Tag Archives: Aristophanes

May 16, 2017 · 9:00 am

PYTINE aka THE WINE FLASK (423 B.C.)

Cratinus

Welcome to another Balladeer’s Blog post on ancient Greek comedies. If Pytine was an episode of Friends it would be titled The One Where Cratinus Fires Back At Aristophanes. This play is also known under English language titles like Wine Flask, Flagon, The Bottle, and others along those lines.

Cratinus, seen at left posing for the Attic Old Disco soundtrack album for Saturday Night Fever (Travolta stole all his moves from Cratinus, by the way) and galvanized by the tongue-in- cheek caricature that Aristophanes presented of a drunken, washed- up Cratinus in his previous year’s comedy The Knights, turned that caricature into the premise of his final comedy.

THE PLAY

From the fragments of Pytine that remain it seems Cratinus had an actor portraying himself (Cratinus) as the booze-soaked Grand Old Man of Attic comedy at the time. I always picture the character as a cross between Dudley Moore in Arthur and Tom Conti in Reuben, Reuben. Anyway, in the play Cratinus is married either to Thalia, the Muse of Comedy or to simply a female personification of Comedy.

Comedy complains to Cratinus’ friends, who make up the chorus, that she wants to take her husband to court for abandonment. She states that he is neglecting their marital bed because he has been spending too much time sleeping around with Methe, in this comedy a personification of Drunkenness.

Academic opinion varies on whether or not Methe is supposed to be a hot young woman or a hot young man, and since this is an ancient Greek comedy it definitely could go either way. Not enough of the comedy survives to make it clear so Methe’s gender will remain a controversy.

Cratinus’ friends plot to save their buddy’s marriage by stopping him from drinking. They enact their “intervention” by smashing every last one of his containers of wine, and some of the comedy came from how many different types of vessels Cratinus had been hiding his booze in.

Cratinus counters the destruction of all his drinking vessels by purchasing a pytine, a very durable wine flask reinforced with wicker. The pytine is so strong it will withstand all the friends’ attempts to destroy it, thus foiling their plan to save Cratinus’ marriage to Comedy or the muse Thalia.

Cratinus defends his drinking by saying wine is the source of all his poetic inspiration (the comedies were all in verse). This line of reasoning sets up the most famous line from Pytine when Cratinus says “You’ll never write great poetry if all you drink is water.” Continue reading →

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Tagged as Ancient Greek Comedy, Aristophanes, Attic Old Comedy, Balladeer's Blog, breaking the 4th wall, Cratinus, Entertainment, glitternight.com, Pytine, stage works, The Thirsty Muse

February 24, 2017 · 5:00 am

MERCHANT SHIPS (424-421 B.C.) BY ARISTOPHANES

With Boycott-mania sweeping the country what better time for this look at the fragmentary remains of this ancient Greek Comedy by Aristophanes?

Ancient Greek Merchant Ship

Balladeer’s Blog presents another examination of an ancient Greek political satire. In this case it is one of those works of Aristophanes which have survived only in very fragmentary condition.

MERCHANT SHIPS

Merchant Ships was written and publicly staged in approximately 424 B.C. to 421 B.C. according to the available data. It was another of Aristophanes’ comedies protesting the pointlessness of the Greek city-states warring among themselves instead of uniting against the encroachments of the Persian Empire.

I can’t help but view this particular comedy in light of my own country’s current plight of having the rival criminal gangs called the Democratic and Republican Parties pointlessly rob the country blind and run it into the ground while virtually ignoring external threats.

In this comedy the captains of two separate merchant ships – one from Athens and one from their foe Sparta – have grown weary of the pointless conflict and make a separate peace with each other. They and their crew members get to spend the play enjoying the food and drink from their cargoes and living out a metaphorical return to the prosperous days before the Peloponnesian War when peace reigned among the various Greek city-states.

Franchises aka Merchant Ships

For a modern-day adaptation (as opposed to a straight translation) the situation could be depicted by having a Chick Fil-A restaurant right next to a Starbucks coffee shop. The managers and employees of these stereotypically Republican (Chick Fil-A) and stereotypically Democratic (Starbucks) establishments could grow tired of the political feuding, especially since both political parties often call for boycotts of the opposing business. Continue reading →

THE BIRDS (c 414/6 BC): ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY BY ARISTOPHANES

Balladeer’s Blog presents another examination of an ancient Greek political satire. This comedy by Aristophanes was one that I was planning on covering very soon when I started posting my reviews of Attic Old Comedy years ago. For various reasons it kept falling by the wayside.

Where am I going with this? For Aristophanes’ line “In Cloud-Cuckooland things become what they are called rather than being called what they are” make it “In Ivory Towerland things become what they are called rather than being called what they are.” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Birds is Aristophanes’ lengthiest surviving comedy and also the most analyzed (some would say over-analyzed). So much has already been written about this particular work that I’ve decided to forego my usual intensive examination of every scene. Instead I’ll go with a brief synopsis followed by a way I feel The Birds could be adapted (as opposed to translated) for the present day.

SYNOPSIS

More than 2,300 years before George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, Aristophanes was dealing with some of the same political themes.

Pisthetaerus and Euelpides, Athenians feeling alienated by the increasingly restrictive laws and lawsuits of their home city have left Athens behind to start over with a new society. Part of the comedy centers around the ages-old theme of how those who seek to overthrow oppression often wind up becoming the new oppressors themselves. (Think of the 1960s generation of American liberals who became just as oppressive as they claimed previous generations had been)

Another Orwellian theme finds Aristophanes satirizing the way in which the ruling class in any society uses and corrupts language to strengthen the subjugation of the populace. The Birds even features the importance of religious and historical myths in any culture as the leaders of the new civilization conjure up an all-new cosmology with “the birds” at the center to justify their own rule. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Ancient Greek Comedy, Aristophanes, Attic Old Comedy, Balladeer's Blog, Cloud-Cuckooland, Nephelogoccygia, Political Correctness, political satire, politics, The Birds

February 8, 2016 · 12:03 am

YES, THE FILM CHI-RAQ IS BASED ON LYSISTRATA

Many of you have been kind enough to let me know that the new movie Chi-Raq, about black-on- black violence in Chicago, can be added to the long list of adaptations of Lysistrata by Aristophanes.

For new readers here is my examination of Lysistrata:

Lysistrata was written by the Big A himself, Aristophanes, and this comedy always makes a perfect introductory play for newcomers to Ancient Greek Comedy (henceforth AGC). Part of its accessibility to modern audiences obviously comes from the risque premise of the play, of course.

For me the notion that we can understand and laugh at the same simplistic but brilliant story that Athenian audiences from 2,427 years ago laughed at and appreciated embodies the value of these ancient works.

THE PREMISE

By 411 BCE the Peloponnesian War between Athens (and its allied city-states) and Sparta (and its allied city-states) had been raging for roughly 20 years. The war provides the backdrop for many of Aristophanes’ surviving comedies and is especially apt where Lysistrata is concerned.

Weary of the long, drawn-out conflict the women of Athens, led by the title character Lysistrata (supposedly based on Lysimache, the Priestess of Athena in Athens at the time), join forces with the women of Sparta and decide to withhold sex from the men until they agree to bring an end to the war. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Ancient Greek Comedy, Aristophanes, Attic Old Comedy, Balladeer's Blog, Chi-Raq, Lysistrata, Spike Lee

March 7, 2015 · 1:50 am

MERCHANT SHIPS (424-421 B.C.): ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

Ancient Greek Merchant Ship

Balladeer’s Blog presents another examination of an ancient Greek political satire. In this case it is one of those works of Aristophanes which have survived only in very fragmentary condition.

MERCHANT SHIPS

Franchises aka Merchant Ships

12 Comments

Filed under Ancient Greek Comedy

Tagged as Ancient Greek Comedies, Aristophanes, Attic Old Comedy, Balladeer's Blog, Merchant Ships, Merchant Ships by Aristophanes, Peloponnesian War

December 12, 2014 · 3:00 pm

THESMOPHORIAZUSAE (circa 411 B.C.): ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

Just one of many translations available.

This comedy by Aristophanes was one that I was planning on covering very soon when I started posting my reviews of Attic Old Comedy a few years ago. For various reasons it kept falling by the wayside even though its subject matter was surprisingly relevant to ongoing controversies here in present day America, especially on college campuses.

THE TITLE

The title Thesmophoriazusae has been rendered in different ways over the centuries – as Thesmophoria Women (the most literal translation), as Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria, and even as The Poet and the Women.

The Thesmophoria was an annual festival in ancient Greece, a festival that marked the myth about the goddess Demeter’s descent into the Netherworld to rescue her daughter Persephone, who had been stolen away by Hades, the god who ruled over the land of the dead. The festival was reserved for women only and was their version of the male initiation rites performed at all-male festivals.

The female celebrants lived in tents on the hill called the Pnyx for the three days of the Thesmophoria, which took place around the time of the autumn crop-sowing.

THE PREMISE

The premise of Thesmophoriazusae hits so close to home in these days of the repulsive Political Correctness Police that the seeming unlikelihood of it was one of the reasons I kept postponing my examination of it. Its storyline has always seemed to me like it was lifted straight from accounts of any of the countless pro-censorship rallies mounted by various groups of perpetually offended fools on campuses across the country. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Ancient Greek Comedies, Aristophanes, Attic Old Comedy, Censorship, fascism, misandry, Rolling Stone rape hoax, Thesmophoria Women, Thesmophoriazusae, Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria, womyn

April 23, 2013 · 12:07 am

EIGHT ANCIENT GREEK COMEDIES WITH THEMES THAT ARE STILL RELEVANT

Map

The satirical comedies written and performed during the glory years of the ancient Athenian Democracy still pack a punch after more than 2,400 years. Athens faced many of the same issues and dilemmas we Americans face. Part of the reason for that is the fact that our founding fathers were great students of ancient Greek democracy and modeled some of our own institutions on the Athenian model.

The comedies are also much more sophisticated than modern audiences expect, featuring political views, sexual material and metatheatrical humor that seems several centuries ahead of their time. Breaking the fourth wall is not a postmodern concept like some people have convinced themselves – it was a convention established in these ancient works of comedy.

Irreverence toward any and all subjects – including the gods they worshipped – was permitted by the Athenians in the “anything goes” arena of the Theatre of Dionysus, where the comedies competed with each other at festivals, chiefly the Dionysia and the Lenaea.

TRIPHALLES – By Aristophanes. This comedy was a mythological burlesque and featured the fantastic story of the title character, a man with three penises. Mythological burlesques could be comedies that parodied the story of a specific mythological figure or could simply lampoon the grandiose approach of mythic tales. This would be done by employing the storytelling technique of a sweeping epic to tell a less-than-majestic story. Picture a modern-day grand opera about the John Holmes or Continue reading →

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Tagged as Ancient Greek Comedy, Aristophanes, Attic Old Comedy, Cratinus, Eupolis, Polyzelus, Triphalles

August 5, 2012 · 4:48 pm

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: THE BANQUETERS (427 BCE)

For background info on ancient Greek comedies and my previous reviews of them, click here (also features a list of my source books): https://glitternight.com/ancient-greek-comedies/

What Meet the Beatles was to the British Invasion, The Banqueters was to Attic Old Comedy. (Yes, I love silly comparisons) This play was the first comedy written by Aristophanes, the leading light of ancient Greek comedy, and was performed at the Lenaea festival of 427 BCE when Aristophanes was nineteen years old. The Banqueters won second prize, making it a very auspicious debut for the man often considered the greatest political satirist of the ancient world.

THE PLAY

The Banqueters is a comedy that once again lets us feel our shared humanity with the ancient Athenians, in this case over the perennial conflicts caused by Generation Gaps and the tension between pointlessly clinging to the past and pointlessly embracing new ideas just because they’re new, even though they may be just as flawed as the older ideas they replace. This is one of the many comedies of Aristophanes that survive in fragmentary form, not in their entirety.

SYNOPSIS

An Athenian landowner with staid, old-fashioned views is hosting a lavish banquet in honor of Heracles. The attendees are the landowners’ Phratry- brothers (think of a cross between college fraternity brothers and social lodge brothers) and they are the title banqueters who make up the chorus of the play, offering wry commentary on the action of the comedy, often with jokes that break the fourth wall and address the audience directly.

The landowner is using the event to Continue reading →

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Tagged as Alcibiades, Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Comedy, Aristodemus, Aristophanes, Athens, Attic Old Comedy, Generation gap, Greece, Lenaea, Meton, Pericles, Phratry, The Banqueters

July 20, 2012 · 12:16 am

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: ALCAEUS

Balladeer’s Blog has examined 24 ancient Greek comedies so far in terms of their continuing relevance over 2,400 years later. This will be the fourth time I will focus on one of the ancient Greek comedians whose entire corpus is very, very fragmentary, touching briefly on all of their known works. For background info on ancient Greek comedy plus my previous reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/ancient-greek-comedies/

ALCAEUS – This comic playwright came along for the tail end of Attic Old Comedy. Alcaeus’ career ranged from approximately 405 BCE to the 380s BCE and we have fragmentary remains of eight comedies from an unknown total body of work.

1. TRAGI-COMEDY – This play gave comedic treatment to the traditional rivalry between comedy and tragedy on the ancient Athenian stage. The comedy had fun with the Continue reading →

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Tagged as Alcaeus, Ancient Greek Comedy, Aristophanes, Athens, Attic Old Comedy, Callisto, Daedalus, Endymion, Ganymede, Greek mythology, Minos, Palaestra, Pasiphae, Satyr Play, Sisters in Adultery, Tragi-Comedy

June 28, 2012 · 12:13 am

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: LYSIPPUS

Balladeer’s Blog has examined 21 ancient Greek comedies so far in terms of their continuing relevance over 2,400 years later. This will be the third time I will focus on one of the ancient Greek comedians whose entire corpus is very, very fragmentary, touching briefly on all of their known works. For background info on ancient Greek comedy plus my previous reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/ancient-greek-comedies/

LYSIPPUS – This writer of Attic Old Comedy redefines the expression “fragmentary” because even less is known about his life than about shadowy figures like Susarion and Epicharmus. Lysippus came in 1st place with an unknown comedy at a Dionysia around 440 BCE. Fragmentary evidence survives from just three of his comedies out of an unknown total body of work so this will be my shortest blog post on ancient Greek comedy.

We’ll start with my favorite random quote from Lysippus’ fragments. It displays his pride in Athens and reflects the city-state’s status as the combined New York, Rome and Tokyo of its era: “If you have never come to Athens you are a fool. If you have come to Athens and not been captivated by her charms you are ignorant. If you have been captivated by the charms of Athens and ever left her you are but a beast.”

I. BACCHAE – Not to be confused with the various tragedies of the same title or the comedy by Diocles. Too little survives to tell if the play presented a comedic version of the tragic events depicted in other works titled Bacchae. The parabasis included the type of segment that would later be frequently repeated in Attic Old Comedy as Lysippus took shots at his competitors. That segment featured joking insults that break the fourth wall and Continue reading →

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Tagged as Ancient Greek Comedy, Aristophanes, Athens, Attic Old Comedy, Dionysia, Dionysus, Edward Wozniak, Epicharmus, Lysippus, Mockeries, Susarion

Tag Archives: Aristophanes

PYTINE aka THE WINE FLASK (423 B.C.)

MERCHANT SHIPS (424-421 B.C.) BY ARISTOPHANES

YES, THE FILM CHI-RAQ IS BASED ON LYSISTRATA

MERCHANT SHIPS (424-421 B.C.): ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

THESMOPHORIAZUSAE (circa 411 B.C.): ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY

EIGHT ANCIENT GREEK COMEDIES WITH THEMES THAT ARE STILL RELEVANT

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: THE BANQUETERS (427 BCE)

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: ALCAEUS

ANCIENT GREEK COMEDY: LYSIPPUS

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