versification of Euripides's plays than against his philosophy.[1]
The 'Thesmophoria,' or great feast of Ceres and Proserpine, from which this comedy takes its name, was exclusively a women's festival, and none of the other sex were allowed to be present at its celebration. Euripides had the reputation among his contemporaries of being a woman-hater, and he had undoubtedly said bitter things of them in many of his tragedies.[2] But to those who remember his characters of Iphigenia, and Theonöe, and the incomparable Alcestis, the reproach may well seem much too general. However, in this comedy the women of Athens are supposed to have resolved upon his condign punishment; and at this next festival they are to sit in solemn conclave, to determine the mode in which it is to be carried out. Euripides has heard of it, and is in great dismay. He goes, in the opening scene, accompanied by his father-in-law Mnesilochus, to his friend and fellow-dramatist Agathon, to beg him to go to the festival disguised in woman's clothes, and there plead his cause for him. He would do it himself, but that he is so well known, and has such a huge rough beard, while Agathon is
- ↑ See, however, on this question, 'Euripides' (Anc. Cl.), p. 37, &c.
- ↑ Perhaps his most bitter words are those addressed to Phædra by Bellerophon, in the lost tragedy of that name,—
"O thou most vile! thou—woman!—For what word
That lips could frame could carry more reproach?"But we must not forget Shakspeare's—"Frailty, thy name is woman!" or judge the poet too harshly by a passionate expression put into the mouth of one of his characters.
