Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/16

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Aristophanes' Plays

much with them. Nevertheless he has many passages which are inspired by a real and nobly-expressed patriotism. He is essentially a product of his own age in his strange combination of broad farce and poetic beauty—for his lyrics, careless as they may seem compared with the choruses of Sophocles, have yet a charm and an enduring freshness which place their writer among the great poets of the world. And finally, though the conception of humour has changed with the centuries, yet the high spirits that surcharged all his comedy, his incomparable energy and rapidity, his power of making his quaintest fancies real and credible, have given him a hold upon the modern world as sure as that of any other Greek poet except Homer.

J. P. MAINE.


English Translations of works and of two or more plays: T. Mitchell (four plays), 1820-22; J. W. Warter (four plays), 1830; C. A. Wheelwright, 1837; B. D. Walsh (three plays), 1837; W. J. Hickie (from Dindorf's text), Bohn, 1848, etc.; J. H. Frere (Acharnians, Knights, Birds), 1839, 1840; L. H. Rudd (eight plays), 1867; with occasional comments by J. H. Frere and introduction by Morley (three plays), Morley's Universal Library, 1886; Β. B. Rogers (Gr. and Eng.), 1902, etc.; World's Classics (four plays by J. H. Frere), introduction by W. W. Merry. 1907; New Universal Library (five plays, translation, and essay on Aristophanic Comedy by J. H. Frere), 1908; see also Lubbock's Hundred Best Books, No. 69 (Frere's translation of Aristophanes, with plays by Sophocles and Euripides by other translators); Selections from Aristophanes with notes, A. Sidgwick, 1871, 1876-79. Other translations of single plays.