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The Frogs
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Scene 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Slave Talk Summary: Lines 738-829
Xanthias and one of the slaves from Plouton’s palace enter, bonding over the delight both take in cursing and gossiping about their masters behind their backs. Xanthias hears Aischylos and Euripides quarreling. The slave explains that Euripides, since arriving in Hades, has challenged Aischylos for his throne as the best tragedian, and Plouton will stage a contest to determine the winner. Their words will be weighed using a pair of scales. Aghast, Xanthias ask who can judge such a contest, and the slave reveals Dionysos has been chosen as most equipped. The Chorus sings a verse introducing the contest to follow. Aischylos and Euripides, mid-argument, enter with Dionysos.
Contest Summary: Lines 830-1481
Aischylos and Euripides exchange insults. Dionysos mediates their contest, praying that he can judge fairly. The Chorus sings a hymn to the Muses, and Dionysos invites both poets to offer their own prayers. Aischylos (who was from the region of Eleusis) prays to Demeter. Euripides says that he prefers not to pray since he has personal gods. Dionysos invites him to pray “to your private gods” (209). The Chorus sings a verse inviting the contest to begin. The Leader reminds the poets to deliver speeches in a manner that is “full of wit and straight to the point and avoids repeating cliches” (209).
Euripides critiques Aischylos’ use of extended silences and dramatic effects, which Dionysos remarks that he likes but Euripides describes as “charlatanry” that leaves the audience “on tenterhooks” (210). In addition, Euripides accuses Aischylos of using few but big words “that nobody understood” and unclear language (210). Euripides claims that tragedy had become bloated, and he streamlined it, making all his characters speak the same way. Aischylos calls this reckless, but Euripides claims the gesture was democratic. Dionysos warns Euripides against using democracy as his excuse. Euripides says his methods incorporate reasoning and stage “domestic affairs” that his spectators could relate to (212).
The Chorus sings a verse encouraging Aischylos not to be carried away by anger. He defends his plays on the grounds that he sought to inspire valor for those who would have to fight in wars while Euripides wrote about debauched women, inspiring noble women to drink hemlock out of shame for their misdeeds. Aischylos insists that poets are expected to teach their audiences how to live properly, citing Orpheus’ music rites, Hesiod, and Homer.
Euripides counters that poets should speak in “a human voice,” and Aischylos replies that a poet’s words should match “the greatness of all our thoughts” (217). Aischylos complains that Euripides dressed kings in rags and blames him for wealthy men being unwilling to pay for warships, with which Dionysos agrees. Aischylos accuses Euripides’ plays of degenerating the city and its citizens. Dionysos agrees again.
The Chorus notes the difficulty of picking a winner and encourages both poets to attack with full force. Euripides accuses Aischylos’s prologues of being obscure. As Aischylos recites one, Euripides points out its faults, repetition among them, egged on by Dionysos. Aischylos defends his phrasing as poetic, and Dionysos agrees. Euripides refutes, and Dionysos again agrees. When Euripides repeats his accusation, Dionysos orders him to explain his prologues. Euripides recites one, and Aischylos accuses him of making incorrect statements.
Dionysos encourages them to move on to lyrics and choral songs. The Chorus sings a verse wondering what will happen, and Euripides accuses Aischylos’ songs of all saying the same thing. The two poets launch into parodic renditions of each other’s songs. Euripides shows that he can condense all of Aischylos’ songs into one and Aischylos mocks how Euripides combines low and highbrow material.
Aischylos calls for the weighing of the words. The Chorus sings a verse, and Dionysos instructs the poets to each speak their words into the scales. This is repeated three times, and Aischylos wins each time because his words are weightier. Aischylos gloats, and Dionysos despairs that he cannot pick a winner since both men are his friends. After Plouton tells him that he may leave with the winner, Dionysos asks each man to express his position on Alkibiades and provide one idea for saving the city, which both men answer with vague assertions. Dionysos chooses Aischylos, without providing an explanation, upsetting Euripides. Plouton leads the three into the palace for a final feast before Dionysos takes Aischylos back up to the world of the living.
Born Voyage to Aeschylus and Exodus of Chorus Summary: Lines 1482-1533
The Chorus sings of Aischylos’ astuteness leading him to victory and takes a jab at Sokrates (in comedy depicted as a friend of Euripides). Plouton charges Aischylos with preserving “our city” and provides him with nooses and hemlock to send the “stupid folk” down to him quickly (233). Aischylos asks that his throne be left in Sophokles’ care. Plouton instructs the Chorus to light Aischylos and Dionysos on their journey, and they sing a final song, praying for a prosperous journey.
Scene 4 Analysis
The contest (or agon in ancient Greek) between Aischylos and Euripides occupies almost half of the play (and most of Halliwell’s fourth scene). The two poets compete in three categories: the moral values of their language, their prologues, and their lyrics. The contest is carried out with ritualistic care. It is a competition within a competition in that comic plays were themselves performed in the context of competitions at sacred festivals.
The essence of Euripides’ argument is that Aischylos values emotional spectacle and gravitas over intellectual substance, while he, Euripides, prizes being clever and provocative, which invites the audience to think. Aischylos, in turn, argues that Euripides debauched and degraded the city and its citizens with his emphasis on women, the enslaved, and sex. Aischylos, on the other hand, focused on heroes who went bravely and boldly into battle to defend their people. Throughout their contest, Dionysos see-saws back and forth between them, approving of both their methods in different ways, which echoes the boundary crossing and identity swapping theme expressed comically throughout in the play. The flip-flopping is reflected in Dionysos’ explanation of how Athens views Alkibiades: “It pines for him yet loathes him but wants to have him” (230).
The contest seems to debate the value of tradition (via Aischylos) against innovation (via Euripides), with no clear winner emerging. Dionysos chooses Aischylos as the winner, on the grounds that his words are more “weighty,” with a play one words via the use of scales to determine the winner, but this follows considerable hedging on Dionysos’ part. Rather than being an expression of which poet and method can save the city, the choice of Aischylos may represent a longing for an idealized past, when Athens was ascendent and not in decline. Aischylos fought in three instrumental battles in Athenian history: Marathon in 490, Salamis in 480, and Plataea in 479. Athens won all three, fighting against invading Persian forces that vastly outnumbered them. These victories filled Athens with confidence and swagger, perhaps perilously so.
Conversely, Euripides was not active as a playwright through Athens’ greatest success. He was active during the Peloponnesian war fought between Athens and Sparta for control of the Greek-speaking world. Like Socrates, Euripides was associated with intellectual pursuits that challenged moral norms, a quality that is satirized in the play when he chooses to pray to his own gods (one of the crimes that Socrates was accused of and executed for in 399, six years after the staging of Frogs). Refusing to honor the city’s gods could be seen as a decadently dangerous act that imperiled the entire community. The ancient Greek word for “individual” (idiotis) meant (among other things) “one who refuses to do his civic duty,” which would include honoring the city’s gods. Thus, Dionysos choosing Aischylos over Euripides could be read as retreating to the safety of traditional values that have proven successful.
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