The Knights: "A man may learn wisdom even from a foe"
()
About this ebook
The reality is that little is known of Aristophanes actual life but eleven of his forty plays survive intact and upon those rest his deserved reputation as the Father of Comedy or, The Prince of Ancient Comedy. Accounts agree that he was born sometime between 456BC and 446 BC. Many cities claim the honor of his birthplace and the most probable story makes him the son of Philippus of Ægina, and therefore only an adopted citizen of Athens, a distinction which, at times could be cruel, though he was raised and educated in Athens. His plays are said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more realistically than any other author could. Intellectually his powers of ridicule were feared by his influential contemporaries; Plato himself singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as a slander that contributed to the trial and condemning to death of Socrates and although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher his carried the most weight. His now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes seems to have taken this criticism to heart and thereafter caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights. His life and playwriting years were undoubtedly long though again accounts as to the year of his death vary quite widely. What can be certain is that his legacy of surviving plays is in effect both a treasured legacy but also in itself the only surviving texts of Ancient Greek comedy.
Read more from Aristophanes .
The Acharnians: "A man's homeland is wherever he prospers" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frogs: "Under every stone lurks a politician" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Clouds: "High thoughts must have high language" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Birds: "You should not decide until you have heard what both have to say" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Thesmophoriazusae: "Let each man exercise the art he knows" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wasps: "Evil events from evil causes spring" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peace: "As I told you, this is his form of madness" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lysistrata: "Love is simply the name for the desire and the pursuit of the whole" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plutus: "What an unhppy fate, to be the slave of a fool" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ecclesiazusae: "The wise learn many things from their enemies" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Knights
Related ebooks
The Knights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Plays of Aristophanes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wasps: "Evil events from evil causes spring" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Acharnians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Complete Works of Aristophanes (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLysistrata and Other Plays (Translated with Annotations by The Athenian Society) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eleven Comedies: Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComedy Can Be Murder: An Aristophanes Murder-Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiterary and General Lectures and Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassical Comedy: Greek and Roman: Six Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Eleven Comedies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ecclesiazusae: "The wise learn many things from their enemies" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Eleven Comedies Vol. 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe wasps - The birds - The frogs - The Thesmophoriazusae - The Ecclesiazusae Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlcestis: "One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Penumbra Vol. 3: Speak: The Penumbra, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Eleven Comedies: Vol II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlcestis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Eleven Comedies Volume I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trojan Women of Euripides Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeace: "As I told you, this is his form of madness" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Eleven Comedies of Aristophanes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe knights - The Acharnians - Peace - Lysistrata - The clouds. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wasps Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Complete Aristophanes Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAntony and Cleopatra (Annotated by Henry N. Hudson with an Introduction by Charles Harold Herford) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Performing Arts For You
Romeo and Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: From Renowned Expert Dog Trainer and Host of Lucky Dog: Reunions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamlet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diamond Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Comedy Bible: From Stand-up to Sitcom--The Comedy Writer's Ultimate "How To" Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whale / A Bright New Boise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hollywood's Dark History: Silver Screen Scandals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best Women's Monologues from New Plays, 2020 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fifth Mountain: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How I Learned to Drive (Stand-Alone TCG Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Dolls House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count Of Monte Cristo (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Life in Parts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Strange Loop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Knights
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Knights - Aristophanes .
The Knights by Aristophanes
Translated from the Greek.
The reality is that little is known of Aristophanes actual life but eleven of his forty plays survive intact and upon those rest his deserved reputation as the Father of Comedy or, The Prince of Ancient Comedy.
Accounts agree that he was born sometime between 456BC and 446 BC. Many cities claim the honor of his birthplace and the most probable story makes him the son of Philippus of Ægina, and therefore only an adopted citizen of Athens, a distinction which, at times could be cruel, though he was raised and educated in Athens.
His plays are said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more realistically than any other author could. Intellectually his powers of ridicule were feared by his influential contemporaries; Plato himself singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as a slander that contributed to the trial and condemning to death of Socrates and although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher his carried the most weight.
His now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes seems to have taken this criticism to heart and thereafter caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights.
His life and playwriting years were undoubtedly long though again accounts as to the year of his death vary quite widely. What can be certain is that his legacy of surviving plays is in effect both a treasured legacy but also in itself the only surviving texts of Ancient Greek comedy.
Index of Contents
The Introduction
The Persons
Scene
THE KNIGHTS
Aristophanes – A Short Biography
Aristophanes – A Concise Bibliography
INTRODUCTION
This was the fourth play in order of time produced by Aristophanes on the Athenian stage; it was brought out at the Lenaean Festival, in January, 424 B.C. Of the author's previous efforts, two, 'The Revellers' and 'The Babylonians,' were apparently youthful essays, and are both lost. The other, 'The Acharnians,' forms the first of the three Comedies dealing directly with the War and its disastrous effects and urging the conclusion of Peace; for this reason it is better ranged along with its sequels, the 'Peace' and the 'Lysistrata,' and considered in conjunction with them.
In many respects 'The Knights' may be reckoned the great Comedian's masterpiece, the direct personal attack on the then all-powerful Cleon, with its scathing satire and tremendous invective, being one of the most vigorous and startling things in literature. Already in 'The Acharnians' he had threatened to cut up Cleon the Tanner into shoe-leather for the Knights,
and he now proceeds to carry his menace into execution, concentrating the whole force of his wit in the most unscrupulous and merciless fashion against his personal enemy.
In the first-mentioned play Aristophanes had attacked and satirized the whole general policy of the democratic party—and incidentally Cleon, its leading spirit and mouthpiece since the death of Pericles; he had painted the miseries of war and invasion arising from this mistaken and mischievous line of action, as he regarded it, and had dwelt on the urgent necessity of peace in the interests of an exhausted country and ruined agriculture. Now he turns upon Cleon personally, and pays him back a hundredfold for the attacks the demagogue had made in the Public Assembly on the daring critic, and the abortive charge which the same unscrupulous enemy had brought against him in the Courts of having slandered the city in the presence of foreigners.
In this bitterness of spirit the play stands in strong contrast with the good-humoured burlesque of 'The Acharnians' and the 'Peace,' or, indeed, with any other of the author's productions which has reached us.
The characters are five only. First and foremost comes Demos, 'The People,' typifying the Athenian democracy, a rich householder—a self-indulgent, superstitious, weak creature. He has had several overseers or factors in succession, to look after his estate and manage his slaves. The present one is known as 'the Paphlagonian,' or sometimes as 'the Tanner,' an unprincipled, lying, cheating, pilfering scoundrel, fawning and obsequious to his master, insolent towards his subordinates. Two of these are Nicias and Demosthenes. Here we have real names. Nicias was High Admiral of the Athenian navy at the time, and Demosthenes one of his Vice-Admirals; both held still more important commands later in connection with the Sicilian Expedition of 415-413 B.C. Fear of consequences apparently prevented the poet from doing the same in the case of Cleon, who is, of course, intended under the names of 'the Paphlagonian' and 'the Tanner.' Indeed, so great was the terror inspired by the great man that no artist was found bold enough to risk his powerful vengeance by caricaturing his features, and no actor dared to represent him on the stage. Aristophanes is said to have played the part himself, with his face, in the absence of a mask, smeared with wine-lees, roughly mimicking the purple and bloated visage of the demagogue. The remaining character is 'the Sausage-seller,' who is egged on by Nicias and Demosthenes to oust 'the Paphlagonian' from Demos' favour by outvying him in his own arts of impudent flattery, noisy boasting and unscrupulous allurement. After a fierce and stubbornly contested trial of wits and interchange