Customer Reviews

Frogs (Clarendon Paperbacks)

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In "Frogs" (Batrakhoi), the god Dionysus, complaining that the art of poetry has declined, goes down to Hades to bring the playwright Aeschylus back from the dead. Once he gets there, however, Euripides (one of Aristophanes' favorite targets) claims that he is better than Aeschylus, and a contest of wits ensues. This my favorite of Aristophanes' plays and has a tidier ending than most of them. Watch out, though-this book (ed. Kenneth Dover) is the original Greek text. If you don't know Greek, buy the Penguin translation.

As a struggling (college) student of Classical Greek, I found K.J. Dover's edition of Frogs to have a wonderful amount of translation help and historical notes, without being overwhelming (or overly expensive). Since the second half of the play is a gentle parody of Aeschylus and Euripides, it helps to have read those authors (preferrably in the original) to get some of the jokes -- if you're new to Greek Comedy, take a look at K.J. Dover's edition of Clouds, which I haven't yet tackled, but intend to. (That one parodies Plato and Socrates...)

N.B. -- this edition doesn't include a translation, which is how I prefer it, but some may not.

I re-read this play recently after being asked to submit a few choices to direct at a local theater, and fell in love with the humor of Aristophanes all over again.

His comedies are virtually unparalelled in the surviving classical works. The humor of the plays, particularly the Frogs, is just as fresh and vibrant today as it was thousands of years ago.

Dionysus, Greek God of theater, has grown despondant that upon the death of Euripides there are no great poets left on Earth. He resolves to travel to Hades and beg Pluto to allow him to resurrect Euripedes so that he might continue his work.

Dionysus, accompanied by his faithful porter Xanthias, travels first to the house of Heracles, dressed as the Greek hero, to ask his advice...as well as directions. Heracles suggests conventional methods (death by ones own hands) before he reveals the path he himself followed.

The two then set out to rescue Euripides. Xanthias, being a slave, is given a foot route to follow, while Dionysus enjoys a boat ride courtesy of Charon, the ferryman of the dead. Upon arrival at Pluto's house, and after a case of mistaken/disguised identity ends up in a draw, Dionysus finally meets up with Euripides.

However, Aeschylus isn't about to give up without a fight...Pluto has arranged for a contest between the two famed poets to determine the better of them...as Aeschylus decries Euripides as merely a 'flavor of the month' among the people of Hades. A dialogue ensues between he and Euripides, with Dionysus left to judge the merits of each.

Full of delightful comic insight into the works of both poets, The Frogs is a completely accessible foray into classical theater that you don't need to be a scholar to understand. While a basis of Euripides and Aeschylus helps to augment enjoyment of the work, it stands apart on its own.

An enchanting, intriguing, and entertaining read.

I received the edition listed above -- orange cover paperback, ISBN-13: 978-1407647159 -- only to discover that it is NOT the Greek edition and it has NO commentary whatsoever. It appears to be a hard copy of a public domain English translation, but I can't tell off hand which one it is because there is no translator credited. In fact there is no bibliographic info at all -- just HardPress Publishing. Not even a date. I found this edition by searching on K.J. Dover, so if you've arrived here the same way, be aware that this is NOT the Dover commentary on the Greek.

My friend and I were doing a project for school on the internet and we stumbled across the whole text of this play (we were reasearching ancient Greece). We decided to bookmark it, and then during lunches we read through it until we finished it. It's very amusisng, I highly recommend it! I love the songs!