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The two first comedies which Aristophanes brought out—‘The Revellers’ and ‘The Babylonians’—are both unfortunately lost to us. The third was ‘The Acharnians,’ followed in the next year by ‘The Knights.’ It may be convenient, for some reasons, to begin our acquaintance with the author in this latter play, because it is that into which he seems to have thrown most of his personality as well as the whole force of his satiric powers. There was a reason for this. In its composition he had not only in view his fame as a dramatic writer, or the advocacy of a political principle, but also a direct personal object.

It is now the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War, in which all Greece is ranged on the side of the two great contending powers, Athens and Sparta. The great Pericles—to whose fatal policy, as Aristophanes held, its long continuance has been due—has been six years dead. His place in the commonwealth has been taken by men of inferior mark. And the man who is now most in popular favour, the head of the democratic interest, now completely in the ascendant, is the poet’s great enemy, Cleon: an able but unscrupulous man, of low origin, loud and violent, an able speaker and energetic politician. Historians are at variance as to his real claim to honesty and patriotism, and it remains a question never likely to be set at rest. It would be manifestly unfair to decide it solely on the evidence of his satirical enemy. He and his policy had been fiercely attacked in the first comedy produced by Aristophanes—‘The Babylonians,’ of which only the merest fragment has come down to us. But we know that in it the poet had satirised the abuses prevalent in the Athenian government, and their insolence to their subject-allies, under the disguise of an imaginary empire, the scene of which he laid in Babylon. Cleon had revenged himself upon his satirist by overwhelming him with abuse in the public assembly, and by making a formal accusation against him of having slandered the state in the presence of foreigners and aliens, and thus brought ridicule and contempt upon the commonwealth of Athens. In the drama now before us, the author is not only satirising the political weakness of his countrymen; he is fulfilling the threat which he had held out the year before in his ‘Acharnians,’—that he would “cut up Cleon the tanner into shoe-leather for the Knights,”—and concentrating the whole force of his wit, in the most unscrupulous and merciless fashion, against his personal enemy. In this bitterness of spirit the play stands in strong contrast with the good-humoured burlesque of ‘The Acharnians’ and ‘The Peace,’ or, indeed, with any other of the author’s productions which have reached us.

This play follows the fashion of the Athenian stage in taking its name from the Chorus, who are in this case composed of the Knights—the class of citizens ranking next to the highest at Athens. A more appropriate title, if the title is meant to indicate the subject, would be that which Mr. Mitchell gives it in his translation—‘The Demagogues.’ The principal character in the piece is “Demus”—i.e., People: an impersonation of that many-headed monster the Commons of Athens, the classical prototype of Swift’s John Bull; and the satire is directed against the facility with which he allows himself to be gulled and managed by those who are nominally his servants but really his masters—those noisy and corrupt demagogues (and one in particular, just at present) who rule him for their own selfish ends.

The characters represented are only five. “People” is a rich householder—selfish, superstitious, and sensual—who employs a kind of major-domo to look after his business and manage his slaves. He has had several in succession, from time to time. The present man is known in the household as “The Paphlagonian,” or sometimes as “The Tanner”—for the poet does not venture to do more than thus indicate Cleon by names which refer either to some asserted barbarian blood in his family, or to the occupation followed by his father. He is an unprincipled, lying rascal; a slave himself, fawning and obsequious to his master, while cheating him abominably—insolent and bullying towards the fellow-slaves who are under his command. Two of these are Nicias and Demosthenes—the first of them holding the chief naval command at this time, with Demosthenes as one of his vice-admirals. These characters bear the real names in most of the manuscripts, though they are never so addressed in the dialogue; but they would be readily known to the audience by the masks in which the actors performed the parts. But in the case of Cleon, no artist was found bold enough to risk his powerful vengeance by caricaturing his features, and no actor dared to represent him on the stage. Aristophanes is said to have played the part himself, with his face, in the absence of a mask, smeared with wine-lees, after the primitive fashion, when “comedy” was nothing more than a village revel in celebration of the vintage. Such a disguise, moreover, served excellently well, as he declared, to imitate the purple and bloated visage of the demagogue. The remaining character is that of “The Black-pudding-Seller,” whose business in the piece will be better understood as it proceeds. The whole action takes place without change of scene (excepting the final tableau) in the open air, in front of Demus’s house, the entrance to which is in the centre of the proscenium.

The two slaves, Nicias and Demosthenes, come out rubbing their shoulders. They have just had a lashing from the major-domo. After mutual condolences, and complaints of their hard lot, they agree to sit down together and howl in concert—to the last new fashionable tune—

“Ŏ ōħ, Ŏ ōħ—Ŏ ōħ, Ŏ ōħ—Ŏ ōħ, Ŏ ōħ!”

Perhaps the burlesque of the two well-known commanders bemoaning themselves in this parody of popular music does not imply more childishness on the part of an Athenian audience than the nigger choruses and comic operas of our own day. But, as Demosthenes, the stronger character of the pair, observes at last—“crying’s no good.” They must find some remedy. And there is one which occurs to him—an effectual one—but of which the very name is terrible, and not safely to be uttered. It lies in a word that may be fatal to a slave, and is always of ill omen to Athenian ears. At last, after a fashion quite untranslatable, they contrive to say it between them—“Run away.” The idea seems excellent, and Demosthenes proposes that they should take the audience into their confidence, which accordingly they do—begging them to give some token of encouragement if the plot and the dialogue so far please them:—

“Dem. (to the audience.) Well, come now! I’ll tell ye about it—Here are we, A couple of servants—with a master at home Next door to the hustings. He’s a man in years, A kind of a bean-fed,[8] husky, testy character, Choleric and brutal at times, and partly deaf. It’s near about a month now, that he went And bought a slave out of a tanner’s yard, A Paphlagonian born, and brought him home— As wicked a slanderous wretch as ever lived. This fellow, the Paphlagonian, has found out The blind side of our master’s understanding, With fawning and wheedling in this kind of way: ‘Would not you please go to the bath, sir? surely It’s not worth while to attend the courts to-day.’ And—‘Would not you please to take a little refreshment? And there’s that nice hot broth—and here’s the threepence You left behind you—and would not you order supper?’ Moreover, when we get things out of compliment As a present for our master, he contrives To snatch ’em and serve ’em up before our faces. I’d made a Spartan cake at Pylos lately, And mixed and kneaded it well, and watched the baking; But he stole round before me and served it up:[9] And he never allows us to come near our master To speak a word; but stands behind his back At meal times, with a monstrous leathern fly-flap, Slapping and whisking it round, and rapping us off. Sometimes the old man falls into moods and fancies, Searching the prophecies till he gets bewildered, And then the Paphlagonian plies him up, Driving him mad with oracles and predictions. And that’s his harvest. Then he slanders us, And gets us beaten and lashed, and goes his rounds Bullying in this way, to squeeze presents from us: ‘You saw what a lashing Hylas got just now; You’d best make friends with me, if you love your lives.’ Why then, we give him a trifle, or, if we don’t, We pay for it; for the old fellow knocks us down, And kicks us on the ground.”—(F.)

But, after all, what shall they do?—“Die at once,” says the despondent Nicias—“drink bull’s blood, like Themistocles.” “Drink a cup of good wine, rather,” says his jovial comrade. And he sends Nicias to purloin some, while their hated taskmaster is asleep. Warming his wits under its influence, Demosthenes is inspired with new counsels. The oracles which this Paphlagonian keeps by him, and by means of which he strengthens his influence over their master, must be got hold of. And Nicias—the weaker spirit—is again sent by his comrade upon the perilous service of stealing them from their owner’s possession while he is still snoring.[10] He succeeds in his errand, and Demosthenes (who has paid great attention to the wine-jar meanwhile) takes the scrolls from his hands and proceeds to unroll and read them, his comrade watching him with a face of superstitious eagerness. The oracles contain a prophetic history of Athens under its successive demagogues. First there should rise to power a hemp-seller, secondly a cattle-jobber, thirdly a dealer in hides—this Paphlagonian, who now holds rule in Demus’s household. But he is to fall before a greater that is to come—one who plies a marvellous trade. Nicias is all impatience to know who and what this saviour of society is to be. Demosthenes, in a mysterious whisper, tells him the coming man is—a Black-pudding-seller!

“Black-pudding-seller! marvellous, indeed!

Great Neptune, what an art!—but where to find him?”

Why, most opportunely, here he comes! He is seen mounting the steps which are supposed to lead from the city, with his tray of wares suspended from his neck. The two slaves make a rush for him, salute him with the profoundest reverence, take his tray off carefully, and bid him fall down and thank the gods for his good fortune.

“Black-P.-Seller. Hallo! what is it? Demosth. O thrice blest of mortals! Who art nought to-day, but shall be first to-morrow! Hail, Chief that shall be of our glorious Athens! B.-P.-S. Prithee, good friend, let me go wash my tripes, And sell my sausages—you make a fool of me. Dem. Tripes, quotha! tripes? Ha-ha!—Look yonder, man—(pointing to the audience.) You see these close-packed ranks of heads? B.-P.-S. I see. Dem. Of all these men you shall be sovereign chief, Of the Forum, and the Harbours, and the Courts, Shall trample on the Senate, flout the generals, Bind, chain, imprison, play what pranks you will. B.-P.-S. What—I? Dem. Yes—you. But you’ve not yet seen all; Here—mount upon your dresser there—look out! (Black-Pudding-Seller gets upon the dresser, from which he is supposed to see all the dependencies of Athens, and looks stupidly round him.) You see the islands all in a circle round you? B.-P.-S. I see. Dem. What, all the sea-ports, and the shipping? B.-P.-S. I see, I tell ye. Dem. Then, what luck is yours! But cast your right eye now towards Caria—there— And fix your left on Carthage—both at once. B.-P.-S. Be blest if I shan’t squint—if that’s good luck.”

The Black-pudding-man is modest, and doubts his own qualifications for all this preferment. Demosthenes assures him that he is the very man that is wanted. “A rascal—bred in the forum—and with plenty of brass;” what could they wish for more? Still, the other fears he is “not strong enough for the place.” Demosthenes begins to be alarmed: modesty is a very bad symptom in a candidate for preferment; he is afraid, after all, that the man has some hidden good qualities which will disqualify him for high office. Possibly, he suggests, there is some gentle blood in the family? No, the other assures him: all his ancestors have been born blackguards like himself, so far as he knows. But he has had no education—he can but barely spell. The only objection, Demosthenes declares, is that he has learnt even so much as that.

“The only harm is, you can spell at all;

Our leaders of the people are no longer

Your men of education and good fame;

We choose the illiterate and the blackguards, always.”

Demosthenes proceeds to tell him of a prophecy, found amongst the stolen scrolls, in which, after the enigmatical fashion of such literature, it is foretold that the great tanner-eagle shall be overcome by the cunning serpent that drinks blood. The tanner-eagle is plainly none other than this Paphlagonian hide-seller; and as to his antagonist, what can be plainer? It is the resemblance of Macedon to Monmouth. “A serpent is long, and so is a black-pudding; and both drink blood.” So Demosthenes crowns the new-found hero with a garland, and they proceed to finish the flagon of wine to the health of the conqueror in the strife that is to come. Nor will allies be wanting:—

“Our Knights—good men and true, a thousand strong—

Who hate the wretch, shall back you in this contest;

And every citizen of name and fame,

And each kind critic in this goodly audience,

And I myself, and the just gods besides.

Nay, never fear; you shall not see his features;

For very cowardice, the mask-makers

Flatly refused to mould them. Ne’ertheless,

He will be known—our friends have ready wits.”

At this moment the dreaded personage comes out from the house in a fury. The Black-pudding-man takes to flight at once, leaving his stock-in-trade behind him, but is hauled back by Demosthenes, who loudly summons the “Knights” to come to the rescue—and with the usual rhythmical movement, and rapid chant, the Chorus of Knights sweep up through the orchestra.

“Close around him and confound him, the confounder of us all!

Pelt him, pummel him, and maul him—rummage, ransack, overhaul him!

Overbear him, and out-bawl him; bear him down, and bring him under!

Bellow like a burst of thunder—robber, harpy, sink of plunder!

Rogue and villain! rogue and cheat! rogue and villain! I repeat.

Oftener than I can repeat it has the rogue and villain cheated.

Close upon him left and right—spit upon him, spurn and smite;

Spit upon him as you see: spurn and spit at him, like me.”—(F.)

They surround and hustle the representative of Cleon, who calls in vain for his partisans to come to his assistance. The Black-pudding man takes courage, and comes to the front; and a duel in the choicest Athenian Billingsgate takes place, in which the current truths or slanders of the day are paraded, no doubt much to the amusement of an Athenian audience—hardly so to the English reader. The new champion shows himself at least the equal of his antagonist in this kind of warfare, and the Chorus are delighted. “There is something hotter, after all, than fire—a more consummate blackguard has been found than Cleon!” From words the battle proceeds to blows, and the Paphlagonian retires discomfited, threatening his antagonist with future vengeance, and challenging him to meet him straightway before the Senate.[11]

The Chorus fill up the interval of the action by an address to the audience; in which, speaking on the author’s behalf, they apologise on the ground of modesty for his not having produced his previous comedies in his own name and on his own responsibility, and make a complaint—common to authors in all ages—of the ingratitude of the public to its popular favourites of the hour. Thence the chant passes into an ode to Neptune, the tutelary god of a nation of seamen, and to Pallas Athene, who gives her name to the city. And between the pauses of the song they rehearse, in a kind of recitative, the praises of the good old days of Athens.