Aeschylus' Victory in the Frogs

Author(s): Garry Wills

Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Jan., 1969), pp. 48-57
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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AESCHYLUS' VICTORY IN THE FROGS.

The very last round of the contest between Aesch

Euripides in The Frogs-the deciding round, in whic
asked to formulate a policy for Athens (vv. 1435 ff.
tunately mired in difficulties. The text does not see
sense as it stands, and editors from the Alexandrian
have been forced to treat it as corrupt. Interpolated
lines, misattributed lines-all these are suspected, ofte
bination. And almost all the suggestions, whether s
ingenious, seem attractive, so easy is it to improve th
text. But none of the arguments seems decisive. The
ties for "fiddling" with the passage are limitless-wh
made all the fiddlings seem equally valid. But the o
narrowed considerably if, as I suspect, we have been
preting one key verse (1462).
1. Verse 1461

A brilliant discussion of this passage, dealing with the who

range of earlier solutions, was undertaken by Heinrich Dorr

in 1957 (Hermes, LXXXIV, pp. 296-319). One striking

parture from his predecessors was his attribution of v. 14

'EKEt paacpdaL' a v, evOaa& 8' ov fov'Xo,/at-to Euripides. Dorrie (p

311-12) argues that Aeschylus is too pious to make this fla

rejection of the god's request.' But Aeschylus is characteriz
throughout this play as haughty and self-willed. His attitu
here is consistent with the earlier reluctance to compete at a

his proper arena is among the living, where his poetry still live

(866-9). And great poetry not only lives on, but keeps alive

men who made or inspired it (Theognis, 245-52)-someth

Pluto recognizes when he tells the Chorus to resurrect Aeschylu

by singing him (1525-7);

1T. Kock, in his edition of the play (1898), also thought the line
out of character. Aeschylus, here presented as the molder of good
citizens, would surely be patriotic enough to give the city his advice
without recompense. But Kock thinks the line part of an interpolat
(1460-6), in which he did not expect consistent characterization.
48

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AESCHYLUS' VICTORY IN " THE FROSg."

49

lrpOTr/TrcET?

TOatLV TOVTOV TOVOV fJEALM

KaL puoX7raElam KeXaSovres.

Aeschylus, meanwhile, commits the chair of poetry to Sopho

who will keep it for him in case he should return (1515

The words suggest that this is not likely to happen:

present general condition Aeschylus adds apa ("just in ca

LSJ B6) and 7rorT ("if ever"). The point of the play i
Aeschylus will not return: he is living still.
Thus it is not surprising that Aeschylus should wait u

he is resurrected to guide Athens forward. The surprising th

given the emphasis elsewhere on his poetry's living force

world, is that his determination not to speak below is bro

easily. In the text as it stands, Aeschylus assumes his

attitude, Dionysus speaks one line urging him to speak,
Aeschylus launches at once into the specifics of policy-e

though, as we shall see, this seems to reflect an acceptance of

imprisoned state below.
2. Verse 1462

Dionysus pleads with Aeschylus in religious language; he

seems almost to pray to him: M/ 8rra ao y, aXX' evOeV8' davlE

rTayad. Yet the line, as it is commonly interpreted, is also

strangely harsh. According to the scholiast, v. 1461 reverses

the proverb excd BEt7rovaa, &ip' avetI raya.ad. Thus Dionysus

seems to be saying, "Since you are to remain here (eIvOc&

f37rov -= EKEc f3iI7rovaa), send your blessings there." Not the

most effective form of persuasion when the whole contest is to
decide which poet will rise again!
An even more serious objection to the standard interpretation
is posed by the ellipse M 8rjra cau y(e). Stanford, in his edition
(1958), paraphrases, "Oh please don't do that "-namely, hold
his silence there: M' 8rTa aV ye (fovXov mowrirv evOaSi)-the idea

supplied from the last words of Aeschylus, (pd4etv) ivOaS 8' ov

f/oAooual. But this is a clumsy way of expressing the sense
editors need if this line is to break Aeschylus' resolution to
hold still. In the first place, one expects the same ellipse in
Dionysus' line as in Aeschylus' (kpatetv, not caw7rav), especially

since iTra usually "echoes" in this way: cf. v. 1456, ov 87T'

EKCE'W y' (X&crat TOCS TroPpo1i). Second: why the emphatic, ex-

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GARRY WILLS.

50

pressed av and the isolating yc? "Please, don't you hol

silence here." Does that mean Euripides has a better ri
demand resurrection before he speaks out? Third: Sir

wrong word for disagreeing totally with one course and su

ing its opposite ("No, don't do that, do this"). The p

is usually assentient (connective and progressive in qu

echoing the questioner in answers-this latter a particu
Aristophanic use2). An apparent exception is what Den
(p. 276) calls "passionate negative commands or wish
8~ra." But the passion arises, in these commands, fr
conflict of general assent with particular disagreemen
point signalized by ye). Aristophanic examples are Lys.,
- BotwortovS TE 7ravTras eoXoXAvaL.

- M 7 oTa 7ra'vTac y', XAA' aScbe Tras eyXe`XfF.

"(Right), but not all the Boeotians; spare their eels." O

695-6:

- EKcppo'VTtoV Tt TWV aeavTOv 7rpayp/arov.

- M 8t ', LKerevd, 'vravO y'.

"(Right), but not here (on the couch)." Sometimes the limitation supplied by the ye must be explained in an appended
clause, as at Eq., 959-61:
- Hap' E/AOV 8e TOVrOVL Xa3V TraueVE paOL.

- Mq S7Ta 7r(o y, ( 8ECT7T OT, avrTtLoX a' vyt,

IIp[v av ye T,V XprTa! JSv aKOVaTjs a TV iTYOV.

"Well, all right, but not like this-i. e., before hearing my
oracles."

In v. 1462, then, ty 8$Tra should echo Aeschylus' position, tak-

ing exception to it only in the respect signaled by ye and the

appended aXXa-clause. "I prefer not to speak here," the poet
says, and Dionysus answers, "(Right), don't you (speak hereas Euripides just did), but send your blea-ings up from here."
Dionysus goes along with Aeschylus; but what he passionately
desires is that he will speak what the god is now confident will
be rayaaO: " No, don't answer here, not a man of your stature;3
but be sure to deliver the goods up above."
2 J. D. Denniston, Particles, p. 276 (3).
- Compare v. 1457, olv 5ij' IKElvjl y'-"That's not what's wrong with

this city-it is forced to accept bad leaders."

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AESCHYLUS' VICTORY IN " THE FROGS. "

51

Deliver the goods. One reason commentators have forced

sense of r SrTa is that they think avLe means "send up f
here (while you remain here). But the scholiast rightly gl
the word with avda'rrre. The two terms are interchangeab
we can see in the two great summonses sent to the under
in Aeschylus' plays. In the Persians, the request is that A
neus should raise (avieL, S avadreptov) Darius (650); th
deities escort him up (7reiA7rere 8' avw, 645, 7rE/afar' E'p0EV

es 4S, 630)-all this so that Darius may himself bring bles

up to them (222):
ecrOXd aoL 7re`lrIEw TeKV? Tr yqjs eVpGeV ( caos.

In the Choephoroe, Orestes prays to Zeus, KacrwOev aJu7re`u

VffcT(ppdroVOv arav (382-3). This aTa is to take the form of
memnon's resurrected spirit (W ral, aves uOL 7raTep`, 489), w

will be a rdo'/troS . .. . TV crOX&v avw (147). Since the v

aveVav is a technical religious term for the dispensing of bles

from below, Plato says Pluto is named after the 7rXOor

brings out of the very depths of earth (Crat., 403A4-5, O

Trs yvjs KaTdrwOv wavITrat o lIAoIvro and 403E5, os -ye KOAt rol

TroaoVTa ayaaOa advl-Lv). In the case of Darius and Agame

the spirit of the dead itself rises in order to dispense its

ings; it is the 7rdtouros in a vro/rrq that delivers raTyaad. Th

then, no reason to think the sending of blessings from below

volves remaining below; quite the opposite. The scholiast

misled us by focusing attention only on the single line
proverb that includes the words iKIe f3XArovaa. What Dio

says to Aeschylus is, "You should not speak here-so lo

you send your blessings up from here (by speaking above

3. Verse 1466

In the present text, the arda of 1466 has no antecedent:

7rXV)v 7' o &LKaorT17 avTa KaTa7rve.t Owvos. Critics like to extrac

implied yp7 ara from 'ropov in the preceding line, and ma

the antecedent. They want the words to mean: "Treat y

income as helplessness."-"Yes, since the juror consumes it
by himself." That is, any addition to the treasury would sim
lead to a higher dole for the dicasts-a not very pointed ex
'Cf. Aesch., Eum., 1008.

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52

GARRY WILLS.

geration.5 The trouble with this attempt at meaning is that

what the line actually says is not "Yes, since . . ." but "Yes
except that (7rXArv ye) ...." This whole passage is full of connectives that tug against the meaning men have imposed on it
If, however, vv. 1461-2 mean that Aeschylus does not formulate policy in this scene, then vv. 1463-5 cannot be genuine.
And if that is the case, their removal gives avTr a perfectly clear

antecedent in rayaOa at the end of what is now the preceding

line. Dionysus says "Take your blessings up from here." The
next line must then be assigned to Aeschylus, who answers " All

right-except that the dicast consumes them all by himself."

Like his creator, this Aeschylus wonders what good can be don
for a city preyed upon by Philocleons.
This interpretation of the line gives greater point to the word
KaTrartvEt. One of the running jokes in this drama is the inver-

sion by which "the other world" means just the opposite of

what it means to the living. If the Mysteries performed by
living men reveal the arcana of the after-life, then the underworld Mystae must " reveal" the oddities of the "before-death"
-oddities like Archedemus and Callias (419-30). These under-

world celebrations turn men's thoughts not to roLs Ka(itr but rols

avw (420); they console men, not with the thought of departed

6 Cedric Whitman has just revived Croiset's attempt to make sense

of the line (as spoken by Dionysus): "It is impossible to take thi

line, as is usually done, as a reference to the embezzlement of public

revenue by the judiciary; by the judge he must mean himself, and by
'swallow' he must mean 'believe'" (Aristophanes and the Comic Hero
[Harvard, 1964], p. 256-cf. M. Croiset, Aristophane et les partis politiques a Athenes [Paris, 1906], p. 266). The verb has the wrong
tense and person to be understood this way: although the metre will
not allow Croiset to "correct" the form given in the text, he translates
as if it were Kara7riolat (" je serai seul a goiter ce conseil"). Also,
the judge at an artistic event is a KpLrTS, not a 5&Kaar7s (cf. Achar.,
1224; Av., 445, 447, 1101; Eccl., 1142, 1154; Nub., 1115, and the passages collected by Pickard-Cambridge on pp. 96-9 of Dramatic Festivals
[Oxford, 1953]). Also, it is very doubtful that Kara7rlvetv can mean
goiter (with the sense "approve") or swallow (in the slang sense
"believe"). The only parallel Whitman offers is Acharn., 484, where
Dicaeopolis braces himself for debate by reflecting that he has the
verbal strength of all the Euripides he has ingested ("comme un
cordial," as the Coulon-van Daele edition puts it; for a "posset" in
the quaint English of Starkie).

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AESCHYLUS' VICTORY IN " THE FROGS."

53

ones living on in the underworld and waiting for them, b

the picture of a Cleisthenes still living in the upper w

yearning after his lost love as he prims himself amid t

stones (422-4). If living men say "Strike me dead

then the dead must say "Strike me alive" (avap3toirv

it is with v. 1466: the religious formula of the prece
has summoned a dead poet to bestow his gifts upon th
and Aeschylus' wry Kararl'veL turns his act into a rev
tion. The dead man pours his offering to the living-b
bloated class, clustering around the sacred offering (
gulps it all down.

Aeschylus, as he is portrayed in this drama, is far from

But he resembles Sophocles in one respect: he is not sc

to "desert" the underworld, like Euripides (80-2). His
ance of Dionysus' offer is grudging: he has misgiving

the men he must get " back in shape " after their Euripid

If he returns to the world, it will be to rebuke it. St

bargain is struck. If he is to speak again, it must b
the living. Dionysus agrees he should not speak b

8TUra V y'); but he should bestow his blessings above. A

will go, though he doubts the world's worthiness. Plut

KpLVOLS av in the next line, and Dionysus does not hesita

His trust in Aeschylus is entirely restored.

4. Verses 1442-50

If vv. 1461-2 indicate that Aeschylus does not formulate a

policy for Athens at the end of this play, then vv. 1463-5 are
not genuine-something suspected already on other (though no
conclusive) grounds.6 And if Aeschylus makes no policy, then

vv. 1442-50 must also be struck from the text. For Dorrie has

proved (pp. 304-9) that these cannot be assigned to Euripides,

6 The device, which is nothing more than the standing ThemistocleanPericlean strategy, does not seem an imaginative enough contribution
to lead to Aeschylus' victory. In fact, it is no contribution at all. As
Wilamowitz noticed, the advice is not even particularly appropriate to
the year 405 and the straits in which Athens found herself when the
play was first presented. Besides, it is not in character for the oligarchical Aeschylus of this play to be promoting the naval policy of

Pericles. The lines-a stranded protasis without an apodosis-are

insecurely anchored in their place.

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GARRY WILLS.

54

as they are in the manuscripts. A new speech is begun at 1442

(ey) ,.ev . .), and this speech contains advice that occurs in

four other places-twice in the parabasis (686-705, 718-37) and

twice in comments made by Aeschylus (1431-2, 1454-5). The
plea of the famous parabasis, which we are told was so popular
with the audience, is that pv7raTKaKla not be allowed to stand in

the way of the city's desire to use oligarchical talents now "out
of currency." The whole matter is summed up in v. 735, XpraO

TOLS XpgaTrotLTL (cf. XpwzEOa in vv. 725 and 731). Aeschylus later

shows that these are his standards when he says (1431-2) that
Alcibiades should be put to the city's use (his earlier crimes
forgotten) and when he asks whether the city is following th
best leaders (XPrTaL ... XP. . aTo 1454-5). The speech at 144250 also argues that the city is relying on the wrong sort now
and must adopt their opposites (cf. xpw,ueOa and Xpc7aat'leOa, w.

1447-8, and compare the XprarTa 7roAXE at 686). The obscure

idea in 1443-4 comes to the same as eEra8aXo'vres To' S TrprowvS

at 734-a point made clear by the correspondence of 1447-8

and 735.

It is inconceivable that Euripides, in the last exchange with

Aeschylus, would be made to agree with him and with the

play's parabasis; and moreover that he would then be rejected
as offering inferior counsel.7 It is a case of aut Aeschyli aut
nullius. Aeschyli, Dorrie decides. But it must be nullius if we
take seriously the language of 1461-2, which indicates Aeschylus
does not make any reply to Dionysus' question at 1435-6. This
is a conclusion reinforced by several other factors.

The lines have, like 1463-5, been challenged on other grounds.

They do not make sense as they stand in the text-Dorrie must
shift them around to make his interpretation work (he makes
them come after 1462, which means he must suppose that some
lines were lost linking 1450 with 1463). The lines are clearly
misattributed to Euripides. Like 1463-5, they contain another
stranded orav clause with no apodosis (1443-4)-Dorrie thinks
'Dorrie (pp. 308-9) tries to argue, as well, that vv. 1442-50 cannot
be spoken by Euripides because they are anti-Sophistic in tendency,
attacking the relativistic reliance on things that appear 7rtara to the
state (cf. Plato, Theaet., 167C). The argument is a bit too finespun
to be itself 7rar6pv.

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ABSCHYLUS' VICTORY IN " THE F ROS. "

55

the clumsiness of these protaseis is for some reason eased if t

are spoken by the same character.8

If these considerations help us in rejecting vv. 1442-50
do Dorrie's own arguments. As he demonstrates, the idea
gested in the lines has already been given full expression i

parabasis and brought into play in the two comments of Aesc

lus. Why should Aristophanes hammer at his moral li

preacher running out of time? The text as Dorrie reconst

it descends dishearteningly from the high comedy of the
weighing (performed, no doubt, with elaborate stage bus
out of the Psychostasia) to weak and iterative pamphletee
If 1442-50 echoes the general point made elsewhere in

play, and echoes the play on xprjOcaL and Xp7oroL, that very

may explain its intrusion into the text. It is indeed a "p

passage," one easily cited in connection with 1454-7 and
copied into the text. This mechanical stage of the error s

well marked from the fact that vv. 1451-3 are cut off from the

lines to which they respond (1437-41), and a speech-opening

(kyc) pev . .) is allowed to stand in the middle of a rhesis,

with no paragraphus.9
8 D6rrie reconstructs the text so that Aeschylus not only speaks 1442-

50 but continues to speak 1463-5. But the aristocratic sympathies of

1442-50 sit ill with the Periclean naval policy of 1463-5. D6rrie makes
the connection between the two passages occur, conveniently, in his
lacuna after 1450. Furthermore, one of the old arguments against the
authenticity of w. 1437 and 1452-3 (see note 9 below) was the fact
that, if retained, the lines gave Euripides two answers to Aeschylus'
one at the climax of this neatly symmetrical contest-and this after
Dionysus had expressly asked each to give only one piece of advice
(ulav yvwciv, 1435). D6rrie's text maintains this asymmetry by giving
Aeschylus two answers to Euripides' one.
9 Another way to solve the problem of the inconcinnity of what
precedes and follows 1442-50 is to count its immediate setting as
spurious. That is, in fact, the oldest and most popular expedient for
dealing with this scene. The V scholia to 1437 and 1452 tell us that
Aristarchus deleted 1437-41 and 1452-3 because the lines describing the
plan to "bomb" the Spartans with Cleocritus and Cinesias are "dull
and unworthy" (0oprLKwcrepoi elaL Kal ecreXeis). Unworthy, one suspects,

not so much of Aristophanes as of Euripides-a criterion that would

lead to orgies of deletion in the corpus of Aristophanes, where Euripides

is outrageously manhandled. A more serious objection is that of Apol-

lonius Dyscolus, also reported in the scholia: each contestant should

give only one response. But this objection is met just as efficiently

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GARRY WILLS.

56

Nor is it surprising that another passage (1463-5

imported into the text at this place. Tucker pointed o

liable a scene of this sort is to the suggestion of alter
readings: any revival of the play would tempt men to
political advice appropriate to their own time or to som

general situation than the specific one Aristophanes addres

the play's first performance.10 It would be easy, too, for A

lus' deliberate silence in this place to be misunderstood,

men to think he should have some lines to speak. Van L

and Radermacher, in their commentaries (1896 and

thought the Periclean advice of 1463-5 might have been

from lines spoken by that statesman in Cratinus' Dem
this cannot be established because there are too many p
ties, and even probabilities, that will explain the inser
the verses.

by excising 1442-50 as by striking 1437-41 and 1452-3. Indee

interpolation is suspected, there is an a priori case for trea
interrupted passage as genuine rather than the interrupting
Neither of the ancient arguments constitutes a serious case
1437-41, 1452-3-not, certainly, a case of the sort that can be
against 1442-50. Besides, there are positive considerations in
the authenticity of a bombing plan. It has often been noticed
debate between the old education given by Aeschylus and the ne
offered by Euripides (937-1098) is cast in the same terms as
of the two Logoi in The Clouds. The Sophistry of Socrates an

"AtLKco A6lyos reveals itself, there, in the concoction of LvartpLt

143) like the measuring of flea-leaps by construction of flea-bo

53), or the squaring of hunger's circle with mystic powder and

compass (175-9)--hare-brained hocus-pocus that makes Streps

think he can outwit creditors with theories of word-gender and advanced meteorology. These schemes all have the bubble-headed ingenuity
of Euripides' bombing strategy, and rightly so: Euripides is once more,
in The Frogs, made "guilty by association" with Socrates the clever
(vv. 1491-9) and he is described as offering all kinds of practical advantages to be derived from his teaching, even "household hints"
(-as olKlas olKeipv &uerpvov i rpa roV, W. 976-7). It is no wonder that,

when Euripides announces this program for Better Living Through

Poetry (971-9), Dionysus rejoices like Strepsiades that men will now
be able to find out who has been snitching the garlic (980-91). Thus,
not only is the bombing scheme in character for Euripides; it is decidedly "in character," in his normal satiric manner, for Aristophanes
to make fun of a Sophist by attributing demented Rube-Goldbergisms

to him.

10 "Aristophanes, Frogs 1435 sqq.," C. R., XI (1897), pp. 302-3.

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AESCHYLUS' VICTORY IN " THE FROGS."

57

5. Conclusion

Is there a dramatic gain to the interpretation I offer for

vv. 1461-2 and 1466 (with the consequent rejection of vv. 1442-

50 and 1463-5) ? I think so. Instead of basing his climactic

scene on the choice of some definite policy (and one that, in the
present text, makes no sense), Aristophanes makes comedy, not
propaganda. His consistently drawn Aeschylus remains consistent. The master of impressive silences (911-17), who dis-

dained contest with the dead (866-9), has won back his old
admirer-" bamboozled" him, Euripides would say (919-20)by his old arts: by haughtiness, grandeur, heroic loftiness. Not
by tricky details of policy. He has stood throughout for the
opposition of wisdom to gadgetry. He was angered at Euripides'

attempt to "computerize" poetry (vv. 797-804) and his own

tveav; is contrasted with the empty ingenuity of Socrates (14829), with the reduction of poetry to the level of Home Economics

(971-91). Euripides has a Palamedes-type invention to offer

Athens-a Cleocritus-Cinesian air raid. Aeschylus does not
meet him on his own level, but moves the debate to higher
ground: Athens will live if it desires the resurrection of
Aeschylus. The mere willingness to listen to him, to its best
self, its heroic past, will effect a salvation that no scheming
could accomplish. That is what the "conversion" of Dionysus
signifies. He did not get what he expected, but something better

-not Euripides' devices, but the living Aeschylus. If Athens

learns, like its festival god, to yearn once again after that, then
it needs no further prompting on the externals of policy.
GABRY WILLS.
BALTIMORE.

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