ent butt; yet also because he felt strongly that it was
better for the young Athenian to spend his days in the Palaestra, or
"where the elm-tree whispers to the plane," than in filing a
contentious tongue on barren logomachies. That Socrates in fact
discussed only ethical problems, and disclaimed all sympathy with
speculations about things above our heads, made no difference: he was
the best human embodiment of a hateful educational error. And similarly
the assault upon Cleon, the "pun-pelleting of demagogues from Pnux," was
partly due to the young aristocrat's instinctive aversion to the coarse
popular leader, and to the broad mark which the latter presented to the
shafts of satire, but equally, perhaps, to a genuine patriotic revolt at
the degradation of Athenian politics in the hands of the successors
of Pericles.

But Aristophanes's ideas interest us less than his art and humor. We
have seen the nature of his plots. In such a topsy-turvy world there is
little opportunity for nice delineation of character. His personages are
mainly symbols or caricatures. Yet they are vividly if broadly sketched,
and genuine touches of human nature lend verisimilitude to their most
improbable actions. One or two traditional comic types appear for the
first time, apparently, on his stage: the alternately cringing and
familiar slave or valet of comedy, in his Xanthias and Karion; and in
Dicaeopolis, Strepsiades, Demos, Trygaeus, and Dionysus, the sensual,
jovial, shrewd, yet naive and credulous middle-aged _bourgeois
gentilhomme_ or 'Sganarelle,' who is not ashamed to avow his
poltroonery, and yet can, on occasion, maintain his rights with sturdy
independence.

But the chief attraction of Aristophanes is the abounding comic force
and _verve_ of his style. It resembles an impetuous torrent, whose swift
rush purifies in its flow the grossness and obscenity inseparable from
the origin of comedy, and buoys up and sweeps along on the current of
fancy and improvisation the chaff and dross of vulgar jests, puns,
scurrilous personalities, and cheap "gags," allowing no time for
chilling reflections or criticism. Jests which are singly feeble combine
to induce a mood of extravagant hilarity when huddled upon us with such
"impossible conveyance." This _vivida vis animi_ can hardly be
reproduced in a translation, and disappears altogether in an attempt at
an abstract enumeration of the poet's inexhaustible devices for comic
effect. He himself re