People in the play: Euripides, Mnesilochus, A Servant of Agathon, Agathon, Crieress, Women, Cleisthenes, Critylla, A Policeman, A Scythian, Echo, Chorus of Thesmophoriazusae
Summary: The Thesmophoriazusae is a play by Aristophanes that focuses on a group of women in Athens who are upset with the playwright Euripides for mocking them. The women hold a meeting to discuss how to confront him and seek to protect their reputation.
When Ether first was mapped and parcelled out, And living creatures breathed and moved in her, She, to give sight, implanted in their heads The Eye, a mimic circlet of the Sun, And bored the funnel of the Ear, to hear with. (View Highlight)
The poet is discovered, surrounded by the most effeminate luxuries, and in the act ofwriting a tragic play. (View Highlight)
I was going to say - he is going to lay The stocks and the scaffolds for building a play. And neatly he hews them, and sweetly he glues them, And a proverb he takes, and an epithet makes, And he moulds a most waxen and delicate song, And he tunnels, and funnels, and - (View Highlight)
Lyre Elysian, heavenly vision, When thy witching tones arise, Comes the light of joy and gladness Flashing from immortal eyes.
Eyes will glisten, ears will listen, When our manful numbers ring. Mighty master, Son of Leto, Thine the glory, Thou the King. (View Highlight)
Expect not me to bear Your burdens; that were foolishness indeed.
Each man must bear his sorrows for himself. And troubles, when they come, must needs be met By manful acts, and not by shifty tricks. (View Highlight)
I choose my dress to suit my poesy. A poet, sir, must needs adapt his ways To the high thoughts which animate his soul.
And when he sings of women, he assumes A woman’s garb, and dons a woman’s habits. (View Highlight)
What nature gives us not, The human soul aspires to imitate. (View Highlight)
a poet never should be rough, Or harsh, or rugged. Witness to my words Anacreon, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Who when they filtered and diluted song, Wore soft Ionian manners and attire. (View Highlight)
For as the Worker, so the Work will be. (View Highlight)
Thesmophorium or Temple ofthe Home-givers. (View Highlight)
I don’t believe That there’s a single theatre or stage, But there is he, calling us double-dealers, False, faithless, tippling, mischief-making gossips, A rotten set, a misery to men. (View Highlight)
The men come home Looking so sour—O, we can see them peeping In every closet, thinking friends are there. (View Highlight)
But now this fellow writes his plays, and says There are no Gods; and so, you may depend, My trade is fallen to half; men won’t buy chaplets. (View Highlight)
you won’t discover any Penelope alive to-day, but Phaedras very many. (View Highlight)
And then he shall find that the Gods are not blind To what passes below; Yea, and all men shall know It is best to live purely, uprightly, securely, It is best to do well, And to practise day and night what is orderly and right, And in virtue and in honesty to dwell. (View Highlight)
We say Women are best; you men (just like you) deny it, Nothing on earth is so easy as to come to the test, and to try it. (View Highlight)
Men never speak a good word, never one, for the feminine gender, Every one says we’re a Plague, the source of all evils to man, War, dissension, and strife.
Come, answer me this, if you can; Why, if we’re really a Plague, you’re so anxious to have us for wives; (View Highlight)
Turn the step, and change the measure, Raise a loftier music now; Come, the Lord of wine and pleasure, Evoi, Bacchus, lead us thou! (View Highlight)
we’ve ended our say, and we’re going away, Like good honest women, straight home from the Play. (View Highlight)