The Frogs

Halliwell’s third scene includes two sub-sections: incidents at Plouton’s Palace and the Chorus Leader’s parabasis, during which the Leader speaks directly to the audience.

The first part at Plouton’s Palace features scatological humor and a series of identity swaps when Dionysos’s attempts to use his Herakles disguise to his advantage backfire. At the palace, Dionysos announces himself as Herakles and is alarmed to realize that, rather than helping him gain respect, his disguise gets him into trouble when the palace’s doorkeeper accuses him of theft for having stolen Kerberos. When the doorkeeper leaves to fetch reinforcements, Dionysos reveals that he has soiled himself from fear and demands Xanthias change clothes with him. However, when the next person they encounter wishes to reward Xanthias (now in the Herakles disguise), Dionysos demands his disguise back.

The swap comically repeats, depending on whether Herakles is met with pleasure or anger—whoever carries the club and wears the lion-head is assumed to be Herakles—until, finally, with Xanthias in the costume, the doorkeeper insists on punishing Herakles. Xanthias swears that he has never been to Hades before and offers his slave (who is now Dionysos) for torture, an actual practice in ancient Athens. Xanthias cleverly gets the upper hand over Dionysos, but ultimately, they both end up being whipped. The comic elements also serve to represent a central moral conundrum: what to do about citizens whose loyalties have switched sides during political upheaval. Whether to forgive and trust these citizens would have been a pressing question, especially as pertains to the best interests of Athens’ survival following the exile and execution of the victorious generals from Arginousai.

After the Chorus takes over the stage and sings a stanza to the Muses, the Leader comes forward to address the audience. Referencing the recent sea battle and the enslaved who were granted citizenship in exchange for fighting in the battle, the Leader advises the audience to give up their anger and pardon citizens who previously supported the oligarchy (in 411 B.C.E an oligarchic coup overthrew and briefly replaced democracy in Athens). Pride and disdain will only hurt Athens in the end. What matters is that the city’s best are empowered to act in its defense. The Leader also suggests that Athenians should not alienate “true-born and decent” citizens, “whose conduct is always just, the ones who deserve to be thought the best” and who were brought up with the traditional virtues in favor of “the foreign and the flaming-haired,” “[r]ecent arrivals” that “the city would once have rejected outright” and who “lack all breeding (203).

For a reader attempting to determine Aristophanes’ position, the Leader’s words support multiple readings. Modern readers may be tempted to pick one position and read that one into the speech. However, the multiplicity of meanings may be the point itself: not necessarily to condemn or condone the swapping and flip-flopping but acknowledge it as a challenge that has no simple resolution and to enact uncertainty in a way that inspires comic relief of the anxiety it provokes.