Аристофанның "Аттылар" комедиясы

Comedy by Aristophanes

The Knights (Ἱππεῖς Hippeîs; Attic: Ἱππῆς) was the fourth play written by Aristophanes, who is considered the master of an ancient form of drama known as Old Comedy. The play is a satire on the social and political life of classical Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and in this respect it is typical of all the dramatist's early plays. It is unique, however, in the relatively small number of its characters, and this was due to its vitriolic preoccupation with one man, the pro war populist Cleon. Cleon had prosecuted Aristophanes for slandering the polis with an earlier play, The Babylonians (426 BC), for which the young dramatist had promised revenge in The Acharnians (425 BC), and it was in The Knights (424 BC) that his revenge was exacted. The Knights won first prize at the Lenaia festival when it was produced in 424 BC.

Cleon's political career was founded on his opposition to the cautious war strategy of Pericles, and its highpoint came with the Athenian victory at Sphacteria, for which he was feted and honored by the majority of his fellow citizens. Included in the civic honors were free meals at the town hall or prytaneion and front row seats at festivals such as the Lenaia and City Dionysia. Cleon's entitlement to these honors is continually mocked by Aristophanes in The Knights, and possibly Cleon was sitting in the front row during the performance. Aristophanes makes numerous accusations against Cleon, many of them comic and some in earnest. He mocks Cleon for his questionable pedigree, but inscriptions indicate that the social origins of demagogues like Cleon were not as obscure as Aristophanes and other comic poets tried to make out. He appears to have used the law courts for personal and political ends, but it is possible that he was neither venal nor corrupt. He had prosecuted Aristophanes for an earlier play, The Babylonians, but an attempt at political censorship during a time of war was not necessarily motivated by personal malice or ambition on Cleon's part. The play depicted the cities of the Athenian League as slaves grinding at a mill, and it had been performed at the City Dionysia in the presence of foreigners. The knights (citizens rich enough to own horses) were the comic poet's natural allies against a populist such as Cleon. According to a passage in The Acharnians, they had recently forced him to hand over a large sum of money, implying that he had obtained it corruptly. As an educated class, knights occupied many of the state offices that were subject to annual audits, and Cleon specialized in the prosecution of such officials, often using his rapport with jurors to obtain the verdicts he wanted. This abuse of the auditing system is one of the complaints made by the Chorus when it enters the stage and it accuses Cleon of selecting officials for prosecution like figs according to their wealth and psychological vulnerability (lines 257–65). The play also accuses Cleon of manipulating census lists to impose crippling financial burdens on his choice of victims (lines 911–25).

The Knights by Aristophanes is a play known for its satire relating to the uprising middle class. This theme shows itself throughout history on multiple occurrences. A notable play with this theme is Molière's play, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670). This Renaissance play has been compared to The Knights due to the satire involving the middle class. Another Renaissance play, The Alchemist, by Ben Johnson (1610), is thought to be influenced by The Knights.

Old Comedy is a highly topical form of comic drama and its meanings are often obscured by multiple references to contemporary news, gossip and literature. Centuries of scholarship have unriddled many of these references and they are explained in commentaries in various editions of the plays. The following lists are compiled from two such sources. Note: Paphlagonian is here referred to by his real name, Cleon.

The play's dual significance as a satire/allegory leads to an ambivalence in its characters that is not easily resolved. Agoracritus – miracle worker and/or sausage seller: The protagonist is an ambiguous character. Within the satirical context, he is a sausage seller who must overcome self doubts to challenge Cleon as a populist orator, yet he is a godlike, redemptive figure in the allegory. His appearance at the start of the play is not just a coincidence but a godsend (kata theon, line 147), the shameless pranks that enable him to defeat Paphlagonian were suggested to him by the goddess Athena (903), he attributes his victory to Zeus, god of the Greeks (1253), and he compares himself to a god at the end (1338). He demonstrates miraculous powers in his redemption of The People and yet it was done by boiling, a cure for meat practised by a common sausage seller. Cleon and/or Paphlagonian: The antagonist is another ambiguous character – he represents a real person, Cleon, and a comic monstrosity, Paphlagonian. He is never called 'Cleon' and he doesn't look like Cleon since the maskmakers refused to caricature him. The character, however, is called 'Cleon' in the manuscripts' indications of speakers and in their list of dramatis personae; however, he is simply not ever identified as such in the text itself. Cleon's father, Cleaenetus, is mentioned by name (line 574) but there is no mention of his relationship with Paphlagonian. The name 'Paphlagonian' implies that the antagonist is of foreign descent and he is said to be the grandson of a foreign mercenary employed by the tyrant, Hippias (line 449). However, an oracle refers to Paphlagonian as the watchdog of Athens (Kuon or Dog, line 1023) and Kuon was in fact Cleon's nickname (later exploited in the trial scene in The Wasps). The first half of the debate at the Pnyx (lines 756–835) features some serious accusations that are clearly aimed at Cleon. On the other hand, the second half of the debate (lines 836–940) features absurd accusations that are aimed at an entirely comic villain. Nicias and Demosthenes and/or two slaves: The two slaves are listed as Demosthenes and Nicias in ancient manuscripts. The lists were probably based on the conjecture of ancient critics and yet there is little doubt that they reflect Aristophanes' intentions. Demosthenes summons the Chorus of knights as if he were a general in command of cavalry. Moreover, he says he made a Spartan cake in Pylos that was later pilfered by Paphlagonian (lines 54–7) and this seems to be a reference to Cleon's success in taking the lion's share of the credit for the victory at Sphacteria. However, the identity slaves=generals is problematic. In the standard edition of the collected plays, the two slaves leave the stage early and they don't return. This is consistent with their role as minor characters and yet Nicias and Demosthenes were not minor figures in Athenian political life. One editor has Demosthenes deliver a short valedictory speech congratulating Agoracritus at the end of the play (lines 1254–56) – a speech that is otherwise assigned to the leader of the Chorus. However this is a token appearance after a long absence and it still leaves the audience in the dark about how Nicias feels at the end. Imagery: It has been observed that imagery is the most important aspect of Aristophanes' comic poetry. In this play, the imagery provides a context in which the ambiguities mentioned above can be resolved. Paphlagonian is a monstrous giant (74–9), a snoring sorcerer (103), a mountain torrent (137), a hook footed eagle (197), garlic pickle (199), a mud stirrer (306), a fisherman watching for shoals of fish (313), a butchered pig (375–81), a bee browsing blooms of corruption (403), a dog headed ape (416), a storm by sea and land (430–40), a giant hurling crags (626–29), a storm surge at sea (691–93), a thieving nurse (716–18), a fishermen hunting eels (864–67), a boiling pot (919–22), a lion fighting gnats (1037–8), a dogfox (1067), a beggar (182–3) and finally a sausage seller in the city gates (1397). These mixed metaphors present Paphlagonian as a versatile form of comic evil whose relevance transcends any particular place or time. Thus Cleon can be understood as one of Paphlagonian's many manifestations and the satire is subsumed in the larger allegory without contradiction. Gluttony is one of the dominant themes that emerge from the imagery. The play's focus on food and drink is evident in the choice of a sausage seller as the protagonist. It is evident also in puns on the names of two characters. The name Paphlagonian bears a resemblance with Paphlazo (I splutter, boil, fret) and this pun is made explicit in lines 919–22, where Paphlagonian is imagined as a boiling pot that needs to be taken off the fire. In Greek Demos bears a resemblance to the Greek word for fat, a pun that is made explicit in lines 214–16, where Demosthenes compares the task of government to the task of preparing and cooking meat. The connection Demos=fat is consistent with the notion that Agoracritus can refine his master at the end of the play by boiling him (a notion that originates in the myth of Pelias, whose children boil him like an old ram in an attempt to rejuvenate him). Many of the grossest images in the play feature references to cannibalism: Paphlagonian swallows his victims like figs (258–63), Agoracritus is urged to eat Paphlagonian's crest and wattles (496–7), protagonist and antagonist threaten to devour each other (693, 698–701) and Demos devours his own officials (1131–40). Such images present the audience with a nightmarish vision of the world – it is a world where horses and ships talk and act more like human beings than human beings do. The darkness of this vision makes the final vision of a reformed Athens all the brighter by contrast.