by or to the clouds, the
patron deities of Socrates's misty lore, are extremely beautiful.
Socrates is made to allude to these attacks of comedy by Plato in the
'Apology,' and, on his last day in prison, in the 'Phaedo.' In the
'Symposium' or 'Banquet' of Plato, Aristophanes bursts in upon a company
of friends with whom Socrates is feasting, and drinks with them till
morning; while Socrates forces him and the tragic poet Agathon, both of
them very sleepy, to admit that the true dramatic artist will excel in
both tragedy and comedy.

'The Wasps,' B.C. 422: a _jeu d'esprit_ turning on the Athenian passion
for litigation. Young Bdelucleon (hate-Cleon) can keep his old father
Philocleon (love-Cleon) out of the courts only by instituting a private
court in his own house. The first culprit, the house-dog, is tried for
stealing a Sicilian cheese, and acquitted by Philocleon's mistaking the
urn of acquittal for that of condemnation. The old man is inconsolable
at the first escape of a victim from his clutches; but finally,
renouncing his folly, takes lessons from his exquisite of a son in the
manners and deportment of a fine gentleman. He then attends a dinner
party, where he betters his instructions with comic exaggeration and
returns home in high feather, singing tipsy catches and assaulting the
watch on his way. The chorus of Wasps, the visible embodiment of a
metaphor found also in Plato's 'Republic,' symbolizes the sting used by
the Athenian jurymen to make the rich disgorge a portion of their
gathered honey. The 'Plaideurs' of Racine is an imitation of this play;
and the _motif_ of the committal of the dog is borrowed by Ben Jonson in
the 'Staple of News.'

'The Peace,' B.C. 421: in support of the Peace of Nicias, ratified soon
afterward (Grote's 'History of Greece,' Vol. vi., page 492). Trygaeus, an
honest vine-dresser yearning for his farm, in parody of the Bellerophon
of Euripides, ascends to heaven on a dung-beetle. He there hauls Peace
from the bottom of the well into which she had been cast by Ares, and
brings her home in triumph to Greece, when she inaugurates a reign of
plenty and uproarious jollity, and celebrates the nuptials of Trygaeus
and her handmaid Opora (Harvest-home).

'The Birds,' B.C. 414. Peisthetaerus (Plausible) and Euelpides (Hopeful),
whose names and deeds are perhaps a satire on the unbounded ambition
that brought ruin on Athens at Syracuse, journey to Birdland and
persuade King Hoopoe to ind