The Dionysian Wild, Part 2: Frogs

Enter Aristophanes, drinking wine

Sep 27, 2024

It must have been in 2010 or so, as Borders Books was still in operation (they closed in 2011 after being destroyed by the upstart Amazon) and I was looking for books for a course I would be teaching, Classical Myth and Literature. Marygrove College, where I taught at the time, did not regularly offer a course like this—unconscionable for an ostensibly Catholic liberal arts school—and I was disconcerted that students in literature courses had no frame of reference for the numerous allusions to classical myth and literature that routinely pop up in what used to be called the Western Canon. They also, for the most part, didn’t have any frame of reference for biblical allusions; but that’s another (sad) story. I had to fight to get this course on the schedule: the Chair of the Humanities Department thought I was invading her turf because a similar HUM course was in the course catalogue. “But you never offer it,” I told her. That wasn’t the point, as far as she was concerned. What she did offer were courses on African studies, Caribbean studies, post-colonial studies, and feminist studies (SHE WAS ONE OF THOSE), but no Western myth. But I fought and won. Yay for our side. But back to Borders.

So there I was at the Borders in Southgate, Michigan in the Classical section trying to find a decent translation of Aristophanes’s comic masterpiece Frogs. I stood there in the aisle, reading and LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF. I was making something of a spectacle of myself, but I couldn’t help it. I laughed so hard I cried. I even had to sit down to compose myself. For those who might not be familiar with Aristophanes and who might expect Classical Greek comedy to be a highbrow and stuffy affair, all I can say is that you could not be more wrong. The play, which parodies the standard mythological trope of the journey to the Underworld, features the god of wine himself, Dionysus (who is described as “a paunchy middle-aged man”—a far, far cry from the deity of The Bacchae) and his slave Xanthias who are on their way to Hades to find a poet who can save the City (Athens, of course) from cultural, moral, and political decay. The two poets Dionysus has in mind are the tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides. They are lofty poets, indeed; but the dialogue between the god and his slave does not begin on the high road:

XANTHIAS: How about one of the old gags, sir? I can always get a laugh with those.

DIONYSUS: All right, only don’t say, ‘God, what a heavy load!’ I’ve had enough of that sort of thing already.

XANTHIAS: Something a bit wittier then?

DIONYSUS: Yes, but don’t start with ‘Oh, my poor neck!’

XANTHIAS: What can I give them, then? Shall I say something really funny?

DIONYSUS: By all means. Just don’t shift the pole about and say. . .

XANTHIAS: What?

DIONYSUS: . . . that you need a crap.

XANTHIAS: How about this then: ‘If nobody will take away my pack / I’ll fart so hard it’ll blow off my back.’

DIONYSUS: Save that one till I need to throw up.[1]

Not exactly highbrow! And here, as elsewhere, Aristophanes draws attention to the fact that what we are watching (or reading) is indeed a play—an artificial construction. His characters, as with their descendants The Marx Brothers, habitually break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience, a great Aristophanean device. Likewise, the relationship between master and slave, with the slave regularly proving the more intelligent (or at least equal) to the master is a theatrical tradition Aristophanes may have been the first to exploit, and which flourished in Roman comedy as well as American film and television, as seen, for example, in the wonderfully comic relationship of Jack Benny and his valet, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson (who is also wonderful in one of my favorite films of all-time, Topper Returns):

One of my favorite scenes (and this play is loaded with great bits) is when Dionysus and Xanthias are trying to find someone to help them get to Hades. They ask Heracles (he’s been to Hades before after all), who gives them all kinds of suggestions (mostly gags about committing suicide as a quick way to make the trip) before he tells Dionysus he can get a lift from Charon the boatman across the Styx—but the luggage will have to go via another route. They see a funeral passing by, and Dionysus has an inspiration:

DIONYSUS: Look, here’s one now. I’ll ask him. Er—hello, excuse me! Yes, you there! Corpse!

[The BEARERS come to a halt. The CORPSE sits upright with a jerk.]

How would you like to take my baggage to hell?

CORPSE: How many pieces?

DIONYSUS: Just these.

CORPSE: That’ll be two drachmas.

DIONYSUS: What? That’s far too much!

CORPSE: Bearers, proceed!

DIONYSUS: Hey, wait a minute! Can’t we come to some arrangement?

CORPSE: Two drachmas up front, or no deal.

DIONYSUS: [Counting his change] I’ve got. . . nine obols. What do you say?

CORPSE: I’d sooner live again! [He lies down again with a jerk].

The bearers move on.

Unable to arrange a deal, Dionysus pays Charon (who makes Dionysus row!) and crosses the Styx—while poor Xanthias is forced to carry the luggage around the long way. What a way to make a living!

The title of the play comes from the chorus of frogs who taunt Dionysus as he crosses the river and are known by their refrain (which James Joyce would later appropriate): Brekekekex, koax, koax! And, of course, Aristophanes is not too lofty as to avoid more low comedy:

DIONYSUS: I don’t want to row anymore,

FROGS: koax!

DIONYSUS: My bottom is getting too sore,

FROGS: koax!

DIONYSUS: But what do you care? / You’re nothing but air, / And your koax is really a bore—

It is silly, silly stuff.

After more hilarity, Dionysus and Xanthias do finally make it to Hades and find the great tragedians. The setting is that of a court (in classical Athens, as the birthplace of democracy, courts—and rhetoric—became increasingly important in this new political experiment). The goal of the trial is to discover who is more fitting for leading the City back to greatness—Aeschylus, the traditional (if somewhat old fashioned) purveyor of Greek political, religious, and poetic piety, or Euripides, the innovator and revolutionary in politics, religion, and poetry.

And while much silliness attends this debate, the undergirding is as serious as a heart attack: what poet (or playwright) can we call from Hades to save the City? That’s a question we should all be asking.

This was a problem that confronted Martin Heidegger in the mid-twentieth century. In the aftermath of two world wars and the absolute devastation unleashed by innovations in technology, Heidegger was convinced he lived in “the age of the world’s night” and that in this space “the abyss of the world must be experienced and endured. But for this it is necessary that there be those who reach into the abyss.”[2] And those who reach into the abyss are the poets, those who are called to the poetic vocation in “a destitute time” –times like Aristophanes’s, like Heidegger’s, like our own. As Heidegger writes, “To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world’s night utters the holy.”[3]

The problem is that no one, really, reads poetry in our destitute times.

This was not always the case. I remember watching a documentary on the Kennedys twenty-five, maybe thirty years ago. In the film, a young Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is interviewed and asked about his father’s response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. His answer struck me deeply: “He was reading the poets.” I seem to recall him mentioning Aeschylus and Tennyson, but I could be misremembering. Who would you read after the assassination of your brother and closest friend?

The idea of a trial put forth by Aristophanes, though comic, is very serious. Because poetry, even comic poetry like Aristophanes’s, is a very serious business. The French poet, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, for example, mentions a trial heard by the Paris avant-garde literati following the premiere of his friend Guillaume Apollinaire’s play Les Mamelles des Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias):

“At this tribunal, where I was beside Apollinaire, he moved from the role of judge to culprit. He was accused of having compromised dogma in a ludicrous way, by entrusting his sets and costumes to Serge Ferat…. We all loved Apollinaire. I record this episode to show what pinheads we were dancing on. The slightest prank was suspect. It was consigned to experts and usually ended in condemnation…. Do not laugh. It was a noble, distinguished age when such delicacies of meanings tormented the minds of the artists. Picasso is right in saying that a government which would punish a painter for choosing the wrong color or the wrong line would be an impressive government.”[4]

A scene from Cocteau’s film Orphée (1950), loosely based on the tribunal:

Not surprisingly, I am among those who think there are poets who can save the City, the Polis. Ultimately in Frogs, Dionysus chooses Aeschylus—though the god himself is a huge fan of Euripides and quotes his plays at length throughout the comedy. As Pluto, god of the Underworld, says after Dionysus makes his choice: “Goodbye then, Aeschylus. Off you go with your sound advice—and save the city for us. Educate the fools. You’ll find a good many.”

Then let’s pretend, you and I, that we live in a culture that reads the poets. We, those who live in the age of the world’s night, in a destitute time—whom should we call from the land of the dead in order to save the City? Let me know in the comments.

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