Aristophanes, Frogs 1463–5

Alan H. Sommerstein

doi:10.1017/S0009838800030202

Aristophanes, Frogs 1463–5

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

Alan H. Sommerstein

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This passage has long embarrassed interpreters, and many, beginning with Kock, have condemned it as spurious (generally bracketing 1460–6). But this would mean that Aeschylus' only answer to Dionysus' question (1436) ‘what <way to> safety have you for the city?’ would be, in effect, ‘none’ (1458 ) : and this would hardly justify the general confidence expressed in the final scene (1501 f., 1530 ff.) that Aeschylus will in fact be able to save the city. The most recent editor, Stanford, rightly rejects the idea of interpolation here.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , May 1974 , pp. 24 - 27

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800030202 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1974

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^{page 24 note 1} Aristophanes: The Frogs, ed. W. B. Stanford, 2nd edn., London and New York, 1963. Wilamowitz (Hermes, lxiv [1929[, 474) deletes only 1462–6, and sees Aeschylus' refusal (1461) to answer the question while in the underworld as explaining and indeed necessitating Dionysus' decision to take him back to the upper world; this ignores not only 1420 f. (see page 26), but also Dionysus' blunt instruction (1460) ‘Find <a way to save the city>, if you want to go back up there again’.

^{page 24 note 2} Hermes, lxxxiv (1956), 296–319.Google Scholar

^{page 24 note 3} Aristophanes: The Frogs and other plays, tr. D. Barrett, Harmondsworth, 1964.

^{page 24 note 4} In the parabasis the advice is in a purely positive form (, 735), whereas Euripides' advice is both positive and negative—to trust one group of citizens and not to trust another group; but this difference is unlikely to be significant.

^{page 24 note 5} D. M. MacDowell in C.Q. ix (1959), 261–8. MacDowell's own arrangement of the contest, however, does not meet the objection of Apollonius 5437) that Euripides, after being asked for one (435), is allowed to give two, nor does it satisfactorily account for the of 14.42; and the simple solution proposed long ago by Dindorf still seems the best: that 1437–41+ 1451–3 on the one hand, and 5442–50 on the other, are alternative versions, probably stemming from the two productions of the play (see Hypotheses I and III), which were conflated at an early date. This solution makes transpositions, lacunae, and deletions alike unnecessary.