LITERATURE OK ANCIENT GREECE. 425 § 10. The literary criticism, which seems to have been the principal employment of Aristophanes during the last gloomy years of the Pc- loponnesian war, came out in its most perfect form in the Frogs, which was acted 01. 93, 3. b. c. 405, and is one of the most masterly pro- ductions which the muse of comedy has ever conceded to her favourites. The idea, on which the whole is built, is beautiful and grand. Dionysus, the god of the Attic stage, here represented as a young Athenian fop, who gives himself out as a connoisseur of tragedies, is much distressed at the great deficiency of tragic poets after the deaths of Euripides and Sophocles, and is resolved to go and bring up a tragedian from the other world, — if possible, Euripides.* He gets Charon to ferry him over the pool which forms the boundary of the infernal regions, (where he is obliged to pull himself to the merry croaking of the marsh frogs,)t and arrives, after various dangers, at the place where the chorus of the happy souls who have been initiated into the mysteries (*'. e. those who are capable of enjoying properly the freedom and merriment of comedy) perform their songs and dances : he and his servant Xanthias have, however, still many amusing adventures to undergo at Pluto's gate before they are admitted. It so happens that a strife has arisen in the subterranean world between iEschylus, who had hitherto occupied the tragic throne, and the newly arrived Euripides, who lays claim to it : and Dionysus connects this with his own plan by promising to take with him to the upper regions whichever of the two gains the victory in this contest. The contest which ensues is a peculiar mixture of jest and earnest : it extends over every department of tragic act, — the subject-matter and moral effects, the style and execution, prologues, choral songs, and monodies, and often, though in a very comic manner, hits the right point. The comedian, however, does not hesitate to support, rather by bold figures than by proofs, his opinion that iEschylus had uttered profound observations, sterling truths, full of moral significance ; while Euripides, with his subtle reasonings, rendered insecure the basis of religious faith and moral principles on which the weal of the state rested. Thus, at the end of the play, the two tragedians proceed to weigh their verses ; and the powerful sayings of yEschylus make the pointed thoughts of Euripides kick the beam. In his fundamental opinion about the relative merits of these poets, Aristophanes is undoubt- edly so far right, that the immediate feeling for and natural conscious- ness of the right and the good which breathes in the works of ^Eschylus, was far more conducive to the moral strength of mind and public virtue
- lie is chiefly desirous of seeing the Andromeda of Euripides, which was ex-
ceedingly popular with the people of Abdera also. Lucian. Quom. conscr. sit Hist. 1. f The part of the Frogs was indeed performed by the chorus, but they were not seen, (/. e. it was a parachoregema ;) probably the choreutaj were placed in the hyposcenium, (a space under the stage,) and therefore on the same elevation as the orchestra.
