CHEAT LIST

ARISTÓFANES

ACARNENSES

“The Acharnians” (Gr: “Akharneis”) is the earliest of the eleven

surviving plays of the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, and a classic of the
highly satirical genre of drama known as Old Comedy. It was first produced in
425 BCE and won first place at the Lenaia festival. The protagonist, Dikaiopolis,
miraculously obtains a private peace treaty with the Spartans and he enjoys the
benefits of peace in spite of opposition from some of his fellow Athenians.

SYNOPSIS
The play begins with Dikaiopolis sitting all alone on the Pnyx (the hill
where the Athenian assembly meets to discuss matters of state), looking bored and
frustrated. He reveals his weariness with the Peloponnesian War, his longing to go
home to his village, his impatience with the assembly for its failure to start on time
and his resolve to heckle speakers in the Athenian assembly who won’t debate an
end to the war.
When some citizens do arrive and the day’s business begins, the subject
of the important speakers addressing the assembly is, predictably enough, not
peace and, true to his earlier promise, Dikaiopolis comments loudly on their
appearances and probable motives (such as the ambassador recently returned from
many years at the Persian court complaining of the lavish hospitality he has had to
endure, and the ambassador recently returned from Thrace who blames the icy
conditions in the north for his long stay there at the public’s expense, etc).
At the assembly, however, Dikaiopolis meets Amphitheus, a man who
claims to be the immortal great-great-grandson of Triptolemus and Demeter, and
who claims moreover that he can obtain peace with the Spartans “privately”, for
which Dikaiopolis pays him eight drachmas. As Dikaiopolis and his family
celebrate his private peace with a private celebration, they are set up on by the
Chorus, a mob of aged farmers and charcoal burners from Acharnae (the
Acharnians of the title), who hate the Spartans for destroying their farms and who
hate anyone who talks peace. They are clearly not amenable to rational argument,
so Dikaiopolis grabs a basket of Acharnian charcoal as hostage and demands the
old men leave him alone. They agree to leave Dikaiopolis in peace if only he will
spare the charcoal.
He surrenders his “hostage”, but still wants to convince the old men of the
justice of his cause, and offers to speak with his head on a chopping block if only
they will hear him out (although he is a little apprehensive after Cleon dragged him
into court over “last year’s play”). He goes next door to the house of the renowned
author Euripides for help with his anti-war speech and to borrow a beggar’s
costume from one of his tragedies. Thus attired as a tragic hero in disguise as a
beggar, and with his head on the chopping block, he makes his case to the Chorus
of Acharnians for opposing the war, claiming that it was all started due to the
abduction of three courtesans and is only continued by profiteers for personal gain.
Half of the Chorus is won over by his arguments and the other half is not,
and a fight breaks out between the opposing camps. The fight is broken up by the
Athenian general Lamachus (who also happens to live next door), who is then
questioned by Dikaiopolis about why he personally supports the war against
Sparta, whether it is out of his sense of duty or because he gets paid. This time, the
whole Chorus is won over by Dikaiopolis’ arguments, and they lavish exaggerated
praise on him.
Dikaiopolis then returns to the stage and sets up a private market where he
and the enemies of Athens can trade peacefully, and various minor characters come
and go in farcical circumstances (including an Athenian informer or sycophant
who is packed in straw like a piece of pottery and carried off to Boeotia).
Soon, two heralds arrive, one calling Lamachus to war, the other calling
Dikaiopolis to a dinner party. The two men go as summoned and return soon after,
Lamachus in pain from injuries sustained in battle and with a soldier at each arm
propping him up, Dikaiopolis merrily drunk and with a dancing girl on each arm.
Everyone exits amid general celebrations, except Lamachus, who exits in pain.
OS CAVALEIROS

“The Knight”(Gr: “Hippeis”) won first prize at the Lenaia festival when
it was produced in 424 BCE. The play is a satire on political and social life in 5th
Century BCE Athens, and in particular a diatribe against the pro-war populist
politician, Cleon. In the play, a sausage-seller, Agoracritus, vies with Paphlagonian
(representing Cleon) for the confidence and approval of Demos (an elderly man
who symbolizes the Athenian citizenry) and Agoracritus emerges triumphant from
a series of contests and miraculously restores Demos to his former youth and glory.

SYNOPSIS
Nicias and Demosthenes, two slaves of the elderly Athenian Demos, run
howling from Demos’ house, complaining of a beating they have received. They
blame fellow slave, Paphlagonian (representing Cleon), who has wheedled his way
into Demos’ confidence, and often dupes their master into beating them and
regularly takes credit for work done by themselves.
They fantasize about running away from their master, but instead they
pilfer some wine and, after a few drinks, they are inspired to steal Cleon’s most
treasured possession, a set of oracles that he has always refused to let anyone else
see. When they read the stolen oracles, they learn that Cleon is one of several
peddlers destined to rule the polis, and that it is his fate to be replaced by a sausage-
seller.
A sausage-seller, Agoracritus, happens to pass by at that very moment,
with his portable kitchen. The two slaves acquaint him with his destiny, although
he is far from convinced at first. His suspicions aroused, Cleon rushes from the
house and, discovering the empty wine bowl, he immediately accuses the others
of treason. Demosthenes calls upon the Knights of Athens for assistance and a
Chorus of them charges into the theatre and rough up Cleon, accusing him of
manipulating the political and legal system for personal gain.
 After a shouting match between Cleon and the sausage-seller, in which
each man strives to demonstrate that he is a more shameless and unscrupulous
orator than the other, the Knights proclaim the sausage-seller the winner, and
Cleon storms off to denounce them all on a trumped-up charge of treason.
The Chorus steps forward to address the audience on behalf of the author,
praising the very methodical and cautious way Aristophanes has approached his
career as a comic poet, and praising the older generation of men who made Athens
great. There is a rather strange passage in which the Greek horses employed during
the recent assault on Corinth are imagined to have rowed the boats in gallant style.
When the sausage-seller returns, he reports that he has won the Council’s
support by outdoing Cleon with extravagant offers of free food at the state’s
expense. Cleon returns in a rage and challenges the sausage-seller to submit their
differences directly toDemos. The sausage-seller accuses Cleon of being
indifferent to the war-time sufferings of ordinary people, and of using the war as
an opportunity for corruption, and claims that Cleon prolongs the war out of fear
that he will be prosecuted when peace returns. Demos is won over by these
arguments and spurns Cleon’s wheedling appeals for sympathy.
Thereafter, the sausage seller’s accusations against Paphlagonian/Cleon
become increasingly vulgar and absurd. The sausage-seller wins two further
contests in which they compete for Demos’ favour, one in the reading of oracles
flattering to the people, and one in a race to see which of them can best serve the
pampered Demos’ every need.
Now desperate, Cleon makes one last effort to retain his privileged
position in the household, by presenting his oracle and questioning the sausage-
seller to see if he matches the description of his successor described in the oracle,
in all its vulgar details, which indeed he does. In tragic dismay, he at last accepts
his fate and surrenders his place to the sausage-seller.
The Knights of the Chorus step forward and advise us that it is honourable
to mock dishonourable people, and proceed to mock Ariphrades for his perverse
appetite for female secretions, and Hyperbolus for carrying the war to Carthage.
 Agoracritus returns to the stage, announcing a new development: he has
rejuvenated Demos by boiling him down like a piece of meat, and the new Demos
is introduced, wondrously restored to youth and vigour and dressed in the garb of
the old Athenians of the times of the victory at Marathon. Agoracritus then presents
two beautiful girls known as the “Peacetreaties” that Cleon had kept locked up in
order to prolong the war.
Demos invites Agoracritus to a banquet at the town hall and the entire cast
exits in good cheer, all except Paphlagonian/Cleon of course, who is now reduced
to selling sausages at the city gate as punishment for his crimes.

AS NUVENS

“The Clouds” (Gr: “Nephelai“) is a comedy by the ancient Greek

playwright Aristophanes, originally produced at the Athens City Dionysia
of 423 BCE. It is perhaps the world’s first extant “comedy of ideas” and lampoons
intellectual fashions in classical Athens. In the play, Strepsiades, an
elderly Athenian mired in debt, enrolls his son Pheidippides in Socrates’
philosophy school so that he might learn the rhetorical skills necessary to defeat
their creditors in court, although all he really learns is cynical disrespect for social
mores and contempt for authority, which leads to Strepsiades burning the school
down in disgust.

SYNOPSIS
The play begins with Strepsiades sitting up in bed, too worried to sleep
because he is faced with legal action for non-payment of debts. He complains that
his son, Pheidippides, blissfully asleep in the bed next to him, has been encouraged
by his aristocratic wife to indulge an expensive taste in horses and the household
is living beyond its means.
Strepsiades wakes his son to tell him of his plan to get out of debt. At first
Pheidippides goes along with his father’s plan but soon changes his mind when he
learns that he must enrol in the Phrontisterion (which may be translated as “The
Thinkery” or “Thinking Shop”), a philosophy school for nerds and intellectual
bums that no self-respecting, athletic young man like Pheidippides cares to be
involved with. Strepsiades’ idea is for his son to learn how to make a bad argument
look good and thereby beat their aggrieved creditors in court. Pheidippides will not
be persuaded, though, and Strepsiades eventually decides to enrol himself, in spite
of his advanced age.
At The Thinkery, Strepsiades hears about some of the recent important
discoveries made by Socrates, the head of the school, including a new unit of
measurement for ascertaining the distance jumped by a flea, the exact cause of the
buzzing noise made by a gnat and a new use for a large pair of compasses (for
stealing cloaks from pegs over the gymnasium wall). Impressed, Stepsiades begs
to be introduced to the man behind these discoveries, and Socrates appears
overhead in a basket he uses to observe the Sun and other meteorological
phenomena. The philosopher descends and inducts the new elderly student in the
school in a ceremony which includes a parade of the majestic singing Clouds, the
patron goddesses of thinkers and other layabouts (which become the Chorus of the
play).
The Clouds declare that this is the author’s cleverest play and the one that
cost him the greatest effort, praising him for his originality and for his courage in
the past in lampooning influential politicians such as Cleon. They promise divine
favours if the audience will punish Cleon for his corruption, and rebuke the
Athenians for messing about with the calendar and putting it out of step with the
moon.
Socrates returns to the stage, protesting about how inept his new elderly
student is. He attempts one further lessons, directing Strepsiades to lie under a
blanket in order to encourage thoughts to arise naturally in his mind. When
Strepsiades is caught masturbating under the blanket, Socrates finally gives up and
refuses to have anything more to do with him.
Strepsiades resorts to browbeating and threatening his son, Pheidippides,
into enrolling into The Thinkery. Two associates of Socrates, Right and Wrong,
debate with each other over which of them can offer Pheidippides the best
education, with Right offering a preparation for an earnest life of discipline and
rigour and Wrong offering a foundation for a life of ease and pleasure, more typical
of men who know how to talk their way out of trouble and of those in eminent
positions in Athens. Right is defeated, Wrong leads Pheidippides off into The
Thinkery for his life-changing education, and Strepsiades goes home a happy man.
The Clouds step forward to address the audience a second time,
demanding to be awarded first place in the festival competition, in return for which
they promise good rains, and threaten that they will destroy crops, smash roofs and
spoil weddings if not granted the prize.
When Strepsiades returns to fetch his son from the school, he is presented
with a new Pheidippides, startlingly transformed into the pale nerd and intellectual
bum that he had once feared to become, but supposedly well prepared to talk their
way out of financial trouble. The first two of their aggrieved creditors arrive with
court summonses, and the confident Strepsiades dismisses them contemptuously,
and returns indoors to continue the celebrations.
However, he soon reappears, complaining of a beating that his “new”•
son has just given him. Pheidippides emerges and coolly and insolently debates a
son’s right to beat his father, ending by threatening to beat his mother also. At this,
Strepsiades flies into a rage against The Thinkery, blaming Socrates for his latest
troubles, and leads his slaves in a frenzied attack on the disreputable school. The
alarmed students are pursued offstage and the Chorus, with nothing to celebrate,
quietly departs.

AS VESPAS

“The Wasps” (Gr: “Sphekes“) is a comedy by the ancient greek

playwright Aristophanes, first staged at the Lenaia festival of 422 BCE. It is
considered by some to be one of the world’s great comedies, and perhaps
exemplifies the conventions of Old Comedy better than any other play. It pokes
satirical fun at the Athenian demagogue Cleon and his power-base, the law
courts, in a story about the old juror Philocleon who is addicted to his jury work
and his son Bdelycleon’s ill-fated attempts to reform him.

SYNOPSIS
As the play opens, two slaves, Sosias and Xanthias, are sleeping in the
street outside a house which is spread with a large net, and a third man,
their master Bdelycleon, is asleep on top of an exterior wall with a view into the
inner courtyard. The slaves wake and reveal that they are keeping guard over a
“monster”, their master’s father, who has an unusual disease. Rather than being
addicted to gambling, drink or good times, he is addicted to the law court, and his
name is Philocleon (suggesting that he might actually be addicted to Cleon).
Symptoms of the old man’s addiction include irregular sleep, obsessional
thinking, paranoia, poor hygiene and hoarding, and all counselling, medical
treatment and travel have so far failed to solve the problem, so that his son has
resorted to turning the house into a prison to keep the old man away from the law
courts.
Despite the vigilance of the slaves, Philocleon surprises them all by
emerging from the chimney, disguised as smoke. Bdelycleon manages to push him
back inside, and other attempts at escape are also barely foiled. As the household
settles down to some more sleep, the Chorus of old decrepit jurors arrives. When
they learn that their old comrade is imprisoned, they leap to his defense, swarming
around Bdelycleon and his slaves like wasps. At the end of this fray, Philocleon is
still barely in his son’s custody and both sides are willing to settle the issue
peacefully through debate.
Father and son then debate the matter, and Philocleon describes how he
enjoys the flattering attentions of the rich and powerful men who appeal to him for
a favourable verdict, as well as the freedom to interpret the law as he pleases (since
his decisions are never subjected to review), and his juror’s pay gives him
independence and authority within his own household. Bdelycleon responds by
arguing that jurors are in fact subject to the demands of petty officials and anyway
get paid less than they deserve because most of the revenues from the empire go
into the private treasuries of politicians like Cleon.
This argument which wins over the Chorus and, to make the transition
easier for his father, Bdelycleon offers to turn the house into a courtroom and to
pay him a juror’s fee to judge domestic disputes. The first case is a dispute between
the household dogs, with one dog (who looks like Cleon) accusing the other dog
(who looks like Laches) of stealing a cheese and not sharing it. Bdelycleon says a
few words on behalf of the household implements which are the witnesses for the
defence, and brings on the accused dog’s puppies to soften the heart of the old
juror. Although Philocleon is not fooled by these devices, he is easily tricked by
his son into putting his vote into the urn for acquittal, and the shocked old juror is
taken off to prepare for some entertainment later that night.
The Chorus then praises the author for standing up to unworthy monsters
like Cleon who gobble up imperial revenues, and it chastises the audience for
failing to appreciate the merits of the author’s previous play (“The Clouds”).
Father and son then return to the stage, with Bdelycleon trying to convince
his father to wear a fancy woollen garment and fashionable Spartan footwear to
the sophisticated dinner party to be held that evening. The old man is suspicious
of the new clothes and prefers his old juryman’s cloak and his old shoes, but the
fancy clothes are forced upon him anyway, and he is instructed in the kind of
manners and conversation that the other guests will expect of him.
After the father and son leave the stage, a household slave arrives with
news for the audience that the old man has behaved appalling at the dinner party,
having become abusively drunk and insulted all his son’s fashionable friends, and
is now assaulting anyone he meets on the way home. The drunk Philocleon comes
on stage with a pretty girl on his arm and aggrieved victims on his heels.
Bdelycleon angrily remonstrates with his father for kidnapping the girl from the
party and tries to take the girl back to the party by force, but his father knocks him
down.
As others arrive with grievances against Philocleon, demanding
compensation and threatening legal action, he makes an ironic attempt to talk his
way out of trouble like a sophisticated man of the world, but it only serves to
inflame the situation further and finally his alarmed son drags him away. The
Chorus sings briefly about how difficult it is for men to change their habits and it
commends the son for filial devotion, after which the entire cast returns to the stage
for some spirited dancing by Philocleon in a contest with the sons of the playwright
Carcinnus.

A PAZ

“Peace” (Gr: “Eirene”) is a comedy by the ancient Greek

playwright Aristophanes. It won second prize at the City Dionysia where it was
staged just before the ratification of the Peace of Nicias in 421 BCE, which
promised (but, ultimately, failed) to end the ten year old Peloponnesian War.
It tells the story of Trygaeus, a middle-aged Athenian who takes it upon himself to
rescue the allegorical figure of Peace and thereby bring about an end to the
Peloponnesian War. In doing so, he earns the gratitude of farmers while
bankrupting various tradesmen who had profited from the hostilities, and he
celebrates his triumph by marrying Harvest, a companion of Peace and Festival.

SYNOPSIS
Two slaves of Trygaeus are introduced, outside an ordinary house in
Athens, kneading what appears to be unusually large lumps of dough. We soon
learn that it is not dough at all but excrement (from various sources) which is to be
fed to the giant dung beetle that their master intends flying to a private audience
with the gods. Trygaeus himself then appears above the house on the back of the
dung beetle, hovering in an alarmingly unsteady manner, while his slaves,
neighbours and children plead with him to come back down to earth.
He explains that his mission is to reason with the gods about the
Peloponnesian War and, if necessary, to prosecute them for treason against Greece,
and he soars away towards the heavens. Arriving at the house of the gods, Trygaeus
discovers that only Hermes is home, the other gods having packed up and departed
for some remote refuge where they hope never to be troubled again by the war or
the prayers of humankind. Hermes himself is only there making some final
arrangements for the new occupant of the house, War, who has already moved in.
Peace, he is informed, is imprisoned in a cave nearby.
War then comes on stage, carrying a gigantic mortar in which he intends
to continue grinding the Greeks to paste, but he complains that he no longer has a
pestle to use with his mortar, as his old pestles, Cleon and Brasidas (the leaders of
the pro-war factions in Athens and Sparta respectively) are both dead, recently
perished in battle.
While War goes to find a new pestle, Trygaeus calls on Greeks everywhere
to come and help him set Peace free while there is still time. A Chorus of excited
Greeks from various city-states arrives, dancing frantically in their excitement.
They get to work pulling boulders from the cave’s mouth, along with a Chorus of
farmers, and eventually the beautiful Peace and her comely companions, Festival
and Harvest, emerge. Hermes explains that she would have been freed much
earlier, except that the Athenian assembly kept voting against it.
Trygaeus apologizes to Peace on behalf of his countrymen, and updates
her on the latest theatre gossip from Athens. He leaves her to enjoy her freedom
while he sets off again for Athens, taking Harvest and Festival back with him
(Harvest to be his wife), while the Chorus praises the author for his originality as
a dramatist, for his courageous opposition to monsters like Cleon and for his genial
disposition.
Trygaeus returns to the stage, declaring that the audience looked like a
bunch of rascals when seen from the heavens, and that they look even worse when
seen up close. He sends Harvest indoors to prepare for their wedding, and delivers
Festival to the Athenian leaders sitting in the front row. He then prepares for a
religious service in honour of Peace. The smell of the roasting sacrificial lamb soon
attracts an oracle-monger, who hovers about the scene in quest of a free meal, but
he is soon driven off. As Trygaeus joins Harvest indoors to prepare for his
wedding, the Chorus praises the idyllic country life during peacetime, although it
also bitterly recalls how different things were only just recently, in time of war.
Trygaeus returns to the stage, dressed for the wedding festivities, and local
tradesmen and merchants begin to arrive. The sickle-maker and jar-maker, whose
businesses are flourishing again now that peace has returned, present Trygaeus
with wedding presents. Others, however, are not faring so well with the new peace
and Trygaeus offers suggestions to some of them about what they can do with their
merchandise (e.g. helmet crests can be used as dusters, spears as vine props,
breastplates as chamber pots, trumpets as scales for weighing figs and helmets as
mixing bowls for Egyptian emetics and enemas).
One of the guests’ children begins reciting Homer‘s epic song of war, but
Trygaeus promptly sends him away. He announces the commencement of the
wedding feast and opens up the house for celebrations.

AS AVES

“The Birds” (Gr: “Ornithes”) is a comedy by the ancient Greek

playwright Aristophanes. It was first performed in 414 BCE at the City
Dionysia festival, where it won second prize.
The story follows Pisthetaerus, a middle-aged Athenian who persuades
the world’s birds to create a new city in the sky (thereby gaining control over all
communications between men and gods), and is himself eventually
miraculously transformed into a bird-like god figure himself, and replaces
Zeus as the pre-eminent power in the cosmos.

SYNOPSIS
The play begins with two middle-aged men, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides
(roughly translated as Trustyfriend and Goodhope), stumbling across a hillside
wilderness in search of Tereus, the legendary Thracian king who was once
metamorphosed into the hoopoe bird. Disillusioned with life in Athens and its law
courts, politics, false oracles and military antics, they hope to make a new start in
life somewhere else and believe that the Hoopoe/Tereus can advise them.
 A large and threatening-looking bird, who turns out to be the Hoopoe’s
servant, demands to know what they are up to and accuses them of being bird-
catchers. He is persuaded to fetch his master and the Hoopoe himself appears (a
not very convincing bird who attributes his paucity of feathers to a severe case of
molting).
The Hoopoe tells of his life with the birds, and their easy existence of
eating and loving. Pisthetaerus suddenly has the brilliant idea that the birds should
stop flying about like simpletons and instead build themselves a great city in the
sky. This would not only allow them to lord it over men, it would also enable them
to blockade the Olympian gods, starving them into submission in the same way as
the Athenians had recently starved the island of Melos into surrender.
The Hoopoe likes the idea and he agrees to help them implement it,
provided that the two Athenians can convince all the other birds. He and his wife,
the Nightingale, start to assemble the world’s birds which form into a Chorus as
they arrive. The newly arrived birds are outraged at the presence of men, for
mankind has long been their enemy, but the Hoopoe persuades them to give his
human guests a fair hearing. Pisthetaerus explains how the birds were the original
gods and advises them to reclaim their lost powers and privileges from the upstart
Olympians. The audience of birds is won over and they urge the Athenians to lead
them against the usurping gods.
While the Chorus delivers a brief account of the genealogy of the birds,
establishing their claim to divinity ahead of the Olympians, and cites some of the
benefits of being a bird, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides go to chew on a magical root
of the Hoopoe that will transform them into birds. When they return, sporting a
rather unconvincing resemblance to a bird, they begin to organize the construction
of their city-in-the-sky, which they name “Cloud Cuckoo Land”.
Pisthetaerus leads a religious service in honour of birds as the new gods,
during which he is pestered by a variety of unwelcome human visitors looking for
employment in the new city, including a young poet looking to become the city’s
official poet, an oracle-monger with prophecies for sale, a famous geometer
offering a set of town-plans, an imperial inspector from Athens with an eye for a
quick profit and a statute-seller. As these insidious interlopers try to impose
Athenian ways upon his bird kingdom, Pisthetaerus rudely dispatches them.
The Chorus of birds steps forward to promulgate various laws forbidding
crimes against their kind (such as catching, caging, stuffing or eating them) and
advise the festival judges to award the play first place or risk getting crapped on.
A messenger reports that the new city walls are already finished thanks to
the collaborative efforts of numerous kinds of birds, but a second messenger then
arrives with news that one of the Olympian gods has sneaked through the defences.
The goddess Iris is caught and brought down under guard to face Pisthetaerus’
interrogation and insults, before being allowed to fly off to her father Zeus to
complain about her treatment.
A third messenger then arrives to report that multitudes of unwelcome
visitors are now arriving, including a rebellious youth who believes that here at
last he has permission to beat up his father, the famous poet Cinesias babbling
incoherent verse, and an Athenian sycophant in raptures at the thought of being
able to prosecute victims on the wing, but they are all sent packing by Pisthetaerus.
Prometheus arrives next, hiding himself from his enemy Zeus, to let
Pisthetaerus know that the Olympians are now starving because men’s offerings
are no longer reaching them. He advises Pisthetaerus, however, not to negotiate
with the gods until Zeus surrenders both his sceptre and his girl, Basileia
(Sovereignty), the real power in Zeus’ household.
Finally, a delegation from Zeus himself arrives, composed of Zeus’
brother Poseidon, the oafish Heracles and the even more oafish god of the
barbarian Triballians. Psithetaerus easily outwits Heracles, who in turn bullies the
barbarian god into submission, and Poseidon is thus outvoted and Pisthetaerus’
terms accepted. Pisthetaerus is proclaimed king of the gods and is presented with
the lovely Sovereignty as his consort. The festive gathering departs amid the
strains of a wedding march.

LISÍSTRATA
 “Lysistrata” is a bawdy anti-war comedy by the ancient Greek
playwright Aristophanes, first staged in 411 BCE. It is the comic account of one
woman’s extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War, as Lysistrata
convinces the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands
as a means of forcing the men to negotiate a peace. Some consider it his greatest
work, and it is probably the most anthologized.

SYNOPSIS
Lysistrata, a strong Athenian woman with a great sense of individual
responsibility, reveals her plan to take matters into her own hands and end the
interminable Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.
She has convened a meeting of women from various city states in Greece
and, with support from the Spartan Lampito, she explains to the other women her
plan: that they are to withhold sexual privileges from their menfolk as a means of
forcing them to bring an end to the war.
The women are dubious and reluctant at first, but the deal is sealed with a
long and solemn oath around a wine bowl, and the women agree to abjure all
sexual pleasures, including various specifically mentioned sexual positions. At
the same time, another part of Lysistrata’s plan (a precautionary measure) comes
to fruition as the old women of Athens seize control of the nearby Acropolis,
which holds the state treasury, without which the men cannot long continue to fund
their war. The word of revolt is spread and the other women retreat behind the
barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men’s response.
A Chorus of bumbling old men arrives, intent on burning down the gate
of the Acropolis if the women do not open up. However, before the men can make
their preparations, a second Chorus of old women arrives bearing pitchers of water.
An argument ensues and threats are exchanged, but the old women successfully
defend their younger comrades and the old men receive a good soaking in the
process.
A magistrate reflects on the hysterical nature of women and their
devotion to wine, promiscuous sex and exotic cults, but above all he blames the
men for the poor supervision of their womenfolk. He needs silver from the treasury
for the war effort, and he and his constables try to break into the Acropolis, but
are quickly overwhelmed by groups of unruly women with long, strange names.
Lysistrata restores some order after the fracas, and allows the
magistrate to question her about her scheme and the war. She explains to him the
frustrations that women feel at a time of war, when the men make stupid decisions
that affect everyone and their wive’s opinions are not listened to. She expresses
pity for the young, childless women, left to grow old at home during the best years
of their lives, while the men are away on endless military campaigns, and she
constructs an elaborate analogy in which she shows that Athens should be
structured as a woman would spin wool. To illustrate her points, Lysistrata and
the women dress the magistrate up, first as a woman and then as a corpse.
Eventually, he storms off to report the incident to his colleagues, and Lysistrata
returns to the Acropolis.
The debate is continued between the Chorus of old men and the Chorus
of old women, until Lysistrata returns with the news that some of the women are
already becoming desperate for sex, and they are beginning to desert the cause on
the silliest of pretexts (such as to air bedding and do other chores) and one is even
caught trying to escape to a brothel. She succeeds in rallying her comrades,
however, and restoring their discipline, and she returns yet again to the Acropolis
to await for the men’s surrender. Meanwhile, Cinesias, the young husband of
Myrrhine, appears, desperate for sex. As Lysistrata oversees the discussion,
Myrrhine reminds him of the terms, and further taunts her husband by preparing
an inviting bed, oils, etc, before disappointing the young man by locking herself in
the Acropolis again.
The Chorus of old women make overtures to the old men, and soon the
two Choruses merge, singing and dancing in unison. The peace talks
commence and Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a
gorgeous naked young woman called Reconciliation or Peace, whom the delegates
cannot take their eyes off. Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgement
and, after some squabbles over the peace terms (and with the naked figure of
Reconciliation before them and the burden of sexual deprivation still heavy upon
them), they quickly overcome their differences and retire to the Acropolis for
celebrations, songs and dancing.

AS MULHERES QUE CELEBRAM AS TESMOFÓRIAS

“Thesmophoriazusae” (literally meaning “The Women Celebrating the

Festival of the Thesmophoria”, sometimes also called “The Poet and the
Women”), is a comedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, first staged
in 411 BCE (the same year as his “Lysistrata) probably at the City Dionysia drama
fastival. It is considered one of Aristophanes‘ most brilliant parodies of Athenian
society and like “Lysistrata”, it focuses particularly on the subversive role of
women in a male-dominated society. The general plot follows the summoning of
the great Greek playwright Euripides by the women of Athens to account for the
misogynistic portrayal of women in his plays.

SYNOPSIS
The playwright Euripides complains to his aged in-law, Mnesilochus,
that he has been summoned to appear for trial and judgment before the women of
Athens for his portrayal of women in his plays as mad, murderous and sexually
depraved, and he is worried that the women of Athens are going to kill him. They
are planning to use the festival of the Thesmophoria (an annual women-only
fertility celebration dedicated to Demeter and Persephone) as an opportunity to
debate a suitable choice of revenge on him.
Euripides asks a fellow tragedian, the effeminate poet Agathon, to go to
the festival in order to spy for him and to be his advocate at the festival. Agathon,
however, believes that the women of Athens may be jealous of him and he refuses
to attend the festival for fear of being discovered. Mnesilochus offers to go in
Agathon’s place, and Euripides shaves him, dresses him in women’s clothes
(borrowed from Agathon) and sends him off to the Thesmophorion.
 At the festival, the women are seen conducting a disciplined and organized
democratic assembly, with appointed officials and carefully maintained records
and procedures. Top of the agenda for that day is Euripides, and two women
summarize their grievances against him: Micca (who complains
that Euripides has taught men not to trust women, which has made it more
difficult for women to help themselves to the household stores) and a myrtle
vendor (who complains that his plays promote atheism, which makes it more
difficult for her to sell her myrtle wreathes).
The disguised Mnesilochus then speaks up, declaring that the behaviour
of women is actually far worse than Euripides has represented it, and recites in
excruciating detail his own (imaginary) sins as a married woman, including a
sexual escapade with a boyfriend in a tryst involving a laurel tree and a statue of
Apollo. The assembly is outraged and, when the Athenian “ambassador”• for
women (Cleisthenes, a notoriously effete homosexual) brings the alarming news
that a man disguised as a woman is spying upon them on behalf of Euripides,
suspicion immediately falls upon Mnesilochus, being the only member of the
group that nobody can identify. They remove his clothes and discover that he is
indeed a man.
In a parody of a famous scene from Euripides‘ lost play “Telephus”,
Mnesilochus flees for sactuary to the altar, grabbing Micca’s baby and threatening
to kill it unless the women release him. Micca’s “baby” actually turns out to be a
wine skin dressed up in baby’s clothes, but Mnesilochus continues to threaten it
with a knife and Micca (a devout tippler) pleads for its release. The assembly will
not negotiate with Mnesilochus, however, and he stabs the “baby” anyway, as
Micca desperately tries to catch its blood/wine in a pan.
Meanwhile, the male authorities have been notified of the illegal presence
of a man at a women-only festival, and Mnesilochus is arrested and strapped to a
plank by the authorities. Euripides, in various farcical attempts to rescue
Mnesilochus based on scenes from his own recent plays, first comes disguised
as Menelaus (from his play “Helen”) to which Mnesilochus responds by playing
out the role of Helen, and then as Echo and then Perseus (from his
lost “Andromeda”), in which role he swoops heroically across the stage as a “deus
ex machina” on a theatrical crane, to which Mnesilochus responds by acting out
the role of Andromeda.
However, when all these mad schemes inevitably fail, Euripides then
decides to appear as himself, and quickly negotiates a peace with the Chorus of
women, securing their co-operation with a simple promise not to insult them in his
future plays. Mnesilochus, who is still a prisoner of the Athenian state, is finally
released by Euripides disguised as an old lady attended by a dancing girl playing
the flute (whose charms entice away the guard), and with the help of the Chorus.

AS RÃS

“The Frogs“(Gr: “Batrachoi“) is a comedy by the ancient Greek

playwright Aristophanes. It won first prize at the Lenaia dramatic festival in 405
BCE, and was so successful that it was staged a second time later that same year
at the Dionysia festival. It tells the story of the god Dionysus (also known to the
Greeks as Bacchus) who, despairing of the current state of Athens’ tragedians,
travels to Hades with his slave Xanthias to bring Euripides back from the dead.

SYNOPSIS
The play opens as Dionysus and Xanthias (technically his slave, but
clearly smarter, stronger, more rational, more prudent, and braver than Dionysus)
argue over what kind of complaints Xanthias can use to open the play comically.
Depressed by the state of contemporary Athenian tragedy, Dionysus plans
to travel to Hades to bring the great tragedic dramatist Euripides back from the
dead. Dressed in a Heracles-style lion-hide and carrying a Heracles-style club, he
goes to consult with his half-brother Heracles himself (who had visited Hades
when he went to retrieve Cerberus) as to the best way to get there. Bemused at the
spectacle of the effeminate Dionysus, Heracles can only suggest the options of
hanging himself, drinking poison or jumping off a tower. In the end, Dionysus opts
for the longer journey across a lake, the same route Heracles himself once took.
They arrive at the Acheron and the ferryman Charon
ferries Dionysus across, although Dionysus is obliged to help with the rowing
(Xanthias, being a slave, has to walk around). On the crossing, a Chorus of
croaking frogs (the frogs of the play’s title) joins them, and Dionysus chants along
with them. He meets up with Xanthias again at the far shore, and almost
immediately they are confronted by Aeacus, one of the judges of the dead, who is
still angry over Heracles theft of Cerberus. Mistaking Dionysus for Heracles due
to his attire, Aeacus threatens to unleash several monsters on him in revenge, and
the cowardly Dionysus quickly trades clothes with Xanthias.
A beautiful maid of Persephone then arrives, happy to
see Heracles (actually Xanthius), and she invites him to a feast with virgin dancing
girls, in which Xanthias is more than happy to oblige. Dionysus, though, now
wants to trade back the cloathes, but as soon as he changes back into
the Heracles lion-skin, he encounters more people angry at Heracles, and quickly
forces Xanthias to trade a third time. When Aeacus returns once more, Xanthias
suggests that he torture Dionysus to obtain the truth, suggesting several brutal
options. The terrified Dionysus immediately reveals the truth that he is a god, and
is allowed to proceed after a good whipping.
When Dionysus finally finds Euripides (who has only just recently died),
he is challenging the great Aeschylus to the seat of “Best Tragic Poet” at the dinner
table of Hades, and Dionysus is appointed to judge a contest between them. The
two playwrights take turns quoting verses from their plays and making fun of the
other. Euripides argues the characters in his plays are better because they are more
true to life and logical, whereas Aeschylus believes his idealized characters are
better as they are heroic and models for virtue. Aeschylus shows that Euripides ‘
verse is predictable and formulaic, while Euripides counters by
setting Aeschylus‘ iambic tetrameter lyric verse to flute music.
Finally, in an attempt to end the stalemated debate, a balance is brought in
and the two tragedians are told to put a few of their weightiest lines onto it, to see
in whose favour the balance will tip. Aeschylus easily wins, but Dionysus is still
unable to decide whom he will revive.
He finally decides to take the poet who gives the best advice about how to
save the city of Athens. Euripides gives cleverly worded but essentially
meaningless answers while Aeschylus provides more practical advice,
and Dionysus decides to take Aeschylus back instead of Euripides . Before
leaving, Aeschylus proclaims that the recently deceased Sophocles should have
his chair at the dinner table while he is gone, not Euripides .

AS MULHERES NA ASSEMBLEIA

“Ecclesiazusae” (Gr: “Ekklesiazousai”), also known by the titles “The

Assembly Women”, “The Congress Women” or “Women in Parliament” among
others, is a late comedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, dating
from 392 BCE. Similar in theme to his “Lysistrata” in that a large portion of the
comedy comes from women involving themselves in politics, the play is a satire
on a communistic utopia enforced by the women of Athens under their leader
Praxagora.

SYNOPSIS
A group of women, led by the wise and redoubtable Praxagora, has
decided that the women of Athens must convince the men to give them control of
the city, as they are convinced they can do a better job. Disguised as men, the
women sneak into the assembly and command the majority of votes needed to
carry their series of revolutionary proposals, even convincing some of the men to
vote for it on the grounds that it is the only thing they have not tried.
Once in power, Praxagora realizes that she has to come up with some novel
and radical proposals. She and the other women then institute a communist-like
government in which the state feeds, houses and generally takes care of every
Athenian. Both property and women are to be henceforth held in common, and
they enforce an idea of equality by allowing every man to sleep with every woman,
so long as the man first sleeps with an ugly woman before he may sleep with a
beautiful one.
All slaves are to be publicly owned, and are to to carry out the work
currently done by poor people leaving everyone else to live a life of leisure. All
individual households are to be knocked together to form a communal dwelling
and all citizens are to dine at the public expense in the various public halls of the
city, the particular place of each being determined by lot.
The play ends with a gigantic communal banquet (the elaborate menu of
which is given in burlesque) and with the jubilation of the women over their
triumphs.

PLUTO (A RIQUEZA)

“Plutus” (Gr: “Ploutis”) or “Wealth” is a late comedy by the ancient

Greek playwright Aristophanes, first produced around 388 BCE or later. It is a
kind of allegory about a poor man, Chremylos, who befriends the blinded Plutus,
god of wealth, and encourages him to distribute riches to the deserving and the
virtuous.

SYNOPSIS
Chremylos, an elderly and poor Athenian citizen, and his slave Cario,
return to Athens from Delphi, where Chremylos had gone to seek advice from the
oracle concerning his son, and whether he should be instructed in injustice and
knavery and the other arts whereby worldly men acquire their riches.
Apollo instructs him to follow the first man he meets on leaving the temple
and to persuade him to come home with him. The first man he meets happens to
be a blind beggar but, when Chremylos persists in following him anyway, he
discovers that he is in reality Plutus, the god of wealth, whom Zeus has robbed of
his eyesight so that he would be unable to distinguish between the just and the
unjust.
 After much argument, Plutus is persuaded to enter Chremylus’ house.
Chremylus is convinced that, if Plutus’ eyesight can be restored, then there is hope
that wealth will be distributed to the virtuous, rather than randomly, thus making
the world a better place. On arriving at the house, they encounter the ragged
goddess Poverty, who has been Chremylus’ guest for many years. She argues that
without poverty there would be no slaves (as every slave would buy his freedom)
and no fine goods or luxury foods (as nobody would work if everyone were rich),
but Chremylus is unimpressed by her arguments.
Plutus’ eyesight is restored at the temple of Asclepius, famous for cures
and miracles of this nature, and he formally becomes a member of Chremylus’
household. He begins to hand out riches to the more deserving people (including
his benefactor, Chremylus) and to removes riches from the unvirtuous, effectively
turning the world upside-down economically and socially. Predictably, this gives
rise to rancorous comments and claims of unfairness from those who have been
deprived of their riches.
In the end, the messenger god Hermes arrives to inform Chremylus that
the gods are angry because they have been starved of the sacrifices and homage
due to the traditional Olympian gods, since all good men have been directing all
their attention to Plutus. Hermes, worried about his own predicament, actually
offers to work for the mortals, and enters Chremylus’ house as a servant on those
conditions.
The play concludes with Chremylus’ proposal that Plutus should replace
Zeus as king of the gods, and they carry him in a solemn procession to the temple
and install him in the place of Zeus.