The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2. Аристофан

1

Meaning, Bdelycleon will thrash you if you do not keep a good watch on his father.

2

The Corybantes, priests of Cybelé, comported themselves like madmen in the celebration of their mysteries and made the air resound with the the noise of their drums.

3

Cleonymus had shown himself equally cowardly on all occasions; he is frequently referred to by Aristophanes, both in this and other comedies.

4

The cloak and the staff were the insignia of the dicasts; the poet describes them as sheep, because they were Cleon's servile tools.

5

An allusion to Cleon, who was a tanner.

6

In Greek, [Greek: d_emos] ([Greek: d_emós], fat; [Greek: d_ęmos], people) means both fat and people.

7

A tool of Cleon's; he had been sent on an embassy to Persia (vide 'The Acharnians'). The crow is a thief and rapacious, just as Theorus was.

8

In his life of Alcibiades, Plutarch mentions this defect in his speech; or it may have been a 'fine gentleman' affectation.

9

Among the Greeks, going to the crows was equivalent to our going to the devil.

10

No doubt the fee generally given to the street diviners who were wont to interpret dreams.

11

Coarse buffoonery was welcomed at Megara, where, by the by, it is said that Comedy had its birth.

12

To gain the favour of the audience, the Comic poets often caused fruit and cakes to be thrown to them.

13

The gluttony of Heracles was a constant subject of jest with the Comic poets.

14

The incident of Pylos (see 'The Knights').

15

The Greek word for friend of strangers is [Greek: philoxenos], which happened also to be the name of one of the vilest debauchees in Athens.

16

The tribunal of the Heliasts came next in dignity only to the Areopagus. The dicasts, or jurymen, generally numbered 500; at times it would call in the assistance of one or two other tribunals, and the number of judges would then rise to 1000 or even 1500.

17

A water-clock, used in the courts for limiting the time of the pleaders.

18

The pebble was held between the thumb and two fingers, in the same way as one would hold a pinch of incense.

19

A young Athenian of great beauty, also mentioned by Plato in his 'Gorgias.' Lovers were font of writing the name of the object of their adoration on the walls (see 'The Acharnians').

20

[Greek: K_emos], the Greek term for the funnel-shaped top of the voting urn, into which the judges dropped their voting pebbles.

21

Racine has introduced this incident with some modification into his 'Plaideurs.'

22

Although called Heliasts ([Greek: H_elios], the sun), the judges sat under cover. One of the columns that supported the roof is here referred to.

23

The juryman gave his vote for condemnation by tracing a line horizontally across a waxed tablet. This was one method in use; another was by means of pebbles placed in one or other of two voting urns.

24

Used for the purpose of voting. There were two urns, one for each of the two opinions, and each heliast placed a pebble in one of them.

25

The Heliast's badge of office.

26

To prepare him for initiation into the mysteries of the Corybantes.

27

Who pretended to cure madness; they were priests of Cybelé.

28

The sacred instrument of the Corybantes.

29

Friend of Cleon, who had raised the daily salary of the Heliasts to three obols.

30

Enemy of Cleon.

31

The smoke of fig-wood is very acrid, like the character of the Heliasts.

32

Used for closing the chimney, when needed.

33

Which had been stretched all round the courtyard to prevent his escape.

34

Market-day.

35

He enters the courtyard, returning with the ass, under whose belly Philocleon is clinging.

36

In the Odyssey (Bk. IX) Homer makes his hero, 'the wily' Odysseus, escape from the Cyclops' cave by clinging on under a ram's belly, which slips past its blinded master without noticing the trick played on him. Odysseus, when asked his name by the Cyclops, replies, Outis, Nobody.

37

A name formed out of two Greek words, meaning, running away on a horse.

38

The story goes that a traveller who had hired an ass, having placed himself in its shadow to escape the heat of the sun, was sued by the driver, who had pretended that he had let the ass, not but its shadow; hence the Greek proverb, to quarrel about the shade of an ass, i.e. about nothing at all.

39

When you inherit from me.

40

There is a similar incident in the 'Plaideurs.'

41

A Macedonian town in the peninsula of Pallené; it had shaken off the Athenian yoke and was not retaken for two years.

42

A disciple of Thespis, who even in his infancy devoted himself to the dramatic art. He was the first to introduce female characters on the stage. He flourished about 500 B.C., having won his first prize for Tragedy in 511 B.C., twelve years before Aeschylus.

43

Originally subjected to Sparta by Pausanias in 478 B.C., it was retaken by Cimon in 471, or forty-eight years previous to the production of 'The Wasps.' The old Heliasts refer to this latter event.

44

An Athenian general, who had been defeated when sent to Sicily with a fleet to the succour of Leontini; no doubt Cleon had charged him with treachery.

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