the old man hears the women delivering speeches, much in the manner of the formal debates familiar from
the plays of Euripides, condemning Euripides for persuading the men of Athens that their women are
compulsive adulterers and uncontrollable guzzlers of wine. The women do not contend that Euripides has
misrepresented their character; on the contrary, their complaint is that he understands all too well
women’s psychology and has alerted their husbands to the truth, making it more difficult for them to
conceal their many vices. The old man, disguised as a woman, then proceeds to defend Euripides, the
defense consisting of a detailed enumeration of the many vices indulged in by women that Euripides has
omitted from his plays. That is, he claims that “we” women are far worse than Euripides makes “us” out
to be. The women are outraged and, when they are informed that Euripides has sent a relative to spy on
them, they turn upon the old man, who seizes an infant from a nursing mother and flees to an altar for
safety. All this is an elaborate parody of a scene from Euripides’ Telephus, the same scene, in fact, that
Aristophanes had parodied in Acharnians, in which the disguised king, his identity having been
discovered, takes refuge at an altar holding the infant Orestes. In Thesmophoriazusae, however, what the
woman has been “nursing” is a wineskin, which she is more eager to save than if it had been her own
child (figure 57). There follows an astonishingly inventive series of scenes in which Euripides makes
various attempts to save the old man, each attempt based upon a different tragedy in which Euripides the
playwright had represented his hero rescuing a damsel in distress. Eventually an agreement is reached:
The women consent to release the old man and Euripides promises that he will no longer revile them in
his plays.
“Ladies, having heard the previous speakers’ denunciations, it is clear that we have every right to be
filled with indignation toward Euripides, even to be thrown into a ferment of rage. I swear by the
children I have borne that I too, unless I am out of my mind, hate that man. And yet we women need
to be reasonable with one another. After all, we are alone here and what we say will not leave this
place. Why do we keep blaming that man and feel resentment if all he did was reveal two or three of
our faults when we are guilty of thousands? I can only speak for myself, but I know that I’m no angel.
I’ve done plenty of bad things, but the worst was when I had only been married for three days and
my husband was asleep beside me. Well, I had this friend – he was my first lover when I was seven
– and his passion for me had gotten the better of him, so he came over and scratched at the door. I
immediately knew who it was and I sneaked downstairs to meet him ...” (Aristophanes,
Thesmophoriazusae 466–82, the old man in disguise defends his relative Euripides)