Analysis "The Bronze Horseman" Pushkin. Satirical depiction of the activities of the highest organs of the Athenian democracy

"Riders"(Ἱππεῖς; Att. Ἱππῆς; Lat. Equites) - fourth famous play Aristophanes, master of the old comedy.

Characteristics of comedy

The work itself is a satire on the socio-political life of classical Athens during the Peloponnesian War. This feature is characteristic of all the playwright's early plays. The text that has survived to this day is replete with attacks against Cleon with his pro-war demagogy. The comedy relies heavily on allegory, which was very familiar to the Athenians of this era and needs to be commented on today. In particular, Cleon to his rival in the play, the Sausage Man, often hints at the rich Asia Minor policy of Miletus:

Cleon: Though you eat flounder, you will not master the Milesians. Sausage man: What? Yes, having drunk jelly to my heart's content, and I will buy mines.

Most likely, these are the benefits that the inhabitants of Miletus drew from the mines that they managed to get under Histia. Comedy in 424 received first prize in the competition of playwrights. It is not only a parody of Athens contemporary to Aristophanes, it not only contains anti-war pathos, but also widely presents the themes of justice, caring for the native policy, incompatible with stupidity, greed and idle talk.

Synopsis

Old Demos (Greek for "the people") is fooled by his Paphlagonian slave. Two other slaves of Demos, Nicias and Demosthenes, come to the conclusion that they can no longer tolerate the antics of the master's favorite. They find in the things of the Paphlagonian the text of the prophecy, according to which the sausage-maker named Agoracritus (a man who shouts at a public meeting is often not on business and spreads false information, talker) will be able to overthrow the Paphlagonian. Demosthenes and Nicias arrange on Pnyx, the meeting place of the ekklesia (council of the Athenian elders), a contest between the rude Agoracritus and the Paphlagonian. Thanks to the inherent qualities of the sausage - the ability to flatter, bragging, resourcefulness, he defeats him and turns into a favorite of Demos. The latter, having stopped listening to the Paphlagonian in everything, again becomes young and strong. The choir that accompanies the action of the comedy consists of worthy citizens - riders who, not in words, but in deeds, defend the fatherland. It is noteworthy that Agoracritus, having defeated the Paphlagonian, dedicates the victory to the god Zeus, and not to any folk deity; moreover, the mention of Athena, the patroness of the policy, makes this victory the will of the gods. A simple person, with many shortcomings, can also influence the course of history, and, in this case, works a miracle: he defeats an experienced demagogue. The latter has to take on the craft of a happy rival - to become a sausage maker.

The circumstances of the comedy

The Riders were staged in the theater at a time when, after a successful Pylos campaign, Cleon was at the zenith of power. The merits of Nikias and Demosthenes, two strategists of the time of the Peloponnesian War, who organized a brilliant military operation to capture the island of Sphracteria and the harbor of Pylos, went unnoticed. When the Athenians besieged the Spartans on Sphracteria, Nicias considered this an opportune moment for making peace. In the Athenian popular assembly, a debate began between the demagogue Cleon and Nikias. In the end, the storming of the Sphracteria was entrusted to Cleon, perhaps in the capacity of an extraordinary liturgy. But, in fact, Cleon's participation was reduced only to helping Demosthenes acting there. Honors - the right to sit in the theater on the front row, a lifelong dinner in the pritanae (Athenian council) went to Cleon. Moreover, the Athenians choose him as a strategist. Nicias, on the other hand, makes a successful campaign against Corinth, but despite the successes accompanying him during this period, he advocated an end to hostilities with Sparta (which was reflected in the comedy). Cleon, leader of the Democrats, vehemently insisted on continuing the war. His political activity associated with lawsuits against the supporters of Pericles (a hint of minor "procedures" is in the text of the comedy). Thucydides in "History" denies Cleon any good qualities, and Aristophanes himself emphasizes that only vices allowed Cleon to set the tone in the popular assembly and be popular with the demos. However, it is possible that there were also personal hostile relations between the demagogue and the "father of comedy." Cleon was no match for the Spartan Brasidas, and eventually died at the Battle of Amphipolis, where the Athenians were defeated.

Translations into Russian

The comedy was translated into Russian by A. Piotrovsky, A. Stankevich and V. Yarkho. .

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Notes

An excerpt characterizing the Riders (comedy)

Dolokhov's appearance struck Petya strangely with its simplicity.
Denisov dressed in a chekmen, wore a beard and on his chest the image of Nicholas the Wonderworker, and in his manner of speaking, in all methods, he showed the peculiarity of his position. Dolokhov, on the other hand, who had previously worn a Persian suit in Moscow, now looked like the most prim guards officer. His face was clean-shaven, he was dressed in a Guards padded frock coat with Georgy in his buttonhole and in a plain cap put on directly. He took off his wet cloak in the corner and, going up to Denisov, without greeting anyone, immediately began to question him about the matter. Denisov told him about the plans that large detachments had for their transport, and about sending Petya, and about how he answered both generals. Then Denisov told everything he knew about the position of the French detachment.
“That’s true, but you need to know what and how many troops,” Dolokhov said, “it will be necessary to go. Without knowing exactly how many there are, one cannot go into business. I like to do things carefully. Here, if any of the gentlemen wants to go with me to their camp. I have my uniforms with me.
- I, I ... I will go with you! Petya screamed.
“You don’t need to go at all,” Denisov said, turning to Dolokhov, “and I won’t let him go for anything.”
- That's great! Petya cried out, “why shouldn’t I go? ..
- Yes, because there is no need.
"Well, you'll have to excuse me, because... because... I'll go, that's all." Will you take me? he turned to Dolokhov.
- Why ... - Dolokhov answered absently, peering into the face of the French drummer.
- How long have you had this young man? he asked Denisov.
- Today they took it, but they don’t know anything. I left it pg "and myself.
Well, where are you going with the rest? Dolokhov said.
- How to where? I’m sending you under Mr. Aspis! - Denisov suddenly turned red, exclaimed. - And I can boldly say that there is not a single person on my conscience. than magic, I pg, I’ll say, the honor of a soldier.
“It’s decent for a young count at sixteen to say these courtesies,” Dolokhov said with a cold smile, “but it’s time for you to leave it.
“Well, I’m not saying anything, I’m only saying that I will certainly go with you,” Petya said timidly.
“But it’s time for you and me, brother, to give up these courtesies,” Dolokhov continued, as if he found particular pleasure in talking about this subject that irritated Denisov. “Well, why did you take this with you?” he said, shaking his head. "Then why do you feel sorry for him?" After all, we know these receipts of yours. You send a hundred of them, and thirty will come. They will die of hunger or be beaten. So isn't it all the same to not take them?
Esaul, narrowing his bright eyes, nodded his head approvingly.
- It's all g "Absolutely, there's nothing to argue about. I don't want to take it on my soul. You talk" ish - help "ut". Just not from me.
Dolokhov laughed.
“Who didn’t tell them to catch me twenty times?” But they will catch me and you, with your chivalry, all the same on an aspen. He paused. “However, the work must be done. Send my Cossack with a pack! I have two French uniforms. Well, are you coming with me? he asked Petya.
- I? Yes, yes, certainly, - Petya, blushing almost to tears, cried out, looking at Denisov.
Again, while Dolokhov was arguing with Denisov about what should be done with the prisoners, Petya felt awkward and hasty; but again he did not have time to understand well what they were talking about. “If big, well-known think like that, then it’s necessary, so it’s good,” he thought. - And most importantly, it is necessary that Denisov does not dare to think that I will obey him, that he can command me. I will certainly go with Dolokhov to the French camp. He can, and I can."
To all Denisov's persuasion not to travel, Petya replied that he, too, was accustomed to doing everything carefully, and not Lazarus at random, and that he never thought of danger to himself.
“Because,” you yourself will agree, “if you don’t know exactly how many there are, life depends on it, maybe hundreds, and here we are alone, and then I really want this, and I will certainly, certainly go, you won’t stop me.” “It will only get worse,” he said.

Dressed in French overcoats and shakos, Petya and Dolokhov went to the clearing from which Denisov looked at the camp, and, leaving the forest in complete darkness, went down into the hollow. Having moved down, Dolokhov ordered the Cossacks accompanying him to wait here and rode at a large trot along the road to the bridge. Petya, trembling with excitement, rode beside him.
“If we get caught, I won’t give myself up alive, I have a gun,” Petya whispered.
“Don’t speak Russian,” Dolokhov said in a quick whisper, and at the same moment a hail was heard in the darkness: “Qui vive?” [Who's coming?] and the sound of a gun.
Blood rushed into Petya's face, and he grabbed the pistol.
- Lanciers du sixieme, [Lancers of the sixth regiment.] - Dolokhov said, without shortening or adding speed to the horse. The black figure of a sentry stood on the bridge.
- Mot d "ordre? [Review?] - Dolokhov held his horse back and rode at a pace.
– Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici? [Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?] he said.

Aristophanes staged the comedy The Riders on the Athenian stage, which denounced the aggressive policy of the all-powerful Cleon, leader of the Athenian radical democracy . According to the stories, none of the actors dared to play Cleon, and the artists refused to make his caricature mask. Then Aristophanes himself made a mask and played the role of Cleon. The vase contemporary to Aristophanes depicts a choir of Horsemen. People in blankets and horse masks hold others on their shoulders in traditional costumes. This is a typical choir of mummers, after which the comedy is named. Its plot is based on famous fairy tale Russian type about Kashchei the immortal. The action of the "Horsemen" takes place on the street in front of the house of the decrepit and out of mind old man Demos (in Greek, "demos" - the people). Demos has many slaves, and they all languish under the rule of the disgusting favorite of Demos the Tanner (Cleon, who in fact was engaged in leather craft). Two slaves, in which the audience easily recognized famous Athenian commanders Nikiya and Demosthenes(not to be confused with the orator Demosthenes!), steal his talisman from the Tanner and find out that he is destined to rule over Demos,

Until another is found, the ugliest...

Inspired by the hope of getting rid of the Leatherworker, the slaves go to the market and there they find the disgusting Sausage Man (Agorakrit) selling offal. A verbal contest (agon) begins between the Kozhevnik and the Kolbasnik. With the help of a choir of riders, representing the most influential and wealthy class of the Athenians (those who had the opportunity to serve in the army on horseback), the Kolbasnik becomes the winner. According to the plot of "Riders", the Athenian aristocrats unite against Cleon with another, even more resourceful rogue.

The contest between the tanner and the sausage maker takes place in front of Demos. This weak-willed and childish old man chooses an ignorant and unprincipled sausage maker instead of a tanner as his favorite. The sausage man turns into a wonderful hero-savior. He dips Demos in boiling water to rejuvenate him. Demos really comes out of the water rejuvenated, turning into a beautiful young man, as, according to Aristophanes, the Athenian people were once, in the glorious times of Marathon and Salamis. Agorakrita Demos invites you to a feast with promenading women

Aristophanes exposes the political failure of Cleon in The Horsemen, using various satirical devices. Thus, the cry of the Leatherworker is like the sound of a waterfall; the chorus calls him "the insatiable Charybdis"; speaking in the national assembly, Kozhevnik throws "an avalanche of rumbling words" at the listeners. Hyperbolization is replaced by grotesque or a kind of allegory. Emphasizing, for example, the demagoguery of Cleon, who fawns on the people with flattery and handouts, Aristophanes makes the Leatherworker rush headlong to the sneezing Demos and expose his head to him with a cry:

Oh my hair
People, sushi, blowing your nose, fingers!

The Riders played out at an exceptionally fast pace. The actors and the choir ran, fussed, fought, shouted. Only for a short time was the silence restored, which was brought by the parabasa - the song of the choir, in which its participants took off their masks and, turning to the audience, explained to them the main idea of ​​the comedy. In the "Horsemen" parabasa, the coryphaeus of the choir spoke seriously and heartfeltly about the difficult but noble work of the comedic poet, and then the choir sang a hymn in honor of Athens.

The viewer of the comedy was immediately immersed in the parodic skill of Aristophanes, who carried out the idea: the people's assembly has miserably decomposed, and clever adventurers are seizing power over it.

Immediately, the comedian gives a parody of oracles. Here is the parabasa, which interrupts the action of the "Horsemen" and in which Aristophanes expresses his literary views, specifically about the comedians Magnet, Kratin and Kratet, their recent predecessors. Here is the choir, of young aristocratic horsemen, only formally resembling a religious choral action. Here is the magical effect of water, and ancient idea dying and resurrecting god, which Aristophanes uses for a sarcastic parody: the current society, he wants to say, can only be improved by destroying it completely (boiling it in boiling water). Here is the final meal with a solemn procession, under which it is also easy to see a satire and a parody of the contemporary order of Aristophanes.

There are no characters in The Riders, if by character we mean the psychological structure of the individual. Nicias, Demosthenes, Paphlagonian, Agoracritus, horsemen, Demos and courtesans at the end of the comedy are nothing but generalized images, ideologically sharpened and presented in a caricatured form.

Nevertheless, these visual "generalizations" are colored by Aristophanes in "Horsemen" with bright and hyperbolic colors that do not turn them into characters, but make them lively and funny. The development of the action is also almost absent in this comedy.

The central place is occupied in the "Riders" by the agon - a noisy market fight between a sausage maker and a tanner. Yes, and this agon is interrupted by a huge parabasa, in which there is no action at all.

"HORSEMANS"

"Horsemen" were staged on Leney in 424. At these competitions, Aristophanes performed for the first time under his own name. The play won first prize.
In this comedy, Aristophanes attacks the leader of the radical democracy, Cleon, while also criticizing the institutions of Athenian democracy. The characterization of Cleon was given here so juicy and vividly that this image became typical for the image of a demagogue of that time.
The institutions of Athenian democracy and its leaders were usually portrayed by opponents of democracy exactly as it is done in the comedy of Aristophanes under consideration. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that the Cleon depicted in the play has little in common with the historical Cleon.

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But ancient comedy never set itself the task of giving a true individual characterization of the character being drawn. She made him an exponent of certain tendencies and, proceeding from this, attributed the corresponding character traits.
Aristophanes hated Cleon as a supporter of the continuation of the war with Sparta, and transferred to his personality all the features of bad and self-serving demagogues. Aristophanes was not afraid to oppose Cleon, although it was in 424 that the latter achieved the greatest popularity, which was explained by the military successes of that year.
After a series of setbacks, the Athenian commander Demosthenes, a supporter of a moderate aristocratic party, managed to land in the south of the Peloponnese and capture the harbor of Pylos. Spartan attempts to recapture Pylos were unsuccessful. Their detachment of 400 people was cut off and besieged on the small island of Sphacteria in front of the entrance to the harbor of Pylos. But the siege of the garrison was carried out extremely sluggishly. Cleon made a sharp speech in the people's assembly, accusing the generals of deliberately dragging out the war. The popular assembly entrusted the command of the Pylos expedition to Cleon, subordinating Demosthenes to him. Cleon went to the army with several hundred lightly armed soldiers, and a few days later Sphacteria was taken by attack, and the captured Spartans were sent to Athens as hostages.
The Pylos expedition and the episode with Sphacteria are mentioned more than once in the comedy, and Aristophanes depicts the matter in such a way that Cleon only collected the fruits of the labors of his predecessor.
Aristophanes also depicts the Athenian people in this play in the form of the old man Demos, who from old age has already fallen into childhood and obeys his servant the Leatherworker, i.e. Cleon 1 in everything. There is evidence that not a single master of masks agreed to give the mask the features of Cleon and that Aristophanes was to act as Cleon himself.
The comedy choir consists of horsemen. The horsemen (there were a thousand of them) made up the most aristocratic part of the Athenian army and at that moment were especially unhappy with Cleon, who attributed to himself a decisive role in the military

1 Cleon was the owner of a leather workshop.

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great successes in 424, while immediately after the battle of Pylos they distinguished themselves under the command of Nikias in an expedition to Corinth, and it was their participation that decided the victory. That is why Aristophanes gave his comedy a choir consisting of horsemen 1. It is possible that the choir rode to the orchestra on the backs of actors representing horses - at least one such vase image has come down to us.
The action of the comedy takes place in front of the house of Demos. Demos' slaves, Nicias and Demosthenes, appear in the prologue. Thus, Aristophanes deduced under his own names two politicians that time. They curse the new slave Paphlagonian (Leathermaker) 2. Since then. As soon as he entered the house, blows were continuously raining down on them. The new slave flatters all the time Demos, an insufferable, half-deaf old man. The Paphlagonian steals what the servants prepare for Demos and presents the old man in his own name. Thus, when Demosthenes recently kneaded Laconian sourdough in Pylos, the cunning Leatherworker stole the concoction and offered it to his master. He does not allow other servants to serve the master. Nicias even says that it is best to die. But from an oracle stolen behind the scenes (in Demos' house) from the sleeping Tanner, Nicias and Demosthenes learn that the Leatherworker's dominance will be overthrown by the Sausage Man. At this moment, a street seller of sausages enters the orchestra.
Nicias and Demosthenes enthusiastically greet him and promise him wealth and happiness. While Nicias goes to the house to guard, no matter how the Paphlagonian wakes up, Demosthenes, pointing at the audience in the theater, tells Kolbasnik that from now on he will be master over everyone - he will trample the council and strategists underfoot. Proposing then to the Sausage-maker to climb on his tray, Demosthenes says that the islands, ports and ships that he sees, and Caria3 and Carthage, in the direction of which he casts a glance, all this will be an object of trade for him.
The sausage maker, however, considers himself unworthy of gaining power. After all, he comes from bad parents, moreover

1 M. Croiset in his work "Aristophane et les partis a Athenes" (Paris, 1906) suggests that, in all likelihood, Aristophanes received the preliminary consent of the riders to show them in a comedy.
2 Paphlagonia is a region in Asia Minor.
3 Kariya - the southwestern part of Asia Minor.

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he has not received any education, he can only read, and even then with difficulty. To this Demosthenes retorts that a demagogue does not need to be an honest and educated person; you have to be ignorant and a rogue. There is nothing easier than to rule the people. Let him continue his craft, mixing and kneading together all the affairs of the state, just as when he makes sausage. In order to attract people to yourself, you must always say sweet words to them and promise Tasty food. He has, however, everything that makes a demagogue: a vile voice, a bad background, the habits of market traders. Finally, Demosthenes says that horsemen1 and all decent people will help the Sausage Man. “And do not be afraid,” adds Demosthenes, “you will not see his lime, because because of fear of him, none of the mask-makers wanted to portray him; however, he is well recognized, because the audience is smart people.
But here comes the Paphlagonian. Demosthenes calls on horsemen to help, who violently rush into the orchestra. A warlike song of horsemen follows, calling for the beating of a criminal who slanders them2, a thief and a gluttonous Charybdis3. A squabble begins, accompanied by a fight between the Sausage Man and the Tanner, one trying to outshout the other. Demosthenes and the choir take part in the altercation, acting on the side of the Cossack, who beats Cleon with his sausages. Cleon runs off to inform the council of the "conspiracy".
After that, the parabase begins. Making a request on behalf of the choir to listen to the anapaests, the luminary says that if one of the former poets asked them to perform with a parabasis, they would not easily agree to this. But this poet (i.e. Aristophanes) is worthy of service, because he stands for the truth and boldly opposes Typhon 4 and the devastating Hurricane. Explains the luminary and why so far

1 With these words of Demosthenes, the entrance of the choir to the orchestra is prepared.
2 Cleon accused the riders of desertion; according to the testimony of the scholiast, at the beginning of the campaign they really shied away from the war.
3 Charybdis - sea ​​monster in the form of a woman, throwing out water from her foaming mouth three times a day and absorbing it again three times a day.
4 Typhon - a monstrous serpent; here by Typhon is meant Cleon.

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since the poet did not ask the choir from the archon. The poet did not do this out of thoughtlessness, but because, in his opinion, there is nothing more difficult than composing a comedy; many take up this business, and only a few it gives the joy of success.

In addition, he knows how fickle the sympathies of the audience: they leave their poets when they grow old. The poet wanted first to be a rower, and then to stand at the helm. If, as a prudent person, the poet did not rashly rush to the stage to chat about all sorts of trifles here, then now it is necessary to raise a storm of applause in Leneyi in his honor, so that the poet leaves the holiday with a joyful brow.
The choir appeals to Poseidon, the lord of horses, “who is pleased with the neighing and trampling of copper ringing ... with a golden trident, come to us, lord of dolphins! .. You are the most desired now.” The choir glorifies the fathers who have always won on land and sea. None of them, noticing the enemies, never considered them, “they rushed into battle, defeated

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Yes, they were brave." If one of them accidentally touched the ground with his shoulder in battle, then, brushing off the dust, he got up, "went into battle again, fought and did not ask for mercy." Never did former strategists beg for a free table from the state; the present, however, openly declare that they will not fight unless they are given a table in Prytaneum and a proedry. Praying to Athena, the choir asks her to come to the theater and bring Nike, the goddess of victory, with her. It is now, more than ever, that the riders must win. The chorus finally praises the horses, which often helped the riders in their battles and victories.
Sausage Man comes running from the council and tells how he managed to defeat the Leatherworker. The tanner began to accuse the riders of plotting against the people. But Kolbasnik managed to win the council over to his side, informing him that for the first time during the war, herring fell in price. All faces instantly cleared up. When he secretly advised to buy all the pots from the artisans in order to get more herrings for the obol, everyone began to applaud and looked at him with open mouth. Although Kozhevnik still tried to resist and even informed the council that an ambassador from the Spartans had allegedly arrived to negotiate peace, everyone shouted with one voice: “Now talk about peace? Well, of course, friend, after they found out that our herring has fallen in price! We don't need any peace! Let there is a war!»
The meeting of the council was closed, everyone began to jump over the bars 2. The sausage maker, ahead of them, ran to the market, bought up all the greens there for seasoning herrings and distributed it for free to those from the council who needed it. For this, everyone showered him with praise.
Cleon, who has come running from the council, does not even think of giving up. He demands that Demos come out of his house and see how his servant is being treated. In the presence of Demos, there is an agon between the Sausage Man and Cleon. Interestingly, Sausage Man would like Demos to judge not

1 Citizens who had significant services to the state received a table in Prytaneum at the expense of the state and a proedry, that is, a place of honor in the theater.
2 The meeting place was fenced off with low wooden bars.

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on the Pnyx. But Demos flatly refuses to judge anywhere else. The sausage-maker considers his business completely dead: when old Demos is at home, he is the wisest of people, but as soon as he sits on a rock on Pnyx, he becomes stupid.
Cleon assures Demos of his love and devotion, but the Sausage Man exposes him. There is a lot of buffoonery in this scene. So, Sausage Man does not allow Demos to sit on bare stones, but puts a pillow under him, which the old man notes as a truly noble and democratic deed. However, there is not only buffoonery here, but also the opposition of two political programs. The people, says Kolbasnik, have been living in barrels, caves and towers for the eighth year now because of the war. Cleon drove away the ambassadors who came with a proposal to make peace. Where is the love that he speaks of? But Cleon objects to him: after all, he did this in order to give all Hellas under the rule of Demos.
The sausage-maker refutes him, saying that Cleon's real intention is to plunder the tribute-paying cities for his own pleasure, and to ensure that Demos, through the storm of war, does not notice his roguery. The tanner always frightens the people with imaginary conspiracies, since it is more convenient for him to fish in troubled waters. He sells a lot of leather, but he never gave a piece of leather to Demos so that he could mend his shoes. The sausage-maker takes off his shoes and gives them to Demos. Then he gives him his tunic in the same way.
Cleon promises Demos a dish that he will only have to swallow without doing anything - this is his salary. In turn, Sausage Man promises to give a small pot of aromatic ointment so that Demos can rub it on the ulcers on his legs.
Kozhevnik threatens Kolbasnik that he will achieve his appointment to the trierarchy 1 and will pester him with military taxes. Both adversaries retire to bring their oracles to Demos. The choir sings a song that sweet will be the light of day

1 The office of trierarch was a public duty held by wealthy citizens. This office was so costly that, according to the scholiast, the strategists sometimes placed this duty on their enemies.

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for all who live in the city if Cleon perishes. It is in this choral part that Cleon is called once by his own name.
In large bales, both opponents bring their prophecies to Demos. The sausage maker defeats Cleon, his prophecies turn out to be better. Demos is already ready to ask Sausage Man to guide his old age and re-educate him as a child. But Cleon promises Demos to deliver him daily bread and other provisions. Then Demos declares that which of the two rivals will receive the reins of power over Pnyx, who will be able to please him better.
Cleon and Sausage Man bring their baskets of supplies, Cleon, in addition, and a chair for Demos. They line up like runners in a stadium and then rush in, pushing each other away, to treat Demos. Cleon proposes to Demos pea mash, which Athena herself allegedly rubbed, and a piece of fish. Sausage man gives Demos a pot of stew, roast beef, offal. But Cleon also has a fried hare. The sausage maker is in despair, because he does not have a hare. He comes up with a trick and says that ambassadors are coming to him with bags full of money. Hearing about the money, Cleon turns his head, and Sausage Man grabs the hare and gives it to Demos. To the question of Demos, where did he get the idea to steal the hare, the Sausage Man replies: “the goddess's plan, my theft. I risked my life."
However, Demos cannot decide who better serves his womb. After all, it is necessary to derive a solution that would seem correct to the audience. Then Kolbasnik offers to look at both baskets. Demos examines and is convinced that the Sausage Man has given him everything, while there is still a lot of goodness left in Cleon's basket. The sausage maker notices that Cleon had done the same before: from what he took, he only left a little for Demos, and most saved for himself. After that, Demos demands that Cleon lay down the wreath and give it to the Sausage Man.
Cleon protests at first: he wants to make sure that he really is the person to whom, according to the prophecy, he must cede power. He receives answers to his questions that coincide with what he knew from the prophecy. Cleon says goodbye to his wreath: now another will own it; of course, this other will not be a big thief, he will only be happier. Here

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the words of Alcesta are parodied (from the tragedy of Euripides "Alcesta"), saying goodbye to her marriage bed before her death: "You will be possessed by another woman, no more chaste than I, maybe only happier" Then Cleon leaves the stage, and Demos asks the Sausage Man , what is his name. He replies that his name is Agoracritus, since he always lived in the square, doing litigation1. Sausage Man - Agoracrete says that he will do his best to take care of Demos. Everyone will have to admit that there is no person more devoted than he to the city of the "Razinians" (ie, the Athenians). 2. The sausage maker and Demos retire to the house.
After this comes the song of the choir. It says that the triremes came to the meeting and the oldest of them told about the events taking place in the city. One bad citizen named Hyperbole demanded 100 triremes for an expedition to Carthage. At this news, the youngest of the triremes exclaimed that Hyperbole would never command her and that she preferred to be eaten by worms and grow old here. Another suggested that since the Athenians like the project of an expedition, they should sail with all sails to Theseion or to the sanctuary of the Eumenides and seek refuge there.
A festively dressed Agoracritus appears in the exode. Corypheus greets him as the light of sacred Athens and the protector of the islands (i.e., allies). Agoracritus reports that he boiled Demos in a cauldron and made him handsome out of an ugly man. This well-applied motif folk tale It also has a certain political trend. Demos became what he was at the time of Marathon and Salamis, when he shared a meal with Aristides and Miltiades.
Demos himself comes out in a luxurious ancient outfit, with a cicada in his hair4. Agorakrit tells Demos how

1 The word "Agorakrit" comes from two Greek words: "agora" - area and "krino" - I judge, I analyze court cases.
2 In the Greek original, a word is also given that is consonant with Greek word"Athenians" and produced by the poet from a verb with the meaning "to yawn", "to open one's mouth".
3 Hyperbole is a demagogue, an ardent supporter of war, like Cleon.
4 In the form of jewelry, the Greeks wore pins with the image of a cicada in their hair.

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he was a fool before, when he obeyed various dishonest demagogues who flattered him for their own benefit. Demos is ashamed of his past mistakes. Now he will behave differently. He will not allow "beardless" to speak in the people's assembly; he will pay the oarsmen's wages as soon as the fleet enters the harbour; a listed hoplite will not be able to correspond with friends 1. In addition, Agoracritus declares to Demos that he will be able to grant him a truce for 30 years. A dancer runs out - the nymph of Truce. Demos is delighted with her beauty and asks if he can have fun with her. Agorakrit gives him the nymph Truce, with whom Demos goes to the fields.
The comedy "The Horsemen" is undoubtedly the brightest of all the strictly political plays of Aristophanes. It gives a sharp and malicious satirical depiction of the Athenian slave-owning democracy, its institutions and orders, in the form that they received by the last quarter of the 5th century. BC e. The leader of this democracy, Cleon, is portrayed in the play as a dishonorable person; he clearly abuses the confidence of the simple-hearted people, deceives them all the time and profits at the expense of the state.
However, even in this, the sharpest of the political comedies of Aristophanes, in which questions of the state structure are already directly discussed, the playwright does not oppose democracy in general; he would only wish to eliminate some of her shortcomings and illnesses, which manifested themselves in his time. Indeed, in connection with the growth of commercial and usurious capital, the further expansion of slavery, the presence of great inequality of property among the free themselves, in Athenian society such phenomena as corruption and bribery of officials, the desire to profit from the treasury, etc., have become widespread. Aristophanes wants the destruction of these negative phenomena, although he does not always understand the true reason for their origin, reducing everything to the evil will of individual dishonest demagogues. He would like to reform modern democracy, but he has no idea of ​​replacing it with an aristocratic regime.

1 That is, thanks to connections, he will not write his name behind everyone in order to go to military service last.

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As for Cleon, one can hardly agree with the sharply negative and caricatured image of him that is given to him in the play. From what we know about his activities, it follows that he was an energetic leader of the left wing of the slave-owning democracy.
He was a supporter of a more decisive war with Sparta and its allies in order to expand the Athenian power and acquire new lands, slaves and subjects. Artisans, the urban poor and numerous working people associated with navigation were also interested in this policy of the rich commercial and industrial upper classes of the slave-owning society. Among these sections of the Athenian free population, Cleon was very popular. However, as an ardent supporter of war and adaptation to its needs throughout state activities, he was especially hated by Aristophanes, who was not shy about the means to denounce those whose activities, in his opinion, caused irreparable harm to the country.
Negatively characterizing Cleon, Aristophanes in this play sympathetically depicts horsemen. However, this is not a manifestation of his aristocratic sympathies, but the desire to find allies at that moment in the fight against the hated Cleon. Two years later, in the comedy The Clouds, the playwright satirizes the type of young slacker aristocrat.
The question arises why Kolbasnik, a man of very dubious morality, was bred as the savior of the state. After all, he is distinguished from the Kozhevnik only by the insignificance of the scale of the activity of a street vendor, while the Kozhevnik turned over all the affairs of the state. But the choice of just such a character is necessary for the playwright for the first part of the play. The tanner, according to the play, is so arrogant and dishonest that only an even more dishonest and arrogant person can take away his power. However, at the end of the play, the Sausage Man, already acting under the name Agoracritus, is shown as a virtuous and prudent citizen, pointing out to Demos his past mistakes in governing the state. It turns out that at first he only pretended to defeat the Leatherworker (Cleon).
The purely scenic merits of the play were pointed out in the presentation and analysis of its content. The appearance of Kolbasnik in the orchestra at the moment when he was discussed

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is a well-applied stage comedy effect. The scene of the competition between two opponents, striving to better feed Demos, is built lively and witty. Successfully used the motif of a folk tale with the transformation of an old man into young man. It is necessary to rejuvenate democracy, to return to it the appearance that it had in the era of the Greco-Persian wars - this is what Aristophanes wants to say with this fabulous transformation. Allusions to the events of the then life and to individual contemporaries of the poet are scattered everywhere in the comedy. These allusions, in some cases already inaccessible to our understanding, met, no doubt, with the liveliest approval of the Athenian spectators who were present at the performance of the Horsemen.

"OSY"

The comedy "The Wasps" was staged on behalf of Philonides on Leney in February 422 and received the first award. The play contains attacks on one of the most important institutions of Athenian democracy - on the jury (helium). It must be borne in mind that by the middle of the 5th c. BC e. helium's functions have expanded enormously. She approved or rejected the decisions of the people's assembly (if they contradicted the laws of the state), checked the correctness of the elections of senior officials and demanded that they report at the end of their term of office. In the comedy Wasps, the poet set himself the task of showing that Athenian politicians and demagogues, and primarily Cleon, use the jury in their own interests, and the jury themselves are nothing more than pawns in the hands of demagogues.
As already mentioned above, the judges in Athens at first performed their duties without compensation, but then Pericles introduced a small reward of one obol for each session. Cleon in 425 or 424 increased this reward to 3 obols per day. There is no doubt about the democratic nature of this event. Thanks to him, even poor people could take part in the administration of the court. In addition, in wartime, when the economic life, judicial salaries became for many people almost the only source of livelihood.

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The introduction of payment for judges was seriously attacked by opponents of democracy, who wanted to keep judicial functions only for the "noble".
Criticism of Aristophanes has a different character, and there is nothing in it from the views of the aristocracy. He does not raise in Wasps the question of the abolition of the jury, or of any serious reform of it; nowhere does he show himself an opponent of democracy. Aristophanes mainly objects only to the situation that, in his opinion, was created in Athens, namely, to the selfish use of the organs of Athenian democracy by the demagogues, including the heliai.
Aristophanes in "The Wasps" accuses Cleon of allegedly subordinating the jury to his personal interests and making it highly biased. The main actors of the comedy are given names that characterize their attitude towards Cleon.
The action of the comedy begins at night, shortly before dawn. Proskenius depicts the house of the old heliast Philokleon (i.e., "loving Cleon"). The house is surrounded by a grid. The old man's son Bdelikleon (that is, "feeling disgusted with Cleon") is sleeping on the roof. Below, in front of the entrance to the house, two slaves, Sosius and Xanthius, sit on guard. They struggle with sleep, but sometimes they can't handle drowsiness. When they wake up, they tell each other dreams.
Violating stage conventions and addressing the audience directly, Xanthus speaks of his desire to explain to them the plot of the comedy that will be shown. Let the spectators expect neither too sublime a play, nor jokes stolen from Megara. There will be no slaves tossing nuts from a basket to the spectators, no Heracles deprived of dinner, no Euripides being attacked. In the play, Cleon, whom fate raised up, will not be displayed either, since the author does not want to “make okroshka here a second time out of him.” There is a healthy thought in the plot: "she is wiser than the vulgarity of a comedy."
After these remarks about the nature of the play, Xanthus explains that he and his comrade are guarding the old master, who is possessed by a strange disease. He invites the audience to guess what kind of disease it is and, as if hearing their answers, says, referring to individuals from the public, that all this is not right. The old man, in fact, is obsessed with a passion for

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helie. He does not sleep at night, and if he falls asleep, it is only for a moment, since his thought hovers around the water clock at night 1. He claims that his cock crows too late, as he is bribed by the accused. The son, grieved by his father's illness, at first tried to convince him not to wear a short cloak any more and not to leave the house. The son even drove his father once to the temple of Asclepius 3 and forced him to spend the night there. But with the dawn, the old man, wanting to run away, appeared already in the upper window of the temple. From then on, he was not allowed to leave the house, but the old man slipped away through the water drains and through the dormer window. All the holes in the house were sealed up, but the old man poked nails into the wall and, like a jackdaw, jumped out over them. I finally had to stretch the net around the whole house.
At this time, Bdelikleon wakes up and demands that one of the servants look into the furnace as soon as possible. Indeed, Philokleon tried to escape from the house in the form of stove smoke. Then the old man wants to break out through the door, which is propped up from the outside by the servants. Finally, he tells his son that he needs to sell the donkey in the market. And when the door is opened, and the donkey enters the orchestra, Bdelikleon and the servants find Philokleon hanging under his belly. The old man is brought back into the house, but he soon appears on the roof and wants to fly away from there like a sparrow. They throw a net over him and drag him back into the house.
Enter a chorus of old heliasts, dressed as wasps, with staves in their hands. Behind them wasp stingers. Old men are led by boys carrying lamps. One of them gets a slap in the face for putting his finger into the hole of the lamp while adjusting the wick and spilling oil, and oil is expensive due to the war. The boy asks his father how they will buy supplies today if the archon is not satisfied court session. Corypheus replies that he himself does not know where he will get dinner then. The old people invite their companion to come out to them in order to go to court together. The Philocleon appears in the skylight behind the net. He tells the chorus that his son keeps him locked up and does not let him go to court. All means to break out of the house

1 Water clocks (clepsydra) limited the time appointed for performances in the courts.
2 That is, do not go to court. since most of the heliasts wore short cloaks.
3 Asclepius - the son of Apollo, the god of medicine.

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he has already tried. However, encouraged by the chorus, Philokleon gnaws through the net and begins to slowly descend the rope to the ground. But despite all his precautions, Bdelikleon wakes up and the old man is dragged back through the window. The chorus removes their cloaks and releases their stingers, ordering the boys to run after Cleon to come and personally fight the anti-ship enemy of the state.
Bdelikleon leaves the house with his father, who is flanked by two slaves. Bdelikleon declares that he will not let his father out of the house. The choir considers Bdelikleon's act as a manifestation of tyranny and rushes at him in close formation. Philokleon calls on the Os-Heliasts to swoop down on enemies and stab them. Bdelikleon pushes his father into the house and then he himself comes to the help of the servants in time, passing the stick to one and the lit torch to the other. One servant wields a stick, the second fumigates the wasp with smoke. The Chorus eventually retreats, declaring that tyranny has slipped into the city unnoticed. He calls Bdelikleon a supporter of the monarchy and an adherent of Brasidas 1.
Bdelikleon rejects the accusation of tyranny, saying at the same time that it has become as common as salty fish, and it is constantly floated in the market. If someone buys some products for himself in the market and does not buy others, then the seller of these latter already says that this person is stockpiling in order to establish tyranny. Bdelikleon is outraged that he is accused of tyranny just because he wants his father, getting rid of addiction from the very early morning to run to court and engage in denunciations, I would live in complete contentment at home.
Between the father, who is supported by the choir, and the son, the agon begins. Bdelikleon orders the slaves not to keep the old man anymore, and he himself orders to bring a sword for himself and declares that he will pierce himself with this sword if he is defeated in the dispute. The old man is deeply convinced that, as a heliast, he rules over everyone, while the son wants to prove to his father that he is in fact a slave.

1 Brasidas successfully fought at this time with the Athenians on the Thracian coast. A few months after the production of "Os" he fell in the battle of Amphipolis.

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Philocleon begins with the assertion that the heliasts are in no way inferior in their power to any king, that they are a thunderstorm for all people. The judge is just getting out of bed, and the defendants have been waiting for him at the judge's door for a long time. Among them there are also important people. They beg the judge to spare them, referring to the fact that, perhaps, he himself also profited when he corrected his position or supplied the army with provisions in wartime. Loaded with all kinds of pleas, but not at all intending to fulfill his promises, the judge enters the court. Here his ears are caressed by voices of mercy. One bitterly complains about his poverty and exaggerates his misfortunes so that he is compared in his position with the judge (!), the other tells fables, the third jokes to make the judge laugh and destroy his anger. If all this does not help, they bring children to court, and with their appearance they try to pity the judges. But a particularly pleasant feeling seizes the heliast when he returns home with his three obols. The daughter will wash him and oil his feet, calling all the time “daddy” and at the same time trying to get a coin out of his mouth with her tongue 1. The wife asks to taste one or the other. The power of the heliast is no less than the power of Zeus. Don't people talk about judges the same way they talk about Zeus? After all, when they raise a fuss in court, the people say: “King Zeus, what a thunder in court!”.
The chorus is delighted with Philocleon's smooth and convincing speech; it was pleasant to listen to him: he resolutely took everything apart and missed nothing.
Philokleon's speech is a witty satire on Athenian legal proceedings. Therefore, the son, in essence, has nothing to refute, and he only pretends to refute the evidence of his father, but in fact he gives one main argument, which in the course of his speech is clothed with more and more new examples. He asks him to estimate on his fingers all the revenues received by the state. It turns out that if you add up all these receipts - allied contributions, taxes, income from bazaars, from mines, etc. - you get a sum of 2 thousand talents. And how much of this income goes to jurors, of which there are only 6,000 in the state? They account for only 150 talents.

1 Greeks usually kept small money in their mouths.

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Stunned by this calculation, Philokleon says: “Why wasn’t even a tenth of our income made up by our salary?” He now wants to know where the rest of the money goes. Bdelikleon answers him that nine-tenths of the state revenues are appropriated by demagogues with their henchmen.
Along with criticism of such a distribution of income, in which only an insignificant part of them remains to the share of heliasts, and the rest is plundered by demagogues and officials associated with them, Bdelikleon’s words also contain a peculiar program of measures, presented, of course, in a comedy-satirical plan, through which abundance can be achieved for all citizens. This program is simple. A thousand allied cities bring their tribute to Athens every year. If each of them were obliged to support 20 Athenian citizens, then 20 thousand people would live in Athens in full abundance. Bdelikleon promises to give his father whatever he wants if he no longer goes to court. However, Philokleon does not give any answer, but only groans, although the choir joins the request of his son, convinced by the arguments of Bdelikleon and realizing that he was wrong. When the old man nevertheless declares that he is unable to give up his judicial duties, the son finds a way out: the father can also judge the servants at home. Bdelikleon points to a number of advantages of such a review of affairs at home: if the process drags on, the father will be able to eat here; if he oversleep, no one will close the bars in front of him 1.
Philokleon accepts his son's proposal.
The comic conflict is resolved. The second half of the play is devoted to showing what came out of the agreement made between father and son.
Bdelikleon enters with servants who carry various things necessary for the court session. Here is a small image of the Face2, and mugs that will replace the ballot boxes, and a cage with a rooster so that he can wake the old man with his singing if he falls asleep, and a brazier with stew placed on it, etc. It turned out

1 The court place was fenced with bars; before the start of the trial, the bars were closed.
2 Lik - the oldest Attic hero. His image in the form of a wolf was placed in courtrooms.

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what is and who to judge. The dog Labet (i.e. "grabber") ran into the kitchen, grabbed the Sicilian cheese and ate it all. The accuser will be another dog. A sacrifice is made before the judgment. In the prayer with which Bdelikleon addresses Apollo Agie, he asks that his father become more condescending to people and pity the defendants more than those who accuse them. The chorus praises Bdelikleon and says that none of the young loves the people as much as he does.
Two actors with dog masks are brought in, and a parody of the Athenian trials follows. Seeing the second dog that barks, Philokleon exclaims:

Yes, he is the second Labet!

The spectators could only laugh merrily at this exclamation, since everyone perfectly understood that under the dog - the plaintiff from the Kidafinsky deme - Cleon was meant, and under Labet - the commander Lachet2. In 425, that is, three years before the production of Os, Laches was accused by Cleon that during the military operations in Sicily against Syracuse, who were on the side of the Spartans, he allegedly hid money and was engaged in extortion.
The dog plaintiff is especially outraged that Labet did not share the stolen cheese with him. And here the allegory was also clear to the audience. Bdelikleon diligently defends Labet: he rises on the bench instead of him and begins to enumerate the virtues of the dog, forced, not knowing rest, to move from place to place, while his accuser (i.e. Cleon) lies at the door of the house, does not move anywhere from here and from every thing that they bring, he demands a share for himself, and if they do not give, he bites.
However, Philokleon is not inclined to acquit the defendant. Then little children dressed as dogs come out of the house and start barking. The old man is touched, but he still does not dare to justify the defendant. But Bdelikleon deftly slips the wrong urn to his father, and Labet turns out to be justified.

1 Images of Apollo Agie (in the form of small pyramids or a bust of a god) were placed on the streets in front of the doors of houses. "Agyei" means "road", that is, the guardian of roads, streets and travelers.
2 Obviously, the masks depicting dog muzzles, somewhat reminiscent of the faces of Cleon and Laches.

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data. In despair at his mistake, Philocleon even loses consciousness. The son brings him to his senses and comforts him, promising to give him a happy life. He will go with his father to feasts, to spectacles, and Hyperbole will no longer be able to lead him by the nose and laugh at him. Everyone goes into the house.
Parabase begins. In it, the luminary, on behalf of the poet, addresses the audience with words of reproach. The poet first served his people invisible, hiding behind other poets, but then he began to speak in his own name. Since the poet began to train the choir, he began to attack not ordinary people, but the strongest. The following characterization given to Cleon may give an idea (however, far from complete) of those strong expressions that the ancient comedy used in relation to the persons subjected to its attacks:

So, for the first time, in a brave battle, he
grappled with a toothy dog.
The eyes of this dog with ugly fire, like
at Kinna 1 slutty, burned,
And around a hundred muzzles of scoundrels-flatterers
gently licked his head;
The voice of this dog is the roar of a stream in the mountains that
brings destruction and destruction...

The poet also attacked the sycophants2 who kept people awake, weaving a web of intrigues and denunciations. But the audience betrayed him last year, when he sowed the seeds of the newest thoughts. Not perceiving them, the audience prevented them from ripening. 3. Corypheus asks the audience not to be surprised that the choir is dressed in wasps and has stings. Some owners of these stings are rightly ranked among the noble old-timers of Attica. They rendered so many services to their homeland, fighting the barbarians who enveloped the city in smoke and fire 4. In the battle, they stabbed the enemies with their stings, and the enemies fled. And then the wasps sailed on warships and took many cities from the barbarians. Thanks to the wasps, tribute is brought to Athens, which is now stolen by the young. Wasps are very active in obtaining food for themselves: they sting everyone and so get their own bread. But among the wasps there are drones that have no sting,

1 Famous hetaera of that time.
2 informers.
3 A hint of the failure of the Clouds.
4 Greco-Persian wars are meant.

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who sit still and devour what is obtained with such difficulty. The parabasis ends with a comic proposal not to give three obols to those citizens who do not have a sting.
Philokleon comes out of the house in his torn cloak and old shoes. Bdelikleon follows him, followed by a slave who holds a woolen cloak and a pair of new shoes. It's time to go to the feast, but the old man does not want to change clothes for anything, as he is used to his old dress.
In the end, not without difficulty, Bdelikleon manages to put on laconism and a cloak on his father.
Bdelikleon then begins teaching his father good manners: how to maintain a decent conversation at a feast, how to stretch gracefully on a couch, praise the dishes, inspect the ceiling, praise the patterns. The old man does not shine with good manners, besides, he is inclined to say what he thinks. Assuming that Cleon will be at the feast and that he will start the accordion2 - “there has never been a man in Athens before ...”, - the son asks his father to sing further, and he picks up: “such a scoundrel and a grabber.” In the relation of the old man to Cleon, a radical change takes place. If earlier he praised him and wanted to seek protection from him against his son's encroachment on the jury, now he passionately hates Cleon.
After finishing the training in good manners, father and son go to the feast, accompanied by a slave carrying supplies.
After a short song by the choir, slave Xanthius runs into the orchestra with screams, rubbing his sides. He talks about what happened at the feast. It turns out teaching good manners didn't help. At the feast, the old man behaved ugly: stuffing his stomach with all sorts of things and getting drunk drunk, he began to jump and laugh. He beat Xanthus, insulted all the guests.
Philokleon himself appears before the audience, completely drunk, with a torch in his hand; he drags a flute behind him

1 The ancient Greeks reclined at feasts. The politeness of that time prescribed that, before starting to eat, to entertain the owner of the house with pleasant conversations.
2 Harmodion is a drinking song in honor of Harmodius, the murderer of the tyrant Hipparchus. The drinking song was started by one of the feasters; when, having sung some part of the song, he stopped, it was picked up by another.

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tistka, which he took away from the feast and which he intends to ransom after the death of his son. Bdelikleon and a number of other persons appearing in the orchestra want to drag the old man to court for all his outrages. Here is the merchant with a witness, whom he almost killed with a torch, and besides, he threw her bread on the ground. A man comes with a witness, to whom the old man gave cuffs. Philocleon mocks everyone, and they leave, threatening the court. The son is tired of all this, he takes his father in an armful and brings him into the house.
But Philokleon once again appears in the orchestra in the costume of the Cyclops Polyphemus. Having refreshed himself before this (behind the stage) wine and remembering the ancient dances in which Thespis once performed, he now decided to prove that the current tragic dances are worth nothing. In the costume of a cyclops 1, he dances a frenzied dance, spinning and raising his legs high. If there is any tragedian who claims to be a good dancer, let him come here to measure his dancing with him.
Three short dancers dressed as crabs enter one after the other. These are the Karkinites, the sons of the tragic poet Karkin, contemporary to Aristophanes. The choir gives the dancers space and cheers them up with their singing. To the frenzied dance of Philokleon and the karkinyat, the choir leaves the orchestra, noticing that no one has yet seen off the dances of the comic choir.
Like The Horsemen and The World, The Wasps opens with a scene in which slaves take part. From one of them, Xanthias, the audience learned about what kind of illness Philokleon had suffered, and about the situation that had developed in the house. When Philokleon appears on the scene, he further reinforces the slave's story about his "illness" with his actions.
To realistic features characterizing the passion of Philokleon in an exaggerated form, others are added, borrowed from the motifs of a folk tale (the old man wants to escape in the form of stove smoke, fly away like a bird, etc.). By a series of successful comedy tricks, the playwright shows how this passion has grown to monstrous proportions. Judgment has become an irresistible need of Philo-

1 Euripides' satyr drama Cyclops is parodied.
2 Karkinos - in Greek "crab".

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Cleon - to judge always and by all means, even if it's just a dog process. At the same time, Aristophanes emphasizes that Philokleon has become in the habit of not only judging, but also necessarily pronouncing a guilty verdict, especially if it is a matter of accusation of striving for tyranny and laconophilism (commitment to Sparta) and it concerns wealthy people whose property may be confiscated.
One must think that here the playwright correctly reveals some dark sides the then political life, although in no way does he question the need to preserve the helium as one of the highest institutions of the state, does not advocate the removal of the lower strata of the free population from the courts, and does not even reject payment for court hearings.
A great evil was the activity of the sycophants. The courts willingly listened to these professional prosecutors of that time, who, by multiplying the trials, provided the judges with the opportunity to sit. Therefore, one must think that Aristophanes was right when he protested against the ever-growing number of trials, against the tendency to bring guilty verdicts to persons who fell on trial, and against the use of court by demagogues in their own interests.
At the same time, Aristophanes ridicules the judges' claim to a prominent political role. The playwright wants to say that in the political conditions of that time, judges actually played an insignificant role in the state, being only the tools of demagogues, and their three obols were nothing but miserable scraps of that public pie to which demagogues and their hangers-on clung. One must think that there was a lot of justice in these accusations of embezzlement. Facts of this kind also affected other comedians, not to mention the fact that the development of a commodity economy in Greece in the 5th century. BC e. and the crisis of the Athenian slave-owning democracy inevitably entailed phenomena of this kind.
In the chorus of comedy, the passionate bitterness, perseverance and uncouthness of the old Attic fighters are conveyed. Wasp judges are like a chorus of Aharnians, and if the playwright does not call them "marathoners" too, it is only because they are obsessed with a passion for lawsuits. However

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the wasps themselves talk a lot about their military exploits and they believe (and not without reason) that the sea power of Athens was created by their sweat and blood. Despite the fact that the playwright ridicules the choir for its passion for litigation, his attitude towards the choir is rather positive. These are all good, industrious Attic farmers, and if they have a pernicious passion for the court, the demagogues are to blame for this, maintaining a tense situation in the state and sowing discord among citizens. The poet is in favor of keeping the sting of the heliasts (he who does not have a sting should not be given three obols), but it must be directed to other goals, and not to condemning people. Therefore, in the second part of the parabase, the wasp sting of the heliasts turns into a kind of symbol of hard work and military prowess.

The end of the play, showing the drunken Philokleon's debauchery, no longer has anything to do with the satirical depiction of the Athenian legal proceedings and aims to amuse the audience, but at the same time it is justified from a purely psychological side. Old man busy daily

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fulfillment of his "public duty" and leading harsh life poor heliast, breaks down after his long fast and overdoes it in enjoying the blessings of life, which he was deprived of before. Bdelikleon's training did not go well, it is difficult to re-educate an old person. Philokleon not only got drunk, with the same unbridled passion with which he indulged before in the analysis of court cases, he now indulges in dancing. To those present, he seems simply distraught.
The playwright considers it necessary to emphasize the new stage technique he uses in the exode: the choir leaves the orchestra to the frantic dance of the main actor (Philocleon) and the dancers specially introduced into the comedy (karkinyat).

Prepared by edition:

Golovnya V.V.
Aristophanes. Moscow, Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1955.

"Riders"

The very beginning of this comedy speaks of a very pointed political satire Aristophanes. There are two slaves - Nicias and Demosthenes. But Nikias and Demosthenes are also the names of two Athenian commanders who acted on the orders of the very wealthy democratic elite that waged the Peloponnesian War. These two slaves steal from a wealthy tanner, a favorite of the distraught old man Demos, a prophecy about the fall of the tanner's power with the advent of another, even more resourceful adventurer, the sausage maker Agorakrit. Demos in Greek means "people", and the introduction of a tanner (a certain Paphlagonian) into the number of characters is a satire on Cleon, also a wealthy tanner, the leader of the then radical democracy, who at that time had great political weight. Consequently, the viewer of the comedy was immediately immersed in the parodic skill of Aristophanes: the people's assembly has decomposed in a miserable way, and clever adventurers seize power over it, immediately a parody of oracles.

In the future, the Paphlagonian tanner is pursued by both horsemen, who form the choir of comedy, and Agoracritus. Horsemen are the aristocratic part of the army. So, from the point of view of Aristophanes, the adventurer-tanner, who seized power over the people, annoyed everyone so much that even aristocrats united against him with another rogue - a sausage maker. The contest between the tanner and the sausage-maker takes place before the eyes of Demos; and this weak-willed and childish old man chooses an ignorant and unscrupulous sausage-maker instead of a tanner as his favorite. The sausage-maker dips Demos in boiling water in order to rejuvenate him; and Demos really comes out of the water rejuvenated, inviting Agoracritus to a feast along with women walking around. The rejuvenation of Demos makes him a man of the times of Marathon and Salamis, that is, those very times when there was no rapid Athenian expansion and when Greek people was a single whole, so close to the heart of Aristophanes.

Here it is easy to trace all the origins of comedy with their subsequent socio-political rethinking. Here is the agon, but only already devoid of its former ritual significance, but representing the struggle of two political crooks, the so-called. demagogues, the last quarter of the 5th c. in Athens. Here is the parabasis that interrupts the action of the comedy and in which Aristophanes expresses his literary views, namely about the comedians Magnet, Cratin and Crates, his recent predecessors. There is also a choir, but again only formally resembling a religious choral action. These are young aristocratic horsemen, opponents of radical democracy. Here is the magical effect of water, but it was introduced only for the sake of a parody of the possible rejuvenation of Demos, and the ancient idea of ​​​​a dying and resurrecting god, which Aristophanes himself probably forgot about, but which passed to him according to tradition and was used by him for a very vicious parody: current society, he wants to say, can only be improved by destroying it completely (boiling it in boiling water). Here is the final meal with a solemn procession, under which it is also easy to see a satire and a parody of the contemporary order of Aristophanes. This is how the ritual backbone was used for the purposes of acute political agitation.

Of course, there are no characters in comedy, if by character we mean the psychological structure of the individual. Nicias, Demosthenes, Paphos-Lagonian, Agoracritus, horsemen, Demos and courtesans at the end of the comedy are nothing but generalized images, ideologically sharpened and presented in a caricatured form. Nevertheless, these "generalizations" are colored with bright and at the same time hyperbolic colors that do not turn them into characters, but make them lively and funny. Finally, the development of the action is almost absent in this comedy.

Central and greatest place occupies an agon in action, that is, a noisy market fight between a sausage maker and a tanner. Yes, and this agon is interrupted by a huge parabasa, in which there is no action at all.

The literary activity of Aristophanes proceeded between 427 and 388.; in its main part, it falls on the period of the Peloponnesian War and the crisis of the Athenian state. The intensified struggle of various factions around political program radical democracy, the contradictions between town and countryside, issues of war and peace, the crisis of traditional ideology and new trends in philosophy and literature - all this was vividly reflected in the work of Aristophanes.

His comedies, in addition to their artistic value, are the most valuable historical source, reflecting the political and cultural life of Athens at the end of the 5th century.

In political matters, Aristophanes approaches the moderate democratic party, most often conveying the mood of the Attic peasantry, dissatisfied with the war and hostile to the aggressive foreign policy of radical democracy. He took the same moderately conservative position in the ideological struggle of his time. Peacefully poking fun at the admirers of antiquity, he turns the edge of his comedic talent against the leaders of the urban demos and representatives of newfangled ideological trends.

Among the political comedies of Aristophanes, The Riders (424) are the most poignant. This play was directed against the influential leader of the radical party, Cleon, at the time of his greatest popularity, after his brilliant military success over the Spartans.

The action takes place in front of the house where the capricious, deaf old man Demos (that is, the Athenian people) lives. The prologue begins with a comic dialogue between two slaves, in which the audience could recognize the famous generals Demosthenes and Nikias from the very first words. It turns out that Demos transferred all power in the house to a new slave, the tanner Paphlagonian (an allusion to the profession of Cleon's father). Over a glass of stolen wine, it occurs to the slaves brilliant thought- pull the oracles from the tanner, with which he fools the old man's head (a hint at the numerous oracles that promised a successful outcome of the Peloponnesian War). The oracle has been found: the tanner will have to yield power to an even more "low" profession, the sausage maker. The action of the comedy is built, therefore, on the basic principle of carnival rituals - the “turning over” of social relations (“the last ones will be the first”). A sausage maker immediately appears with a tray and sausages. In a scene that parodies the carnival rite of electing a slave or jester as the "king" and "savior" of the community, the sausage maker is explained his mission - to be the ruler of Athens. The arrival of the Paphlagonian, however, puts the sausage maker to flight, but the choir of “horsemen” (an aristocratic group hostile to Cleon) comes to his aid. The scuffle and swearing end in "agon", in which the sausage-maker surpasses the Paphlagonian in shamelessness and bragging.

Sausage wins the location of Demos even earlier, when he gave him a pillow so as not to sit on the bare stones on Pnyx.

THE THEME OF POWER AND THE PEOPLE

The finale of the comedy is associated with fabulous metamorphoses. After the victory, Kolbasnik decides to serve the people worthily and honestly, and turns into a wise ruler. In the final scene, Demos is reborn: the sausage-maker restored his youth by boiling him in boiling water (popular fairy motif; cf. the same ending in Yershov's The Little Humpbacked Horse), and Demos is now as strong and fresh as during the Greco-Persian wars. The tanner, on the other hand, remains ashamed for his self-interest, ambition, aggressiveness, and the title of demagogue after the comedies of Aristophanes becomes compromised.

Comedy ends normally love scene: beauties run in, representing the world for thirty years, and the komos leaves the orchestra, led by Demos and the sausage maker.

B.19 Comic techniques in the work of Aristophanes. (Or an ideological and artistic analysis of the comedies "Clouds", "Frogs" - optional ).

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that the ability to laugh is the virtue that distinguishes a person from an animal. In his Poetics, he derives the name of the comedy from the word "komos" - a cheerful procession of tipsy revelers, and the beginning of it derives from "phallic" songs in honor of God cupbearer of Dionysus. Ritual songs invariably had to include jokes, ridicule and even obscenities. Aristophanes designed the comic into the canonical comedy genre, for which he received the title of "father of comedy". In "Arkharnyany" he reproduced in a small scene a village procession with a ritual song. The idea of ​​"komos" can also be given by the scene described by Plato in "Feast", when a drunken Alquiviades, leading a crowd of revelers, breaks into the house of the poet Agathon with songs. In ancient ritual games important place engaged in an argument when the ridicule of one side was answered by the other, and it came to swear words, and even to a fight. Aristophanes in his comedies removed from circulation all coarse, purely external comic tricks based on obscenities. "Whoever finds it funny will not get pleasure from my jokes," he says in the comedy Clouds. In the elimination of everything vulgar (refusing to "throw treats into the crowd"), Aristophanes saw his difference from his predecessors, who began to develop this genre. In the comedy "The World" his artistic principles are expressed by the choir. He, firstly, alone among the rivals of all, stopped their custom of laughing At torn clothes and those people who fight only with lice; He expelled both the Hercules, kneading bread, and the gluttons of these eternally hungry, And the fleeing slaves, deftly puffing up, deliberately enduring beatings - He was the first to recognize all this as unworthy, and he did not begin to lead out the slaves, like others, Shedding tears. And, abandoning such vulgarity and nonsense, such obscene jokes, He glorified our art with this, strengthened, erecting this building, With a stately speech and deep thought and jokes that were not for public places, He began to ridicule not ordinary people in comedies, not women, But with passion Some kind of Hercules, he began to attack the most powerful (Translation by S. Radzig)

Aristophanes was really not afraid to attack "the mightiest" In comedy

"Horsemen" he ridicules one of the leaders of the Athenian democracy, the demagogue Cleon, portraying him as an arrogant and dexterous slave who by cunning seized power over his master Demos, that is, the people. The influential Cleon sued the playwright, but lost the case. Here, comedy has already grown into a more "evil" genre - satire. Once the ironic Heine was asked why he should not try his hand as a satirist. "This is a dangerous trade, - he answered. - ... Any satire hurts someone ... The greatest satirist was Aristophanes ..." - the poet added, recognizing that not everyone is able to take the height of the ancient mocker. It should be noted that this craft is dangerous not only for the satirist himself, but also for those whom he chooses as his "objects". That laughter is often scarier than a gun"- in the literal sense, we will see in the course of our story. Very little is known about the life of Aristophanes. He was born around 446 BC in the Kidafin deme (demes - ancient Greek territorial districts in Attica) and was an Athenian citizen. There is the supposition, on the basis of his remark in the Acharnians, that he was a cleruch, that is, an Athenian colonist-landowner on the island of Aegina.

According to Aristophanes, he began to write very young. The first comedies created in 427-425 BC. e. ("Feasters", "Babylonians", "Archarnians"), staged under the name of the actor Callistratus and sometimes acted as an actor himself, for example, he played the role of Cleon in "Horsemen". The life of the playwright coincided with events of exceptional importance for Athens. By the middle of the 5th century BC. e. Athens won the long-term war with the Persian monarchy and occupied a dominant position in Ancient Hellas, leading a coalition of many small states and islands of the Aegean archipelago. This was the period of the highest flowering of the state structure of Athens, as well as all the arts. On the top the Athenian Acropolis the Parthenon (the temple of the goddess Athena) is being built, at its foot in the theater of Dionysus Sophocles and Euripides stage their tragedies, the historian Herodotus, the sculptor Phidias, the philosopher Anaxagoras unite around the enlightened Athenian leader Pericles. In the last decades of the 5th century BC. e. the Peloponnesian War broke out (431-404 BC), in which Athens clashed with another powerful association - Sparta. In Athens, parties arose with different views on the war. Wealthy merchants associated with maritime trade, stood for the continuation of the war and the expansion of Athenian domination, and the landowners, suffering from Spartan raids, insisted on its termination. Aristophanes in his views was close to the latter and in the comedies "Peace", "Lysistrata" and others opposed the war. inner life Athens also underwent changes. Wandering teachers of wisdom - the sophists - criticized the age-old ideas of morality that the ancestors adhered to, as well as the traditional belief in the gods. Formally, Socrates, who preached his doctrine on the Athenian streets and frightened fellow citizens with an exotic appearance, was also referred to the sophists by contemporaries. (Only subsequent epochs will see in him the ideal of a sage - thanks to Plato, who conveyed the thoughts of his teacher in the "Apology of Socrates".) This is the historical background, those phenomena that became the content of Aristophanes' comedies. According to his convictions, he was a statesman, and in everything that, in his opinion, shook the foundations of the state, he saw objects for satirical arrows. Aristophanes attached great social and political significance to his work, calling himself "a purifier who averts troubles from his country." So, in "The Clouds" he made Socrates and the sophists his characters, ridiculing their new philosophical theories. According to the plot, the peasant Strepsiades had a son, Phidippides, from his wife, taken from a noble family. The son made friends with aristocratic youth. Having become interested in equestrian sports, he forced his father to buy trotters for himself and dragged him into debt. Not knowing how to get out of the situation, old Strepsiades goes to Socrates' "thought room" in order to learn from him the science of not paying debts (as Aristophanes called the entire doctrine of the philosopher). Socrates invokes new gods - Clouds - the patrons of the new science of fogging heads, and they appear in the form of a choir (hence the name of the comedy). The training of Strepsiades is shown in a number of comic scenes, where Socrates appears as a real crook and rogue. The peasant turns out to be too stupid to learn such a science, and Socrates drives him away. Then Strepsiades sends his son to the "thinking room". At this time, creditors come to the peasant, but he, having picked up fraudulent evasions from Socrates, expels them with nothing. After completing the course of science, Pheidippides returns home, and on this occasion his father arranges a feast, during which an argument flares up between them. In the heat of the moment, Pheidippides beats his father and proves that, according to modern scientific views, he has the right to do so, since this is also observed in nature - in animals. “And how,” he exclaims, “animals differ from people? Is it only because they do not write psephism” (decrees). Here Aristophanes parodies the theory of natural law developed by the sophists, which proclaimed nature to be the highest norm of everything that exists and regarded all phenomena on the basis of whether they exist by nature or by human establishment. He referred Socrates to the sophists. The beaten Strepsiades realizes all the falsity of the new teachings: "Oh, I'm a fool! Oh, crazy, mad! I drove the gods away, I exchanged them for Socrates." Seeing the root of evil in Socrates, he sets fire to his "thought room".

The first performances of the comedy failed, and Aristophanes remade the comedy; only the second edition has come down to us. The comedy "Clouds" not only brought a lot of trouble to the author, but played a sinister role in the fate of his character. During the trial of Socrates, which sentenced him to death (399 BC) "for worshiping new deities" and "corrupting youth", the comedy was used as one of the proofs of the philosopher's guilt. Until now, comedy is of great historical and literary interest. "Frogs ". In it, Aristophanes expressed his views on the role of the poet in the state, as well as his artistic ideals. He made real tragic poets - Aeschylus and Euripides, who had recently passed away. In essence, in this comedy, Aristophanes argues with public views and artistic Aeschylus voices the views of Aristophanes.