her ardour grows with
every word. He is greater than she had supposed, and so she must even
rhapsodise--she must crowd praise on praise, until she ends with the
exultant cry:

"O light, light, light, I hail light everywhere!
No matter for the murk that was--perchance
That will be--certes, never should have been
Such orb's associate!"

Mark that Aristophanes has not yet _said_ anything to justify her change
of attitude: the seeing of him is enough to draw from her this
recantation--for she trusts her own quick insight, and so, henceforth
trusts him.

Now begins the long, close argument between them which constitutes
_Aristophanes' Apology_. It is (from him) the defence of comedy as he
understands and practises it--broad and coarse when necessary; violent
and satiric against those who in any way condemn it. Euripides had been
one of these, and Balaustion now stands for him. . . . In the long run,
it is the defence of "realism" against "idealism," and, as such,
involves a whole philosophy of life. We cannot follow it here; all we
may do is to indicate the points at which it reveals, as she speaks in
it, the character of Balaustion, and the growing charm which such
revelation has for her opponent.

At every turn of his argument, Aristophanes is sure of her
comprehension. He knows that he need not adapt himself to a feebler
mind: "You understand," he says again and again. At length he comes, in
his narration, to the end of their feast that night, and tells how,
rising from the banquet interrupted by the entrance of Sophocles with
tidings of Euripides dead, he had cried to his friends that they must go
and see

"The Rhodian rosy with Euripides! . . .
And here you stand with those warm golden eyes!
Maybe, such eyes must strike conviction, turn
One's nature bottom-upwards, show the base . . .
Anyhow, I have followed happily
The impulse, pledged my genius with effect,
Since, come to see you, I am shown--myself!"

She instantly bids him, as she has honoured him, that he do honour to
Euripides. But, seized by perversity, he declares that if she will give
him the _Herakles_ tablets (which he has discerned, lying with the other
gifts of Euripides), he will prove to her, by this play alone, the "main
mistake" of her worshipped Master.

She warmly interrupts, reproving him. Their house _is_ the shrine of
that genius, and he has entered it, "fresh from his worst infamy"