Frogs quotes

Question 1

Slapstick humour

Answer 1

• Aeacus beating Dionysus and Xanthius

Question 2

literary criticism

Answer 2

• baggage handling routines as done in lycis’ and ameipsias’ plays are boring
• ‘a craving’ for Euripides - ‘those that aren’t dead are dreadful’
• needs someone adventurous
• people in the underworld are those who’ve sinned terribly- or ‘copied down a monologue from morsimus’ or ‘learnt that war-dance of cinesias’
• aeschylus described as ‘gesticulating portentously’ in the opening of all his tragedies
• Euripides against aeschylus: silence of main character, lengthy chorus pieces ‘thump out ode after ode’ ‘words as weighty as an ox’
• Euripides describes himself as slimming down aeschylus’ words, putting them on a diet
• Euripides lets all his characters speak an equal amount, uses gossip and domestic scenarios ‘we can relate to and engage with, issues inviting debate’ and telling his audience members how to keep a household in order by being aware of things that go on - ‘who’s nicked what’
• aeschylus’ characters were ‘tall and noble’ and inspired people to war which dionysus criticises
• euripides ‘aphrodite laid full on siege to you and your plays’ ‘what you wrote about other men’s wives rebounded onto you’
• Aeschylus criticises by Euripides ‘shouldn’t you communicate on a human scale?’
• Euripides dressed kings in rage, taught people to ‘waste time in idle chatter and gossip’ taught people to be sexual promiscuous
• aeschylus has contradictions in his writing, says the same thing with different wording
• aeschylus can deflate the impact of Euripides’ prologues ‘with a little bottle of olive oil’
• euripedes ‘i will reduce all his lyrics to one’
• critiquing one another lyrics poetry (aeschylus suggests castanets to accompany. Euripides parodies the predictable content and style of Aeschylus’ choral odes)

Question 3

real life references

Answer 3

• phrynichus’ plays make dionysus leave them with a year off his life
• ‘why didn’t i fight in that sea battle’ battle of arginusae, slaves could earn their freedom by fighting in it
• cleisthenes mocked for passive homosexuality
• ‘a calm weasel’ hegelochus’ mistake
• xanthius’ pun of bed bugs/corinthians- Corinthians were sparta’s strongest ally in the war against athens
• fear of slaves gossiping behind their masters backs ‘every time i curse my master behind his back, i feel like i’m in heaven’ or listening in on their masters conversations
• cephisophon- Euripides’ wife supposedly slept with him, credits him for some of his writing

Question 4

politics

Answer 4

• charon will only carry xanthius if he fought in the sea battle- xanthius says his reason for not was en eye infection- potentially a commonly used excuse to get out of fighting
• chorus of initiates criticising greedy magistrates, cleon who prosecuted aristophanes for a joe he made in babylonians
• chorus of initiates engage in gossip- Archedemus not belonging, Cleisthenes in ritual mourning because of sexual desperation, Callias son of ‘Hippoknickers’
• in the clothes swapping conundrum xanthius cries ‘i need a witness’, reference to anthenian litigation and obsession with law courts
• initiates on politicians taking a ‘u-turn towards an easier position’- thermenes, who established then overthrew the four hundred government
• pandoceutria and plathane threaten to bring out cleon and hyperbolas- two nasty dead politicians
• parabasis- everyone to be treated equally, advocate for clemency for those who were tricked into following the lead of Phrynichus, do more than what has been done in giving freedom to the slaves that fought- forgive the mistakes of those who’ve fought at sea- no restrictions in the rights of refugees. treating political leaders like the old and new coins- throwing away the honest, old good ones for the seemingly good quality new ones- actually fake and ‘the scum of the earth’. ‘go for gold again’
• asks for advice on alcibiades, e suggests getting rid of him bc he helps himself not the city, a warns of the danger of getting rid of someone you previously accepted

Question 5

scattalogical/silly humour

Answer 5

• opening conversation between xanthous and dionysus wondering which jokes to tell- bodily functions ‘fart’ ‘dump’ ‘feeling the squeeze’ ‘puke’
• ‘your seat’s here, fatty’
• ‘i am beginning to feel a pain, in the arse’
• dionysus poos himself out of fear of empusa
• smut of initiates ‘a little booby peeked out’
• ‘buffing my chickpea’

Question 6

just examples of humour

Answer 6

• xanthius carrying the load on his shoulders even though he’s on the donkey, dionysus suggests carrying the whole donkey
• Heracles laughs at dionysus’ ridiculous costume
• heracles’ mocking of Dionysus ‘craving’, as if it were desire
• heracles’ ways to get to the underworld as just examples of suicide (hanging, poison, jumping off a tower)
• corpse saying ‘strike me alive’
• Dionysus addressing the priest, promising to buy him a drink after
• clothes swapping (fear of aeacus, praise of maid tempting xanthius with a feast and beautiful dancing girls ‘very juicy’ and ‘freshly plucked’, anger of pandoceutria and plathane)
• witty ways in which xanthius and dionysus distract aeacus from the truth of whose the god- crying at the smell of onions, receiving verses from plays
• use of physical scales to test the weightiness of the lines ‘the weight of out phrases will prove our worth’. reasons for lines being heavy are (river soaking the line down, death is the weightiest of evils, ‘chariot on chariot, corpse on corpse’)

Question 7

chorus of frogs

Answer 7

• magnificently dressed, music and singing (charon- ‘the amazing melodies of swan-frogs)
• dionysus engages with them, singing back at them, succeeding in stopping them by ‘borrowing’ their ‘refrain’

Question 8

dionysus

Answer 8

• dionysus can’t row- and the exertion of trying makes him need to poo
• hides behind xanthius out of fear of empusa the shape shifter
• again poos himself because of fear of aeacus
• ‘let’s have a civilised debate’

Question 9

chorus of initiates

Answer 9

• saying who they would not let into their chorus; those who have shed blood, who are ‘impure of mind’, do not know the rites of the muses or the steps of the dance, uninitiated in the bacchiwc rites
• encourage xanthius to act bravely to ensure the success of his disguise as heracles
• invokes the nine muses before the debate starts

Question 10

role of a playwright

Answer 10

• parabasis ‘it is right for a holy chorus to encourage and instruct the city in what’s good for it’
• should admire a poet for ‘his cleverness and good advice. because we make people in our cities better’
• orpheus taught men not to murder, mussaeus gave oracles and cures for diseases, hesiod taught about harvest and crops and ploughing and soil, homer taught battle order, courage and weaponry
• dionysus wantsa playwright whose not afraid to take a risk, the chorus of initiates encourages them to ‘take a risk, say something smart and subtle’
• euripedes introduces to his audience a kind of wisdom ‘bringing questioning and reason to my art’
  -aeschylus scolds euripedes for not keeping bad mistakes hidden, namely that of phaedra

Question 11

Euripides

Answer 11

• came down and tried to claim the thorne of the greatest playwright, having been made to believe by the crooks of the underworld that he was so intelligent
• described by a as ‘cocky cripple-monger’
• prayer to his own ‘special gods’, humanist attitude ‘air…tongue…wit…nostrils’ an attitude that goes wrong in ‘clouds’

Question 12

aeschylus

Answer 12

• offered the throne to sophocles, who didn’t want it, and decided to sit in reserve
• ‘my poetry has not died with me as it has with him’
• invokes demeter