Twenty years later, in 405 BC, Aristophanes made Euripides a major character in his comedy The Frogs.
The playwright Euripides had recently died and, in Aristophanes’ comedy, the god Dionysus is so
distraught at the loss of his favorite tragic poet that he determines to go to the Underworld and bring
Euripides back to the land of the living, so he can continue creating his passion-filled dramas. Dionysus,
the patron of the drama, is himself an unstable and emotionally volatile character, making his particular
fondness for Euripides perfectly understandable. When he gets to the Underworld (encountering on the
way the chorus of frogs that gives the play its title), Dionysus discovers that Euripides is trying to oust
Aeschylus, who died fifty years earlier, from his place of honor among the dead: In the Underworld, just
as in the land of the living, the majority are corrupt and undiscriminating, so that Euripides has already
attracted a large following. It is decided that a contest is to be held, with Dionysus as judge, to determine
which of the two is the more worthy poet. The two characters, Aeschylus and Euripides, appear on stage
to argue their case, or rather, like modern politicians, to revile one another. There follows a scene
containing some of the most brilliant and hilarious literary parody ever composed. Euripides ridicules
Aeschylus for his pompous, old-fashioned language and for being out of touch with modern audiences.
Aeschylus in turn criticizes Euripides on both aesthetic and moral grounds: The younger poet has debased
the lofty art of tragedy by trivializing its plots and by introducing depraved characters who shamelessly
seek to justify their morally objectionable behavior with clever words; furthermore, his plots often
involve the depiction of erotic passion, which panders to the prurient interests of the masses and which is,
Aeschylus contends, beneath the dignity of the tragic genre.
No one, however, panders more shamelessly to the prurient interests of his audience than Aristophanes
himself, whose comedies are riddled with sex and with the ancient Greek equivalent of four-letter words
(of which the Greek language possesses an impressive supply). These last are characteristic elements of
fifth-century Attic comedy, and part of Aristophanes’ criticism of Euripides seems to be inspired by the
concern that Euripidean tragedy, with its interest in the erotic and its lowering of tragedy’s heroic tone, is
beginning to encroach upon the territory proper to comedy. In the event, it was comedy that would
encroach, in the fourth century BC, upon tragedy, by incorporating numerous features of Euripidean plot,
diction, and psychology, and transforming Attic comedy from the polemical and political drama of
Aristophanes and his contemporaries into something much more genteel and cosmopolitan. But while
Euripides was still active and producing plays at the Dionysia, Aristophanes could not resist capitalizing
on the comic potential that Euripidean tragedy provided, and in 411 BC Aristophanes presented his
funniest comedy, a play that is saturated with Euripidean parody. The play is entitled Thesmophoriazusae,
or “Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria.” The Thesmophoria was an annual festival held in honor of
the goddess Demeter and celebrated exclusively by women. The rites of the Thesmophoria were secret
and it was a serious violation of religious custom for a man to be present. This festival, therefore, will
have provided one of the very few opportunities for a large number of Athenian women to converse
without male interference. Greek men were already paranoid concerning women, as is clear from the
many myths involving divine and mortal females who do unspeakable things to men; the prospect of large
numbers of women isolated and protected by religious custom must have aroused wild imaginings on the
part of Greek men.
When Thesmophoriazusae opens, Euripides has received secret information that the women of Athens are
going to take advantage of their isolation at the Thesmophoria to plot against him and bring about his
destruction. The reason for their hostility toward him is that his tragedies have brought discredit upon
womankind by frequently portraying women as overcome by and readily yielding to lust. Euripides, as is
clear from his inventive plots, is never at a loss for ingenious schemes, and he now persuades a relative
of his, an old man, to disguise himself as a woman and defend him at the Thesmophoria. Euripides
promises to rescue the old man if he should get into trouble. When the scene shifts to the Thesmophoria,