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The Complete Plays of Sophocles

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This is a most accessible tome of the seven extant plays of the Sophocles .
The editor's comments also illumine the reader. If you've never read Sophocles, this inexpensive paperback is all you need to enter the realm of ancient Greece.

The late Mortimer Adler once wrote that the tyrant does not fear the well written treatise criticizing tyranny. However, the tyrant fears the well timed joke told the by the town drunk. Aristophanes (c.447 BC-c. 375 BC)who could be described as an Athenian conservative was not the Athenian town drunk. But his comedies could alarm any tyrant.

In contemporary United States phony sensitivity and political correctness have made reason, logic, and clear thinking endangered species. Poliitical correct nonsense and false sensitivity have condemned good humor whereby such is dangerous.

Yet Aristophanes demonstrated that parody and good humor can be used to condemn tyranny, useless war (most wars are useless indeed)feigned seriousness, and politically correct nonsense. A brief precis of some of his plays are amusing and yet serious.

The comedy titled THE ACHARNIANS was written AND produced c. 425 BC hen the Athenians discovered that they were in for a long, protracted war against the Spartans and their allies. Aristophanes uses the character named Dicaeopolis as the hero in this play. Dicaeopolis sees the uselessness of the Peloponesian War and makes his own peace treaty with Spartans with whom he has no personal quarrel. In an episode with the Acharnian charcoal burners, Dicaeopolis is attacked until he convinces half of them that he is right. During debates, an Athenian commander named Lamachus is alerted to combat against Spartans. After repeated campaings against the Spartan, Lamachus is painfully wounded and returnes. Dicaeopolis is summer to a dinner party where he is the champion wine inbiber. He returns with dancing girls holding him and preventing his falling. Lamachus is not eager to return to battle and pain. On the other hand, Diocaepolis is eager for the next party and wine, women, and song.

Another anti-war play written by Aristophanes was titled LYSISTRATA who is an Athenian wife and mother. She would agree with the Greek history Herodotus (485 BC-427 BC)who wrote that normally children bury the parents. But when is afoot, the parents have the tragedy of buring their children. Lysistrata sees the useless tragedy of the Peloponesian War and makes a bold, unusal decision to do something. She organizes the Athenian and Spartan women to go on a sex strike agains their husbands. She reasons that the Peloponesian War has deprived both Athenian and Spartan women of their husbands and sons. What is the use of having sex when sons are going to be devoured by war? The Athenian and Spartan men beg, threaten, and plead with their wives to no avail. The lesson is clear to any reasonable reader.

Aristophanes had harsh words for attorneys in his play title THE WASPS. He used the analogy of the lawyers flocking to any incident with feigned interest for the injured party. Aristophanes used good parody and exaggeration to make fools out of attornies in his parody of the legal profession.

Readers should note that no one was safe from Aristophanes' sharp pen. THE CLOUDS is a humorous parody and characature of the Athenian philosopher Socrates (c. 470 BC-399 BC). Aristophanes had Socrates pestering the Athenians about how they lived, what they believed, etc. Socrates is viewed as a nuisance in spite of his moral crusades. Aristophanes presented Socrates as having his head in the clouds while his children were constantly in trouble, and his wife was constantly nagging Socrates for his absent mindedness and inability to be aware of his domestic situation. As an aside, Socrates supposedly laughed the hardest when the characters were presented to the audience.

Those who have a decent sense of homor(there are a surprisingly few number of women and men who do)will enjoy these comedies. Aristophanes' comedies are valuable because of their social and political commentary. His plays are even more valuable now in an age of religious lunacy, blantent hypocrisy, political correct idiocy, and mindless conformity.