Some observations on Aristophanes’ Wasps, for CLST 1003. Daniel B. Levine
University of Arkansas
April 26, 2021
There is a lot to say about this play, and I ask your forgiveness if I don’t mention your favorite parts.
ATHENIAN JURIES. These were in the 100s, and made decisions about guilt/innocence, and voted on sentences for the guilty. There were no lawyers or judges as we use now. Jurors got a small ‘juror duty’ salary under Pericles, which Cleon increased to 3 obols (about $50), so it was coveted by older Athenians who were not physically able to work for a full day’s wage (1 drachma = about $100). Athenians were known for their addiction to jury service, even before Aristophanes capitalized on the stereotype in Wasps. Of course you remember Strepsiades’ remark in Clouds (207), when he saw a map that included Athens, “Don’t be stupid, that can’t be Athens! Where are all the jurors and the law courts?” As Meineck says in his introduction to the Wasps, “The jury system lay at the heart of the Athenian democracy.” The people were supreme, and there was no appeal to their verdicts in these law courts. That is one of the reasons that demagogues used them to attack their political enemies.
And Thucydides (1.77.1) reminds us that there was a stereotype of the Athenians as addicted to trials and juries, when before the opening of the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian urges the Spartans and their allies not to go to war with Athens: “For because in our suits with our allies, regulated by treaty, we do not even stand upon our rights, but have instituted the practice of deciding them at Athens and by Athenian law, we are supposed to be litigious” (φιλοδικεῖν δοκοῦμεν = “We seem to be in love with litigation”).
Also, a fifth-century essay called the Constitution of the Athenians states that the Athenians have more festivals than any other Greek city, and that they have more public and private trials “to a degree beyond that of all other men” (Ath. Pol. 3.2 ἔπειτα δὲ δίκας καὶ γραφὰς καὶ εὐθύνας ἐκδικάζειν ὅσας οὐδ᾽ οἱ σύμπαντες ἄνθρωποι ἐκδικάζουσι).
So, Aristophanes is not making it up that the Athenians had a reputation for being addicted to jury trials. Everyone knew that they were deeply dedicated to their juries — they showed the power of the demos: DEMOCRATIA.
CLEON. The Athenian general-politician Cleon is the main object of this play’s loathing. He is so central to the play that the characters have his name embedded in their own. Contracleon’s name in Greek is Bdelycleon (Βδελυκλέων), which means “Cleon-Loather), and his father Prokleon’s name in Greek is Philocleon (Φιλοκλέων Cleon-Lover).
The old man and the old men of the chorus of wasps love Cleon, at least in the first part of the play. When Procleon wants help, he calls to Cleon (197). The Chorus calls him “our glorious leader” (242). When the wasps are trying to free Procleon from his house, they say (410ff), “And go fetch Cleon to our showdown. Tell him there’s a man who hates the state, and he’s going to suffer an ugly fate. For he has had a despicable thought, that we should never go to court!”
But after Contracleon convinces his father that he and his fellow veterans are slaves to rapacious politicians like Cleon, the Chorus members berate Cleon, in both the first and second parabasis (1008ff and 1283ff). Cleon continues to be the “bad guy,” which he is consistently in all the plays of Aristophanes that mention him. And remember, Thucydides did not have many good things to say about this demagogue, either.
MORAL? In the prologue, the slave Xanthias disingenuously says to the audience, “and we are certainly not going to be having another go at that most beloved of political figures, Cleon. No, what we’ve got here is just a little story, but with a moral (gnōmē γνώμη), something we can all understand” (62-65).
My question here: Is this a story with a moral? There seem to be two stories here, and neither one really has a moral. Maybe you can think of one.
One is the story of trying to solve Procleon’s love of serving as a juryman, which results in his staying home to judge a trial of a dog. He comically fails to convict the defendant, for the first time in his life.
The other story is about how Contracleon tries to teach his father about how to behave in a symposium. But the irrepressible Procleon drinks too much, misbehaves, outrages his fellow drinkers, and makes such a public nuisance of himself that he becomes the object of lawsuits for his aggressive drunken behavior. He ends up dancing with three youths dressed as crabs, without a care in the world.
What is the moral of either story? I think that Aristophanes has abandoned any notion of a straight plot in favor of making a character study of an old man who just cannot behave. He comically shows a character who does everything wrong, and doesn’t care about the effects of his actions – in court, at home, or in society. He becomes in a way like Hippocleides in Herodotus. You remember that man who was a suitor for Agariste of Sicyon, but at the final symposium got drunk and disorderly, and like Procleon began dancing in an inappropriate manner. When Cleisthenes of Sicyon told Hippocleides that he had danced away his marriage, the incorrigible suitor said, “Hippocleides doesn’t care” (οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ.Herodotus 6.130).
Just as we laugh at Hippocleides’ irresponsibility and devil-may-care attitude, so we also find Procleon’s outrageous actions humorous. Can any of you think about modern characters in film or on television who are like that? Maybe somebody you know, or are related to? That might make a good “thoughtful thought”.
As Meineck says in the notes to the last scene (p. 258-59), Procleon embodies, especially in the scene with the crab dancers, the ancient Greek expression, “You can’t make a crab walk straight” (Peace 1083), meaning, “You cannot change any creature’s nature. They have to act in accordance with their character.” That’s Procleon! And that is what Meineck considers as a “visual metaphor for the ‘moral’ of the play. “
DIONYSIAC COMIC ENDING. Another thought about this ending: It is usual for comedies to end with singing and dancing and revelry; that is a common trope. Aristophanes claims to be an innovator in taking his Chorus out of the orchestra singing. We should remember that this performance took place at a festival of Dionysos, who is the patron of both comedy and tragedy. I think it is somehow appropriate that a comic character (Procleon) joins with the three crab dancers, who are sons of Carcinus, a tragic poet. There is a union of comedy and tragedy, dizzily dancing at a festival of Dionysos. The play’s last word is trygodōn, which means “comic playwrights,” and is related to the old word for comedy, trygoidia, which literally means “vintage song,” or “grape song,” tying it closely with Dionysos.
You might wonder about the origin of the word “comedy.” The last part comes from the word for song, -ode (ὠδή), as in our word “ode.” The kom– part probably derives from the word komos (κῶμος), which is often translated as ‘revel’. It usually refers to the drunken procession that some party makers would engage in after a symposium: walking the streets while singing and making merry. It is sort of what Procleon does at the end of the Wasps, with the slave-girl Dardanis.
This also points to the Dionysian origins of drama, where people would (presumably) drink a lot of wine and act out scenes from the life of Dionysos, perhaps with their faces purple from rubbing them with wine lees (a precursor to masks, perhaps). Like followers of Dionysos then, Procleon is in an inebriated state, dancing and singing. Part of it is no doubt his due to his own nature, but part also is due to the god’s influence.
In fact, when the last scene begins, Xanthias comes from the house to tell the audience about Procleon’s all-night singing and dancing, and the first words he says are:
By Dionysus! (νὴ τὸν Διόνυσον) It’s a bloody madhouse in there! I think someone must have wheeled in a demon (δαίμων) when was no one was looking…He’s been doing those ancient dance routines, you know, the ones Thespis used to do back in the old days.
Here are specific references to Dionysos and to tragedy (Thespis), all in relation to the old man’s frenzy. Thespis, as Meineck’s note tells us, “was the father of Athenian tragedy an the first winner of the city Dionysia in 534.” And of course, we get the English word for actor “thespian” from his name. That would have been a good “Classics in Our World” word, wouldn’t it?
Anyway, Xanthias says that now Procleon thinks that he is better than any of the current tragedians whom he calls old fuddy-duddies (τοὺς τραγῳδούς… Κρόνους τοὺς νῦν 1480), and challenges them to a dance-off. Maybe this is Aristophanes’ way of showing the power of Comedy over tragedy, or at least showing that they were in some sort of competition, and he is relishing the fun that his genre affords him with this vivid and lively picture of Procleon, the pleasantly unpleasant but unforgettable star of the Wasps.
I should add here that no ancient Athenian writer of comedy (like Aristophanes) was ever known to write a tragedy, and that no writer of tragedy (like Aeschylus) was ever known to have written a comedy, so maybe there was some rivalry between writers of the different genres.
EDUCATION/SYMPOSIUM. Just as in the Clouds Strepsiades tries to learn in Socrates’ school how to do things right, but fails spectacularly and uses his education improperly, so also in Wasps Procleon misuses the training that Contracleon vainly tried to instill in him. He is told to use anecdotes from Aesop to get out of tight spots, but only ends up using them as an insult, to Myrtia the baker woman (1399). His son had told him to make reference to the admired poet Simonides in good company, but Procleon ends us citing that poet in an insult (1409). Contracleon had told his father to use some of the stories about Sybaris to show off his good breeding at a symposium (1259), but Procleon makes up two Sybaris stories that end in both insult and assault (1427ff).
In short, Procleon cannot learn, nor does he want to. He is the worst student, who, like the dog Labes in his home trial, had never learned to play the lyre (953 kitharizein κιθαρίζειν), which, as Meineck’s note tells us, is a verb that means to get an education).
SYMPOSIUM. As we have seen above, one of the mot important lessons for an elite Athenian was to know how to conduct oneself in a symposium (drinking party). A possible (crude) joke for a symposium comes up in the play’s prologue (23), when Sosias and Xanthias banter about a joke someone could make in a symposium at the expense of Cleonymus, whom Aristophanes often ridiculed as a weakling and coward:
SOSIAS I know a great little riddle about Cleonymus.
XANTHIAS Let’s hear it then.
SOSIAS It’s great for a drinking party (Literally, “Someone will say to his friends at a symposium προερεῖ τις τοῖσι συμπόταις). Name me a creature that shrieks, shakes, shits, sheds, and shoos, on land and sea, all at the same time.”
And before trying to teach his father proper behavior in public, Contracleon says, “Let’s see if you can learn how to behave at a symposium” (προσμάνθανε ξυμποτικός εἶναι 1208).
REVERSAL. Part of the humor of Wasps comes from the reversed positions of father and son. Usually is it the part of the father to check the exuberant young man’s excesses and teach him to behave properly in company. But in this play the son must suppress his father’s outlandish behavior. And the father becomes like a son. This becomes most evident when the old man tells the young female slave Dardanis (1351ff),
I’ll tell you what, my little honey pot, you be nice to me, and as soon as my son dies, I’ll buy your freedom, then we can be together forever. I’m really quite well-endowed, but I’m not in full control of my assets.. I’m so young at heart that I’m under constant supervision. It’s my son, you see, he’s a bit of a short-tempered-tight-arsed-parsimonious-prick. He’s got my best interests at heart, really, I mean I am an only daddy, and he doesn’t want me turning into a senior delinquent.
CORRUPTION. The point of this play’s agon (which we might title “Resolved: Procleon is a Slave”) is that corrupt politicians take advantage of the old men who report for jury duty as a way of getting some retirement income. Contracleon points out that the leaders of Athens keep for themselves most of the money from the city’s taxes, income from subject states and bribes that they get, and dole it out at a pittance to their clients, hoping that the old men will, out of gratitude, vote to convict the leaders’ political enemies. The Chorus of Wasps, who were originally so much against Contracleon and were lovers of Cleon like his father, accept this argument. They admit that they were duped, and that they too have been slaves to the system. They understand that the 1% get all the good stuff, but the, the working veterans get next to nothing (670-712). Aristophanes makes a point of reminding the audience that these men are veterans: they have fought Athens’ wars and suffered great hardships, and now the people who run the city keep them poor on purpose.
The big question here is, “Does Aristophanes feel this way? Does he personally think that the state is corrupt? Or is just writing this rhetorically, to make a point in the agon, and to advance the plot to get Procleon to judge cases at home, with great humorous consequences? It’s not easy to know whether the poet is making a political statement that he personally believes, or is just making comic capital. In any case, we can be sure that Aristophanes felt confident having Contracleon make these charges, and the Chorus accepting them, and that he expected that the audience would like the argument. He is, after all, going for first prize.
DOOR SCENE. It struck me when re-reading this play that Aristophanes made a clever reversal of a dramatic scene type, namely the scene where someone goes to a door, calls “Boy! Boy!”( παῖ παῖ) and has to talk his way in. We see this in tragedy, in the Libation Bearers, when Orestes in disguise went to the palace and gained entry by saying that he brought news of Orestes’ death (Libation Bearers 653). Orestes said, “Boy! Boy! (παῖ παῖ) Can’t you hear me knocking at the door?”). In Aristophanes’ Peace, the protagonist Trygaeus gets to a closed doorway of Zeus’ house and has to talk his way past Hermes (Peace 173ff). In Aristophanes’ Birds, the Athenians Goodhope and Makemedo knock at the house of Hoopoe, and have to convince the servant to fetch his master for them to consult. He uses the same expression (Birds 57 παῖ παῖ Boy! Boy!). And in the Clouds, Strepsiades has to talk his way past a hostile student at the Pondertorium when he knocks at the door (Clouds 132): “Boy! Boy! Where are you? Boy?”
What is the situation in Wasps? We learn from the two slaves in the Prologue that Procleon is trying to escape from the house, and most of the humor is about the tricks he uses to get outside from inside. The “boy” here in charge of the door is not just the house slaves, but also his son Contracleon, who refuses to open the door for the old man to emerge, no matter what arguments or tricks he uses. In this way, Aristophanes takes a comic motif and cleverly gives it a new use. The “getting-through-the-door” scene is turned on its head, from an attempt to enter to an attempt to exit.
GO TO THE CROWS. The expression “to the crows” (es korakas) is the way ancient Athenians would tell someone to “ Go to hell.” When, for example, Strepsiades is pounding on the door of the Pondertorium (Clouds 136) the student who answers says, in Meineck’s translation, “Go to Hell!” (βάλλ᾽ ἐς κόρακας Be off to the crows!). And at Wasps 51, Xanthias says, in Meineck’s translation “Theorus is going to be given the bird,” but the Greek says “to the crows” ἐς κόρακας. At Wasps 852, Procleon frustrated that he forgot the voting urns, says “to the crows!” (ἐς κόρακας), which Meineck translates “Shit!” And at 835 Xanthias is upset with the dog and says, “Go to the crows!” (βάλλ᾽ ἐς κόρακας). Meineck translates: “that bloody dog!”
So now you have another term of abuse, which our translations have hidden from you, but Dr. Levine has revealed their secret.
MORE GAPING ASSHOLES. In our last class we discussed the term euruproktos (“with a wide anus”) as a term of abuse in Aristophanes’ CLOUDS.
In the parabasis of Wasps, the Chorus uses the expression of the “modern” young men in Athens, as it brags that the older generation, themselves, was better, stronger, and more moral, and says that the younger generation was more depraved, in the same way that in the agon of Clouds the Inferior Argument and Superior Argument argued about whether the old or new ways were better. The Chorus of Wasps says, in Meineck’s translation (1060-1070),
In the days of old, way back when, we danced with pride and fought like men… back in our prime, we’d win every time, but we’re still strong, still manly, still bold! The youth of today don’t carry spears, they’re poofters, pansies, and queers! (εὐρυπρωκτία, literally, “their wide-arsedness” (J. Henderson 1998 translation).
HUBRIS. In this play, the word means outrageous behavior and physical assault, mostly having to do with Procleon’s outrageous behavior. Hubris characterizes his actions. At 1303 Xanthias says, “But he was the most depraved of the lot” (hubristotatos ὑβριστότατος), and continues at 1319, “And so he went on and on, insulting all and sundry (perubrizen περύβριζεν). The Injured Man says to Procleon, “I summon you to appear in court on a charge of common assault (hubris).” Contracleon replies, “Assault? (hubris)” (Wasps 1417-1418). The basic meaning of Hubris is “getting so out of control that one needs to be cut down to size, and it was originally applied to grape vines that needed to be trimmed.
VOTING PEBBLE (psephos ψῆφος). Remember our Classics in Our World word psephology? That’s right: the study of elections. I am sure that you noticed in this play that the voting pebble mentioned several times. The slave Xanthias says that Procleon is so used to clutching a voting pebble that he wakes up in the morning with his fingers stuck together (94). At 334, the old man wishes to be turned into a voting pebble, and shortly after that says that he wants to go to court holding his voting pebble (348). When he is judging at home, his son Contracleon gives him a “little pebble” (ψῆφος) to put in the urn to cast his vote (987). [But Xanthias switches the urns, so he mistakenly puts his psephos into the not guilty urn, which makes him almost collapse with chagrin.]
ODYSSEY. Were you as smart as the Athenian audience and did you see the allusion to the ninth book of the Odyssey, where Odysseus escapes from the Cyclops’ cave by hiding underneath the belly of a ram? If so, then you laughed at the scene in Wasps, where old Procleon tries to escape from his house by hiding under the belly of a donkey, and says that his name is “No one,” as Odysseus had named himself to the Cyclops (Wasps 176ff). All educated people in Athens knew their Homer. And now you do, too.
CONNECTION TO COVID-19. It just occurred to me (while reading WASPS for today’s lecture) that Contracleon’s solution to his father Procleon’s addiction to jury service (he is, after all, a “trialophile” φιληλιαστής) is to WORK FROM HOME.
Yes, the son arranges for his father to stay safe from the corruption of the courts BY STAYING INSIDE to judge cases. This keeps him out of public life, so he cannot do harm there by voting guilty in all the real court cases. Self-Quarantine Works!
But when Contracleon releases Procleon from self-quarantine, and he re-enters society, there is a second wave of disaster, with casualties. The old man Procleon simply cannot stay socially healthy when he leaves home and interacts with others. He gets disorderly, and commits assault, theft, and general mayhem.
So, one lesson here is: Dress Him Up, but Don’t Take Him Out. Keep the Old Guy at Home! But Aristophanes shows that the old man is too irrepressible to be kept in the house. The last scene shows him breaking forth into an uncontrollable dancing frenzy and challenging the sons of Carcinus to a dance contest, which continues while all exit the orchestra. The contagion (mad Procleon) got out again, and nobody could control it.
Let’s hope that our own experience is better, and that we can maintain our distance until it is safe to be out and about again.
Thanks for a great (if difficult) semester!
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