bema, the elevated position occupied by those who addressed the assembly. p. 8, Dionusia, the great festivals of Bacchus, held three times a year, when alone dramatic representations at Athens took place; “Hermippos to pelt Perikles”: Hermippos was a poet who accused Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, of impiety; “Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine”: Kratinos was a comic poet of Athens, a contemporary of Aristophanes; Eruxis, the name of a small satirist. (Compare “The Frogs” ll. 933-934.) Momos, the god of pleasantry: he satirised the gods; Makaria, one of the characters in the Heraclidæ of Euripides: she devoted herself to death to enable the Athenians to win a victory. p. 9, “Furies in the Oresteian song” – Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra: they haunted Orestes after he murdered his mother Clytemnestra: “As the Three,” etc., the three tragic poets, Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Klutaimnestra, wife of Agamemnon and mother of Orestes, Iphigenia, and Electra: she murdered her husband on his return from Troy; Iocasté, Iocasta, wife of Laius and mother of Œdipus; Medeia, daughter of Aetes: when Jason repudiated her she killed their children; Choros: the function of the chorus, represented by its leader, was to act as an ideal public: it might consist of old men and women or maidens; dances and gestures were introduced, to illustrate the drama. p. 10, peplosed and kothorned, robed and buskined. Phrunicos, a tragic poet of Athens: he was heavily fined by the government for exhibiting the sufferings of a kindred people in a drama. (Herod., vi., 21.) “Milesian smart-place,” the Persian conquest of Miletus. p. 11, Lenaia, a festival of Bacchus, with poetical contentions, etc.; Baccheion, a temple of Bacchus; Andromedé, rescued from a sea-monster by Perseus; Kresphontes, one of the tragedies of Euripides; Phokis, a country of northern Greece, whence came the husband of Balaustion, who saved Athens by a song from Euripides; Bacchai, a play by Euripides, not acted till after his death. p. 12, Amphitheos, a priest of Ceres at Athens, ridiculed by Aristophanes to annoy Euripides. p. 14, stade, a single course for foot-races at Olympia – about a furlong; diaulos, the double track of the racecourse for the return. p. 15, Hupsipule, queen of Lemnos, who entertained Jason in his voyage to Colchis: “Phoinissai” (The Phœnician Women), title of one of the plays of Euripides; “Zethos against Amphion”: Zethos was a son of Jupiter by Antiope, and brother to Amphion; Macedonian Archelaos, a king of Macedonia who patronised Euripides. p. 16, Phorminx, a harp or guitar; “Alkaion,” a play of Euripides; Pentheus, king of Thebes, who refused to acknowledge Bacchus as a god; “Iphigenia in Aulis,” a play by Euripides; Mounuchia, a port of Attica between the Piræus and the promontory of Sunium; “City of Gapers,” Athens – so called on account of the curiosity of the people; Kopaic eel: the eels of Lake Copais, in Bœotia, were very celebrated, and to this day maintain their reputation. p. 17, Arginousai, three islands near the shores of Asia Minor; Lais, a celebrated courtesan, the mistress of Alcibiades; Leogoras, an Athenian debauchee; Koppa-marked, branded as high bred; choinix, a liquid measure; Mendesian wine: Wine from Mende, a city of Thrace, famous for its wines; Thesmophoria, a women’s festival in honour of Ceres, made sport of by Aristophanes. p. 18, Krateros, probably an imaginary character. Arridaios and Krateues, local poets in royal favour; Protagoras, a Greek atheistic philosopher, banished from Athens, died about 400 B.C.; “Comic Platon,” Greek poet, called “the prince of the middle comedy,” flourished 445 B.C.; Archelaos, king of Macedonia. p. 19, “Lusistraté” a play by Aristophanes,