Four Comedies

Aww yeaaah, the less popular the book, the less likely it is that I'll find a decent image for it, and Aristophanes' Four Comedies translated by Parker and Lattimore may be the most unpopular item I've ever read- a GIS gave me four total pictures of the cover, and this was really the best one. The first play in the collection, Lysistrata was a somewhat feminist comedy about women withholding sex from their men until they stop waging war. I read this back in college for class, and while there were a slew of pot holes, some of the gags still resonate and it's my favorite of all the ancient comedies I've read. The next two plays, The Archanians and The Congresswomen I read several months ago but have forgotten entirely. Oops! That brought me to my last play, The Frogs, which was actually pretty funny and memorable. It details the voyage of Dionysus (yeah that Dionysus) and his wacky slave/sidekick Xanthias into Hades, hell-bent (ha!) on bringing the long-deceased poet Euripides back with him to talk some sense into the Athenians. About halfway through the focus shifts to Euripides and Aeschylus engaging in what can only be described as an ancient rap battle, criticizing eachother's work and talking themselves up as being the best. This kept going for 40 pages, unfortunately, which really slowed the fun story down to a snail's pace. Eventually Dionysus decides on a victor (spoiler alert: it's Aeschylus), and allows Aeschylus one final burn on Euripides before leaving. So yeah, much better than most of the other plays I've read, but I doubt any Back-Bloggers are gonna be clamoring to read this. Also, I think I might be done with my ancient plays, stand by for confirmation.