Classical Athenian comic playwright (c. 446 – c. 386 BC)
Aristophanes (Greek: Ἀριστοφάνης; c. 446 – c. 386 BC) was a Greek poet and playwright of the Old Comedy, also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy. Of his forty plays, eleven are extant, plus a thousand fragments of the others.
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Native Name:
Ἀριστοφάνης
Alternative Names:
Father of Comedy
From Wikidata (CC0)
Cho. O mortal, who hast desired great wisdom from us!
How happy will you become among the Athenians and among
the Greeks, if you be possessed of a good memory, and be
a deep thinker, and endurance of labour be implanted in
your soul, and you be not wearied either by standing or
walking, nor be exceedingly vexed at shivering with
cold, nor long to break your fast, and you refrain from
wine, and gymnastics, and the other follies, and
consider this the highest excellence, as is proper a
clever man should, to conquer by action and counsel, and
by battling with your tongue.
STREPSIADES. Very well then! Look this way. Do you see that little door and that little house? PHIDIPPIDES. Yes, father. But what are you driving at? STREPSIADES. That is the school of wisdom. There, they prove that we are coals enclosed on all sides under a vast extinguisher, which is the sky. If well paid, these men also teach one how to gain law-suits, whether they be just or not. PHIDIPPIDES. What do they call themselves? STREPSIADES. I do not know exactly, but they are deep thinkers and most admirable people.
All we have to do is idly sit
indoors
With smooth roses powdered
on our cheeks,
Our bodies burning naked
through the fold
Of shining Amorgos' silk
and meet the men
With our dear Venus-plats
plucked trim and neat.
Their stirring love will rise
up furiously,
They'll beg our arms to
open. That's our time!
We'll disregard their knocking
beat them off
And they will soon be rabid
for a Peace
I'm sure of it.
"EPOPS But, after all, what sort of city would please you best?
EUELPIDES A place where the following would be the most important business transacted. — Some friend would come knocking at the door quite early in the morning saying, "By Olympian Zeus, be at my house early, as soon as you have bathed, and bring your children too. I am giving a nuptial feast, so don't fail, or else don't cross my threshold when I am in distress.
Strep. Tell me, O Socrates, I beseech you, by Jupiter,
who are these that have uttered this grand song? Are
they some heroines?
Soc. By no means; but heavenly Clouds, great divinities
to idle men; who supply us with thought and argument,
and intelligence and humbug, and circumlocution, and
ability to hoax, and comprehension
Strep. Socrates! My little Socrates!
Socrates. Why callest thou me, thou creature of a day?
Strep. First tell me, I beseech you, what are you doing.
Soc. I am walking in the air, and speculating about the
sun.
Strep. And so you look down upon the gods from your
basket, and not from the earth?
Soc. For I should not have rightly discovered things
celestial if I had not suspended the intellect, and
mixed the thought in a subtle form with its kindred air.
But if, being on the ground, I speculated from below on
things above, I should never have discovered them. For
the earth forcibly attracts to itself the meditative
moisture. Water-cresses also suffer the very same thing.
Strep. What do you say? Does meditation attract the
moisture to the water-cresses? Come then, my little
Socrates, descend to me, that you may teach me those
things, for the sake of which I have come.